#119 Slender Threads

 Ever look back and realize one tiny moment redirected your whole life? We talk “slender threads,” sobriety, and how guidance shows up in plain clothes. Listen now and tell us: what’s a small moment that changed you? 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Welcome And How To Join

SPEAKER_09 0:03

Roger, alcoholic. October 11, 1978 is when I started the trudge. Um, welcome to the people listening on the on their devices. Um you found the gathering. You can join us live on Zoom. The first and third Wednesdays of the month, the ID is 728-200-4166, and the passwords 513-915. So um here's the deal. I ran across this, I didn't run across this. A friend of mine sent me this, and I thought it would be really fun to share with you guys and get some get some responses. So here we go.

Reading The Slender Threads Prologue

SPEAKER_09 0:49

Takes a few minutes here to uh to read to you, but you'll understand. It is this is a a guy who wrote a book, and this is the prologue he wrote in 1997. The name of the book is Slender Threads. It's an audacious notion to put forth in this age of science and willful determination that one's existence is somehow inspired, guided, or even managed by unseen forces outside our control. Whether called fate, destiny, or the hand of God, slender threads are at work, bringing coherence and continuity to our lives. Over time, they reweave a remarkable tapestry. What are these slender threads? Being in a particular place at just the right time, meeting someone who steers you in an unforeseen direction, the unexpected appearance of work or money or inspiration just when they're most needed. These are the mysterious forces that guide us and shape who we are. They are the patterns that give meaning to our experiences. Some people seem to exert more free will over their lives. They make plans, set goals, proceed with full confidence of being and control that's never worked for me, despite my best attempts. Looking back from the vantage point of 76 years, it's now clear that my existence has always been managed by some benevolent fate. It has taken a better part of a lifetime to accept this idea, and much of this time I still don't understand it. But I've learned to stop fighting it. In my youth, I I floundered around and followed the slender threads only when I felt like it or when they seemed to be taking me where I already wanted to go. I often struggled to oppose them. As the fruit of my old age, however, I have finally come to trust the mystery. The mystery is this there's one right thing and only one right thing to do at every moment. We can either follow or resist the slender threads. We all have free will, and therefore we can try to force situations in life. Perhaps that struggle is what keeps us bound to this earth, but I have gradually learned to accept that the slender threads possess greater intelligent wisdom than our scrambling egos can ever attain. In good times and bad, one slender thread after another has seen me through, and together they've shaped what I know and who I am. The notion of slender threads is essentially a religious idea. I'm not much at home with the old-time religion, at least not as practiced in my own culture. And so I often find myself searching for new terms to say old things. I do know, however, that my life is managed by a coherent and intelligent entity of some sort, a guiding hand or patron saint, if you will. My loyalty to the heavenly world was won forever after a serious wounding claimed me for an interior life, but I was not removed from the necessity of simultaneously building an earthly life. This became the central challenge for me, learning how to balance two realms, to side with either one of these two great realities, heaven and earth, is an error. Over time I came to appreciate that a myth place in which both realms are honored is not only the safest place, but it's also the ecstatic place, the holy place. If one works faithfully and patiently at this task of balancing heaven and earth, eventually one may even realize something more remarkable, that the two worlds are in fact one.

Practice Over Time And Synchronicity

SPEAKER_09 4:53

So this is a practice he's describing, isn't it? We have a practice. I have a practice, prayer meditation. I have these, I have these principles that I try and build into my life and my daily activities and responses. But the the thing about this, that the first thing I resonated to are over time, over time, these threads weave a remarkable tapestry. And that's why over time, it takes time to get these concepts, these ideas in place, to get them internalized, to start seeing the result. And I can't see it. Well, let me rephrase that. I didn't see it at one or five or ten years. I started to see it later. Because I was in those first ten years, I was busy trying to build and understand in my own way these concepts and principles so I could do them authentically. But this other thing about the synchronicity, uh, thunder threads, being in a particular place at just the right time, meaning someone who steers you in an unforeseen direction, the unexpected appearance of work, money, inspiration, just when they're most needed. Every one of us has had those experiences. But when I look back and reflect, there have been hundreds of them. There have been hundreds of them, maybe thousands. I probably missed a bunch of them too. But there are things that happened that at the time seemed really insignificant, but in retrospect, they were very significant because they moved me just a couple more degrees off the path I was on to a different, a different approach.

