12 Step Family

As a parent or spouse or sister, there will be times when the active addict in your life will do things that worry or upset you. Maybe that’s already happened in your life. Chances are, if you are reading this blog, it has.

So, what do you do? Do you react, with every worried bone in your body, yelling, screaming, nagging? Do you give your addict the silent treatment, filled with judgment and fear?
Or do you respond, taking a moment to breathe, slowly and deeply, remembering your recovery principles, and simply treating the behavior with curiosity, interest, and care, non-judgmentally?

Recovery is about completely changing the way we view the activities and occurrences of others. It is about, first of all, keeping the focus on ourselves, and not searching for all of their inappropriate behaviors. It is about, second of all, knowing that their journey is theirs and theirs alone, not to be tampered with or manipulated by us. It is about, third of all, being willing to be a mirror of what we are seeing and hearing back to them, so that they have an objective third party in their life who is aware of what they are doing and is willing to play it back to them so they can choose what they want to do about it.

Recovery is, in other words, not about prying, controlling, fixing or abandoning. It is about detaching lovingly. It is about understanding that the addicts in our lives are not our appendages; what they do is not a reflection of us; what we do is not a reflection of them. It is about understanding that the uncertainty that their addiction forces us to face is actually a gift; that all people face uncertainty. It’s just that those of us affected by addiction see it more clearly due to the presence of the disease of addiction in our lives. It’s about using that understanding of life’s uncertainty to grow in present moment awareness and appreciation, living one day at a time, one hour at a time, one moment at a time, more and more each day!

So, what do you do when you get “bad news” about your loved one’s addiction related behaviors?

How about trying this:

1. Pause and breathe (self care)
2. Understand that this behavior may help him or her reach a bottom that will ultimately help him or her move toward wellness, so don’t jump in and fix it. (be a loving person; set boundaries)
3. Send him or her a prayer. (get support)
4. If you are with them when you find out, tell them how much you love them and listen to whatever they have to say without getting ‘sucked into’ their lies, and at the same time without judgment.(be a loving person)
5. If given the opportunity, share what you know about what went on (just the facts, ma’am) and then let go and let them figure out what to do with the information. (be a loving person – be a mirror)
6. Put the focus back on yourself. Your own life, your own faults, your own areas of growth, your own deadlines, your own responsibilities. (self care)
7. Get to a support group meeting, call your sponsor, or call your family recovery coach (get support).

The Four Foundations of Family Recovery (self care, being a loving person, setting boundaries, getting support) work! Join me for a preview of my 6 week Four Foundations Teleseminar this coming Monday, August 30th, from 3-4 PM ET! Email me with your name, email address, and phone number at recoverycoachbev@theempowermentcoach.net for the phone number and access code of the call.

Looking forward to seeing you then!

All the best,

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA, CEC
Family Recovery Coach
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.12stepfamily.com
www.fourfoundations.blogspot.com
www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com
786 859 4050

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Addiction does not respect socio-economic level, religion, ethnicity, race or gender. An equal opportunity disease, its impoverishes everyone it affects, only not all in the same way. This was brought home to me last night when my teacher Gloria Ramirez (coach extraordinaire), shared a list she’d found of Napoleon Hill’s. Take a look and then let’s talk:

Napolean Hill’s findings on what constitutes enduring riches:
1. Positive Mental Attitude
2. Sound Physical Health
3. Harmony in Human Relationships
4. Freedom from Fear
5. The Hope of Future Achievements
6. The Capacity for Applied Faith
7. Willingness to Share One’s Blessings with Others
8. To Be Engaged in the Labor of Love
9. An Open Mind to All Subjects toward All People
10. Complete Self Discipline
11. Wisdom for which to Understand People
12. Financial Security

In looking over the ranked list, it became immediately clear to me that in the mind of one of the great prosperity teachers of the 20th century, financial security, while one of the factors, fell all the way at the bottom of the list of what real abundance is.

