14/10/2025
“𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐌𝐲 𝐉𝐨𝐛 𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐦”
By a man who meant well, and almost killed someone because of it.
⸻
I used to think recovery made me invincible.
Like once I’d crawled out of the pit, I had the right to pull everyone else up by sheer force of will.
I thought my story was a blueprint — follow my steps, say my prayers, do what I did, and you’d make it.
Then Jamie died.
He was my sponsee. Twenty-six. Too smart for his own good.
He looked at me the way I used to look at the guys with ten years clean — like they were saints who’d hacked the code.
He’d call at 3 a.m., panicked, rambling, asking what to do about the voices, the anxiety, the shakes.
And I’d talk like I knew.
Like I was a doctor, not a carpenter with a Big Book and a few slogans.
“Try cutting the meds,” I told him once. “You don’t need all that stuff. Just work the program. Get honest. Pray.”
He said okay.
Because that’s what sponsees do — they believe you.
A week later, he was gone.
His mother found him in his room, serenity prayer pinned to the wall.
And I remember thinking —
I didn’t hand him the drugs.
I didn’t tie the rope.
But I opened my mouth like I knew better.
I wanted to help. I really did.
But what I gave him wasn’t help. It was arrogance dressed up as faith.
After the funeral, I couldn’t walk into meetings without feeling like a fraud.
Everyone kept saying, “It’s not your fault.”
But it was. Not because I caused it — but because I crossed a line I had no right to cross.
I forgot the first rule: I’m not God.
I sat in the parking lot of the rehab for two hours one night, watching the light from the nurses’ station.
All the people who spent their lives cleaning up the wreckage — qualified people, trained people.
And there I was, a guy with a sponsor, a chip, and a Messiah complex, thinking I could play doctor because I’d read the literature and survived my own madness.
That night, I wrote one sentence in my journal:
“My experience doesn’t make me an expert.”
Now, when I sponsor someone, I stay in my lane.
If they talk about meds, I tell them to see their doctor.
If they talk about trauma, I tell them to find a therapist.
If they talk about wanting to die — I sit with them, and I listen, and I remind them they’re not alone — but I don’t try to fix them.
Because my job isn’t to fix.
It’s to walk beside.
I don’t tell my story like it’s gospel anymore.
I tell it like it’s a warning:
This worked for me. It might not work for you. And that’s okay.
I used to think being a sponsor meant saving lives.
Now I know it just means showing up — honest, humble, and willing to admit what you don’t know.
Jamie taught me that.
The hardest lesson of my life.
And I carry it every day, like a coin with no inscription — just the weight of what happens when good intentions forget their limits.
So now, when someone asks me for advice, I say,
“I’m not a doctor.
I’m not a shrink.
I’m just a drunk who’s learning not to play God.”
And sometimes, that’s enough.
At ARC (MyRehab), we’ve seen what happens when good intentions go unchecked. Recovery is not a one-man crusade — it’s a structured, clinical process that demands trained professionals, medical oversight, and accountability. That’s why every client who enters our program is cared for by a multidisciplinary team of doctors, psychologists, and addiction specialists who understand both the biology and the psychology of recovery. But when treatment ends, the work continues — and that’s where the fellowship begins. We hand over, not to amateurs pretending to heal, but to the strength of mutual self-help communities like NA, AA, and sponsor-based networks where lived experience meets humility. Professionally run rehabs treat the disease; peer groups sustain the recovery. Both matter. Both save lives.
☎ For more information:
MyRehab East: +27(0) 72 794 5130
MyRehab North: +27(0) 72 209 8352
www.myrehab.co.za