Mentors, Two By Fours, And Dad

SPEAKER_09 6:49

And it was things like uh, well, like love. I'm assuming you have heard this story, but I my mother's father was living with us in his last years, and and his brother, Einer, would come over and visit because Sundays always visiting days, right? They're old Norwegian Lutherans. And his wife was named Jenny, and she was about she just a little roly-foley Norwegian Lutheran. And my grandpa, this is in the 60s, so I had long hair doing the hippie thing. And my grandpa called me the eff and hippie. And uh, and uh I they would come over to visit, and grandpa and Ider would be talking in the living room, and Jenny would be sitting with me, and she'd go, Oh, Ra, you're I look your hair. May I brush it? And she would just sit there and brush my hair for however long they were there and however long I let her. And what what it was an experience of is she saw my soul. She saw me. She didn't see keeping what's that? She didn't, she saw long hair, and it was beautiful there. Those kinds of things. Those were things. There were a couple of those things growing up that I had that I hung on to like life preservers, because they were just like an oasis in the mess I was living in. And later on, it's, you know, I would at a conference walking around in a na thing, and one of my dad's friends said, How are you doing, kid? And the answer was something like this I'm doing fine, except for the spiritual part. And instead of saying you dumb rummy, it's all spiritual. He just looked at me and said, Keep at it, it'll be fine. Little things like that. And they end up not being little things. I had uh another one. I've told you this story before, but it's a good one. I think it is anyway, and I'm at an A meeting with a coffee break, and one of the old guys comes up to me, because Eva was an old guy. I was 30, so Eva was old, and comes up to me and says, How are you doing, kid? And I get my little act going, which is the liver, the lip quiver, and the crack voice goes, Well, I'm depressed and I have low self-esteem. And he goes, You're an asshole. That should change, and walks away. And I'm thinking, you're dead. And the second thought was, good point. Because sometimes you just need a two by four, you know, and the guys that knew what I needed, that saw me regularly, knew how to feed it to me. It was more like that. And it was uh just it's an evolution, isn't it? But all these little things along the way. My dad's sobriety. Sobered out, never said a word to me about his drinking or mine, just got an AA and rebuilt him, and uh he was Miami. Not insignificant, because I had a front row seat for where he came from. Because I was his bartender growing up for years, and I saw Scotch and Perkocet almost kill him three times. So um those little things, and then there are things too. Um sponsees that die. Sponsies that die, guys that couldn't make the turn, I wouldn't make the turn. And uh you gotta figure out what that's about, right? There's a message in there, you know? Why him and not me? Why him and not me? How is everybody as messed up as him? You could say grace, you could say mercy. But the difference, I think, essentially is this the requirements here to get going are honesty, step one, humility, step two. I gotta find something to give myself to to make a beginning. And the third thing is willingness, and I didn't have any willingness for this, so the question becomes where did this willingness come from? I was willing to not drink or do drugs and go to meetings. I wasn't willing to do anything else. So, threads, threads, people that were important, people that were, you know, like one of my mentors, Don Pritz, he was uh, he gave me a couple of great things. He was a delegate, he helped get the big book into the USSR when it was the USSR. He was active in AA, he was a delegate, and he got sober in federal prison. He was a drug runner. And uh an amazing character. You'd look at him and he's just a gnarled up old man. But he had these incredibly bright blue eyes. And when you'd meet him, he'd grab your hands and look right in your eyes and go, I'd go, Don, how are you doing? He said, Better know that you're here. And you knew he said that to everybody. But when he said it to you, it felt like he really means it. He means it. And he gave me a couple of things. One, he gave me uh, I'm about three good ideas away from going back to prison. Money's 35 years sober, 40 years sober, which reminds me, reinforces the idea be vigilant, be vigilant about watching your thinking, because your thinking turns into your actions, and your actions turn into consequences. The other one he gave me was a definition of honesty that I really needed. And it scared the shit out of me when he did it, but it was this honesty without compassion is brutality. Honesty without compassion is brutality. Honesty is the intention of having no deception. No deception and compassion. So there have been all kinds of people like that over my life, and you learn a lot from the people that don't make it too. Because you can see where they fall. I I spend time with guys that couldn't or wouldn't get sober. I spent guys that ended up dying. I spent guys that you know wouldn't do this, that, and the other thing, and I saw what happened to them. So that was a gift too. The gift out of the

Love Without Expectations

SPEAKER_09 13:31

giving that you do. The love you give. The love, the part of the love you give that is without expectation of return. That's what we're talking about. Not the good deed that I'm doing because it's the right thing to do. And then, for instance, I open the door for Lori, she walks through and she doesn't say thank you. And I close the door behind her and go, What a bitch. Well, that good deed, that loving expression, kindness, courtesy, those are forms of love, right? Is now negated because I exposed to myself. I had an expectation. And the expectation was that you were gonna say thank you. Well, then it wasn't a gift. It was a transaction. And that just fried me because then I I had to come to this realization, you know. I don't know what love is. I know what I call love, but it's all transactional, regardless of who and what position you're in in my life. And that's uh a sobering realization. And that's also why I'm so damn miserable, because no one's living up to my expectations. And I can't have that. Allie, turn your camera down. All I can see is your fan. Well, there's some reflections. I think you get the drift of this thing. So slender threads, things that have happened to you that have ended up being life changers, but it might be one or two things, or it might be an amalgam of things. But the reflection is how many times have I been touched by these things that alter me just a little bit? Just a little bit and add it up. You know, my failures are good too. My failures are teachers too. That didn't work. Well, then don't do that anymore. How do I not do that anymore? We didn't have to change. Just say it. So let's open it up and see what you got to say.

