Pubdate: Mon, 16 Feb 2004
Source: Daily Times, The (TN)
Copyright: 2004 Horvitz Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.thedailytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1455
Author: Steve Wildsmith

CHOOSE YOUR MENTORS WISELY

His name was Chris, and I knew he was shady the first time we talked.

I just didn't know how shady. We went from hanging out and drinking beer to
snorting lines of cocaine in the storeroom of the strip club where he
worked. Not long after that, I was going along with him to drug buys.

Chris didn't make me a drug addict -- I did that myself. But he taught me
how to be a better one.

He taught me how to shoot up, how to walk into a pharmacy and talk them into
selling a bag of clean needles. He showed me how to find a vein, how to cook
it up, what to do if you shot too much. He taught me how to carry myself in
a roomful of dangerous guys with guns and attitude, who'd rather beat you
down and take your money as much as they wanted to sell you dope.

He taught me a lot -- nothing practical that translates into a useful skill
in normal society, but a lot nonetheless.

Every junkie has a Chris, a guy that shows them how to roll a joint, cook up
crack, shoot up heroin. And just like we needed a guy like Chris in our
active addiction, we need a similar sort of mentor once we get into
recovery.

In a 12-step program, that mentor is known as a sponsor. Most people are
only marginally aware of a sponsor's role in recovery, mostly from what they
see in the movies. (Incidentally, the most realistic portrayal of a sponsor
that I've seen was William Hurt's character in the film ``Changing Lanes.'')

And the difference between a guy like Chris and my sponsor in recovery is as
different -- almost literally -- as night and day.

Where Chris was more interested in finding someone he could manipulate,
another pawn in the sick and twisted, chaotic lifestyle of drug addiction,
my sponsor in recovery wants to help me.

He's not a taxi driver, although if I need a ride to a meeting, he's there.
He's not a banker, or a priest, or a doctor. He's just a guy, like me, who's
been in the trenches of addiction and has fought his way out.

Recovery teaches us that, as newcomers, we need to listen and watch. It
encourages us to find someone who has something we want - not material
things, but spiritual and emotional riches: peace of mind, self-esteem,
self-awareness, honesty, open-mindedness, willingness.

That's the basis of the whole recovery process - our literature tells us
that we can only keep what we have by giving it away. Newcomers seek out
those who have been in the program a while as sponsors, and if they stick
with it and grow in recovery, they eventually become sponsors themselves.

Early on, my sponsor told me that being there for me -- giving me advice,
offering suggestions, helping me see things about life and myself that I
couldn't see -- helped him to stay clean. It did as much, if not more, for
him as it did for me, he said. At the time, still struggling to stay clean
and deal with life without the use of drugs, I couldn't fathom how that was
possible. He was a lifesaver, a force of positive energy and goodness and
serenity in my life that was stronger than any of the dark arts Chris taught
me.

Today, as a sponsor myself, I know exactly what he means. The guys that I
sponsor have grown so much in recovery -- and not through anything I've
done. I give all credit to a power greater than all of us, and to the work
they've done. I've merely been on the sidelines, as a coach who repeats what
he's been told by others who came before him.

Recovery teaches us that we never have to be alone, ever again. We spend so
much of our addiction feeling completely and totally cut off from the rest
of the world and from our own hearts. A sponsor is the linchpin of the
recovery process, a guide to helping us find our way again.

Steve Wildsmith is a recovering addict and the Weekend editor for The Daily
Times. His entertainment column and stories appear each Friday in the
Weekend edition. 
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