Heart of Darkness

I'm considered a strange fellow, even in AA.

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So not too many people ask me to sponsor them.

But about once a year a guy will start giving me the signs. He'll sit by me, make eye contact, smile and eventually pop the question.

"Do you, uh, sponsor people?"

The fellows who ask me are always unique, like me. They are either vets with PTSD or artists/musicians or both.

This is what I usually say.

"I don't like the word sponsor, but what I do is lead people through the journey of the Twelve Steps."

When I was a kid a read a novel called Heart of Darkness. The story starts out with this man in England who is getting ready to marry a very sophisticated and beautiful woman. But he gets called by his company to go up a river in the Congo in Africa and meet with a man named Kurtz.

Kurtz is described as a great man who has the gift of utterance. His command of the language gives him the power to tame the a tribe of primitives in the jungle. He's a man who has gone insane and needs to be stopped.

So this fellow journeys up the river, into the heart of darkness and confronts Kurtz.

When the man named Marlow tells Kurtz he is insane, Kurtz is speechless. The awful thought that he suffers from delusion is too much for him to take and he cannot find the words to attach to the feelings. So, like all great men he quotes the master when in doubt.

"The horror, the horror, the horror," are words from MacBeth by Shakespeare.

Marlow confronts the heart of darkness and returns to his faince.

But he is a changed man. He has lost his attraction for the woman.

The Heart of Darkness is an analogy for the journey of the Twelve Steps.

In the last five years I have lead many men to the part in the Big Book where it says, "God, remove my fear and direct my attention to what you would have me be."

What happens is the horror, the horror, the horror.

But the horror for the alcoholic is different.

What the Steps teach the alcoholic is that he is great.

The Heart of Darkness for the alcoholic is actually the light of God's love.

My experience is alcoholics are horrified by how great they are in the eyes of God.

Alcoholics can handle darkness and adversity and conflict. But handling love is something more difficult.

Alcoholics hate to be loved and they love to be hated.

So when someone asks me to sponsor them, I don't take it lightly.

I know that when an alcoholic finally sees the light within him, it can cause an adverse reaction. They might respond by turning on me or, worse, even drinking.

Imagine being an alcoholic and building an entire life around being a dark, unworthy character and then finding out it is all a lie, that you are actually an innocent, forgiven child of God.

That's enough to make any alcoholic want to drink.