Is "Working With Others" about sponsorship?
In short:
- No. Chapter 7 of the Big Book, "Working With Others," is about finding an alcoholic who is still drinking and helping him recover.
- The word "sponsor" doesn't appear in it, or anywhere in the Big Book's program.
- The person you help may not be in A.A. at all, owes you nothing, and can turn to someone else whenever he likes.
Who the chapter is about
The chapter's subject is "other alcoholics" who need the message, and it begins with how to find them: through doctors, ministers, priests and hospitals (p. 89). It calls the man you're helping a "prospect," a "candidate," "your man" (pp. 90–94). He's someone who is still drinking, or has just stopped, and the chapter assumes he doesn't know you: he is to be told about you "as a person who has recovered" (p. 90). The chapter tells you to wait for the end of a binge before you see him (p. 90).
That isn't a member of a group asking an old-timer to guide him. It's a stranger, reached from the outside.
What the relationship is
Everything the chapter says about the relationship keeps it loose and free: - "Make it plain he is under no obligation to you" (p. 94). - He "needn't see you again if he doesn't want to" (p. 94). - When he's ready to make his decision and tell his story, he can do it with you, "but do not insist upon it if he prefers to consult someone else" (p. 96). - If he isn't interested, move on and find another alcoholic (p. 96).
There's nothing here about taking someone through the Steps on a schedule, calling you every day, or answering to you. The chapter's instructions run the other way: don't rush him, don't push him, let him steer (p. 95).
What the helper is for
The helper's job is to carry the message: tell his own drinking story, describe the illness, explain how he recovered when he's asked, and offer friendship (pp. 91–95). After that, the man is free.
The chapter is honest that this work protects the helper's own sobriety (p. 89). But it puts the other man first. It asks the newcomer to "place the welfare of other people ahead of his own" (p. 94), lists what the work costs the helper (p. 97), and says "Think of what you can bring to it" (p. 102).
Why it matters
When "Working With Others" is taught as a chapter about sponsorship, it shrinks. A chapter about going out to rescue drinking alcoholics, the work that turned two sober men into a fellowship, becomes a chapter about relationships inside the rooms. The people it was written for, the ones still drinking, drop out of it.
Read it yourself
- Chapter 7, "Working With Others" (pp. 89–103), free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt7.pdf
- Related: What does Step 12 really say? · Is the word "sponsor" in the Big Book?
Sources
| Source | Pages | First published |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 7, "Working With Others" | 89–103 | 1939 |
Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book is © A.A. World Services, Inc.
These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.