I agree finding the right sponsor is so critical. I've had three. My first sponsor had long term sobriety and like me also had a mental illness, so we connected on a lot of levels. She was incredibly supportive of me in my first year of sobriety, but it turned out that she had never worked the steps, so couldn't guide me through them. My second sponsor was another woman with long term sobriety, who did help me get through working the steps - at least through4 & 5, but we parted ways when she couldn't understand why I kept relapsing (fair enough) but she tried to push her view of Christianity on me, which I didn't think was reasonable. My current sponsor is an amazing woman. Demographically we're about as different as you can get. She's younger than me, a single Mom with 4 kids, on welfare, but she has a great recovery. She helps me every time I talk to her. I picked her because of the change I'd seen in her. I first met her in AA about 5 years ago, when I was right out of the psych hospital and she was 5 years sober, but man was she angry - scowling all the time, I was kind of scared ofher. Flash forward a few years and I went back to her group when I needed a new home group, and she was a totally different person - relaxed, smiling, happy all as a result of doing the steps. I thought that's the recovery I want. She's been taking me through the steps using the NA step guide, which I really like, and she's helped me immensely. She just celebrated 10 years.

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