The Gathering With Roger B.
The Gathering’s talks are generally tied to one or more of the 12 Steps, but are always guided by spiritual concepts, principles and ideas common to most faiths. Topics are drawn from a variety of sources: the 12 steps, many of the well-known wisdom texts, science and other teachers that speak to a spiritual solution to life's challenges. About Roger B. Roger has been in recovery for over 47 years and has spent thousands of hours in service, sharing his experience, strength and hope. He has created curriculum for treatment centers, and lead workshops and retreats throughout the United States and Canada. Roger is a Certified Spiritual Director, and offers insight into spiritually-based living skills that are relevant to all people – whether in recovery or not. Roger is the first to admit that his long-term sobriety was brought about by the “trial-and-error method.” His experience reveals what has worked, and - perhaps more importantly - what has not worked, but taught him valuable life lessons. Roger B. and The Gathering with Roger B. are not affiliated, or endorsed by any third parties or 12-step programs. The Gathering on Zoom first and Third Wed 7pm CT id 728-200-4166 password 513915 downloads at www.gstl.ecwid.com
The Gathering With Roger B.
#116 HARD TIMES
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Everyone goes through hard times, everyone has a story. We have all gone through loss, jobs, careers,relationships, death of a loved one, loss of a beloved pet, loss of a dream or dreams. Now listen to how the Gathering community have dealt with their own challenges.
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Welcome And Meeting Context
SPEAKER_06Welcome to the gathering. I'm Roger. I'm an alcoholic. My Sabri date October 10th, October 11th, 1978. You have tuned into the gathering. We're a group of people that have been meeting off and on for 20 plus years. And uh you're welcome to participate at any level you wish. Most of you are listening on your phones, some on computers. And uh this is the 116th talk that'll be in this podcast. So welcome aboard.
What Hard Times Look Like
SPEAKER_06Tonight, this is what's been coming up for me, and unfortunately, what comes up for me, I put on you. But this has been a theme with many people that I've been talking to for the last few weeks going through hard times. How do you go through hard times, right? What are hard times? Hard times are when everything is uh not turning out the way I think it should. That's sometimes hard times. Events almost always that I'm powerless to control. So there are different different fields of hard times, right? It might be financial, might be bankruptcy, might be loss of a job, loss of your retirement fund, um, loss of transportation. There comes someone. Loss of transportation, maybe a license, not just a driver's license, maybe a law license, maybe a medical license, maybe a CPA license. But it's all around loss, right? So there's that pile, the material pile, I call it. Then there's kind of the uh psychological area. Um loss of hope. Fear fearing the future, beating myself with my past mistakes and errors, judgment, desperation, loneliness, separation. Then there's on the emotional level, um hard times. How about divorce? How about separation? How about betrayal? Rejection. Expectations, all not being met, right? Um death of a loved one, chronic illness.
SPEAKER_04My sponsor got drunk, right?
SPEAKER_06Umsee dies. Dreams that are never going to be realized, and coming to coming to grips with that. So and what might be a hard time for me not be a might not be a hard time for you. Another one is loss of a pet, loss of a pet. I I have a pet um who is actually my owner. I don't know if you but there's many times I'm sitting with him and I'm looking to his eyes and I'm thinking, man, I gotta die first. Because I can't, I couldn't dare. It would kill me to put you down. It would kill me to see you suffering. So, you know, blah, blah, woof, woof. But the how do you get through those challenges? How do you get through the hard times? Because life gets lifey sometimes. It's not always good stuff, it's not always even normal, quiet, calm stuff. It's stuff that's really disruptive, disruptive to my emotions, my psychology, my attitudes, my viewpoints, right? It challenged me, challenges me. And I need to figure out how I'm gonna go through that. I don't know how you go through it, but I thought if we had this discussion for the people listening um to the podcast, they'd get some ideas on how to go through some hard times.
