Be a Mentor to Someone New to Recovery by Guest Writer Suzanne K

Reflect for a moment on the first days and weeks of your early recovery. If you’re like most with a few years of recovery under your belt, you’ll likely recall some pretty frightening experiences, times when you felt that you just couldn’t go on, when the lure of the cravings was just too much to overcome. You were desperate for a lifeline – and you found it in your support network, most likely your 12-step sponsor and fellow group members. Besides your sponsor, you may have formed a friendship with someone who became, more or less, your mentor. Now, maybe it’s time for you to give back. Think about becoming a mentor to someone new to recovery.

Think of it as a Gift

Before you discount the idea as one that will require too much time on your part, give it a little consideration. Rather than regarding mentorship as a chore or a job, think of it as a gift, a way that you can give back in a manner that you have received from others. Remember the time that you called on your allies in your local Alcoholics Anonymous (or Narcotics Anonymous, or Cocaine Anonymous, or Gamblers Anonymous, and so on) group. You just needed someone to talk to that wouldn’t judge you or try to impose their will on you. Your group members – who may have become more than just acquaintances – helped you out by listening compassionately, offering encouragement and support, and, possibly a few suggestions that worked for them.
For many in early recovery, just the ability to have these kinds of conversations with others is a tremendous relief. The new-to-recovery individual can begin to realize that they aren’t going crazy, that what they’re feeling is perfectly normal, given their recent transition from treatment to being on their own again and striving to live a clean and sober life.

Others new to recovery weren’t able to benefit from residential treatment. They may have had to struggle with addiction on their own, or perhaps got clean by going to a detox center and then outpatient counseling. They look to 12-step groups to help provide support and anchor them to sober living more out of necessity than choice. But, still, each person that’s new to recovery needs help. No one can do it alone.

Offer your assistance to someone new in recovery by being a mentor. You’ll find that it’s more than a gift you offer that individual. You’ll also be giving yourself a great gift. At the point in your recovery when you find yourself able to give your time to others, that’s the greatest gift of all.

Find Someone with Whom You Can Relate

There are new people coming to meetings all the time. Who should you choose to mentor? How should you go about it? After all, you may not be ready to be a sponsor, but you do want to help in whatever way you can on a more limited basis. You can’t just go up to someone who’s just started coming to meetings and say you want to mentor them. How awkward is that? The new member is probably scared, distrustful, unsure about this whole meeting and sharing thing, and certainly not ready for such an approach.

Give it a little time. Going to meetings week after week, you’ll begin to see how new members are adapting or becoming a bit more comfortable with the 12-step group meeting format. Some will disappear after initial meetings, not finding it to their liking, going to another meeting, relapsing, or other reasons. But for those who do come back, they’re obviously committed to the whole concept, and you may find someone among them with whom you can relate.

It could be that you’re both the same age or work in the same industry. You could both have children the same age, or you may both be childless, single, divorced or married. Maybe you like the same hobbies or sports. There are any number of similarities or reasons why you could relate to this person.

Most of all, however, you can relate to their uncertainty, their pain, their struggles with cravings and urges, and all the challenges and obstacles facing someone new to recovery.

Offer to Help

Instead of saying you want to be a mentor – that may be a turnoff to some people – why not just offer to help them with a problem that they’ve identified? If they’ve opened up to the group in the smallest way about an inability to cope with financial mess or rebuilding trust with a loved one or finding a job after losing their previous one because of addiction, this may be your way in.

You could offer to help them create a resume (or polish one they already have), prepare for a job interview, do a job search using the Internet or a placement agency, or help them identify new fields, training opportunities, or other avenues to explore for employment.

When there’s one problem, there are usually many more. But the most pressing ones are the ones the newly-recovering individual needs help with the most. If you have the willingness and ability to help, this is your way to approach the individual, and one that is most likely to be accepted. If not, wait a while and perhaps approach the individual again. If he or she still is unreceptive, maybe it’s not a good fit. Look for another new member that may be able to accept your offer of assistance.

Share Your Successful Strategies

What is it that you found most helpful when you were new to recovery? Beyond the opportunity to listen to the experiences of others and to share your own when you felt able to open up, it was probably the strategies fellow group members found most effective in keeping their resolve to remain clean and sober.

Tips and techniques are always eagerly discussed among group members. What’s important to remember, however, is that what works for you may not work as well for someone else. Keep in mind that every person’s situation and life experiences are different. So, too, are the solutions that will prove most beneficial to them. The beauty of being a mentor to someone with whom you can relate is that you can offer your strategies and coping mechanisms as suggestions only. They may have worked for you for only a little while, or they may be some that you continue to utilize today. Maybe you could discuss with this person how you evolved your strategies. If you relapsed, how did you get back on track? How did you deal with insomnia, a loved one walking out, the loss of your children through a divorce, old friends who are users showing up? These are the nuts and bolts situations that those new to recovery need help with the most. No one will turn down an offer to share what worked – not if they’re reaching out for help. That’s why they come to the meetings.

