Whose Job is it to Change Your Sobriety Date?
What if someone in your meeting, early in sobriety, shares that she used something other than alcohol, and someone tells her she relapsed and needs a new date? What if another member admits she's been using something she didn't think counted, and a voice from the back says that as long as she does, she isn't sober?
And what if you're her sponsor, and people are telling you that you must make her change her date? I've been that sponsor. And I'm not claiming that other drugs are harmless. I'm not saying that people shouldn't change their sobriety dates. Many have, out of their own conviction, and I respect that.
I'm suggesting something narrower: we can share our experience without turning our personal convictions into rules for everyone else.
What we can share
Other substances can endanger sobriety. Our own pamphlet says so plainly: "the misuse of prescription medication and other drugs can threaten the achievement and maintenance of sobriety" (The A.A. Member — Medications and Other Drugs, p. 4). Members say it in their own stories. Sally took prescribed tranquilizers, drank six months in, and concluded that "somehow this medication had something to do with my relapse." Ann took a sleeping pill early in sobriety and "vividly" remembered "feeling just as drunk as I had ever been on liquor."
And in our literature, a slip is a drink. A.A.'s own FAQ calls a relapse into drinking a "slip." Bill's pamphlet Problems Other Than Alcohol defines the group's purpose as "sobriety — freedom from alcohol." In the sponsorship pamphlet, Questions and Answers on Sponsorship, the newcomer who slips is one who "starts drinking again." And notice the word the medications pamphlet chooses: other drugs can threaten sobriety. If they were part of the definition, taking one wouldn't threaten sobriety; it would end it. The pamphlet treats sobriety as something drugs can endanger, which only makes sense if sobriety means freedom from alcohol. So both things are true. Other drugs can lead us back to a drink, and the drink is the slip. If she drinks, that's a relapse by every definition our literature has, and nobody needs to tell her to change her date. She'll know. That's the one case where custom and the book agree.
Here is my own view, as a sponsor. If it's going to endanger your sobriety, don't do it. And one of the surest ways to endanger your sobriety is to lie and keep your secrets to yourself. If you're using something, whether recreationally or for any other reason, tell your sponsor. The Twelve and Twelve calls holding back in Step Five "a perilous resolve" and says "few muddled attitudes have caused us more trouble" (p. 56).
Many people say a gummy or a mushroom has deepened their connection with a Higher Power, and I won't argue with anyone's experience. I stay with one question: might this lead me back to a drink?
The Big Book says "the alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink," and that "his defense must come from a Higher Power" (p. 43). It says what we have is "a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition" (Chapter 6). So I ask my sponsees, and myself, whether something is clouding that connection or the way we live the program. Whatever is holding us up can stop working, and on a really bad day someone may push a drink our way. Sally found that her tranquilizers kept her from truly admitting powerlessness, and on a terrible day she ended up drinking. Only you can answer honestly whether something is putting your defense at risk. That's what I can ask, and that's why I don't rule.
I'm not talking about medication a doctor prescribes and a member takes as directed. Our own pamphlet calls taking that away "equally wrong" (p. 6). I'm talking about leaning on something in place of the program.
All of that is sharing, not ruling. And honesty goes both ways: if we ask members to tell us what they're using, we owe them a safe place to land.
We don't know the whole story
When someone says they used something, we're hearing one sentence of a longer story. We don't know whether a doctor prescribed it, what it's for, or what else is going on. The medications pamphlet describes members told by other A.A.s to "throw away the pills," and says it is "equally wrong to deprive any alcoholic of medication." A member in the mental health pamphlet, A.A. for Alcoholics with Mental Health Issues, tells newcomers who are pressured to stop their medication to "run in the opposite direction," because "A.A. members, as such, have no business commenting on another A.A. member's medical care." Another member, who takes lithium, says: "I have only one judge, my Higher Power."
Members also draw their own lines. Ann decided she could not handle any mood-altering drug. That was her conclusion about her own life. Nothing in our books turns it into a rule for the next person.
Custom is not A.A.'s opinion
I looked through the Big Book, the Twelve and Twelve, As Bill Sees It, and the pamphlets on slips, sponsorship, medication, mental health, and other problems. They warn about other drugs. They define a slip as a drink. I couldn't find anything in them about when a sobriety date should change, or any statement that someone has relapsed because of a substance other than alcohol.
That doesn't make the customs wrong. People who hold them usually do so out of care. A clear date can keep us honest, and some find a fresh start a relief. But a custom is a local habit, not A.A.'s position. When we say "that's a relapse, change your date" as though it were in the book, we're speaking for A.A. in a way A.A. hasn't spoken for itself.
Tradition Twelve reminds us to place principles before personalities. At its heart is humility, the willingness to put principles ahead of our personal convictions. A.A. has not established a rule requiring members to change their sobriety dates over substances other than alcohol. When we insist that another member adopt our personal conviction, are we practicing humility, or placing our own judgment above hers?
The principle people usually point to is honesty. But telling her sponsor what happened was an act of honesty. That honesty deserves encouragement, followed by a thoughtful examination of her actions, not an automatic verdict. And honesty asks something of the rest of us, too: to acknowledge the difference between what A.A. actually says and what we personally believe.
And fear isn't a reason to change a date. A beer labeled 0.0%, a gummy, a mushroom, or anything else may put someone's sobriety in danger. But we don't tell people to change their dates out of fear. People change them out of their own convictions.
