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August 1985

The kind of question I like to hear from a newcomer is “What’s a sponsor?” It shows he’s been listening, and I am happy to respond. Secretly, I hope he thinks he already knows the answer and is introducing the subject in order to find out if I am willing to become his sponsor.

My own sponsor has a good way of putting things. His definition: “A person whose opinions you have learned to trust; someone whose advice you know you are going to follow before you get there to state the problem.”

It was a twelfth-stepper, rather than a sponsor, who first brought me to AA, from a psycho unit. I didn’t consider myself “one of those alcoholics.” Even if I was, I was certainly too intelligent to need a sponsor. Besides, I had no intention of continuing with AA; I was only checking it out to keep my psychiatrist happy. I had discovered that happiness on a psycho unit is having a happy psychiatrist.

I didn’t ask anyone to be my sponsor until the men’s stag group got after me for thinking myself too highbrow to need one. Since then, I have had absolutely fabulous experiences both in having a sponsor and in being a sponsor to others. I’m not sure which has been of greater value and have no intention of giving up either.

Who should have a sponsor? Our group thinks everyone should. Since we are all equal, how could it be otherwise? Obviously, persons new to the program need more frequent contact with their sponsors than those with years of happy sobriety, but we all need a confidant.

Since the Big Book doesn’t have a chapter on sponsorship etiquette, we just pick up ideas as we go along. The most important considerations about a sponsor are: to have one, to use one, and when asked, to agree to be one.

There isn’t any single “right” answer to the question “What’s a sponsor?” But an entirely appropriate answer to the question “Will you be my sponsor?” is “Sure! Let’s have some coffee and talk about it.”

P. O.

Claremont, California