What my sponsee means to me

I never expected to enjoy being a sponsor as much as I do. I’ve been sponsoring her for about six months. She is the first one in my nine years with whom I have really “clicked.” Before I was her sponsor, she had relapsed and come back to us. When I saw her at that first meeting back, we both knew we needed each other. We have been working her steps together ever since. I am confident that she will stay clean (if she continues to listen to me!), and eventually she will sponsor other women. This cycle is one of the most beautiful parts about NA. I am reminded of watching time-lapse photography of a caterpillar changing into a butterfly. It’s one of those true clichés.

She makes me feel like I am a better person than I think I am. She shares her most painful and most inane feelings with me, and I feel honored to be the one she calls. We end up laughing at most things, which is my time-tested method of coping. Laughing works very well for us, in addition to applying the principles of recovery.

We have a lot in common, and I’m not just saying that. When we are reading out of our NA books, we often discover that both of us have underlined the same passages, and we laugh about that, too. We are two young women who have the same difficulties, but I am the one of us who has learned to use the program to live in balance. And, because I am grateful for my life, I share everything I know with her. I am not afraid to let her know that I still get angry and sad and lazy and lonely, but I also let her see how I eventually pull through those feelings and go on to the next victory or disappointment and still stay clean. All the while, we faithfully go to two meetings a week together, talk to newcomers, and give hugs to people.

Having her in my life has added another dimension to my self-concept. I feel more useful to the universe. I am being as useful as I can be, and I am not pretending or denying anything with her. I feel like my particular experiences have unfolded just so that I can help this woman and be her recovery companion. She and I are very similar in our proclivities and our tendencies, and I can see with certainty that she is a delightful, spectacular creature; therefore, so am I! (Who knew?) We are two addicts helping each other see how awesome they really are.

You can read about sponsee/sponsor relationships in our pamphlets and books, but my relationship with my sponsee goes beyond what I have been told to expect from recovery. I am obligated to share my gift with others who are ready. I am so grateful for my life that I am happy to do so. When I help her, my gratitude multiplies. I get a new high from my sponsee; higher and better than I ever thought I could be while still clean. I’m really glad I’ve stayed here long enough to feel this.

Erica R, California, USA

Two letters

March 2006

Dear Editor,
Greetings! Throughout my incarceration, I have had the privilege of access to NA literature, books, meetings, and your publication. I now have two weeks left to serve. I have enclosed my last article to you from prison. I hope it meets your criteria for publishing, but if it doesn’t, at least it helped me to write it.

Please start sending my subscription to my home address. I thank you for sending me The NA Way Magazine free for these last four years of my recovery. The magazine certainly helped me grow, and it brought me comfort through the many contributors during a time in my life when I needed you the most. Mere words cannot express my gratitude. “Thank you” just seems too inadequate. I am truly grateful to have been exposed to NA and The NA Way Magazine. May the God of your understanding continue to bless every one of you in all that you do. I carry you in my heart, thoughts, and prayers.

Gratefully yours,
Michael T, Virginia, USA

April 2006

Dear Editor,
Greetings! It is 9:00 am on 3 April 2006. I was released from prison after serving a seven-year sentence to arrive home and open your letter to me dated 24 March 2006. Enclosed is a signed release form for the article I sent in March.

I am writing to you while sitting at my kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee. For the first time in a long time, it’s not instant coffee! My family is still asleep and the house is extremely quiet. I haven’t been in complete silence in years and, to be honest with you, it is a little unsettling in a cool sort of way.

Tonight I am going to attend my first NA meeting in the free world, with my sponsor. Thanks to NA and the God of my understanding, I feel I have a better-than-average life ahead of me.

I will continue to write to The NA Way because it is very therapeutic for me and I want other inmates to know that, as long as they embrace NA and work the steps, they can get out and lead a wonderful and productive life.

With warmest regards,
 Michael T, Virginia, USA

Only the weak can cry

When I was a child, I cried if I wanted to gain something from my parents. When I grew older, I learned the same as everyone else around me: that only the weak can cry.

Later, during my drug abuse, when I got to the point of total despair, I cried and wished this whole thing would be over so that I could die. I grew thinner, I was beaten, and I abased myself; but I didn’t die. I thought that no one would understand what had happened to me, and I would never be able to digest the things that had happened to me. I didn’t think I could ever cry again. I became tough, and according to many, I was like a savage in the early years of my recovery—a savage who cannot and does not want to use drugs, and only hopes in his deepest soul that somewhere in the world a happier life exists. A savage from whom human feelings are very far, but who, deep in his heart, really wishes to feel them.

Then I found NA, and NA found me. My life improved and my lost dreams awoke. I trusted again. In recovery, I found friends, which I never thought I would be able to do. A wonderful period had begun. I fell in love with a girl, with whom I have lived together since then, and she is also in the program. Once, when I was telling her about my past pains, I started to cry. More exactly, I wanted to cry, but something was in my way. It was that belief that got in my way—that only the weak can cry.

Last autumn, I realized the dream of my life and went to the World Convention of NA in Honolulu. It was wonderful. It was the most beautiful and, at the same time, most difficult experience of my life, because my girlfriend and I fell out with each other and she didn’t come with me. When I was riding a motorbike by the ocean, I thought to myself that, five years earlier, I had lived on the streets, and now I could be here. I felt like crying again, but I still couldn’t. Only the weak can cry.

A few days ago we celebrated the sixth anniversary of the NA community in my town, Pécs. A speaker who is kind to me spoke about how NA was formed in Pécs six years ago. Something started in me then. I cried—no, I sobbed—for the first time in many, many years. It was a fantastic experience to allow the suppressed feelings of many years to break out from me. It was fantastic to realize, while I was sobbing, that NA had saved my life. At last, it could happen to me.

From now on, I can be weak also—and, you know, only the weak can cry.

Feri S, Csongrad, Hungary

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