In fact, the first four or five on the list, which Hill considered the most important components of enduring riches, are where families hit by addiction are often hit the hardest. When addiction comes knocking, one’s mental attitude, physical health, relationships, courage, and hope for the future are often hit hardest. At that point, money can help, but not insure, success.

And that’s where the need for recovery comes in. Recovery is the breath of fresh air designed to restore the enduring riches Hill talks about, potentially all of them, in time.

Beginning with self-care, moving through the work of being a loving person and setting boundaries, and getting the support along the way to persist to the true richness of life that recovery promises, is the work that the four foundations helps us achieve.

Moving into the 12 steps of recovery, the potential depth of inner growth can be enormous. Sanity is restored, surrender to faith in a Higher Power of one’s individual understanding is achieved, inner housecleaning is taken care of, amends are made, relationships renewed and selfless service to others becomes a way of life.

Enduring riches, those that go well beyond monetary reward, these are the ones we seek, whether we come to the program in clothing from the Salvation Army or Nieman Marcus. And, the beauty of the recovery journey is, we all walk it together, hand in hand, regardless of our origins of birth or social standing. The miracle of recovery is in its universal gifts of inner peace, healed relationships with self and others and spiritual connection. In these times when so many look for money to solve their problems, recovery does not say money is not valuable or important, it simply says, put recovery first and all else, money, among them will follow.

This coming Monday afternoon, August 30th, please join me for a free preview call on my upcoming 6 week teleseminar the Four Foundations of Family Recovery: Simple Ideas to Transform Chaos to Sanity. From 3-4 PM ET, we will look at the underlying principles that can make recovery work for you, the family member and learn at least one method of restoring the calm and sanity into your life whether your addict is still using or not.

To sign up for the preview call, email me at recoverycoachbev@theempowermentcoach.net with your name, email address and phone number. I’ll respond with the phone number and access code for the call.

Until then

All the best,

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA, CEC
Family Recovery Coach
786 859 4050
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.12stepfamily.com
http:fourfoundation.blogspot.com
www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com

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Ever have to deal with mean, verbally abusive language from your addicted loved ones? If so, you know how difficult it can be to cope with! As we have discussed before, using The Four Foundations of Family Recovery, namely: self care, being a loving person, setting boundaries, and getting support, can really help when things get difficult. In fact, these simple ideas can give you a framework to deal with any situation involving chaos, dysfunction or other negative behavior in your life. Here are some questions you can ask yourself as you consider how to implement each of these principles in your life:

1. Self care: What am I doing to nurture myself physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually in the midst of all this turmoil? What about this situation is distracting me from my own self care and what do I need to do to bring the focus back to myself?

2. Being a loving person: How can I be a loving person to myself in this situation? What would help me to detach from the addict and his/her behavior? How can I be there for my child in a loving way throughout all of this? In what ways does my escalating the emotional temperature of the relationship with the addict help improve the situation for my child and family’s sake and in what ways might it make things more difficult for him/her? What could I do that would lower that temperature while still taking care of myself and protecting my family from any harm? How might the willingness to blame the addiction and forgive the addict in this situation help me to treat him or her more lovingly? Am I willing to observe the addict’s behavior and describe it to him later, non-judgmentally, when things are calmer and he/she is sober?

3.Setting boundaries: What types of boundaries do I need to set in this situation that will make my life better, as well as that of my children/family? How can I go about setting them, in a loving yet effective way, without neglecting my own self care, my own inner peace?

4. Getting support: Dealing with this type of a situation is right up Alanon or Naranon or CODA’s alley. Are any of those programs ones I frequent either in person or on the phone? If so, do I have a sponsor? Am I willing to work the steps in terms of my own relationships with others, which these programs can help me do? And/or do I have a therapist, family recovery coach or other helping professional to help me get through this and move forward effectively with my life? Getting support can be so important as it can provide the inner power necessary to implement the other foundations.

