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.
One is never enough! We enjoyed the comments about our Step 6 episode on social media so much that we had to recognize and talk about them. So we continue the discussion on the 6th Step about becoming entirely to have our defects of character removed. Join the conversation by leaving a message, emailing us at RecoverySortOf@gmail.com, or find us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
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6/14/20 One is never enough! We enjoyed the comments about our Step 6 episode on social media so much that we had to recognize and talk about them. So we continue the discussion on the 6th Step about becoming entirely to have our defects of character removed.
Transcript:
I’m not hearing you my issue let’s see if I can change my settings mine yeah I’m not here hmm speakers microphone let’s say alright let me switch now I can hear you okay huh where yeah must not have been connected right for today right and as long as it works yeah yeah it works oh the baby alright so how was it ah I was not bad um little disappointing I mean they had pretty much everything [ _ ] closed which was kind of dumb I mean you get that they have like the indoor pool and all that but like they have a lake and I have you know paddle boats and canoes I had none of that [ _ ] going on really um the outdoor pool wasn’t open but I guess Jen brought up one good point she’s like well I guess officially it’s not technically summer yet I guess summer starts what next week or some [ _ ] right home but to me I’m like it’s [ _ ] almost the middle of June like you think you would have you know you only get a couple of months of that [ _ ] as it is you know yeah that’s unusual I we’ve caught it some different times a year and I was kind of wondering that well you know just thinking about it I was like I know a lot of stuff we did seem to be indoors we didn’t do the indoor pool too much but we did go down to like the they had that it was like an arcade room in the basement of that building or it kind of like had like a pool table or something well there’s a couple different so there’s they have three places we went to the one called Pocono Palace once Kota given the other ones Pocono Palace and then they got another one paradise stream it’s called I think we’ve only been to the Cove Haven one yeah and we’ve been to that one twice this is the first time I went to this other one which it’s same idea though they have like a nightclub and you know where they do activities and dance and in that kind of [ _ ] which that was all closed what you figure that would be but then the dining was all in room dining where they blip bring it to your room but you know and maybe it’s part of the code [ _ ] or it’s just how they’re doing it but it wasn’t like room service where they bring it on a [ _ ] tray and on plates you get everything’s in like carry out boxes with disposable [ _ ] plastic ware and you know it’s it’s like you’re eating out of boxes you know you’re eating out of [ _ ] plastic containers so that kind of sucked here that’s got to be the the kovat stuff yeah that’s what I was in there doing that weird yeah it’s I guess there’s not much I did there that was outdoors really I think most of what we did was indoors when we were there I don’t know that because it was winter or not I mean we weren’t really going to do a bunch of [ _ ] anyway but you know we both wanted to just get away and have somewhere where we didn’t have a bunch of you know distractions and [ _ ] but you know like most things in hindsight ligo’s good we had a good time but for the amount of money and what we actually did we could have just went to like a really nice hotel that had a [ _ ] restaurant in it and probably spent half the amount of money you know what do you do with your kids when you go away like that in this case they stayed they just watch each other I mean Abby’s 17 or 18 and then the other two just in this particular weekend they were house-sitting for my sister-in-law anyway so they ended up all three just hanging out over there and then oh yeah hmm trying to think if I would be like I don’t have the the I don’t have the older one that you have I’m trying to wonder if I would leave my 14 and my 11 at home together I think they’d kill each other well there’s two get along okay abby’s like the mediator I mean it used to be bad we used to not be able to as much now they get along better they still don’t like each other very much but they get along better Oh God anything else going on interesting no not really I mean just course stall the crazy riding Rachel [ _ ] that’s going on in the news and in the world that’s pretty crazy but in my personal life now works been so busy it’s like I [ _ ] work and most days this last week I just come home I’m like mentally exhausted because it’s so busy everyday yeah yeah so when does that slow down like July does everybody have their AC from right there yeah we’re real seasonal and it’s just been like it’s been hot and kind of humid like that [ _ ] drives people to turned a lot of people like are just turning their ACS on now so you know turn and [ _ ] on for the beginning of the year it’s not working that kind of stuff so in another probably two to three weeks will start to slow back down be you know and then it’ll just be [ _ ] that’s running that breaks down during the season which isn’t near as much as stuff that I guess you know people turning it on for the first time and this isn’t working or that’s not working or they have some kind of problem you know all that [ _ ] hits at once in the beginning right beginning of the heat because it’s been hot I’m surprised that people are still turning it on for the first time like not the past couple days but before this it’s been hot as hell I agree that’s it always amazes me when people I mean I got a guy the other day telling well I don’t usually even turn it on you know yet cool [ _ ] what do you have it for this right why do you have air conditioning if you’re not turn it on when it’s 85 and humid out like what’s the point but who knows people are weird