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Episode 0023 Sponsorship Relations

Republishing to correct the feed, the wrong episode got attached to the original

Charlie and Nathan sit down to share what it’s really like between a sponsor and a sponsee—pulling from their raw, personal journeys through addiction and recovery. Charlie, who’s been in this game a long time and is as real as they come, lays out why walking someone through the 12 steps matters: it’s about building a relationship with your higher power through honesty, surrender, and actually living the work. Nathan, still early in the process, opens up about the hard hits—alcohol, denial, loss—and how connecting with someone like Charlie, who’s walked the walk, gave him real hope. Their bond is rooted in mutual respect, shared purpose, and spiritual growth. This conversation isn’t polished or sugarcoated—it’s honest, human, and filled with the kind of hope that only comes from people helping each other find their footing in recovery.

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Dianne’s Missives Jun 6

Thought to Consider…

Every recovery from alcoholism began with one sober hour.
“When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.”
Faith dares the soul to go beyond what the eyes can see.
Alcohol gave me wings to fly, and then it took away the sky.
The joy is in the journey, so enjoy the ride.

Humility

STEP FIVE: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
“Another great dividend we may expect from confiding our defects to another human being is humility – a word often misunderstood. To those who have made progress in A.A., it amounts to a clear recognition of what and who we really are, followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could be. Therefore, our first practical move toward humility must consist of recognizing our deficiencies.”

In A.A. we learn that since we are alcoholics, we can be uniquely useful people. That is, we can help other alcoholics when perhaps somebody who has not had our experience with drinking could not help them. That makes us uniquely useful. The A.A.s are a unique group of people because they have taken their own greatest defeat and failure and sickness and used it as a means of helping others. We who have been through the same thing are the ones who can best help other alcoholics.

Four Horsemen

“The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society, from life itself. As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find understanding companionship and approval. Momentarily we did – then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen – Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair.”

“We used to amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs and practices when we might have observed that many spiritually-minded persons of all races, colors, and creeds were demonstrating a degree of stability, happiness and usefulness which we should have sought ourselves. Instead, we looked at the human defects of these people and sometimes used their shortcomings as a basis of wholesale condemnation. We talked of intolerance, while we were intolerant ourselves. We missed the reality and the beauty of the forest because we were diverted by the ugliness of some of its trees. We never gave the spiritual side of life a fair hearing.”

“A.A. is no success story in the ordinary sense of the word. It is a story of suffering transmuted, under grace, into spiritual progress.”

Step Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
“It is plain for everybody to see that each sober A.A. member has been granted a release from this very obstinate and potentially fatal obsession. So in a very complete and literal way, all A.A.’s have ‘become entirely ready’ to have God remove the mania for alcohol from their lives. And God has proceeded to do exactly that. “Having been granted a perfect release from alcoholism, why then shouldn’t we be able to achieve by the same means a perfect release from every other difficulty or defect? This is a riddle of our existence, the full answer to which may be only in the mind of God”.

Dianne

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Dianne’s Missives May 9

Thought to Consider…

“As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.”
I must walk into darkness to find the light and walk into fear to find peace.
The task ahead of us is never as great as the Power behind us.
When a person tries to control their drinking, they have already lost control.

AACRONYMS

F E A R = False Evidence Appearing Real

ST E P S = Solutions To Every Problem in

The A.A. program is one of charity because the real meaning of the word charity is to care enough about other people to really want to help them. To get the full benefit of the program, we must try to help other alcoholics. We may try to help somebody and think we have failed, but the seed we have planted may bear fruit some time. We never know the results even a word of ours might have. But the main thing is to have charity for others, a real desire to help them, whether we succeed or not.

LIGHTING THE DARK PAST

Cling to the thought that, in God’s hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have – the key to life and happiness for others. With it you can avert death and misery for them. No longer is my past an autobiography; it is a reference book to be taken down, opened and shared.

A.A. Thought for the Day

In A.A., we often hear the slogan “Easy Does It.” Alcoholics always do everything to excess. They drink too much. They worry too much. They have too many resentments. They hurt themselves physically and mentally by too much of everything. So, when they come into A.A., they have to learn to take it easy. None of us knows how much longer we have to live. It’s probable that we wouldn’t have lived very long if we had continued to drink the way we used to. By stopping drinking, we have increased our chances of living for a while longer.

Troubles

“So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn’t think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying our own power. We had to have God’s help.”

