She pointed to another lady and said, "Marilyn would be a great temporary sponsor." "Okay." The next week the lady asked if I had talked to Marilyn yet. "I'm just supposed to go ask her to be my sponsor or whatever??" She was undaunted by my ignorance, "Yes! Here, let's go talk to her right now." Marilyn and I exchanged numbers and set up a time to meet, and just like that I had a sponsor.
For the next year and a half or so, she and I would meet most weeks- sometimes at a coffee shop or a restaurant, or in the motorhome they had parked in their driveway. I would try to keep up with how much coffee she drank, and continually poured into my cup. She would ask more about my story and share more of her own. She answered my zillions of questions about this whole AA deal- either in her own words or with AA literature or other random helpful articles/drawings/etc- teaching me so much about the history of the program, the traditions and principles that keep AA what it is, what alcoholism is, etc. We read the Big Book together and talked about it, and as I became more ready, she explained more thoroughly the "12 steps that are suggested as a program of recovery"- the 12 steps that have changed so many lives. We talked about this amazing God that takes broken messed up people like us, and redeems us and transforms our lives into something beautiful. She taught me that there are few things more important in this life than serving others, and that our sobriety depends on it.
Marilyn was also tenaciously hopeful, and that hope was not wishful but actually grounded in years of seeing God rescue folks all along the spectrum of "messed up" and, if they would embrace the steps, especially the 3rd step- turning our will and our lives over to the care of God- in surrender, God responded by going far beyond rescuing them. He healed and restored and made new. Her hope was based on witnessing years of God making good on His promises in Scripture, in the most impossible ways and situations imaginable.
Without hope, we are often stuck, because what is the point of moving- especially if it is hard- if there is no hope? If it hadn't been for Marilyn's hope, my involvement in AA probably would have just stuck to those Tuesday mornings, and at some point the desire to be there would have faded and sobriety would likely have dissipated as well. Marilyn was patient and knew not to push too hard or I would run, but she also was a commendable match for my stubbornness. She began to stress the importance of me starting on the steps- in a compelling way but without "assigning" work. Invitations to other meetings would become more like insisting that I come, but never demanding. Similarly with AA events or gatherings, since my response to the invite was always, "Yeah, maybe." she just would tell me what time they would pick me up and what I should bring. And as I continuously deferred her suggestions to serve in various settings by saying "I wasn't ready." she just signed me up and let me know after!
Her hope for me- combined with that of the Tuesday morning group- was contagious enough that I was able to embrace the 2nd step:
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Those words mean hope for the hopeless. To be honest, while I was familiar with such a concept from churches, it wasn't until I became a part of AA that I actually saw it claimed and experienced as a way of life. When you sit in those rooms and hear story after story after story of God doing the miraculous it is nearly impossible to not catch some of that hope...
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