Open Share: Arby’s Sauce Memory

SPEAKER_09 15:47

You can either raise your hand and I'll meet you, you can unmute yourself and weigh in. If you want a copy of that thing I read, um put my email in the chat. And you can just send me an email and I'll uh send it to you.

SPEAKER_08 16:04

I'll go, I'll go ahead, Raj. Please do. Hey everybody, Paul Alcoholic. Gabir, nice to see you again, man. It's been a while. It has been a while. Uh I guess the reason I'm going first is this is um kind of just spot on with an experience that I didn't literally just just had last night and today. Um, and it's a failure one. Um so my wife and I are we took a dance class last night because our daughter's getting married in November, and uh he uh decided to go kind of brush up on her dancing skills. So, anyways, um we're in the midst of it with this instructor, and uh she's um very uh she's a really good instructor and is using a lot of um I don't know what the right word is, but kind of common terms to help us understand, you know, some basic dance moves. And and when she was describing one of these, she said, so the the the guys have to bring their hand across their front of their face like they're wiping Arby sauce off their mouth. And I just like Arby sauce, like why I mean, of all the things that she could have picked, right? I mean, what's up with Arby sauce? I mean, how about what I've ketchup or I I just this the way she picked that out just kind of caused me to pause a little bit and then you know, we go on with the dance lesson and finish up and lo and behold, um, fun fact about me, I used to work at RV's when I was uh and I'm doing my reflections last night, and I had a manager um that this guy was just the greatest guy in the world, and I absolutely loved him, and he was he was just a rock solid guy, and you know, very Christian and very, you know, I mean he didn't push it on anybody, but he was uh, you know, very solid Christian, you know, had a lot of strong faith in his life. You know, and this was in a time when you know I was a shitty little teenager, um, running and gunning, you know, doing drugs and alcohol and anything I could get my hands on. And, you know, I don't think, I don't know. I I hate it well from most people, but I think this guy had a had a beat on me. But he never he never confronted me about it. He just, you know, kind of like the the part about your aunt, he just saw the good in me and he loved me. And we were I we were at a regist, I was working a cash register, and I, you know, short on funds, so I I you know dipped my hand in the till and I think I stood a five dollar bill in my pocket when I was on my shift, and he was working the register right next to me, and I know he saw me do this, I know it for a fact, but again, he never confronted me, he never tried to bust me, you know, he just kind of let it be. And that came back to me last night when I was doing my reflections because of the RB stuff, and it's it, you know, it it makes me feel shitty, but you know, that's a thread that comes from a long time that is bringing itself to my awareness today for me to be able to obviously somehow make a living amends or or whatever, go to Arby's and buy a bunch of gift cards. I don't know, but uh anyways, it's you know, you remember, I you know, with me, it's it's those threads really relate to a lot of the people in my lives that are you know of just nothing but love. And you know, some people I just gotta walk all over, unfortunately. And it's a good reminder today to to recognize the good in people and be different and act act different. So that's all I got. Thanks. Thanks, Paul.

Stop Fighting And Let Life Shift

SPEAKER_09 21:03

You know, the uh the emphasis here uh on over time, this weave will become a remarkable tapestry. It and the bottom of that thought, he goes, when he's discovering what we would call a higher power of God, he's talking about forming the relationship with it. And he describes it, it's now clear that my existence has always been managed by some benevolent faith. It's taken the better part of a lifetime to accept this idea, and much of the time it's still, I still don't understand it, but I've stopped fighting it. That is the idea of coming to conscious awareness of a relationship with a power greater ourselves. It's a lifetime project. That's why there's no the end on the steps. It's a continuation of a practice of self examination, prayer, and meditation. And then it comes out through the lens of love and service. Thanks, Paul.

SPEAKER_04 22:09

Well Melissa. Hey guys. Um I mean the not fighting it part. Um and the whole thing that you read was just really beautiful and and inspired a lot of thought. Um uh I just turned 50 August 30th, and I I knew as I was approaching 50 that it was gonna be pretty pretty pivotal for me. Um I just could feel that coming. I just knew that it was going to that there was gonna be a lot of effort on my part made to having that be a pivotal part, and then also that um that the effort was gonna allow release or something. I could I could just feel something was gonna shift big. And it did. Um, and it it's been ever since 2016 when I moved home from Colorado and got divorced and decided to start this program. And then I fell uh, by the grace of God, into the lap of very um powerful AA, very, very strong AA people. And um, I feel so grateful that I did that because one of the members also helped me find deeper faith. And um the faith, the the church that I've found, the the lead pastor has taught me how to see my higher power in a way that helps me soften and become more gentle and really stop um what are the words I think, Roger, that you said that the stop fighting? Is that right? So like stop resisting.

