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
Key to Accountability It took me thirty years to get a sponsor—really. That’s how hardheaded and faithless I am. But when I finally did surrender to having a sponsor, it made all the difference. I finally was accountable; but more than that, I had a guide, a friend, and a sounding board. My recovery grew exponentially, so much so that I even took … Read More
The Business of Recovery Early on, I was taught that OA is a business as well as a recovery program. My service in OA is both part of the business side and part of my recovery. When I serve, I not only help further my own program, but I also help make recovery a possibility for others. If I am a group secretary, I … Read More
She Was Right My sponsor told me God loved me just the way I was but also loved me too much to let me stay that way. I was full of self-doubt and fear yet wished to control myself and the world around me. I was dishonest—I lied, stole, embellished, gossiped, and I disparaged others to make myself feel better. I was 50 … Read More
Walking Through One of the better moves I made in early recovery was finding a sponsor. I was fortunate. After much trepidation, I found a sponsor who lived and practiced the Steps and made that the focus of our relationship. At that time, the program had food sponsors, Step sponsors, and spiritual sponsors, and over the years, I got help from people … Read More
A Good Sponsor Wannabe My sponsorship style is patterned after the way I was sponsored: I try to be gracious, kind, and compassionate. I also attempt, as my sponsor does, to match my style of sponsoring to the needs of the sponsee—not always an easy task—and I have found this approach often needs tweaking as my sponsee and I go along. The specifics of … Read More
Strong Service Bodies “What on earth do service bodies and OA’s service structure have to do with me?” you might ask. “I just go to meetings. That other stuff is for older people in the program.” OA’s service structure has a lot to do with you, if you’re an OA member and you value your program, your recovery, your meetings, and your life. … Read More
