Q: How do I make best use of a sponsor as a resource?

Sponsors are great and very useful, but they're chiefly there to help me where I cannot help myself.

They're not on-demand podcasts, lecture series, search engines, Wikipedia articles, or chat lines.

There are two types of question posed to sponsors that are not ideal.

These are 'please-do-this-so-I-don't-have-to' questions and 'tell-me-everything-you-know-about' questions.

Examples of 'please-do-this-so-I-don't-have-to' questions.

- What's your definition of [insert term]?

- X happened. Do I owe an amend?

- I'm resentful / fearful / guilty (etc.): what do I do?

- I'm unhappy in general: what's your advice?

Obviously, if the sponsee has not yet been taken through the Steps, these questions can be legitimately answered, at least in broad outline or in the form of a stopgap. Once the sponsee has been taken through the Steps, the job is to process the situation or question using all existing knowledge and resources and then see if there is still a question or problem. Often there is not. If there is, that's a great starting point for a proper discussion.

Examples of 'tell-me-everything-you-know-about' questions:

- Can you tell me about public information work?

- How do you work Steps Ten, Eleven, and Twelve?

- How do you work Steps One through Nine in your life?

- Can you tell me about the Traditions / Concepts?

- How do you set boundaries?

- How to deal with difficult people?

- How do you handle problems?

- How do you sponsor people?

- Can you share your experience, strength, and hope on [insert general topic]?

These aren't bad questions, but the full answer to any of these would involve devising and delivering a lecture series over several weeks or months. There is certainly a lot a sponsor can do to help with these questions, but, again, only once the groundwork has been done, and the sponsee has honed the questions. Before then, these questions are investigated over time by:

- Going to meetings

- Listening to AA recordings

- Reading the Big Book

- Reading other recovery literature

- Reading other service literature

As a general rule, don't ask question where you can answer it yourself by reading the Big Book. That's why they wrote it down. For us to read it.

Once the ground work has done, specific, targeted questions can form the basis for a productive talk.

Rather than asking the sponsor to deliver the content, a great question is this:

- I would like to learn about [Step X, PI work, the Traditions, boundaries]. I am aware of [insert details of resources]. Are there any other resources you can point me towards so I can learn about these for myself?