Working Steps 6 & 7 with Dick H. was akin to working with a bureaucrat or a social worker. They ask a set of questions, one responds. Don't volunteer information. Keep it short and simple. Communication is dry and clinical. It was difficult with Dick due in large part to what happened in Steps 4 & 5 and me actively resenting him. Ultimately, I realized not only I wasn't ready to move forward, but also what a dick Dick was.
Giving credit where credit was due, Dick helped me to prepare my list of character defects. We then decided on how many times a week to check in by phone. I chose four – Mon evening, Wed evening, Fri morning, Sat morning – as I felt that I needed more support, but did not factor in the trauma of Geer Street Garden, nor his penchant for wanting to talk more than listen. Finally, we decided on 'vindictive' as the first character defect to work on.
The periodic phone check-ins commenced in March 2023. Each call began with how I was doing, then was asked if I had been feeling vindictive. Depending on the day, circumstances and such, my responses varied as follows: 1) not at all, 2) yes but handled quickly, or 3) yes but didn't manage well. Regardless, Dick described how he kept practicing his solutions until he got better at it... almost every time like a broken record for almost four weeks (about 12 calls after subtracting the missed appointments). When I told him I didn't have any solutions to practice, he said to use the Trigger list. I countered that the list was for addiction triggers. He said I did good work on the list and to use it. It sounded like I should take what I wrote that deal with addiction triggers to apply to feeling vindictive. It didn't work and I became frustrated. I also heard another Dick H. signature response: "I can't do it for you." He said that in almost every phone check-in. It took 4 weeks for me to realize that I should use the template for the Trigger list to prepare a separate list for character defects. By the time he confirmed that was what he meant – after asking him point-blank – I was furious. Why didn't he say that explicitly? He gave no explanation other than complimented my honesty.
Dick's impatience reared its ugly head after we shifted the focus from vindictive to anger. During that fateful phone call on Monday, Apr 3, he pushed aggressively that I look up resources for anger management. He emphasized the importance for recovery, doubled down on his message, and would not hear my concerns to 1) slow down and 2) it would take time. My next phone call with him was two days later. I had to have something to show him or risk a repeat of his dickish behavior. When does a sponsor stop being helpful? When he's not longer speaking from experience. Dick had no firsthand knowledge of anger management resources, did not know where or what to look for, but was adamant that I find something ASAP.
By the following afternoon, my resentment towards Dick was through the roof. After a 12-Steps meeting that night, I sat in my car to compose the lengthy text messages to send him. A female member got into her car parked two spots from mine. A thought came to me: "She's attractive, do it". I followed her for a good 10 minutes until she gave me the slip after exiting the freeway. I sent the text messages to Dick after I got home. It was a venting of 1) the phone calls were mostly about what he wanted to talk about, 2) insufficient time to produce the anger management resources to his satisfaction, 3) resentment towards him that became increasingly unmanageable from four phone calls a week. (Two days later, I took a phone call from a brother in that fellowship. He said that someone tried to follow his wife two days earlier, and she processed that experience with alcohol. I was shocked but did not tell him that the follower was me.)
Dick and I talked the following evening. I told him what happened the night before and tried to blame him for it. If I wasn't angry at him, I wouldn't have followed the woman. He refused to own his part. The conversation got increasingly heated and blew up when I pointed out that his name rhymed with "dictating". He then brought up the topic of respect, which made me realized that he had always been better at talking about it than giving it. He certainly didn't show respect at Saladelia Cafe or Geer Street Garden, and definitely didn't in the phone call two days earlier. He then said he didn't mean to put pressure on me. This coming from a sponsor that claimed he had worked with at least 10 sponsees.
As a sponsor, Dick continued to be found wanting. In June, I was struggling with PTSD from being written up at work. He treated it as an addiction. Among his unhelpful suggestions included "Don't say "overwhelmed", say "difficult"" and this little cherry "I'm not going to crawl into the mud pit with you." Didn't help. Another blow up occurred and the realization that 1) I was alone in my struggle, 2) Dick would not offer a hand or a stick while I was sinking, and 3) his way of sponsoring was staying on his side of the street while lecturing on what I should do on mine. Unsurprisingly, he insisted that was not his intent. A person is judged by their actions/responses, not by their intent. Dick said what he said, and what he said stuck. This experience decided for me to say little. Why tell him anything only for him to remind me with some variation of "I can't do it for you"? To all those recovering from PTSD, try substituting "overwhelmed" with "difficult" and see if that helps.
