Sponsor

So apparently I have a sponsor now for AA. I'm still not sure exactly what that means, but it's a good thing. I've had it explained to me before, so I understand it in theory, but it still seems pretty odd to me in practice. She's the woman I mentioned in my last post...whose number fell out of the book at just the right time...seemingly on its own.

We went to a meeting together tonight. For some reason I was really intimidated by it. Partly because we got there late because we both thought we were waiting at the right place to meet each other...but doing it in different places. We had to walk in to a very packed room and everyone had to move to add more chairs in and yeah just a little awkward. But beyond that I think it was just weird to be at a meeting w/someone I know...even though I'd only met her once before, very briefly, at another meeting. A lot of ppl say they don't want to go to meetings alone. I get freaked out about going with people I know because then I give up some of my anonymity. I care much less about what a group of random strangers I likely won't see again if I don't want to think vs. people whose opinions I care about, even a little. The meeting was also big...which scared me a bit. Uncomfortable feeling all around. I ended up crying through a lot of it...though trying to be discrete about it. It was a women's meeting and multiple women there talked about being close to suicide. The woman next to me was nearly successful. She'd been in a coma for 10 days and died twice. She talked about all her family that stayed at her bedside as a loving support group. I started wondering who would be at my bedside. Anyway...that's another story for another time.

At the end of the meeting they had ppl raise their hand if they were available to be a sponsor. The woman I came with was one of about 3 or so that raised their hands. I looked at her and asked, "Can you be my sponsor?" I was really glad to get it out like that, because if i'd waited until after the meeting I probably would've psyched myself out and not brought it up. She nodded. We talked about it afterwards. She said that since I have a lot of transition going on now with starting my job (which is essentially going to be a lot of working until about new years and then slow way down) that it wouldn't be a good time to start working the steps (I still don't really understand what working the steps actually means...but anyway...). She does want me to call her at least every other day and let her know how I'm doing, and if possible meet w/me once/week. We're not sure if our schedules will work out for meeting right now, but for sure in january we'll start that.

So I'm checking one more thing off my list of things i'm supposed to be doing. This is one more person to be accountable to...good, but also scary. I'm taking away yet more options for my less than healthy safety net. Eeek!