yeah I don’t know so yeah it’s one of those things right now I don’t have to really worry about controlling that and I don’t know if I would have had it on if it was up to me or not hmm and then I am cheap maybe I wouldn’t had it on yeah yeah well different people I mean me personally like I’d like to come home and I want to be comfortable wanna like [ _ ] with the windows and being uncomfortable in my own house and putting on a bunch of fans like and then but I grew up so all the houses we lived in up until I was an adult and had my own house none of them ever had air conditioning we lived in a row house in the city that didn’t have air conditioning and then my parents bought like a hundred and some year old farmhouse out and Rising Sun that didn’t have air conditioning so I grew up my whole life without air conditioning you know so as an adult I was like [ _ ] that I’m getting a house with air conditioning and I’m being comfortable [ _ ] a foeman lay around all night we didn’t have any air conditioning when I was young and then I want to say maybe when I was like 11 we got a main air conditioner for the first floor just like a window unit a large window unit and so that was nice and then slowly over the years we would add you know oh well this bedroom gets one now and now this bedroom has an air conditioner so yeah I remember living without it I don’t know how the [ _ ] I did it though right you know it’s crazy though I think the same stuff you do I’m like I don’t want to like open the window and have to close it again repeatedly but then I’m like well how else does it work like that’s how the window works you open it when you want it open and you close it when you don’t I mean if that it’s just always closed and I do love a fresh breeze when they you know what it exists
that’s hilarious you might as well just have solid windows yeah dirtier yeah I’m one of those people and I’m totally cool with that like you know I was like oh just fresh air he’d go outside to get that in my house I want it comfortable and cool gotcha you do still like the light though right you wouldn’t want like a solid wall oh yeah now I like the light yeah I opened the curtains let the light in you could get like stained glass windows yeah yeah yes I don’t know I guess I mean we have a lot of comments about step six which is cool we can like use up a lot of time just going over those kind of things I don’t know that there’s a whole lot else unless we wanted to after that pick up some of the cliches we could do that yeah you’re right I’m gonna see where the microphone is on this thing I don’t even see it probably there anywhere yeah I mean other than that it’s just whatever is [ _ ] going on in the world like say my life has been fairly boring this last week it’s not really much going on I the only thing the only reason I tend to try to stay away from what’s going on in the world is because I feel like that could alienate people and not that I’m you know I mean I don’t want it’s not about like pleasing everybody but it’s more like I noticed that we can have different views on things and I don’t I don’t know like you said you don’t like Trump right and I don’t want somebody to not be able to listen to a message or a conversation about recovery just because they’re ticked off about the idea that they love Trump and we don’t you know what I mean like I don’t I don’t want it to get in the way of people feeling like they can find something useful here not that we can’t talk about some things I just I’m trying to I guess the more we do this the more I’m realizing I’m them coronavirus conversations kind of got me like maybe I don’t want to talk about all that all the time well there’s another so there was something I don’t know if you saw in the news recently and it just sorta I’m gonna say parallels with addiction but there was a family over in Olivos winding Brook where they had like real bad abuse situation with the kids burned with cigarettes and neglect and all kinds of other stuff and so they got you know arrested and charged and turns out they’re [ _ ] drug addicts and you know neglecting and abusing their kids and all this other stuff and I guess there’s been a bit of controversial comments online course gen cease and calm but you know people like like to equate like see that’s the problem with drug addicts like and it’s like well wait a minute drug addicts like because you’re a drug addict that doesn’t mean you’re gonna like abuse and neglect children or burn and with cigarettes like that’s not that’s not like a drug addict thing that’s like a [ _ ] up person thing and you can’t say like you know it’s unfair to I guess you would say stereotype addicts in that way you know what I mean to say like um all drug addicts or terrible horrible people that do horrible things to their children and whatever and you know so one of the groups and I can’t remember the name I will in a minute but you know this this guy posted a bunch of stuff he runs some Republican stuff around Cecil County shockingly and he you know he’s the one that made these comments so she commented back you know something to the effect of you know it’s pretty messed up that you would say something like saying like just because someone has a drug problem that that makes them a you know child abusing neglectful person and then he said something about and they should just be killed you know something like that mmhmm yeah and it’s just like wow do we really just are we still dealing with that like this society still look at like all drug addicts or horrible child of using neglectful parents thank you yeah yeah I think well and and you know hopefully nobody ever watches our YouTube so we can discuss a little bit of this now and it doesn’t bother 7:00 but yeah I think that’s very much exactly what a lot of what we’re seeing right now with all this racial stuff going on is that there’s still a large piece whether that’s the majority or not there’s a large piece of white America that thinks you know [ _ ] black people [ _ ] drug addicts [ _ ] all these people let’s send the military out into our streets and [ _ ] straighten them all out like I don’t know that that’s a good idea but that is definitely the sentiment I am picking up from quite a few people yeah oh I was just looking for the article hold on the Cecil County crime is run by this guy Vince Salmons who’s he’s a piece of [ _ ] he got a bunch of website Cecil County crime in Cecil County news it’s really just him and he uses it as like a political you know thing
