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actually i have all kinds of special people in my life, to single out my sponsor as that ONE special person does a bit of disservice to the others in my life. nevertheless, i do understand what the reading is talking about. across the course of my active addiction i learned how to prevent people from seeing the REAL ME, i pretended to be what i was not by only showing certain aspects of myself to different people. to my family i was one person, to my friends another, to my various lovers yet another and to my peers and bosses in the workplace still another. it was hard work separating my life into those various compartments and keeping the walls between them thick enough to maintain the illusions that i thought were so necessary for my survival. so along comes recovery with all its spiritual principles, including honesty, and i have to learn how to be who i am. i was more than a little confused on that issue, and even today i am still sorting out that question, BUT the recovery process that i have been fostered into has a strong component of sponsorship included in it. that component included learning how to TRUST another human being with who i am. the process of building that trust has been quite lengthy and i have had to do it on three separate occasions. each time i have had to find a new sponsor, the agony of being vulnerable and frightened were almost enough for me to self-sponsor. my experience with self-sponsorship was not a good one and i choose not to repeat that particular experiment.
so what exactly does all this have to do with that ONE special person in my life when i am prattling on about three special persons in my life. well each one of those men were exactly what i needed what that time in my recovery. each was the best sponsor in the world at that time, and Carlos is providing for me the guidance and understanding that i NEED and DESIRE today. he is that ONE special person who knows all my stuff, with whom i am comfortable trusting everything with, including, but not limited to, the less than savory pieces of my past. and yes i am grateful that i have been brought into a tradition where my sponsor has a sponsor, and his sponsor has a sponsor. that means to me that there is a chain that connects me to the fellowship in a manner that is beyond description. it is a chain that i willingly accept and cherish, and i am linked to those men through that ONE special person in my life -- MY SPONSOR, so thank you for being my sponsor, CARLOS!

∞ DT ∞