CLEANING HOUSE

Somehow, being alone with God doesn’t seem as embarrassing as facing up to another person. Until we actually sit down and talk aloud about what we have so long hidden, our willingness to clean house is still largely theoretical.

Control

“Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control AND enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.”
“The HONESTY expressed by the members of A.A. in meetings has the power to open my mind. Nothing can block the flow of energy that HONESTY carries with it. The only obstacle to this flow of energy is inebriation, but even then, no one will find a closed door if he or she has left and chooses to return. Once he or she has received the gift of sobriety, each A.A. member is challenged on a daily basis to accept a program of HONESTY.”
Dianne
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Dianne’s Missives Apr 04

Thought to Consider…

“I am responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of A.A. always to be there. And for that: I am responsible.”

“Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics.”
Trying to pray is praying.

ACRONYMS

S L I P = Sobriety Loses Its Priority

The Past

“Showing others who suffer how we were given help is the very thing which makes life seem so worthwhile to us now. Cling to the thought that, in God’s hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have – the key to life and happiness for others. With it you can avert death and misery for them.”

Life Is Not a Dead End

“When a man or a woman has a spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is that he has now become able to do, feel, and believe that which he could not do before on his unaided strength and resources alone. He has been granted a gift which amounts to a new state of consciousness and being.”

“He has been set on a path which tells him he is really going somewhere, that life is not a dead end, not something to be endured or mastered. In a very real sense he has been transformed, because he has laid hold of a source of strength which he had hitherto denied himself.”

Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence, we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.

“We had to quit playing God. It didn’t work. We decided that hereafter, in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He would be the Principal; we, His agents. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new triumphal arch through which we passed to freedom.”

“The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God’s universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.”

Prayer

“In A.A. we have found that the actual good results of prayer are beyond question. They are matters of knowledge and experience. All those who have persisted have found strength not ordinarily their own. They have found wisdom beyond their usual capability. And they have increasingly found a peace of mind which can stand firm in the face of difficult circumstances.”

Dianne

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Dianne’s Missives Mar 21

Thought to Consider…

Procrastination is really sloth in five syllables.
“The attainment of greater humility is the foundation principle of each of A.A.’s Twelve Steps. For without some degree of humility, no alcoholic can stay sober at all.”
It has been well said that “almost the only scoffers at prayer are those who never tried it enough.”

AACRONYMS

D E N I A L = Don’t Even Notice I Am Lying

We’ve gotten rid of our false, drinking selves and found our real, sober selves. And we turn to God, our Father, for help, just as the Prodigal Son arose and went to his father. At the end of the story, the father of the Prodigal Son says: “He was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.” We alcoholics who have found sobriety in A.A. were certainly dead and are alive again. We were lost and are found

“Thousands of Founders:”

A.A. was not invented! Its basics were brought to us through the experience and wisdom of many great friends. We simply borrowed and adapted their ideas. Thankfully, we have accepted the devoted services of many non-alcoholics. We owe our very lives to the men and women of medicine and religion.

“The attainment of greater humility is the foundation principle of each of A.A.’s Twelve Steps. For without some degree of humility, no alcoholic can stay sober at all. Nearly all A.A.’s have found, too, that unless they develop much more of this precious quality than may be required just for sobriety, they still haven’t much chance of becoming truly happy. Without it, they cannot live to much useful purpose, or, in adversity, be able to summon the faith that can meet any emergency.”

Honesty

“Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.”

Only God Is Unchanging

“Change is the characteristic of all growth. From drinking to sobriety, from dishonesty to honesty, from conflict to serenity, from hate to love, from childish dependence to adult responsibility -all this and infinitely more represent change for the better. Such changes are accomplished by a belief in and a practice of sound principles. Here we must discard bad or ineffective principles in favor of good ones that work. Even good principles can sometimes be displaced by the discovery of still better ones. Only God is unchanging; only He has all the truth there is.”

Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

“‘If I keep on turning my life and my will over to the care of Something or Somebody else, what will become of me? I’ll look like the hole in the doughnut.’ This, of course, is the process by which instinct and logic always seek to bolster egotism and so frustrate spiritual development. The trouble is that this kind of thinking takes no real account of the facts. And the facts seem to be these: The more we become willing to depend upon a Higher Power, the more independent we actually are. Therefore dependence, as A.A. practices it, is really a means to gaining true independence of the spirit.”

Dianne

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