you
oh and there was the report on the overdose deaths being way up
yes so that saw that hmm what the make of that so here’s the comment so the story says you know Elton man burns son – with cigarettes and then it says you know how to man facing child abuse charges officers noted the house and house in filthy conditions with hazards for a two-year-old throughout the home open pill bottles open alcohol containers knives scissors chemicals suboxone strips and other dangerous objects strewn about the home in reach of the child and then of course the guy Vince Salmons who runs the page his comment was this is what makes me sick about addicts no one takes in consideration the victims these addicts harm in the process of their problem they foster more problems as these children will be literally literally scarred for life yeah I mean I don’t know that we’re gonna stop people from having that opinion yeah that’s probably true you don’t see a whole lot of news stories coming out say in the other way you know nobody’s coming to recovering addicts house and right in a news story about how clean it looks and how well taken care of their kids are yeah right but anyway that’s what’s going on in the news in Cecil County and then like say the enough he saw the overdose deaths came out that’s way up because if they think kuzzik Ovid [ __ ] but ya think I said it’s a three year high last month
for yeah I think they said there’s only since they started keeping track of the monthly totals that’s the the highest it’s ever been or the highest it’s been since like one month that happened three years ago when they first started keeping track yeah
sad sad stuff yeah there’s a lot of people that argue that with the closed down meetings that was doing more harm than good in that area I don’t know I can’t say I completely agree with that
but I don’t have that answer you know my my thinking isn’t all that compassionate either it’s kind of like ah you need to learn to survive without those meetings yeah oh yeah you should read some of the good comments one about the overdoses on the Cecil County crime page says we need a new plan and someone says 25 cent bullets that’s the answer to the drug problem yeah what’s the answer to the [ __ ] problem can we get 25 cent bullets for them too Yeah right anyway that’s why I try not to pay too much attention I am been on Facebook wife watch them all wife fills me and I’m like see that’s why I can’t yeah well that’s definitely a place I don’t want to go I’m already like struggling with the people that are supposedly my friends like I don’t need
people I don’t even know that are [ _ ] that are out trying to knock a few more people off my facebook I just if you’re if you’re linking I don’t even give a [ _ ] what side you’re on if you’re linking to some obvious non reputable crazy-ass websites to [ _ ] prove a point you just need to get the [ _ ] off my page because you’re not really bigger than science about anything yeah goddamn goober that’ll just share any old article that seems to fit your view yeah well that’s just it people go out and read something and I got a guy I’ve worked like that he’s almost conspiracy theory guy like he everything like no matter what it is so he’s a big Trump obviously Trump Republican guy and everything just comes back to like it’s the Democrats fault doesn’t matter what it is it’s the Democrats fault we’re all sheep and shills and [ _ ] just you know sliding right along with the Democrats gonna ruin this country they’re destroying it and Trump’s gonna save us and make it great again it’s like it doesn’t matter what the story is it’s like it always is just twisted into that narrative and that’s the story at the end I mean guess what I didn’t vote in the Democratic primary you want to know why I’m not a [ _ ] Democrat I’m an independent because Democrats are stupid too I’m not anything I just think they suck less that’s all at this point they suck less but it’s funny but he’s one of those people like he and I gotta just stop filing I’m on Facebook because I work with him but he links to all like the ridiculous articles from like these outta left field sources that are like a reputable and oh it’s ridiculous dude look at my cousin Mike’s YouTube [ __ ] video that shows you how right I am about all this kidding me doesn’t even look real yeah we can recap on some stuff just kind of see how that goes okay let’s uh let’s start there we’ll get into it well I didn’t do enough planning for this week I feel like I should have well hit the Twitter will hit the Facebook post on be more recovery I don’t think when I shared it to see so can me anybody had anything to say and I started to wonder if like nobody in Cecil County had worked a six-step yeah that might be what does that mean for your people I’ll have the cliches page open in case we end up getting there even though we won’t
[ __ ] how do I find that see so can’t leave post why is that up the top as an announcement very weird so you’re saying if you’re already on a page you can search the page yes I believe so hold on right oh that scares me kinda likes what screams so fair uh good luck I never had much luck with that okay there’s that there we go all right so I’m gonna log out of my wife’s Facebook I’ll just go calm and answer I don’t even see it on here that’s not maybe if I put my own name