Lean In And Let It Pass
SPEAKER_06So, one of the things I do is I remind myself everything's temporary. Everything's temporary. This too shall pass, is the AA uh saying that goes with that. But it it is temporary. The other thing is there are times when what is going on in my life feels like it's unbearable. Can't do this. I can't do this because I'm thinking I'm gonna be here in this spot the rest of my damn life. No. So what I do is I back out and I say to myself, I can do anything for a day. I can do anything for a day. Then I fall back more heavily on sponsees, more heavily on my meetings schedule, more heavily on my study, my reading, my practice. I turn the flame up on everything. Instead of withdrawal, I lean in. It's like uh when you're in the ocean and you're watching a wave set come in and you're standing about thigh deep, and the last wave is gonna hit you, but just below your chest, right? And every time a wave comes in, you lean, right? And then it goes past. Then the next one comes in and you lean in. And that's what I'm trying to do with the challenges in my life, is just lean in and let them pass. Because if I get hung up on, it's not fair, I don't like this. What did I do to deserve this? I get I open the door for self-pity, and that's not a productive place to be. Right? It's happening. You know, I used to I used to whine to my dad, why is this happening to me? And he said, Why not you? You know, because life is just happening, it's amoral. Everybody here has stuff going on now, has gone stuff, gone through stuff in the past. Another thing I hold on to is whatever this is, it right now it is the predominant thing that's affecting the flow of my life. But the truth is, I've lived through everything that life has thrown at me, and I will live through this. I got to keep turning it to something that's positive and useful. And then it deepens your prayer practice, does it not? If you have one, it deepens your 11th-step practice because the thing that pulls me through this isn't my self-will, it's giving my will over and handing those things which we're powerless over, objectionable, that we're clinging to, that's six and seven. I want it to be my way. Well, it's not your way. Well, get rid of the idea. You can't hold on to it because it's causing you suffering and pain. How do I work my way out of that? I work my way out of the way I've been talking to you. I I I read, I find new books to read, I find new stimulus, I find not just it's it is distraction in one form. It distracts me with something positive from the negative. It also helps me get a reset. You know, I can start the day over as many times as I need to. And the start is a third-step prayer. God, I offer myself to thee. I forgot. God's the builder, not me. God's the master pattern. I'm just the clay. Find those things, those little hooks that you use in your life to reframe it and get you back to the truth, the starting truth. I am a spiritual being having a human experience. And whatever this experience is, I can when I learn to look at it properly, it becomes a gift. Because I find out that I have qualities of character and power and energy that I didn't know I had. And if life wouldn't have presented that situation, I would never have known that. Right? And then it also sometimes highlights areas that I need to work on. Right? When you're when you're stuck in the three-dimensional part of life with the uh with your instincts, and they're all on fire, it's sometimes really hard to remember these things. But that's why we call it a practice. You can pick up the phone, you can call one of your brothers or your sisters in recovery or in your church or whatever 10, and you can share, you can talk, you can discuss, right? And I need to be vulnerable. I need to know that somebody knows what I'm going through. Not for help necessarily, but I need to have a witness. Because I can get lost in that stuff and start thinking I'm just freaking crazy. Right? And there's you're just in a house of mirrors. I keep running into me everywhere I turn. So it's it's uh it's not easy. But we've talked about this many times before in other ways, too. Is it a problem? It appears to be a problem. That's the initial response. But what I'm trying to get to is this is an opportunity. This is an opportunity to grow in my relationship with the creator, an opportunity to practice what I preach, an opportunity to have something now more to be able to give. You know, when you if you're in recovery, I think most of you are, but if you aren't, that's okay too. But when you're in recovery and you're going through your life and you're unpacking it in recovery, your history becomes your greatest asset, that which has been overcome and healed. So as I'm going through this, whatever this is, I know that it's going to help someone down the road that I'm going to run into. Because the men that come into my life have exactly the experience that I have had that they need to know about. Whether they do it or not is another thing. But my job is just to share the experience, to share the story. And there's power in the story. You all know that. Because when you hear the truth, you hear it in your heart, you hear it in your spirit, you don't hear it in your head. You hear it first in the heart and go, yeah, that's it. And then the beast grabs and says, Well, let's concretize that. Let's put that into a formula. What do you think? You know, I just no, no, no, no, no, no. But in another sense, life is lost in celebration, isn't it? Great things happen. Less than great things happen. Because everything that I had in my life 15 years ago is gone, pretty much, you know, because change is in effect, is it not? Everything is changing all the time. And oftentimes I don't notice the change until I run into one of my expectations not being met. And then I'm going, wait a minute, wait a minute, foul, foul, time out, time out. So I think for our audience now, it would be helpful for you to share some of the trials and what you've learned to do to go through them and to exercise them and turn them into something positive. Oh,
Becoming Someone Who Stays
SPEAKER_06I'll relate one little story. Um, and then I'll kick it out to you guys. For instance, a lot of you know Susan, my wife, has got some chronic health issues. And I've gone through this with her. We've been doing this for about five years. And uh and then a couple times she's asking me if I was gonna leave. I said, No, I'm not gonna leave. But I've always been a runner in my life. If I'm in a relationship, it doesn't matter if you're my girlfriend or you're my wife, when it gets to a certain point of difficulty, requiring a certain level of communication and commitment, I bail. I run. I didn't see that until I did my inventory, my relationship stuff. But what this has allowed me to understand is I'm no longer a runner. I'm staying. I'm gonna ride this through with you, whatever that means. And to know that about me makes the burden a little lighter, right? But it also is when did that happen? When did I become that man? I have no idea. Just like when we talk about when was the obsession removed, I have no idea. Just woke up one day and realized it wasn't there. So it's uh it's critical because if I don't define the moment, the moment will define me. And I'm not saying any of this stuff is easy, but I am not going to be defined what appears to be the problem, what appears to be missing, the lack. I'm gonna define myself by those higher qualities that I know are true and possible, and I live from to the best of my ability. Faith, hope, prayer, love, charity, tolerance, non-judgmentalism, the fourth dimension stuff, the non-dualism stuff. That's where I want to come from. And it's not it's not about getting it um anointed by the outside world, because it won't be. It's about knowing who I am and what I'm about. Who I am and what I'm about, and that can't touch me then. It can rough me up a little bit, but it can't define me. I won't have it, right? I'm trying to let my relationship with what I call God or the Creator define me. And that shows up in my practice how I am with you, how I am with the people I come in contact with in my life. That's how.