Regardless of which foundation you activate first, do your best to keep calm in order to assure you don’t make things worse in the process of dealing with the situation.

If these foundations sound worth pursuing, I’d be happy to speak with you further about how you could use them to take a positive leap of growth in your relationships with the addicts and/or other dysfunctional people and relationships in your life.

You can call me at 786 859 4050 for a complimentary famly recovery coaching session or email me at recoverycoachbev@theempowermentcoach.net .

You are also welcome to join me on a free preview call for my upcoming course on The Four Foundations of Family Recovery: Simple Ideas to Transform Chaos to Sanity.

The preview call will take place on Monday, August 30th at 3 PM ET. Call or email me to reserve a space and get the phone number and access code for the call.

You deserve to be free of the insanity that addiction brings! There are so many ways to approach it! If I can be of any help, let me know!

All the best,

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA, CEC
Family Recovery Coach
Author of the forthcoming book The Four Foundations of Family Recovery: Simple Ideas to Transform Chaos to Sanity
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.12stepfamily.com
www.fourfoundations.blogspot.com
www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com
786 859 4050

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One of the challenges many families plagued by addiction face is that at least one if not more of their children struggle in school. Although many other families face this as well, in a family where there one of the parents is addicted, this can be especially difficult. In this situation, things can go a few different ways.

In each case of family addiction, school challenges will be dealt with in their own way. Here are a few possibilities:
1. The family energy is totally consumed with one of the parents, so there may be little energy left to even notice, let alone attend, to the child’s issues. In this case, it may be swept under the rug, minimized, or even ignored. This is not malicious on the parents’ part of course, though it could be seen as neglect, and could really be felt this way by the child.

2. The child’s problems at school could be seen as a welcome diversion for one or both parents, who dive into solving the problem, researching and really helping their child move through their academic issues while ignoring how the addiction could be impacting the child at school

3. The family, still using this as a diversion, could go full force at the school, sometimes blaming the institution and defending and enabling their child rather than finding out what is going on and dealing with it head on

4. Some families just see their child as wrong and may simply blame and berate their child for their lack of success, without looking any deeper to help their child find solutions for their lack of school success.

Of course, it is important for the sober parent to work hard to break through the blanket of denial that often overwhelms families who are dealing with active addiction so that the child can get the help they need, yet it is clear how difficult this can be.

What might happen if families affected by addiction are willing to look at how what is going on at home may be impacting what is happening to their child at school? This of course, is one of the most difficult things to do, and yet, when done courageously, the results can help not only the struggling child but the entire family! Children of addicts and alcoholics face a barrage of challenges in their lives. Being raised in a family where one or more parents has the disease of addiction can mean that their needs are put on the back burner more often than not or that their needs are showcased as a diversion for underlying problems not being faced in the family head-on. When something is brought to the surface about a child’s struggles, the family member who is most coherent, has the opportunity to face both with the child’s needs and the greater family issues as a result.

In actuality, a child’s school struggles offer a family many gifts. Among those gifts are the opportunity to help a child find their best learning style and learning setting, the opportunity to see a child as more than their performance in school, and the opportunity to help the family take a mirror to what in the family is going on that is affecting the child’s learning.

When the addict and the person struggling in school are one and the same person, the situation is further complicated. Knowing when the help you are giving your struggling teen is true help and when it is enabling is a challenge for any parent. When addiction is present, or suspicion of addiction, denial can get in the way and really muddy up the waters.

This is one of those times when foundation #4: Getting Support, can really help! As a former teacher and school principal, I often help my family recovery clients deal with the issues facing their children in school, along with their own issues of family recovery. Focusing on the challenge along with the gifts that the challenge brings, provides a perspective that can be quite helpful to the process. If it would help you to have a coach who can be there for you in both areas, the addiction in your family and your child’s school struggles, give me a call and let’s talk. I’ll be happy to offer you a complimentary consult to see if my services would be best for you and your family.

