by Sally Rosa | Jan 30, 2015 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
My Experience Switching Sponsors
My first sponsor had around six months when she started taking me through the twelve-steps. Despite not having a ton of time, she’d been through her steps, had a spiritual experience, and was ready to spread a message of hope and recovery.
We didn’t have that much in common, aside from both being alcoholics. She was much older than I was, although at nineteen almost everyone was much older than I was! She taught Social Studies and coached baseball at a local high school. She was married. She had money in the bank.
I could continue this list, but I think you all get the idea. We were brought together by the twelve-steps and the need to live our lives on spiritual principles. She began to take me through the steps. Six months later, I’d finished my steps and she’d picked up her one-year medallion.
It was around this time, when I started sponsoring women, that I began to think about switching sponsors. Don’t get me wrong, my original sponsor saved my life. I’m going to spend the rest of my days working off that debt by helping other women.
Still, we didn’t have much in common. I wanted a sponsor that was closer to my age and had similar experiences, both in active addiction and recovery. So I started “shopping around” as my friends call it.
On the Hunt for a New Sponsor
All of a sudden, meetings took on a whole new meaning. Not only was I going to spread the message of recovery, I was also going to see what other women had to say. Of course, that’d always been one reason for meetings, but now it took on a new importance.
I reached out, got a ton of phone numbers, and put together a list of potential sponsors. I prayed, meditated, and asked God for guidance. I also ran some of my potential ideas by another alcoholic.
God works in mysterious ways, my friends! Guess who I ended up asking to sponsor me? The woman I ran my list by! I’m getting ahead of myself though.
I called this woman up and we talked for a couple of hours. She gave me a piece of advice that’s stuck with my ever since. This is also the advice that made me realize she was the perfect sponsor for me.
She said, “Whoever you pick, make sure they’re someone who’s always been there for you in the past.” That was God talking to me through another alcoholic! That was what I’d been praying and meditating for. Those were the words I’d been waiting to hear.
Actually Switching Sponsors
After we got off the phone, I said another prayer. I then called the woman who’d taken my through the steps. I was so nervous! I thought she was going to be angry and never talk to me again!
It turns out, like most things in sobriety, that I was up in my head for nothing. She completely understood and even acknowledged some of what I’d been thinking. We ended the phone call closer than we’d been previously! God certainly does work in mysterious ways.
I then called my new sponsor (though she didn’t know it yet!) and asked her to sponsor me. She said yes and the rest, as they say, was history. That was almost six years ago and I haven’t looked back since.
I heard a simple and profound saying early in my recovery. It went something like “if you don’t think you have the best sponsor in the world, you picked the wrong woman.”
I’ve been blessed in my sobriety with two amazing sponsors. What more can a girl ask for?
by A Women in Sobriety | Jan 21, 2015 | Addiction Articles, Benefits of Sobriety
Emotional Sobriety: A Four Letter Word?
Ah, emotional sobriety! I’ve written about it before, I’m writing about it now, and you best believe I’ll write about it in the future.
That’s because this tricky little idea encapsulates, in my opinion, the rest of the program. Emotional sobriety is how we gauge how well we’re living. It’s how we tell whether we’re practicing spiritual principles in all our affairs.
It’s also super hard! Imagine going through life a serene, peaceful person. Sounds nice, right? Too bad it rarely happens! Now, that isn’t to say we don’t have minutes, hours, or even days of emotional serenity, but it usually doesn’t last.
So, how can we make it last? How can we stretch those minutes, hours, and days into weeks, months, and years? Perhaps that’s a questions best left to the old-timers. I’m taking a stab at answering it today though!
Practice Radical Honesty
It’s hard to be bent out of shape if you’re honest all the time!
When I’m practicing radical honesty, I don’t have any secrets to hide. I don’t have any regrets or anxious thoughts clouding my mind. Basically, when I practice radical honesty, I’m also emotionally sober.
It’s important to remember, though, there’s a fine line between radical honesty and being mean! Let’s say I’m sitting in a meeting and I don’t like what someone shared. Do I raise my hand and tear them to pieces? That’s being honest, right?
Wrong! It’s being selfish! Just because I don’t agree with someone doesn’t mean I have the right to act out. So toe that line, ladies!
Live on God’s Terms
This one might be kind of obvious, but here ya go. If I’m living life on God’s terms, rather than my own, I’m emotionally sober.
If I’m praying, meditating, doing daily inventories, going to meetings, reaching my hand out to struggling women, calling my sober supports, working with sponsees, and handling all of life’s responsibilities – I’m also living in emotional sobriety.
It’s that simple!
Rework the Steps
I’ve found the best way for me to live life on God’s terms is to dive back into step work. Remember, that’s just for me.
If I’m struggling to live the sort of life I should be living, I need to get back to the book. I need to get back to what twelve-step sobriety is all about! I accomplish this by reworking the steps.
Sometimes this takes the form of reworking my steps with my sponsor. Sometimes it takes the form of working the steps with a new sponsee. Sometimes it takes the form of going to twelve step-series meetings.
Whatever the form, the result is the same. I end up feeling better. I end up living healthier. I end up in emotional sobriety!
Seek Outside Help
Sometimes our problems (okay, okay, I’ll only speak for myself!) are so big that I need to seek outside help. Think things like being sober yet acting out on self-harm or an eating disorder. Think clinical depression, anxiety, or other disorders.
When I’m struggling with issues like these, emotional sobriety is impossible. Not only is emotional sobriety and stability impossible, but so it being a decent human being!
