{"id":185,"date":"2014-04-30T17:49:12","date_gmt":"2014-04-30T17:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nashvillerecovers.org\/?p=76"},"modified":"2014-04-30T17:49:12","modified_gmt":"2014-04-30T17:49:12","slug":"sponsors-as-friends-can-we-be-too-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/2014\/04\/30\/sponsors-as-friends-can-we-be-too-close\/","title":{"rendered":"Sponsors as friends: Can we be too close?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just before Chuck S. got into recovery, he was in his early 20s, snorting drugs alone in his parents\u2019 basement, totally isolated and cut off from friends and most family.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI used up all my friends,\u201d he said. \u201cI had lost the ability to build a friendship.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Chuck made it into treatment, and when he got out \u2014 like many addicts\/alcoholics new to recovery \u2014 he felt really alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Chuck<\/span><\/a>So Chuck found a sponsor and latched on for dear life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were constantly together. Neither one of us had a job at the time, so we\u2019d go to the gym together, we\u2019d hang out at his apartment, we\u2019d go eat together,\u201d Chuck said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chuck said he and his sponsor let in a couple of other young guys and formed a clique. They\u2019d go to meetings, and invite girls back to one of their apartments after to hang out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt turned into a very small, shitty fraternity,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chuck got feedback from his sponsor, but by that point, they\u2019d become so close that Chuck felt free to just discard advice he didn\u2019t like and tell his sponsor, while laughing, to screw off.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chuck relapsed. Repeatedly. And he would put it on his sponsor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018Why isn\u2019t he helping me? This recovery thing isn\u2019t working.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe lines do get blurred,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was hard for me to figure out what boundaries were getting crossed and what the boundaries were.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Often times in meetings, we hear people say, \u201cSponsors are spiritual guides through the 12 steps \u2014 nothing less and nothing more.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But often times, sponsors are so very much more.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chuck came into recovery desperate to once again have friends his own age.<\/span><\/p>\n

I came into recovery subconsciously looking for a dad: My father died of cancer when I was 8 years old. And, again subconsciously, I thought with my first sponsor that I finally had the father I so desperately missed all those years.<\/span><\/p>\n

In short, we recovering addicts\/alcoholics bring a lot of hurt into recovery. And that means we can bring waaaaayyyyy too many expectations of our sponsor with into recovery with us. I know I did. I put too much on my first sponsor.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the question is: Should sponsors and sponsees be friends? Or is it cleaner and easier to keep a distance in the relationship?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"sponsor\"<\/span><\/a>There is no simple answer to this.<\/span><\/p>\n

But most folks in recovery told me the best path is when sponsors and sponsees start with a little detachment and grow into friends. Work some steps together, go to meetings together, keep things just about recovery, at first.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then, many folks with some time in recovery say it\u2019s just plain inevitable that they become friends with their sponsors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t\u00a0need<\/i>\u00a0to be your friend. I think a sponsor\u2019s main purpose is to support you through the steps,\u201d says Darin of Donelson, who has five years sober.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think for me, as a result of working with him and being honest with him, we have grown to become friends.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, and we get pretty freakin\u2019 honest in this recovery thing. Have you seen steps four and five, the ones where we make a \u201csearching and fearless moral inventory\u201d of ourselves? And then we share that inventory with our sponsor?<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost impossible to not become close, become friends, with someone with whom we\u2019re sharing our most intimate secrets and feelings.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s inevitable,\u201d says Scott A. of West Nashville, who has 16 years sober.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThree people I\u2019ve been working with a long time and we\u2019re real close. I know more about these people than their wives do, their family members do,\u201d Scott said. \u201cThey trust us more than anybody else in the rest of their life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy sponsor knows things about me that nobody in this world knows about me,\u201d he said. \u201cTrust breeds friendship.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rebecca S., 18, who has two years clean, says she\u2019s able to both be friends with her sponsor and respect her sponsor and take her sponsor\u2019s suggestions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe has five years sober and I want five years sober,\u201d Rebecca said. \u201cAnd I\u2019d be willing to do whatever she wants me to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And again, balance is important in that as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

The other thing to keep in mind, Darin says, is to not put sponsors on a pedestal.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy sponsor has made mistakes in the past and the present, just like me,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re human, we\u2019re flesh. He\u2019s just one drink away from a drunk like me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just another bird sitting on a branch.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just before Chuck S. got into recovery, he was in his early 20s, snorting drugs alone in his parents\u2019 basement, totally isolated and cut off from friends and most family. \u201cI used up all my friends,\u201d he said. \u201cI had lost the ability to build a friendship.\u201d Chuck made it into treatment, and when he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}