Mental Health conversation centered around 12 step recovery and related topics. We talk about spiritual living, living with addiction and growing in the 12 steps. Find us on our home at https://recoverysortof.com/. If you want to join the conversation, email us at RecoverySortOf@gmail.com, find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RecoverySortOf, Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/recovery_sort_of/, or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Recovery-Sort-Of-112376247161866/?view_public_for=112376247161866.
We talk about the current pandemic that has affected the global community and how it pertains to our daily recovery. Starting with some basic facts and background about Covid-19 for anyone who does not keep up with the information. Then we delve into how this is affecting the recovery community. Finally, we take a look at possible tools to use to help maintain recovery in the face of unprecedented experiences. Join the conversation by leaving a message, emailing us at RecoverySortOf@gmail.com, find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RecoverySortOf or Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/recovery_sort_of/.
For more information about Covid-19 facts and up to date statistics, check the following:
https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus
https://www.harvard.edu/coronavirus
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
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3/15/20 We talk about the current pandemic that has affected the global community and how it pertains to our daily recovery. Starting with some basic facts and background about Covid-19 for anyone who does not keep up with the information. Then we delve into how this is affecting the recovery community. Finally, we take a look at possible tools to use to help maintain recovery in the face of unprecedented experiences.
Transcript:
recovery sort of is a podcast where we discuss the recovery and addiction topics from the perspective of people living in long-term recovery this podcast does not intend to represent the views of any particular group organization or fellowship the views expressed here are solely the opinion of its contributors be advised there may be strong language or topics of an adult nature
hey welcome back recovery sort of obviously I’m Jason I am a guy currently in semi quarantined recovery my name is Billy I’m also a person in I guess semi quarantine recovery yeah so we’re here to talk about recovery sort of as always but today a little bit special a little bit different we’re gonna talk about what’s going on in the world the corona virus it seems irresponsible not to talk about how this relates to our recovery and so I think we decided we were going to cover it we also tried to cover some of the ways that it’s impacting recovery the recovery community meetings yeah I mean it’s having a huge impact on everybody’s way of life for sure and that for sure includes our way of recovery and we wanted to give some options on what you can do if you’re worried about you know how this is affecting your recovery we give you some options of things you can do as well absolutely and some reminders to just be compassionate to other people’s beliefs whatever you believe about what we should be doing about the corona virus and so before we get into that we thought it’d be kind of irresponsible not to give any background I know many people do watch the news some people never watch any of this stuff or keep up with it so if you would like some facts that is what we get into first and if you have seen enough news and facts about corona and do not need that aspect skip about 15 minutes 16 minutes into this and you should be getting past the the facts portion or towards the end of it you won’t catch too much of it and get too annoyed so with that we will jump into the facts so one of the important things to remember before we even talk about the facts is just compassion and understanding and open-mindedness right like not everybody agrees on facts there’s people who think there’s conspiracy theories behind all this that maybe China did it maybe the u.s. did it maybe Google did it who knows I’ve seen all kinds of stuff and so I think when we talk about facts we want to say hey we’re pulling these from the best information sites we can find we’re talking about Harvard you the World Health Organization the CDC the Center for Disease Control like these are supposedly these scientific experts they’re the the best thing that we have to pull information from if everybody is on board with lying to people and humanity I don’t know that we’re gonna be able to find better facts than this right like if everybody is ready to lie to us and and have a conspiracy theory like this is still the best information I can come together with I can’t fight that amount of conspiracy scale personally and so this is the information I’m choosing to work with I just want us to all understand that some people have different beliefs and so you know when I say facts I don’t mean that you don’t have the ability to not believe them you’re welcome to and this is nothing different than you’re gonna hear on any news station for the most part you might hear some stuff different on some stations depending on what their agenda is but this is just the basics nothing new what we don’t believe we do not believe that this is an attack from China or a political plan of action to take out the election which I’ve seen a bunch of times I don’t think all the people in it Italy who are losing relatives and loved ones are thinking that this is about the Democrats trying to get Trump out of office like I’m pretty sure that’s not the worldwide sentiment of what’s going on here right now yeah and I heard one of the leading infectious disease doctors dr. Michael osterholm said that they can actually use genetic testing now to come up with you know basically almost like an origin and a timestamp for when this virus came out where it came from what it what it is and they don’t believe that it was man-made or engineered in any way we don’t have even the capabilities to even make something remotely close to that so that’s that’s good to know I mean I’m sure there are people who don’t trust that even or anything I do find it interesting that frequently we seem to be at odds with the professionals who studied these diseases and you know gotten degree after degree and understanding and and specializing in these types of things like these are people who are well educated and you know definitely studied up and well knowledged and we seem to disagree with them on a hunch or feelings level at times and I’m just I’m baffled at times by that like look I have hunches right and what a difference a week makes in in my take on this whole thing I found it very interesting a week ago and now I find it interesting for completely different reasons but we’re we’re trying to do a quick rehash of this back so let’s tie into that um coronaviruses in general are extremely common cold extremely common causes of colds and other upper respiratory infections meaning that this coronavirus is not a singular thing this is something that has been around for quite a long time in different variations and different variations come along as time goes and infect people and we have MERS and SARS and different outbreaks of various sorts that we name different things this one just happens to be called kovat 19 for right now it’ll probably get some other spiffy name at some point in time you want to do that sure kovat 19 short for coronavirus disease 20 19 is the official name given by the World Health Organization to the disease caused by this newly identified current of ours yeah and numbers are rapidly rapidly changing so as of yesterday the situation report that we have come across talks about a total of a hundred and forty two thousand plus confirmed global cases of this five thousand three hundred plus deaths from this and and you know according to that in the last 24 hours 400 of those deaths or new 9,000 of the confirmed cases were new so like this is definitely just in the beginning kind of its spread and spreading rapidly yeah so it has spread so rapidly and to so many countries that the World Health Organization has declared it a pandemic pandemic is a term indicating that it has affected a large population region country or continent right and as we know this is all over the place they’re looking at Europe as epicentre right now of things outside of China at least so some people infected with the virus will have no symptoms when the virus does cause symptoms common symptoms will be low-grade fever body aches coughing nasal congestion runny nose and sore throat however koban 19 can occasionally cause more severe symptoms like high fever severe cough and shortness of breath which often indicates pneumonia that’s generally for people who have predisposing ailments like other things that affect their health that are already going on before they get this that’s usually where that comes in to play but that doesn’t mean that this whole thing can’t also have an effect on the entire system as it goes we talk about it like oh I’m a healthy whatever year old I don’t have nothing to worry about I don’t have older family members in my house no big deal but if our emergency response service system gets overwhelmed and all the corona virus cases are in the emergency room and that’s where all the ambulances are going is to serve people for that then they’re gonna take twice as long to get to your car accident and maybe not save your life like yeah and one of the things I heard this morning on the news of course that’s where I get some of my information not all of it but some on the news this morning they had said that for most you know normal healthy people that get the corona virus they can treat it themselves at home it’s not like you need to get it if you find out you got it or you think you might have it that you immediately need to run to the hospital and check yourself in on that actually that panic is what overwhelms the health system that for most people it is gonna be like another common cold or the flu and if you you know have some mild symptoms you should do what you would normally do stay home rest you know try to get your immune system up you know with healthy vitamins minerals doing doing things you would normally do and you only need to seek medical help if it gets severe like a severe respiratory issues like pneumonia type symptoms but for most people just if you think you might have it or even if you do have it you don’t need to rush to the doctor right and then not only do you not need to I think the suggestion right now is if you might think you have it and you’re not in any emergency situation to call a local health facility to get information about it and not only not run out right or to go running into the emergency room right yeah because the corona virus has just been discovered the time for exposure to symptoms onset known as it’s an incubation period for most people has yet to be determined based on current information symptoms could appear as soon as three days after exposure to as long as thirteen days recently published research found that on average the incubation period is about five days and this is kind of why we have this two-week period right now that we’re kind of going through to sort of everybody hey sit back chill relax let’s stop spreading this for a little bit at least as fast as we do in schools and places like that and let’s see where we’re at in two weeks like after the incubation period how many people really already have this and then let’s go