whoa okay I’ll be looking on the Cecil County recovery yeah I’m wondering did I forget to even post this [ _ ] maybe that’s why nobody answered yeah that might make sense it should have been uh Thursday Thursday’s the day I should have posted that maybe I completely forgot that I feel like a lot of people up here are part of the be more recovery page anyway yeah seems like it June 14th so this would have been like June 10th not yesterday oh my god there’s more pee more post than I realized not the twelve yeah I don’t think I did this Wow all right maybe I’m just losing my mind maybe I didn’t post it at all yeah well there you go that’s why nobody answers it’s not because well I mean that’s interesting too like I wonder you know okay now I’m gone hearsay did you do any of the New England meetings like over in London England or any of those do hey uh old England yeah I guess Jim was saying just she was talking to some people about how like a lot of meetings over there it seemed like they did focus a lot more on specifically narcotics like you know we call this Narcotics Anonymous and they seem to be focused more on like the drug aspect and the the narcotics part almost like Alcoholics Anonymous would be for alcohol and that you know there was seemed to be a lot more emphasis on the drugs part of things so yeah yeah that’s weird uh I mean I only hit like one or two that were specifically NA meetings over there quite a few of the ones I hit in England were like what they were they were calling that cross recovery just that xa just whatever you’re recovering from come and hang out oh okay so they didn’t focus on any particular thing yeah that’s weird though like people telling you a drug a look yeah yeah that would be weird all right well I feel like we’re just [ _ ] out of sorts from it not being 9:00 a.m. so this is gonna be strange all right you ready to try yep no all righty here we go all right welcome back to recovery sort of I’m Jason I’m a guy in recovery I’m Billy I’m a guy in long-term recovery and this is strange for us we usually record it like 9:00 a.m. and it is like 5:00 p.m. and it just goes off [ _ ] wacked out for me honestly it’s a little strange so we’re gonna try to make this work and not be crazy and all too out of sorts one of the good things is that the reason we’re a little out of sorts timewise is that Billy and his wife were on a nice vacation celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary is that correct yeah 15 years it’s pretty crazy that’s [ _ ] awesome congratulations yeah that’s for sure yes yes absolutely I’m just it’s weird it’s like the more we talk the more I realize our lives are very mirrored you know you’re just a couple years older than me I think you have just a couple more years clean and your anniversaries like mid to end August and mine’s early to mid September and and I guess your wedding anniversary is right about now in June and mine is what Tuesday and I’ll be 13 years and so you’re like just a couple years it’s funny it’s like very eerie how closely all those things are yeah that’s pretty cool hey maybe that’s why we get along so well you know such a similar path of life it very well could be and so you know before we get into anything about this week I did want to say we are supposed to have a another guest next week which is gonna be fun for me I think I hope and this is like so last time we did recovery Dharma which is a program it’s kind of like a I guess nationwide slash worldwide program but this is more of a unique individual who has come up with I don’t wanna say his own program but it’s I don’t think from our understanding of it right now until we questioned him further about it I don’t think it’s really a an established program with its own literature and its own like guidelines or anything it’s kind of just hey this is a way to recover that’s different than what other people are doing and we don’t know what to call it so we’re just gonna do it our own way yeah I think that’s about it and he’s trying to get it going I think he’s open to some different things but was just looking for something you know to help his self and some other people that he knew that were struggling to find a recovery pathway so he said he’ll let’s just start a group and start helping each other which is super cool right and look I’m not here to be the end-all be-all of what works what doesn’t work I don’t really know I just want people to be slightly happier and and free and treat people better today than they did yesterday so if that’s working for him it’s interesting just a little while ago I was talking to Brittany on Twitter I just happened to scroll past and she was asking if there was any programs like our normal recovery programs but for people who don’t have a specific qualification right like people who might not be drug addicts or alcoholics that just want to a support group of some sort and I was kind of having that conversation of like it’s crazy that it’s harder to find it if you don’t have you know a reason to seek it out I guess maybe people wouldn’t seek it but maybe there does need to be more established just random hey this is just for support we don’t really give a [ _ ] why you’re here we just want you to come and talk about what’s going on which is I mean I get the you know that might not be exactly what what he’s doing but he is kind of it is kind of like a hey we don’t know where else to go so let’s like just create a place and go there yeah pretty much that seems to be what it is that’s awesome well maybe maybe he will you know create a whole new group that will become nation or worldwide and we’ll say you know you heard it here first or something and we’ll act like we make it in general that’s that’s sort of always been the the basis of I think group supportive recovery or now what they call the peer recovery movement it’s like you’re you’re trying to find people that have similar struggles that have found a way out that can then come in and help other people find a way out to you know it’s like helping someone through your lived experience and you know that in a sprung off from a a when they said you know hey you guys are doing this thing over here and it’s really cool it seems like it’s working really great but it’s not exactly for us so we want to take kind of some of those concepts that are really good tweak some of them in a different way and move forward with a new thing and you know who’s to say people won’t take maybe they don’t take the steps concept but they take some other concepts of the 12-step groups the group therapy part the