“Another member answers: “You’re treating him like a baby in a playpen—watching him perform—deciding what he ought to be doing. Who put you in charge of your husband? Why do you think you know what’s right for him? Accept the fact that he’s trying, and let him find his sobriety in his own way.” (ODAT, 20 August)
It is tempting in sponsorship to infantilise the sponsee. The sponsee is tempted to infantilise themselves and outsource responsibility to sponsor-as-parent whilst parading themselves as ‘good sponsee’ by seeking input. Both as sponsor and sponsor must one be vigilant for this.
As a sponsee, I first of all recognise that I can read the literature, apply what I have learned, think something through based on the facts, experience, knowledge, and principles, pray and meditate, and talk to friends (who are people for whom it is not work to talk to me, with whom time is shared without thought of effectiveness or efficiency but simply for the fun of it, and with whom one can ‘chew the cud’ at exorbitant length). Cud-chewing is not for the sponsorship relationship.
Once my resources are exhausted and I still have a problem, I can turn to a sponsor for input. Of course, one should stay in touch with one’s sponsor in order to maintain a relationship so they have an information base to work from when input is genuinely needed and, to do this, succinctly report in with what is going on. But constantly running to a sponsor every time a situation arises or manufacturing artificial questions in order to justify contact must be avoided.
As a sponsor, when I’m asked for input, the first question I ask myself is: “If I answer this question, am I doing for the other person what they should be doing for themselves?” Alarmingly, in none out of ten cases the answer is “yes”. The job is then to bat back the question and point the individual towards existing resources.