SPEAKER_09 24:04

Yeah, fighting resisting.

SPEAKER_04 24:05

Yeah, so like that that has been my coping strategy from childhood because of my extreme trauma from childhood was resisting and um fighting everything as a ways to protect myself. Um and it just stopped uh working as I became an adult, right? So um, but I just knew that 50 was gonna give me something, and it has. It's really given me a chance to feel free. Um and and it and it didn't just happen at like a light switch. It was a it was a clone. And it's it's you, it's Roger, it's Susan, it's all my the women in recovery that I've felt safe being open with. It's my faith, my higher power, my my um family at my church, it's all of the um opportunities I've had to be of service, it's the daily meditations, it's the daily conversations, it's the daily readings, it's the application out in the world. But I I really am resonating with what what you read today because I grew up with grandparents like helping me be raised, and I've always had an affinity for elders. And I do nails for a living, and most of my clients are 70 and 80 years old, and I have a couple 90-year-olds, and I just resonate more with elders because I don't know, for some reason I'm also fascinated with death, because I know this world doesn't last forever. And at one point I'm gonna say goodbye, and I I love animals, and I say goodbye to my beautiful animals and I hold them while they die. And it's there's nothing more powerful than that because one minute you're breathing and one minute you're not, and it's just so big. And so when this man is writing these words, talking about he's thinking about his life and his legacy and and the meaning of everything and the threads, it just is so powerful, it's so beautiful, and I just am so grateful for you sharing that tonight. Um, and my journey has has, you know, I'm probably got 30 more good years, hopefully, before I start really um moving towards the light. Who knows? I could die tomorrow. Uh-huh. Knock on wood. But um, it's just I'm at a point now where I can really stop I've I feel like I've stopped resisting. And I feel like um I can catch myself a few times because those old phantom phantom whatever are still in me, the nervous system or whatever you want to call it is still kind of kicks a little bit. But I take a deep breath, I know how to pause, I know how to attach myself to my higher principles, and I know how to um communicate with myself and with my higher power and with whoever is around me in order to properly respect everyone involved. And it's just such an easier life, and I'm I'm so grateful that I ended up in this life with you guys. So thanks, Roger, very much.

SPEAKER_09 27:22

Thank you, Melissa.

When Helped Someone Helps You

SPEAKER_09 27:25

Uh, you know, here's another example. I had a bass player, I was a musician, and I got severed. This bass player didn't, he'd been he'd been a drunk since ninth grade. And uh he kept calling me, asking me if I'd help him, and I would. And I had a one-step program, and I go over where he was, and I give him half hour, an hour, and 90 minutes on one step. My I'm powerless and I don't drink stuff. And uh we'd hug it and I'd say, I love you, and you'd say, You do it. And then he kept every three weeks or so, he'd call me, Are you still sober? Will you help me? And I realized he wasn't getting it, so I I did something that I didn't know I knew to do, which is uh my urgent meeting. I went to intergroup and got a meeting directory. And the next time he called me, he said, I know what you need, you need regular meetings. And I took him to these a Monday and a Wednesday meetings, step in big book uh 24 and Blazed Hill, and uh I took him there to get rid of him. Right action, wrong motive, but I took him there to get rid of him, and he he got a year in that room, and he he never had 30 days in years, and uh he got a year and everyone was what a miracle and all that stuff. He got a grant to go back to college and uh majored in psychology, was drunk in two months, and I said goodbye to him, he died in nursing home cirrhosis. I stayed in those two meetings for 15 years. Threats threats. One of the things I've come to realize for me is I don't ever really know what's going on, I just know what it looks like is going on. You know, I'm taking him and I'm getting frustrated because none of these guys are picking up, and after about a half year of that, it dawned on me, they think I'm sponsoring him. So I'm stuck here, right? Blessings. But you don't see it when it's happening, you only see it later, and that's why the timeline is so critical. Well sorry.

