Signs of un-sponsor-ability
Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. (Alcoholics Anonymous)
Some people can't be effectively sponsored. They're not bad people, but the behaviours block progress. Sometimes, when the behaviours described below arise, they can be temporarily worked around. However, experience suggests that they are manifestations of an underlying problem, and, unless the underlying problem is solved, they will continue manifesting. Whilst the individual may appear to be inching forward, the effort (on their part and yours, as a sponsor) is hugely disproportionate, and it is questionable whether the destination will ever be reached.
What is the problem? Self-reliance: the individual's continued insistence on using their own ego as their guide, and a deep commitment to protecting the ego's system. Surrender has not taken place. The individual wants to incorporate recovery into the ego's system rather than abandoning the ego's ship altogether.
This cannot be solved from the outside. When the individual surrenders, the problem evaporates. Until then, there might be a lot of activity, and the appearance of progress, but little or nothing is really being achieved.
The signs themselves
Willingness which comes and goes. Super-enthusiastic spurts followed by unexplained disappearances. Over-remorseful and grovelling commitment alternating with evasiveness and elusiveness.
Snide comments, surliness, answering back, blaming the sponsor or other members, alternating with fawning, flattery, and currying favour.
Presenting you, the sponsor, as the only person who can help, and the only person who can get through to them.
Presenting you, the sponsor, as the problem, as the person refusing to help them, and as the one person who does not understand them.
Evidence of special attachment to you, or particular aversion to you.
Attempts to re-initiate the relationship when you terminate it, with various combinations of negotiation, bargaining, promises, accusation, threat, cheeriness, sycophancy, pathos, and a thousand other techniques. The individual will often alternate between these, trying to figure out which one will work.
An inability to take on board input and feedback; perfunctory acceptance of the material without inner surrender; compliance without inner commitment; claiming ignorance, confusion, or non-comprehension when presented with their own behaviour; conversations that go round in circles; denying or twisting what was said or done; returning to and reopening settled points; an inability to follow a train of thought or conversation; complicating or confounding a train of thought by throwing distorted or extraneous material into the discussion.
Responding to boundary-setting with abject and lavish apology, followed by temporary compliance, followed by resumption of the behaviour.
Flipping between self-flagellation, mortification, and extravagant displays of guilt, shame, and self-abasement, on one hand, and denial, blithe insouciance, and martyred innocence, on the other: 'butter wouldn't melt'.
Ostentatious surrender through right action, for a while, but with the sense that they are doing what you have suggested out of a decision to comply without internally recognising its validity. The willingness is a tense, adopted pose, a show of force in an attempt to override their own true wishes, rather than a quiet, meek acceptance of 'going with the [recovery] flow'. This is the schoolchild sitting at the front of the bus with the teacher but with a flick-knife and a vodka bottle hidden in their bag, trying to create a special intimacy with the teacher, whilst lording it over the rest of the children, who are just quietly sitting in their seats, taking the trip, just blending in with the crowd.
The feeling that you're chasing the pig round the farmyard; the feeling that you're trying to pin an eel in a bucket with a blunt pencil.
Reactivity, particularly with justifications, explanations, defences, and statements of good intentions. An inability to just let something be said without reacting verbally.
Playing you, as the sponsor, off against other people, and vice versa. Lying about or misrepresentation of what input they have received from others. Blaming others for their own lack of cooperation or for breakdowns in communication and process.
Evasion of responsibility during the inventory and amends process: re-couching harms in the best possible light; removing items from the Step Eight list without proper sign-off; using extensive contextualisation to distract from the behaviour; minimising in nature or scope; blaming others for eliciting their misbehaviour; blaming others for their reactions to them; couching others' pushback, feedback, boundary-ing etc. as idiosyncratic reactions rather than rare examples of a robust response to inappropriate behaviour.
Physical or verbal aggression; overt or covert attack; indirect attack by attacking your friends, fellows, home group, etc.
# Spotting these signs and how to respond
Most people will display flashes of most of these behaviours at some point. If truth be told, and it is, I have done every single one of the above, often barely aware of what I was doing.
If you spot these signs, point them out and redirect attention. If there is any resistance, pull back, let them think about it, and resume the next day.
If the behaviours escalate, persist, recur, or cause any persistent impediment to progress, terminate the sponsorship, and terminate it now. This cannot be fixed.
'We have tried every imaginable remedy. In some instances there has been brief recovery, followed always by a still worse relapse.'
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