Working the Program

[MajestyJo]

Just have a question regarding working the Steps. When you were working the steps how far did your sponsor take you through them ? Was it just through 4 & 5 or did you work them further with the sponsor say until your amends?

For me it is about living the spiritual principles of the Steps. I did the paperwork for Step Four, using the Big Book guide and shared it with my sponsor. I did ongoing work with Counsellors to deal with issues that came up as a result of getting honest.

I did do the Step One guide posted in the NA column, and I believe it is my program and my understanding of God, yet my sponsors have guided me along the way.

My co-sponsor in early recovery said, "You have your own answers within." My reply was, "Yes, but I don't know the quesitons." She did help me, but on the whole I was left until I was willing to look at something and then she was there to guide me, or redirect me if she saw me heading in an unhealthy way. Sometimes I took her suggestions, other times I didn't, but I always valued her feedback. I can remember calling my sponsor on many occasions and saying, "I need to discuss Step Six tonight my defects of character were glaringly apparent today. For me, the steps aren't a one time deal and done. This is a living program, which I work into my life, one day at a time as the need arises. Sometimes I procrastinate and hold onto things too long, but eventually, the pain and new awareness, invites me to open the doors to the tool chest and make changes in attitude which generally brings about action.

For me, it was important to do my steps with another person. I don't have a drinking and drugging problem in today, but I still can go back into the old way of thinking. I know when I am in addictive and codependent behavior, and if I am alone with me, then I have no one to disagree with. This is a disease of perception as well as denial. I have always need a sponsor, a good trusted friend, or a counsellor to bounce things off of.

We certainly need to do the steps because what brought us here will take us back out if we don't make some changes in our life. That is what the Steps mean to me. Looking at me and taking an inventory of what is good and what is no longer good for me in recovery. What use to work, often doesn't work now. I hear so many people say, well I have been doing this for years and I'm not about to change now.

Someone with this attitude is often a dry drunk. I agree, doing it alone didn't get me very far. I could stop, but couldn't stay stopped. It wasn't until I worked the program that I could stay clean and sober.

Posted in 2005 and 2007 on another site.

I no longer have an AA sponsor, although I can call the lady who was my first sponsor, who fired me, I asked to go back to her, then I fired her, and then we got to a place, where we could talk together when we felt like we needed a connection. I no longer go to the Women's Group because it is at the other end of town. Unless there is someone around to operate the elevator lift, it is not wheel chair accessible. There has never been someone with a key so I stopped going. I was told many years ago to not do stairs. When I went to the lung specialist recently, he said, "You are not doing stairs are you?"

I do have an Al-Anon sponsor. She isn't around much, but when we connect, we seem to go on from where we left off.