Already in an anonymous recovery program? Great job! You'll probably feel something strongly about this part!
At last you really get into the program. You feel better. You begin to get more into life. You have, or get a job--and likely better and better jobs. You may have already been married. Or you get married. Maybe you already have kids.
Probably you have a house or condominium. You may have even started your own business. True friendships restore or develop. Maybe you started working out. Or you're coaching or doing activities with kids, even beyond driving them to and from school.
You're probably also going to your own regular anonymous program meetings to remain sober. You have a sponsor (someone who is like a coach in the program) who you talk to on a daily basis ideally. Your own quiet time and meditation time is now important to you.
The thought comes, "I'm SO busy. My life is totally packed! How did I ever have time to drink or use drugs?"
At some point, you realize you and your time has value. Maybe it's your hourly rate. Or it's your salary divided by 50 weeks a year (2 weeks off for vacation) x 40 hours a week. About 2,000 hours. That's at least the value of your time. If you make 80K a year your time is worth 40 dollars an hour.
It's hard to put a dollar value on your quality time with your wife, kids, parents, friends and the people you love.
I sure hope no one would say that kind of time has zero value! That's the highest value time of all!
The day comes when your sponsor says it's time for you to sponsor someone else. You have arrived! Finally somebody asks you to be their sponsor. You truly want to help.
You go all in. Anything. You take them to meetings. You take call after call. You take them out to eat. You read to them. You listen to their woes. They sure like to talk, about everyone's favorite subject--themselves.
You're juggling everything in your busy life. They're kind of not listening. But, they're your first sponsee. They're not doing The Program, they're doing their own program. After many months you sense something is wrong.
Ugh. They've picked up the first drink or drug. You'll take them to detox. You'll talk to their family. You have emotional hangovers about their problems. You feel like YOU need an Al-Anon meeting!
Then it hits you how you blew off your own precious child(ren) to help another grown adult.
You look back and finally see the red flags. They were told they needed a sponsor. So they got you as their human shield to keep some heat off of them.
Then you think, "Wow I spent maybe 100 hours with him/her."
If your time is worth 40 an hour, that was 4,000 dollars of your time. More cost to you, if it took away from your work, your business, your wife and family.
You at least wish you had spent your time with someone who actually really wanted the program. That person who was willing to do the work got cheated out of your time.
Then you think about the guy on the TV commercials who says, "I USED TO BE an addict". Well, he made 90,000 dollars every 30 days, if your sponsee went there. Yes, 3 Grand a day! And it was 6 Grand a day on every 2 person room!
Then, he dumped the person onto--YOU to actually be taken into the program. You're what he's actually selling--you are his involuntary servant for that 100 or so hours, and maybe, for life.
If someone picks up a drink or drug again, doesn't die out there and goes BACK to rehab, Rehab then makes double or more. I know one person who has been to rehab 53 Times so far!
The person's family who DIDN'T have to adult babysit your sponsee for that 100 hours (or more), they are also UP on the plus side perhaps 4,000 (or more, or less). Of course, if/when it goes bad, they want you to keep taking him/her off their hands. You are their free servant too.
Yes, I know. Spiritually we don't see it that way. We say, "Gotta Give it Away to keep it!" And they'll ask after the person you were sponsoring picks up again, "Well, did YOU drink or drug?" You'll say no. And they'll say, "Then you did it perfectly."
Yes, I know, no dues or fees for AA or any anonymous program membership. And there aren't. Self Supporting through our own contributions.
Your life and certainly your kids and wife's and family's life is not AA or any anonymous program membership though. They're being involuntarily charged your time.
And we're not charging for AA or any other anonymous program membership, as you'll see.
Imagine this scenario. You are at one of your meetings. Someone asks you, "Will you be my sponsor?" So you ask for their smart phone number.
You dial it so they have your number too. Then you ask them who would most like to see them stop drinking and/or drugging. Maybe they tell you, "My Mom and Dad."
So you say, "You asked me to sponsor you. Would you do something for me?"
They should say OK. When they do, since you've already exchanged cell phone numbers, send them the link to Friendhelp and ask them to send it to their Mom and Dad (or person who most wants to see them reach sobriety)
https://friendhelp.mykajabi.com
(Copy that link down--it will save you tons of time, stress, headaches. And it will end up helping that person and potentially many more.)
That will take them a whole couple of finger taps on their smart phone. About 1/100th of a calorie and a few seconds.
Doing that was a simple willingness check. If they won't even do the first simple request to text a link, then why sponsor them? It's a huge red flag.
So say they send the link. Mom and Dad (or the person who says they want to see them reach sobriety) then has the Friendhelp link.
