Sarah M. – Steps 6-7 Defects – The Danger Of Thinking Your Way Out – 2025

Good morning, everybody. So glad you guys are here. My name is Kirstie. I'm an alcoholic. Serenity prayer. Okay, well, we will start with the serenity prayer. That's a perfect idea. Let's start with a moment of silence, and then we will follow it with the serenity prayer. God, I ask for your serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I will not mind be done. Awesome. And we are actually going to have Billy groundwork. He's going to ground us in the big book with a passage about steps two and three before we kick it off. So thanks. Billy, alcoholic. Hey, Billy. A little passage out of the big book about steps two and three. Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God. Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the appropriate. We were able to approach and to affect a contact with him. As soon as we admitted the possible existence of a creative intelligence, a spirit of the universe underlying the totality of things, we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction, provided we took other simple steps. We found that God does not make too hard terms in those who seek him. To us, the realm of spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive, never exclusive or forbidden to those who earnestly seek him. It is open, we believe, to all men. Mm-hmm. Oh, that was it? Oh, I'm sorry. I thought there was going to be another quote on the third step. Okay, I totally lost. I'm going to have you start it off. But what I wanted to say is, I don't know if you had this opportunity. Did you have the opportunity to speak on the Russian meeting? Yes, I did. So this is so wild. I don't know if you guys have heard this, but somebody in our area has a connection with a Russian big book meeting. And she just made me think about this, that this was the most mind-boggling experience. I've done it twice in the last maybe six months. And anybody that wants to volunteer, really, it's an amazing experience. So you're literally on a Zoom meeting. They don't. They don't speak English. And there's an interpreter. And I could just cry talking to you guys about it. Because these people, we're all the same. You know what I mean? We're all the same. No matter what's going on in the world, like the fact that Bill W. has meetings in Russia, and we're reading out of the big book on a Zoom meeting with these folks, and they are so grateful to hear our stories. Because I guess where they are, they don't. They don't hear a lot of stuff out of the big book. Maybe they don't have a lot of meetings. I don't know what the situation is. But man, you share. And then people are responding and this interpreter. And it's just like I get goosebumps because it's like the power of this work and the power of Bill W.'s message and spreading it around the world is just mind-boggling. So that's one thing I was just thinking of. And the last thing I wanted to say is. I write for this online sober magazine. It's called The Sober Curator, if anybody's interested in it. And it's kind of this pop culture magazine. And I write different stuff on, I don't know, the steps or codependency or whatever. And I review books. And there's so many sober books out there now. And this guy wrote a book on getting his kid back when he got sober. He was a heroin addict. And now he's a drug addict. And he's a drug addict. And he's a drug addict. And the first quote that he opens the book with is, let's say a prayer for the person who's just about to get high for the first time. And it gets me every single time because like I have goosebumps. Like we all know where that took us and where that can take us. And I am just so full of freaking gratitude on a moment-to-moment, day-to-day basis. For getting this. Because as we know, it's a deadly illness. And we are so freaking lucky. And, you know, someone, my sponsee, one of my sponsees gave me a chair, a sun chair from the Cape Cod Chair Company, whatever that company is that makes those sun chairs. And it says hashtag LAF. So hashtag lucky as, you know. And that's how I feel. I feel on a daily basis. So really grateful to be here with you guys. It's such an honor. And Finn and I were doing some prayers a little while ago when we prayed that after lunch half of you guys wouldn't be napping. That was pretty much our prayer today. So, and a few other prayers. But, okay, Finn, take it away, buddy. Yeah, I thought I was starting. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I'm Finn. I'm an alcoholic. And it's a great day to be sober, right? And if you aren't, welcome. You know, stick with us. You can get there. Yeah, I was thinking about, so Sarah and I have different experiences with coming to believe in anything. Because she came here believing in something. I came here absolutely believing in nothing. And, you know, that piece of the program for me was really tough. My experience, I had said last night. that a lot of my family was either drunk again or born again, and it depended on the day. I never knew what was coming at me. And I really judged the idea of a higher power through my beliefs and religion, which my experience was a lot of hypocrisy. And that doesn't necessarily mean the way it is for everybody, but that's what it was for me. And I came into the program completely desperate. Like I said last night, I wanted to die, and I needed a solution. And when I came here and I heard God mentioned a lot, I thought I was screwed. Because I was like, this isn't going to happen for me. And I really believed that everything that Billy just read, I didn't believe in any of that. I thought it was BS. You people are trying to trick me. I am not getting tricked into believing in God. Like, oh, it could be what you want for now, but eventually we'll get you. And I was like, no way. And my sponsor said, what do you want? What are you willing to do to stay sober? And I said, anything. And they said, well, in the morning, get on your knees and ask a power greater than yourself to keep you away from a drink or a drug for the day and at night. And I said, well, yeah, anything but that. Like, that's not going to happen. And so for me, I knew I was insane. I had mentioned last night I was in and out of mental institutions. And if I wasn't on drugs and alcohol, I had gotten up to 14 psych meds at one point. I'm not on anything today. That doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean if you need medication that I have any judgments about that. I needed to be medicated because of a lot of PTSD and being an addict. And I couldn't function. I had no way to function. So I needed a lot of drugs to keep me from killing myself and a lot of other insane things I was doing. So insanity was something that I was very familiar with. I didn't understand what it means to be like an insane alcoholic as much. So I wasn't as afraid of that. It was this coming to believe in something greater than myself that was a real issue for me in step two. And I have to say, I was at step two and reading step two. I didn't really believe in anything. So how I ended up, I think, I don't know how many days sober I was. It wasn't that many, but I did end up on my knees. So my sponsor, I got a sponsor right away, told me, like I said, suggested that I get on my knees. And I was like, nope, not going to happen. And my sponsor