Early Recovery: A Sponsor’s Suggestions That Can Help Prevent Relapse

Staying sober on fellowship

I arrived at my first meeting after a long and destructive career of drinking. I was thirty years old when I got to AA. All I knew was drinking and changing countries in the hope of re-inventing myself somewhere else. This was always following the chaos I created wherever I went. Although I knew everything there was to know about the drinking game, I knew absolutely nothing about what alcoholism was and how to recover from it.

I was so befogged when I first got sober that I could be forgiven for thinking that all that was required of me was not to drink and go to meetings. I genuinely believed that my problem was just an addiction to alcohol. With the help of meetings and my fellow drunks, all I needed to do was break my physical and psychological dependence on alcohol, and sooner or later, all would be well.

A rude awakening

I wish I could tell you that recovery was as simple as not drinking, going to meetings, and being an agnostic, using you guys as my higher power. Group Of Drunks (Acronym for GOD). Without the numbing effects of alcohol, I started to feel my feelings. Boy, was I in for a huge shock! I was also unable to cope with my day to day reality. My experience of early sobriety was a torturous nightmare. An insane merry-go-round of fear, dramatic mood swings, and overwhelming emotions. I couldn’t handle sobriety.

Because I was raised in the cold atmosphere of foster care, I concluded that my case was different and would need a different approach to what everyone else in AA was doing. This was to get a sponsor and take their suggestions. As an agnostic, I found the idea of sponsorship even more off-putting since their job was to guide newcomers through the twelve steps. Five of the twelve steps mentioned God, and the sixth, a higher power; definitely not for me! With a childhood like mine and being an agnostic, therapy seemed like the only intelligent option left open to me.

The therapy route

I thought I made an informed choice by going into therapy. People told me about a therapist who was well known in the recovery community. I stayed in therapy for ten years, not only with one therapist but with several. I gave therapy my best shot. It was a challenging journey unraveling the wounds of my childhood. I felt raw and vulnerable most of the time.

I would like to tell you that therapy healed my fractured sense of self, but that is not what happened. Strangely, I was even more angry and resentful after ten years of therapy. If I felt like a victim because of what happened to me as a child, I was even more committed to the victim belief system after ten years of therapy. Something about therapy wasn’t adding up, least of all my bank balance. Was it me or the therapy? I was unable to stay sober and became a serial relapser. In the end, I had to admit that therapy hadn’t worked.

An agnostic-friendly sponsor

Eventually, I changed my mind about sponsorship. Actually, I had no choice. I was all out of options. Over a thirteen-year period, after coming to AA, nothing had worked. I had nothing to show for all those years in the fellowship except a catalog of relapses. I came into AA to stop drinking, so I did the one thing I thought I would never do. I asked an old-timer to sponsor me. He was someone I knew was experienced in working with members who didn’t believe in God. The agnostic alcoholics that he took through the program seemed happy and stable in their sobriety.

I asked David B for help, and he agreed. He asked me if I was willing to go to any lengths, and now that I had the Gift Of Desperation, (GOD), I said yes without reservation! He then did something which came as a shock. Especially to a seasoned therapy junkie like me. He gave me a sticker and told me to put it on my shaving mirror. I had to look at it every morning when I was shaving.

You are now looking at the problem.

I cannot speak for anyone else’s experience in therapy, but mine centered on blaming my primary care caregivers for what they did to me in childhood. Perhaps I didn’t use therapy as intended. Right then, when David gave me that sticker, he blew the validity of all those years of therapy out of the water, at least for me. I don’t deny that other people’s experience of therapy may have been radically different from mine. I was especially dishonest with my therapists and played them all like a piano, so I could keep blaming my childhood.

“Where other people were concerned, we had to drop the word ‘blame’ from our speech and thought.”

12&12 “Step Four” p. 47

Symptoms of untreated alcoholism

David’s daily suggestions were designed to prevent relapse. With commitment and discipline, they are a powerful tool for doing so. For an alcoholic of my type, they are vastly more than that. I don’t know how many types of alcoholics there are, but I do know what type I was before I surrendered to a sponsor’s suggestions.

My natural default state as an alcoholic without a drink and without the benefit of a program is: anxiety (panic attacks), social anxiety, mood swings, self-pity, resentment, twisted thinking, and depression; not to mention how Dr. Silkworth describes alcoholics on page XXV111 of ‘The Doctor’s Opinion.‘ This is what the good doctor declares:

“They are restless, irritable, and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks – drinks which they see others take with impunity.”

Again, I cannot speak for anyone else in recovery, but this was how I lived for many years in AA without a drink. Medication was the only thing that helped me cope in those early years, and even that didn’t always help. Small wonder I was sometimes driven to take that first drink. I think you will agree that this is not a pleasant way to stay sober. David told me that if I applied myself diligently to these suggestions, I would start to feel better. He said that my general mood and perception of life would improve.

Therapy failed. Relationships failed. Career ambitions failed. Chasing money didn’t fix me for long, and sex only worked for the brief time I was having it. David had offered these suggestions, so I thought, “I may as well give them my best shot.” I had nothing left to lose. Maybe they would work?

The suggestions of early recovery

1. Pray on your knees and ask for a sober day. As an agnostic, I was told that this action need not be directed toward God or any supernatural deity. Firstly, getting on your knees was a demonstration of surrender in front of a power much greater than me, namely, alcohol. It was a daily reminder to the alcoholic ego that it was beaten in its battle with alcohol and needed to surrender every morning. Prayer was also a daily reminder that I was now reaching out to a power greater than me, namely, to AA itself. Group Of Drunks (GOD) This surrender was an act of humility. The maladapted alcoholic ego cannot exist when humility is present, making sobriety possible.

• Write a daily gratitude list. Add new things to it daily.

• Call your sponsor.

• Read the “Just for Today” reading.

• In the morning, on page 86 of chapter 6, “Into Action,” of the Big Book, read “On awakening”……. to the end of the chapter.

• At night, before retiring, on page 86 of chapter 6, “Into Action,” of the Big Book, read the paragraph “When we retire at night”……

• Call two newcomers, ask them how they are doing.

• Get two home groups and two service commitments at meetings.

• Read a chapter from the Big Book or the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions daily.

• Pray for people that you resent, wishing them everything you would wish for yourself.

Let me be clear: these suggestions are not part of AA’s general suggestions and are nowhere to be found in the AA literature. They are offered by only a small minority of sponsors in AA. So why do I mention them?

As I mentioned before, I spent ten years in therapy, during which time I was very miserable and became a serial relapser. By the time my ego collapsed, I was a broken man and had frequent thoughts of suicide. I truly had the Gift Of Desperation (GOD) when I asked David for help. If he said “jump,” I would simply ask, “How high?”

I wrote this blog for alcoholics like me who may have had a negative experience in therapy or who may be struggling in recovery.

When I diligently applied myself to these daily suggestions, they did for me in three months what ten years of therapy failed to do.

I asked David once why he thought therapy hadn’t worked for me. “Because you’re an alcoholic lad,” he said. “Alcoholics are already self-centered enough without therapy making them even more self-centered. We are problem people who don’t need to focus on our problems any more than necessary. When alcoholics start to live in the solutions to their problems and stop focusing on their problems, they start to get well. The simple daily suggestions I have given you are effective solutions to the inner turmoil of untreated alcoholism.“

Despite remaining agnostic, the results were life-changing. The daily suggestions made me mentally and emotionally ready for the step work that lay ahead.

In fellowship

Andy F