from there coronavirus is thought to spread mainly from person to person this can happen between people who are in close contact with one another droplets that are produced from an infected person coughs or sneezes may land in the mouth or noses of people who are nearby ooh gross yeah or possibly be inhaled into their lungs coronavirus can also spread from contact with infected services or objects for example a person can get co19 by touching a surface or object that has you know the Cova 19 virus we don’t know door handles honestly I doubt we really know any of this for sure as we’re probably just going by what we’re familiar with with other corona viruses that have been around but I would imagine you know you want to be safe wipe things down not touch people too too often don’t touch your goddamn face which is impossible yeah face touch her yeah me too my eyes such a lot oh I have allergies so it’s terrible I’m constantly kind of wiping my nose or brother my eyes okay so some things we can do as far as to minimize the spread would be avoid contact with people who are sick avoid touching your eyes no some nose and mouth stay home when you’re sick cover your coughs or sneezes with a tissue then throw the tissue in the trash clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using regular household cleaning spray or wipes wash your hands often with soap and water virus then touching how people spread the virus when they touch these surfaces and then touch their own mouth nose or possibly their eyes so your immune system is your body’s defense system when a harmful invader like a cold or flu virus or the corona virus gets in your body your immune system mounts an attack known as a immune response this attack is the sequence of events that involves various cells unfolds over time this is what happens when you get sick when viruses enter your body following general health guidelines is the best step you can take toward keeping your immune system strong and healthy every part of your body including your immune system functions better when protected from environmental assaults and bolstered by healthy living strategies such as these here we go don’t smoke eat a diet high in fruits vegetables whole grains take a multivitamin if you suspect you may not be getting all the nutrients you need through your diet exercise regularly maintain a healthy weight control your stress level control your blood pressure to drink alcohol drink only in moderation yet whatever the hell that means get enough sleep take steps to avoid infections such as washing your hands frequently and trying to have to touch your hands to your face huh that’s a judgment since harmful germs can enter through your eyes nose and mouth my eyes definitely like you said are the place I touched the most constant and one of the things you know one of the reasons there was a lot of concern for this in the United States is because we lead the world in all of those high risk factors so you know it’s one thing they see these high high death rates in other countries but if it were to spread that rapidly in this country we would probably have a higher death rate because we suffer with smoking obesity substance abuse you know all of those categories that they talk about are the harmful ones aren’t we lead in all of those absolutely absolutely so you know again checking in what do you do you call your doctor pediatrician if you think you might have it if you do not have a doctor or pediatrician and concern that you or your child have it or anyone in your house you can contact your local Board of Health they can direct you to the best place to get evaluated it’s best not to seek medical care in an emergency department unless you have symptoms of severe illness severe symptoms include high or very low body temperature shortness of breath confusion or feeling you might pass out so what we’re saying here is definitely not to not get checked out but if you’re not feeling like something is severely wrong where you would normally run to an emergency room very generally don’t run to an emergency room nothing to really go we don’t need to panic just because this is a new illness we treat it like we do our other illnesses basically right and the way they’re treating it it’s not like some early detection is gonna you know minimize your risk at least what they know at this point right they’re gonna say go home and rest and don’t touch people but mostly and so we’ve given you the numbers we’ve given you the facts the purpose I think and some people might know this or might not know this depending on how well the news is doing its job I tend to not watch the news so I really have no idea if this is the information they’re spreading or not but this is not about stopping the spread this is not about ending or curing the pandemic like that’s not why we’re taking this break in things that are going on and depending on where you’re listening to this you may or may not have a break in in services around your area we happen to be in Maryland our schools are shut down for two weeks our government offices are pretty much shut down for public entry I happen to be in the mental health field and our practice is shut down for two weeks we’re doing completely teletherapy for two weeks which is like our goal is to lead the way and be responsive to hey let’s not panic about this but let’s also be professional and handle it in a way that doesn’t you know create the spread of this to other people and so the goal ultimately from from what I can understand is that we want to slow down the spread right we want to slow down the spread we want to see exactly where we’re at with everything take a two-week period and then reassess if the spread of this doesn’t get slowed down and you see what’s happening in places like Italy or places that weren’t really prepared and didn’t take any measures because we didn’t know yet they got overwhelmed like their emergency services system is overwhelmed I’ve read a story and I don’t know how completely accurate it is but it seemed pretty accurate that a guy had his sister died from this in their home in Italy and it took like 48 hours for anybody to come get her like that she was just dead in bed because there’s nobody to do anything at this point in time everybody’s kind of quarantined to their house and not allowed out and it’s uh I don’t know it’s overwhelming and then you look at that like we talked about this so somebody goes into shock from eating peanut butter right anaphylactic shock or being allergic to anything or somebody gets in a car accident or you have an accident around your home and then there’s no emergency services to come help you because everybody is so overwhelmed already and that becomes a really dangerous situation that affects everyone so I think I think it’s really interesting I’m totally amazed by the response we’re having right now and in various different ways what’s your take on any of this we think we’ve covered enough of the facts yeah well and I think it’s a pretty serious virus I think it’s something that we should be taking very serious but I also think there are some you know rational steps that most people can take to minimize their risk to minimize their exposure and if people would just take it a little bit serious most you know that would help a lot you know just do the minimal amount of things right yeah and and that’s you know if you believe in it or not if we have the chance to possibly save some lives also like why not try that right we’re not always sure that any of our measures are gonna work or save lives or help people but let’s investigate let’s try it and see what happens so let’s be on board and hope it happens even if we don’t believe it will and like a typical you know self-centered attic most of the time I will think like hey I’m healthy I’m fine I’m not worried about going out I’ll do whatever I want you know this is stupid it’s an inconvenience it’s unfair of me not to think about the risk that I pose to other people as I go about my day and do my things you know I I can be a transmitter of it so what I’ll get a mild grade flu that’s fine for me but if I transmit it to your grandmother or your spouse who’s got a illness or transmitted to you and then you take it home to your spouse or your elderly grandmother you know I should take a little bit of responsibility for my own behaviors to try to minimize my potential to spread you know if I’m not worried about myself I should at least think a little bit about the people around me no absolutely I would 100% agree this is kind of where I start to get frustrated often with people on Facebook look not that I don’t have the same self that centered thoughts right I completely do I’m like [ _ ] it this isn’t gonna hurt me I’m fine which I’m not even sure about that anyway I say that and this is what I see on Facebook and I get I’m like dude if this was your grandmother your mother somebody that was a loved one to you you would give a [ _ ] right like if it got passed to them and you were losing them and this is your last moments on earth with them because people did not or do enough or take this seriously enough it would really [ _ ] hurt your feelings and so why are we so quick to just say [ _ ] everybody I’ll do what I want it’s really incredible to me at times like and I do it I would question myself too I’m not trying to judge people here but I guess the moments when I’m able to step out of it I look at others and I’m like Jesus Christ is this what we are as humans like yeah and and to play through the whole emotional thing so I think back so my mom died you know September a year ago September and she had you know COPD so she had serious lung and respiratory issues and you know if she were still alive now basically me my wife my children would not be able to go visit her because I had recently been in contact with somebody that came back Europe minimal contact but still it’s like the the risk factor is so high that I would now have to separate myself for a couple of weeks from my mom who is dying you know who were trying to spend a lot of time with to be around a lot and now all of a sudden you know because someone wasn’t educated or someone didn’t take a little bit of personal responsibility you know here I’m at risk you know and so it’s sometimes it’s easy to forget how those scenarios play out in other people’s lives you know or Ken play out in other people’s lives so me taking a little bit of personal responsibility to just say hey look you know I could take care of my side of the street make sure I’m not you know spreading it if I do get it I don’t need to be all that worried and panicky and fearful about it but if I feel like I’m getting sick I should stay the [ _ ] home stay away from other people no absolutely and the scary part is a lot of this spreading is gonna happen before we actually feel sick or have any ability to you know self quarantine for a while we’re gonna be passing it along and that’s that’s how this spreads so quickly as people do that right and so we did so we did like my wife and kids and I cuz I guess normal people go I know everyone in my house goes through the thing like all of a sudden you notice you have a coffee thinking throat’s a little sore so now other side you’re [ _ ] sure you’re infected with it yeah so so we broke out the thermometer we got weed you know what are the ones you stick on your forehead just to check your temperature so we broke that out it’s laying on the table we all check our temperature probably way more than we ever have in the last five years and just just to be sure you know it’s kind of like gifts just a little bit of calming a little bit of reassurance that you know okay I’m still okay for right now I’m not running no I just I’m thinking about I need to make a meme that’s like you know some of my family might be susceptible and I have five kids and a wife they kind of drive me crazy so I’m like running to be in contact with someone that just came back from Europe it’s like a self quarantine