What the books say about judging
Tradition Three is about membership, but its reasoning carries over. A.A. chose not to "punish nor deprive any A.A. of membership," because "to take away any alcoholic's full chance was sometimes to pronounce his death sentence." Then: "Who dared to be judge, jury, and executioner of his own sick brother?" (Twelve and Twelve, p. 141).
Writing about how A.A. groups treat their members, Bill said "punishment never heals. Only love can heal" (As Bill Sees It, p. 98). The sponsorship pamphlet asks a sponsor to have "empathy, compassion, and patience." Then it says something we tend to read right past: a sponsor "never tries to impose personal views." Not sometimes. Never. A conviction about someone else's date is a personal view. When a newcomer starts drinking again, it asks the sponsor to "avoid postmortems on the reasons for the slip." It reminds us that "one person cannot keep another person sober" and that people who have slipped "continue to be welcome in A.A."
In 2025, A.A.'s General Service Office wrote that "Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on medical advice, medication, or any other treatment," and that these matters "are not determined by members of A.A. or by a sponsor" (About A.A., Spring 2025). Years earlier, a G.S.O. staff member was asked whether a sponsor was right to demand a date change over prescribed pain medication. The answer: "My sponsor did not give me my sobriety date either and, as far as I know, can't take it away from me!" (Box 4-5-9, April–May 1998).
Some of that guidance is about someone who took a drink, and some is about someone taking a prescribed pill. None of it calls for a verdict. If it's how we're asked to treat a drink, it's a good guide for what we say to someone who tried a gummy. Love, patience, and service are what we have to give. A verdict isn't one of them.
What it costs when a conviction becomes a rule
Imagine a year of sobriety, and a friend hands you a gummy. You do the honest thing and tell your sponsor, and your sponsor says you have to change your date. Suddenly, you're being told that a year of sobriety no longer counts, even though none of the work you've done has disappeared. You feel like a failure. A voice says that if you've already relapsed, you might as well really relapse.
Our books warn us about guilt that leads to the next slip. As Bill Sees It (p. 68) says a slip "could well have been brought about by unreasonable feelings of guilt," and the sponsorship pamphlet warns against "harsh criticism that would only build up the newcomer's remorse" (p. 20). Even worse, you learn that honesty costs you, and the next time you may not tell. One member in the medications pamphlet describes exactly that: he "learned to be a little less open" about what he was taking (p. 17).
Or consider someone with twenty years of sobriety who has surgery. Months later, they realize they've been finishing the Vicodin after the pain is gone. They catch it, tell their sponsor, and stop. Do they lose twenty years? Misusing a medication is serious, and our own pamphlet says so. But they did what we ask of each other: they were honest, and they stopped. In the Big Book, writing about what happens when we fall short of our own ideals, Bill said that if we are sorry for what we have done and have "the honest desire to let God take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and will have learned our lesson" (p. 70, reprinted in As Bill Sees It, p. 52). What they decide to do with their date is theirs to decide. It isn't ours to demand.
For some people, changing the date is an honest act of conviction, and I respect it. I've changed a date myself. The problem is when someone else forces it.
Before you speak
Am I sharing my experience, or issuing a verdict?
What don't I know about this person's story?
If she walks out feeling condemned, what have I protected: A.A., or my own certainty?
What would love, patience, and service say here?
Have I taken my own inventory before taking someone else's?
What a sponsor can say
A sponsor can say, honestly and with love: "I believe you're putting your sobriety in jeopardy. Here's what I've seen. I'm here."
That is sharing experience, and it's what the sponsorship pamphlet describes: a sponsor helps "within the limits of personal experience and knowledge" and "never tries to impose personal views" (pp. 12–13).
A sponsor also has the right to decide whom they sponsor and on what terms, and a sponsee has the right to look for someone else. The pamphlet says so: "All members are free to approach sponsorship as their own individual experiences and personalities may suggest" (p. 13), and "we are always free to select another sponsor" (p. 9). What no sponsor has is authority over another member's date. It isn't theirs to set, change, or take away, and the pamphlet reminds us that "it is the whole A.A. program — not the individual's sponsor — that maintains the newcomer's sobriety" (p. 9).
And to the members who tell me I must make my sponsee change her date: I've already said what I have to say to her. "Continuing this could hurt your sobriety. I would stop. But I'm not going to tell you that you have to. If the day comes when you start drinking again and you need me, I'll be here." The date is hers.
Share what you've seen, and leave the decision where the books leave it: with the person living it.
The woman who hears "you're not sober" may not come back. The one who hears "I'm worried about you, and I'm not going anywhere" might just pause.
My own example
For me, it's simple. I take medication my doctor prescribes, and I don't use gummies, weed, hallucinogens, alcohol, or party drugs. That's the line I've drawn in my own life. It's the only authority I have, and it isn't a rule for anyone else.
If a sponsee tells me she's used something, I'll listen first. If she decides to reset her date, I'll stand with her. If she doesn't, I'll tell her plainly what I see, that I think it puts her sobriety at risk, and I'll pray that she looks at it honestly. I won't threaten to stop sponsoring her. I won't guilt her into a new date, or bully her into one, or hold my own sobriety up as the measure of hers. I won't ignore the date she keeps, and I won't take my love back.
Dr. Silkworth wrote of the early members that they believed "still more in the Power which pulls chronic alcoholics back from the gates of death." I do too. So we'll keep working the Steps, keep reading the book, keep going to meetings, and keep being of service, whether or not she ever sees it the way I do.
I'm not going anywhere.