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Hi I have been with my sponsor for about 3 months.know her a year We have a had a great trusting relationship, She called me from where she was visiting about 30 mains from here and was visiting her family. Her mom still smokes crack boyfriend smokes weed and her old using buddy just got arrested but still uses coke , she was at a party with all these people .drug transaction etc. told me she can be around this? She told me all this and then when my reaction was jaded she said now i know you are a true friend?? I feel confused, and the ex boyfriend she supposedly fled from with her 3 kids because he was an abuser and drug dealer they writing letters to each other. Oh my Gosh i think wow i really thought we knew each other. I felt we were close i just did my the 5th step and we are Christians. I feel betrayed and like i didn't know her at all. One foot in the program one in the toxicity she keeps My sobriety is number one and no body is getting between that. my feelings on drugs is i despise the drug dealers with there greedy and there responsibly to spill and sell there poisons'. I am a recovered crack addict and alcoholic. Please help me with sorting this out. Thanks Alex
Greetings to you, Alex.
First, please consider this as an overall context:
“Assuming we are spiritually fit, we can do all sorts of things alcoholics are [allegedly] not supposed to do. People have said we must not go where liquor is served; we must not have it in our homes; we must shun friends who drink; we must avoid moving pictures which show drinking scenes; we must not go into bars; our friends must hide their bottles if we go to their houses; we mustn't think or be reminded about alcohol at all. Our experience shows that this is not necessarily so.
“We meet these conditions every day. An alcoholic who cannot meet them, still has an alcoholic mind; there is something the matter with his spiritual status.” (“A.A.”, the book, pages 100-101)
Concerning your sponsor, you have written:
>> Her mom still smokes crack boyfriend smokes weed and her old using buddy just got arrested but still uses coke, she was at a party with all these people .drug transaction etc. told me she can be around this?
Being around sick people does not prove something is wrong with your sponsor.
>> She told me all this and then when my reaction was jaded she said now i know you are a true friend??
Maybe you know what your sponsor meant by that, but I do not.
>> I feel confused, and the ex boyfriend ... they writing letters to each other.
Communicating with sick people does not prove something is wrong with your sponsor.
>> i really thought we knew each other.
Not knowing all the details of your sponsor’s life does not mean the two of you do not know each other.
>> One foot in the program one in the toxicity she keeps
Are you absolutely certain that is what she is actually doing? If so, you might want to let her know of your concern for her well-being.
>> my feelings on drugs is i despise the drug dealers with there greedy and there responsibly to spill and sell there poisons' ...
>> Please help me with sorting this out.
This world is a sick place full of sick people, and despising even the most vile among them is not helpful to anyone. So, make your best effort at shifting your focus to “constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs.” (“A.A.”, the book, page 20) Our very lives depend upon doing that.
Please know you are always welcomed to write.
Joseph Lee O.
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Answers by Expert:
Joseph Lee O.
Expertise
Greetings to you! Amidst the insufficiency of all the philosophical, religious and “self-help” approaches to relief from chronic alcoholism, I have personally experienced the content of “Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book. Thus, I can now explain at least the essence of the physical, mental and emotional aspects of an alcoholic's inherent condition and plight, and I can show why a spiritual solution is required and how it works and how to attain one.
Experience
The oldest of four boys, I grew up in a religious, Midwestern-USA family. Unable to decline a friendly offer in a social setting, I had "no effective mental defense against the first drink" ("Alcoholics Anonymous", the book, page 43), and took my very first drink ever at age 24 ... and within minutes I had become obsessed with getting more of the effect that glass of homemade wine had given me. Alcohol had just done something *for* me that nothing else had ever done; it had seemingly "fixed" something inside me I had not even known was broken.
Over the next seven years of my life, I "drank up" just about everything and everyone ever meaning much to me at all, and I eventually abandoned my young family so I could drink and smoke pot at will. For, you see, alcohol was giving me a good-to-go feeling about life and a sense of control I had never before had, and at least in the early days of my drinking it could kill just about any pain that came along.
At age 31, however, circumstances and consequences had piled up all around me in ways that were making it obvious I could not continue on much longer. Life had become too tough, my pains had grown too great and the dangers of continuing to drink had become too undeniable for me to be able to continue believing I might ultimately survive an inescapable drop to the bottom of the pit. I still wanted to be able to drink safely as in days past, but something had seemingly "taken over" my drinking and was dragging me completely out-of-control after just one drink. So, and even while completely overwhelmed by the thought of facing life alcohol-free, I decided to stop drinking altogether ... and I quickly discovered I could not. No matter what I said, thought or did even just "one day at a time", I always ended up drinking once again. Where I wanted to drink safely, I could not, and neither could I remain abstinent for very long at all ... and such is the physical "allergy" (where one drink takes another) coupled with alcoholism’s mental-emotional obsession for the effect of alcohol ...
... but then I met a small group of people who personally understood my deadly dilemma - my complete personal powerlessness - and those same folks were quite able to propose a permanent solution. I accepted, of course, and today it is as if I "could not drink even if [I] would" ("Alcoholics Anonymous", the book, page 57), and for that I now remain unendingly grateful.
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