The Turning Point Called Surrender
SPEAKER_06Okay, floor's open. Share a story about something you overcome and how you did it.
SPEAKER_07Um, Melissa, alcoholic, I have to talk right away because what you just said was really important. Um hi guys, I haven't seen you guys in a long time. Um what you're saying tonight, Roger, really uh, you know, with the running thing and just um what I'm hearing is like surrender, because if you don't surrender, you're just trying to make everything work for yourself. And so I go to the big book where it says, remember we deal with alcohol, or name your problem, you know, whatever it may be that you um run to, run away from to um coming, baffling, powerful without help. It is too much for us. But there is one whisper power that woman is God, or your higher power. May you find it now. Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. And that is my favorite part of this whole book is the turning point. I call it the magical qi spot, the god spot, whatever you want to call it, the like turning point, the place where we finally like let go and allow, which my sponsor Susan has always told me was my issue. I needed to allow, allow, allow, you know, and I never understood what allow meant because I I struggled with paradoxes. If you know, if I allowed, then how was I going to have boundaries? How was I going to know my non-negotiables if I allow, you know, like I don't I have to stand for my non-negotiables? Don't I have to like have boundaries? I can't just allow everybody to be a jerk to me. I have to like, you know, be a responsible human being for what matters to me. And it's very hard in this recovery. It's just so hard to know how to surrender, but also to have those responsible places in your life. But but surrendering for me was really what taught me how to have those. Because once I surrendered and asked my higher power to be that direction for me, and I just said, I don't know, you do, please guide me. I trust you, like fully surrendering where I felt it, the direction started coming, and then I was able to trust it, and the boundaries just naturally came. I didn't have to assert them, I didn't have to stand guard. I just it just came without effort. It was like I don't even know how to explain it. It was just like an easy allowance of natural, no big deal. I don't know how to, it's just weird. Words don't work in this.
SPEAKER_06It's described, it's described in our little uh cliche, let go and let God.
SPEAKER_07Right. So, like what I'm trying to say to you is like like all of the things I struggle with in my life that that you were just speaking about with just the life, you know, uh life gets lifey. Everything is hard. Life is hard, it's really hard. But if you surrender, like like at the turning point where you're gonna be toast, as Roger loves to say, toast, because that's what happens. We are toast because we are just exhausted by life, or we're gonna die. I mean, how many times have we wanted to die? I know I have tons of times. Every time I just can't take one more step forward because I just can't stand it. I am literally toast and I surrender, God, and I and then I sincerely give my life over to my higher power. My higher power just takes it. But it's that transaction, it's that turning point, it's that sincere transaction where I say, Okay, higher power, I give it to you. I trust you. And I think trust is my favorite word in this whole thing I'm trying to say right now. I am trusting my higher power to handle my life. And when I sincerely make that transaction, I see immediate relief, immediate help. And then my life changes because of it, because I trust that I can I see that I can trust my higher power. And so that just builds as life goes on. I see that I every time, because life changes every day, life gives me stuff I can't handle. And then I just say I trust you. And then he handles it. And then I'm like, okay, more and more trust builds. It's like a relationship, you know, and then and then I'll pass, I'll pass. I'll pass. Thanks, Ryan.
SPEAKER_06Thank you. It is a relationship. Totally. And we have to work at the relationship with our creator just like anything else. And what you were talking about is the basis, the beginning of this is faith. You call it trust. It's faith that if I do this, I'll get the result that everyone's telling me about. But I don't know that I'm gonna get it yet. I'm just have faith that I'm gonna get it. Once I do it and I start, I get a result, that's when my belief starts to grow. Because I have evidence now that it worked for me, not just for Phil, not just for Dave, not just for Andy, not just for Kathy, but for me. And that's the building of that belief system, right? That's great. Thanks. Who else?
