Okay, I am going to share my experience with how to “fire a sponsor.” So I found it necessary to move on a couple of times and I had a sponsor showed me how to drop a sponsor. I told this man the stuff about the six step, and that my spirit my character defects were all self centered and they pushed God out. He told me that God was to be in the center and all that stuff. That’s a gift from my from my fourth sponsor, who I had to drop. He’s the most spiritual man I ever expect to know. But he was unavailable. I was in the middle of a divorce this and I just couldn’t get a hold of him. I called him on a Friday afternoon to tell him I’d asked another man to sponsor me. I left a message on his machine and it was the following Tuesday afternoon when he got back to me.
Again, I’m not saying anything negative about him. His life was so full he didn’t have time to give me what I needed at that point. I moved on from one of the most spiritual men I ever expect to meet and the way I moved on was I said, “thank you.” Thank you for all the time you’ve spent with me. Thank you for all you’ve given me. Thank you for all I’ve learned. Thank you. It’s only fair for me to tell you that I’ve asked someone else to sponsor me. If he had asked me any questions, I would have answered them. I was dropped twice a few years back by a man I’m still very close to. He has been sober 12 years but it just was not working out because I’m out of town so much. For all the people who have moved on from me, they felt that they needed more than what I could give them. And they go with my blessing. I think if I ever get dropped by somebody and I’m angry about it, I’m probably in trouble and don’t know it, because it means my ego is tied up in what’s going on here.
I tell people, “If you need to move on, what you do is you to thank them thank them profusely and thank them some more. If they become angry with you, the one thing you’ll know for sure, is that you moving on is the right thing for you to do.” That’s one of the things that I learned from a fellow named Don, who is now gone. He died when I was only sober about 11 years, actually a little under 11, and I needed a sponsor. I mean, I guarantee you a little under 11 years ain’t enough to be out loose. No way. And the five sponsors I had at that point were the most most unusual group of men. I thought, “I know I need a sponsor,” and Don had been terminal for a long time.
But I was not even looking for my next one, and I’m figuring he’s got to live forever. Talk about a guy that carried the message, and so I asked myself this question, “What were the common characteristics that these five men had even though they were were so different?”
Note: This is truly an incredibly powerful workshops that covers so many topics and answers so many questions that many people in recovery have. One of the things that is great about this talk is that Scott tackles topics that you normally do not hear at meetings, yet most people in recovery have experienced in their sobriety. It is truly a joy to hear this talk and it will lift you up and touch your heart!