said, you can pray to whatever you want. Not going to happen. Then it was suggested, well, put your keys under your bed. So when you get up in the morning, you get on your knees to grab your keys. And at least you're acknowledging that you're powerless over alcohol. And I'm like, no way. Because I knew that was a trick too. So what ended up happening two days later, and I usually, I forgot about it. I would have brought these shoes. But I had talked last night about how my outsides looked really good when I came in here. And part of that was because I had people taking care of me, but I was also wicked OCD. My house looked like a museum, an immaculate museum. I had, my closet, I was telling Sarah this morning, I had all white hangers, all the same kind. My clothes were color coordinated. You know, every, like if it was a pattern, the patterns were at the end, but it was, you know, the solids, and then it was all color coordinated. And I had a shoe thing where all my shoes were in the, you know, and I had bought, about two years before I got sober, I bought this pair of shoes. I don't know what I was thinking. They were Birkenstock clogs. They were black. They're the ugliest things on the planet. They're my favorite shoes today, but I don't know what I, I went from being like completely type A. I was going to be like the walk, I call them my Jesus shoes today, no disrespect, but I mean, I must have known something was coming. So I bought these shoes two years before I got sober. I never wore them. I just thought they were the ugliest things. I don't know why I bought them. I put them in the bottom of my shoe thing. And about two days after my sponsor suggested I put my keys under my bed, I, you know, refused to do that. I get up and I got to wear those shoes. I had to wear those shoes two years. I was like ugly. That's why we're at the bottom, right? Cause I'm not going to bend down and get something I'm not going to wear. And I go into the closet and one of the shoes was missing and I'm getting goosebumps because this is crazy. Like now, mind you, I don't believe in anything at this point, but what do you do when you have a missing shoe? Right? I get on my knees and I look under the bed. Yeah. And I started laughing and then I started crying and then I got on my knees every day after that. Um, and just, I didn't, for some reason that was like a, I'm going to use the word God, which I swore I would never say in my first year, I'm like, I will, I don't care how long I stay sober. I'll never call my higher power God. Um, now I don't care. Cause I realized other people called it God and I was still able to get sober. I was so angry when people would use it that I thought I'm not going to do that to any other alcoholic when they come in here. But the truth, is it doesn't matter what people call that. I still was able to stay sober. So I figure if you don't like the word God, you could just be angry and work through it. Like I did. Um, you know, so I, I started getting on my knees and, um, you know, it got to a point where I was sober and I wasn't sure. So at the time I'm working in Boston, I live on Cape Cod, you know, so I leave early in the morning and I had been given a 24 hour chip. Uh, anybody who's brave enough to go up and get one, I'm always impressed. I would not, you know, people were like, do you want, I'm like, no, I'm not gonna, I'm not walking up in front. I sat in the back, somebody brought me one and I clung to that thing. Like it was keeping me sober and I wasn't sure. Was it meetings? Was it, um, you know, now getting on my knees? Was it this coin? Um, and I remember driving to work once and realize, and I forgot the coin and I pulled a U-turn on route six and went home at four in the morning. Like I just, I freaked out. I was so afraid. That's how much I wanted to stay sober. I was so afraid I was going to drink and I didn't know what it was. And, um, you know, so I'm not praying to God. I'm just like, I'm actually praying in the complete state of mockery. I'm like, this is so ridiculous. Cause you know, I look back on it now and I have goosebumps now, but at the time when it happened, I was like, this is ridiculous, but I'll do it. I'm down here, you know, no harm done. And I would just be like, keep me away from a drink, you know, whatever. And, um, but I wasn't drinking and then it came time, like, I don't know what to call my higher power. So, um, my sponsor was like, you can call your higher power, whatever you want. It could be spoon. Like you let, you know, people, you love to spoon, you like to eat ice cream soup. So that's what my spot, my higher power was. It was spoon, right? I'm, I'm such a nut that I was drawing pictures of it, you know, flying around and my, myself in it, like being carried around by spoon. And when I was going through a stressful time, I just visualize, you know, myself up in spoon. I mean, I was like, I was literally talking about insanity. Um, yeah. And, uh, my sponsor said, someday you'll tell people about spoon. I'm like, never. Now, you know, like you go through the prayers in the book and I've crossed out God and I wrote spoon and got rid of all the thighs and those and, and whatever. And, um, you know, that this part of we agnostics where it says to be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face. And that was really true for me. I would share my struggle with my higher power at meetings and people will come up to me and say, open your heart, let Jesus in. One guy told me if I walked deep into the woods and sat on a log, you know, I was so mad. I'm like, why are people telling me what to do? Everybody had a suggestion for how I was going to find this higher power. And my sponsor, you know, I would, I would just be enraged. Like what I'm sharing my story. Don't come talk to me about it. You know, like, I don't want to hear your suggestions. And my sponsor said, you know what, just tell them you're working on it with your sponsor. And that's what I did, you know, to just to give me a little freedom. And, um, you know, so I try not to tell anybody I have, you know, I have come to believe in a higher power. And that's what I did. And that, that higher power can restore me to sanity as long as I seek it to, you know, and, um, that really came as I went through the steps. Right. I didn't believe any of this. Thank goodness. I could still move forward without having to like believe. I remember at one point I was telling Sarah this morning, I was really, you know, I'm so grateful that I've got a big mouth. And eventually I talked to people in my sponsor about things like, like I said last night, if you're not sharing something with somebody, you know, do it because it's, it's, um, it's so freeing. I was really twisted up because when I was new people talk like everybody knows what they're talking about. So I just make an assumption about what these things mean. And everybody kept saying, you know, the calling their higher power God. So I thought they were talking about a religious God. I had no idea that there was a difference between spirituality and religion. And I was trying hard as hell to turn spoon into God and I couldn't do it. And for about three days, I was, I'm going to cry just thinking about it. I was in a desperate state. I'm like, Oh my God, I'm going to drink. I can't turn this higher power into God. And I was