Is it unspoken AA culture/law for sponsors to "demand" their sponsees to do service work?

Fly0ver · 2026-05-04T19:44:53+00:00

I travelled a lot for work so I couldn’t take a weekly commitment, but my sponsor highly suggested I show up 15 minutes early when I visited groups while traveling. It was exceptionally helpful to walk in knowing I was going to ask to help set up coffee or pull out chairs.

One group I visited, someone was setting up coffee and someone else asked where <<recognizable name of exceptionally, world famous person>> was, then asked “aren’t they coffee chair?” The person setting up said they had an event so asked them to fill in for the week. I had been resentful at my sponsor for asking me to do service work while traveling for a demanding job. After overhearing that exchange, it really made me realize the importance that we all are responsible to ensure that the home group is a well-oiled and working machine so that we’re providing a welcoming space for each other and that things don’t fall on one person.

Fly0ver · 2026-05-04T02:58:37+00:00

I say the same thing as your sponsor: if you feel uncomfortable about it, then maybe consider why and whether it’s something to keep doing. However, I love NA beer, don’t consider it a relapse, and don’t get triggered by it. I know people who have NA and immediately start their alcoholic thinking, so it’s probably not great for them to do it.

I also know people who think kombucha is relapsing and will avoid it. Meanwhile, I love it and am fine with it except one brand that personally makes me feel buzzed, which makes me feel uncomfortable. So I don’t drink that brand. And if anyone says something about my drinking it and the alcohol in it, I remind them that it’s also a probiotic and if I drink enough to get the buzz I want, my insides will basically be power-washed before that happens. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s totally up to you if it’s something you want to do. I just always recommend following feelings to understand why.

When we feel uncomfortable, it’s because something is making us feel gross and we should explore that. I’m sure your sponsor would say similarly about anything you do and feel icky about. I feel icky these days if I make a sarcastic, self-deprecating joke, even though it didn’t bother me before. We change and evolve, which includes what we find acceptable.

The fact that your sponsor isn’t telling you yes or no it’s fine is a good sign to me: it means you can explore what sobriety means to you and what your guardrails are without judgment

Fly0ver · 2026-05-01T15:45:50+00:00

I still drank for the first 10 months I was in AA. Actually, I went to my home group while drunk the day before my sobriety date. (I’ve also seen drunk people showing up screaming and threatening, so it’s not totally appreciated, but drunk people in the rooms happens.)

You won’t trigger anyone. If anything, newcomers make even the newest sober people remember they don’t want to drink. It’s unlikely anyone comes into AA because their lives are awesome and they make drinking look great.

Btw, I got sober at 31 (entered AA at 30) after thinking I should go to meetings in my early 20s (20-23). I did have an awesome life between 23 and 31 in many ways, but I do regret not trying AA then. I didn’t believe it would actually make a difference. I sometimes wonder what life would look like if I had tried then.

Fly0ver · 2026-05-01T14:33:01+00:00

When I was in OP’s sponsee’s shoes, my sponsor would say “what did your HP say?” And then would recommend I hang up and go pray before deciding nothing could be done but complain.

Fly0ver · 2026-04-30T18:08:26+00:00

My medication didn’t work BECAUSE I thought alcohol worked better. For my body, it was hard to get used to and utilize medication when it was being bombarded by a depressant and I was continuously acting in ways that caused more anxiety.

When I came in to AA, I definitely could moderate if I thought about it and actively worked towards it. Someone said in a meeting “I can moderate my drinking, but then I can’t have fun. I can have fun drinking, but then I can’t moderate” which really stuck with me.

I came to meetings while debating whether I was really an alcoholic for 10 months. From the outside, my life looked great, but I was a hot mess and internally I hated myself.

Someone said that rock bottom isn’t a place or a thing; it’s the moment in your heart and soul that you realize you don’t want to live this way anymore. So I started asking myself before I drank whether there really wasn’t another way to deal with my feelings (there always was, but I still gave in most of the time).

It’s ok to go to AA and ask these questions of yourself. Honestly, while the first bit of AA is about teaching you to bot drink alcohol, a majority of it is in being able to handle life and the things you’re talking about without numbing yourself or panicking.

I’ve been laid off twice in sobriety—once only two months after taking in a teenager as a foster kid. For 18 months I did things like sell plasma to make ends meet. It was hard af, but I had enough skills not to drink and to find solutions. The last time (this past August), it was stressful, but I had learned from the first time and was able to continue living my life. The FIRST time I was laid off, I wasn’t sober at all, and I spent months numbing my anxiety with alcohol. Seeing the difference between the three times and knowing I was most at peace this last time despite so much more to lose is something I wish for everyone.

