Real Purpose

Mad at the someone in your life?  Go help a drunk...
People in your group not behaving up to your expectations?  Go help a drunk...
Worried about how people are "identifying" in your meeting? Go help a drunk...
Got a resentment you can't get over?  Go help a drunk...

We sit around in our little meetings, bitching about our little issues, concerned about our little plans and designs.  We have our little social hour, we share friggin one liners and pat each other on the ass,
and then step around the suffering alcoholic, wrinkle our nose and say "I think I smelled alcohol on him". 

Who do we think that we are.  Oh, I've been sober since May of 1492.  Who really gives a crap how long we have been sober?  We want to brag about our sobriety date and pontificate, while alcoholics are dying all around us.  We want to have great debates while people are dropping into oblivion every day.

If you don't want to give back, if you don't want to help others then I am seriously sorry for you. Go run off with your buddies and talk crap about the newcomers. While you are at try to figure out why most of the people of the opposite sex you are trying to "help" aren't staying sober.

We know you when we see you though.  Your mean, mad, and miserable and you stay that way, day after day, week after week and month after month.

My friends and I will be in the trenches, we will be giving back what was given to us, not because we are great.  Because we are grateful. Because when we look in a suffering alcoholics eyes we see God.

Because we realize that sobriety date we have has nothing to do with us and everything to do with God.  The longer we are sober the more we owe.  The more we owe the more we give.  The more we give the happier we are.

At the top of my sponsorship lineage is Dr. Bob.  He helped over 5000 drunks in 15 years.  Now I will never be able to reach that many probably.  But it won't be from lack of effort.  Cause the way we roll in our lineage, I do what my sponsor does, and he does what his sponsor did, all the way back.  And that's just what we do.  And thank God for that, cause that message of hope, those precise instructions, and even more important those actions were passed right down through those men to me. 

It is my job, no scratch that, it is my purpose to pass that example along, what I have been taught and what I have witnessed.

Thank you God!!!

Qualifications

What qualifies someone to take someone else through the steps?

Length of sobriety? 

Not according to the Big Book.  Ebby had just a few weeks when he took the message to Bill.

Bill started helping other alcoholics immediately upon his discharge from the hospital.

Dr. Bob had a few days when he carried the message with Bill to AA #3.

BB page 129 "Even if he displays a certain amount of neglect and irresponsibility towards the family, it is well to let him go as far as likes in helping other alcoholics.  During those first days of convalescence, this will do more to insure his sobriety than anything else."

We, with a few years of sobriety get to thinking we are so good at sponsoring, that the new man should have alot of experience before he tries it.  This is not what was intended by our founders.  We start thinking we can help the newcomer sober up though our experience and our gained wisdom.  It is BS.  God gets the new man sober, my job is to show him how to get connected, period.

I'm not a rocket scientist and this is not my opinion, this is my experience.  My first sponsee, I got at 6 weeks into this deal.  He is sober today and so am I.  Is that because I was so knowledgeble about this program and so well versed.  Nope, it is because I showed him in my stumbling way how I got connected to God and it worked for him too. He is probably sober in spite of me.  That is because God did it.  Not Jerry!

There is a qualification for sponsorship.  Have you had a spiritual awakening as the result of doing the steps.  Do you have a sponsor? Does he have a sponsor?  If so then you have plenty of resources available.

We become so arrogant in our sobriety, thinking our little bits of time qualify us for something.  Taking someone through this work has nothing to do with the sponsor and everything to do with God.

Remember the new guy is beyond human aid. He needs a connection to God. Do you have one? Then for crying out loud show him how you got it, so he can show someone else. It is really that simple. The responsibility declaration says anytime, anywhere someone reaches out for help.  Not anytime anywhere if I have enough time under my belt.

Not my opinion this time.  Straight out of the book guys...

Who is really running what?

I can try with all my might to stop trying to run the show.  I fail miserably.  Why?   One little word EGO...  My natural insticts are to try to have things my own way.  That is what my human will always desires. 

I have to constantly remind myself I am no longer running the show.  I have to turn in all things to my Creator.  Turn is an action.  Pausing when agitated or doubtful is an action. Saying that prayer, Thy Will, not mine be done, is an action.  Not trying to make the other guy see it my way, is an action.  Shutting up is an action.

Love and tolerance is our code.  It is easy to say that when people are doing it my way.  It is not so easy to be tolerant when someone is being intolerant.  It is not so easy to love some one when they are hating.  Yet, it is my job.  It is the role I have been assigned.  And I better make sure I am connected to the One who has all Power when I enter those situations.

Does that mean I lay down, roll over, and become apathetic?  Absolutely not.  The role I have been assigned is to pause,  turn,  ask  for the right thought or action, and then  simply to do or say the next right thing in God's time not mine.  Not an easy role to play.

But, I have a Power greater than myself to rely on.  And I need to rely on It.  Because if I start trying to run the show, start trying to plan the outcomes, start demanding my own way, then I experience pain.  And a wise man has taught me that pain is an indicator, given to me by God, to let me know when something is wrong.

I said all of that to say this.  I think I always know what is right, I think I know what everyone else should do, I think I know what is best for everybody, that is the way I feel.  Thank God today, for the most part, my actions are based on principles and not feelings.    Cause the reality is this, I am just another Bozo on the bus, another one of God's kids doing the best I can with what I have to work with and so is EVERYONE else...