PO Box 1980

I really identified with the author of "The Young-Timer" in the February 2005 Grapevine. In 1980, when I got sober in western Montana, there were a handful of people under twenty-one in our meetings. I was nineteen, and I was sure I wasn't that bad, which sometimes was inadvertently reinforced by older member's comments such as "I've spilled more than you drank" or, "It's good that you've stopped so early in your drinking." I needed the skill of a very practical sponsor to help me see myself in the older members' stories, who showed me how the Big Book applied to me. For instance, when the Book said "sweet relationships were dead" (as a result of alcoholism), I learned to see this as meaning not only marriages, but all the pain I had caused my mother, grandparents, siblings, and friends. Grossly immature, I needed the strong guidance of older members to remain sober.