or some meme about people greeting each other at a meeting with one of them Toronto temperature things up to your forehead like that’s how we greet down no more hugs it’s just a temperature zappers messing i can’t tell you by to skip the fact section that was good alright so I think we should just pause here we’ll do our voices ad and then we’ll come back and talk about how this functionally affects us as humans and and people in recovery this episode has been brought to you by voices of Hope Inc a non-profit grassroots recovery community organization located in Maryland voices of Hope is made up of people and recovery family members and allies together members strive to protect the dignity and respect of those that use drugs and those in recovery by advocating for treatment support resources and mentoring please visit us at www.canadianoutback.com a Kate Monroe guarding health issues we encourage any groups to discuss the situation’s you are facing and the options you have to provide safe environments for those who attend your meetings groups may want to consider asking members to temporarily stop some of the common practices found the NA meetings such as hugging shaking hands offering refreshments we may also want to consider alternatives to circling up at the end of the meeting some groups are discussing contingencies for the possibility that they will not be able to meet face to face for some period ideas include hosting phone meetings or online meetings these are just a few thoughts we honor each NA groups responsibility to discuss and determine what is best for their meeting which is in line with na it’s the upside-down pyramid idea where the the groups are at the top and you know any world service is the servant to the rest of the groups in na it does go on to say some stuff about contacts in national or local health agencies for specific guidelines about what can and can’t be done right now you know we can’t mean in groups of we don’t want a meeting Marilyn larger than 50 yeah and that may very well change to be a lower number at some point and and I guess there are probably some groups that have 250 people in them I’m not sure where I know some bigger ones that have it at least 120 in the Baltimore area yeah around here I don’t think I’ve ever been to any maybe some larger gatherings like picnics or you know dances or functions but I think regular meetings wise gosh I don’t know that I’ve been to any that are 250 in this area anyway and so would your what you’re mentioning like conventions there’s a large convention that our area usually you know goes to or participates in the Ocean City we call it the Ocean City Convention email yeah that’s the Chesapeake and Potomac inches in every region but that’s coming up real soon I really get the feeling they’re gonna have to cancel that I know they’re holding off on it as far as I understand when I know the area in Delaware small wonder area they cancel their convention was supposed to actually be this weekend it just passed and they canceled that so it’s definitely affecting that level for sure and what we’re seeing now is a lot of groups I see a lot of groups being forced to close because of you know churches closing down I think the entire Methodist Church has closed down all across everywhere even though I have seen us all signs driving here this morning on a Methodist Church that said Church was still open which was like I thought whatever but there’s also groups that are voting that as a home group that it’s better for them not to meet which is you know an interesting thing to me and we’ll get into some more of that in just a minute so one of the other ones Europe is being a hugely hit by this at the moment and so the continental European region of Alcoholics Anonymous I reached out to them they now have a statement numerous meetings in Europe are temporarily suspended due to the corona virus we therefore suggest checking with the meeting contact person to see if the meeting is open before attending groups are also encouraged to let this our continental European region know of any changes to their meeting so we can update our meeting list fortunately during the suspension many groups are moving to an online meeting format the latest information can be found in each meeting listings notes section and so maybe they’re doing a better job at keeping up with updating their centralized location I have always noticed that for Narcotics Anonymous meetings the world service website is the absolute worst place to go for update yeah I know they have apps they have the world service site whenever I’ve used any of that it is highly outdated whenever I travel somewhere I need information about the most local information about whether a meeting still exists I try to find the area’s website for sure I feel like that’s the more close-knit tied-in might be accurate and even at that level that’s frequently still has mistakes and errors and closed meetings on it which is unfortunate but so what we’re getting at is these statements that are being made are definitely telling of where we’re at right now we’re in a place where meetings are being forced to not be held or choosing to not be held and there are online meetings and phone call meetings and these have always existed but I think they are really something being used now by many many more people than would normally use them yeah and there’s always been these resources for online meetings we’ve looked into some different times when we’ve been traveling you know in a case where we were out in a remote part of Utah you know where there were not any meetings you know we’d looked into online meetings and and most of them are you know it’s different obviously than sitting in a room you know with people that you see on a regular basis but it is similar in that if you participate in those meetings on a regular basis it’s usually pretty easy to build some relationships there to build some friendships for me personally the video meetings probably more so the the phone meetings of which they have both they have video conferencing type meetings where you can actually see the people that are talking everybody’s kind of sitting there with a webcam or most people some not everyone and not everyone puts a picture of themselves up there for anonymity reasons but you can if you want and most of the people generally do or their phone meetings where you can just call in and you just you know like a phone conference so there at least have always been these resources available most people don’t utilize them because it’s always been easy enough to find a local meeting I think for me eivol i’d just enjoy face-to-face interaction i [ _ ] hate the phone it drives me crazy when my daughters are on FaceTime or whatever guven a duo video chat whatever you want to call it I’m always weirded out by that I’m like I don’t really like that type of interaction and in fact my you know my field going to tell a therapy has honestly I’m like [ _ ] one of my clients want to do this cuz I sure as [ _ ] don’t right like I’m weirded out by the whole thing but apparently this week that’s what I’ll be doing with people’s video chatting with them so maybe I’ll get more comfortable with it yeah and I immediately felt to say I got sort of angry you know that all these meetings are shutting down those places and like I understood if the church or the facility says hey you can’t meet here like that’s fine but you know when groups were just deciding to shut down it bothered me it it got on my nerves because like say you can do video meetings and you can do these things but for most people it’s not the same it’s it’s just not it’s really not and so I found this and I never actually did it but I was strongly close to doing it I guess I don’t know how you would say that I was attending a different fellowship and they don’t have many in-person meetings and so it’s like a lot of their basis says hey you might have to do these phone or web meetings and that might be all you can get in the area you’re in and I was like [ _ ] man so I ended up driving distances to actually get to the face-to-face meetings just cuz that’s what works me but if I don’t know it’s weird to be in a situation where my my fellowship that I’ve considered so worldwide and available now as resorted to the same thing I don’t know what to do with that what I have seen in response to this is a lot of people trying to come together and create things which is nice right like trying to solve problems trying to create ways to make this work I’ve seen all kinds of stuff on social media with people like hey let’s create a network of things to list meetings that are closed or open somebody invited me to a group or join to be in a group or I don’t even know how that works but I’m currently I’m in a group that says you know all the meetings that are open and closed anywhere I don’t even know where the group’s located is yeah I thought it was like a local thing and then they’re like oh hey make sure you put your city and state I’m like oh [ _ ] is this robot alright but just ways to keep up because like we said world service isn’t that accurate and so ways to keep up with what is going to be open and closed because it’s changing by the hour right now yeah and even right now if you have our local meeting schedule it’s not very helpful because super probably half if not more than half them well in a normal time most of the meetings are there you know it’s maybe one or two on the meeting schedule that aren’t there the time change or whatever but we have a fairly small ethic thirty some meetings it’s not that hard to keep track up for our area um so you’ll occasionally get a wrong meeting but I know like down in Baltimore those freaking thing was terrible you know as far as meeting accuracy but then on top of that now even in our area the meetings that would normally be there are closed so if someone’s new and they don’t have a point of contact you know they’re just I mean I know we have coronavirus and it’s serious and all that but there are still people coming out of treatment today tomorrow Wednesday you know they didn’t shut that [ _ ] down you know it didn’t stop these people are coming out of detox they’re coming out of treatment you know they are looking for and need a place to go I got super angry that our local health department which in this area is the center for recovery resources they have you know without getting too political they have made themselves that you know they have set themselves as being the central location and access to most recovery resources um as far as funding and things like that you know they’re they’re closed they’re just closed and so we have a few meetings at least NA meetings I can’t speak for AAA and what other meetings meet there you know I know there are some but the they’ve shut the facility down completely one of the people that runs one of those meetings contacted them and said well can we put a note on your door and say you know the meeting that normally meets here will be there and they said no no one is allowed to even come on our property so you know it’s like that’s the response from your Public Health Center like that’s ridiculous like that to me says well addiction is serious but it’s not that serious you know we’ll get back to you when we feel like it’s a good time