In the meantime, join me on Monday, August 30 at 3 PM ET for a preview call in which I will introduce and describe my upcoming Four Foundations of Family RecoveryTeleseminar which will take place from 3-4 PM ET Sept 13-Oct 18. Stay tuned for more information or drop me an email for the details at bbuncher@theempowermentcoach.net .

Til Then I remain,

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA, CEC
Family Recovery Coach
786 859 4050
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com
www.12stepfamily.com
www.fourfoundations.blogspot.com
www.intherooms.com

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One of the most difficult things for many parents to do is to stand by and watch one of their children struggle without offering help. And yet, often this is what parents are called to do. Sometimes, allowing another person to work through their own challenges is absolutely the most loving thing a parent can do for their child, particularly but not only when, that child is an adult.

So, knowing this, why is it so difficult?
Lots of reasons come to your mind. For instance, you may say you cannot do so because:
1. “I’m a caring person.”
2. “If I can help, why shouldn’t I?”
3. “Helping is the loving thing to do.”
4. “It’s wrong not to help.”

I could keep going but you get the picture. So, let’s look at each of these:
1. I am a caring person!Saying that you are a caring person so you must help is like saying that you can see so you must act on everything you see. It is just not true. With care, as with vision, comes discrimination. There are some things you must act on and others you must be aware of and feel, but allow to take their own course. The reason for this is that sometimes the caring thing to do is to allow another person to grow into their own ability to solve their own problems.

2. If I can help, why shouldn’t I?Just because you can help doesn’t mean you should help. If you do so indiscriminately, you may keep your child (regardless of their age) from learning the lessons they must learn to be able to handle life when you are no longer around. It is your job to help your child do the things he/she cannot do, to teach them how to do them and then to let go and allow them to practice doing those things. They may fail. They will learn from those failures and do better next time – but not if you fix things each time!

3.Helping is the loving thing to do! It is not loving to fix things and overhelp your child! It’s actually very selfish. It is difficult to stand back and allow them to live their own life and learn their own lessons, especially when those lessons involve drugs and alcohol or other behaviors the mishandling of which can seriously change the course of their lives. But at a certain point, it is their job to figure their life out. You need to figure your own life out and mind your own business. That is the more loving thing to do at times. And learning when to fix and when to let go is one of the major tasks of a person in family recovery.

4. It’s wrong not to help! It’s not wrong not to help. Every time you give money, or pay a bill, or take care of necessities for a grown addict who could be paying their own bills and taking care of their own responsibilities, you are making it easier for your loved one to get drugs and alcohol. In such cases, you may be contributing to their early demise…
So, your job is actually to watch and to willingly, if nervously, stand back. To detach lovingly from another person’s difficulties and allow them to make the mistakes that will allow them to learn their life lessons. And if it begins feeling like your heart is being ripped out to do so, tend to your own heart. Realize that these feelings are more about you and your ability to handle life on life’s terms than they are about anything else.

Being a relative of an addicted person is challenging. It is also a magnificent opportunity for growth. Do you have some personal triumphs in the area of letting your loved one grow up without your over-interference? Share them in the comments box below.

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Being related to an addict who is actively using can be like waiting for the pot to boil. You keep hoping and praying that this person you love will wake up and get their life together. You watch, you wait, you watch some more. And the more you watch and the more you wait, the more it doesn’t happen. And you talk to the person and you try reasoning with him and you yell at her and you plead with him and you nag her. But none of it works… Still, the pot doesn’t boil.

So, what other option do you have?

Well, you can keep trying. After all, you love this person, right? So, you can’t give up. They will get it. You just have to keep reminding them that you are there, expecting them to get with the program.

So, how is that working for you?

My guess is the clock is ticking away and they are still looking promising, but nothing is really happening.

There is another way:

Give it up. Let go of this other person’s life and life yours. Give them to God. NOW. You heard me. Ask for help.

