No Good or Bad Sponsors When I was an OA newcomer, I had no success trying to find a sponsor. I went to three or four meetings a week, and at every meeting, I wrote in the book I was looking for a sponsor. No one offered to sponsor me. Out of desperation I called the intergroup, which provided me with a temporary Step sponsor. … Read More
Great Big Hurdle I am grateful for my wonderful sponsor—that’s what this is about. But first, I have to point out that we are not all alike, and the longer we are in OA the less alike we become. What is so wonderful about my sponsor is that she is a good listener. It is very hard to be a sponsor who really … Read More
Online Recovery One of the things available today is the vigorous online Fellowship. I was unable to attend face-to-face meetings for my first two years in OA, but I found an abstinent sponsor online who guided me through the Steps to abstinence and recovery. Because she lived in a different country, we only had one phone call for Step Five, but we … Read More
Little Voice Said Eight weeks ago, I attended my first OA meeting. I’d researched OA and vaguely knew about a concept of abstinence, but that was about it. After a bit more reading, another meeting, and devouring the Big Book and Twelve and Twelve, I realized I urgently needed a sponsor. After all, on reading the Twelve and Twelve, it seemed I was … Read More
When a Sponsor Stumbles I found OA in 2000 after a car accident left me in severe pain and unable to work. My mother died in the same year. We had a troubled, difficult relationship, and I feel sad she died before I came into recovery and realized I loved her. At that time I was 238 pounds (108 kg) and a size 22. … Read More
Abstinent, Loving Witness Active addiction leads to denial, and asking more of a sponsee than I do myself is a red flag. Stinking thinking says my extra weight doesn’t count because I carry it so well. Without abstinence, serenity eludes me, and I’m in bondage to self, reactive and thin skinned about feedback or comments. Boundaries get lost in a food fog, and … Read More
Thank-You Notes My sponsor had me start sponsoring at thirty-days abstinent. I was working Step Three by that point, so I could help newcomers getting started on Step One. My sponsor gave me ten minutes every morning for my first three years of abstinence. Now, I carry on that pattern, offering a daily ten-minute slot to someone newly abstinent and starting on Step … Read More
Healing Connections Sponsoring is working one-on-one with another compulsive eater to uncover and release whatever separates us from a loving Higher Power of our understanding. We use and share about OA Tools and slogans, study and apply the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of OA in our lives, and reach out to each other on a daily basis to share our learning … Read More
A Grateful Goodbye My first sponsor, M., passed away last month. He was one of the first people I met in OA, but it was a year before he became my sponsor. He was one of the few men I’d met and one of very few OA members who identified as a sponsor. I wrote down his number, but at the time, he … Read More
Two-Way Trust I have been abstinent fifty-seven days and am currently working on Step Three. Having a sponsor has been a vital part of working my program. For me, being sponsored was the critical element in my starting the Steps. I would not be able to work the Steps without my sponsor giving me questions to work on and apply to me … Read More