This week we are expanding on the topic of sponsorship covered in general last week, from an entirely practical point of view.
Where is the word 'sponsor' in the book? It is there 71 times. The co-founders did not use it in the basic text part, but, in the stories, the people sponsored by the co-founders referred retrospectively to the process applied by the co-founders and described in the basic text as sponsorship (e.g. on page 263).
How do you get sponsees?
Can you sponsor remotely?
Screening questions for potential sponsees / narrowing the field in accordance with the sponsor’s preferences
- Can a person have more than one sponsor? Will the sponsor accept being one of several sponsors or does their system involve being the only sponsor?
- The potential sponsee’s desire for sobriety + the definition of sobriety (do you want to be free of some or all mood-/mind-altering substances?)
- Is the sponsee willing to go ‘all in’ with the programme, or do they wish to combine the programme with other programmes?
- Does the potential sponsee have at least one major substance and one fellowship in common?
- Is the sponsee able / willing to become a member of the sponsor’s home group?
- Is the sponsee able / willing to fit in with the sponsor’s schedule for visits, meetings, and calls?
Willingness
- Reading the book up to page 164 as a prerequisite
- ‘Do you want what we have?’
- Who is ‘we’?
- What do we ‘have’?
- The nature of the decision that one wants what someone has
- What ‘going to any lengths’ means (positive actions + the four costs of pain, uncertainty, effort, and sacrifice)
The process
- Establishing a weekly and daily schedule
- Establishing the elements of recovery, unity, and service
- Establishing a broad network of support
- Establishing the principle of message-carrying and helping others from day one
- The daily tools:
- Pages 84–88
- Getting over resentment (page 67)
- Getting over fear (page 68)
- Handling problems (pages 69–70)
- Getting on with others (pages 98–99)
- Handling disagreement (pages 117–118)
- Proceeding through the book (page by page vs chapter by chapter or topic by topic)
- Stopping reading for actions to be taken
- Walking through the content of Steps Four and Eight
- Daily calling in early days and months
- One-way information flow + notetaking
- Troubleshooting life questions using the programme
Long term
- Call once a week or once a fortnight
- Speak freely
- Do quarterly reviews (at least)
- Present unresolved difficulties