They'll either decide to get it for the person who asked you to sponsor them, or they won't. Either way, it will cost the person who asked you to sponsor them Zero. Nothing. Not one red cent. Not even one basket is passed EVER. (like happens in the meetings). It's the only thing that costs LESS than going to meetings. There's not even basket pressure on the person struggling with drinking and drugging to voluntarily support Friendhelp.
Their parent or loved one may say they wish they could, but are broke. Or they'll just be nasty and not want to help them.Any way it goes, you just learned much more about your potential sponsee's situation.
If they DO get it for your sponsee, they also get it too because it's always 2 for one. They'll learn a ton on their own, and will be massively supportive of your time and your effort with the person you care about.
But why would YOU as their potential sponsor want to text them the friendhelp link? What's in it for you?
That 100 hours or so grind in the beginning? You'll be spared from it. You'll be spending it with your wife and kids, instead of arguing with, and being lied to and drained by an adult stranger who may not be serious at all.
You'll learn there are some people who are "professional patients" going from rehab to rehab, detox to detox, halfway house to halfway house, meeting to meeting and sponsor to sponsor. They'll milk your kindness, generosity and time, usually while still drinking and drugging, or at least while making themselves "free" and "legal" Big Pharma Roofies.
When they get caught, they just move on to somewhere else.
Friendhelp is also a way to avoid getting used, and losing precious family and relationship time to people who choose the professional patient lifestyle. Yes! It's a lifestyle! Nicer than jail, and with dating the opposite sex.
We'll cover in about 10 hours what takes 10 times longer with all the arguing, the side conversations, like "how was your day", disruptions etc.
After they take the course, the QUALITY of your time in sponsorship and the time saved will go WAY up. They'll have seen the light at the end of the tunnel.
They'll get way better results. And really, this is just like Bill W. did it with Dr. Bob second half of June, 1935. He told him about the entire path ASAP, and that was with Dr. Bob surely blabbing and interrupting.
Bill did a good job, especially being only 6 months off of years of bathtub gin.
Friendhelp is not medical, it's social just like Bill W. was with Bob.
I put the Friendhelp Series together at about 40 years program experience after starting young, and with thousands of years of other people's experience --and with the books Bill W. didn't even have yet when he worked with Dr. Bob!
The math of the deadly numbers led to the development of the Friendhelp On Demand On Ramp to Recovery Course Series...
If you're in the program, you go to meetings and see that many people don't make it. They decide to pick up and get sick again. Sometimes quickly, sometimeafter after a lot of misery, They die.
Too many are dying. Many millions since my first exposure in 1979. Doesn't that hurt and drive you bonkers? We say the Serenity Prayer and "Courage to Change the Things we can..." Well, do we mean it?
Here are the numbers:
Population in the world nearing 8 Billion
The Biggest Anonymous Organization on their site estimates the number in the world going to meetings is 1.9 million
The USA is only 5% of the world population.
Double it to make the math easier. Say it's 10%.
10% of 1.9 million is 190 thousand going to meetings in the USA.
Some say only 3% actually complete the 12 steps. Be generous and go with 10%. If it's 10%, then there are only about 19,000 in the USA who can actually truly sponsor new people from experience. Sure, more than that try--yet who wants to be a ginea pig or a crash dummy on someone's learning curve?
In a country of 330 million, 19,000 is not very many.
Boys with the boys and girls with the girls. There are about 6 times as many men as women in anonymous recovery. So that 19,000 becomes more like 15,000 guys and 4,000 ladies.
Beyond that, in the USA there are 15,000 rehabs pumping out patient-customers all the time. Weekly, almost daily. There's no mathematical way those 19,000 can take all of them into recovery.
Nevermind the nearly 3 million in jails being released, with many of them in jail for committing crimes under the influence.
The math is part of why the "failure" rate of anonymous recovery is too high. Over 100,000 fentanyl overdose deaths a year. Even more by alcohol, other drugs, accidents, suicides and murders. We can do better. Friendhelp is courage to change the things we can.
So, Copy the link to friendhelp or keep the tab open in your browser on your phone so you have it.
https://friendhelp.mykajabi.com
Send it to someone who cares about a person drinking and drugging.
If you know someone who needs help, send it to them or their loved one.
If you're a teacher or a popular sponsor, talk to me about getting a block of course accesses at a bulk discount.
No reason to wait for AFTER people pick up the first time in life. Show them the entire way out BEFORE they pick up.
If you're in jail and prison management, the Friendhelp series is excellent to show people during their jail stay.
If you're with a good rehab who wants something to send to patient clients while they're waiting to get in, again, talk to us about bulk access discounts!
Patrick
friendhelp333@gmail.com