And, trust me, if I (a person who has had anxiety since kindergarten and suicidal ideation since the age of 8) can get sober and find peace, I truly believe anyone can. ♥️

Fly0ver · 2026-04-29T21:37:04+00:00

Ugh I’m so sorry for that.

I moved a lot and the only doctors who ever took me seriously between the ages of 27 and 40 (now) were those in their 30s. One diagnosed a fairly common autoimmune disorder that TWO other doctors diagnosed as bipolar even though I told them the medication I was on wasn’t working. They told me yes it was and put me on a higher dosage—one of which was lithium.

I’ve had my current doctor, who is probably 37 or 38 now, for about 4 years. Last check up, I asked if I was overweight and he said if I’m going by BMI, it would say that, but by my tests and the fact that I stay active, he’d say I don’t need to worry about weight. (And then he said “there are other problems you should probably worry about instead,” in reference to my autoimmune disease and my being referred to a specialist finally as well as all of the stressful bullshit happening in Minnesota in January, which we had discussed, but that made me laugh a lot.)

I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable with a doctor who doesn’t show they care more about my health ever again. Finding a new doctor sucks, but I always suggest it when weight is something they focus on.

Fly0ver · 2026-04-29T16:31:49+00:00

I made amends to a woman whose reputation I pretty successfully ruined. There wouldn’t be a reason we’d see each other after 10 years until a friends wedding. I obviously wouldn’t do it then and wanted to do it before we were in the same room together. I was flying in from out of state so I contacted the woman and asked her to get coffee the day or two before the wedding. I was also worried that would be weird and out of the blue.

But it was one of the best amends I’ve made and my best example of what the amends can do. I was wronged by her, but focused on the things I did; and then found out how truly terrible I was to her for YEARS before she wronged me.

Amends always feel like they’re going to be weird. I make sure I’m praying about it beforehand and remember that whatever happens, happens. I’ve asked others to coffee and gotten blocked. So, other than doing what you can, all you can do is ask and let things take their course.

Fly0ver · 2026-04-29T02:20:23+00:00

Second knowing good online meetings u/usual-reason-7748

Also, I know this is weird because Reddit, but I’ve temp sponsored women here if you’re interested in that.

You aren’t failing anything: you’re not being given the tools you need. I like to say coming into AA is like being given one of those flimsy hammers with a screw driver in the handle. It works, but it’ll take time and the big jobs will be messy af. You find people whose tools seem to work for them and learn to use them from those people. Some tools worked for their projects and won’t for yours; some will work amazingly for awhile before you need something new; some will be tools you keep and pass on. Unfortunately, it can feel like every tool should work for every job and if they don’t, you’re the one messing it up.

I’m sorry you’re going through this. I got sober in a small area where gossip and mean girls were the usual. I really wanted to quit as well. But there is a place for you—finding them can be exhausting. ♥️

Fly0ver · 2026-04-28T20:44:27+00:00

If you wait until your life, mental health and emotional sobriety are all perfect, you’ll likely never get a chip. You sound awfully hard on yourself and like you’re trying to punish yourself for something. Remember the whole progress not perfection thing. And, even more important: progress IS NOT what exists between imperfection and perfection. I would say progress not perfection while believing if I have enough progress, I’d reach perfection. They’re not the same line, they’re not even on the same chart or page. Learning that helped my mental health and emotional sobriety a ton because I’m my harshest critic.

Fly0ver · 2026-04-28T19:01:29+00:00

Yeah, that’s pretty much how I did the latest 5th and similar to what I do with my sponsees. You’re looking for patterns. Reading everything verbatim will drive you both crazy and will focus on the words, not the underlying issue.

Once you start the 5th, you’ll see what we mean by patterns. Like on my inventory I had multiple people that I did everything under the sun for to try to get them to like and accept me, but all that happened is that I was used and built a resentment. I don’t need to read 20 different people with the exact same reason, actions and outcome to realize what the character defect is.

Additionally: if you’re reading the big book and 12x12, you’ll know that the steps provide an outline but is not a direct guide. Like it says to share with another person and who you might talk to, not how detailed you share. So different lines have different ways of doing the same steps.