and I think the you know politically they run around and say you know how horrible addiction is and it’s our major health concern and all this other stuff but then repeatedly they show through their actions that it’s not that it’s really nice no it’s a it’s tough I can’t say I’m really a fan of it either I’m gonna try any local services that do at some point do something to help someone right thank God they do something whether it’s enough or a lot or whether they have some interesting practices and the way they do that or keep others from doing that I won’t expect it but yeah so a lot of people are really you know coming together in this time and creating other things I think there were many people who were not aware that we have like online and phone meetings already established that people use all the time and so some of that information has been put out there I know one particular post in our area Billy happened to supply that information and again we just happened to look at it because we had been in some situations when we were traveling you know and you know we had researched and did a little information digging for that kind of stuff uh and so where I was coming from we were kind of both on that Facebook post I’m coming from the spot of yeah maybe that stuff does exist but maybe there’s a lot of people who are used to see in their local na member and recovery member on a weekly basis and maybe that’s gonna do a lot more for their recovery than talking to some strangers on the phone for a couple weeks and so from that standpoint maybe we can create our own like local web conferencing or phone in meetings that way at least its people you know I mean it’s a little different I think if you we had one which I’m really still gonna try to talk you into coming to tonight to film with me because I don’t know if anybody else is gonna show you might just be me and you but if we put on a meeting tonight at 7:30 for the local area of people who actually know us in person that’s a lot different than going you know calling into some random meeting where you don’t know anybody I think for me at least it would be yeah and so I get that and this is this is one of those issues where I’m finding with myself when push comes to shove I am reversing back on a long-held belief you know that I’m sort of quietly held to myself and have said sometimes out loud in a lot of our literature I don’t know again about a lot of other fellowships what we talk about the new comer being the most important person and that the new people you know or what keeps our fellowship alive and and those kind of things keeps us healthy in recovery and for a long time I’ve kind of been like hey wait a minute you know still fought suffering addicts can be people with a lot of time you know it’s it doesn’t I mean yes new people are great but you know we need established members we need to reach out to those members we need to let them know how important and worthwhile they are and I felt like as a as somebody that’s been around a while we sometimes get a little less credit now that we’re in this crisis what I’m seeing and this is just my observation is that it’s the people that are established in recovery that are scrambling for themselves and they’re not looking at it’s best for the newcomer you know what I mean like if I’m a person that’s been around meetings for a year six months a year two years I’ve developed the network I got six or seven people if I really want to get together tonight I could probably call at least 10 people that I know guys from my home group you some other people say hey I need a meeting you guys want to come over I’ll throw a little campfire in the backyard we’ll throw some hot dogs on the grill and I could get six or seven people to probably show what maybe more I pushed it and I could have a meeting at my house and I’d be fine you know but what is that doing for the new comer again the guy just coming out of treatment the guy just coming out of detox a guy that doesn’t even have a [ _ ] TV so he knows very little about the coronavirus and all he knows is he’s sick and tired of being homeless and he just wants you know he’s not gonna get invited to my [ _ ] house not because I wouldn’t have him there but because I don’t know how to get ahold of him and he doesn’t know how to get ahold of me so when we start doing all these sort of rogue and online and and all that stuff and we’ve run away from our responsibility to hold those doors open at these meetings we’re shutting those people out those are the people that are gonna suffer the most yeah I don’t so I hear what you’re saying I don’t know the numbers or statistics on how many groups are choosing to close versus how many aren’t allowed to meet anymore because the facilities are closed I personally would believe that it’s like 80 to 90 percent forced closings not chosen closings I have miraculously I’ve seen like three different Facebook people talking about different groups that the church told them hey we’re as a church shutting down we’re not shutting your meeting down because that shit’s that important right I was like blown away by that what the churches would make that kind of choice right or even taking that extra step to say hey would you mind if we just met out in the parking lot or would you mind if we show up and we have somebody there that can maybe talk to people or send them somewhere else instead of just being like five churches closed [ _ ] it I’m out that’s my responsibility stone road so obviously for me I I’m like my home group got shut down I have not considered going to the actual meeting place to do that and you may not be able to it depends I know some facilities have said you’re not allowed on the boat well yeah I mean like a price to sidewalk yeah yeah that honestly never crossed my mind honestly for me I and I don’t know if I’m getting defensive here or not I’m not trying to I didn’t really want to do a meeting I was like [ _ ] it I got a break right like my intent to put on this meeting tonight was more because it seemed like there was a desire for it right even though now that I’ve posted that there you know will be a meeting tonight there seems to be no desire whatsoever for anybody to actually attend remotely or in person but since I said I would I’m gonna show up and do it anyway [ _ ] it and if I’m the only one there than I’m the only one there yeah and I don’t mean to diminish you know whatever like if your whatever efforts you’re putting forth to continue is is good I don’t mean to diminish oh you’re gonna run off and start an online meeting like no that’s cool that’s a good idea too like we can it’s not a one-size you know fix to this oh we just do this or we just do that but you know to just throw up our hands and be like I don’t have to do anything because my church is shut down and the meetings closed and so I have no responsibilities stuff like thank you and it’s mine too don’t get me wrong like a lot of times that’s my you know first response to but as I saw more and more of these meetings closing and and start talking to again this came up other other people in recovery that I’ve talked to that are running into these issues have helped me to sort of open my mind to that to be like oh wow wait a minute you know yeah there are still [ _ ] people coming out of treatment there are people that need a meeting that need take somewhere to go that do you think they’re gonna through web search and find maybe the Facebook Cecil County recovery Facebook group and get guided to these online meetings or I mean what do you think will happen it it’s hard to say I mean I don’t I don’t know enough about today’s generation of how they problems all maybe I mean you know what I got clean there wasn’t an option of going to like a social media page and trying to search out you know if you went you wouldn’t find like Cecil County na you would find the susquehanna area page but I don’t know what if you know that doesn’t have updated information on which meetings are closed and which ones are open and how to connect with online meetings and all those things yes the actual weather so yeah there’s a point people towards maybe I should mention Facebook groups that are useful even if they’re outside the fellowship I don’t know yeah then you get into some gray areas on you know remote yeah filiation with groups outside the fellowship right so what I’ve noticed and if we go back to this Facebook post that we posted we posted this on March 10th what was that Tuesday Monday oh yeah what’s today’s I think it’s Tuesday and so Tuesday at this point in time seems like a [ _ ] year ago because things have changed so drastically but very early on what we saw was that it’s it seemed to be like at least two camps maybe a third camp that sits somewhere in the middle of hey let’s let’s just evaluate this but there’s the camp of oh my god this is incredibly serious by all the tool of paper close down all the meetings I’m not leaving my house I’m not hugging I’m not handshaking I’m not doing any of that for sure circling off you’re out of your mind and then there seem to be the other camp of this is crazy why are we getting out of hand over this I’ll give you some very selective statistics that somehow prove that this is right not to worry about it mind that other things kill more people or the death rate for people under 50 is point zero zero zero zero one percent or like all these weird facts well okay well we’re not all under fifty so that’s kind of useless numbers but it definitely seemed like people were on just opposite ends of the spectrum as with quite a few things in the political and non-political landscape nowadays it was very polarized and that’s kind of what we saw when we asked the question on Facebook you know a friend of mine Mary talked about stop hugging and avoid circling up and it’s very contagious and will spread very fast people can be contagious before they’re symptomatic stay safe and I mean on Tuesday this was like shocking to me that people believe this people till I die right this is good for me to hug people kind of like what you and we’re we’re gonna come back to this a couple times I think when you mentioned that drug addiction is real and kills people and you’d rather take did you say that out loud on the thing that you’d rather take the chances with current virus than with untreated addiction I don’t think I said it on here I said it to you before so yeah before the meeting Jason and I were kind of talking about a little of this and I had just said like me personally if it came right down to it I would pick having coronavirus over going back to active using and that you know to me the risk of active addiction is ten times worse than the risk of getting this virus right and so I in general would agree with that right I I and that’s kind of where I was coming from Tuesday when I posted this and people had this reaction tom was talking about cases coming from out of the country but now that we’re gonna be you know spreading it in the community and just Mary went back to large groups over a thousand being cancelled because I was trying to play devil’s advocate because I was not believing in giving up hugging so I was saying things like well should we just stop meeting all together right kind of a jerk about it in a non jerky way I did want to see people’s opinions I don’t know so I was yeah I was of the hey I’m going and I’m hugging because that’s what keeps me recovering right and now I’m kind of like is that a really selfish way to go like yeah I agree I would take my chances personally with Korona overactive addiction for sure right and if this is my medicine for treating active addiction