What does the recovery process, in general, comprise?
(1) Attendance of meetings of a fellowship, joining groups in that fellowship, associating with other members (exchanging ideas, working on questions, sharing inventory, providing input, social interaction), and performing service in that fellowship.
(2) The programme of that fellowship (principles and procedures, chiefly the Steps, but also, in some cases, other practices and slogans).
(3) A sponsor: the particular guide from (1) to the practice of (2).
The programme of any particular fellowship has a rallying point in Step One (alcohol in AA and Al-Anon, drugs in NA, food in OA, etc.) Beyond that, the system addresses all problems the individual has through the process of acceptance of powerlessness, recourse to a Higher Power, inventory, confession, amends, prayer and meditation, sponsorship of others, and service. The system must be comprehensive if it is to be functional at all. Thus, AA members, if they apply the AA programme to any other area (drugs, food, sex, relationships, relationships with alcoholics and addicts, work, money) will be successful in 'licking' those problems, because God is omnipotent and awaiting only our absolute surrender.
Why do multiple fellowships exist?
Chiefly because non-AAs cannot access the twelve-step programme of AA as they are not powerless over alcohol. A rallying point for defeat is required. That rallying point is expressed through a combination of the rewording of Step One (where Step One is reworded) plus the definition of the requirement for membership in Tradition Three and the purpose of the fellowship in Tradition Five.
The other fellowships do not exist because the God of AA is not potent enough, even with the Twelve Steps of AA, absolute surrender, and diligent work, to provide relief and point the way.
Is there are reason for an AA member to attend another fellowship?
I believe so, on occasion. Let's say the second fellowship is Al-Anon. Reading the literature and becoming involved in the fellowship will assist the AA member by providing more detailed insight into the application of Step One to the problem at hand and into the precise nature of wrongs (Step Four) and correction of those through improved attitudes and actions (Step Twelve, part three). The practice of Step Twelve in Al-Anon will help to maintain more continual and acute awareness of the problem and the solution Al-Anon seeks to address.
But Al-Anon does not provide a fundamentally different solution than that provided by AA. The acceptance of powerlessness, recourse to a Higher power, inventory, confession, amends, prayer and meditation, sponsorship of others, and service offered by Al-Anon are all borrowed from AA. The fundamental structure is the same. Al-Anon literally tells its members that Al-Anon members work the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. If such Steps failed an AA member in AA, the same Steps will likely fail that member if they happen to be attending Al-Anon in addition. The problem lies with not with the 'location' of the Step-working but the surrender of the individual to the existing programme.
Similarly with the other fellowships: the food and sex fellowships provide particular tactics and procedures that are helpful, but the same underlying principles apply. The removal of character defects is the removal of character defects, whatever the defect. AAs successfully overcame excessive indulgence in food and sex before OA and SA were devised, and many AAs successfully do so without the help of OA and SA by applying the AA programme. The God available, here, in AA, is the same God available, there, in OA and SA. This is not to say that membership of those other fellowships does not substantially facilitate and accelerate the recovery process, but the difference is one of concentration not substance, like the difference between moderate doses of an antibiotic administered over a long period and a regimen of the same antibiotic administered with higher initial doses. The case may require a particular regimen, but the antibiotic is the same, and its mode of operation is identical.
I do suggest to AA members struggling with other areas to immerse themselves in those fellowships to fast-track the path to and maintenance of abstinence (or the equivalent) and to learn and embed new patterns. Tips and tricks with Steps One to Three in particular can be sought and applied.
The error, however, lies in the assumption that a person with multiple problems needs to work the Steps successively or simultaneously in fellowship after fellowship with sponsor after sponsor, with the concomitant mistrust of the adequacy of the AA programme and the God it points the individual towards.
A common statement I have heard (and indeed made myself) is this: 'After X years in Y fellowship, I have problems in the area Z, so I need to work the Steps in fellowship Z with a Z sponsor.' This is fallacious reasoning. If the problems have not yielded to the steps in Y fellowship, they will not yield in Z fellowship either, because the Steps, being holistic, work on anything they are applied to (cf. Step Twelve: we practise these principles in all our affairs). The problem was not that the wrong Steps were being applied. The problem invariably lay in the individual failing to adopt and implement the precepts offered in those very Steps. For instance, someone who, after years of applying the AA programme, is fearful, resentful, lacking in self-esteem, interfering, controlling, manipulative, or lazy is not lacking a special set of Steps but has failed to apply AA's solutions to those problems, which are quite adequate solutions. Someone who, after years of applying the AA programme, is still angry at their parents for their childhood, likewise, is not missing special Steps but has failed to surrender their grievances to God and develop an attitude of kindness and love (see the Big Book, pages 63 to 67). The problem lies in resistance to the solution. The solution is not at fault, necessitating a different solution. The individual is at fault, or, at any rate, needs to be run through the same washing machine a few more times, rather than being run through ever-different washing machines. The problem is that the stain is stubborn, not that the washing machine is inadequate.