scared. And I just kept turning that around in my head for three days. And I was like, I can't come here because it's not, it's not going to work for me. And literally I was so desperate to feel better that the idea that the one place, you know, I went to wasn't going to work was really devastating. And I was sitting at that 7am meeting. And I turned to my sponsor and I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do. I can't turn my higher power into God. And my sponsor looked at me and was like, why are you trying to do that? You know, these are the things like I, if I keep the ideas of what I think people mean without actually checking with someone who's been around, I mean, I could have, I could have gone out and I don't think I would have ever come back. It was hard for me to walk through that door. I had many chances to come to AA, but I didn't think it would work. And I really felt I was a complete failure. Like I'm going to go to the basement of the church with the losers. I'm going to go to the church. I'm going to go to the church with the losers. Right? That's where I was at. I had no idea it was going to give me the life I have today. And all my friends are in AA and well, some have died because they went out. But, you know, my life is surrounded by people in recovery because they're going to tell me the truth. And, you know, my higher power, like I came to believe in this higher power could restore me to sanity. And I feel as though it has for a minute. I mean, literally any minute I could decide that I'm going to just do my own thing, you know? And be back to where I am because I told everybody last night up here. It's really crazy. You would not believe the things I come up with. The solutions that I come up with to things is just unbelievable. But, you know, I stuck around and I talked to people about it. And, you know, and even using my sponsor as a shield to say I'm working on that with my sponsor was really helpful because people. Well, we know I do. I have a lot of opinions about things and how things could be done and everybody's journeys different. And I'm not sure if I'm forgetting anything I want to say about step two, but for me, and you'll hear this later when I got to my fifth step, that's when I really solidified my relationship with my higher power. But, you know, at this point, I'm going through the motions, you know, and I always suggest when I share like if you don't believe that any of the stuff people suggest will work. Prove them wrong because that's where I was at. I'm like, I'll show you it doesn't work. You know, I really I wanted to stay sober, but I was pretty certain that none of this stuff would work. Like, are you kidding me? I'm going to pray and suddenly I'm going to get relief. Now I know that, you know, at one point in early sobriety before I moved on in the steps, I had, you know, got into this habit of getting on my knees and asking for help. And, you know, the idea is right. Another alcoholic. They're not going to stand in, you know, the way between me and a drink. It has to be a higher power. And I remember I had one of the things. My sponsor made me do was every day. I had to call three people. Now my job. I talk in front of people. I do. I work with people all day long. I do trainings in front of hundreds of people. You know, I'm going to call an alcoholic that I used to literally sit on my bed and go one, two, three spoonful of sugar and dial the number and say, my sponsor told me to call you and then I'd hang up because I was told I could do that. And I would call three people to do what I was told, but I didn't talk to them. And then, eventually, one guy answers, you know, Joe Under Armour, Joe, and he says, hang on, I want to tell you something. And he told me a story. And then the people I was calling early on in sobriety became like my closest friends in AA. And it started with me just hanging up on them. And one day I was going through a really hard time. I can't even remember what it was because everything in early sobriety was like a really hard time. Just, just breathing, you know, like trying to stay sober. And then I called an alcoholic. They didn't answer. I called another alcohol. Like I'm finally, so for me, practicing calling people and hanging up made it easier for me to call them when I needed to. Cause I was already doing that. It wasn't like the, you know, 1 million pound phone. It was a phone I'd been using. But this one time I'm like having a hard day and I called somebody. They didn't answer. I called somebody like there wasn't an alcoholic answering the phone that day. And what I would do is I just kept getting on my knees. I like eight hours. I just kept getting on my knees, getting on my knees. And I couldn't believe it. It's seven o'clock at night when my sponsor called me. Back, I hadn't drank. And that was mind blowing to me, you know, and these are little things that I did along the way that really made a difference. In hindsight, I can see how they made a difference, but when they were happening, I could not. Anyway, that's all I got on step two. My God. Yes. Thank you, buddy. Yeah. I mean, it's really funny and I apologize. Last night, I guess I kept hitting the mic. I was like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was holding the microphone. I don't know if anybody noticed that when I was told afterwards. So hopefully I won't do that today. Um, yeah, it's interesting when I've been thinking about step two and three and you did a great job, really, uh, diving down on your early experience. And I think part of it is cause I've been here a long time. I'm trying to think about, you know, initially coming to believe in it was a process over time, right? I didn't just do the steps. second step one day or read the second step and you know that was it it didn't work like that for me I've had many times in the last 40 years not necessarily coming to believe but realizing I was insane again so that's I think I think what I've been thinking a lot about around this second second step you know someone recently said at a meeting and I love this my second step is all I need to know is I'm not it and that for me really helps me because for me it's all about again my underlying fear is gonna create someone who wants to control everything and that was my life my life was all about how can I manage you know like it talks about in the third step when we start talking about that how can I manage my world manage the people in my life and how can I manage my world and how can I manage my people in my world manage everything outside of me so I can feel okay and so to think that it was like I believed in a god but I didn't necessarily believe that they were gonna make me feel better or solve all my problems and I think part of the first thing was realizing how insane I was and you know that's tricky because in Sanity's I wanted to read I don't know if it'll make this will make you nuts but I wanted to read a couple of things that I've read and I think that's right so I'll start with a book that I must sometimes and by and I think that you know everyone has a different interpretation of how people are thing of constipation right so I'm tempted to read a couple things from from the big book since we are doing a big book step study workshop and so I was thinking about the word insanity and how you know what is it yes we can see our drug abuse and all that stuff and hitting bottoms and all that but really So there is a solution. So this is early on, right? The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, we have no idea why we're doing this, right, have lost the power of the choice and drink. Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. So we no longer have the power to control our drinking. We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness, we were talking about delusional thinking last night, with sufficient force, the memory and the suffering and the humiliation of even a week or a month before. We are without defense against the first drink. So in that paragraph, basically, yeah, what is it that we go completely blank about what happened a week or two ago? Now, I can say also in recovery, I could have had 10 relationships in a row exactly the same, and I'd get into an 11th, and it would have been exactly the same. Now, did I think that was insane at the time? No. I just thought, it's really funny, I'm reading this book right now, this is a total tangential thing, but he calls it the DMN, the default mode network, that like we automatically, just like with addiction, right, we have the mental illness, we go into this default mode network of, okay, a drink is going to solve my problems. Now, once you put the drink down and the drugs down, you still have that default mode network. Until we do these steps and until we start becoming conscious of what is really happening, which I can be unconscious and conscious throughout a day in different modes, right? We don't know that we're in this automatic way of being. And I promise I'll get back to the second step. So this is what I think about it is, in very general terms. I'm going to describe the human condition. To me, the human condition is, we are like computers. And we're born, we have this stuff that happens to us. We create these belief systems. We have these feelings that become repressed. And because we've been hurt, we deny it. And we just kind of keep repressing and repressing. We have these thoughts, we have these experiences, and we become whatever these beliefs and these experiences are. So we end up at 25, where this accumulation, this accumulation of these beliefs and these experiences, we become whatever these beliefs and these experiences are. So we end up at 25, where this accumulation, this accumulation of these beliefs and these experiences are. So we end up at 25, where this accumulation of these beliefs and these experiences are. So we end up at 25, where this accumulation of these beliefs and these experiences are. So we end up at 25, where this elimination of these beliefs and these experiences are. So we end up at 25, where this accumulation of these beliefs and these experiences are. So we end up at 25, where this accumulation of these beliefs and these experiences are. So we end up at 25, where these beliefs and these experiences are. So we end up at 25, where these beliefs and these experiences are. So we end up at 25, where this accumulation of these beliefs and these experiences are. So we end up at 25, where this accumulation of these beliefs and these experiences are. So we end up at 25, where this accumulation of these beliefs and these experiences are. So the finished this is our of that stuff to me is unconscious so like with substance abuse I don't have the awareness that like you know geez I've been sober for six months and then I pick up a drink why geez I have no idea why well there's a lot of theories about that I have first of all we have the mental illness of alcoholism right secondly I think we become just in those automatic ways of being and thinking and we just forget we don't we aren't aware because I haven't done this work yet maybe I haven't started doing some insight around Who I am and we just keep having the same things happen over and over again so that's I know you guys have heard that definition of insanity right we keep doing the same thing over and over again so we do that with addiction and we can do it with all kinds of other things in sobriety so that was one thing just talking about oh my god the great great great demoralization is anybody thinking of their greatest demoralization right now so you remember tube tops I was drunk at a bar in West Newton Moe's it was called mark knows most used and then to turned into the cherry tree and I by the way have double D breasts not that anybody needs to know that but I used to wear tube tops when I was drinking and I remember sitting at Moe's bar this is a total tangential run pulling up my tube top and guess what happened no my boobs were on the bar had no idea kept drinking yeah incomprehensible demoralization of the alcoholic anyways yeah it's like sorry you know I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I guess I'm just thinking about these first and second steps like it's just the insanity that we forget like I can forget that event a week later and think it's a great idea to go back to the cherry tree do you know what I mean okay second thing I wanted to read in here about the second step however intelligent this is from more about alcoholism however intelligent we may have been in other respects we may have been in other ways but we're not intelligent we're not addicted to anything that we want to do we only think about what it is that<|lv|> it to get sober and because it's like the idea of turning it over or believing in something outside of myself rather than my own thinking it's like Sarah I've been using my own thinking my whole life to get to this point the problem is thinking as we all know does not get you sober thinking is just going to take you out every single time so when I've been I remember when I was working at McLean Hospital and there was this famous author and his wife sitting there and he had no interest in getting sober and but his wife kept like you know you could tell talking about the code crazy his wife kept answering every question and I kept asking him a question and she would say oh he'll want to blah blah blah meanwhile he never went to any groups because he was too smart for any of the groups and he had all the answers and I remember two years later I'm in a bookstore and I picked up a book by him and on the back it said he had passed away and I thought yeah he thought he was going to think his way out of this thing and that's the danger right of thinking our minds are going to do it and our minds are just going to prove that we're insane so the idea of coming to believe that something is going to happen to you is going to happen to you outside of my thinking that I have believed has kept me together this whole time is so foreign and yet I thought because I did believe in a God I did find a lot of relief that I could just give it up you know because there was a lot of work around trying to control this thing you know a lot of managing trying to figure it out trying to figure it out trying to make it work the idea is that you know The idea is I have to let myself know that my body is getting better for me because it is worth writhing with a lot of pain for my world. stop this and then start this so the idea that I can take a step and I could believe in something outside of myself to restore me to help me with this brokenness was a relief. so the step two grassroots of a life wasn't