AA MINORITY REPORT 2017 (revised)

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Tuesday 22 July 2014

Questions and Answers on Sponsorship (contd)



Extract:

Can a sponsor be overprotective?

In their enthusiasm to help a newcomer achieve sobriety, some sponsors may tend to be overprotective. They worry unduly about the persons they sponsor and tend to smother them with attention. In doing so, they may run the risk of having a newcomer depend on an individual member, rather than on the A.A. program. The most effective sponsors recognize that alcoholics who join A.A. must eventually stand on their own feet and make their own decisions — and that there is a difference between helping people to their feet and insisting on holding them up thereafter.

Another danger of overprotectiveness is that it may annoy the newcomer to the point of resenting the attempts to help — and expressing that resentment by turning away from A.A.”

(our emphasis)

Comment: Or in the case of cult sponsors setting themselves up as the sponsee's Higher Power and bullying rather than smothering them into submission. The reality is that newcomers to AA have to start making their own decisions from the off! No-one else is entitled to take that responsibility. 

Remember - Step 3 states: 

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."

(our emphasis)

It does NOT say:

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of our sponsor as we understood Him.

Moreover a sponsor is NOT ESSENTIAL to recovery. And NO sponsorship is better by far than BAD sponsorship!

Cheers

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)

(to be continued)

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