SPEAKER_11 29:47

Um, I'll go. Uh Tom, alcoholic. It's really interesting. Uh, I had a dear friend who uh was in the A AA program from that we met in the 80s, and um and I traveled to where he was going, and he he always kind of had the excuse he wanted me to to go with him, or he needed a ride or something. And uh so he knew I was a drunk back in the 80s. I didn't, or I was pretending that I wasn't. I was trying to, you know, I controlled it. I thought I controlled it pretty well. Was just a uh was just a big drinker, but that was through the 80s, and then I'd go to meetings in Las Vegas where he was big in the program, we'd meet California, we'd go, we'd meet all over the wherever he went, and never once did he say, Hey Tom, you're a drunk. You really need to get you really need to get in the program. But I went with him for years. Um yeah, which was really great. I know I've I repeated this, but I was like, well, I'm not like those people, you know, there's a bunch of drunks in that room. I'm I'm not I'm not joining, you know, kind of thing. And um, you know, but it took about 40 years, and and then really was um you know, with Andy, when you know, I was kind of acting as a spiritual guidance, if you will, getting, you know, talking to Andy and with him, and and I was like, What is what's this all about? And and uh dr drinking while we were talking about not drinking. And then um, yeah, yeah, then and then my son had some issues, and then and uh Andy mentioned it to you, Roger. You said well, invite me to the gathering, and I came to the gathering for my son. And really, um so and the punchline is I'm sober, and it's the greatest gift in my life.

SPEAKER_09 31:36

How many years, Don?

SPEAKER_11 31:37

It's uh five years. Five years. Yeah, and I and I really when you go back over thank you. When I went when I look back, you know, I was a you know, I was an alcoholic 50, you know, probably in high school price, and uh, but I controlled it so a long, long time. And um yeah, thank God. This is great. It you know, I'm grateful for all of you. So I'll I'll pass.

SPEAKER_09 32:11

Thanks, Tom. You know, this this uh spiritual journey, if you will, this spiritual adventure that we're on. It's a lot like you know, a lot of this is just putting one foot in front of the other. And then after a bit of time, you look back and you go, My God, I walked up this whole mountain and I didn't realize it, right? It's just and then you turn around, Tom. You turn around and go, God, I missed the whole thing, but I'm I'm having the best version of my life I've ever had. Yeah, who else?

SPEAKER_07 32:50

Thanks,

The Card With The Steps

SPEAKER_07 32:51

Roger. I'm Doug, I'm an alcoholic. Hey Dougie and I'm sober today, and I'm grateful for that. And I appreciate the meeting. I was visiting with Roger before the meeting, and when he asked how I was, I said I spent the last couple of days looking for people and things to get pissed off at. You know, it's whatever.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

And I'm really successful.

SPEAKER_07 33:15

And it's like you said, it's not hard to do. I've done it on and off all my life. My story goes back quite a while. We were living in, when I say we, my wife and I, we're living in Minot, North Dakota, and I was deep into alcoholism. And my dad, who lived in a little town called Rugby, about 60 miles away, brought a friend over to our apartment one night. And I wish I could remember his name, but what I do remember is he was a Norwegian carpenter. He made cabinets in Minos, and he was very, very good at it. And I don't remember what he said, but I remember what he left. He left me a little white card with steps on it. And my dad and he left, and I didn't really think much about it, but I looked at this card and I see these numbers, and I kind of looked at it again. I thought, oh, well, I guess maybe I'll put it in my dresser drawer here and go back to it later. I kept that for nearly 10 years, and every so often in that top dresser drawer, wherever we were living, I would run across this card and I would look at it and say, hmm, this looks interesting, and lay it back down and close the door. About two years before I sobered up, I threw that card away. Have no idea why. It was just, yeah, I've had this long enough, I think I'll throw it away. I wind up in a treatment center, and one of the thoughts that's come back that started coming back to me was this old guy that made cabinets that was a Norwegian and a friend of my dad. He stopped by my house one night with my dad and spent some time talking to me, even though I don't remember what he said. But after I started sobering up, I knew and I had an idea what he said. And I was able to go to that man later on after sobering up and thank him. And had you not brought that up tonight, I guess these unseen forces and the slender threads and all of these things that seemed to come together into the funnel. And I was able to go and visit with him, and it was really an incredible visit, and he was happy. He was happy for me, you know. He dug, he said, You you found it. I said, Yeah, and you helped, even though I didn't know what the hell you were doing when you were there, but I remembered you were there and what you left me. Uh and I I I'm glad I'm glad you brought that up, Roger. That was an incredible thing, first of all, to remember it. And then the fact that he was still alive and I was able to visit with him. And also, this was back in the days before you needed a license to work at a treatment center. And he did work at a treatment center in Mina for many years before you had to get a license, and then he hung it up and said, BS, I don't need a license for this stuff, you know. They want me to have a license, let somebody else do it. But I uh as I sit here tonight, I uh that old man I'm really grateful for. He had many, many years of sobriety. I don't remember how many before he died, but the number of lives he touched, uh, I don't know, hundreds, maybe thousands. Uh, but what a gift. What a gift. Thank you. Thanks, Doug.

Loss, Gratitude, And The Nudge

SPEAKER_10 37:19

Andy, I'm an alcoholic. Hey, Andy. Thanks for the topic, Roger. Um, I had one of these this this week. Uh those those kind of connections, slender threads. I had a friend from college who was in town over the weekend at breakfast with him. We were talking about different guys, you know, wondering how people were doing, and one guy's name came up, neither one of us knew or had talked to him for years. And and so I searched him on Monday, but I wonder what he's been up to. First thing that popped up when I searched his name was an obituary. And uh he committed suicide last summer, and I hadn't seen him for 25 years. We hadn't kept in touch. He had struggles in college with drugs and depression later on. Um, and I'm still not quite sure what to make of it, you know. Like it's not uh I do know that it, you know, if things go a different way for me, that that's where it would have wound up. I thought about doing that for years, every day, you know. Um, and thankfully, you know, it's been a long time since since that thought has crossed my mind, thankfully. But it uh, you know, it helped me. You said Roger, we never know, you know. And it made me think of that. We really never know how somebody's doing beyond what they're really willing to let us in and let us, you know, let us share how what's really going on with them. Right. Um you know, yeah. I'm not, I'm still not really, I'm just kind of processing, but thought, man, what a what a bummer. Um, you know, and then on a on a positive slender thread note is the one where I go to treatment. I think it's the worst thing. Finishing up in day treatment, going over to the lodge, and I get there on a Saturday morning, I go to sign up. Well, they have one-on-ones with these uh counselors. You know, you can sign up on their door, I sign up on your door. There's nobody after me for the next couple sessions, so we get an hour and a half, then get you all day Saturday. Same thing. Why don't I sign up again on Sunday? Nobody's there as well. You know, and you're gone Monday and weren't back there. If I come in there a couple days later, we we potentially never cross paths, and I don't get introduced to these ideas, and it's on a daily basis, it comes back to the these ideas and principles were introduced, all of them by you and then by Paul. And uh man, tons of gratitude, you know, and really for both. Gratitude I got to know my friend, gratitude that uh, you know, I got to know you, and just you know, just a reminder to be present and grateful, you know.

SPEAKER_09 39:51

Present, that's the challenge.

SPEAKER_03 39:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_09 39:58

Thanks, Andy. You know, that thing about one of the things I've built into my practice is when I'm praying and meditating and or just walking around during the day and some person's name keeps coming up in my head, I just I've learned to just stop and call. What's going on? I've been thinking about it, even on my mind, even on my heart. You know, and some amazing things have come out of those conversations. But I've learned to pay attention to the nudge. And you can't have the attention to the nudge unless you're in the present.

Coming Back To The Present

SPEAKER_01 40:58

You know, I feel like um with my son a couple of weeks ago, I was handed a thread. He called me on the phone, and I was down visiting him with him in Florida, and he told me something on the phone, and it had to do with finances. And I I started off with immediately going to the past and thinking about, oh, you know, we've had this conversation many times, you know, and I've given you all my wisdom. This was not with him, this was in my mind. And I watched myself, I watched that thought, and I thought, you know, I'm the only one here. You know, there's there's nothing, there's just judgment and criticism in my mind. I thought, so my mind was like, okay, well, let's go to the future. Oh my God, they're gonna lose their house, this is gonna happen. And I thought, oh, once again, I'm by myself in the future and predicting anything that only produces fear. And I was feeling the fear in my body. I thought, I don't want to be there either. So I'm gonna go back to the present moment. And I sat with that and suddenly it was like this thought like, what wants to be said? What is longing to be said in this moment that's not does not is not impacted by the future or the past, just in this moment. And so I went from those different thoughts in my mind to suddenly when I got there, I was walked in and I was like, I can't tell you how proud I am of you for the action you've taken. And that had to be incredibly difficult. And I meant it, I said it had to take such courage to do that. And he looked at me and he said, It was the most difficult thing I've ever done. And when I talk about a thread, it's like I could feel like the expansion of our relationship became more spacious. And it was just, and afterwards, and I like that you've talked about this thread, but this what were the fruits of it? The thread, this was a very delicate thread that I could have gone the wrong direction with it easily. But coming back and just waiting to see what wanted to be what needed to be said in that moment. And those were the words that came out. So um it was it was quite incredible. It was quite incredible.

SPEAKER_09 43:28

And where did that idea come from? It came through me. That's the inspiration. It's beautiful, and there's no explanation for it. I just have to trust it and learn that's a another form of learn to accept the guidance. But to accept the guidance, you gotta be here. You can't be in tomorrow or yesterday. You gotta be right here. And then you gotta clear your mind of the emotion and let it come. So that's a great example.