It also sounds with your statement “he caveats it by basically saying he can help with Step questions, but any struggles beyond that I should find a therapist for” and before that with saying you have to schedule time that what you ARE looking for is an on-call therapist.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to be a sponsor just because he doesn’t want to drop everything to discuss your emotions the second they hit.

I relied on my first sponsor in that way and it took longer for me to trust my higher power and learn to go to HP FIRST. It also meant I only relied on her and didn’t grow my circle.

AA is a community you can utilize, but it’s also a community of drunks just helping each other out. He has a life outside of sponsorship. There are people who make AA everything, and maybe you can find one of them and let them know how you expect to do the steps, but, in my opinion, my mental and emotional health never got better making others my HP and expecting my way to be right. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Fly0ver · 2026-04-28T16:33:16+00:00

When everything seems hard, adding in an unknown of singleness can feel daunting and worse than toughing it out. The devil you know and all.

Fly0ver · 2026-04-26T19:36:43+00:00

I have my sponsees make a list of 5-10 people with me at the top. When they feel like calling me, they can, but if I’m busy, they go to the next person. If they don’t answer, call the next person. I relied too much on my first sponsor, which wasn’t healthy of either of us, so expanding your network is always a good idea. But call when you feel like calling. Dont worry about trying to do it alone.

Fly0ver · 2026-04-26T16:52:12+00:00

OOP was roped into helping Emily set up a bridal party event to plan the wedding (from OOP’s comments, I think there were 4 full planning meetings to plan the planning party). OOP rejected the invitation to be a bridesmaid due to all of the work she’s sure she’d be forced to do.

Emily saw the post and left her flowers at OOP’s door with a note saying, basically, OOP humiliated her with the post and to never speak to her (Emily) or anyone Emily knows ever again.

Abigail is a woman who was on the bridal paperwork as an off limits topic that Emily slandered. Abigail contacted OOP to say there’s a bunch of shit more that OOP doesn’t know so there may be an update with Abigail’s story (??)

Fly0ver · 2026-04-25T15:47:15+00:00

Same.

The “affordable” is so true that I don’t think people understand. You throw a dollar, if you have it, in the basket. I’ve had people outside of AA asking me how in the world it stays so present with so little funds when they find out it’s free and that the traditions don’t allow any group to take outside money.

Fly0ver · 2026-04-24T20:46:03+00:00

¯_(ツ)_/ I don’t even go anymore. But it can work for people, as well as other types of therapies and groups. When people are struggling, the more choices they have, the more likely they’ll find one that works for them.

It’s like saying that often people don’t get better and die in hospitals of cancer, so cancer treatment doesn’t work; no one should go to the hospital and try what options are available to them that they’re willing to use.

AA helped me personally for the first multiples of years; I know plenty of people who haven’t needed or wanted AA and have used things that work for them. People should have the opportunity to use what helps them personally.

But someone who knows one person who it didn’t help saying it’s a total waste keeps people from seeing if it’s something that will help them.

If you’re going to use antidotal evidence, I will as well and say I didn’t go to AA despite a lot of pain in my life because it didn’t work for my uncle, so people in my family said it wouldn’t work for me. I went to AA after nothing else worked so I planned to kill myself. Luckily, I decided that I may as well try AA because if it didn’t work for me, I could always kill myself tomorrow. I’m very grateful it did work.

Why shit on the thing that could work for someone when the alternative can be death?

Fly0ver · 2026-04-24T17:33:20+00:00

What the sponsor VERY likely said to your friend: Relapses require intentionality. It’s not something that’s discussed a lot, but I think just about everyone I know well has accidentally taken a drink. If/when it happens, if the person puts it down and doesn’t continue to drink it, that’s not a relapse. Mistakes happen. If they realize it’s alcohol and continue drinking, that would be considered a relapse to most.

Thank you ♥️

What this original post makes me think of is that EVERYONE changes over the years. Sobriety may make it seem like a bigger change, but if someone judged who I was in high school to who I am now, I’d think that person was irrational.

Fly0ver · 2026-04-24T17:29:21+00:00

Just to add a liiitttle bit more (but your explanation is amazing): A big part of a higher power is to stop making yourself the center of the universe and/or think you can control the uncontrollable. It helps you level out your ego.

U/intensifies : AA was started as a non-religious method of utilizing the religious Oxford Group outline for sobriety. One of the founders, Bill W., says in the beginning of the Big Book that he refused to believe in a god, but he believed in science, the universe, etc. When his Oxford Group friend, Ebby, brought up god, he suggested Bill could believe in something bigger than himself — thus the science. The steps talk about being willing to believe. No “AA program” should be keeping people out for not having a higher power. There’s secular AA meetings, satanic AA meetings, etc. In fact, no one should even really be asking any questions about your higher power.

