“Her husband was dragged off to seven meetings a week. He agreed with everyone that AA was great. He was a mechanized puppet, powered by his wife’s Determined Will. When it was discovered that she had set up a Great Big Multi-Sponsor Operation, the sponsors bowed out. She wasn’t powerless. Oh, no! But her husband kept on drinking. It was the only way the poor man could escape from the Terrible Domestic Powerhouse.” (ODAT, 18 May)
As a sponsor I’m not in charge of the sponsee.
As a sponsee I’m not under the aegis of the sponsor.
Sponsorship is not a dictatorship.
The sponsor puts out the materials.
The sponsee takes them, spontaneously, because they believe the materials will be useful.
Untreated Al-Anons suffocate.
It’s only when one experiences someone else’s suffocation that how others must feel at the receiving end of one’s own suffocation becomes apparent.
The horror of the Determined Will: I would, of course, prefer others to get well, and will help them when appropriate, but I absolutely must not get into the willing game when it comes to other people and their recoveries. I need to remain detached and personally indifferent as to how other people are doing, whilst being pleased for them if they are doing well. I must not make their success my success, their wellbeing my wellbeing.
This takes a particularly unnerving turn when spiritualised: praying for people, believing one can heal people, activating spiritual practices to mobilise ethereal forces to act in other people’s lives. This is Determined Will by the back door. Voodoo.
Other people’s relationship with God is theirs, not mine. I’m not to barge in with my Determined Will, however laudable the outcome sought.
The motto, therefore, is leaving people alone, in the physical and the spiritual realms.