Quote:
"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book
As you sponsor others, remember this: If you are trying to recreate someone in your own image, then one of you will be redundant.
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This is so true. One of the biggest errors sponsor's make is trying to clone their sponsees into their own image. The sponsee puts the sponsor on a pedestal, and then when the sponsor doesn't walk their talk, the sponsee is devastated, and the sponsor falls off, and it becomes a rude awakening or a bruised ego.
We are all alcoholics and addicts, but that doesn't make us all the same, it gives us a common denominator, but each person is an individual and has his/her own Higher Power. All we do is guide and share our experience, strength, and hope, we don't become a sergeant general and imposing rules and regulation and saying, "This is how it is done."
There are guidelines and suggestions, but each person has to find the way that is right for them. People would probably have gone out and got drunk and given up if they had followed my regime over the years. Using was never an option, and I check all areas of recovery. Contempt prior to investigation can get you drunk.
I went to meetings and took a little from this one and that one, a lot from that one, very little from others, and then there were those who showed me how to work my program and how not to work my program.
Many times I found myself saying, "If that is sobriety, I don't want it!" I couldn't put my focus on others and forget my own recovery, how can I give what I don't have.
I have heard the quote in another way, "If there is only one thought in the room, someone isn't allowed to think for themselves." We learn by practice and doing. I try to stick to basics. If I am not feeling right, then I know that I have gotten off the path and emotionally or spiritually, heading for a relapse.