“Remind the prospect that his recovery is not dependent upon people. It is dependent upon his relationship with God.” (Page 99, Big Book)
Common conversation openers with sponsors:
“I’m curious how you would have dealt with …”
“Do you have any experience with …”
“Has it ever happened to you that …”
“What would you do if …”
“I was wondering if you could share some experience,
strength, and hope on …”
“Could you please tell me about …”
This is essentially to invite the sponsor to give an impromptu TED Talk on a subject of the caller’s choice whilst the caller reclines with a cigarette or vape and enjoys the customer experience. The approach also smacks of getting the sponsor to set out the wares so that I, as the customer, can peruse them and see if the wares meet my needs—in my perception. It’s a form of auditing, and people know they’re being audited.
A more satisfactory way to approach sponsors or other people with more experience: take the situation at hand, analyse it, apply programme principles, come up one’s best assessment and plan of action, and present the results—in brief—for review.
The sponsor, then, is taking the sponsee from the farthest point they can reach themselves under their own steam, not to adjudicate on the situation but to examine the sponsee’s application of the principles of the programme. The focus is then not on the situation but the principles themselves and their application, which is the proper bailiwick of the sponsor.
The conversation is then not about the sponsor but about the sponsee, which is the right way round.
As a sponsor, it’s all too easy to accept sponsees or others outsourcing their responsibility for doing their homework, mining the literature, praying, and meditation, and thinking things through, instead simply holding forth on the subject presented like a grandee or popinjay.
One should never do for someone else what they can do for themselves, even something as simple as sending someone information or a link when they could find out the information themselves. If they do not know how to find it out, fine, give them the tools to find it out, but never turn oneself into a service-provider, with the sponsee or other person as a service-user. This is what is meant when the book warns against putting our work on the service plane.
[Typical examples of this include asking what page something is on in the book, what the address of a meeting is, what time a meeting from a different time zone is on in one’s own time zone, etc.]
Being put to work in this way does not help the sponsee or other person, as it deprives them of the experience of applying the principles themselves; handing them a solution on a plate might adequately resolve the situation at hand, but the person remains an infant.
Adopting this role of arbiter is also bad for the sponsor. Over-engagement with the individual’s affairs and overstepping the bounds is playing God.
I am responsible for my own recovery, and it has to proceed under my steam, not the steam of the sponsor. When I call for input, I am ideally fully prepared with what I have been doing and where I am stuck, ready to give full reports in response to whatever question is asked, and bubbling over with my own enthusiasm and self-starting. If I’ve been falling short in my actions: fix that first, before calling. I never call people for a solution or input when I’m operating under half-steam myself. The sponsor’s there to channel, redirect, challenge, etc., like a riverbank or other built paraphernalia like a sluice, a weir, a dam, etc. The sponsor is not there to put the water in the river or get the river to flow.
When I call someone, I do not expect them to generate the energy, the impetus, and the content. I’m not there to be kneaded like a piece of dough or rolled out like pastry. That sort of submissiveness looks humble but is not because it is not ‘right-sized’. Lack of humility can be being ‘too small’ as well as ‘too big’. What looks like humility is actually the position of the giant baby in Spirited Away that needs everything done for it even thought it’s the size of a house.
Real humility in AA is taking full responsibility, taking every action indicated, promptly and diligently, and being receptive to direction beyond the furthest point one can reach oneself.