SPEAKER_00I'm
Restraint Of Tongue And Compassion
SPEAKER_00Kirsten. I'll go. Hi, everybody. Um what uh what came to my mind is um about this whole suffering thing is well, I don't even think you use the word suffering, but you talked about betrayal, fear, you know, hard times, loss. Um first thing that came to my mind is that it brings me closer to creator because or the God of my understanding, and it's because that's the only place I can really turn, right? To get the to get the intuition to take as much action as I can as a human being. Like if I can just take whatever action is possible as a human being without hurting other people, and restraint of tongue and tongue for sure, you know, um, then I see the result that maybe Melissa was talking about the surrender um of self-centeredness. Because I think for me, most of my suffering is all about me, right? This isn't going my way, I have had a loss, this is too much, this is you know, I didn't sign up for this kind of attitude. When I realize that I'm responsible for action, but not for what the hell. I'm sorry, you guys. Um, am I back? Okay, sorry. I I just got a full thing for my daughter. Um, anyway. Where I where was I going? Oh, yes, the surrender part. The the what Roger said, why not me? You know, this is the life I've been given, and I better figure out a way to not suffer through it. Otherwise, you know, I'm I mean, I know when I'm off the beam. I just have this one little tiny example just happened in the kitchen just now. My husband is a stroke survivor, and every day I have to keep my my tongue in my face because I want to just say, Don't do it that way. What are you doing? That was way too much detergent, is what I actually said at the kitchen sink. But I have to remember, okay, now is when you just walk out of the room and say thank you for doing the dishes. You know, I just don't even, don't even because what's really happening is he's doing the dishes, you know, and he's using my um nail scrubber for my fingernails to scrub the grill grate. I'm just like, I gotta get out of here. You know, I gotta get out of here because I have to always understand that the most important thing is not harming other people with my language, with my actions, with whatever. And God would not have me sit there and pick on him. He's he's cleaning the dishes, and and that's something that's um become really new for me because all of those remarks that I might have made in you know, former years are like the one I made in the kitchen just now. That's all about me and my opinion and me and judging. And that's just that's just um that's somewhere where I have observed my improvement, the the restraint of tongue and pen. Just get out before you do or say something that might be harmful, and not keeping the needs of others as my my my goal, because that's what God would have me be. Handle your life in such a way that you're keeping mindful of the needs of others, and um that keeps me out of my selfish self-centeredness a lot of the time, you know, and many times I I falter a little bit and something slips out, and then I realize, oh nope, I'm gonna feel like shit if I if I say one more thing, take the stuff from him and do it myself or whatever might happen. I'm just going to my meeting now. And so I took my computer and I walked out to the dock. And it's all fine. It's like what Kathy said, Kathy Noonan said about her water bottle. What's gonna happen if I leave it there? I think about this all the time. Someone might take it. So, you know, I mean, it's just like uh so anyway, the real hard sufferings. I don't want to negate the super hard times, like, oh my gosh, I don't know what I'm gonna do about money, or someone just died, or my sponsee took his life or her life, or whatever. Those those are the times when I I know that I have to just build and sometimes retrieve the relationship with creator because creator didn't do that. That's man's world. All the stuff that's so hard for us is man's world, and and I think sometimes we suffer just for that reason, so that we find a way to become closer to creator and who he would have me be. And with that, I'm gonna pass. Sorry about that distraction.
SPEAKER_06That's okay. Thank you. Thank you. Who else?
SPEAKER_09I can go.
SPEAKER_06Um Kathy in the water bottle.
SPEAKER_09Kathy in the water bottle. Okay, so Kathy in the water bottle. I was driving back from my daughter had surgery, and we were driving back in the car, and I was just I could thinking about world events and different things, and and thinking about the loss of things, all of all of that coming. And you know, I'm just driving along, and all of a sudden I look over, and then just at this moment, like, oh God, how are we how am I gonna do this? And I see this big bulletin board that says, take a deep breath. You're not alone. You got this. God, thank you very much. You know, I need I need hardcore signs, you know, so for me to to know I can breathe. Um so you know, I was thinking about like deep loss. And when, you know, my daughter lost um somebody to an overdose, and she was really, really hurting. So, like she's hurting, and I'm hurting because of her loss. And I said, you know what we need to do? We need to go to the graveyards, not where this person was buried. We need to go to graveyards, we need to visit graveyards. And she trusted me. And so we just started walking around these older graveyards. And she stopped and she's staring at it, and she said, Oh my god, by the time this woman died at 27, she'd already buried her parents and her three siblings at different times. And then she saw another one where like a mother and a baby died the same day. And and so she said, somehow, this is really healing. It's because it's like those have gone before us have gone through this and somehow found a way to go on living and what they can do with their life, you know, that they don't have to be stuck at that point, you know. And so um that's you know, I thought was really good for both of us just to just to walk there and to recognize. And and I read somewhere one time and I uh where it said, you know, it's the question isn't why is this happening to me, but how do I want to be, how do I want to be in this situation? How do I want to show up? And that I have control over. I can work at that, I can really ponder how do I want to be in this situation, as opposed to why is this happening to me, which never leads to like happy, joys, and freak. So thank you for the topic, and I'll pass.
