CALL YOUR SPONSOR
Los Angeles-based costume designer and stylist Kenneth Hash on being sober, the importance of being of service and the power of guiding someone through a program of recovery
BY PAULO MURILLO
“I’m someone who washed up in the shores of recovery and I couldn’t look at people in the eyes, I couldn’t talk, and my head was all scrambled. I didn’t think that the person I used to be would ever be able to help anybody.”
THERE IS MAGIC
“Sponsoring someone and guiding them through a program of recovery is when the game changed for me. I remember thinking I was going to ruin someone’s life, but when I had to talk to someone about recovery—when I had to listen to someone go through something, that’s when I remember thinking, ‘WOAH…that’s the magic.’
I remember my sponsor in early recovery saying there was magic in the program of recovery, so today, I really believed in working with others. I love being of service.
I recently heard one of my sponsees share his story and I love that I’ve been a part of his journey. I love seeing him in his own apartment and no longer living in someone else’s house, in a room that was never decorated because all he wanted to do was party and have a bed to crash in. There was nothing that resembled a home, but as a sober man he did some writing about what he wanted his own apartment to look like and he got that apartment. Then six months later, he became the manager of that building. It was a miracle watching someone who couldn’t be responsible for one set of keys, now have 26 sets. And now I get to see him with his own sponsee. We have this sober family and all I can think of is, ‘Wow! We are just passing this on…’ There is magic in that and there is light in that. Seeing him help somebody also really helps me because I go through the steps when we do the steps.
I also have a sponsor and we have a relationship that’s built on trust. He’s my A team and my fellows in recovery are my B team and you have to have a B team. My sponsor is my first line of defense. There is an honesty, and an open heart, and it’s a beautiful thing.
I’m someone who washed up in the shores of recovery and I couldn’t look at people in the eyes, I couldn’t talk, and my head was all scrambled. I didn’t think that the person I used to be would ever be able to help anybody. I didn’t think that person who was filled with shame, and regret, and fear, and disbelief could ever be of service. I didn’t think that anyone would want what I had. And the truth is honey, I didn’t have shit. Recovery gave me a life. Recovery gave me the basics.
If you told someone in West Hollywood that they were going to have a relationship with another gay man, that it will be built on trust, honesty, and an open heart, and there would be nothing sexual, they’d be like, that’s stupid. And yet, that’s what I have today. I’m very connected to my sponsees. Each morning they send me a gratitude list, so I wake up to emails from them. Then I go through my morning ritual of the first three steps of I can’t, [God] can and I’m going to let Him, and then I do my stuff and go through my day. I’m connected to these people through a gratitude chain, through a program of recovery, through a check-in, and it is a bonding that is like no other.”
—Kenneth Hash, sober since May 17, 2012.
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