Sponsorship
One thing I find unfortunate in AA sponsorship is the tendency to answer too many situations with slogans, canned lines, or memorized phrases from the Big Book.
Not every sponsee is the same, and not every situation should be handled the same way. One size does not fit all.
A lot of sponsors do this for two reasons. First, they cannot tolerate another person’s emotional pain for very long. They need to shut it down quickly. Whether the pain is distorted, exaggerated, or completely valid is not even the point. The point is that they often cannot stay there with the other person long enough to really understand what is happening.
Second, many just do not know what else to do. So they reach for the same familiar lines again and again, as if every struggle could be solved by the right phrase from the program.
But sponsors are supposed to help from experience, not from memorization. Sponsorship is not supposed to be a recital of slogans or favorite quotations. It is supposed to be grounded in listening, discernment, and lived experience.
What helped one alcoholic will not necessarily help another in the same way. Sometimes what is needed is not a phrase, but the willingness to stay, listen, and understand before speaking.
*Based on 33 years in AA. Organized with ChatGPT.