SPEAKER_06Thanks, Kathy. Thanks, Kathy. You know that thing that you were doing reviewing the uh the headstones, it it reminds me, and we forget this sometimes. Everybody's got stuff they're dealing with. Life is lifey for everybody, not just for you, not just for me. Everyone's got trauma, everyone's got loss, everyone's got great things that have happened, everyone's had tragedies, everybody. If you could open them up and read them, they'd be like a novel. But we just see what we see. And I don't know. This is one of the things I I do when I'm being annoyed by someone that I don't know their behavior and what is informing it. I say to myself, Well, I don't know what's happened to this person, but if the same thing happened to me, I be might be acting the same way or worse. And that's compassion, empathy, and letting go of the you you think about fear you were saying. In the uh fear inventory, we're challenged to do this. God remove my fear and direct my attention to what you'd have me be. God remove my hurt, my heartache, my whatever, and direct your my attention to what you would have me be, which is what you were talking about, Kathy. It's a call to consciousness. Who do I want to be in this? That's a conscious thought. Who do I want to be in this? What kind of woman, what kind of man, what kind of human being do I want to be? Instead of spending an overwhelming proportion of my day fixated on things I have no control over, right? I have control over my attitude, I have control over my choices, but I have to bring it to a conscious level, otherwise I react out of my subconscious, and that's when things get messy. Who
Finding Help In The Present
SPEAKER_06else? Thank you. You're too happy.
SPEAKER_08I'm Lori, and I'm an alcoholic.
SPEAKER_06Hi, Lori.
SPEAKER_08Um, and so my mom went through a bunch of um different health issues before she did um eventually die a little over a year ago. And um so right away, she had tongue cancer and had to have a third of her tongue removed. And um all leading up to this, I'm like, God has got this, trust God. This is our opportunity to grow closer to God and have complete faith because it is out of my control. So have faith in the surgical team and that, you know, people will show up when we need them to show up to help us through this because I don't know what this is gonna look like. And um surgery goes great, she gets into a care facility, and then that's a complete disaster. And thankfully, I'm retired, so I could fly back to Minneapolis and help her recover from the surgery. And so I'm sitting on a Zoom meeting and she's right beside me. And um, this is a few days, uh, I don't know, um a couple of weeks after the surgery, and all of a sudden she turns to me and her mouth is full of blood and it will not stop. And um, so we get um they ambulance comes, they take her to HMC at the trauma center, then they get the it took a trauma center, the best in the country, two hours to get the bleeding to stop. And I'm just I see how God put me exactly where I needed to be. If she had been in the care facility, um she would have let out because she had fallen and they took 20 minutes to get to her, and my mom had to call my sister to have them call the front desk. I mean, the so the healthcare industry is just um it it's ridiculous. So I see now, now that I am sober and paying attention, I see where God put that was exactly where I needed to be in that situation. Um, I saw angels come into our lives. It's like you have no idea how I'm gonna get through this, but the faith people would just show up and help us through and give us our guidance. And so now I I have all of this experience. And um so when things get tough now, I think back to how God put things into place and I have complete trust that God didn't bring me this far to just say, okay, girl, you're on your own. Good luck with that. He's got me, he's got this, he will help me. So um thanks for letting me share.
SPEAKER_06Good to have you. You know, uh Melissa was talking in her talk about may you find God. And the next word is now. Not tomorrow, not yesterday, because the only time I can contact and have a present contact with that creative force is in this moment. Because this moment is all there is. I can't do it five minutes ago, and I can't do it five minutes from now. May you find him now, may you find it now, may you find the grace you're looking for now. And we're not here because we're worried about outcomes in the future and mistakes in the past. So we're tortured by our history and our imagination. Who else?
SPEAKER_05I'll go. Hey everybody, Paul Alcoholic. Hey, Paul. Um, yeah, pain and suffering. Um you know, a lot of good shares, first of all. Are I mean just amazing? And I think you know, I've had kind of a rough past say five or six days with um some family issues and and um you know the pain and suffering showed up you know to me and and basically activated some some pretty old ways of reacting to it and handling it. And so I guess we you know, as Roger said, number one, you know, we have to have somebody within our community here to be able to talk to about it. Um that's that to me was a starting point. And then um recognizing my reaction to the pain and suffering um with the idea that I I really do not when when I am angry and out of control, I I really have no idea what's going on in that moment, other than my anger has taken over. And I'm you know, there's no way I'm gonna be able to figure out a way through this, you know, being in that state and then recognizing that these threads run so deep in me that you know I you know I I can't have a false expectation that, you know, just because I've got X number of time in this program or I show up to this, you know, every every other week, although this is one of the things that helps carry me. Um I have to recognize what I'm up against. And you know, then the idea of where where do I find God in that in you know, in the middle of that, um, it goes right back to I think somebody said faith and and expectations, right? I'm you know when I'm acting out of anger and and fear and and all of the the lower self stuff, um, my God gets really small and I'm putting expectations on that higher power to basically vindicate me and you know completely wrong. And it takes time to move through that and recognize that you know God isn't my problem solver, right? I mean, he isn't my uh he's not gonna come riding on a white horse from the standpoint of and and show everybody else while they're wrong, right? He's beside me waiting for me to basically you know turn it over and not really know what the outcome is gonna be other than um like I said, he's got us, and I can't I can't predict what it's gonna look like. I just have to sit in it and continue to to you know work with others and and be ready in a different state of mind to to receive those you know those next nudges, whatever whatever they are. So it's really good stuff. And I I really needed to hear all of you tonight. So I uh I'm grateful to be here. Thank you. That's all I got. Thanks, Paul.
SPEAKER_04You know, the uh life is the teacher, I'm the student.
SPEAKER_06If I can look at this stuff from the present tense and just ask myself, what is this trying to show me or teach me? Have I ever been here before? What lessons did I learn? Right? Um also as we progress in our evolution, whether you're in recovery or not, your spiritual evolution, you'll come up on circumstances that are there for a reason. And the reason is it's time to learn this. I've this is kind of like an example would be um I had this big resentment to my parents, and I had a heartfelt amend, and everything was really good. And then a couple of years later, something happened, triggered it, and that old resentment came up like nothing had changed. And my first thought, the beast's first thought was, ah, see, you've never ever changed. You're still the same way. But the second thought was, no, I've evolved to the point now where I can understand this and feel this at another level, and that's an opportunity for healing that trauma, that resentment a little more deeply. Now I've turned the problem into a solution. It's a blessing. Sometimes I think I wish God didn't have so much faith in me. It's getting a little heavy around here, but it's you know, you gotta pick your your attitude. And we do much better when we pick our attitude consciously than unconsciously. Because when we pick unconsciously, it's always out of fear, and our solution to the perceived problem always makes it worse, never better. Who else?
Trust When You Cannot Fix It
SPEAKER_03I'm I'm Tom, alcoholic. Hi, Tom. Hey Roger, this this really is great. I mean, when you first would say hard times, kind of flashback. If I look at my whole life, he'd say hard times, you know. Screw you. I mean, I I would be like, There's no hard times. It would be such a fighter to fight through it. I'd set things out. I wouldn't so that would there was kind of a set pattern, whatever that was. Anything, you know, business, sports, always was. This was until parents dying young and and all just would fight through it and really wouldn't accept that. Wow, these were hard times. As I said, I did the same thing, kind of joking earlier with drinking. So I can handle this, I can fight this without doing my own thing. Guys would be leading me to AA. And I said, My friends were in it, I didn't need to do that, I can do it myself. Well, finally, it was like, Whoa, I this is out of control. I can't do this. I am, I've literally said, I'm powerless. And it was like then it was, oh my God, the miracle. And I've said before, my dear friend, my priest, when I talked to him about it, I said, I hated when you used to say that, you know, you're nothing without God. Well, but then when you get that, you're all powerful. So probably the most hardest, and last year was one of the hardest times going through. My wife had, you know, serious cancer. We're like, it's great, it's gone, but um, she couldn't die. I had a very serious thing that came up, and I was catching myself that I wasn't saying that there were hard times. We were gonna blow through it. And I realized, wait a minute, these are really hard times, and I really had no idea how to fix this. I could not fight my way out of it, I couldn't talk my way through it, I couldn't be a tough guy. I had to say, God, I just please, please help me. And it was so beautiful. I think Melissa said it earlier. And it's like a we can hear all this tonight about surrender. Surrender is not something to do. And how do you, you know, so it really is like, how do you be surrendered? How do we truly let go? How do we truly trust? And really, that's how I get through the hard times now is that I really trust God, but I ask for help. I ask. And that's the same person that was arrogant and big ego that I don't ask anybody for anything, you know, but I ask because I know that the I can't, I can't, I can't do it. And uh, but then most important is is is uh really to try to stick with the what's so of the the big problem right now. What are the facts around it? Not like it's I'm gonna die or everybody's gonna die or we're gonna lose everything. No, what are what are the facts right now? And don't keep working on the what's so, and I can't handle that, I can't fix it, but with God I can. And um and then I'm reminded too, the final thing, the best thing, it don't like it, but we we always say we get closer to God in the in the opportunity of, or it said we get closer to can get closer to God in suffering. But for me, that's true. Becoming going really the hard times and becoming so it's the greatest thing in my life to ever to be a drunk and then get sober. My God, what if it if if that didn't happen? I mean that so so the worst things that have ever happened to me in my life have in retrospect been opportunities to get closer to God. But now in my latter years, I'm saying, whoa, hey, these are hard times. God help me. And I'll I'll pass.
SPEAKER_06Thanks, Tommy.
SPEAKER_07Melissa, I'll call it. Can uh has everyone spoken? Can I see?
SPEAKER_06Can you hold on a minute?
SPEAKER_07I sure can. I just wanted to double on what Tom was talking about.
SPEAKER_01Well I I was going to um it keeps coming up. For me. Um. Hey, I Phil. Yes. Um, I lucky I can read. We um our most recent pup um was Baxter. And he was he was a teacher all along and right up to the last. And uh he had cancer and trying to make this as short as the story as short as possible, but um right toward the end when we knew it was getting close, um, you know, we're thinking, you know, don't want to lose him, but don't want him to suffer, and going back and forth. And so finally we make this decision to go to, and he hasn't moved off of his little bed for 16 hours or more. And um uh we made this decision to go to back to this uh the hospital where he was getting his treatment. And as soon as we made that decision, he jumps up off that bed and he's out in the garage. And he hasn't done that in weeks. And and he's just standing there watching me, waiting for me to help him into the car. So we get him in the car. He has a very comfortable ride for two hours to the to the hospital, and we get him there, and we take and he jumps out of the back of the car when he gets there. He hasn't done that in six months, and and he's going in, he's on the end of his leash going into this building. He knows what's going on. And um, so we get him in there, and um, they get him uh ready for we go into this little room where they're going to um administer the uh euthanizing, and he comes prancing in there with the with the two attendants, sits down at us, we get the chance to say goodbye, uh right there. And it's just like he's saying, I can't wait to go. I can't wait to go. And um, so it was like, and and when he when he left, it was just this this last breath. It was just it was just, you know, the breath, you know, you take you inhale that first breath and you exhale your last. And um, and it was uh it was such a beautiful thing. And um, but he was he was teaching teaching me how how to die. It was it was so it's so easy. It's so easy. And um, and he but he was approaching it with with this joy. And um so that's uh um he was like I said, he was a teacher to the last.
SPEAKER_06That's beautiful. I'll by the way, people back through as a dog. It wasn't it wasn't one of their children. But it's it's well, I knew it, but I didn't know if everyone knew it. But you know, you're right though, they know. About ten years ago, a girlfriend and I had we had to put her dog down. It's a black lab. And he'd been with her through everything, through her illnesses, through her divorces, through everything. And we had a service come over to the house so he could pass with us, you know, and uh he was laying on the floor, and the attendant got to know him, was really peaceful and calm, and shaved a little spot on his leg. And he was just staring at his his mama, and uh they administered it, and he he the last thing he did was he just took a big sigh, you know, and he drifted off. No struggle, no struggle at all. Because he got to the point where he couldn't go to the bathroom and to carry him and stuff, and it was it was not good, but it's so important because I think everything is our teacher. And you you guys, a lot of you know we got a dog here, and I haven't had a dog since I was a kid. This dog owned me. It's just it's so good. It is so he's such a teacher, you know. You want you're thirsty, go get something to drink. You're tired, lay down. You want to go outside, go stand at the door, you know, or he'll look at me and stare at me until I read his mind, you know. Anyway, it's uh if I can just look at life that way, it's all trying to teach me something, it's all trying to demonstrate or illustrate something, then there's nothing to fight against. There's nothing to resist. You just oh nice. Nice. Who else? Thank you. Thank you so much. Who else?