Yes, I hear you. You’ve been doing that all along, praying more than you ever have.

But I’m not just talking about asking, I’m talking about giving them over to God. Putting your loved one in God’s hands and backing off.

Go live YOUR life and let your loved one figure out theirs.

Sounds harsh I know. After all, they’re sick. How can they?

But, how can you? And how long will you keep pretending to have control over something you absolutely cannot control?

This does not mean stop caring. It doesn’t mean deserting them. It simply means you stop deserting YOURSELF.

There are four simple ways to do this:
1. Take care of yourself – attend to your own needs physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.
2. Be loving to your addict and yourself – don’t do things for them that they can do for themselves and do nurture yourself A LOT. Tell them what behaviors you are seeing and what your concerns are WITHOUT JUDGMENT and then go on with your life and let them stew on it.
3. Set boundaries about how they may treat you. Set boundaries about how they may treat your stuff. Do this as part of your self care, not to control or change them, but to preserve your own dignity and comfort.
4. Get some support – Go to a meeting of recovering people -Alanon, Nar-Anon, Take a family recovery class, join a coaching or therapy group, get a coach or therapist to help you do all of the above without going crazy. Pray for help and then let go of the addict’s behavior and keep the focus on you!

These four foundations of recovery will carry you quite a distance, if you practice them daily. They are all about you, your life, your sanity, your dignity. They are not at all about controlling or changing your addict. If you choose to practice them, they will become a way of life for you and YOU WILL get well.

Funny thing is, when you start to change, it affects your addict and all of the other people in your life. When sanity enters, when you stop watching the pot and go about your business, it has the best chance of all to boil….

So, let go of your addict and live YOUR life fully.

What do you have better to do?

All the best,

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher
Family Recovery Coach
Author of the forthcoming book The Four Foundations of Family Recovery: Simple Ideas to Transform Chaos to Sanity
Teacher of the forthcoming teleseminar by the same name Sept. 13 to Oct. 18
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.12stepfamily.com
www.familyrecoverycoach.org

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Give me a call to sign up for a copy of the book at 786 859 4050

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When times get tough, this expression, “trudging the road of happy destiny” from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous keeps me going. It reminds me that we are not to expect nor are we expected to arrive at our destination instantaneously, nor is it always going to be pleasant, easy, or fun. Nor will we always be happy along the way, even though the destiny we have signed on for is a happy one. Sometimes it is a trudge. And we are not called to only do it when it’s easy or fun, but also when it is difficult, even exhausting…even when it feels like we are trudging.

And that is the paradox of recovery: We are on an endless journey that has brought us a sense of underlying happiness, but we are not always consciously connected to it. Yet, we know it is there for us, and that, in fact, that underlying sense of peace and wholeness is all around us anytime we choose to get into the moment and experience it. But we don’t always remember to do that…and so, we trudge.

Putting one foot in front of the other, one day at a time, sometimes becomes one hour or one moment at a time. There are times when I have to remind myself of the principles of recovery quite often to stay on track. And there are times when I get off track as well.

The good news is that the more days of being on track that I accumulate, the more I find myself being jolted when I get off track and the more I find my savings bank of “things to do instead of acting out” available to me so I can get back on track much more quickly than I used to.

Yes, sometimes being in recovery means trudging. And yet, I find even the days of trudging through recovery to be much better than the days of gliding through the disease.

How about you? Are you trudging these days? What ideas can you come up with to make the trudge into more of a glide? What have you learned to help yourself get back on track? What do you know about yourself, your disease and your recovery to help yourself rediscover serenity and sanity for another moment, hour, day?

Take a breath with me now, deep and slow, and let’s trudge together. It’s worth it, this journey. And so much better when there is someone to take it with. I hope this blog contributes to your sanity, but of course, when things get tough, it may not be enough.

