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I met you at a meeting on Capitol Hill. You moved into town after being in prison. You asked me to be your sponsor. You got a job. I showed you how to pick up men in a safe way so I could help you come out of the closet. You refused to come out all the way. I saw you use others and find some excuse to not repay them. You preyed on the weak and vulnerable. You still had that jailhouse mentality. I ignored the continuous racist remarks slipping from your mouth. I justified it because of your “experiences” in jail. I ignored the misogyny because of your abusive mother. I ignored the not-so-internalized homophobia because of an abusive stepfather. All the while, you really just wanted me (or someone) to take care of you. Then when I got serious with someone else (he was Asian), you got really jealous. I tried to ignore the warning signs: the sideways comments, the thinly veiled threats. The last straw was when we invited you to dinner and you actually had the balls to squint your eyes at him and show your “buckteeth” in the most profane and racist way. I almost lost the love of my life that night because of you. I finally came to the realization that you were coming to meetings out of fear of your parole officer and you saw people whom you perceived to be weak and vulnerable. You took advantage of our good nature. You are what you fear the most: a punk-ass bitch. recommended

23 replies on “I, Anonymous”

  2. huh wow…druggie ex-con acting up to expectations? geeeeeeeeeeeeeeee whiz.

    SO ANYWAY… how about some march madness talk eh?! really pulling for the huskies but i’m not sure they have what it takes. i’m a gophers fan deep down, but they’ll have a tough time also. both seeded 11 i believe. anyway,
    i got kentucky over syracuse in the finals. two number one seeds, i know. just as obvious and boring as this I,ANON. aaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnddddddddddddddd BOOYAA!!!!

  3. It sounds to me like you got WAY too involved with a sponsee. You’re there to take him through the steps. Not fix his problems. He has to do that. If my sponsee behaved that way, I’d kick his ass and then tell him that if he wanted any more help from me, he shut his mouth and drop his attitude. Because that kind of behaviour is totally unaccpetable from a person expecting to be able to conquer addiction.

    You can’t blame your over involvement on him.

  4. Yep. #5 is right. As a sponsor you’re not a life coach or a counselor, and you’re certainly not a match maker. I’m not saying you’re a bad person here, but you (a) got too close and (b) expected too much. Frankly you sound a little PC and sensitive, which is fine, but you shouldn’t be working with ex-cons. Let him get a sponsor who has also done time.

    Lastly it’s a little ironic that a AA/NA guy is putting this out in I Anonymous. If I were your sponsor I’d tell you to tell it to him personally. And don’t call people ‘punk ass bitches’ if you haven’t done time. Especially don’t do it in the weekly paper when they know where you live.

  5. Some of my Asian friends like to answer that kind of shit right back by pushing the outside of their eyes inward. It’s fuckin’ great.

  7. It sounds to me, from this extremely limited amount of information, as though anonymous is not ready to be a sponsor. At least, if I had a sponsee that behaved the way anon is, I would not counsel them to sponsor others.

    Anon’s sponsee need to go do some more research, it sounds like. Anyone spewing racism and giving attitude isn’t ready to get sober. They’re still to arrogant. Harsh maybe, but like I wrote above. If a person wants to work with me, they don’t get to behave like that.

  8. Dear Anonymous : people seldom wind up in jail because they’re nice people or had their shit together.

    Even if the proof against them is a videotape showing them committing the crime and then being captured by police they will continue to protest their innocence. In their minds they have done no wrong. Their worldview is that they aren’t the problem – everyone else is.

    And attending AA or NA meetings won’t help someone who is being forced to attend as a condition for parole.

    All of them aren’t like this, but there are a lot of them who are, and you have to keep your emotional distance until you are sure that *they* are truly desiring of changing their lives for the better.

    Sadly I suspect your sponsoree will be back in prison soon. Hopefully he’ll get a clue before he spends a lifetime in the system.

  9. @5,6,10: Seriously dude, talk about being unprepared to be a sponsor. Your over-involvement with this guy and your inability to call him on his shit was not doing him any favors. You walk him through the steps, tell him when his actions are contrary to sobriety, and kick him to the fucking curb if he doesn’t shape up.

    Finally, what the fuck did YOUR sponsor say about all this? If he told you it was OK, you need to fire him. If you didn’t tell him what you were doing, he needs to fire you.

    Sobriety ain’t for pussies.

  11. AA/NA doesn’t work! When will people get this through their heads? It has the same statistical chance of success as not using AA/NA.

  12. @14 those stats include all the people who come in and out of the program briefly (like the sponsee). if you just look at people who have gotten some sobriety (like at least a year) we have a pretty good chance of staying sober.

    and i definitely agree, this guy was over involved. you are not supposed to be friends with your sponsees, just give them direction, they can follow or not. and drop them if they don’t shape up.

  14. Libraboy, even if you were right (and you’re not: do a google scholar search on AA effectiveness for the research), your math is bad.

    Even if the _probability_ is the same, the _set_ is not. Suppose there is a 5% chance of getting sober alone, and a 5% chance of doing it with AA. If the sets don’t intersect, then there is a 10% chance over all. If they overlap somewhat, there is a 10%-(% overlap) chance. If the two sets are the same, only then is is 5%.

  16. “@14 those stats include all the people who come in and out of the program briefly (like the sponsee). if you just look at people who have gotten some sobriety (like at least a year) we have a pretty good chance of staying sober.”

    I don’t have a specific problem with AA/NA, but you’re not really making a convincing argument against his.

  17. all your fault dude, you allowed yourself to be taken advantage of so you deserve it. prison guy took advantage of you and you allowed it because you liked the attention. now, learn a life lesson and don’t be so stupid next time. this time you deserved it.

  19. AA’s own data will support #14’s contention. They just don’t like to advertise it. “It works if you work it.” Well, yeah. As does…ANYTHING. You could do a pirouette every time you felt like having a drink, and as long as you work that program, you’ll be a success.

    People that are ready to quit drinking can benefit from a support system like AA. But their sobriety is no more legitimate than that of other people who are ready to quit, and do so. AA doesn’t save people at any higher rate than people save themselves.

    So it’s a wash, unless you consider that AA’s m.o. involves convincing people that they are helpless and that one drink leads directly to the gutter. There is some evidence that this platform sets people up to be worse off if they “slip” from AA than they would be if they slipped on their own, because of the assertion that they may as well just go die if they mess up. After being indoctrinated that way, some people just give up and go hard instead of taking a different approach: I quit before, now I’ve slipped, but I can quit again because I have the power.

    In AA, they tell you that you don’t.

  21. Dammit. it deleted it.

    Go to google scholar and search for this:

    “alcoholics anonymous” effectiveness

  22. Me Chinese! Me play joke! Me go pee pee in your Coke! OMFG! That is hilarious…seriously Seattle, get over yourselves. You’re so self-righteous under that phony veil of compassion.

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