So, when dealing with these game changers, I need to seek outside help. It can be from a private therapist, a therapy group, a mental health facility, or even from a friend who’s specialized in any of the above areas.
Basically, taking these measures is how I address all my emotional needs. And, dear readers, once my emotional needs are in order, I’m able to practice that ever so elusive emotional sobriety!
by Sally Rosa | Nov 26, 2014 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
Written By: Fiona Stockard
What are the 10th Step Promises?
Much like the ninth step promises, the tenth step promises are a section of the Big Book where recovering alcoholics are promised peace and recovery from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
Sounds too goo to be true, right? Wrong! The tenth step promises are available for everyone who works for them. They’re guaranteed to you, to me, and to the broken woman who just walked through the door.
Of course, there’s a pretty big caveat here. We have to do the work! These promises don’t just magically happen in our lives. We have to sweat. We have to earn it. We have to earn recovery!
Bill Wilson Wrote –
And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone-even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.
–(Big Book pp. 84-85)
Again, like the ninth step promises, I didn’t know what those words meant until I experienced them. It’s easy to read, “…the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us.” To experience that freedom firsthand, though? I can’t describe it. It’s simply freedom.
My Experience with the 10th Step Promises
I’m a tried and true alcoholic and addict. Before picking up a drink, I would use things like attention, controlling my weight, boys, and good grades to feel different. Then I got high. After that, all bets were off.
See, I have the three-part disease of alcoholism and addiction. My body processes alcohol and drugs differently than “a normie’s” body. Once I start, I can’t stop. Of course, stopping wouldn’t be a problem if I never started in the first place.
I always begin to drink again. I always begin to drink until I reached “a position of neutrality – safe and protected.” See, I had a mental obsession with drinking and drugging. Once I started to think about alcohol, I wouldn’t stop until the thought of drinking pushed out all else. I wouldn’t stop until a drink was in my hand.
That’s the heart of alcoholism – the bizarre mental obsession. Did you notice, though, that I wrote in past tense in the above paragraph? That’s because I’ve recovered. I’ve been granted safety from a God of my own understanding. I’ve been set free.
That’s my experience with the tenth step promises. They set me free. When I was newly sober, they offered me hope. My sponsor showed them to me almost immediately. I thank God she did. They showed me that recovery isn’t only possible, it’s promised if I do the work.
See, I have to complete the steps in order for these promises to manifest in my life. Even then, they don’t always occur during the tenth, eleventh, or twelfth step. It takes some women much longer to have them come true in their lives. For some lucky women, the obsession is lifted before they reach the tenth step. Like most of sobriety, these promises are an entirely subjective experience.
The bottom line, though, is if I do the work, if I search within myself and find God, the obsession to drink and drug will be removed. That’s all I can ask for and all I continue to ask for on a daily basis.
by Sally Rosa | Nov 19, 2014 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
Written By: Fiona Stockard
What are the 9th Step Promises?
The ninth step promises are a section of the Big Book where recovering alcoholics are promised certain things. I like the sound of that! Remember though, these promises only apply to alcoholics working the steps. Specifically, they only apply to those who’ve reached the ninth step.
So, what does the Big Book promise us? Red bottom heels and a hot guy? A Rolex and a smaller waist? Nope! It promises us emotional and spiritual health. It promises us that we’ll finally be okay.
Bill Wilson wrote –
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.
(The Big Book, pp. 83-84).
Like many alcoholics, I’d heard the promises read at meetings. I’d seen them hanging on the wall of clubhouses. Hell, I even went to a meeting called “The Page Eighty-Three Promises Meeting.” I thought I knew the ninth step promises.
It turns out, like many blessings in sobriety, I knew these promises on paper, but had no idea what they looked like in real life.
My Experience with the 9th Step Promises
I got sober and I began to learn what these promises were really about.
See, things like “We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it” and “We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows” sound good. When they happen in your life though? The feeling is nothing short of amazing.
After completing my steps, I was stunned. I was, for the first time in my life, free. I was okay in my own skin. More importantly, I was able to show other women how to be free. I was able to be selfless, rather than selfish.
So, friends and dear readers, I’ll leave you with my personal take on the ninth step promises.
Fiona’s 9th Step Promises
If we complete the steps, we’re going to be amazing. Sometimes it’ll be halfway through, sometimes it’ll be afterwards, but it’ll always happen.
We’re going to know the freedom of sobriety and the happiness of recovery.
We won’t regret the past. In fact, we’ll embrace the past and use it to help other women recover.
We will live in serenity and we will practice peace, helpfulness, and love to others.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we’ll rise. We’ll rise because women lift us. We’ll then lift other women. Together, we’ll rise and never fall.
Uselessness will become useless. Self-pity will become useless. Service will become everything.
We will lose interest in our old lives and gain interest in God and other women.
Self-seeking will become uncomfortable. Selfishness will become uncomfortable.
Our attitude and outlook upon life will change and become whatever God wants it to be.
Fear of people, of economic insecurity, of being single, of gaining weight, of being rejected, of being embarrassed, of being anything other than exactly who and what we are – will leave us.
We will learn how to handle situations with grace and dignity.
We will suddenly realize God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves and that God has been with us, carrying and helping us, all along.
Are these extravagant promises? Hell no!
They’re being fulfilled among us – look around and see the beautiful healing power of sobriety.
They happen for everyone, always, if we do the work.