Give me a call to set up a complimentary consult for a coaching session today or to reserve a space in my upcoming teleseminar The Four Foundations of Family Recovery: Simple Ideas to Transform Chaos to Sanity at 786 859 4050 . Or drop me an email at recoverycoachbev@theempowermentcoach.net for more information.

You and your recovery journey are worth it!

All the best,

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA, CEC
Family Recovery Coach
Author of the forthcoming book The Four Foundations of Family Recovery: Simple Ideas to Transform Chaos to Sanity
Teacher of the forthcoming teleseminar by the same name (September 13 to October 18)
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.12stepfamily.com
www.familyrecoverycoach.org
786 859 4050

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As recently as this morning, I had a meal. 2 eggs, a cup of fruit, 4 oz of oatmeal. I watched myself eat this meal and found myself go in and out of present moment awareness two or three times, despite the fact that I was not reading, talking, or watching TV.

In fact, the meal began ideally. I was sitting, savoring each bite, enjoying the colors of the food on the plate and the taste of the cinammon I’d sprinkled on the oatmeal and fruit. But, about have way through, I found myself engaging in an old habit: shoveling the food in to finish the meal as quickly as possible so I could go on to the next thing.

And suddenly, it hit me. I had been basically unconscious for about a third of the meal, and, with one third to go, I might be full – though I wasn’t certain this was true. So I stopped eating, took a breath, and relaxed. After a few moments, I realized I was still hungry and I completed the meal, once again enjoying each bite and simply being in the moment with my food.

To some of you this scenario may sound foreign or even a little ridiculous…

But, my guess is that some of you are like me, which means that from time to time (too often to keep count of) you inhale your food, and find yourself done eating before you know it.

Leaning how to let go of this unconscious form of eating and living, and helping others to do so as well has been the life work of Geneen Roth, author of many books, among them Women, Food, and God, which I happen to be reading these days.

Roth’s premise, as I understand it, is that the way we eat reflects the way we live and has much more to teach us than just how many calories it takes to add or reduce a pound. I remember skimming one of her other books years ago and being afraid of it. The freedom she espoused couldn’t work for me, I was sure. I saw it as ‘eat whatever you want whenever with no boundaries’ and that sounded to me like a sure recipe for a relapse.

But this time around, I found the part where the author explains that eating unlimited quantities is neither her path nor her recommendation. Rather, her approach is one of:
1. eating consciously
2. focused attention on what you are eating, every time you put anything into your mouth
3. focused attention on your body’s reaction to it
4. only eating when truly hungry and stopping when full.

Willingness to become that conscious seems to go well with a spiritual program of recovery that involves prayer, meditation, and deep reflection into one’s state of mind and heart.

Today I am reading this book to take my recovery deeper, to discover a new layer of connection between the way I eat and the way I live my life.

I notice, for instance, that when I shovel the food in, I’m hungrier for more emotionally, but mislabel it as being hungry physically. On the other hand, when I’m truly present during a meal, TV off, no book propped in front of my plate, and it is simply my meal and me, (or my husband and I enjoying a pleasant conversation) at the table, calm and relaxed, I feel more satisfied when I finish eating, and that satisfaction seems to last longer.

I have not replaced my program with Roth’s approach, but am adding her practices to my repertoire of the tools I use to build greater sanity in my life, one day at a time. Sometimes I trudge of course, and sometimes I glide.

The metaphor is apt, when I’m living my life unconsciously, just to get through the hour, the day, the week, to get to the next project, to get home, to get to the weekend, I feel less fulfilled. When I live each moment fully, the days fly and yet the time spent in each moment is full and satisfying, and is not moving overly fast.

Learning how to eat in the moment, fully present to my food and how my body is taking it in, appears to be another piece of the sanity puzzle in my recovery.

Try it today: Eat slowly, sitting down, with no outside distractions. One bite at a time, with full awareness.W hen your mind wanders, bring it back to the plate in front of you, not with judgment, simply with presence. Observe how it changes your experience of your meal and of your day.