If the Steps have not worked in one fellowship, rework those very Steps in that very fellowship. Going and securing a different method elsewhere produces conflict and confusion, and the risk of the resultant programme, constructed as it is from the bleeding parts of different programmes, failing to do anything adequately is significant. In mixing and matching processes, practices, and procedures from different fellowships, the practitioner can let much fall between the cracks. Sometimes, individual processes, practices, and procedures can be 'bolted on' (the 'bottom line' principle from the S fellowships is particular helpful with many problems, for instance), but this is quite different than the patchwork approach that fellowship-hopping usually produces.
Now, it could be argued that each fellowship 'does the steps differently'. Certainly, different practitioners distributed across different fellowships 'do the steps differently', but this is true of practitioners within the same group, let alone within the same fellowship. There are differences in the presentation of how the Steps are to be taken, certainly. AA sets out an agreed comprehensive system in the Big Book (which is muddied somewhat by the conflicting ideas in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, some of which reinforces the contents of the Big Book, and some of which flatly contradicts the same, and certainly does not provide a comprehensive system for working the Twelve Steps, as excellent as much of the material is in terms of commentary, amplification, and spiritual ideas and practices). Al-Anon has no such system, however. The 'green and white' book contains a commentary but no instructions. Paths to Recovery contains questions on each Step but does not set out a system of procedures for taking the Steps; the questions are sometimes quite excellent, sometimes so badly worded that the form of the answer sought cannot be discerned, sometimes irrelevant to the Step, and sometimes entirely without obvious utility. Reaching for Personal Freedom is no better. The Blueprint for Progress makes an attempt at a comprehensive approach to Step Four but suffers the same flaws as Paths to Recovery (for example, one of the questions, 'Do I know I am likeable,' presupposes one is, which might not be the case, offers only 'yes' or 'no' as answers, and leaves the reader clueless as to what to do with either answer. In neither case is the individual's moral inventory progressed.)
Some other fellowships have their own guides to the Twelve Steps; others simply use the Big Book and adapt the wording as necessary (e.g. Drug Addicts Anonymous and Cocaine Anonymous). I hear excellent things of SLAA HOW and Debtors Anonymous.
We're left, therefore, with the holistic system of AA's Twelve Steps (per the Big Book) or the holistic system of other fellowships' Twelve Steps workbooks, guides, procedures, etc. Note that whatever the rallying point, the workbook, guide, or procedures must be comprehensive in addressing adequately all problems the individual encounters, or the system is dead in the water. I cannot imagine anything worse than a system where each individual must go to a different fellowship and work a different set of Steps for each problem. One for drink. One for cocaine. One for marijuana. One for work. One for money. One for rage. One for fear. One for dealing with one's mother. One for living in Birmingham (England or Alabama). One for being called Susan. Fortunately, most fellowships do offer a holistic approach, which addresses all of the individual's problems, not just the problem articulated in Step One's rallying point.
I, personally, find the holistic system offered by the Big Book to be quite adequate for all my problems, even though there are other fellowships with their own systems for handling those problems. This does not mean it is the best. It means simply I prefer it. That is all. To illustrate: I had problems with money, and was badly in debt, but used AA principles and successfully solved these before I even discovered Debtors Anonymous existed. Similarly with relationship problems, without going to SLAA. I do find S-fellowship and Al-Anon meetings and literature very helpful, not to provide an alternative system for recovery, but in naming and articulating particular character defects and their remedies to populate my Step Four with accurate and concise content.
I therefore use the AA (Big Book) system with Al-Anon (and S-fellowship) sponsees. If I found a better holistic system than AA's, I would use that for everything, including my alcoholism. I have not, so I do not.
Sometimes I'm approached by people to 'take them through the Steps in Al-Anon'. Taking someone through the Steps is not done 'in' a fellowship. It's a one-to-one process, outside the scope of that fellowship. One might both attend meetings of that fellowship, and indeed probably should. This proposal can really, therefore, mean only one of two things, either (a) Go through the Steps using the Al-Anon process or (b) Go through the Twelve Steps and, in the course of doing so, address, along with everything else, relationships with alcoholics, past and present.
