Circumstances at the time benefited us both and in a very short period we were sharing a small house together (as friends, please note).
When I came into the fellowship in the year dot (1987), after many failed attempts I finally realised the program actually had a working format and I could not pick and choose the parts I felt comfortable with. The many re-starts were proof enough.
I had never really manged more than a month sober and then would drink again. Andre navigated me to getting the elusive 1 year of sobriety. It was a very tough year for me and I am sure there must have been times when Andre wanted to box my ears but he remained patient, kind and tolerant. I will never forget him giving me that 1st year chip. Thereafter we remained lifelong friends and shared several homes together over the years but most of all this program on so many levels, we both found so many answers to so many things from so many people and many many meetings.
I finally arrived at a primarily gay group called “The Living Sober Group” and for the first time among the many attempts I started to feel comfortable in A.A. It was at this group I found Andre V. He was one year sober at the time and after hearing his “story” at one of the meetings I knew I had found somebody I could talk to and duly asked him to be my sponsor. He hesitated at the task but sought the advice of his sponsor who was the founding member of the group, Peter M. Peter thought I was a good “project” as it were for Andre and we duly got together.
Sadly, Andre passed away in 2004 but I still take everything to him in prayer and meditation.
When I see and witness the miracles in this very group I still thank Andre V my life sponsor.
As individuals Andre and I could not have been more opposite if we tried. Our backgrounds were more than different and it was a huge learning curve for me. Understand at the time I was somewhat full of myself and very self-absorbed (all these years and it lingers on in many aspects) yet it was this strange man who was able to see straight through me and get me face to face with myself. I mean that literately, as we would often sit and talk using mirrors (sounds weird, but try it sometime!).
Regards, Terrance D.
As I mentioned Andre had been just over a year sober, from living on a park bench and using a string around his hand and neck so he could raise the bottle to his lips as he shook too much to use hands only. A year later he was taking me on as my sponsor!
But I would need some help.
I prayed for a new sponsor.
I found Katy in a beautifully implausible way. I shared in my favorite online meeting — The All-Inclusive Meeting in Los Angeles — that I was searching for a new kind of sponsorship. I said, “I’ve done the hokey-pokey with AA for years, moving into the center and then back out to the periphery. I wondered for so long if AA was for me. But now the question is: can I be for AA?”
I had been on the dentist model of sponsorship for nine years. As in: the dentist isn’t going to chase you down and clean your teeth. You’ve got to make an appointment.
But when my brother died from the disease of alcoholism in April 2022, all of my resistance to a spiritual awakening was suddenly gone. It was time to work a different sort of program. A deeper one. A more rigorous one. It would become part of my grief; it would be one way to love him.
A wonderful man named Spencer from that meeting gave my phone number to Debbie D, an absolutely delightful woman with 47 years in sobriety and a gorgeous Traditions Workshop speaker tape series that I highly recommend. She called and said “I’ll totally be your sponsor, but I want to give my ladies a chance first.”
Mirabai Starr wrote of the grace of grief after her 14-year-old daughter was killed in an accident: