#110 2nd Chances

As we look back over our successes and failures, one thing becomes abundantly clear. Grace & Mercy are real operative states. I didn't get what I deserved and I got more second chances than I ever imagined possible. There's a great group discussion here. You are welcome to join anytime, ALL are welcome!

Transcript

Welcome And Meeting Ground Rules

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Roger, alcoholic. Am I sober? It's October 11th, 1978. This is an open meeting for anyone who cares to attend. You don't have to be in a 12-step program or fellowship. It will be illuminating to whatever your uh process is, whether it's Buddhism, religion, whatever. So welcome aboard. Also, um, in the description of the talk on the device you're looking at, there's a link at the bottom to support the show. If you want to support us to keep this going, you can sign up there. Okay. Having said that, this is what's come across. Um, you know, we talked about uh different versions of this, but when we're born, as we grow up as little kids, up till about the age of eight, before we have really any language context or life experience, everything is done intuitively. The brain just makes up stories about what's happening. And because we don't have any the development of the frontal cortex, the executive brain functions, we're just lost with our stories, right? And out of that story comes our program for happiness. How am I going to be successful? How am I going to be? What is it going to look like when I have arrived, right? So for me, the two primary things I walked away with from those early years was I'm not safe. That's fear. And apparently there's something wrong with me because I can't find any happiness. I can't find anywhere I feel like I belong. Something's missing. That turns out to be shame. And our addiction, this is misses me. You don't have to agree with any of this, but when we come in, those of you who have children know this. When we come into the world, we come in perfect, just perfect. Infants don't have any preferences except fooding, fooding, eating, and changing my diapers. All the rest is glory. And they expect to be fed, and they expect to rely on the food to show up. They don't have any problems with fear and worry and projection. So out of that unstable environment that I grew up in, I came out with the fear and the shame. And one of the things that happens then is I create a methodology so I'm not going to be hurt anymore. I'm going to keep myself safe. This is the game plan. How to keep Roger safe. And in our culture, as all of you know, it's predicated on self-reliance. How many times did you hear growing up? If you want whatever you want, if you're willing to work hard for it, you can get it, right? And where is it? It's out there. It's external. And so I think the problem is I don't have enough applause. I think the problem is I don't have enough money, enough adulation, enough this, that, the other thing. All these things are external. I don't have a center to ground myself in. So I'm grounding myself in externals. And that's my program for happiness. When I get this, then I'm going to be happy. Everyone's got this. Some people are more cognizant of it than others, but mine was going to be I'm going to have a multi-record deal. I'm going to have two or three houses around the country filled with beautiful women, and I'm going to be rich and famous. And that's what I came up with when I was 12. And uh so the goal is go get it. Go get it. You need a plan to get it. You need a one-year plan, a five-year plan. Just need a plan. Get it. How do you get it? You work hard. And then when it doesn't come, the beast says, well, work harder. It doesn't say try a different approach, it's just work harder. And so we run that thing until we can't run it anymore. This is what Roar talks to, speaks to as the second half of life. Now, when the wheels come off for people like me, it's not pretty. It's not like, oh, I got a flat tire, pull over. It's like I got four flats and steam coming out the hood. I've got warrants in six states. I haven't filed taxes federal estate for five years. I got about$12,000 worth of bad checks. I've got restraining orders going both ways. My ex-wife abandoned my family and done some colorful work with a motorcycle gang around a supply chain service I was running for them. And they owed them six fingers. That's what it looked like when the wheels came up. Oh, I said with a doctor that told me the reason I was bleeding internally was because of all the drinking I was insisting I wasn't doing. And that I had 12 to 18 months to live, period. End of the first half of life, either literally or figuratively. It is that point at which I cannot go one step further. One step further with my plan. And then I don't know what that means. I just know that I'm out of bullets. So I was also a devout ill uh militant atheist, which made this program very hard to access for me. So I don't know what's going on. I couldn't swallow. That's how I stopped drinking. I couldn't swallow. Now, an atheist can't have a spiritual or divine experience because there's no such thing. But when I look back, I'll tell you the truth of what it was. This is what it was. Um, I think that night God apprehended me. I didn't reach out for God. God came and got me and said, You're not doing this anymore. And the way it hit me was this this thought came through me. I did not come up with a thought. The thought came through me. I'm done, I'm toast, I can't do this. Didn't know what that meant. But I knew it was the truth. On the deepest level, I've ever known anything was the truth. And that truth never changed. I went back and I did a detox in a flock with two guys babysitting me for a week. And I came out of that detox. The first collar thought I had was, well, I'm sure not going to AA. I'll do this my way. And I'll do this my way is what I've been doing my whole life. So I can't even see the failure of my program. Because I'm a victim of a bad gene pool and a bunch of bad breaks and misunderstandings, right? So off we go on this on this trip. Now, the the one of the points of this there's a thing called grace, which is unmerited gift. This thing called mercy, which is I don't get what I deserve. And it was just like God was holding me by the ears saying, Okay, I'm gonna take care of all the stuff you can take care of, the booze, the drugs, the women. I'm gonna remove that and I'm gonna send you some angels. And off then this whole thing took another turn, and I started meeting my angels, which were pretty obnoxious people. And they were old people. They were like 50, 60. I was 30. They were old, and I kept hearing about this great fellowship I was gonna grow up in. And I'm thinking, these guys are gonna be dead before I get this, right? What are you talking about? Fellowship. These my brothers, I don't think so. Because I couldn't see what we had in common. Because I was looking for for what we didn't have in common. I'm not a veteran. I haven't been in the service, I don't have a burr haircut, I don't have your experience. I was looking at the outside. This is an internal job. When you look at the steps, you look inside. You don't look outside. So, second half of life, this is what Richard Rohr calls this. The second half of life, there's a container that's called Roger. There's a container called Bill, there's Dave and Megan. There's these containers with these labels. The question for the second half of life is what's meant to go in the container? What's meant to go in, Kathy? What's meant to go in a Roger? What's going to make that up? Now we're talking about principles, qualities. Humility, forgiveness, tolerance, love, helpfulness, prayer, meditation. Instead of lying, cheating, stealing, manipulating.

SPEAKER_09 9:30

Hurting, hurting, hurting.

Consequences, Powerlessness, And Real Change

Second Chances And The Share Circle

SPEAKER_03 9:35

I didn't want to hurt people, but I just kept hurting people. And when I hurt you, I hurt me, and I didn't know that. That's the uh reciprocal part of the law of compensation. What I do to you, I do to myself. That's why resentments are so toxic for us. Because as I hurt you, I hurt myself, and I don't know it. So part of this is second chances. Everyone here has made mistakes before they got in recovery. In early recovery, we make different kinds of mistakes, but we're making mistakes all along, aren't we? And I don't understand why I'm here. Because I see other people coming in and out all the time. Coming in, they're just excited for God and AA and their new sponsor, Chucky, and off we go. And they're drunk in three weeks. And I'm back in the back of the room with my crappy attitude, and it's a mystery to me. These guys say they want this so badly, and they can't get it. I'm not even sure what it is, let alone wanting it. All I know for sure is I just like the hell I'm living in to stop. And the thing about the meetings was you don't have to use your real name, your real name. No one's looking for you there. And sometimes there's a little food. It's not exactly the right reason to be there. That's not exactly the kind of willingness that it's going to extract from us, but you've got to be where you are. And I think here's some mercy. I think that I was 100% honest about my 5% of willingness. I wasn't sitting in the meeting going, oh yeah, me too. Oh yeah, me too. I was going on, uh-uh. Uh-uh, never. I'm never doing that. I'm never doing that. And I was very um clear about where I was at. And I think in retrospect, I think it saved me. I think that's what allowed the grace and the mercy. Because I was doing the best I could with what I had. I really was. It was only 5%, maybe, but I was doing 100% of my 5%. So I didn't get spiked clean, but what happened was over time, things, things occurred, mistakes, lots of mistakes. So the problem or the challenge is if I can't learn from my mistakes, I repeat it. I'm I'm I can't learn from my mistakes with my girlfriend. So that blows up. Then I get another girlfriend and the same thing happens. Then I get a wife and that happens. Same thing happens. And I keep blowing all this stuff up and not knowing why, because I can't read the message. Because I'm externally transfixed. It's you, it's them, it's a problem. This problem is not me. God, I'm a good guy doing my best. No, the problem was me. And I couldn't see the answer because I couldn't read the consequence. So you know this from your own experience. When when we're off running a gun and we get a consequence, the first thing we do is we push it away. Because it's embarrassing, it's painful, it's humiliating, right? But that consequence holds the answer to the problem. Example, I sat in the back of squad cars frequently. And it was always chops with quotas and bad luck and predatory policing and all that stuff. Never once occurred to me asked to ask myself, is there something I could change that I didn't end up in the back of squad cars? Because it can't possibly be me. With that kind of approach, you can't get well. Because it's all here. And so slowly it turns inward. Reflective questions. Let's start with the powerless one. Are you powerless? I don't know. Clearly, I'm powerless. Oh, okay. So if you're powerless, the problem is finding additional power, right? But we get hung up thinking it's the substance. I'm powerless over the substance. That's true. But now that the substance has been removed, what's your problem? Because it's not what we agree with, it's the problem. It's what we don't agree with. I agree, there's a problem with alcohol. So alcohol is gone, drugs are gone. And now my life is getting worse. It's not getting better. Why is that? And so my story, and I think a lot of your stories are just about second chances and do-overs. Because this the concept I have of the creator is unconditional love. So anything that's happening to me is a result of ideas that I've turned into actions that have generated consequences. If they're pleasant, it was the right idea and the right principle. If they're unpleasant, I need to I need to understand that and change what I'm doing instead of blaming all you for the way I am. That goes nowhere. So it's it's humbling to see how absolutely flawed and screwed up you could be doing this and still get it. Because the deal is, and the guys that I sponsor that are on this meeting know this, you gotta stay in the game. You gotta stay in the game, you have to persevere, no matter how bad it looks or how much the beast is telling you, you're not getting anywhere, you gotta stay in the game. And if you stay in the game, you can make slow, steady progress. And you'll get there. Eventually you'll get there. Because what we're doing is we're wearing out old ideas, some of which we're aware of and some of which we're not. And slowly this idea of uh higher power, source energy, creator, God of my understanding, mystery, starts to, I start to become aware of it. Like when I sobered up, that was a phenomenon to me. I could observe it, but I had no idea how it happened, and I didn't think it was gonna stay. I thought it was gonna, I thought I was gonna wake up drunk one day. But I was in front of the real problem, and the real problem is in our thinking. The thing I'm really addicted to is the way I see the world and the things I tell myself about the world. This is not a safe place, it's a dog eat dog world, you can't trust anyone, everyone's out to get you, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Life is a jungle, you know, on and on and on. All fear-based models, right? And so I'm going through life like this with my defenses up, which keeps me safe from the obvious attacks, but it also keeps me a prisoner behind my wall, behind the idea. So, second chances. I've had so many viewovers, I can't even list them. You get to screw up liberally here because God's not judging us, we're judging us. God's not punishing us, I'm punishing myself with my thinking and my actions. So the topic, I guess, is second chances. Go ahead. Tell me your experience. How many times have you screwed up and not ended up dead or in jail or so? If you're listening online, um this big empty pause is someone getting the courage to share. And uh the you there's nothing wrong with your service. It's fine.