then I should probably do this and not worry so much about coronavirus hugging is something that keeps me health and at the same time I can’t spread active addiction to others right so am I being selfish and saying hey [ _ ] it I’m gonna treat my bigger issue and if I end up spreading this Corona through hugging people to 20 others [ _ ] it that’s your problem to deal with like do you understand I mean like that’s spreadable to hurt other people active addiction really isn’t that’s kind of my own issue yes and so when I said that I don’t necessarily literally mean myself I think of it more as the active using addict like I think you know being an active addiction is worse than the potential potential of getting this virus so you know there again there are things you can do to limit it like my home group happened to be Thursday and so by Thursday things we’re still in a gray area but we’re like a little more they were starting to figure out some of this talking words of social distancing and all that stuff so now my home groups pretty small and it just happened to be like everyone that was there this week was pretty much all home group members or people that come to that meeting every week about eight of us they don’t know each other really well and we all kind of jokingly laughed it off but nobody hugged and we didn’t circle up at the end and we didn’t and you know it was just kind of like we all kind of made that I also call it respectful decision to like hey we can still show up at the meeting but we can kind of be you know a little apart from each other like like we don’t necessarily need the huggin you can still have a meeting right and so you know maybe that’s a thing we need to do like have someone who whatever someone in your home group the chairperson or whatever stand out front and just say to people hey look you know we’re still having a meeting but because the virus we’re not gonna do any hugging or handshaking or you know we’re gonna try to keep a little bit of space between ourselves during the meeting we’re not gonna circle up after we can close from our chairs this isn’t usually how we do it but you know better safe than sorry right and you can just greet each person that comes there’s a lot of people that for good reason shouldn’t come the meetings if you’re in high-risk you probably shouldn’t come if you have relatives or elderly people or people that are at high risk at your home you probably shouldn’t go to a meeting with a dozen or so people and then go back to your house like there was just aren’t things you should do you know so when I say there are some what I’m gonna call fairly simple maybe a little bit annoying things that we can do to still have meetings but yet really limit our exposure to the potential of getting the virus you know it seems pretty minimal inconveniences that you can do and still have a meeting and so it’s interesting you mentioned the word in there social distancing right and some of I tend to think that these connective factors are a huge part of our recovery we talk about the 12 steps and that’s cool a lot of that leads us to be more connected back to society and with people and part of our disease I believe is isolation right that’s what it tends to lead us to and and the isolation of like being alone in my own mind like mine is the only thing and I have I don’t have outside people to run stuff by I don’t have outside people to share my hurt and shame and pain with I don’t have outside voices telling me hey you’re not as unhealthy as you think you are like you’re doing good we’re here for you all these supportive factors come from not isolating and so with social distancing I understand that’s not isolation but it does feel very similar to like oh hey we were giving you this medicine for your your medical issue your disease right and then we’re gonna take some of that medicine back maybe we’ll give you a lower dose or just this other medicine that doesn’t work quite as well and it’s very it’s scary I think one of the stories I brought brings up for me so a good buddy of mine Pat a guy I love him he got some white blood cell cancer a while back and went through a period where he was getting treated he had his entire immune system wiped out with chemotherapy and then he had stem cells of his own white blood cells reintroduced back into his system and he had to basically grow a child’s immune system all over again inside of him right and so the suggestion was hey you don’t want to be around people it’s winter it’s cold season you probably don’t want to go to meet you got a port in your chest you don’t really want to be hugging people like all these things that they’re telling him about you know what he’s going through what he should do is basically sit home alone and be away from everybody and yet his like oncologist his cancer doctor said listen you know because he was honest with them about his recovery and everything he said listen that’s what you do to remain happy and healthy in your life as you get up and go to work every day and you go to these meetings and these are the things that feed your soul he’s like what good is it like that your soul has so much to do or your spirit and and look this is definitely what this doctor believed not scientific right this doctor said your soul your spirit whatever you want to call it these are the things that help you get healthy and better I would rather you go to these meetings and risk getting a cold even with your compromised immune system because you have a better chance of recovering if you’re living a fulfilling life basically was the gist of it and so I just find that wild right like hey these are the health recommendations of bacteria and viruses you might catch but this is just as important to your health as living a happy connected life like if you’re just sitting at home isolated you could just die from that basically almost not really but I don’t know so I look at that and the time we’re in now and I kind of think partially the same thing sort of what you’re saying like I kind of need this maybe I maybe I do need to not hug for a little while because this is so big of a deal but maybe I still need meetings I still need to feel connected in some way shape or form or my spirit is just gonna drop and that’s dangerous for me yeah and so I don’t think we need to have an all-or-nothing you know I don’t think that either one of those you know we again had the meeting the other day we all still were in the room we laughed and had a good time and made some jokes about all of it but again we all kind of separated a little bit so you know we didn’t get that hug but there again there are things you can do if you’re really worried I guess I would say because I can tell you what I would do if a newcomer came in and they came off an open her arm to hug me I would hug them it’s just what I would do you know what I mean I would not reject them um if it’s somebody I know all the time I might sort of make a joke or you know I don’t know conscious or unconscious we didn’t hug when we met up this morning you know it’s like I don’t always hug guys that I’m really close with when I see him everywhere all the time anyway I do a lot but not every single time all the time so now it’s probably we won’t hug for a little while you know just because better to get better safe than sorry the instinctual part of it kicks in so yeah it sure does um but then that’s the thing too is like is it really just a hug that’s gonna gonna transfer it I know it can but I think you know if you’re just sort of being careful hold your breath give him a hug go back wash your hands you know like you’re probably good it’s right you know you can you can really be safe and minimize you know your risks without just totally you know avoiding people for the next two weeks my daughter’s friend is moving their whole family’s moving to Florida in like a week it’s like your best friend and so they’re this last week they’re trying to spend some time together yesterday we’re gonna go to a trampoline park and I was like no compromise and I was like find something outdoors we ended up going to the local zoo yesterday but when we got there the girl’s parents dropped her off and I instinctively walked up and you know stuck my hand in the guy’s window to shake his hand and introduce myself because I so yeah it is it is an instinctual thing one of the things I just I really wanted to point out so like we talked about these Facebook comments and a lot of more funny and talk about online meetings and don’t get people started don’t leave your house or breathe you’re powerless over the corona virus that was Kirsten you know read said coronavirus lives on toilet paper Brian we’re all gonna die old Jennifer our president Trump said it’s a hoax and it’s all under control some no worries good old David our buddy David kill anyone who sits on their phone the whole meeting not paying attention then shares then goes back to their important phone blame the death on the coronavirus drink more coffee and feel superior I definitely like the tongue-in-cheek Ness of that and so I just what where I was that on Tuesday with all this was that we were overreacting that was my definite word right this is such an overreaction for everything it’s going wild and I can understand why people would have that reaction right I understand why we think other people are overreacting why we think the world’s overreacting why we think this isn’t a big deal why we think it doesn’t affect us who cares I get that reaction and so I’m not trying to bash anyone who’s thinking that posting that on Facebook whatever it is you’re feeling like is the right response I’m not trying to knock anybody for that I am that guy I am the guy who says people are [ _ ] stupid this is dumb why are we having this reaction I am surely that guy a lot of times but what I what I’ve been able to do I guess through taking a different approach to this looking it up for the podcast looking at facts that I could find I’ve just really been able to look at this in a very interesting and curious way to me like it’s very it’s so crazy like I’ve never seen this in my lifetime we’ve never shut down schools for two years we’ve never like sporting events right all of sports is shut down like this is some wild [ _ ] going on right and I’m my mind is completely blown by it so this is where I’m at right now I’m looking at this I’m looking at everybody’s like oh work from home if you can and we’re doing all this for remote stuff and and kids are doing schoolwork at home through computers and I’m like wow we live in such a wild [ _ ] time that we might have the ability to get ahead of a [ _ ] natural pandemic that’s incredible honestly maybe we are being goofy but that’s incredible that we have the ability globally to like try to slow the spread down yeah and the truth is we’ve had the ability to get ahead of this that’s one of the things that’s being a little bit overlooked so the doctor I mentioned earlier wrote a book and I have to look it up in a minute but he wrote a book predicting similar things to this back in 2017 like this isn’t this isn’t some shocking thing that came out of left field and I don’t want to get too political but I’m going to um you know President Obama had put in place some foreign health agencies all around the globe to try to coordinate efforts you know to respond to these kind of things with other countries and all that stuff and President Trump came in and shut them all down and closed them all up and now if you go back he said a few things well somebody in my administration didn’t do that it wasn’t really me and making excuses but the truth is you know again getting