sponsorship part you know kind of maybe some of the accountability aspects to establish meetings you know different things like that and and move forward with some new thing yeah I was just thinking that’s what that guy from refuge recovery did and then he got a whole lot of chicks from it here it’s going out for everybody I don’t know how that works I’m digging a hole uh anyway so that’s exciting what’s his name Chris Dave something ah man right there so that’s cool so that’s that’s what we’re looking forward to next week and and I think as far as I’m concerned I’m still trying to figure out some of the logistics of you know trying to do the YouTube video recording of us while we’re actually in person but I believe the week after we have him I’m ready to be in person I think yeah nice it looks so I know that’s exciting for you so the time is coming near we’ll just have doubted the microphone from six feet away put up guards of you know spit guard so yes yes we need we definitely need plastic spit guards and then we’ll have the microphone like right in the middle half and half to be perfect so we did want to go back we got some great excellent incredible feedback it’s incredible to me and this is one of the reasons I love doing this podcast Billy is because I feel like we said so much about step six right we had a lot of relevant information and I walked away like oh my God we’re so knowledgeable about this [ _ ] recovery it’s incredible right we know so much and then we posted these links online and there was so much [ _ ] we forgot yeah oh my god that’s great information how could we not mention that and totally forget it and so just to you know rehash a whole lot of these comments I appreciated everybody that contributed and so maybe we can throw some of these out there and see what you know maybe some of that’s helpful maybe you have some comments for some of it recovery man on Twitter we’ll start there first he said it’s never ending that’s what he learned about step 6 it’s never ending more things will come out over time and you’re only really ready to get rid of a defect when they’ve caused you enough pain sometimes we enjoy our defects they’re useful however not going to leave to the serenity that we desire and are working for and I thought that was a good point I think we we might have tackled a little bit of that that it was never-ending but just always a good reminder that we’re constantly doing this right there’s never gonna come a point where I’m just done with character defects and they’re not gonna pop out anymore yeah and I’ve always looked at this whole recovery you know process that way for me it’s like it’s a it’s a lifelong process you know if I want to keep getting better I mean obviously I can decide that I’m good enough how I am and not want to do any work and people kind of do that all the time so it’s only a lifelong process if you do the work and want it to be you know I’m good the way I am and I’m not gonna do it then it’s not a lifelong process for you anymore now do you find I don’t know see I I don’t know if everybody experiences the this the way I do I and I you know my ego says oh yeah everybody does it the way I do it and I doubt it I find that I will kind of slide away from recovery practices here and there and I get stuck back in my old patterns and I’ll be a jerk and I’ll come to a place where I’m miserable with being a jerk and then I get back into the process again right and it’s kind of basically repeatedly doing that over and over and over again do you think other people just kind of get to a point and they’re like I’m done and they don’t ever come back or they spend extended periods of like 10-year blocks of just being you know miserable jerks before they come back to the step sir um I think all of the above or both you know like for for some people they drift away you know out of resentment or anger and then they get to themselves and they get you know bitter and all the character defects creep back in and then for I believe other people I mean maybe they find a home in you know a religious organization a church or some other new spiritual prayer Octus you know maybe they become some sort of you know Buddhist or you know begin some practice in that tradition that just leads them away from the 12-step fellowship but they’re still doing spiritual work mmm they’re still working on their their spiritual conditioning so in in that case I think some people just either outgrow or just find that this isn’t what works for them anymore well I wasn’t even thinking so much like people who leave the programs like that’s you know I get that more so I’m just picturing some people that you know 20 30 maybe even more at this point years and it just become like those old crotchety Muppets or something in the balcony like they they’re just constantly in the meetings being angry and bitter all the time and I just look I’ve never been to these people to know well maybe they are doing work and still changing but a lot of times from where I’m sitting which isn’t that close to them it’s like God do you even work the [ _ ] steps like are you even work to put yourself down hey the same if I got here 15 years ago they’re like what the [ _ ] yeah yeah that’s probably true to there I’m sure there are some of those I mean my experience and again being in a smaller area though I mean I don’t have the large number of people like a you know a city area would in in this rural community most of those people just stopped coming you know what I mean like they don’t really stick around but then you know I say that and I know people that have been coming around for 20 plus years and haven’t even worked all 12 steps so I sometimes I try to figure it like I don’t know what they’re doing here exactly I don’t care you know I’m not really sure I’m just interesting the next one our buddy sobriety Matt oh man he is uh he was going through a little tough time this morning but I don’t know he’s been I’ve he’s mentioned us a few times on Twitter and I just appreciate that greatly he seems to get something out of our podcast and I bring that up to you because no you don’t always get to