SPEAKER_10Hi,
Pain As Data And Earlier Surrender
SPEAKER_10I'm Allie. I'm an um, oh, hi, I'm an alcoholic. Um this is it's so much easier enough to get to concentrate when I'm listening and not uh distracting by the screen. Um, but it's nice to see anyway. Just um when it comes to lessons, etc., I I like the way that it's been framed as we're just collecting data. And so instead of a situation being good or bad, it's like we're this is useful information, and it's the same um sort of idea as you know, learning the lesson. But what I really like is that uh it's just a different perspective. Um, and I apply this for like day-to-day stuff about like trying to schedule a day to include future life, my family, just you know, the different aspects that I find very challenging. And I also do know that even I grudgingly have to admit that pain is truly uh what I unfortunately need, I mean, to make any real change. And I wish I could say that um yeah, but I mean I'll push it. The anecdot and push it until I literally can't push it anymore. And so I think that a lot of times I at the same time I get that pain, it's also when I surrender. And what I'm really trying to do now more is surrender earlier, um, as opposed to waiting until you know I have to learn the lesson that you know, I probably been saying, oh, you know, I need to change this or I need to change this, and it's all been lip service, but until I actually have to change it and I don't have any more ways out, um, I won't make that change. And um the last thing is just what I'm always fascinated by is I get more overwhelmed by day-to-day decisions than big decisions, like when there's a sense of urgency, an emergency, you know, tragedy accident or something, it's like let's go. But it's it's the the other, you know, death by a thousand cuts. But um anyway, I think that yeah, the lessons learned and you know how your experience will help someone else, and just um I think part of it also just lastly helps me, as my friend says, just show up and be open to what happened. Again, sort of saying this is the first thing that happened. Um, but like, okay, this sucks, but you know, but there's another part of it. So um yeah, I'm really learning a lot and really grateful um to be here.
SPEAKER_06Hi, Sally. Anyone else?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, my name's Jacqueline and I'm an alcoholic.
SPEAKER_06Hi, Jacqueline. Where are you coming in from?
SPEAKER_02I'm coming in from uh Dorts of the Twin Cities.
SPEAKER_06Okay, good. Good to have you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's my first time here. I'm really enjoying it. I appreciate uh the structure. Um, what I heard and what I'm reminded of is the impermanence of things. Everything will either change or die, or leave me, leave me or die. And then um the other one I forgot. That happens, anyways. Um, oh, the mile markers you were talking about in life and the learning points. And right away, three things came into my head. And when I was nine months sober, I was walking through a divorce and I was in a lot of pain, and I didn't know what to do with that pain. Um, but I continued to go to my meetings and my fellowship. And I was in a meeting one day and I realized there was another gentleman going through a divorce, but he didn't seem to be hurting to the degree that I was. So I asked him, What are you doing about that? He says, Well, I'm working the steps on him, and that was the first time that was a good mile marker for me. It was the first time that I used the steps for something besides alcoholism, you know that I'm powerless over this and my life is unmanageable and going through the rest of the steps on that. And when I came to the step four, I had to look into myself to examine what's going on with me. And that's where I needed to be. Oh, I know what the other one was. The closest I'll get to uh God is in the seeking, the closest I'll get to anything is in the seeking. So here again in step four, I'm seeking to find out what is going on with within me. And uh my biggest fear um was that uh I'm leaving a marriage and I want a family. Now what do I do? And with that four step, I found um I found within me um that connection to that power that we seek. And that power is said to me, uh, you got everything you need to be a parent. And so I sought out adoption and I adopted two sons. And um then I was overwhelmed with joy, and I've never experienced that before, and I didn't know what to do with that. So, you know, these lessons that we learn are just amazing. I got two dogs and one's distracting me. And then um I was recently walking with a sponsee, and she's like seven, eight years sober, and and she was experiencing this joy, and she looked at me and she said, How come nobody tells you about the joy? And I said, Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah. And and what we're supposed to do with it is be in the moment with it and and enjoy it and relax to it. Uh yeah. I I thank you very much for the meeting tonight, and I'll pass at that.
SPEAKER_06Thank you, Jacqueline. It's the first and third Wednesday every month. Not every other, first and third. Anyone else? Melissa,
Final Takeaways And Goodbye
SPEAKER_06we're run out of time. Do you want to briefly say what you're gonna say?
SPEAKER_07Oh, well, I had it written down. So Philip said something about asking. Um I just it reminded me of surrender and asking, which was part of step moving into step six and seven, where do we let or allowing it's gonna help us be willing and allowing to let join be the teacher. I just wanted to feel whatever you want to call it. Something else to become magical to make everything be what you want it to be. No one can stop the turn to make everything happen until they're forced to force them to come from multiple people. I don't know many people who don't force you, anyway. They just keep on the control of people. So when you hit that point, you just can't anymore because you're gonna die. Then you then you get to help you or your power to help you. And then it's just such it's such a wave of like relief. And that's when the joy finally comes in because you stop trying to orchestrate everything, but not because you wanted to, because you were gonna die otherwise. All right, and that's all I had to say.
SPEAKER_06Thanks. You know, to your point, when I came in, they said, because I was not a god guy, and they said God for you is grow or die, which is what most was describing. And they were right, but it it was it was a big fight with the self reliance and the self will, as it is for all of us in different areas and times. So we're out of time. Uh thank you for the evening. It was really fun. Good chairs, good chairs all around, and uh we'll see you in a couple weeks. Okay. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye, everyone.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.