Please send me a note to share your experiences with this and let me know if you would like me to share it with everyone or just keep it between us.

By the way, this form of eating is a beautiful practice to add to your self care, which is one of the Four Foundations of Family Recovery!

I’ll be offering a 6 week teleseminar on the Four Foundations starting Monday, September 13th through October 18th. It’ll be from 3-4 PM on the phone and together, we will explore the four foundations and look for ways to bring them alive in our lives. The course itself, including handouts, will cost only $49 for all six weeks! I hope you will join us!

To sign up you can go to paypal and pay directly to theempowermentcoach@gmail.com. Or, if you prefer, drop me a note at recoverycoachbev@theempowermentcoach.net to let me know of your interest and we can work out the details together.

Til next time, stay conscious and take care of YOU!

All the best,

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA, CEC
Family Recovery Coach
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.12stepfamily.com
www.familyrecoverycoach.org
786 859 4050

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I know, I know. Principles before personalities. For those readers who aren’t familiar with the term, it refers to the importance in the 12 step programs of not making people in the program into ‘stars’ or icons…

For those of us affected by addiction, this is an important point, as we could easily do this.

But, without saying her name, I’d like to write for a moment about someone who has made a real difference in my life and recovery over the years and continues to do so: my sponsor.

A sponsor, for those unaware, is a mentor for the neophyte as well as the veteran in a 12 step program. A sponsor’s primary job is to lead a person through the 12 steps of the program. If you are fortunate, your sponsor does that and more to help you establish yourself as a recovering human being. Sometimes it takes several sponsors until you find the one you click with. Sometimes, a series of sponsors over the years is what makes the difference.

The sponsor I have had for the past 25 years has been just such a person.

I prayed to meet her. Following the advice I’d been given by others before me, I prayed for a person who had what I wanted. What I was looking for was a woman who was older and wiser than me, who was both in Alanon and OA, in a longterm marriage to the same alcoholic/addict and they were both in recovery and working a powerful, positive program.

I had just gotten married to my husband, who was still using when we married, but of course, what that really meant only became clear to me once we were living in the same apartment, 242 miles away from parents, home, friends, and family. Clearly, I needed a guide to help me navigate this serious situation if I was to survive it with my sanity intact. My goal, of course, was a longterm marriage to this wonderful guy I’d met and married, with only one change desired: that he get sober. So, who better to help me than a sponsor who’d lived through hell and back with her spouse and had lived to tell about it.

And so I prayed, using a technique I’d just read about in a magazine, of thanking God in advance for what I wanted, knowing that He had already provided it and I only had to open my eyes to see what was right before me. And at every meeting I went to, I looked to see when my new sponsor would appear.

One Saturday morning, one month after my wedding, I walked into a large meeting where a couple was speaking. Their topic was prayer, and actually, they were talking about the importance of thanking God in advance for whatever it was you wanted. My ears perked up. I’d just started using that technique and had never heard anyone speak about it before. They went on, in their talk, to discuss their story. His sobriety and relapses, her abstinence in OA, his long term renewed AA recovery and his eventually joining her in OA as well, her years in Alanon and how she learned to let go of his program and grab hold of her own, their spirituality, their individual and joint journeys in recovery.

I blinked. There they were. And there my sponsor was. Right before my eyes. She had what I wanted: a life of “sane and happy usefulness” with her lifelong spouse. She was helping others, enjoying her husband and her life, and living sanely. It hadn’t always been easy, but they had made it hand in hand.

After the meeting, I walked up to her and asked her to be my sponsor. She said yes, gave me her number and our journey began.

Over the years, this anonymous spiritual giant, has been a second mom, a friend, a confidant, and a mentor and guide to me. Recently, I decided I needed to start at step one again, to re-establish my program in a deeper way. And so, for the first time in a while, we have begun to have regularly scheduled calls to work the steps together.

