Change the channel

So the first discussion I found on that site is about sponsorship.

"Working the steps is not contingent upon daily phone calls, attendance at so many meetings, going to particular meetings, being told how to dress or who in recovery to associate with. There is more, but I think you get the point. Generations pass rigid control from sponsor to sponsee in the name of recovery. Where is the love and tolerance?"

Which is exactly how I felt about my old sponsor here. She was a little rigid in her view of what works, and it definitely wasn't the way it was working for me before with my first sponsor. Sure, everyone is different, and her way wasn't mine, but it's nice to see that others recognize that some people are a little type A about AA (ha), and that it's not necessary.

"...sponsorship was like turning the dial on a radio... we all like to listen to a different radio station and prefer different types of music... and sometimes when we try to tune in to a station and we can't pick-up the signal, its fuzzy and there's lots of static no matter how hard we keep adjusting. But after awhile we keep trying to hear a good song and eventually we will turn the dial onto a station with a good signal and we can hear & understand the words of the song so perfectly, and so clear!"

That's just what I need to do: find another sponsor and keep looking until I find that radio station that I can hear the good music on. I'm not looking for the "perfect" sponsor, or someone who isn't going to push me, but in 8 months I've come to learn what suggestions I will and won't look at (maybe yet) from AA. I know the language that makes sense, and the language that sounds condescending. I just need to find a sponsor who speaks my language.