Rayna…
You are so very kind. Thank you.
It's funny you should ask if I sponsor. I have a big book I bought my first day in the rooms, from the guy that was to become my grand sponsor. In it I keep post-it notes. I have the names and addresses of each guy I have worked with on them.
Names, phone numbers, and any other pertinent info, what step he was on etc.

Sometimes when I look at all those names, I wonder where they are today.
OK, I know where a few of them are. Two of them are dead.
One ODed, and the other one killed himself behind the wheel of a car.
Two tragic tales of waste.
Another guy that I gave a two year medallion to is sitting in jail as I pen this.
There are a bunch of other guys that I just don't know where they are. Somewhere along the line, they just changed their minds.
And there is this one guy, a guy I didn't give much of a chance to in the beginning, who just keeps staying sober month after month.
I am the worst one on guessing who will get it and who won't.

I went to my sponsor and told him that I wasn't having much luck at getting other guys sober, that I thought that I had failed. He looked at me kind of funny and asked if I had had been drinking.
I told him, No!
Then he said, then just how do you think you have failed? You didn't drink.
Sometimes it's just as simple as that.

I really do sometimes wish there was a magic wand that I could wave.
Just magically flip that mental switch in another man's mind that is the spiritual awakening.
I can't get anybody else sober Rayna, I can't even get myself sober.

For me, the magic word is gratitude. I stay grateful for the gifts I have been given.

And every guy I ever sponsored taught me something. Every time I take a guy through the steps, I go through them myself. More will be reveled.

On the road to the good stuff,
Richard S.