100%.

My names………….and I’m an alcoholic.
When I was growing up, I just loved the smell of old classic cars. We call them classics today. Back then, they were just called cars. We didn’t have a car at home for years. And when we did, it was a black, sit up and beg, Ford Popular. With a starting handle. It had 4 seats, but we squeezed 6 people in if needed.
A top speed of sixty miles an hour. Petrol was four gallons for a pound.
And the thrill of having a lift in a car was beyond exciting.
If our car went wrong or needed fixing, the easy way around this was to go to the scrap yard, buy another one for £5 and leave the old one there.
It was modern day recycling at its best. This was the late 1960s.
My Dad who lived many miles away in London had an old Humber super-snipe drop head.
It was big. It could sit four on the front bench seat easily. We had no seat belts then.
We also had a Thames, light yellow van. Which was used to transport furniture for our antique shops. for the antique shops.
It had the engine in the middle, between the two front seats. And so, with no heater, was wonderfully warm to sit on. Thats if I was lucky enough to be able to sit there on cold winter days.
But with a large family, even keeping your backside warm, was considered a treat.
As I grew up, and reached my teens, I, like my parents, always bought old cars.
They were considered old then. Always Cheap. Always reliable. And I tended to buy what others didn’t want.
At 15 I bought a mark one Jaguar. With its beautiful silver, flip lid ashtrays. It’s perfect smelling leather, its wire wheels, and the curtesy lights in the back. Which were considered very posh and awfully prim and proper.
The leather was worn but held something of its heart within the workmanship, that was crafted through many generations of highly skilled workers.
I then had an MGA drop head, white, with red leather seats and again with wire wheels. And then two Triumph mayflowers.
They were my favourites. I can still breath in the history that they were then, 50 years ago.
I polished and cleaned, and I can still see the mayflower emblem on the front grill. It was a map of the world.
Today they are all rare collector’s cars. Or ‘marks’ as they began to be known.
All 100% beautiful. All longingly lost by me into a world of drink and growing up. And just like my drinking, everything seemed to somehow morph into each other. That was until time, drink and circumstances, quietly and without any really trying, I arrived at the doors of my first AA meeting.
I was 100% beaten.
I was 100% ready.
And I was 100% willing to do whatever it took to stop drinking.
And so, I embarked on a 12-step recovery journey. 
I was new to recovery. I didn’t even know what a treatment centre was. I had to ask.
A dry house to me was one that had a good roof. And a power greater than me was a 6ft 6ins 20 stone body builder. Or the inland revenue. Or even the police.
I just was so naive and immature.
Ignorant of both addiction and of recovery.
When I was through the 12 steps, I was asked to sponsor my first sponsee.
And then came along sponsee number two.
And then onto number three.
And so on. I’ve done everything to excess in my life, and sponsorship is no different.
And far from getting a balance in AA, I’ve always sponsored too many. But I love it. I don’t think I’m on my own when I say that I had plans to be the first one in the history of AA never to have a sponsee drink.
That glass ceiling was smashed very early on. I’ve buried sponsees drunk and sober. Some sponsees have stayed with me for twenty and more years. Others lasted only for 20 and more days.
Either way, I’ve done what’s suggested, I’ve helped, I’ve taken many through the steps. And I’ve been privileged to hear more than my fair share of step fives.
It’s been a labour of love, in the true sense of the word.
It’s been a gift. And whilst it’s brought much pain, there has been even more joy and untold closeness and blessings.
Sponsorship is a badge I wear with honour and pride. We all do.
And it’s a path I share with a sponsee through the rough and tumble of their own trials, tribulations and terrible drinking experiences.
Many sponsees have left AA. Some have returned drunk.
Lots have stayed with me. Many haven’t.
But through it all I’ve done one thing that I never thought I’d say in recovery. And it’s this. That I’ve been 100% successful in sponsoring people. Up until today. One day at a time.
Why, because I haven’t had a drink. 

Anon