as hard thinking there was something outside of me that was going to help me it was more giving it up and acknowledging that I couldn't do it you know I do get really touching I have to be improving every method that I used to be responsive with the power that I have in admit about I was gonna say the God thing but I don't mean it in that way I remember early on in my recovery if they were talking about God I'd leave meetings I can't even believe I'm saying that but I just was so afraid and I wanted to just hear like the truth and I wanted to hear some relief and I didn't know God was the answer at that point that I just wanted to connect and I went to a lot of what's called experience meetings you know experience strength and hope I went to a lot of experience meetings where I was just identifying but I do love and when you've read that that to me saved my life that paragraph when Bill W says it's roomy it's all-inclusive it's the spirit of the universe it's creative intelligence it's basically you know it's it's the spirit of the universe it's creative intelligence and it's basically and I read again this morning it's whatever you want and I do get a little edgy about this because I've been around a long time I've met tons of people sponsoring people and some people are just unrecovered control freaks that are sponsoring people and want to tell people what to believe in and how to believe it and you know you got to do it for yourself it's just my opinion I'm gonna throw opinions out occasionally because for me if someone had told me to get on my knees like in the first week of recovery and I'm gonna be really honest getting on my knees was traumatic traumatic for me because I had so much sexual kind of insanity in my history that I was traumatized when I got on my knees so that didn't work for me and I would say prayers from my bed and so if anybody you know I have a sponsee that says you know I tell them the first thing that if it works for you to get on your knees awesome you know and to today I get on my knees but for some people like what I need to know is I don't know anybody's history I don't and I have to remember that everybody has a different story everybody has trauma everybody's got all kinds of stuff they're trying to work through and my job is to throw out suggestions and trust that they're gonna do what they're capable of doing and god I'm really on a soapbox now she will be all in and mode a lot he please don't do that in the office here for me I don't powerful a lot you'll never ever arn't you don't be a billionaire every single person says to me you know god I need to get on my knees and I need to spread my miles I need to get on my knees Cry rejected closed this morning and from a stroke that's what I need to do again the package from Sooey says if you would only pray for God you'll be the same tomorrow you like my questions submitted in writing or and and them laughing on the phone like no we could just talk but I would sit up at night and just tear this thing apart and then I'd read the living sober and lots of different books in the early sobriety and living sober had like things that contradicted what I read in the big book so I would write all the contradictions and then I would go online and take that are you an alcoholic over and over again and then no matter how I change the answers it said seek help immediately my sponsor is like stop reading any books and stop taking that test the living sober is the only thing you're capable of processing because I literally thought that I was going to figure it out yes and not have to deal with you people you know yes for sure you want to tell your third step third step yeah all right so I am early sobriety my first week of sobriety I was already going to how I did the steps is through a big book step study there's a lot of ways to do it it's how I did it because it it's like the first person I ran into my sponsor they went to big book step study and they have been doing that for like 30 years so my first week of sobriety on I was going to two to four big book step studies a week because it was the only thing that was circled in my book and I hated it I absolutely hated it I was going to co-ed big books and then like you know single gender big books and people would talk about how they felt and they really talked about God in there and you know their higher powers and everything and I wanted no part of it and then I hear I've got to do a third step on my knees holding someone else's hand you know people talk about the ninth step the fourth step freaked me out I didn't want to do this that wasn't it for me I wasn't good I was not doing three I didn't care about like turning my life over cuz I know a day what that meant but I was not getting a different perspective on myself and I was like well you know maybe I can go back and do that I should just start put on my knees with another human being and holding hands I could barely pray on my own now I'm gonna be doing it holding someone's hand far too intimate right well along comes a new sponsee from my sponsor who had been sober a while but came in four or five days after me and switch to my sponsor ask my sponsor to take him through the steps so we're we're going to meetings and everything and one day I get a call from the sponsor and the person who's five days less sober than me. I have a reading assignment. I'm starting the steps. And I was like, oh, hells no. Is that person who's much less sober than me going to get through those steps? So suddenly I became willing, you know, and I called my, it was all competitive, you know, and I used to think that it was fear that drove me to this, to wanting to do the steps, but it wasn't, it was, I had to be honest. Like I was not going to be beat through the steps by this person. And so I called my sponsor. I'm like, I need to do the steps today. And my sponsor was like, you're not ready. I was like, I'm ready. So it was about two weeks of insisting that I finally, you know, got a reading assignment. And, you know, when it came to the third step, I still, you know, it was my third step that I was, I was doing the third step in the morning every day, you know, to spoon and get rid of those thighs and dows. That's way too like for me. And so now I'm like, I'm, doing my reading assignments for one and two and I get to three and my sponsor says, are you ready? And I said, well, do you think that it will help? Cause you know, I had talked early about trying to kill myself before the age of 10. My life like was full of physical abuse, total insanity. I had hope had been crushed in my life at an early age. I didn't want to have hope that I could feel better. And I literally was suicidal every single day of my life up until I got sober. Like that's all I remember. I didn't, I said last night when my sponsor asked me if I thought my life was unmanageable, I was like, no, I just want to kill myself. And I really thought that that was normal because it had been such a part of my life. And, um, I, I was so afraid to have any hope that that's what I was nervous about doing the third step. When it came down to it, I was like, I'm going to like do, am I going to do this? So I was really in, you know, am I going to do it? And my sponsor turned to me and said, I can't tell you how, but I know it'll change your life. And I was like, I'm going to do