I answered the phone a while ago, and had a very brief chat with a pigeon; when I hung up, a friend sitting nearby (an NA type) must have heard the same sort of abbreviated conversations before, because he asked me "Sponsee?"

I answered (before I thought about it) "Yep".

But a bit later, as we were walking, I told him that I should not have answered "yep", as the word "sponsee" is not actually a word.

We've played this gamed before, but that's all right - I don't mind.

If somebody is (for instance) inducted into the army, then the person who manages the process is the "inductor", and the person who undergoes the process is the "inductee".

If someone is causing an orchestra to conduct itself in a particular way, that person is the "conductor" and the folks playing the instruments are "conductees".

If someone performs an oration, then he is an orator, and the people listening are oratees.

But nobody ever "sponses" anybody - they SPONSOR them.In order for the word "sponsee" to actually be a WORD, then "sponse" would have to be a VERB - i.e "Joe sponsed me for the first five years, but now Ted sponses me".

Back when I was a little baby drunk in central Texas, I learned the word "pigeon", because we take care of 'em, we keep 'em locked up until they're able to fly on their own, they often seem to poop on everything - and we hope, someday, that they will carry a message.

The Big Book uses neither term - it says "protoge" or "prospect" for the person to whom one is carrying the message to (for the first time) - after that, it simply says "the new man". But, then, the Big Book never even discusses the sort of long-term relationships that we now indulge in, through the process of "sponsorship". It allows as to how you make two visits to a man, and - if he decides that he wants to go through the program - you make yourself available for Steps 3 and 5.

Hmmm...I wonder....it's just a notion, an unclear idea - but maybe (just maybe, and I'm only questioning this myself) I should even be DOING those kind of long-term relationships; perhaps I'm doing the "pigeonee"¹ a disservice by taking on a role or responsibility that is not described or dictated in the Big Book. It's entirely possible that that is one of those things that my current sponsor calls "AA Folklore" (and it's funny that I can reference my sponsor in a passage that is questioning whether or not the term itself describes a valid concept :)

I wonder if that sort of long-term relationship actually fosters dependence on another person, rather than dependence on God? I've always understood my responsibility, as a sponsor, to be to get the protoge/pigeon/pick-a-word as quickly as possible to Step 11, so that he can then detach from me and get his instructions directly from God. Why, then, would we keep the relationship going after that?
I would figure that, if this were a necessary part of sobriety, that it would be in the Book? -  maybe this is one of those "God will constantly disclose more to you and to us" thingies.

I don't like ambiguity. I reckon that I'm gonna have to do some more reading - and praying.



¹ Yes, I know that's not a word either. Just a little Rule #62 on my part :)