kind of back from specific politics we haven’t invested the money and resources into the healthcare system in the right ways we invested into insurance and all this other [ _ ] but we don’t invest it into vaccines because vaccines now are real touchy politically you got all these stars and fancy people out in Hollywood saying how they cause autism and all this other stuff and it’s just it’s real touchy thing politically right now so nobody wants to talk about or invest money into vaccines whereas if you go to infectious disease doctors there’s been quite a few of them that have been screaming you know what I mean like what are we doing we know these viruses disease these ailments are out there we know they will be coming and we can do something about it and nobody did anything and now here we are to the people that minimize them and make those comments you know why is it become okay that it oh it’s okay if thousands of people die like that’s completely fine like to me personally like if we can do some minimal things to save lives we should be doing those things you know and and same with environmental factors like if we can stop companies from polluting the environment which causes the death of people we should do those things like I don’t think it’s okay that oh it’s just a few thousand people around the world so who really cares it’s not affected me so I don’t give a [ _ ] like that is the most inhumane attitude that I think anyone can take to any thing and I say this from the perspective of a person in addiction who you see that that’s their response to addicts like oh who cares doesn’t affect me and my family they’re just getting what they deserve you know I’m fine people I know are fine let the addicts die you know why invest money into that why waste our tax money on saving those people you know it’s like what about when you become those people like like a now you know there’s another group well it’s it’s not me it’s just the old sick people that haven’t taken care of themselves I mean why are we wasting all this time on them I want to go to my goddamn football game I don’t want to you know miss my football game because some old people might die like that’s the attitude of people and that’s disgusting well I don’t know okay the one political thing I will say annoys me is that I keep seeing the post about how every two years election year there’s always a new virus or something like there’s a new [ _ ] virus every year man get over like and again that’s what these infectious disease doctors have been saying now they keep warning you about it’s going to keep happening no matter who’s presently there’s always new factors to look out for so I just I’m so tired to see that one particular right annoying post I’m really trying not to use choice words here but I don’t want to I don’t want to be the guy who sits here and says that people’s views are disgusting today like normally I it’s not even that I disagree with you I just I really want to open my mind and say look if you have other views I get that this this time period will impact your life it will make your life tougher it will make things less fun and more annoying for you to do what we’re about to do there’s two weeks off this whole new way of life for a lot of people your kids be at home and you’re not having child care coverage and you having to work and all of this is going to [ _ ] affect your life and that sucks and I’m trying to be compassionate about that that does suck it’s different it’s not what we want I just don’t think the reaction of this stupid and people who believe in it are overreacting and stupid I don’t think that’s gonna help us right this has the chance to possibly save lives even if it doesn’t save lives if it has the chance to possibly save lives is it not worth trying right and so that’s where I’m coming from with this it’s not hey [ _ ] you people who disagree with me or who think this is all dumb it’s like hey I get where you’re coming from but maybe can we just like kind of look at this in a new light and stop bashing everybody and just all right maybe we can save a few lives is that not worth it right what cost is it how many lives do we need to save over a couple of weeks or months for this couple weeks or months of inconvenience to be worth it to you right how many do we need to save is it a thousand is a ten is it one if we all as a global community did this for a couple weeks a more inconvenience and we save one life is that not enough and so that’s just kind of where I’m coming from like let’s let’s just try to step back and not get caught up in our hunches and feelings and just really look at this at a base level of like work we might be able to help so why not try to help yeah and I think the hard part so now I’m going to kind of flip over to the other side for a minute and say the hard part is this is just one virus now next year we know in winter there’s going to be a version of the flu out there and that again quite honestly will kill more people in the United Center on asleep cause this is still going but you know next year’s flu has it so why are we not doing this with the flu why when flu season starts do we not start shutting everything down locking people I mean that’s the the flipside of this is like where do you draw the line on which you know disease is is more dangerous and less dangerous and who gets to make that decision and and we don’t have a set like if this percentage of people die then it’s a worrisome thing but if a lower percentage of people die then it’s fine well I don’t I don’t know that we’re doing this for the percentage of people that die or not I think it’s more of just the the ability of it to spread so fast I don’t think the flu spreads like this like yeah it’s flu season people catch it but not at this rate like this is alarming rate for something to spread well see my understanding was different my understanding is what makes this so dangerous it expres exactly like the flu and that if you look at how many I think they said you know and I might get this slightly wrong but like 45 million people got the flu in the United States last season so you know if 45 million people got this the death toll would be in the hundreds of thousands because of the percentage of you know the percentage is way and that 0.1% of people that get the flu will die where is I think they’re saying in the neighborhood of two to three percent of people they get this would die I haven’t had the flu in like 20 years right and again because most people will get a really mild version of the flu to where they might think it’s a cold it might last a couple days you know what I mean like I don’t get flu shots every year I get sick once or you know I have kids that are in school so I get sick once or twice a year where I’m down for a couple days I feel like [ _ ] you know I don’t do anything I’m a little achy that’s probably a version of the flu not dangerous to me most of the time I’m not limiting what I do you know I’m trying to push to go to work you know what I mean I’m trying to push too oh the kids got a baseball thing and I don’t feel like it I don’t feel really well but I’m gonna go anyway you know and I’m not thinking I’m infecting all those people I’m going to work you know I can’t afford to take off work workers I’d shutting out so I’m going to work when I’m half sick we live in a culture of you better [ _ ] show up at work or you’re gonna get fired people look down on you for calling out sick right and like you’re trying to really protect other people right so at least my understanding of this was that that’s that’s why they’re shutting all these things down because it does spread that easily and that if it’s the percentage of deaths that make this so much higher you know yeah it would be a hundred times more people than that now bluehead like the double spread time over a few days because if so I mean it would that seems like that would just overwhelm our emergency response system – yeah and I think with the the flu at least we don’t really test for it you know what I mean you don’t get a flu test you go to the doctor a lot of people go and get flu shots that’s another thing with the flu is we do have a vaccine that works for 50% of the people that get the vaccine it works and then another percentage it really lowers you know maybe it won’t be the exact vaccine that you know gets rid of the flu for them but they’ll get a much milder version of the flu like they’ll have some immunity or a little bit of built on REM unity so they’re not getting like the full-blown flu they’ll get a weaker version so maybe somebody who knows what the folks are talking about can help us out with that one at some point so I okay another argument that I thought of is like I’m the guy who will try to stay home and avoid the corona virus like I’ll change my whole life around to avoid it and then I’ll end up like chopping my arm off in a house accident that wouldn’t have happened if I was just out living and I think that’s a pretty I don’t know I have this a this taken life of like let’s let whatever happens happen and so that’s a hard one for me to change up and say now you know what let’s be a little more respectful of this and understanding and change some things up because maybe that’s what it’s called for here is to change a few things and so I think that also ties into other people’s feelings they don’t like to change they don’t want to change their normal patterns they think whatever is gonna happen is gonna happen that’s definitely my take one was a lot of times off I stay home I die in a house fire because I should have been have no I can’t avoid my my fate my destiny well and then there’s some I mean there’s just some and maybe today this is not fair well it is so I have to go to the grocery store like we need [ _ ] food I have kids and a family at home and we I didn’t I’m not a prepper so I didn’t stockpile four weeks of food supplies like we used all the food that week not all but you know we’re getting on food and we have to go get food for the kids in the house and stuff so now I have to go to you know whatever shopping center which is gonna be just a breeding ground for whatever viruses are there because those places have been overrun and inundated with people all the people that went for those supplies are definitely people that be the people who have this for sure right they were all there in close proximity fight never meet until the paper coffin all over the hotdogs great so now you know they do just have things in your life that you can’t 100% avoid you know and what do you do about those things right and so and I think that’s where the the healthy bit of this comes into play so it’s not oh hey [ _ ] it I’ll just do whatever because whatever’s gonna happen to me anyway even though that is my normal standpoint right it’s more of okay let me go with the flow these people who supposedly know way better than I do about these kind of contagious diseases are suggesting we shut these things down maybe since they’re shutting down sports and schools maybe there is more to this than I really [ _ ] understand and it’s been a big deal right and maybe I do need to take some changes and precautions and yet still live a life of I can’t avoid everything I do need to live and from the point of I’ve taken these precautions but now whatever happens happens there’s not a whole lot I can do about it at this point I have completely avoided the grocery store for sure we do online ordering we usually get that on Sunday mornings but they didn’t have any I was just gonna say the same thing oh we get when we try to do it it was Tuesday Walmart yeah that’s okay there is it uh