Tom On Willpower As Performance

SPEAKER_06 17:42

Um I'll share. Uh Tom, alcoholic. Hey, Tommy. Hey, it you know, it's it's um it's it's so so powerful. And actually, I so look forward to the to getting together that joke that I was I was on here last week and realized it was the wrong week. But what I really got for the first time as as you were speaking, Roger, uh my sobriety and get was the same way that I went after everything else in my life. Set a goal, be tough, make a fight, show everybody that I can do it. And it was like, wow. You know, I just I never really saw that. It was like a challenge and a goal. I'm gonna show people that that uh I can stop drinking. And then as far as you know, and this is within the context of the second chance. And then I came to the gathering for the first time. My nephew Andy told me about it, he told you you invited me. I was coming for my son, who's having an out who's having a problem. He's an AA and he's doing great right now. But I came to this for him. I didn't need this. Not at all. And I and I'm still sitting here, you know, just like the frickin' lights came on. It's like, God almighty. So that's that's a second chance. That's more than a second chance. Well, it's at least on life, you know. Save me from the from the death of uh drunkenness. And then grace, just really, yeah, just really that one can't really put my arms around it. Um, but yes, this is grace. This was a miracle that that that you invited me, and I'm here, and and yeah. So I saw that for the first time. That my sobriety was just another one of my frickin' routines to show people how tough I am. So it's that's a second chance. So thank you.

SPEAKER_03 19:39

Yeah, it's it's interesting, isn't it? We think we know why we're doing stuff. You know, I'm I'm gone because my son's and all of a sudden I go, oh shit, wake up call. I I have a history of doing things that I have no idea why I'm doing it, and I find out sometimes years later. Like the guy that the way I got to regular meetings was I was taking my bass player who couldn't stay sober without me, and I finally convinced him he needed to go to regular meetings. I got a director, I took him to these two meetings, and he got up to a year's sobriety, then he relapsed, and uh I stayed in those two meetings for 15 years. Stuff, God's moving the furniture, and we don't know. We don't know. We are just busy answering questions and making lists and saying prayers, and then one day we wake up and go, oh, that's gone. When did that happen? When did that obsession leave? When did that happen? That was the biggest thing you had going, and now it's gone. Did it hurt? Apparently not. I get done for what I can't do for myself. The rest is up to me. So, Tom and all of us, we have opportunities run across our path. And what we choose to do and how we prioritize those opportunities determines our destiny. Well, thank you, Tom. Who else?