Career Threads And Daily Journaling

SPEAKER_05 44:32

And I I'm not sure how much this relates to recovery, but um I do definitely see it as a as a thread. And that is um right after I had graduated from college, I really was kind of lost. I had no idea um what I wanted to do, and uh in fact I never really knew what I wanted to do. Um so I took the most general uh uh degree that I could, which was uh business management, and I had an awakening in college, and um so I spent a lot of my time um doing service in college and kind of ignoring my my education. So um that was not looking back on that, that that was kind of uh uh I'm not sure that that was um you know the best thing, but um when I got out, um I I started um doing some uh ministry and I was raising my own salary, and I was in this ministry that I really wasn't wholeheartedly um uh engaged in. And so therefore it affected my ability to raise raise my own salary, and I couldn't. So I ended up taking a part-time job at Casetas in St. Paul, and I was living just over the high bridge in St. Paul, and on my way back from work, walking home, um, there was a guy just out on the sidewalk in front of the like the second oldest home in St. Paul, and he was uh an architectural preservationist, and he and he struck up a conversation. We probably talked for like 15 minutes, and I came to learn that he was providing um research to a ghost writer who was writing the family history of a prominent Minnesota business family. And from there, he asked me if I wanted to wanted to uh start, you know, make photocopies for him as a part of this photo research job. So I'm like, yeah, I need the money, and it might be kind of a nice diversion. At the time, I didn't realize that that was gonna be perhaps um a direction that God was taking me. Um this project lasted for about a year and a half, and I just learned so much, and he was just an incredible mentor. And when I got done with that, I was like, what am I gonna do with my life? So, hey, why not try book publishing? So it ended up being like a uh 25-year uh vocation in book publishing that that um I really kind of almost felt like in some ways I didn't pick for myself. Um, and I just look back at that encounter. It was that one encounter, and it it it made it directed me in a way that um I've I had ups and downs, obviously, spent some time not in jobs, um, but eventually, you know, kept that for 25 years. I'm not in that now, but I look back and I just thank um thank the uh thank God for for um that encounter with that with that man. Um the second thing was um that there was a coach in my life that made a huge difference. And um he was you talk about these kind of people that um he they might be in a room with five different people, but you feel like they're talking directly to you. And um he was he was uh I was leaving uh uh college and and I asked him for an autograph on this stuff, and he just said, sure, I'll give this to you. And he wrote something very special, and then and then I had a counterpart um on the team that I played with that played the same position as I did, and his name was Dana. He said, If Dana comes in, I'm gonna write the same thing on his. And you know what? I I love that. I mean, he could have wrote the same thing on Dana's, and I still believed him that he meant that for both of us. Like he just had this really, really special way to connect with people, and it was not disingenuous. Um, he he just really meant it. Um, those are two men that I think about when I think of um of these threads and and leading and directing uh my life. So wherever that uh lands, um, I can really relate to the topic, and I'm I'm super grateful. And I do think they happen every day. And one way I've been able to kind of recognize them a little bit more is I just have a uh I really like to journal. It's not like a huge discipline. I so in journaling and just reflecting on the day, one of these days I'd like to look back and and read all my journals and just see the ways that uh God's hand has worked. But um, I'm I'm really grateful for the string that has brought me to this to this group as well. Um, and uh so uh or the thread, thank you. Thanks for listening, and thanks for all the sharings.

SPEAKER_09 49:12

Good to have you, Bill. Thank you.

Flat Seasons And Starting Again

SPEAKER_09 49:17

You know, you Ted, I didn't I didn't pick this life. I didn't pick mine either. The first 30 years I was banging around trying to get the world to conform to me while being a devout atheist. And all the songs I was writing were about love and power. I couldn't even read my own mail. Right? And I got to recovery, and slowly, like glacially slowly, over time, I got called into different things. And I never had any everything in my life right now was never my plan. It was never my plan. My plan was to be dead at 30. So it's it's interesting to look back and and it's you know, this is uh Keating talks about this in one of his books, but as we go through this process of transformation and uncovering our spirit, our soul, we we make progress and it feels really good, and then all of a sudden everything kind of goes flat in in uh spirituality, your prayers become wooden. And that's just a new level of what he calls emotional debris that I'm working through. And when I get because it's time for me to learn this lesson, and it feels like God's abandoned me. But when I learned the lesson, God was waiting at the end of the lesson. There you go. Now take a breath and we'll start again. Anyone else?

Relapse, Unbecoming, And Guidance

SPEAKER_06 51:09

My name is Kabir, I'm a grateful alcoholic.

SPEAKER_09 51:12

Hey Kabir.

