The Recovery Radio Podcast - KMP3 - Long-Term Sobriety in A.A.
I share my experience, strength and hope with you regarding my own recovery from alcoholism through the 12 Steps in Alcoholics Anonymous. By the grace of God I've remained sober since I was 18 years old (1989). I started drinking and using drugs very young. I got sober during a time when there were not a lot of young people in AA. Moreover, I was homeless. I got sober in the very same location I drank. I'm passionate about recovery, and about sharing my incredible experience with others in every way I can. I am sincerely happy, joyous, and free.
The Recovery Radio Podcast - KMP3 - Long-Term Sobriety in A.A.
Episode #13 (Season 12) - "Simplest ways to Be Helpful"
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Recovery Radio KMP three thousand yes. You are listening to the Recovery Radio Podcast on KMP three. I'm a member of I will be host. Email me at sarcastic big book at email. Follow me on Instagram at sarcastic.day.book.com. Where you will find the sarcastic big book. The second edition. The first edition. Sarcastic Daily Meditations. More sarcastic daily meditations. Just for yesterday. And some other stuff. And as always, I'm so glad you're here with me. I don't know if your day is just getting started or it's just windy down or it's somewhere right in the middle, but here we are. You and me. And I am glad for that. I'm grateful I have no desire to drink today. I do have a piping hot cup of French roast coffee from Trader Joe's mixed with some Don Francisco's hazelnut. I experimented recently with some other blends, other brands of French roast. Cinnamon hazelnut. This is it right here. I'm back to this is this is the real thing for me. Getting a lot of beautiful emails in response to my recent episodes about alcoholism being a twofold malady. It's not a spin on this that I have. It's not my own unique take. If you read it, it's bodily and mentally different. I love talking about this. Spiritual malady is brought up only because that is the route to our salvation. That is the solution to our drink problem. I just I just I'm having the best experience. And it's just this is the this is at the root of why. I will always have some. It's permanently going to hopefully progress towards perfection, and I will never arrive. We can never arrive. We cannot maintain perfect adherence to these principles, but God can remove whatever self-will blocks me. Can't have that experience. Powerful experience. Powerful, beautiful life of sane, happy usefulness. Might as well read that. I think it's on page 100 and leave me alone. Don't scream at me. I'm trying to find it. I think it's on page 110. I don't know where it is. Hold on. I don't know where it is. Don't shout. The life of sane, happy usefulness. Do you know what I'm talking about? Uh, page 130 is where it is. Those of us who have spent much time in the world of spiritual make-believe have eventually seen the childishness of it. This dream world has been replaced by a great sense of purpose, accompanied by a growing consciousness of the power of God in our lives. We have come to believe he would like us to keep his head, our heads in the cloud, in the clouds with him, but that our feet ought to be firmly planted on earth. That is where our fellow travelers are, and that is where our work must be done. These are the realities for us. We have found nothing incompatible between a powerful spiritual experience and a life of sane and happy usefulness. You know, I want to, I think, talk about how much my perception and understanding of being helpful has changed. I used to believe that being helpful meant doing for people what I thought they needed done for them, and it was my call, and I was gonna decide and I was gonna try and impose that. And I also thought for a long time that being helpful to people was something very in a very pedestrian, obvious way just meant manual labor. And then I thought also that being helpful was just doing whatever people asked. Underreacting to my own needs is not helpful to anyone. Overreacting to your needs and underreacting to my needs, I have discovered firsthand countless times is not helpful to anyone. For years I underreacted to my own needs, and I overreacted to your needs, and it's easy to do, especially when you have empathy for people, you want to help people, you want to make a difference, you're willing to be make a difference, you're willing to go above and beyond, you're willing to be that person who just helps everybody. In AA, that's that's called the spiritual bypass where you can get so wrapped up in other people's affairs that you completely neglect your own. Years ago I worked in a treatment center where I did this. I was learning a lot of things. I was learning learning that working in treatment and AA are not not the same thing at all. Not even close, actually. Totally different animal. And I started working in treatment by treating it kind of like it was just AA, and I caused a lot of harm by doing that to myself and to other people. And one of the things I did as I was learning all this was just overreacting to other people's needs. And underreacting to my own, spending so much time on people that I don't remember I don't even remember what they look like. And it drove me ultimately to a hospital with 20 years of sobriety. And I didn't feel stressed out. My mind was not racing. Looking back, I can really see the amount of self that's in I don't know how to put it. There's a lot of self in it. So I dumb all of all of this down now. I make it as simple as possible now. I keep everything so simple. Because even talking about this, it can get fussy sounding. And so I have found things that are definitely helpful and useful to other people. Not giving unsolicited advice. Not trying to make people do certain things. Not trying to make people do anything is helpful. Not always interjecting my opinion is I've seen it to be very helpful. Not responding to things I've seen be very helpful. Speaking about someone who's not in the room with love I've noticed is very helpful. Celebrating life is helpful. Being lighthearted helps people. See it every day. Not taking myself so seriously is helpful. Being boundaried is helpful. Displaying through my behavior that I'm grateful is so helpful. These things are helpful. Celebrating the person I've chosen to be with. Deliberately. Not talking about myself with everybody that I interact with helpful. Seeing it. Those things right there. Just those things, doing my best with those things I just mentioned has gone I think those are the most helpful. I think those are the ways I help people the most. Right there. It's not about saying brilliant shit or giving people rides or helping somebody move. Sometimes those things. Labor. I mean, sometimes those things are help helpful. Sometimes conversations are helpful. But those things I just mentioned are the most helpful things about me. I know it. Being lighthearted. Being boundaried. Celebrating people. Not giving unsolicited advice. Not taking myself so seriously. Not interjecting my opinion in every conversation. Sometimes not responding to things. Reflecting through my behavior that I'm grateful. Those are the most helpful things about me. I would say those things help people more than anything, in my experience. And if I just try to take care of those things, I'm busy all day. Try it. Try it. Make yourself a challenge. Try and do those things just for one day. See how it goes. I can't keep doing this. I gotta go model. I'm doing a photo shoot for a European fanzine called I Know You're Looking There. I like it a lot. And since you're looking there, you can probably tell that I like it a lot. What's the name of the brand? It's a little wordy. Everybody needs to hear that everything is okay.