see all our Twitter interactions and I know what it’s like for me to experience every time somebody says they get something out of listening to our podcast because the truth for me is I generally do this because I know you and I get something out of this like I leave this podcast more open-minded you know thinking about more different recovery topics and generally just a better human than I am before I come into it and so what other people get something out of it it kind of like warms my heart a little bit and so I wanted to share that with you that Matt often seems to get something out of what we have to say and it just I appreciate that he had commented on this one that he was going over his sixth step and he was excited to listen to this episode yeah that’s awesome and you know it is pretty cool I’ve actually made more of an effort to go back and try to read comments and things because almost the same reason you said it’s like I realize now you know I can go back through and read and get some really good input or really good fresh looks or fresh ideas on things that I hadn’t really seen or just need reminded of you know sometimes you hear things and they kind of gloss on by and then you go back and hear them again later it’s like wow that sounds super found like I know I’ve heard that before but it just didn’t seem to hit you know like it does now at this stage in my life right and that’s often how it feels like reading the comments or hearing what people have to say so yeah he got a kick out of you saying that it is what it is was the atheist version of let go and let God so the the share peer specialist on Twitter said still not sure if I’m entirely ready some little part of me is holding back I wasn’t sure if that was a confession or you know just the fact that like sometimes we overthink I know for me I can go into six and seven and question it’s just similar to the person who’s coming around and has you know two months clean I remember being the guy with two months and saying did I really hit my bottom am I really done right like same thing with the with the character defects did am I really entirely ready to let it go am I sure about that like who the [ _ ] knows just try it right yeah so that’s I don’t like I said I don’t know if that was a confession or just they were pointing out that we overthink the entirely ready part sometimes yeah and so many of these things are just a day at a time you know what I mean like I’m just trying to do it for today I don’t know maybe tomorrow I’ll change my mind and want to take all my character defects back and say [ _ ] the world and you know give them the worst parts of myself I don’t know but for today I’m gonna try my best you know to be a good person to live by these spiritual principles to cannot act on my character defects and I don’t know what I’m gonna do later but for today I can do that maybe maybe you’ve really pointed out something there maybe six and and moving into seven is a lot of like you know you talk about your kids having a toy room if you were you know privileged like that if not you were just in the living room but either way you had two toys spread out all over the floor from a nice rainy day of playing indoors right and then at the end of the day you got to clean up you have to straighten up the living room of the toy room and you have to put all the toys in the toy box and like whenever you want you can pull them [ _ ] back out like they’re not stuck in the toy box right you’ve straightened your your room up for the day but that doesn’t mean it’s gonna be straightened forever like you have to do your daily spiritual maintenance of straightening up the toys when you’re done with them of you know vacuuming the floor so the babies not eating all the little dusts pieces and [ _ ] like that like I don’t know I just really like the way you put that out there we don’t have to lock these away forever in fact I don’t even think we can I think we’re yeah really just putting them away for today and straightening up our life for this moment yeah exactly and and for me you know in my life today that’s the importance of like a tenth and eleventh step you know that like meditation is such a big part of you know keeping my spirit in a place where those character defects aren’t right on the edge you know it it helps me to put them down just a little bit further so that they’re not the first tool that I grab when [ _ ] goes Hey right right now I definitely you know I’ll see a screw sticking out of a door handle or I guess it’s a bolt not a screw or something like that and you’re right the first thing I do is grab the first tool I want to grab which is my anger hammer there’s no pain right yeah right I need you know look for the correct tool for the situation not just grab the hammer all the time him nah I’m not gonna patch many windows with my hammer yeah but some days everybody gets the hammer last comment on the Twitter was Drew who I really like this one he said anyone can say they are ready to go camping but if you really want to go camping pack the gear place it next to the door learn camping skills it’s not a passive step and I thought as a guy who I don’t know sometimes I feel like that I give or how to put this without offending anyone that’s impossible so I feel like sometimes the the more people who have a specific religion or a specific guide tend to I don’t want to say that they all do steps passively whatsoever but sometimes the words we say and as believers so to speak do tend to be more passive right let go let God you know he’ll take care of this all that great stuff and I felt like when people point out that things aren’t passive I just assume that and I don’t ever know what to call you agnostic or atheist or whatever but as someone who’s not really a direct believer in a religion or a particular God I always assume you’re gonna like statements that have to do with action yeah I don’t believe just thinking about [ _ ] helps very much or expecting someone else to get the work done that I need to do you know what I mean like I don’t just get to you know sit on my knees and and make a good wish to the you know