At the Saladelia Cafe meeting of May 2022, Dick made clear that he didn't want sponsees to work Steps 4 & 5 just to check off the boxes. Because sponsees that (allegedly) worked these Steps for that reason ended up re-doing them again. So he decided how sponsees should work the Steps and their reasons for working them. Despite his intentions, I realized by July 2023 that I needed to redo Steps 4 & 5 because I wasn't making progress on Steps 6 & 7. I told Dick that I was going to find someone else to work Steps 4 & 5 with since they can be worked with any human being. Unfortunately, no one was available. On the wisdom of a brother from a meeting, I decided to do my Step 5 at the upcoming fall 12-Steps retreat.
The other thing Dick brought up at the May 2022 meeting was talking about feelings. The rationale was that addicts were unwilling to talk about it. However, he did not like to give specifics nor did he try to help me get there. By September 2023, I was actively resenting him, and was light on details when he asked the standard questions. He insisted that I should talk about feelings. What feelings exactly, regarding whom, what and where? What was the goal of focusing on feelings? He instead retorted that he didn't want to know how many hours a day I worked. I never mentioned that, yet that was the best example he came up with. I needed specifics regarding talking about feelings. He refused to give any. I vented at him again via text messages. My therapist said it was time to begin the process of finding a new sponsor. I found that sponsor just before the retreat started, and gave Dick notice after the retreat was over.
I struggled to understand what Dick wanted from me or meet him where he was. Because he was vague – another character defect. At times, he would ask the exact same question twice but claimed it was for different purposes. I didn't know how else but to give him the exact same answer. At times when my response didn't satisfy him, he would double down on the question without elaborating. For instance, he asked me what I thought about "Drop The Rock", a 12-Steps literature for Steps 6 & 7. I responded with pros and cons, what I liked and didn't like. He asked again, I tried to give more specifics. He doubled down again, and I tried to explain further but not understanding what he was looking for. This back and forth exchange finally concluded when he said he wanted to know if I liked or didn't like the book. In other words, he wanted me to pick a side. What I called "vague" questions, Dick called them "open-ended" even though he did not understand what open-ended meant. To me, open-ended means I can respond anyway I want with no restrictions or set format, long, short or light on details. I need specifics to tailor the response to one's expectations. Since he gave none, I kept my responses brief with very few words.
Dick was the only sponsor I worked with that never cracked a joke or laughed... ever, i.e. humorless. Another habitual response of his was reminding me of his job as a sponsor. If you're good at your job, you don't need to remind people of that. Just do your job. The sound of his voice alone triggered the resentment, and his mentions of Step 4 triggered the PTSD of Geer Street Garden. He once claimed that working the Steps could be traumatic. While that was a true statement, it wasn't the truth. I experienced trauma while working Step 5. It wasn't the Steps that caused my trauma. It was Dick H.. Had I continued working with him, I would not make any progress.
To this day, I'm still wondering what I might have said or did that prompted Dick to periodically say, "I can't do it for you." That was something a parent would say to a child. I asked him if he still talked that way to his adult children. He didn't comment, but my guess was he probably did. Furthermore, he didn't improve as a listener and was just as bad at communicating. If you are looking for a classroom lecturer or an overbearing parent in a sponsor, Dick's your guy.
Overall, the Steps 6 & 7 experience was slightly better, wasn't as traumatic, but wasn't as good as my experiences with past sponsors during my years in TX. In fact, the other facilitator at the fall 2021 online retreat, Frank G., was better at working with me than Dick. Frank made efforts to meet me where I was, shared his experience, strength and hope in ways that affirmed how similar we were, and did none of the shenanigans Dick did as detailed in this entry and the one before. With Frank, I felt that he was walking with me. I did not get that with Dick. You may try Dick as a temporary sponsor until someone better comes along. I did not work any other Steps with him, so best of luck on those. As I said before, I do not recommend him for Steps 4 & 5.
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