In my CoDA experience: newcomers reaching out, means I’m working with a newcomer which is service and leads to me getting outside myself for half a second and having a daily reminder that I need CoDA more than I realize. It can’t bother me because as a sponsor I have developed boundaries: when I am unfit/unavailable physically or mentally I will not answer/respond. When I was a newcomer my sponsors asked me just reach out anyways, leave a message, text me and I’ll get back to I as soon as I can; turns out it was still effective.

Now on the length. I’ve had many sponsees including myself attempt to write responses/assignments like they are book reports. I had to be strongly discouraged from writing more than was asked for. So now I ask all my CoDA sponsees to be very mindful of the length of responses (not because I’m bored or bothered but because it’s not sustainable, Step work is rigorous where it needs to be). Sustainable is good because this isn’t a flash in the pan. So when I wrote my assignments or answered the questions in the workbook all I was told all I needed were two sentences of reflecting. No need to win the prize, get an “A” or impress my sponsor. My sponsor told me “I will not ask you to do something I have not done”. Also, concise is hard… communication is hard period. But I find that it’s important practice for meetings (when trying to keep my share to 3 minutes and still get my point across) and also for all Step work. This is a spiritual program, at the end of the day I can’t work myself into a state of peace and serenity; tried that out, didn’t work. Also, I can’t earn my sponsors love or higher power love… it’s given freely not earned.

Anonymous 5/23/2023