Why Do I Need a Sponsor?
It’s where we learn to Apply the tools of recovery

We may learn about the tools of recovery in our CoDA meetings, but it is in sponsorship where we learn how to apply recovery to our daily lives. A sponsor serves as a guide for facilitating the journey of recovery. It’s the journey of someone who has walked the path before you and who is willing to share experience, strength, and hope in support of your continuing recovery as well as their own.

Sponsors pass along their experience, strength and hope in working the 12 Steps. They can also be an objective voice for gaining insight into co-dependent behavior and offer a source of identification, support and encouragement. The Sponsor/Sponsee relationship offers space for an open, honest kind of communication with freedom from judgement. It is helpful toward developing honest and trusting communication and relationships – something that codependent people may not have experienced very often. As the sponsee learns to communicate their true feelings, they set the stage for learning to set boundaries with others as well as themselves, which can serve as a valuable guide for managing all relationships.

Sponsorship is also rewarding for the actual sponsor as well. As sponsors introduce and review the recovery tools for the sponsee, they are likewise reinforcing and strengthening their own recovery in the process.

These are ‘suggestions’ only, but they are based on our own experience of working the CoDA steps and what worked for us. The decision to put this principle into practice is between the individual and their own Higher Power. The sponsor and sponsee are encouraged to work out their own individual framework for the relationship.

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