Why not just share your strategies with the group at large? You could do that, of course, and probably do to some extent during the course of the meetings. But being a mentor to someone new to recovery is more personal, more in-depth. You could even meet or talk with the individual outside of the meetings. That makes the relationship more immediate and meaningful. Your opportunity to help the individual goes above and beyond the confines of the weekly 12-step meeting.

This doesn’t mean that you devote all your free time to the person. In fact, that’s not even recommended. There should be regularly-scheduled times for conversations or meetings, and nothing that infringes on either person’s life.

A Short-Term Commitment

When you decide to be a mentor to someone new to recovery, you’re not making a lifelong commitment. In essence, what you’re doing is making a short-term commitment, accepting an opportunity to assist another person to get on his or her feet, recovery-wise. The fact that you may become close friends is a bonus, and it doesn’t detract at all from the beginnings of the relationship where you serve as a mentor.

And, if that’s all the relationship is, that’s fine, too. The point is to offer assistance, freely and willingly, without looking for anything in return.

How will either of you know when the assistance is no longer required? That’s pretty easy to determine. When the person that’s new to recovery is able to remain clean and sober for 6 months or more, you can probably both consider that he or she has adapted well to recovery. Again, if you’ve become friends, then you have a different type of relationship that’s evolving. But, if the person gradually declines meetings, or you don’t have anything problematic to discuss any longer, it may be time to move on.
You could look for another person to mentor, if you’ve found the experience uplifting and gratifying. Or, you could wait until another opportunity presents itself that seems like a perfect fit.

No one said that you have to mentor. Mentoring should be something that you want to do. It isn’t something that you need to do.

Transitioning to Sponsor

Let’s say that you’ve been mentoring one or more individuals for a period of time and you’ve accumulated some pretty effective ways of helping other people deal with crises. This body of knowledge is something that you may want to do more with. One way to expand your assistance to others is to become a sponsor. As a sponsor, you’ll need to be more accessible to the person in need. It can be a little frightening and overpowering, if you let it. Generally speaking, sponsors have been clean and sober for at least 1-1/2 to 2 years before they’re ready to take on the responsibility of sponsorship.

Before you decide to go the next step, talk with your sponsor or other sponsors to get their take on what it’s been like for them. Discuss the worst situations they’ve had to deal with, and solutions for various types of crises. Role-play until you get to the point where you feel that you can handle the additional 24/7 responsibility. Remember, unlike a mentor, a sponsor needs to be available any time of the day or night to the person in need.

And, you can’t just one day decide that you’re a sponsor. Someone needs to approach you and ask you to sponsor them. If you’re not ready, you need to say so – but point them to someone who may be available and a good fit. If you think you’re ready, maybe you are.

Mentoring Helps Another to a Position of Strength

When you mentor someone new to recovery, what you’re really doing is helping them gain their footing along the path to successful recovery. When they first start out in recovery, they may be unsure, stumbling now and then or even relapsing. They need help to regain their strength, and t practice coping mechanisms they only started to learn about during treatment. Maybe they need to find a little humility to be able to ask for help from others – since trying to do recovery on their own doesn’t always meet with success.

Mentoring is a little like building a house. You don’t just start putting up the walls before you have a solid foundation. And after the walls, you need to attach the roof. Building a structure is all about taking it step-by-step, using the right tools and techniques, and keeping the ultimate goal in mind. The parallels to recovery are appropriate. Without solid support, recovery may fail. Without practice in coping skills, recovery may falter. Without encouragement, recovery may not be possible. But with solid support, coping skills and strategies for effective recovery, and ongoing encouragement from like-minded friends, recovery is more likely to be maintained.

Everyone Has Something to Give

There’s one last point about mentoring someone new to recovery. Maybe you think that you don’t have anything special to offer. You’re not a teacher, not skilled in crafts, not particularly outgoing or find it easy to make friends. Welcome to the rest of the world. Most of us are not spectacularly talented. We just get by with our particular interests and small talents or skills in this area or that. But that’s just as it should be. In fact, everyone has something to give. More than abilities and talents and skills, the capability to empathize and be willing to help is primary to being a mentor. So, never think that you may not have what it takes. You definitely do. And there are definitely those out there who are new to recovery that can benefit greatly from your willingness to put yourself out there to help.

Just Think About It

You don’t need to make a decision right now. There’s plenty of time for that. For now, just weigh and balance the idea of giving back by helping others new to recovery. Picture yourself being in the position of mentoring others. If it feels good, and it’s something that you decide you’d like to do, by all means, give it a try. Mentoring someone new to recovery may be just the right thing for you to do at this point in your own recovery. Even if you decide you’re not quite ready for that yet, it’s worth thinking about.