SPEAKER_11 21:17

Andy, I'm an alcoholic. Andy. You know, Roger, I've probably heard you tell that some version of that, I don't know, 50 times, 100, I'm not sure. But it's just as powerful tonight as it was the first time. And it's that language of the heart, right? It's like the words are not as important as the feel. I can feel what you're saying, and I've felt it. You know, what hits me tonight is you talked about second chance for you. Ripple effect. That second chance for you allows you to then share your experience like you just did tonight. So then when somebody like me comes along who feels that same way, that self pity, that just I didn't have my fists up at the world. I was kind of cowering in the corner and just thought. Like uh, you know, but a same deal afraid, right? And uh your second chance allows you to share that experience, which then someone else gets to identify with, and I get to say, well, maybe this might work for me too. So I appreciate hearing it again tonight. It never gets old.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

That's that's the you know, that's the miraculous quality of this. The biggest gift we have is our stories. And the power of those stories touches other people's hearts. They may do something about it, may not, but once you have that heart-to-heart experience, you can't pretend you don't know there's a way out. Now you're faced with the I'm just balking. I'm just stubborn. Thank you. Who else? I'm curious.

SPEAKER_04 22:50

Justin alcoholic.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

Wait a minute. Wait a minute, one at a time. Who's who's talking?

Kirsten On Letting Go To Grow

SPEAKER_04 22:55

Go go Kirsten.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Oh, thank you, Justin. I was just uh thinking about this uh part of the 12th of I think it's in six or seven, where these are the things that I can't let go of yet. Um, these, you know, okay, this, this, this, these character defects, but I'm not ready to let these go yet. So when I was early in sobriety, Roger was talking about us screwing it up as part of the program, right? Earlier in sobriety, I really had a hard time figuring out what was God's will and what was my will, because I was absolutely sure that God's will was for me to be happy. And I was still clinging to my old ideas about what would make me happy, you know. Um, gosh, I was so happy when I was 16 when I drove a convertible. I gotta have one of those. What, Roger? What were you gonna say?

SPEAKER_03 23:52

So to make me happy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Right, exactly. And so I was I was thinking, because the whole God thing was new to me in recovery because I had figured I was forsaken and really wasn't in the in the in the I couldn't play the game, the God game, the religious game, or whatever. And when I was in recovery, it's like, okay, got him my understanding. Well, I know that he's benevolent, wants me happy, he loves me profoundly. Of course, he wants me happy. So here's what I gotta do. I gotta, you know, find this relationship. I gotta drive the convertible. I gotta, you know, it was just also silly, you know. I mean, I was looking outside still, knowing that the the uh relationship with God was the thing in my heart and all of this. But anyway, um many years later, it's it finds it it finds me and levels me when I realize, oh my gosh, I hadn't gotten that part of it yet, whatever it is. This uh the the thing that might be painful me painful for me to let go of the old idea is necessary to let go of it, grieve that old idea, and then I am happy, right? And and so that's truly what God's will was for me. But patience is is God's best feature, I think, because in order for me to understand and to come to understand really what God's will is for me, I gotta make those mistakes and realize, oh, that decision hurt somebody perhaps. And let's not do that again. It wasn't that person who, you know, turned out not to be um good for me or or or whatever, you know, and and it wasn't a bunch of excuses about why that person shouldn't be in my life. It was that um what am I trying to say? Just clinging to old ideas. Like I gotta have all these relationships, or I gotta have this car or this, whatever, because I remember when driving a convertible made me happy, it was all referencing the past, right? And and it's okay to let go of those old ideas, but man, some of them were so hard to stop clinging to and then go through the grieving of the old ideas, like my old, uh not unreasonable ideas. For instance, my husband's a stroke survivor and I'm his caregiver. I'm just like, well, I'm sure God really wants me to have like a person to take care of me, right? I I need to find a different partner, you know. And that actually wasn't God's will, you know. And I've never, I mean, I say this all the time in recovery. I'm amazed at how much happier I grow in this program every day. That there's so much more to learn about me and a state of contentment and serenity, and how acceptance truly is the answer about man's world and and all of that. So, anyway, for me, second chances are still coming. Second, third, fifth chances are still coming at me, and they're coming at me, but for me, always, as long as I'm willing to observe um what I need to see and learn. And um, it's pretty thrilling and it's pretty scary, but it's it's all in for the good ways, you know. For the, you know, I just find that if I really and truly do God's will and not hang on to those old character defects, I'll learn I'll get it, I'll get it eventually, is where I'm at with it. And and um thank God, literally, thank God. And with that, I'll pass.

SPEAKER_03 27:44

Thanks, Kirsten. It's the idea that happiness is an external job. Right. And we have a process here prayer, meditation, self-examination, inventory, and and brotherly love. That's the 12th step, right? That's our practice. There's no limit to how far you can go with that. It's limitless. And it will keep evolving you if you keep staying with it and practicing it. But I can't fix something that I can't identify. I don't know what my old ideas are. I just know, god damn it, there's certain things that need to be a certain way. And until they are, I can't be happy. You're never gonna be happy. Go ahead, Justin.