guy in the sky that all of a sudden I’m gonna be a great person and they’re poof goes all my character defects like now just for me doesn’t work like that you know it takes effort and you know consistent work to try to get better at it I am just gonna patiently wait until July to hear you explain the humbly asking him to remove these I’m dying to hear it I can’t wait but yeah I do I do like the idea of you know we can all say we’re ready to go camping but what have we done to show that we’re ready right have we packed our camping gear have we learned how to put the tent up in the backyard first like or are we just saying I’m ready to go camping and sitting there you know on our butts in the on the couch alright moving over to Facebook I think oh so just to remind everybody if you haven’t been reminded enough already we do have a Facebook page for recovery sort of which Billy gave me the green light last week to you know go ahead and make it a meme page on a regular basis and so every day I’m posting memes which I don’t know I guess then I got to share the memes to the other groups in order for anybody to see them it’s a little tricky but I do think it’s the way to go but anyway if you want to go and like the page and then you get to see more of this [ _ ] and and more crazy memes if you’re not on the Instagram to see them already the one thing that got said on the page itself when we posted it Virginia said a book that could be helpful is called drop the rock written by people in recovery and I don’t know if you’ve heard of this but I know when I first got here this was like the go-to book that everybody made you read it was like when you hit step three you were forced to read conversations with God and then when you hit step six you had to read drop the rock that was like the go-to things too that everybody gave you in Baltimore and I I haven’t heard anybody talk about these books in like at least 13 years so I was kind of shocked when they got brought up I was like damn people still know what they are crazy yeah now I haven’t heard of that book I’ve heard definitely heard of the conversations with God but not the drop the rock interesting well maybe I’m wondering if at some point we become a book club podcast where we like read self-help books and then talk about the together well I would say is that book about crack that’s what I would think like dropped around you know it’s probably a dual meaning it was probably written by like former crack heads that you know I think it’s about you know how there’s like the I don’t even think that’s a Jesus teaching but some kind of teaching about you know every time you carry in a character defect you’re putting another rock in your backpack and eventually like the rock just forms and it’s this giant boulder that you’re carrying around and it’s like the relief with letting go of that and not having to carry it around anymore yeah and I don’t know where it came it’s one of the just for today daily meditations I mean I’m sure it came from somewhere else but that’s where I’ve heard that what you’re talking about I got yeah so I don’t know maybe at some point we’ll have to we’ll have like a guy I want to say we do like a show a month on a book but that’s a that’s a quick read of a book I don’t know if I mean and then you know we shared in our our favorite group our largest group at least but the group we definitely get the most reaction in so Caroline said she learned oh and so I guess to put this out there the question was what did you learn working step six like what was your big takeaway of your experience and that’s kind of how I ask people to try to get their their take on it and so Caroline said that she learned empathy and compassion for others and I kind of like tried to dig into that a little bit and you know what she got to was that she realized in step six that everybody has issues they’re struggling with and and I kind of think that’s important like I don’t know if we talked a lot about that last week but I do think through the process of me realizing that I had all these things going on excuse me it became easier to see that other people might look at situations differently than me because they have a whole host of other things going on right in the present and in the past and what I mean by that is like and I could go and witness the same thing you know happened in front of us a car accident right and it might affect you entirely differently based on whatever’s going on in your life today you might be stressed at work whereas I’m not or you might be you know going through a struggle with one of your kids and I’m not like it anything can affect that and I need to be more understanding and compassionate that other people are allowed to have their experience and their issues that they’re struggling with yeah and I don’t think I got that in six I was still really self-centered in six I was still it was about myself I think like for me my takeaway in six was similar but more about myself like I realized like you know I wasn’t just a summation of all my mistakes that you know the reason I like for the longest time I couldn’t figure out why I was the way I was I thought it was just a piece of [ _ ] and then I realized well you’re not a piece of [ _ ] you’re just shaped by this bad information or this bad you know these character defects you know that you can now do something about you can now begin to change them but I don’t think I wasn’t until probably eight and nine when it got into like making amends and and that stuff that I started to apply these principles more towards other people in the early you know it was all still about me how how long were you clean do you think when you worked your first six oh it was weird because I worked it twice so I worked up to like seven and then I went back I think to five and then worked through it again you know cuz as we change sponsors and there was some weird stuff going on around then with my previous sponsor and whatever probably the first time probably five or six years and then it wasn’t long before I got back on it so yeah probably between five and seven years between the it’s hard