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Twelve Ways to Tell the Difference Between Your Sponsor and Your Therapist:

1. Your sponsor isn't all that interested in the "reasons" you drank.

2. Your therapist thinks your root problem is your lack of self-esteem and your negative self-image. Your sponsor thinks your problem is yourself.

3. Your therapist wants to pamper your inner child. Your sponsor thinks it should be spanked.

4. Your sponsor thinks your inventory should be about you, not your parents.

5. Speaking of your parents, your sponsor tells you not to confront them, but to make amends to them.

6. The only time your sponsor uses the word "closure" is before the word "mouth."

7. Your sponsor thinks "boundaries" are things you need to take down, not build up.

8. Your therapist wants you to love yourself first; your sponsor wants you to love others first.

9. Your therapist prescribes care-taking medication. Your sponsor prescribes prayer making and meditation.

10. Your sponsor thinks "anger management skills" are numbered 1 through 12.

11. Now that you haven't had a drink in 6 months, your therapist thinks you should make a list of all your goals and objectives for the next 5 years, starting with finishing up that college degree. Your sponsor thinks you should  start today by cleaning coffee pots and help him/her carry a heavy box of literature to the jail.

12. Your sponsor will not lose his/her license if he/she talks about God.

-Anonymous

 

12 Steps in plain English

 
 
 1. Alcohol will kill me.
 
 2. There is a power that wants me to live.
 
 3. Do I want to live or die? (If you want to die, stop here.)
 
 4. Write about how I got to where I am.
 
 5. Tell another person all about me (let God listen).
 
 6. Want to change
 
 7. Ask a power greater than me to help me change
 
 8. Write down who I've hurt.
 
 9. Fix what I can without hurting anyone else.
 
10. Accept that I am human and will screw up. Fix it immediately.
 
11. Ask a power greater than me to show me how to live.
 
12. Keep doing 1 through 11 and pass it on.
 

 

 

Grateful for friends

     Looking out the window at the treatment center, I saw the trees were stripped of their leaves in preparation for winter.  Some of the trees would bloom again in spring but some would not survive. I felt that I too had been stripped of my fight to prepare for the process that was about to unfold.  I was not sure if I would bloom again in the spring.  Even worse, I was not sure I wanted to.

    I read Bill’s Story and identified with the battle with booze that took me to two treatment centers and a nut house.  I understood the insidious insanity of his Armistice Day drink and I could picture the bleakness of late November in New York. I noted there was no mention of preparations for (or memories of ) Thanksgiving, only the haunting question of would he have enough liquor to make it through the night.  How many times I had tried to figure out that question, almost always coming up on the short side.

    How grateful I am that Roland told Ebby to go work with others, even though he only had sixty days of sobriety.  I could not identify with Bill’s experience in this regard.

    None of my drinking buddies came to tell me I never had to drink again; that there was a solution to all my problems. I just had to be honest enough and willing enough to try.  How grateful I am that Bill did not give up after six months of futile attempts at working with others.  How grateful I am that there were more than one hundred men and women who had recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body to make it possible to realize there was a solution and that there were precise instructions on how to achieve that solution.  How grateful I am that my sponsor was able to follow those precise directions and be willing to share them with me.

    How grateful I am today to be able to say a friend of mine did come to tell me I never had to drink again.  God did for me what I could not do for myself.  I am so grateful today to be able to say “I am a friend of Bill”.

 Chris P.

Fairdealing, AA.

District 2, Sun-Tues Group

 

1st AA Meeting


Don’t look at me
Don’t shake my hand
Don’t talk to me
Don’t give me a hug.


Don’t ask me to read
Don’t ask me to share
You don’t know my name
Just pretend I’m not there.


Sat on the last row
Parked my truck around the side

Keeping an eye on the clock

(Sitting in here is killing my pride.)


Both young and old
Both women and men
Most of them were smiling
But I couldn’t fake a grin


This thing is finally over
Seemed like an hour and a half
I was hurrying out the door
They said, “Keep Coming Back”


 Greg H.

Paducah, KY

 

How I stay sober

 

When my sponsor suggested that I submit an article about "What I do to stay sober", I had the perfectly alcoholic reaction of panic.  Though I had often thought of what I needed to do to stay drunk, I had never really thought about what I do to stay sober. What I am doing is following a few directions. Since I've only been sober  for 5 months, I was surprised that my sponsor  actually suggested that I submit an article. Now  I'm glad he did so that I would review what I have been doing

I was told that if I woke up sober, it was by the Grace of God, not by my own effort. God, through his grace, had granted me the choice of whether  or not to drink. I was to thank God for this gift and ask for His strength to help me make the right choice.

Each day I start with prayer and meditation to remind me who is the "Director" and ask how I might serve Him. During the day it was suggested that I contact others, including God, and ask how their day is going and share with them the joy of my recovery rather than burden them with my anxieties. I lean toward isolation, but I can't "let my light shine" if I am isolating.

I go to meetings so I can find out two things-1) How to  Stay Sober 2) How to Get Drunk. I am constantly reminded of the  daily choice. I am the one that has to make the decision.  I ask  myself as I listen to others, “Do they have what I want?” If so, what did they do to get it?

I try to read something in the Big Book everyday to remind me I am a student when it comes to sobriety. I must remain teachable and willing to keep learning.

Each night, I review my day.  I ask God what I should have done differently and thank Him for another sober day.

It's not much, but that is what I do daily to stay sober.

 

Diane S.

Mayfield, KY

Sun/Tues.-District 2