When I was using, I did
not manufacture or otherwise produce my own alcohol or drugs. I became addicted to these chemical poisons after I got them from some person, my “connection,” who was holding the drug and offered
it for sale. Moreover, I had more than one connection to the drug just to play it safe - and I was never out of my drug of choice.
I never started out in my using career to become addicted. I knew literally nothing
about the alcohol or drugs I was exposed to – starting at about 19 years old – and
had to learn from my connection how to procure and even use the drugs I
took. Becoming an addict or alcoholic is somewhat of a learned behavior in addition
to a biological disease, and I learned how to be a drunk and an addict from my all too willing connections.
The parallel of this process for recovery is amazingly strong. I was actively addicted to alcohol and other drugs, and eventually knew how to be good at using them, but I had a very poor sense when I first put them down of
what it takes to be in recovery. Many rumors
persist among fellow active users about what it takes to be in recovery, but, in fact, this is the blind literally leading the blind about recovery and how
to achieve it. I, like many people, knew or understood little about the recovery process despite the fact I had been abstinent a few times before finally getting clean and sober. I needed to learn
about how to maintain abstinence and move into the world of recovery.
In the beginning it soon became clear that, in order to make a move to recovery, I needed a new "connection." I literally needed to have someone to whom I could go to “procure” my sobriety. And, in recovery, like in active addiction, I frequently needed more than one person to whom I could go to get that sobriety.
In Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) there is a built-in system of
providing newcomers with a new connection. It’s called the sponsorship system.
Here, just like in the active addiction world, there is a person to whom a
newly recovering person can go to procure some recovery. Usually this sponsor
is someone who is “holding” the same type of recovery that the recovering person wants…higher-level spirituality, serenity, peace of mind, hard-core instruction
in maintaining abstinence, or detailed instruction on how to behave. The
sponsor is also the connecting link to the world of recovery made up of
other people in recovery, meetings where people go to congregate and learning
about recovery, and literature that can be read to fortify commitment to
recovery.
My first sponsor, a crust old guy named Don from West Palm Beach FL, taught me a lot in those early days about how to find recovery through daily abstinence...he literally saved my life. Two others along the way...Sal and Marcellus...were my connections to recovery.
There were other people that I have used as connections outside of AA. Priests, ministers, and even a rabbi often served as a connection to recovery by providing religious and spiritual refuge when I felt particularly vulnerable. Churches, temples, and a Zen Buddhist center often provided the social
setting where people who were offering recovery would congregate, and I would associate with them to form new connections, meaningful relationships and enjoy the fellowship.
Regardless of the source, as a newly recovering person, I needed to realize that I knew very little about the recovery process in the beginning,
and that there were people in the world who did. Just like in the days of my active
use where I needed to seek out expert help in order to know what and how to
use alcohol or other drugs, so too do I now need to
reach out to others to find the ways and means to remain clean and sober.
Without that process, there is little chance that I
will invent a system to work any better than the one that is already widely used to
maintain recovery for millions of people.
I think of this today as I feel the deep craving for peace of mind and the strength to fulfill my Higher Power's will for me in this world. I am without a sponsor right now and this is deeply troubling to me. I was taught I cannot do recovery alone, and I have the continuous need to reach out to new connections to make sense about what I am doing in my daily life. I don't have that now. Without a positive connection I am very much lost to the unpredictable negative forces that would drag me back to those old connections that were killing me. So, I am on an active search for a sponsor to ensure that I actually have a life to live.
I'm sure I'll find one But, in the meantime, I have to follow the lead of my other recovery connections and, as they say in Narcotics Anonymous, "So long as I follow that way, I have nothing to fear."
All the best,
Roger W.