this. And I was like, I'm going to do this. And I said it better, or I'm going to kill you. And, you know, we all laugh now, but I meant it. I was that scared. And my fear comes out in aggressive ways. I literally was like, I'm not, I'm going to trust this person that, you know, I found out years later that my sponsor was telling their sponsor that they didn't know if it could help me. I was so sick and they were worried and they were, they were worried about whether or not it would, the steps would actually help me because I was that sick. And, um, what that's my sponsor kept, going back to was to trust the process, stop thinking about it themselves. The process worked for them, trust the process, pass the process on. And it, you know, it changed my life immensely, obviously. Um, so I, I was, I was shaking doing the third step. And for me, it was like jumping off a cliff and, uh, deciding, you know, reading the third step. We, you know, we went to, um, a beach that I like, we did the third step there and, you know, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, you know, we, we. And so I, I got my notebook immediately. But for me, like it was profound when I, people talk about having spiritual experiences and some people like I did the third step, big deal. I didn't feel better. I did my fifth step. I didn't feel better. It took him a while to feel better. The clouds parted for me when I did that. I'm getting goosebumps again because I was scared to death. So it was very like vulnerable situation for me. I was scared to death, but I allowed a little bit of hope in that it was going to change my life. Yeah. I don't know if anybody's experienced with suicide, but it really sucks to just want to die all the time. Like every minute feels like a year. So I'm just like, is this going to change my life? I had no idea, but I was really, really hopeful. And I'm glad it did. I didn't know it would at the time. But, you know, I also want to talk about being a sponsor and then doing a third step with someone else and knowing 100% that if they do this work, it will change their life. I have no doubt in my mind after going through it. And, you know, so the third step was really, really scary for me, but amazing, you know, like it was so amazing. And I love doing third steps with other people now. I'll hold anybody's hand and pray if you want to later. I'm not, I don't care about that anymore. I got to the point where I was praying so much to stay sober and I didn't know if it was working that one time I was getting a bus in Barnstable to go up to work. And I realized I'd forgotten to get on my knees before I left the house. So in the pouring rain, I'm outside my truck in the parking lot at the commuter lot on my knees, praying to stay, you know, and then I'm going to work with wet pants and everything. And later my sponsor said it could have waited till you got to the office. But I was so afraid that I really, I was like, I got to do it right now. I'm thinking of it. I don't know what's going to happen, you know, and talk about, they say like, if you quit smoking, you know, you become like this lunatic about smoking. That's how I was about the praying thing. I was like, no praying. And then I'm like, oh yeah. All right. My higher power still isn't some religious, you know, God. It's definitely, well, I can't describe it because I have no idea, but it's like my best friend. You know, if you think of kids with imaginary friends, I'm talking to my higher power all the time. And I'm just grateful that I was willing to take the leap off that cliff. It was real. It's so, it seems so crazy to me now to think back about how scary that was, you know, that I was at, and I really believed what I was saying. I was turning my, my will and my life over to a higher power. At the time I thought it meant that my higher power was going to fix everything. Not that there was anything wrong in my life. Like I said, you know, it was all created in my head, you know, but things later happened and I realized that, you know, my higher power is caring for me. It's not fixing things for me. And, you know, over time I come to see how that, that really works. And I have to say that I like to pick up things in my life and struggle with them. And how I've learned to know, like, I'm not in a third step state of mind is when I'm, I'm starting to problem solve. And instead of waiting for an intuitive thought or action, I've got like spreadsheets out and I'm writing things and I got columns of pros and cons. And, you know, I'm working really hard and then I realized, oh, we need to turn this over, you know, cause I think, you know, you can sit for me, I can pray and turn my life over and my, um, you know, my will, uh, but it doesn't stay. There. I mean, I'm still existing. Things still happen. I still go right into problem solving mode. And, um, yeah, so anyway, uh, I'll chime in if you, if you know, all the time, but, uh, yeah, it's so, it's so interesting. We had, um, when I think back about my third step experience, of course, I'd been sober quite a while and done the steps with kind of different sponsors and never took a formal third step with anybody. But did a variety of modes of step work, you know, an AWOL and, um, one sponsor had me write my, my life story. She thought that was the fourth step. And so I just like had all these kind of different experiences, did Joe and Charlie workshops and, but until I really met a sponsor who kind of knew how to take someone through the steps and, uh, had me read the first 63 pages, the first three steps, and then do a formal. Yeah. And then do a third step with her. You know, the thing about me is, and I don't know if women can relate to this, but I didn't trust women at all. And, you know, I grew up with a mom who was an alcoholic. Um, my father, even though he was a rager, at least he was there. And so, uh, and I had four brothers, so we were like this like little trauma bonded, you know, camp. And, um, you know, so women and girls, you know, I had four brothers and I had four girls She did. I wanted to work on these books for myself and thisっていう Typically, it's what they talk about when you say, if you're working, you're everyone does brighter, but if you're going to the success, nothing. And though this was hard, if I didn't fight against it, something I see at my top, I won't say no, I would never go, woman, you were not the center. Because that's what the foundations Interesting. Have things changed that much? Girl member from SSA membership. Um, That's right. My best friends were guys in the beginning. I mean, now I love women. I sponsor them and I have tons of women friends. But I think back to this woman that I was so desperate.Corubs. Sometimes his position was better, but the things that he really didn't believe in his really comes to mind like when I was ready to do some step work and take a third step with someone I was so desperate someone said we'll go to these meetings for a while and check out you know decide who you like and let's go through the steps and I was so crazy and desperate at you know 15 years of recovery at that time that I just asked this I just asked this woman and so she and I read the first 63 pages together and then same thing did a formal third step together and got on her knees and held hands and read the Third Step Prayer memorized the Third Step