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A Sponsorship Guide for 12-Step Programs By M. T. ( St. Martin's Griffin )
Release Date: 1998-02-15
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List Price: $13.95
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Product Description
A Sponsorship Guide for 12-Step Programs offers the reader far-ranging suggestions, based on concrete experience, for the most common issues and dilemma that arise when one agrees to become a sponsor in any 12-step program Seventeen sponsors (with collective recovery time of over 250 years) share their experience and insights as they describe common situations sponsors face and relate the solutions they used. This is the first book of its kind--for sponsors, by sponsors.
Dived into three main sections--"Sponsorship Basics," "Working the Steps with a Sponsee," and "Common issues that Come Up"--this book will be of use to anyone who has agreed to be a sponsor, or anyone who does not have access to a sponsor.
A Sponsorship Guide is like having a sponsor in a book.
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Helpful
Not so much of a "how to" book. Provided comfort that there is no "right" way of sponsoring. Put my mind at ease about sponsoring.
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 CULT! CULT! CULT! ( mtm105 )
For that matter, the whole blame game is a bait-and-switch stunt. They will start off by telling you that it isn't your fault, alcoholism is not a moral stigma because it's a disease and you are powerless over it.
" I was a sick person. I was suffering from an actual disease that had a name and symptoms like diabetes or cancer or TB -- and a disease was respectable, not a moral stigma!"
The Big Book, Marty Mann, Women Suffer Too, 3rd Edition page 227 and 4th Edition page 205.
But after you have joined Alcoholics Anonymous and become a committed member, then they will tell you that you are guilty and personally responsible for everything.
The First Step showed me that I was powerless over alcohol and anything else that threatened my sobriety or muddled my thinking. Alcohol was only a symptom of much deeper problems of dishonesty and denial.
Listening to the Wind, A.A. Grapevine, December 2001, page 34.
It's all just a mind game designed to get you to surrender to the cult.
Wilson was serially unfaithful to his wife Lois. Wilson 's affairs with women caused controversy and concern within AA and it was common knowledge in New York AA circles. His interest in younger women increased with his age, and caused Barry Leach and other friends of Wilson to form a "Founders Watch". People were assigned to keep an eye on Wilson during the socializing that followed AA functions and to separate and steer away those young women who caught Wilson's interest. Wilson, like many in his generation, could be sexist, but he was also "capable of treating the women who worked with him with dignity and respect". In the mid 1950s he began an affair with Helen Wyn, a woman 22 years his junior, "in duration, intensity and scope" this was different from his other affairs. Wilson at one point discussed divorcing Lois to marry Helen. Wilson with determined perseverance was able to overcome the AA trustees objections, and renegotiated his royalty agreements with them in 1963, which allowed him to include Helen Wynn in his estate. He left 10% of his book royalties to Helen and the other 90% to his wife Lois. In 1968 with Wilson's illness making it harder for them to spend time together, Helen bought a house in Ireland.
In the 1950s Wilson experimented with LSD in medically supervised experiments with Gerard Heard and Aldous Huxley. With Wilson's invitation his wife Lois, Father Dowling, and Nell Wing also participated in experimentation of this drug. Later Wilson wrote to Carl Jung, praising the results and recommending it as validation of Jung's spiritual experience. (The letter was not in fact sent as Jung had died.)
At a parapsychology meeting in the 1960s, Wilson met Abram Hoffer and learned about the potential mood-stabilizing effects of niacin. Wilson was impressed with experiments indicating that alcoholics who were given niacin had a better sobriety rate, and he began to see niacin "as completing the third leg in the stool, the physical to complement the spiritual and emotional." Wilson also believed that niacin had given him relief from depression, and he promoted the vitamin within the AA community and with the National Institute of Mental Health as a treatment for schizophrenia. However, Wilson created a major furor in AA because he used the AA office and letterhead in his promotion.
For Wilson, spiritualism (communicating with the spirits of the dead) was a life-long interest. One of his letters to his spiritual adviser Father Ed Dowling suggests that while Wilson was working on his book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions he felt that spirits were helping him, in particular a 15th century monk named Boniface.[18] Wilson believed that the living could communicate with the dead and kept a "Spook Room" in his basement, where he along and others would conduct seances with a Ouijiboard, as well as experiment with automatic writing. Despite his conviction that he had evidence for the reality of the spiritual world, Wilson chose not to share this with AA.
The Harvard Mental Health Letter, from The Harvard Medical School, stated quite plainly:
There is a high rate of recovery among alcoholics and addicts, treated and untreated. According to one estimate, heroin addicts break the habit in an average of 11 years. Another estimate is that at least 50% of alcoholics eventually free themselves although only 10% are ever treated. One recent study found that 80% of all alcoholics who recover for a year or more do so on their own, some after being unsuccessfully treated. When a group of these self-treated alcoholics was interviewed, 57% said they simply decided that alcohol was bad for them. Twenty-nine percent said health problems, frightening experiences, accidents, or blackouts persuaded them to quit. Others used such phrases as "Things were building up" or "I was sick and tired of it." Support from a husband or wife was important in sustaining the resolution.
Treatment of Drug Abuse and Addiction -- Part III, The Harvard Mental Health Letter, Volume 12, Number 4, October 1995, page 3.
(See Aug. (Part I), Sept. (Part II), Oct. 1995 (Part III).)
So much for the sayings that
"Everybody needs a support group."
and
"Nobody can do it alone."
Most people do.
And note that the Harvard Medical School says that the support of a good spouse is more important than that of a 12-Step group. But A.A. says just the opposite:
"Dump your spouse and marry the A.A. group, because A.A. is The Only Way."
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 Recovering Alcoholic
I only skimmed through it. I am want to start sponsering and I by the looks of it this book will be very beneficial
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upon reflection
The word "guide" is somewhat decieving, and unfortunately,this writting is more of a reflection of very few ideas, as opposed to a worthwhile guide. Save your money.
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A Helpful Book for Sponsors and Sponsees ( lgpjr )
More Sponsors will probably read this book than Sponsees, but it does contain valuable information for both. The chapter on Steps 4 and 5 was particularly helpful; however, I do think there is some value in doing your 5th Step with someone you do not know, such as a person in the clergy or other counselor. This book certainly shows the value of the Sponsor walking through ALL the steps with the Sponsee, and doing so beginning with Step 1, instead of starting where the Sponsee wants to start. This book would also be valuable for people leading Serenity Groups, or considering the beginning of such a group. We do have everyone in our own Serenity Groups, who want to be Sponsors, read this book before they take on the challenge. The book not only teaches how to do things, but what to avoid. There is real value in learning from so many people who have contributed to the book. Because this book does include answers from people in various recovery groups, it can be read with profit by anyone in any 12 Step Program. The book concludes with a section on "Writing the Steps" with Step Worksheets. These can be used by the Sponsor with the Sponsee, and could also be made available at meetings (with the publisher's permission). See also the book "Prayer Steps to Serenity" for both personal and group 12 Step questions and guides.
In conclusion, I found two contributors that I liked the best, so I chose to read through the book again just reading what each of these contributors wrote (one contributor at a time), and I found this really helpful to me and my own work.
Thanks for Reading!
L.G. Parkhurst, Jr.
Author: Prayer Steps to Serenity the Twelve Steps Journey: New Serenity Prayer Edition ISBN: 0977805387
SerenityGroups.org
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Addiction
