If You Want What We Have

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If You Want What We Have:
Sponsorship Meditations
By Joan Larkin

©1998 Joan Larkin

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Fortunately, time, rather than intelligence or study, eventually helps us see the other side of things.




Newcomer
I don’t think these meetings do enough. Some people come in with their health in terrible shape. Someone should be evaluating them! I think I should be getting vitamin B shots. I’m angry that such important things are being ignored.

Sponsor
You may very well need extra vitamins; nutrition sounds like something you might be ready to look into. You may want to see a doctor, a nutritionist, or both. I support you in your desire to get help with the ways you have neglected your health. And I understand that you feel angry at not being taken care of.

One reason that this program works for me is that it respects my decision to seek help, if and when I choose to, from the people and institutions I trust. It doesn’t get into the business of dispensing medical advice, diets, vitamins, or exercise plans, any more than it tells me where to pray, how to earn a living, or whom to vote for. The group doesn’t hire experts to come tell us how to run our lives, and we don’t have to be covered by insurance to come to a meeting. Each of us here is an expert on just one thing; our own experience of addiction and recovery. You might say that we’re specialists!

Today, I appreciate the gift of my experience. I add one new thing to my knowledge of how to take care of my health—physical, mental, and spiritual.