Martin’s oh I didn’t know Martin yeah so we did it’s Saturday and they already were booked up until Monday so we started at Saturday and booked it for Monday so we’ll be picking up hours tomorrow which hopefully they have something yeah we started Friday or yesterday and there soon as pickup was Tuesday and we’re like can’t wait till Tuesday I mean we probably could but yeah we don’t want to and I don’t feel like going on Tuesday yeah I got yeah that’s tough man I’m just curious what they had I’m not a big tow I know where your really I’ve obviously I’ve like pictured this and like okay you run out a little paper then what right I’m like we got wash cloths of water yeah I could use a wet rag and then I start I know this is a little too much information I was like a warm wet cloth on my butt my fuel economy our do not do this I had a story about I was in the shower and I had just got off the tool at one day right and I was like oh well I’m in the shower like it’s what a big deal right and I don’t know I just had this assumption that when you [ _ ] it goes down and I learned that day that that is not what happens it goes straight back from your ass towards the wall oh it sprays everything on the shower wall so don’t ever [ _ ] [ _ ] in the shower I learned a lesson I didn’t say [ _ ] in the shower I said [ _ ] to shower you [ _ ] on the toilet so now I think what we’re learning here hospital-based meetings are mostly closed obviously we’re talking about health departments are closing and closed you know government buildings they’re closing so you can’t have meetings there many churches are closing and not giving meetings the ability to meet and so what we are faced with is a time when we’re gonna have to look to alternative solutions about what can we do for our recovery while our normal recovery modalities don’t work and this is where I think I’m starting to get more and more excited right and this isn’t honestly this is like a great list for anybody this isn’t just about recovery some of these are little recovery specific but some of these I’m just looking at as a human as a new opportunity to do something different and I’m kind of really excited about this one thing I would say first and foremost look to social media I know that sounds a little crazy skip past all the posts that don’t fit in right whatever your belief system is or seem rude because there’s plenty of that out there but there is plenty of social media groups being formed information being passed around about this meetings closed those meetings definitely open and meeting these are where we’re going to for the closed meetings we’re gonna have more line this is online resources like there’s a lot of information on social media that you can find and so I think if that’s what you’re looking for you can definitely go about that healthy route if you don’t know how to find those groups in most you know my being familiar with 12-step fellowships and stuff if you don’t know how to find those things reach out to someone in your area that’s that person that’s really involved in service and that’s at all the events they’ll know where the groups are and what the group’s names are cuz some of the names are a little weird and they’re a little generic so it might be hard to find you know specifically to your area yeah yeah I mean I don’t know I think if you found out our podcast you probably have some idea about some how to find some groups on there yeah sure we probably not the easiest thing to find either you wanna skip each other one oh sure so also talking about zoom Skype meeting options yeah just web conferencing ideas if your home group specifically would like to still meet as a home group or you like the idea of talking to people local to you and not just phoning into some random meeting definitely look into your options for a web conferencing meeting or a group coffee yeah and we had talked about it and and I started looking into it Jason and I had talked about you know trying to set something up possibly or some other people who talked about trying to set something up and so I took a couple minutes and started looking into it I thought it would be really difficult it really doesn’t look that hard I mean there’s some if you were gonna do it on a regular basis it might get pretty weird but it’s easy enough to invite some people within a group have them join a video conference it kind of up to 25 people looks like you can do for free at least on some of them oh my god so I did a deep dive into this shut up and like basically there’s like anywhere from you can do three people to a hundred for free depending on what service but a lot of them are capped at 40 minutes which isn’t a quite full meeting and I don’t know if you can do them back-to-back or somebody else would have to start them or write it was a whole lot of restrictions thankfully we actually have access to something where we can do a hundred and we can do it unlimited right beautiful stuff thank God we won’t have forever it’s only because honestly Google has staying in place for the Karuna virus letting everybody work from home that we have it but uh yeah it’s it’s not too tricky there’s some ways around it you can figure out the easiest one that you’re familiar with maybe this will become a big Android iPhone separator and all the iPhone people just only do FaceTime you’re not they’ll exclude all the Android addicts will relapse I don’t know how the [ _ ] don’t work yeah the biggest thing for me about that again when I was looking into this was how do we make it available to new people how do we make it available to you to people we don’t know because you can only invite people that you know might not have a phone I assume most people get a free phone early on nowadays but maybe the guy just coming out of a detox center didn’t go in with one and doesn’t have a phone so now how does he connect to this web meeting that we’re having right right I don’t have that answer maybe we can look out for the people if they go into halfway houses there halfway house you know mate can help them get on or share the phone with them I don’t know what are the things you can do in place of not being able to go to meetings is call your network you know those phone calls we say we’re gonna make every week that we always just assume the other person is too busy to take yeah we can make those those phone calls yeah work steps Oh now’s a good time or you’re stuck at home and you always say you never have time to do it now you can right on your step work right and the crazy thing about that is so every time I’ve given up a thing whether that was drugs whether that was vaping smoking right now I’m kinda in the midst of not having sugar there’s always this period of like staying super busy to avoid the feeling of not having sugar or what lies beneath that and I definitely noticed yesterday it has not even been 24 hours and I am already sitting in my house and my you know somewhat quarantined state as like all [ _ ] now what like I gotta sit here and not eat all these sweets that are around me that’s hard yeah Wow so I’ll say this one I am a little politically weird about this one so rethink supporting needle exchange which I am a big supporter of needle exchange although I worry about the where they call that when you take a when you take a bad thing and try to politicize like when they take a mass shooting and try to make it about gun control a sudden so but I will say that you know that is the truth like this is a virus that could very easily be spread through intravenous drug use and you get IV users you know without clean needles are gonna spread it I don’t know that people who don’t care to have needle exchange are really gonna give a [ _ ] about addicts spreading the virus but what if this gets back because it’s spreading back to your grandmother back to your mother to somebody that matters to you right and that’s kind of the point in this yeah I’m not trying to politicize it either but I do think it’s a valid point like if we don’t believe in needle exchange well what do we do during pandemics when it really matters right yeah [ _ ] the addicts let them pass Hep C and AIDS to each other but right but now they’ve all become carriers that are all in your community and they are not getting tested and their health is poor anyway so the likelihood that they’re even going to seek medical attention is very low because they probably don’t have insurance and you know yeah they not only do they present a high high risk to themselves but they’re a high risk to the community as well absolutely one of the things you can do there’s all kinds of recovery resources and I’m gonna cover a few of these all at once they’re all online there’s there’s blogs there’s podcasts there’s so many different speaker apps and and YouTube and it doesn’t even have to be recovery based like you can go on YouTube and just watch motivating speakers or people who speak about feeling good or things that work for you know help helping you in regular life like this doesn’t have to be just recovery though there’s plenty of recovery outlets out there feel free to spread these resources to people who aren’t aware of them there’s probably a whole world of people who don’t know that recovery podcasts exists and there’s probably 500 [ _ ] recovery podcasts or like spread the word man get it out there like people can read about recovery people can talk about it people can listen to it it’s everywhere and same with like with the TED talks you know I went down a rabbit hole of you know maybe not specifically about recovery or 12-step group but there definitely ones about how to live better about happiness about you know quality of life things about you know mental health and overall health and you know I’m trying to remember what they were called but there was a whole series on basically improving your life and and becoming a better person um and I found that incredibly helpful and useful and a lot of my approaches to my recovery that’s awesome yeah its head talks are a great idea uh but we got call your sponsor I mean god I never call my sponsor yeah you see I’m pretty frequently but on an actual phone call that’s that doesn’t happen too often a lot of text messaging but maybe during this period while I’m not doing as much maybe I will pick up the phone more and stay in contact and less Isis my social distancing without isolation grab a buddy and make a 12-step call there you go we haven’t talked much about the newcomer but maybe this isn’t even about the newcomer maybe this is the guy who you used to see him at your home group every week and you have it for a couple of weeks because your home groups not going on or whatever but he’s not staying in contact like the rest of your home group members are maybe grab a buddy and go reach out to him at his house yeah or if you know someone who is high-risk it might be a little worried about I wouldn’t suggest just showing up knocking at their door they might be a little freaked out but give them a call hey you know me and another guy are thinking about coming over just to catch up with you you know we’ll make sure we’re real clean neither of us have any symptoms we’ve been both feeling pretty good you know yeah for a visit like you know we’ll sit on the porch outside we’ll stay six feet away you know whatever like respecting that foot but reaching out because we do have a lot of people in our fellowship that are older and are at high risk because of health issues you can just stand out front of their house with the boombox held over your head blasting our podcast towards like an 80s movie and that’ll be totally safe what’s the next one be compassionate to people