TECHNIQUES FOR SPONSORSHIP AVOIDANCE
Recommended ways to treat your sponsor if you don't want to develop the level of trust necessary for working a through and cleansing Fifth Step with him or her.
1. Call your sponsor after all major decisions in your life and tell him or her how well you've managed by yourself.
2. Avoid calling your sponsor when you feel angry because you know he or she will help you look for your part in it.
3. Tell your sponsor what you think he or she needs to hear, omitting the details that you consider unimportant and slanting the story in your favor.
4. Avoid attending meetings where your sponsor might be, and tell him or her that you still go to a lot of meetings __they just happen to on the other side of town.
5. Call your sponsor at home in the middle of the day (knowing he or she has a daytime job) and leave a message on his or her answering machine requesting a call back, putting the "ball in his or her court" and giving yourself some time to "work it out yourself" (along with a readyexcuse of "well, I called").
6. Give your sponsor credit for all of your new decisions and behaviors, telling everyone that "my sponsor recommends" whether he or she actually did so or not.
7. Screen your phone calls, answering only those that you are in the mood to talk to.
8. If you don't like the suggestions your sponsor makes, keep checking with other A.A. members until you find one who gives you the answer you want.
9. Remember the character defects that your poor sponsor has shared over time and throw them up to him or her when he or she is helping you discover your own defects.