If you’re sponsoring yourself, your sponsor is an idiot. Being in your own head is like walking down a dark alleyway in a bad neighbourhood on your own. There are no rules in NA except that you can’t do the steps on your own. Don’t trust your thinking. My best thinking got me here. Run all important decisions past your sponsor. Yes, I’ve heard it all.
When I got clean in April last year I decided I really wanted it. I decided I would hand over my will and my life to the NA program and that for 12 months I would run all my ideas past the men in the fellowship that had the clean time I wanted. I rang young Bill and he said why don’t you just try 3 months. I thought that was more realistic. I did 90 meetings in 90 days. I sort of cheated since we were in the flu lockdown and I could do them all online, but technically I did 90 in 90.
Now I think about it I did everything my sponsor suggested and nothing he told me not to do, yet I still relapsed after about 7 months. My relapse was unremarkable. I had great times getting high about once a week and did meetings when I wasn’t high. I was in a good mood for the whole time and caused no serious problems. But, when I reflected I no longer enjoyed activities that didn’t involve getting high nearly as much as when I was 7 months clean.
In a very objective analysis I discerned that on the whole being clean was more enjoyable. Contrary to the cliché “My best day using wasn’t as good as my worst day in recovery”. My best day using was way better than my best day in recovery, but to keep my shit together I could only do that once a week which meant I had 6 average days (that I thought about drugs a lot) for every one awesome day. It was a false economy. I realised I wanted to get clean again, and this time stay clean.
There wasn’t any desperation. I planned one more party, binged on too much molly – because it was my last party and I had a big bag of the stuff, planned to get clean the next day, felt shit, so vaped weed for an extra day and got clean the next day. I haven’t had any desire to use since.
I went to visit my sponsor yesterday and it was good to talk man things and bond again. He showed me his new car and mentioned his old one was very sale. “Give me a look”, I said, in a resigned tone knowing that I would be tempted into buy it.
“I’ve got it advertised for 95K, but you can have it for 85K.” He says as we look at the immaculate 350kw V8 Lexus sedan. I would love it, but I can’t justify the expense.
“Mate, you have a company, you can write it off on tax. You would be able to sell it for more than that in a year.”
“I’ll think about it, but I’m pretty sure the answer is no.” I actually could afford it and it is just what I want, but I have invested my savings into gold with the pending collapse of the world financial markets and think I would prefer the security that provides rather than a prestige car.
Over coffee he gets sponsorish on me. “If I’m your sponsor we are going to make your recovery very simple for you. You can’t be too stupid for NA, but you can be too smart, you fit into the latter.”
I nod my head. I don’t really agree, but I’m enjoying his company. He will go back to being my friend and mentor in a minute rather than thinking he has an obligation to sort me out as my sponsor.
“You’re not going to get another chance at this.”
This I really disagree with. I have a heap more relapses and recoveries. It’s just that I don’t want them. I really want to stay clean.
I nod my head and he finally gives up. We go back to talking about family and love and commitment to our wives. Our wives are both there as well as his young kids. His 18 month baby girl is getting very cheeky and running rings around everyone. My wife is just recently pregnant so we are enjoying the glimpse into what our lives will be like soon.
We head off after an hour and I reflect on my previous recovery of 7 months. I did steps one to three with him out of the steps working guide and then I started my 4th step. Under his instruction I did the personal story version of the 4th step and wrote 60,000 words for the first 25 years of my life right up until the last time I drank alcohol and used heroin.
Why did I relapse? Not once had I asked this tough question since I picked up a few months ago. I have always been able to answer this question in the past, but this time I didn’t even really ask it. I considered what I had and hadn’t done. The disease is so subtle and the repercussions of me relapsing are also so subtle. I did it again. I relapsed and lost nothing except a bit of time. And when I was ready to get clean again I got clean the day after I planned to.
How the hell do I stop that from happening again? How the hell do I stay clean when the consequences of relapse are so low? The consequences are not zero. I really want to stay clean. My future goals of finding belonging, love, and intimacy require me to be clean. I’ve made so many changes for this new direction. I gave up my hedonistic life. I found a wife and fell in love. I’ve even been faithful to her and committed to continue that. Now we are starting a new family. Not only do I want to be clean to fully appreciate that, the whole reason I got a wife in the first place was to settle down and get clean.
They say the steps are the answer and they certainly were for me for heroin in 2000, sex through SLAA in 2004, and then money through DA in 2019. But I was doing the steps. I did the first 3 steps and dedicated myself to the 4th step writing 60K words in a few months. Who else puts that much effort into the steps. I remembered my sponsors voice from 2000. “You need a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps. Then you will stop going insane and thinking a drug is a good idea.” He was right. I did the steps out of the AA big book with him in 2000 and got clean from alcohol or heroin. Maybe I could get back in touch with him. Maybe I could go and stay with him for a week and we could go through the AA big book again, but this time focus on cannabis and psychedelics.
I considered how the steps freed me from sex addiction in 2004. Now I thought about it I pretty much self-sponsored that process in 2004. I found a sponsor in SLAA and asked him if he would listen to my answers from the NA Step working guide. He agreed and was technically my sponsor, but I made the rules. I completed the 9th step with him writing letters (that I never sent) to all the girls I had harmed.
In 2019 I went to Debtors Anonymous and chose this old guy I had known for over 20 years from AA to be my sponsor. Part of the program was a spending plan and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him I had allowed myself very generous budgets for both sex and drugs. I always laugh when I think of that. I imagined him having a heart attack. I couldn’t do it to him so thanked him for his help thus far, but no longer wanted him as my sponsor. He took it very graciously and wished me well however I chose to continue either getting another sponsor or sponsoring myself. He actually implied that sponsoring myself was an option.
I realised there were accounts in the AA big book of people successfully getting sober by reading the book and essentially sponsoring themselves. I decided to sponsor myself, you can see some of the posts in this blog at that time. The only step I shared with anyone was my 4th. I only made it as far as step 7. I realised at step 8 that the biggest harm I did to anyone at that stage of my life was taking drugs and making myself less available for intimacy with them. I wasn’t ready to get clean so left it at that. But still just the first 7 steps changed my behaviour around money dramatically.
I remembered just an hour ago the prospect of me purchasing a 95K car for 85K that I actually had the money for. And without any effort or consideration of the DA program I made the sane decision to keep my money for the future and invest it instead. Coincidence?
I’m going to sponsor myself. I have evidence of this method working for me in the past. I’m going to have a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps. I’m going back to my tried and true column method of the 4th step and I’m the boss. I will keep my sponsor if he will have me, but when it comes to the steps. I am the boss. I am the one who has to live with my successes and mistakes. I made a decision to trust my own thinking over a decade ago and have a remarkable life since. I am going to trust my intuition and my own interpretation of Gods will. I am going to guide myself through the steps.
Red Pill Recovery 