I cannot clearly identify what (a) would consist of, canonically speaking, have tried and failed to do precisely that, so cannot offer that as a process.
Regarding (b), the proposition is simply to go through the Twelve Steps. If one already has a sponsor, one can do that with them. To apply the Steps one is already familiar with to a particular area does not require a new sponsor, a new fellowship, or a new set of procedures. It requires application of the existing procedures with the existing sponsor to the questions at hand, possibly supplemented with participation in the fellowship in question (see (1) above). If the existing sponsor is inadequate to the task, this is a general problem of having an inadequate sponsor, not a problem of having a sponsor in the wrong fellowship. The answer to having an inadequate sponsor is to get a better one, and the first place one should look for this is one's acquaintance, one's home group, one's neighbouring groups, one's city, one's state, and one's country. If those are exhausted, looking abroad is an option. But only once those are exhausted.
If one happens already to have gotten to know someone excellent in another group, city, state, or country, there is an established rapport and relationship, and an affinity of approach, it may be suitable to switch to that person, but only if they are a better sponsor on general principles, not because they have 'the special key' of 'inside knowledge' of 'another fellowship'. There is no special key. There is no inside knowledge.
There are several exceptions.
The first is the situation of geographical remoteness. I have sponsored people ab initio who have lived, for instance, in remote parts of northern Sweden, literally several hours' drive from the nearest meeting of their particular fellowship. If the geographical considerations are such that a remote sponsor is needed anyway, then how remote becomes a question of degree not category.
The second is the question of particular affinity. Sometimes, one happens to instantly 'hit it off' with someone who lives distantly but who one has encountered on one's travels. This can work well. Note that hearing someone on a speaker tape does not mean you know them. You think you do, but you do not. You are familiar with their public presentation of the programme but not with the person or their personal manner and in particular with how they sponsor. People's expectations based on speaker tapes are wildly different than the reality they will be faced with. Also, the speaker does not know you. Both ways round, you are really dealing with terra incognita. Worse than that, one of the pair has the illusion they know anything of relevance about the other person. Being attracted to a particular sponsor because of their personality as a speaker is deadly. Being sponsored is largely a disagreeable and regrettable necessity. Any excitement or allure associated with the process is a sign that something other than the process is being sought. It means personality is involved, rather than principle. If you are asking someone to sponsor you and you are disappointed, upset, or, worse, angry if they say 'no', they were right to say 'no'. The ideal is to be ultimately indifferent about the person of the sponsor. If someone says 'no', ask someone else. It's not personal. If it's personal, it's inappropriate.
The third is the question of particular expertise. If someone cannot make progress with an ordinary sponsor, they will not be able to make progress with a very skilled sponsor. The block lies with the individual. After all, progress is made because of (a) the official materials published by the fellowship (b) the hard work and sincerity of purpose of the individual and (c) the power of God. The sponsor is a trivial aspect of this process. If someone has failed to make satisfactory progress, the (ordinary, diligent) sponsor is not the problem, particularly in these days where tens of thousands of speaker tapes and workshops are available, where there are extensive writings on the Internet about how to work the Steps, where all spiritual literature is available to read or listen to at the touch of a button, where meetings can be attended anywhere in the world, and where there is an endless network of potential co-trudgers. The sponsor is the sounding-board and dispenser of basic instructions, not the magician who hypnotises you into wellness through force of their personality. Obviously an ignorant or lazy sponsor cannot help anyone, so the above applies on the assumption that the sponsor in question has been through the programme of the fellowship in question in an orthodox fashion and discharges their duties to an acceptable standard (hence the phrase 'ordinary, diligent sponsor'). On that assumption, any personal failings or lacunae in knowledge can be readily plugged by reading, listening, or asking around in the home group. This, in fact, has always been the rule: the sponsor is the primus inter pares, and the group has always flooded in to fill the gaps left by the human failings of the sponsor.
There are situations where the individual requires particular expertise. It is quite possible for a person in a particular town or city to be sponsoring large numbers of people (in excess of ten or twenty), providing service at area or district level or even national level, or be in the process of starting the fellowship there, particular in the case of fellowships other than AA.
It is generally only in such situations that a long-distance sponsor is required, because there is literally no one in geographical proximity who is sponsoring as many people as you or doing as much service as you, you are the longest sober (or equivalent) person in your local fellowship, or the only others of similar vintage are good friends already, and friends should not be sponsors.
To cut a long story short, the best sponsorship is local, and the best fellowship is one's own. Try that first. Try that repeatedly. You may be surprised.