Sponsorship – Experience, Strength and Hope

This section is for people who wish to sponsor -or who are currently sponsoring- and would like to share resources and ideas.

For those new to sponsorship, or uncertain about if they are ready to sponsor, we encourage you to find out more about sponsorship and the tools available.  Most importantly, it is common for members to look within themselves to discern their readiness to sponsor and to seek guidance.  We turn to our Higher Power and often to our own sponsor to guide us in this decision making process. Chances are, you are more ready than you know.

For those members who have sponsored, we seek your submissions for other CoDA sponsors, especially for the members who are hesitant to step into sponsorship.

• Experience, Strength and Hope:  What has worked for you as a sponsor?
• Service for Sponsorship: How can you encourage sponsorship in your group or region?
• Resources: Are there resources for assisting a sponsee with stepwork, for example, that you wish to share? Please submit below.

Healthy Boundaries in Sponsorship: (adapted from Sponsorship Booklet)

To be effective, CoDA sponsorship depends on the maintenance of healthy boundaries on control issues such as advice-giving, caretaking, and rescuing. We can think of sponsorship as a three-way partnership for recovery, one that includes a Higher Power, a sponsor, and the person to be sponsored. We can choose the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions as guiding principles in this new relationship.

Sharing with a sponsor gives sponsees a new perspective about the way they have been treated by others. At the same time, they have the chance to learn what it is about our behavior that creates problems in relationships. Giving feedback as sponsors, we work on developing the skills to be honest without advising, lecturing, or engaging in codependent communication behaviors.

Recovery from codependence cannot be done alone. It is important for sponsees to have someone who will point out codependent behavior when asked and who can share their own experience, strength, and hope in recovery. As sponsors, this relationship allows us to practice our recovery skills and often reminds us of where we have been and where we are now. It is service to one another, as well as to the CoDA program as a whole.

(Adapted from Co-Dependents Anonymous and “Sponsorship: What’s in It for me?” )

On a practical level, some things you may want to establish include:

• Setting a regular meeting time for check-ins and Stepwork
• Clear communication expectations (who calls who, length of meeting time, etc.)
• What format you suggest for working the Steps?
• What your availability is outside of the planned meeting time (e.g. can your sponsee call you at other times? If so, are there times you cannot be called?)
• If temporary sponsorship, establish a time to renegotiate the arrangement.  Will you check in after a month of working together? Six months? Or, is the sponsee looking for a permanent sponsor?

Please remember that to be a sponsor does not mean that you are perfect or work a “perfect program.” It is part of living the Twelfth Step that we give back what we have been given, so that we continue to receive the gifts of the program.

RESOURCES:  Please click on the following areas for additional resources and materials, if available:

FEEDBACK & SUBMISSIONS FOR THIS PAGE:  The Outreach Resource Guide (ORG) is a work in progress which depends on contributions from you, our fellowship members. Please submit suggestions and materials by going to the Submissions page for further instructions.