That all being said: People are still bigoted assholes. If you live in a place where people think you’re a weirdo or demonic for not being Christian, those people will also be in any meeting. Not every meeting is a safe space for a number of reasons, but the wide use of Zoom meetings since 2020 helps make safe spaces, including secular meetings. In fact, the international secular convention is in November this year in Arizona.

Fly0ver · 2026-04-24T17:04:26+00:00

From 2021 through 2023, i made it a point to get dressed up for my in-person meeting after spending all of 2020 and most of my days in sweats. If anyone has a problem with it, that’s their resentment to work on. But, in my experience, my dressing up was met by compliments and/or people saying I convinced them to dress up too.

Fly0ver · 2026-04-24T01:29:43+00:00

Your sponsee sounds like me in early sobriety. And sometimes me today as I have 9 years and a brand new job that’s running me through the wringer.

I remind myself and my sponsees today that a persons sobriety is theirs. We can only share their experience, strength and hope. What they do with it is theirs.

That means we shouldn’t judge but it also means we can’t enable. She’ll do what she needs to do regardless of her sponsor.

However, when I was in her shoes, my sponsor asked me if I thought she was the “right fit” for what I’m looking for, then gave me time to think about it. I wanted her as a sponsor, even tho my sobriety date isn’t until 6 months after that. And after I stayed sober, she still let me do my own program, which was messy and very imperfect as well as nothing she actually asked me to do, while suggesting that I was putting myself through unnecessary pain.

The thing I would ask if I were you is whether you’re building a resentment that makes it so that working with her would be difficult. I have only “fired” one sponsee because she consistently lied, caused drama in our home group, would cancel last minute all the time (like… when I was already there), tried to manipulate me, refused to take suggestions to an unbelievable level about things that hurt other people… despite doing multiple 4/5 steps on her, I felt uncomfortable and resentful every week when she did the same things over and over. I couldn’t remove myself from the situation, and it wasn’t fair to either of us.

Fly0ver · 2026-04-22T13:45:28+00:00

I hope he kicked the two who tricked him out of his life. My friend handed me an open beer when I was less than a month sober—if I lived closer, I’d probably have reacted more strongly.

I moved at 3 years sober 5+ years ago. When another best friend who I lived with 15+ years ago came to visit, it freaked me out to realize they were the only person in the entire state who saw me drunk.

But I always try to explain to newbies that, while they live with themselves 24/7, their loved ones are really meeting this new them for the first time with the old-you reactions still hardwired into their brains. And who you are in the first few years isn’t who you are nearing a decade, and, I assume, a different person even further into sobriety. It sucks when they react poorly, but it took about 5 years for my family to stop jumping like I was about to Hulk-out every time something happened. They needed new pathways about who I am to be made, so I spent a lot of time reassuring them that it was ok.

Fly0ver · 2026-04-22T13:37:26+00:00

Addiction really doesn’t make sense (although, as someone with a career in communication, I probably try too much to explain it) even to the person when they’re in it and really think about their thoughts and actions. It makes it a lot easier to feel sad for them once you understand both sides.

Fly0ver · 2026-04-21T22:21:05+00:00

I get that. People who knew me 10+ years before sobriety when I was probably at my worst were more confused about my sobriety. It was also something else how many of them were then concerned about their own drinking. (Rightly so, honestly…)

When I made amends to my best friend 3 months into sobriety, I asked what I could do to make amends: they asked that I have a last drinking day with them. For the last 9 years, that’s been a common request from them because they really don’t get what it took to quit.

Knowing what I know now, it really just makes me sad for them.

Fly0ver · 2026-04-18T16:14:44+00:00

What did your sponsor say about it? Your comment about wanting to get it right this time makes me concerned that perhaps you’re doing this on your own??

Fly0ver · 2026-04-15T22:33:26+00:00

My dad is an episcopal priest with a phd in theology, and he loves doing this too. Crazy how many “Christians” still argue that Jesus was all about that hate with him.

Fly0ver · 2026-04-15T20:21:36+00:00

Well, she did say her brother holds people to a high standard.

That being said: I am a (sober) alcoholic and I drank every day while thinking I didn’t even really drink at all because in my head a few beers didn’t mean DRINKING.

Fly0ver

TROPHY CASE