SPEAKER_06 51:14

Oh, I could have sworn I saw you, I heard you say keen. Well, okay. Well, anyway, um it's been so many, so many threads. I mean, I I wouldn't I wouldn't be here. It it just felt like I've I've been guided. Um, I remember I had I had relapsed because I had just given up and I stopped praying for like two years and I didn't pray. And then one day, you know, I was getting tired of that life and um, you know, using and hanging out with people I didn't really like. And and one day I said, some said, or listen to um listen to one of Roger's tapes on YouTube on the gathering. And I listened to it, and you said, maybe it's not about becoming but unbecoming. And I was like, oh. And that so that was that was that was like that like shook me. And then you said, the road behind me is longer than the road ahead of me. And something inside me said, Whoa, you don't have much time. Um, and so I'm just I'm just so so so grateful. Um, yeah, I'm just so so grateful. You know, I went to a meeting recently, and after the meeting, a young lady walks up to me, and she said, Well, what do you do when um when you're angry? And and we said and we talked for a while, and pretty much everything came out of my mouth was um what I've learned from you, from Dennis, um in the program, you know. And I remember telling her, I said, and it took a long time, it took a long time for me to get this. But when you just tell me when they show you who they are the first time, believe them. And it just it just took so long for me to, I don't know what's wrong with me, but it took so, so long for that to sink in. And I'm just I'm just so grateful because I I I love my life today. Um I'm doing something as far as work that I never would have chosen for myself. Um it like chose me, and I just love it so much. Um and I work with and I I work for a lot of seniors. Um, and I also have an affinity for for seniors. Um and I'm just I'm just so grateful that people have um given me those nuggets, um just show me love. Um and I wouldn't be here um without without the people that I've crossed paths with and that have loved me. Um and that's all I have.

SPEAKER_09 54:20

Good to see you, buddy.

Being Open To Angels In AA

SPEAKER_02 54:36

Um hi, just quickly, I'm Allie.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

Um I'm an alcoholic. Um grateful to be here today. Um I sort of get the theme. Um but I uh what I continue to find is that um I go out expecting to see people I know. Um just um like and just I have this sort of like um an awareness. And it's funny how many times you do run into people you know, or um that if you're sort of ready to, you know, be open to seeing people you know, um, I don't know, I just you know it's it's easier because I, you know, group around here, but um I also find that um the more and more you have that when, like you said, when you're thinking about someone, um I was hiking with a friend and we were talking about someone and then she showed up and I was like, oh my god, we manifested death. Um and just but some of that being open, and I think some of that comes from also uh through like recovery and uh the people I've met there and uh my brother, just people who are um learning from example of just like, hey, this is this is what it looks like when people really show up, or this is what it really looks like when, you know, um uh people go through hard things. And so it's been um, you know, there have been so many, you know, whether you call it a god shot, or you know, the uh the seemingly unfortunate situation where you're like, oh great, but I learned something. And you know, that just again and from recovery, having that, you know, obviously at the time you're like, this is horrible, but at the time, but also realizing, okay, what am I supposed to learn here? Or, you know, just having a little bit more um willingness to say, like, maybe I'll get a new gain a new skill here in terms of you know, learning how to adapt to situ to situations um as they come up. And again, a lot of that I think comes from just being around people in recovery or, you know, um, and just the principles hearing them in meetings and so forth that really um help sort of keep that focus on, you know, the solution, not the problem, et cetera. And um, I mean, I can't the number of angels I've met in AA or um that turn up in your life, um it's amazing. And I also love the idea of like, yeah, maybe you can be that for someone else, you know, they're directly or indirectly. Um so um, you know, this meeting and going to the retreat, I mean, that to me was one of my that started the recovery journey. Um, and uh so yeah, I'm all grateful for all of that and uh getting to come to this meeting. Thanks.

SPEAKER_09 57:24

Thanks, Ellie. Time for one more. Who's gonna do it? Okay, we can be done.

Final Reflection And Third Step Prayer

SPEAKER_09 58:14

It's so hard in real time to recognize the significance of any one thing or any one person. But the challenge is to keep our hearts and our eyes open and be here now. That's the biggest challenge. Because our head, like Kathy was talking about, the beast, the ego, always wants to go in the the future of the past because there's no God there. There's no answer there. There's just fear and shame. And if I could have, if I should have, if I would have, kind of stuff. So anyway, thanks for joining me. I uh I put my uh email in the chat if you want a copy of this, I'm happy to send it to you. Um we close. You want to close with a third-step prayer? Unmute yourselves. Appreciate you being here tonight. I was wondering what you were gonna do with it. Good cheers. Good chairs.

SPEAKER_02 59:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 59:20

Yeah. All right, third step prayer.

SPEAKER_03 59:23

God, uh I offer myself to build the thing with the will. I would I will always correct it.

SPEAKER_07 59:53

Oh yeah, yeah. Oh man. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for taking everyone. Great chairs. Thanks, Ryan.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:03

Good night.