The foundation of a sponsorship relationship is honesty, and honesty comprises the following:
- Sincerity of purpose
- Candour
- Truthfulness
Sincerity of purpose chiefly means wanting to have a spiritual awakening, above all else, yes, to recover, but secondly and, as importantly, for its own sake. When this is lacking, there tends to be one of two things going on. Either the individual is seeking a personal relationship with the sponsor, and the programme is merely the pretext, the literal stepladder enabling the individual to reach the object, or the individual would like to give the appearance, to pay lip service, to squeeze through the amber light, but without any intrinsic interest in the objects and substance of the programme.
Candour is about the voluntary disclosure of important information. Sponsorship is a relationship, and, without candour on the part of the sponsee, which means making sure that the sponsor acquires and maintains a good overview of the individual's life and how they are living it, the relationship cannot exist. It is the oxygen the relationship requires. The voluntary aspect is important. If the truth has to be wheedled and connived out of the individual through systems, procedures, pressure, and, in extremis, cross-examination, the juice is not worth the squeeze, and Suspicion must be allowed its contention that the individual is concealing all sorts of other choice morsels.
Truthfulness is plain: the simple, accurate reporting of relevant information, without embellishment, hyperbole, distortion, minimisation, or embedding in an array of irrelevant facts (the 'Where's Waldo?' tactic).
No one is perfect, but the attempt to live by the above principles must be credible.