As we are going through it, this longterm mentor of mine is helping me to see my character defects for sure, but also able to point out my areas of growth over the years. Renewing my program with someone who really knows me is helping me to see my own past growth and to be more open to the areas of growth still ahead of me. Stories are coming out as we work together on the steps, of what it was like sponsoring me in the early years.

“There were times,” she told me, “when I was down on my knees talking to you on the phone, asking God to help me help you.”

When I heard that, I realized how seriously she took working with me and helping me grow, and why it always seemed like she had a direct link – she did…

We weren’t the same religion; yet, we had a common language and a common goal: transforming chaos to sanity in all aspects of our lives.

“And,” she continued, “I wasn’t sure if you would make it.” She added that her husband (who also grew to be a dear and beloved mentor and friend of mine) told her more than once over the years to give up on me because I was just taking too long to get the message of how to live a life in recovery. Indeed, over the years, she did have to fire me from time to time.

One time, it was because my denial about a family member was so huge that the only way for her to get me to see it was to dump me. Another time, I just refused to consider going to meetings, but just kept calling and venting anyway. Each time, her firing me jarred me back to reality and I grew from the experience, only to come back stronger in my recovery as a result.

One of our favorite joint memories happened a few years after we met at a baby shower held for me before the birth of my daughter. It was a lovely event. Of course my sponsor was there, but this being an anonymous program, she didn’t know my relationship to the other women who were there, some of whom were my sponsees, and they didn’t know my relationship to her. So, as she later recounted, these young women came up to her and asked, “How do you know Bev?” To which she answered, “We’re friends. How do you know her?” To which they replied, “Well, she’s sort of a guru to us!” Somehow my sponsor, who knew all of my inner struggles and foibles very well, kept a straight face. “Oh really?” she responded. “Wow.”

Actually, I never lived that down. How funny for them to say that to my teacher…We’ve laughed about it over the years. Not at the women who said it of course, but at the absurdity of the idea. After all, she’d taught me almost everything I knew about recovery and they had no idea who she even was – nor did she or I tell them! She used it as a teaching point about so many things: principles over personalities, not building a cult of personality, making sure your sponsees are grounded in the steps not in you, humility, etc.

Somehow, with God’s help, that of the people I met in the rooms of recovery, and that of my sponsor, I have lived to see a new day of recovery. I’m not perfect, but I’m growing and living a life of sane and happy usefulness, just as my sponsor, and her sponsor before her and all of the sponsors in all of the 12 step programs model for newcomers all over the world. And is she my guru? If a guru is a teacher, yes. She is my teacher. If a guru is a perfect being, no. But she is a model of what it takes to walk this journey over a lifetime: putting one foot in front of the other, honestly, openly, humbly walking with your God, reaching an arm back for the next person on the trail, living a life of sane and happy usefulness, one day at a time.

For readers not affected by their own or a loved one’s addiction, living a life of sane and happy usefulness may not sound like anything great, but believe me, for those of us dealing with this life and death disease in our midst, it’s huge.

And while we always put principles before personalities, and I know my sponsor is a person with flaws and challenges just like anyone else, in my eyes, she is one in a million. And while her personality is a lot of fun and the love we share is nurturing and amazing, it’s the principles she lives by and is still teaching me and many others to embrace that make her so special in my eyes.

And so, to my anonymous sponsor, and the many, many sponsors around the world making a difference in the lives of people in the rooms of recovery, I thank you.

With gratitude,

Bev Buncher, MA, CEC
Family Recovery Coach
Author of the forthcoming book: The Four Foundations of Family Recovery: Simple Ideas to Transform Chaos into Sanity
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.12stepfamily.com
www.familyrecoverycoach.org
www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com
786 859 4050

If you would like to learn more about sponsorship, recovery, and how to live a life of sane and happy usefulness whether your alcoholic is still drinking or not, check out www.alanon.org or go to www.alanonphonemeetings.org to attend a phone meeting. For family members of addicts, go to www.naranon.org.

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