Justin On Brutal Honesty And Freedom

SPEAKER_04 28:31

All right, Justin, I'll call it. Um, so I've heard that, like Andy, I've heard that story a lot. And in 2012, I heard that story when I went to the retreat. Roger was there. Um, and I was at the retreat because my lawyer said to be a good idea because I was facing some felonies. I had no idea what I was walking into, but that story hooked me, and I didn't realize how much it hooked me because I related to it. And what that has morphed into, because as probably a few people on here, and as Roger knows, I've had a gazillion second chances in the last 14 years. Um, but those old ideas, I had no idea I was holding on to old ideas, I didn't realize it until because I always thought I, you know, my brain was saying one thing, so that must be the way it goes. I had no separation of what God would be, what Justin would be, what the beast was. And until I could get that separated, I could never see the truth from the false because I believed everything that was coming out of my brain. Um, and I I think of grace and the grace that I've been given. I I mean, there's a lot of times I shouldn't be alive. I shouldn't. I should be in jail, I should be in prison, and I'm not. Um, and I I don't know why I deserve that, but I I it happened. Um and just the miraculous thing was I couldn't see my own lies until I was able to decipher that's the beast talking and that's not God. Um and the ability to be honest, like brutally, brutally honest. And that that has happened for me, and now this obsession's been removed. I didn't do it. I thought I had to remove that obsession. I thought if I if I studied these words in AA and I showed everyone at AA, I knew what I was talking about, this would go away. Um, but no, it just I told the truth and got honest about my past, and everything changed. So glad I'm here. Uh with that at pass.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

You know, it's an interesting positive, you know, as you look at all the do-overs you've had, all the second, third, 105th, 393rd chances you've had, and you go, why? Why? I don't get it. You'll get it when you recover enough and wake up enough to have something that attracts someone to you. And then when you sit down with that woman or that man, because they've heard your story and they're going, I'm like you. And that's why we all get to get sober differently, because we're gonna be different fits for different kinds of people. You know, I'm I'm in the Justin camp. When I go out to Stillwater Prison and talk to those guys, the only difference between them and me is they got caught. That's the only difference. And uh you just don't know. How can you possibly know we're so mentally ill? How can you possibly think you know what's going on when you've just spent the decades destroying your life and now you're gonna rebuild it with the very thing that wrecked it? That's that Einstein quote. You can't fix a problem with the consciousness that created it. I don't know any of that. I just don't, this isn't working too well. Maybe try an inventory. I don't know. Who else?

SPEAKER_07 32:22

Roger, I'm Doug, alcoholic. Hi Doug. Uh I appreciate you bringing up what you did. It uh got my mind working. You talk about being eight, nine, ten years old. I remember it so well. I lived on a farm, we went to a country church, uh, had Sunday school on Sunday, and I knew without a doubt in my mind when I was about nine or ten that the road was over. I wasn't going to this place. I heard the Sunday school teacher say was heaven, uh, and to get there you can't sin. And by the time I was nine or ten, that was all over. Uh, I knew that that was that was gone. The other thing that during the same time was the feelings I was having, uh, and and you described it much better than I can. I didn't fit. Uh, and I was afraid most all of the time, not sure why. Uh, my friends become animals on the farm. Animals are great, they always are glad to see you. And then what happened? I had two baby lambs that I was raising and they died. And I come into the barn in the morning and they're dead. And there I make some decisions. I can't like or love anything or anyone because they wind up leaving or they die and it hurts. All of this time and these feelings going on, I did not identify with them. I was not able to tell anybody, including my mother, my dad, or my five siblings. I had no clue. Until I reached the point, I think I was 10, had a drink of that wonderful Mexican booze with the worm in the bottom of the bottle. It burned in my mouth, it burned going down, and it burned in my stomach, and magic happened. I felt better. That alcohol changed my whole outlook on everything, and I believed it for me from that point on, that's exactly what I wanted because I knew it would work. All the while this is going on before I finally wind up in treatment at 32 years old, is I gotta change something here. I gotta change something, I gotta think my way out of these problems. Didn't work very well. Wound up in treatment, but also there to find out I can believe in a higher power of my choosing. What a relief! What a relief. There's a place for me to start. I don't have to go by anybody else's recipe. I also find out there that I can't think my way out of anything. I have to become involved and get involved, and it's a program of action, not thinking. And it wasn't until I come face to face with these sort of things that I have found with you and the others that have shared tonight of this the feeling of the freedom, uh, the feeling of yeah, I was born good. I am a good person, I always was a good person. It's my thinking that got me all screwed up. Yeah. I was handed the steering wheel when I was a little kid, and things were going great, and then I screwed it up. Uh but brought a relief for me when I found out there was a place to go, people to watch, which was very important, and people to listen to once I started to listen. And then it started coming together, and it wasn't until I said, God, I have no idea how the hell to get out of this, what to do about it, or where to go. But I think I've been in the way, and at that point in time is I guess I become teachable. And since that point in time, I've tried to keep learning because one of the things I am convinced of is the only way I lose is by giving up. And I ain't gonna give up. So thank you.