Prayer she told me to do and I literally thought at that moment like I didn't really take it that seriously to be honest to that I was like I said the words and I was like yeah of course I'm gonna turn my life over you know of course but as a friend of mine says you know my way of operating with God was back me up got I'm going in that was really my you know that was how I was operating so the I deal like oh I'm you know I'm making this decision oh now I'm just turning everything over it was like maybe in some kind of fantasy dreamlike you know euphoric idea utopia but the day-to-day what that is is like why is it so hard to just open up after I've been out for a while because when I'm feeling more recognized I turn everything over like me if I only really meant was a whole other story and so starting to create a relationship with this woman first of all was a miracle i mean i think about now you think about sponsors and sponsees and now being a sponsor what that woman did for me i mean i hardly knew her and yet i went to her house every week we read out of the big book and then we take this third step and then we met every week to go over my writing and it was just like i mean literally she saved my life and what is really wild is she moved we lost contact she ended up relapsing and during the virus coronavirus i was on a zoom meeting in philadelphia or in pennsylvania and she was on that meeting and i literally got to thank her in 2020 i mean i did this in like 1999 so it's like 20 years later it was like so i mean god works in mysterious ways right but that woman and i told her at that meeting on zoom that you absolutely saved my life i mean without doing that third step and having her to work with like nothing would have changed and so having someone that you trust you know and the thing that i think is really important is that she didn't become my best friend like it's interesting when you sponsor different people you get close to certain people and you don't necessarily close others we weren't close and for me that was very safe i liked that i liked that boundary i liked that she wasn't my friend she was very professional she like met with me and it's different like i have certain sponsors i'm close to and others i'm not that close to but i liked that it made me feel safe so i just want to say thank you so much for being here and i'm so grateful for you and i'll see you next week for another episode of the show. say that too all you know sponsee sponsor relationships are different the one thing i wanted to definitely read though is because this is out of how it works and this is in the third step out of the big book and this paragraph to me changed my life so i'm going to read it selfishness and self-centeredness right now i just want to tell you guys i was no way a selfish person no way i took care of everybody i put myself last i was like you know taking care of my friends you know i you know i would do anything for you i mean selfish no way self-centered absolutely not absolutely not selfish self-centered that we think is the root of our own troubles and i remember saying to my sponsor like are you me no way I'm this way. So then we get to the next part. That we think is sort of driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity. We step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Okay. Again, fear. I had six tattoos. I was driving a Harley Davidson. I mean, come on. Like, I wasn't afraid of anything. And they're telling me I was driven by a hundred forms of fear? Fear, delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity. And that it was basically I'm starting and getting the ball rolling? I mean, this was like fantasy land. Fantasy land. The world had done you wrong. The world had done me wrong. And I had so many boyfriends lined up to prove it. All right. So sometimes they hurt us seemingly without provocation. But we invariably... We invariably find that at some time in the past, we have made decisions based on self-placeless and... Okay. When my sponsor reviewed that paragraph with me, and when then I ultimately did the fears, which we'll talk a lot about today, and I realized that my alcoholic thinking was the following. I had a fear. Say it was, I don't know, fear of not being liked. I make up a story. I say, oh my God, she's not looking at me right. She must not like me. And then I go into some self-seeking behavior. So I become controlling. So I go over and I start talking to you, and I start dominating the conversation. And then someone gets mad, and they get upset with me, and then I feel bad for myself. That dynamic was with every person I met, every relationship I had, every work environment, every school, every professor. Everything I did was based on a fear. So it was a fear of you didn't like me, a fear I wasn't good enough, a fear I wasn't attractive enough. So when I saw that my mind was totally controlled by fear, and I call it fantasy land because it makes me laugh, delusional thinking, which basically means that, think about it, it might happen to you this morning. Somebody does something in line, and then you make up some story that they feel, think this or that, and it means something about you. That is not only alcoholism, that is the human condition. That's what humans do. We make shit up all day long. That's what we do. But the fear part, and thinking that it actually was from some fear that I had, was so mind-boggling. And when I started to see and learn what these self-seeking behaviors were, I saw over and over and over and over and over again that I was creating the mess. Now, again, it's not to say stuff didn't happen to me because I also think sometimes when we do this work, it's like, well, I am responsible. I'm responsible. So I'm responsible for, again, what goes on here. I'm not responsible for necessarily someone doing stuff to me or whatever happened as a kid or whatever. I mean, stuff happens, and I want to acknowledge that because I'm not responsible for what they're doing. I'm responsible for my response to it and how I've lived my life because of it. That I'm responsible for. So the whole fear thing and the mental part, that paragraph in the third step, when I realized like, holy cow, I feel bad for myself, but really it's been out of fear and it's been out of these made-up beliefs I have and these survival behaviors. That's the thing about self-seeking behaviors too, I want to say. Why I don't judge anybody, hopefully, and I don't have these big opinions about, geez, what are your self-seeking behaviors? We'll get into the character defects at some point. But my biggest fear is probably is because I really believe we do exactly what we do to feel okay. So maybe you were arrogant and maybe someone else was passive and maybe someone else was controlling. All of those things to me are what we learned to feel safe. It's always about that. You know, I learned to do this to feel safe. I learned to do this. There's no judgment because we all have our bag of tricks that we learned to feel okay. The trouble is, is they're no longer working. That's the trouble. And until I kind of took this third step and thought, OK, I have to trust a god and a sponsor to now tell me stuff. Have you ever heard the expression, you don't know what you don't know? It's like, I was so oblivious. And the thing is, I thought I knew everything. I