SOBER COACH VS. SPONSOR
A Sponsor is an individual volunteer from a 12-step program such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Gambler’s Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, and Debtor’s Anonymous. While some Sponsors also work as professional treatment providers, they do volunteer work (primarily, helping newcomers to take the 12 Steps) because they believe that they benefit personally from the service they give: their payoff is that they get to maintain their long-term sobriety or abstinence by helping you.
Sober Companions and Sober Coaches are well-qualified treatment professionals whose jobs might include guiding you to just the right people in whatever 12-Step Fellowship is appropriate for you.
A Sober Companion will help you deal with this fact: 12-Step groups have grown explosively; in Southern California, there are over 3,000 meetings per month. Yes, you read that number correctly: over 3,000 meetings per month! How can any newly recovering person, especially clients like ours (busy professionals, artists, adolescents, and recognizable individuals of all varieties) expect to navigate these strange waters without a little help from a Sober Coach or a Sober Companion?
A sponsor might work at a coffee shop, might be a captain of industry, or might be unemployed. Their job is their job. Unlike a Sober Coach or Sober Companion, the sponsor’s part-time avocation is helping their sponsees to stay clean, abstinent, or sober by working through the 12 Steps.
The Sober Coach has a full-time job: helping you stay on track with a variety of scheduling options. We can work with you for a pre-determined number of days, we can schedule office visits convenient for your schedule, and a Sober Companion can remain by your side 24 hours a day, if you need us. A Sober Companion can travel with you, we can assist with your transportation needs, and we can provide services and direction that your Sponsor simply can’t.
Sponsors have a singleness of purpose-they stick with the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions. Often, the focus is on cleaning up the wreckage of the alcoholic’s past.
The job of a Sober Coach (or full-time Sober Companion) is to support you in creating and living a vibrant, superior life. A coach isn’t limited to using the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions. We work with you on your dreams and plans and help you effectively find solutions to problems.
If you need the special level of attention and care that can be provided by a team of professional, agile, caring folks, you owe it to yourself to give us a call or send us an email.