SPEAKER_03 37:13

You know, these ideas. These ideas, like we have a big book study we do on Monday nights, and oftentimes I'll talk to you and you guys say, Oh, I've read the book. I've read the book. Are you still reading the book? I've read the book past tense. No, you study the book. What? We study the book, we take it apart and we ask ourselves, where are we at with those questions? What questions? You know, it's like, okay, here we go. But this is another there's knowledge about, which is informational. It's it's I can recite this stuff, I can tell you the page numbers, I can tell you the concepts, right, of the of the steps, but I've never done them. That's knowledge of. And so we have to slowly, and most of it for us it's slow, we have to slowly internalize these ideas, digest them. And the only way you can do that is by practicing them. And what comes to you when you practice them is you can't practice them. It's another failure, which point keeps pointing you back to the answer. You need to find a different way to do this. You need to find maybe a guide, maybe someone to help you, a sponsor, maybe a meeting with some really good recovered people in it. But I don't know the difference in this external referral, this programming we have for it's out here, it's out here. If I can just that's why we spend so much time creating fake facades, personas. Because this is what I want you to think of me. And inside that, I'm trapped with who I really think I am, and I don't even understand who I am or what I am. I think I'm bad, broken, and disgusting. No, I'm sick. I'm not well.

Paul On Ego, Relapse, And Return

SPEAKER_02 39:09

Anyway, who else? I'll go. You just hit on something there that everybody Paul alcoholic. Um the uh you know first of all, thanks, thanks for having us, Roger, and uh and uh your words tonight. Um, particularly on on Roar in that first half of life, second half of life, um, those concepts and those ideas. Um I was thinking my experience in the first half of life. Um there was a point in time, it's kind of like my convertible moment where I was 17 years old and I I thought I had made it. Like I had everything that a 17-year-old male back in 1981 uh could have. Um and yet I remember uh very vividly um being in a place with r recognizing all that and recognizing that is this it? I mean, I just like straight up was it was a realization that I'm not happy. So from you know, from that point, it just became this idea of, well, I guess I gotta fake it till I make it, and self-medicate with alcohol and drugs at the time, you know, as my way of coping with, you know, the unhappiness and the ultimately what lied lied behind the unhappiness was uh was an immense amount of fear and shame. And I was convinced that everybody around me, no matter what stage of life I was in, had the answers. And they they were making it without faking it. And I was still, you know, in desperation, just trying to hang on to these really bad ideas about you know, happiness lied outside, you know, in the external world. And you know, I ran like that for you know to my 50s and and you know, thought I was bullshitting everybody. And, you know, when you when I hit bottom and you know, I I think it was just like a sigh of relief from the wife, like, okay, about time, about time. And, you know, so what it became then was you know, coming into the program, finding a solution, and learning about powerlessness, and eventually getting to the point where I came to believe. And so again, with the idea that I knew I wasn't doing much of this, you know, right, but I I knew I had one thing, which was that little bit of willingness, which the you know, the program and the and the people within the program showed me that if you have that, right? That that just that willingness and the acceptance of the few ideas in the first three steps, that was enough to keep me going. And then I started to get different results. Um, so you know, kind of transitioning into kind of this second half of life and realizing that the you know, the idea of seeking happiness and security from the outside is pointless. Um, but then, you know, lo and behold, I put, I don't know, four or five years of sobriety under my belt. And I think, you know, now, now the material world starts to to work in my favor. Um, and I and my ego comes back full full bore. And it's like, wow, this is all really working now, right? It's working awesome. And, you know, two months of thinking like that got me right back into a relapse. So that became my second chance. Um, because my experience with the relapse was um that obsession was on my back in literally a second. Like it, it was it had its claws in me, and there was no turning back, right? One little slip turned into you know, lying to everybody around me, um, and just being obsessed with when I'm gonna be able to drink again and isolate and basically comatose myself. Um that's how I that's how I rolled, you know, towards the end, and that's and I ran back to that. And um, you know, I think the emptiness in that this time was that. you know, the the effect wasn't working anymore. So whatever I learned in that five years, right, albeit not enough to keep me sober, it stuck. And it allowed me to get back and it allowed me to have a second chance. And uh it's it's been a you know from that point forward it's it's been a great experience and this is part of that. So thanks everybody, that's all I got.

