The 10th Step Recycling Process – Mike L.

About This Speaker Tape

Stateline Retreat - 2017

Mike L. maps out the dangerous gap between being a 'slogan slinger' and actually practicing a living recovery. He recounts a childhood fueled by a desperate need for approval which eventually morphed into a reckless adulthood where he once stripped a sheriff's deputy of his gun and used a cutting torch to turn his mother's Buick into a convertible. After a period of 'junior guru' sobriety where he checked all the boxes but missed the program Mike describes his current reliance on Step 10 as a 'spiritual antivirus program.' He dismantles the ego's tendency to warp recovery tools for self-management emphasizing that an amend delayed is harm magnified. Through concrete examples—from berating a secretary over a lost deal to snapping at a gas station attendant—he argues that spiritual fitness is found in the resistance of daily life treating his flaws as weights to be lifted in a 'spiritual gym.'

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Mike L. opens with his dry date and reflections on the recovery family.
• 3:45 Story about the 'approval' drug and the contrast between his and his sister's childhood memories.
• 6:10 The encounter with Sheriff Barney F. and the theft of the deputy's gun.
• 9:20 The cutting torch incident: turning his mother's Buick into a convertible.
• 14:15 The surrender: returning to the doorstep of Buck and Nettie.
• 18:30 The 'junior guru' phase and the realization that he was a 'slogan slinger' who missed the program.
• 22:10 Step 10 as a 'spiritual antivirus' and the importance of immediate amends.
• 26:40 The betrayal of trust: berating Michelle B. over a financial deal.
• 30:15 The gas station confrontation and the immediate application of Step 10.
• 34:20 The 'spiritual gym' metaphor and working against the resistance of ego.