Five months ago, after a four and a half year hiatus, I once again started attending a 12 Step group for partners of sex addicts. I had just finished working the Steps with an online group and my intention was to join the group and work the Steps in this group the good old-fashioned way, with a real life sponsor. However, the group I’m attending, which is the best fit both for my schedule and my philosophical leanings, is brand-new and tiny. There are people in the group who have worked the Steps in other programs before, but no one who has worked them in this group, specifically around sexual codependency, and so no one who would be able to act as my sponsor.

We tell folks in our group that they have a few options when it comes to sponsorship: they can drive to a larger meeting significantly further away to look for a sponsor, they can try to work the Steps with a partner or a group from our meeting, they can try to find a sponsor through online or telephone meetings. Each of those options presented its own problems for me. Having worked the Steps already in a non-traditional manner, I’d come into the meeting determined to have a real life sponsor, which meant I wasn’t interested in two of the options available. However, I also wasn’t willing to take on another meeting, further away, in order to try to find someone local to work with.

So, I spent some time stewing in my frustration and resentment. I aimed some at my program, grumbling, “Why do 12 Step groups have to make it so freaking hard to find a sponsor? Why aren’t there more tools in place to help people connect with potential sponsors?” (After all, I’d spent a year in the last program without ever finding one or even really figuring out what one was.) And I aimed a lot at myself, “I should have tried harder to figure out how sponsorship works. Why haven’t I been willing to work harder to find someone? Doesn’t my recovery mean more to me? If I really valued it, would I be complaining about having to drive a few hours once a week? No one’s even going to want to sponsor someone who lacks commitment the way I do.”

Then, last week, I went to a workshop on building successful meetings, and one of the characteristics we talked about a great deal was working the Steps. And I realized I’m (once again) in a 12 Step meeting in which almost no one is actually working the Steps. We have no sponsors and little hope of new sponsors because so few people are able to work the Steps. This renewed my commitment to work the Steps again myself, and that renewed commitment helped me see that I need to let go of my desire to work the Steps a certain way. Whatever I (or others) think I “should” be willing and able to do, I’m not ready to go through the effort it will take me to find a sponsor outside the group. And that’s ok. Much like my failure to go to the gym, it doesn’t mean I’m lazy or not committed or a bad person. It simply means I’ve been trying to approach the problem based on where I want to be rather than where I am; I haven’t been accepting of where I am right now.

So, in the next few weeks, I’ll be talking to people in my group about the possibility of partnering up of working the Steps as a group. That way our group will build a pool of potential sponsors, and I can try to work the Steps with a sponsor the next time around.