mean, at 60 days, I was telling people what to do. So I mean, I was someone who really thought I had it going on. And I was clueless. And that was humbling for me. So this third step to me, to number one, get on my knees, do a third step with my sponsor, literally trust this woman to help me, says that I was so desperate at that moment to be willing to do that. And I don't know if everybody has to be desperate. I was super desperate to do that. And it did save my life. Yeah, I wanted to say. Yeah, go ahead. I forgot about one of the things that really helped me come to terms with my competing thing with religion versus spirituality was later in the book where it says, see where religious people were right. I don't know why, but at one point when I read that, and I heard this woman. I don't know why, but at one point when I read that, I heard this woman share one. She said, the big book's the only book I put away at night and pick it up in the morning, and it's different. And it's so true. The more I read it, the more things that hit me a certain way, because I'm in a different space. But that sentence alone made me realize that I was judging a conception of a higher power based on human experience and human actions. So I was always mad, because people weren't doing what they were saying. Of course, I wasn't. But I was oblivious at this point. I thought I was living the good life, the lying and the cheating and the stealing and all that stuff really wasn't in my consciousness. It was stuff I did and then just swept aside and pretended it never existed. I don't know how that was possible, but it's true. But that whole idea where I was like, oh, I'm only looking at what's wrong. I'm only looking at what people are doing that I don't like. Instead of saying, wait, if I separate a concept of a higher power from how people are, it also gave me a little bit of an opening, because I was judging. There's noato 불� cosmeticanہ Kathrynbesan. Kathryn Esz impatèv hailqe Arcadam- h glucose ă 현 k cy and they were going to preach to people. And I said, oh, I couldn't stop my hand from going up. I'm like, nobody wants what they have. And I started telling what everybody was doing in their personal life at church, and I got thrown out and told never to come back. But that's how it was for me. I was like, I don't understand. You're telling me you're going to do this, and then you're acting like this. So therefore, God's wrong. And once that sentence just hit me a certain way, it clicked. Like, oh, I'm judging the concept of something based on people. And we're people. Let's be honest. We're not killing it out there exactly. Somebody might be. I'm not. I'm doing my best. But that's why I need the steps, because there's a program for how to deal with me and how I interact with others. But I just wanted to mention that piece. Yeah, and we're going to wrap up. But the other thing I was thinking is, like, at this point, if you're at the third step, right now, what it's asking is to make a decision, right? It's not saying, like, you're going to be, like, surrendering every second for the next 20 years. It's making a decision to turn your life and your will over. And that decision can be recommitted at any point, you know? Yeah, because let's be honest. If you surrender for the next 20 years, it'll be a lot easier. You know, I always think about, like, when I know I'm in God's will, my day is just unfolding before me, right? When I'm in a 911, everything's urgent, that's me. And yet, life can feel urgent sometimes, right? You know? But literally, when I think stuff through, nothing is urgent. I mean, unless it's, like, a serious emergency. I have clients that I say, this is kind of just an aside, I'll say, only call me over the years, only call if it's an emergency. And with addicts, you know what an emergency is? Having a feeling. Having a feeling is an emergency. And it's just so, that's why I'm saying, it's like, really, we often feel like it's a 911 and we got to do something about it, but really, it's not most of the time. So, like, that's the way I kind of discern, geez, am I running the show or am I turning it over? Go ahead. Yeah. Thinking of something I wanted to share that was really pivotal and it still is for me. I was told early on, if a thought of having a drink or a drug popped into my head, you hear a lot of people say, think it through. My sponsor told me I was too sick for that. That my mind changes stories really fast, right? I can make it a good idea that what I should do instead, or they didn't say should, maybe they did, and for once I didn't hear it, was ask my higher power to remove the thought and tell another alcoholic immediately. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Let the seed plant. Because I know based on my insanity and my mind, I can make anything, including me, look really good. So I try in meetings all the time to just talk about how sick I am, like what I'm thinking. For instance, I hate when people read from the book when they share. And Sarah knows that. But I know some people like it. As soon as somebody opens a book, I'm like, I'm out. I don't know. But I still have shortcomings. But I don't know what I was saying. I forgot. No. I think, oh, yeah, about asking for the thought of a drink or a drug to be removed. And I also thought at 43 days, I wrote, I did a lot of writing because I didn't sleep. I didn't sleep for four months. And I heard a guy get up the podium and say, I didn't sleep. And he said, four years. And I was like, I will kill myself. I was in sobriety. I was at four months. I was like out of my mind. But I would stay up all night and read and write. I was so crazy. Yeah, I lost it again. What was I saying? Oh, about. So this idea that, lost it. Wasn't meant to be said. Sorry. Turning it over. Yeah, I know. It's like. You're up all night. Oh, thinking it through. You couldn't think it through. Oh, no. I was talking about when I was 43 days sober. I wrote this thing. I just recently found it. And I couldn't figure out why. I'm like, I've been sober for 43 days. I want to drink more than I did on the first week. And I couldn't figure it out. You know, it was like not having a solution. And. And I thought, like, eventually. So now my thoughts of drinking are never like I'm going through a hard time. I want to drink. It's just like, oh, I'm out of steak tonight. Oh, what kind of wine will go with that? And I'm like, wait, I forget. I don't drink because it's just like not an issue for me. I don't think about it. I don't think about it. Even in those times, I still tell somebody. I still ask for the thought to be removed. It seems really innocuous. Um, but I'm afraid that it's going to get in there. And I've just was trained from day one to do that. And early on, all I did was think about it. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about drinking and drugging because I had a lot of feelings. I didn't like any of them. But, um, that whole concept of just asking my higher power to remove it. If I sit there and I think about drinking and how bad it's going to be all of a sudden, it would be like, well, it's different. I haven't drank in a long time. I know better. I've learned a lot. You know, I could come up with anything. So that's just how I deal with that. So I'd share it. Got it. All right. And yeah, go. All right. Awesome job guys. Okay.