Turning Dark Past Into An Asset

SPEAKER_05 44:25

Thank you, I'm Dave, I'm an alcoholic. Um you know I Raji mentioned uh one of the strengths of the program earlier. I think one of the real strengths too is turning our mistakes into assets. You know and there's just so many times talking to a sponsee where I'll you know say yeah I've done that and talk about it and and share and and it it it really does help and I've had that too from my sponsor. And so you know I uh when I look at that second chance when I came into the program I you know I I was an atheist or ever thought so um I just started praying out of desperation I had no understanding of spirituality or God. Um I get into the program of AA and it didn't make any sense to me either. And I can remember you you you shared the story where you're in the back of the room and these guys are talking about how powerful the program was and then they go out and relapse. And I can remember early on I would be in the back of the room thinking I don't understand this program. And I'd be in small group and there'd be people with you know a few weeks sobriety like me and they understand the program so much better than I do. And then they go out and relapse and I'm like I can remember praying to God saying if people who understand this program better than I do are relapsing what chance do I have and you know the the chance was what you talked about and staying in the game is that you know I had so many doubts. I I can remember driving home many times from AAA meetings thinking I don't understand this. It's not going to work I'm not gonna make it but I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and just telling myself just not listen to the doubts just hand them over to God and just keep moving forward and I don't know how I got there but somehow I got there you know I there was this God that was guiding me. I don't know why I don't know why I got that mercy but I did and here I am today and I've alcoholics anonymous has not only you know got me to stop drinking I was able to find some happiness some serenity and some usefulness out of my life by being a part of this program and I just it is it's pretty amazing. And so I'll pass with that.

A New Definition Of Happiness

Allie On The Next Right Thing

SPEAKER_03 47:26

Thanks Dave you know you said something that's really important. There's one of the promises in a book is that our darkest past will become our greatest asset if it's healed. If you've dealt if you've dealt with it right and so I can talk to my boys about infidelity I can align cheat stealing I can talk to them about suicide I can talk to them about all those things because I've been there and I'm not there anymore. And then you start figuring out that's why I got sober the way I did for this guy I'm running into 30 years later to this guy I ran into 45 years ago right that's why God just God molds us to be the perfect instrument of his peace and the pieces will show up and I just have to recognize it the way I recognize that if if a man comes into my circle my sphere of influence I don't see any of that as an accident. I just pay attention this guy's here what's this about right and I make myself available and I reach out what is happiness I thought happiness was getting everything you wanted happiness is a much subtler artist you know life is not the problem life is not malicious it's it's totally null and void of of an agenda it just is and what we need to do is we need to find a way to live with it as it deals us pleasurable things and unpleasant things right because that's life things come in things go out things come in things go out and I have to have a way of being with the world as it changes I can adjust myself and learn from it instead of fight with it and make myself miserable right what's it trying to teach me that's the difference for me between a problem and a solution when something comes up and the old amygdala fires up and the beast says oh we had a problem here the second thought is no it's an opportunity let's unpack this and see what it's trying to show us or teach us right it's all it's a process Richard Roar wrote a book about this but I've been doing it my whole life falling forward it just falling forward two steps forward one back one step forward two back three forward one back and just my whole existence has been like that and that's how I learn I learned through the experience the experience of what works and the experience of what doesn't work um hi I'm Allie I'm an alcoholic turn your camera down we're looking at your forehead and your ceiling well that's probably the you might be getting the best shots um I um yeah it was I was listening to um some of the other shares and I um so I guess you call this crosstalk um but the idea that um approaching your alcoholism or recovery with the same sort of vigor that you um sort of tackle other parts of your life and it's funny my I like fell into sobriety I just I described my life before I got sober as I was just like things just happened to me and I was just a wave crashing over me.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