who believe in the risks even if you don’t yeah yes and so that just kind of goes back to hey let’s stop spreading the hate everywhere right it’s always hate people are always stupid for doing this or dumb for doing that or why don’t they think like I like hey even if you are a person who does not believe in this whole coronavirus risk or outbreak or why we’re doing any of this maybe just be compassionate that some people do and and they’re nervous and worried what kind of one of the things I thought about this morning we’re so angry at the people buying toilet paper I’ve heard them call called scum bags and and over shoppers and hoarders and all these terrible names like how do we know that these people are not ultimately at their house giving it out to the people in their street or in their community who run out like great really know that these people are shitty people obviously there should be they have all they need a lot of paper right but no I mean do we really know that they’re being crud bowls about it like maybe they’re really hey if anybody on my block runs out I want to make sure I have something to give to them let me buy a couple extra rolls I get trying to save some for others but how do you know like I don’t know I just were so quick to [ _ ] hate everything right and and to throw people into the worst case scenario and you know let’s again we can if we’re gonna make assumptions let’s err on the side of compassionate assumptions let’s assume that hey it’s pretty sad that they have to live in that level of fear you know like that they are so fearful of life that you know that’s their major concern like wow that’s got to be tough to be stuck in that maybe they have a mental illness or some sort of other thing that you know they’re not all automatically selfish [ _ ] huh how grateful can I be that I don’t also struggle with that thing that they’re doing that makes them do that right right well we we just tend to hate instead of having gratitude or compassion and that’s a really struggling thing for me and my wife would tell you that don’t think I’m judging you because I am that guy 90% of the time – right I struggle with these things I’m just trying to remind us all to be here well and we all fall into and this is what you see I read a thing about the toilet paper and it’s like a herd mentality like oh no they’re buying all the toilet paper I’m not gonna have any toilet paper I better go get me about your toilet paper and we all fall into that whereas if if instead of following the herd let’s be the one that tries to start our own herd in a different direction and be it here’s the herd warm rag wiping episode
so this is one that really hit me hard and this is for any [ _ ] this is not just for a recovering addict right we are always caught up in this rat race I am the one to sit here and say that my kids play too many sports and I’m always running to practices and games and events and this set and the other and look yeah I am a little sad that that stuff is like when hold or possibly canceled right now but but I have the time in life to step back from the rat race right this second I know not everybody’s in my position and not everybody’s awful work I get that but there is a lot of change in normal everyday life right now it’s like a semi quarantined state we’re in right even if you are going to work there’s a lot of things that aren’t happening like let’s take this opportunity to step out of that [ _ ] race for a minute and just chill right yeah go outside the weather’s getting a little nicer just go outside and just be just be I don’t ever get the [ _ ] chance to do that I don’t get the chance to take weekday hikes with my family I don’t get the chance to just sit outside on the front porch and enjoy the weather and how it feels on my skin like and I notice sounds like some buddhist meditative you would call it woowoo [ _ ] whatever this is wild times to be able to do this so let me take advantage of that I don’t never get that [ _ ] to happen I’m always busy running to the next thing yeah and funny enough I do call whoo whoo [ _ ] and I buy into all of it we do all of it anyway you know last night I went to like a Native American sweat lodge thing which is the total woowoo thing was a couple nights before that me and my son just went out and had a little campfire in the backyard and we’re just sitting out there you know rounded I’m partially it was to clean the yard but it’s fun just to sit out there and have a little campfire and relax and just him and I just chilling for you know a half hour 40 minutes maybe right you know and just doing nothing you know it’s it’s nice and then you know ties into that take a hike is also on here I think we just kind of talked about that and that was another thing about getting outside so they are saying you know getting outside is is de fer we could do that with meetings you could have a meeting outside of a facility you know there’s nothing we’ve done it at my home group just because it’s at a beautiful area sometimes it’s kind of nice outside we’ve just taken the chairs and sat outside and had the meeting outside my old home group and we were in right out now I think we’re actually in Baltimore City at this point and we would take the meeting outside at times and sit on the church front steps because we didn’t want to carry all the chairs out yeah and you’re talking 50 people say a church having a marrying there’s people across the street it’s a little awkward we have to put it into it at some point but yeah [ _ ] take it outside and my own groups in an area where we could easily sit outside it wouldn’t nobody would care but you can also do little get-togethers at your house you know what I mean like have people over to your house have you know outside don’t let them inside they might corrupt your house but you can have them outside oh they’re gonna piss if they go outside your house they’re so gonna go in yeah yeah bonfires oh yeah so we got some outdoor activities play catch play frisbee go swing yeah and those are just I mean obviously just a minut few things you can do in your front yard I guess if you’re by yourself maybe go boomerang come back to you if you can figure that out but yeah there’s so many outdoor activities and this was just the point that started to become really exciting right let’s look at this a different way instead of the inconvenience it is to the normal things I do what can I do that I don’t normally get the opportunity to that would be really cool to try or you know participate in maybe I can take walks out front of my house that I don’t normally have the time for I just be healthier and live and it almost ties in with you know last week’s topic with your client that didn’t know what they like to do well here’s an opportunity to break your normal of what you normally do I mean if you’ve never done something you don’t know if you like it or not you know and you could try something new and realize that how I really enjoyed this I had a really good time doing it so this is an opportunity to kind of break from that normal chain of events and try some different things an experiment with some new activities yeah [ _ ] archery or something I don’t know there’s just like many possibilities it’s it’s incredible and that’s just kind of where I think we’re at man we have this really unique opportunity yes we can look at it as an inconvenience a terrible thing a panicky situation or we can really look at it as a super unique opportunity to just do some different things and try some different things and maybe a reminder to be compassionate to all different kinds of thinkers and believers in the world and they don’t have to agree with us and we don’t have to agree with what’s going on but we can still kind of go with the flow and make the best of it yeah and you know as far as potentially I guess some resources for for people looking for I guess online meetings and stuff if you just google you’re just a little off topic but if you just Google your fellowship and online meetings they’ll come up or if you just Google recovery meetings online you can find stuff pretty easy they’re not hidden they’re not that run guru you know um same with local parks and stuff if you’re not sure where to go just Google you know or or look up you know internet search for local parks in our area there’s a couple different local parks that have playgrounds and walking trails and bike paths and hiking you know opportunities right um places to walk your dog dog parks you know all those kind of things if you truly don’t know where to hike there is an app called all trails which has a paid tier that I will never pay for cuz I’m a cheap [ _ ] it’s also got a free tier that at least tells you where the local hiking spots are and you can filter by how long and how difficult and all that kind of stuff so that’s a good resource for hiking but yeah Google as much as I’m not trying to advertise for Hemingway there it is pretty goddamn easy to search up some stuff use the right search terms and you can find a lot of what you’re looking for even if you can probably at this point Google ideas for things to do while I’m off during the new antivirus and and find lists of incredible things to try out one FAR’s now I know even like the movie theaters are still open they’re doing some social distancing limiting number of seats some things are doing stuff like that shutting down the release of new movies and I’m just like blown away by yeah I think those are just financial decisions they don’t want to release and then have it have a low because the movie theaters are limiting number of seats so no absolutely I’m just I’m so infatuated with all this now just because it’s so unique I’ve never lived through anything like it is pretty much like wow so I’ve been jokingly saying to people it reminds me of all like those video games I played in the 90s like Resident Evil and stuff like that and and it always seems like in those games like it’s not the virus that you got to worry about it’s the Annie it’s the vaccine that comes out that’s gonna really turn you into like the next you know crazy zombie thing so we don’t need to be so worried now people are just dying wait till they come out with the vaccine that’s gonna turn you into genetic mutation I definitely yeah when all this was like oh my god dystopian future like well one on house arrest that’s what’s coming next and so Friday I’m at my house and the [ _ ] power goes out like oh my god and it is a little disturbing they’re talking about like state of emergency and calling out the National Guard and like I work in Delaware and the next state over so the guy that I work with and stuff is like see you Monday like mono no maybe not the National Guard might be at the state line telling you you [ __ ] can’t come into Delaware definitely by the hour and and like I said I’m just yeah of course it’s a little scary but it’s just so Wow France so wow this stuff’s going on but uh I think we have killed it hopefully you had some extra time to listen because you’re you know don’t have as much to do Timber the provirus and this didn’t interfere with your life but uh everybody have a great week stay safe out there I hope you found this useful and again just keep plugging into alternative sources of recovery man and stay in that path yeah recovery will survive the current of ours excellent deal and that wraps up this episode please subscribe rate and review this podcast on your preferred platform if you have ideas for topics you’d like us to talk about or just want to add an opinion contact us through Anchor email us at recovery sort of at gmail.com or find us on Twitter at recovery sort of