Sponsorship

Early in my budding relationship with my sponsor, she handed me a piece of paper that had a sort of outline as to how we were going to do things.

The 12 Steps Of Sponsorship

1.I will not help you to stay and wallow in limbo.
2.I will help you to grow, to become more productive, by your definition.
3.I will help you become more autonomous, more loving of yourself, more excited, less sensitive, more free to become the authority for your own living.
4.I cannot give you dreams or “fix you up” simply because I cannot.
5.I cannot give you growth, or grow for you. You must grow for yourself by facing reality, grim as it may be at times.
6.I cannot take away your loneliness or your pain.
7.I cannot sense your world for you, evaluate your goals for you, tell you what is best for your world; because you have your own world in which you must live.
8.I cannot convince you of the necessity to make the vital decision of choosing the frightening uncertainty of growing over the safe misery of remaining static.
9.I want to be with you and know you as a rich and growing friend; yet I cannot get close to you when you choose not to grow.
10.When I begin to care for you out of pity or when I begin to lose faith in you, then I am inhibiting both for you and for me.
11.You must know and understand my help is conditional. I will be with you and “hang in there” with you so long as I continue to get even the slightest hint that you are still trying to grow.
12.If you can accept this, then perhaps we can help each other to become what God meant us to be, mature adults, leaving childishness forever to the little children of the world.

She instructed me to go home, hang it on my fridge and refer to it often.

When I got sponsee's of my own I photocopied it and passed it on to them. I keep it handy, read it often....mostly to remind me of what my role is as a sponsor.
I walk a very thin line between healthy sponsorship and co-dependancy. I have to guard against that little dastardly trait on a daily basis. I dont always know or see the difference between loving people and holding their hand through this recovery process and loving people right back onto their sickness.
Thank God sponsorship is just another one of the jobs that I dont have to do alone.