I was really just sort of um could not have been less in control of my future or I was so at the mercy of all my inner things that I needed to be happy or you know I didn't know how to deal with emotions. So I just ignored them or drank over them or you know avoided them. And so when it comes to sobriety I mean it took me a long time to get any amount of sobriety and all I did right was I just kept showing up at meetings. I mean I would there was no like oh I'm today I'm gonna quit drinking there were no sort of um grand statements or you know because I was just like I don't know um it was just so um like um unit was just this constant of like I'll just keep showing up I don't know exactly what I'm doing here um but I sure as heck don't know what I'm doing out there drinking. And eventually it came to me, you know, I just was able to accumulate um some time and you know um I've been in the program for 15 years, but I only I don't have that much sobriety in like 10 years or something. But it's this thing of it's like because I know there's something here and it's taken me a big shakeout I think to even get to the point where I could sit with myself to figure out what I wanted to do. You know, I had these sort of lofty goals that were not based in reality and then nothing else. I mean again I just would still find myself stumbling into things like I got a job after I got laid off incredibly easily um just by literally no action on my own. But now fast forward and um my job is on the line we're in a lot of we lost a million dollar client today and um just there's all this stuff going on um and like people do. But and the funny thing is is I am finding myself being that sort of oh I know what the solutions are. There's certain things like you know get to work on your resume or my sponsor that I don't see is that like well we can move on once you do your fifth step with me. And it's like I'm like how can I avoid I don't know you know how can I avoid that it's this whole thing of like well you can just do it and get it over with and move on. I mean there are all these choices but I find that now I'm trying to um you know really the apply the program just like even though I'm uncomfortable and I'm just gonna see you know really dig in again to just say okay I just need to do the next right thing. I mean there are all these things going on that I do not approve of and um that I do have some agency in and it just comes back to me. The biggest chance I feel like sobriety's given me is all summarized in that serenity prayer of just like, you know, I've got a you know let's look at this look at the situation you know what can I do? What can I do? What do I need to turn over? Because I think I'm still finding myself stuck in a little of like I said of this like instead of just dealing with situations head on I'm always like well you know if I don't really want to do that then I can do this. It's well or you know maybe I should just I end up doing nothing um except for wasting a lot of time. And so I guess I'm sort of trying to like um again um realize this is um an opportunity to like you said it's the problem there there's things that these are opportunities to really like am do I really have faith in my higher power that it's going to be okay even you know even with this uncertainty am I really you know am I doing all that I can being a sober woman to to you know give it my best shot and just do it and turn it over and um it's just this whole um you know I I think I sort of always think my thought before was like oh when I'm motivated to something like I have to want to do something. And a lot of times it's this whole program of like just do the next right thing, you know, the motivation, whatever it is will come, but you just have to take action. And um so that's it's hard just to it's like I'm sitting there stewing in things that you know um there's a solution just I want to do them. It's like I'm 10. And so I think that the reminders from the program and all of this is um the final thing I'll just say is I there was a wonderful fellow who used to come to meetings and um would talk about like I am so good at like creating other nonsense. So I don't have to deal with my current nonsense. So it's just like you know I'll create these other situations but at the end of the day the original nonsense is still there but I will just create other like solving problems I don't have um and or creating problems so that I can solve them. And so I think um you know just getting focused back um and thank you so much for letting me share that was long but I'm hopefully things will go better this this time around.

What If Versus Even If

Tools, Serenity Prayer, And Closing

SPEAKER_03 55:59

So thanks Ellie you know there was a a thing that I came across in the last day or so that I really caught my attention I really like it. It's a real simple thing to remember fear says what if what if I lose my job what if I lose the client what if I lose my money what if I lose my health what if what if it's always future tense and faith says even if even if I lose my job I'll be okay even if I get sick I can get well even if that's hope that's hope. And what's the truth you and I all of us have lived through everything that life has thrown at us and here we are today May whatever it is 5th 6th 2026 sounds to take a lot of hard knocks along the way still here still here even if the wheels come off we can always put the wheels back on or we can buy new wheels get a convertible all right we're out of time um thank you for playing along with that it was uh yeah it's uh it's just an interesting ponder because as you develop a timeline with this there's so many things that I didn't know were significant that were significant and there's so many things that I thought were so significant that turned out being insignificant so I just gotta be where I am it's okay it's okay I'm being held stay the course and the clouds will part and you'll you'll get some clarity right but it's a good thing to think about too when you talk about happiness or joy or freedom what do you mean by that because recovery life is not the absence of problems life is the ability to deal with life as it presents right and if the only tool I got in my toolkit is a hammer everything looks like a nail to me I just bang the hell out of it.

After-Meeting Talk On "Even If"

SPEAKER_04 58:14

But we have tools we have prayer we have meditation we have inventory we have each other we have community we have tools to navigate this stuff so good to be with you um you want to unmute yourselves we'll close with the serenity prayer does that work yes yep thanks for coming together this was really it was good for me I don't know if it was good for you or not but I think we were better it was good thanks Roger I think I hope you do but if you don't it's good for me all right here we go God to access what sounds like when someone's playing the thing over the device all right see you in a couple of weeks Roger thank you everybody Justin stay on okay perfect thank you thanks Roger you well you answered it at the end. That's why I I I read it and I was like even if what the fuck does that mean so yeah thank you even if I fucked I still got another chance as long as you're breathing as long as you're not dead you get a chance okay yeah and look back look back faith is even if you've got a history you and I have similar histories we shouldn't be here there's dozens of times we shouldn't be here not two or three there's maybe hundreds so so even if I got through all of that did I or was I being guided was I being helped you know why I mean why not these 20 other guys that are dead yeah I that that I was thinking about all the guys that I've been through treatment with all my other bodies that are all dead from drugs or alcohol