to remember exactly like the first time in the second time and because they were kind of close together and I took from each one individually I was just curious phase two I will not say mine was probably around that same time frame maybe a little before that or maybe a little after I can’t even remember at this point I was just wondering I was like man maybe he worked his like six and you know you’re like early after his first anniversary or something and maybe I was trying to figure out no I was just a self-centered person for a very long time concern for others like from this decade not well no I mean look I feel like I can identify with what Caroline’s saying like I was so caught up in everything that went wrong in my life was somebody else’s mistake that step six was like eye opening like oh [ _ ] I [ _ ] up too right so I was like I am maybe I gotta be easier on people when they [ _ ] up right that didn’t necessarily change a whole lot about the way I handled life but I did have the observation right like I still kind of a dick after that but I at least had that one glimpse of like oh damn maybe I need to not be so harsh to people yeah and I guess see I like for me personally like I felt like all I was was a [ _ ] and a mistake I mean when I looked at my life you know every it felt like and I used to use this analogy a lot like it felt like up until I found recovery every thing that came up in my life when you got to that fork in the road where it’s like you could go to the right to do good or you could go to the left and do bad like I always chose the wrong path you know what I mean I always went the wrong path even when I didn’t mean to even when it wasn’t you know conscious choice it’s like I just always made the worst decision it’s kind of how I felt about myself gotcha yeah I think I mean I don’t know that mine was too far off of that thing and I just had the opposite reaction it was the egomaniac with the inferiority complex it was like I assumed I was a huge [ __ ] but I was trying to cover that up by acting perfect so I we were probably feeling the same thing just had different reactions to it yeah hey and this is a perfect example of like that you know what we talked about with character defects cuz you know like similarly I felt that way but what I did was tried to like overachieve at everything not so that I could you know only to try to make myself feel as good as anyone else like I had to do something three times better than you to even feel equal to you you know what I mean like it was so it was that similar you know inferiority thing but just manifests in a different way that’s funny cuz I had such anxiety that I just didn’t try anything like if I wasn’t already great at it I wasn’t even trying like yeah he’s stupid oh you’re great at golf yes cuz golf stupid oh man let’s uh let’s pause here and here are our voices and then we’ll come right back and hit some more of these great comments you need a bathroom break or anything no I’m good okay I better better smart move right back okay
all righty all right I’m back and we will jump back into this right here yeah all set yep okay all right we’re back and we’ll continue on with these comments so Tricia said I learned that I have many many defects of character but I also have assets as well and I a question that I don’t know and I haven’t looked at our six step in in a while but I did question and I never got a response I wasn’t trying to offend her but I was just like I asked if that was in step six like I don’t remember writing about assets in step six is working guide it is in section on yeah writing about your assets I remember that being at the end of four but I didn’t feel like we it was addressed in six but I like I said I didn’t really remember it would make sense if it was you know who wants to dwell and just all the negative but I it caught me off guard I was like Dave I don’t remember that part maybe that’s because I hated myself and everything I did was wrong so
existed Bob said I wanted I wanted to jump out of the window when the 28th floor of the hotel I was in the question how did acting out on these defects affect others rekt me and I I could understand where he was going with this I mean I didn’t I don’t want to say I wanted to jump off a building because that sounds like I was really suicidal not to say that I wasn’t but I definitely felt pretty fucked-up about the fact that I had hurt so many people like when I sew okay when I got here it was easy to say oh man when I was all [ __ ] up on drugs I did a lot of harm to pee it was much harder in six to realize how much harm I had done went out the drugs to blame you know I was still here like it was easy to say the the drug use and what I did to people to get drugs well that was just my disease that wasn’t a moral deficiency but now that I’m clean and I’m still harmed quite a few people ooh like that stung and I didn’t want to face that and it hurt a lot to see it yeah I mean I definitely could see that I know for me that sense was almost again like relief because I felt like something must be wrong with me that it was just a bad person but when I could see it is oh you have these defects you’re making these bad choices because you have all this bad belief you’re not a terrible person you’re a misinformed person Europe you know what I mean you just through because I’m an intellectual person so I’m like oh so if I just teach myself if I just learn how to be better I can learn to be better you know whereas before just my impulse my nature was to act on these defects and just do terrible things you know and that’s I mean that’s brilliant I think if anything what to take out of this statement from Bob and and and the way I handled it and it didn’t go well is that it’s nice to remember in six that we are still struggling with the disease and not a moral deficiency right it’s nice to remember that even after we’ve gotten clean we are still struggling with trying to be better people in the myths of having this internal unrest right that continues to make us seek ways to please ourselves that unfortunately harm others and so we don’t we still don’t have to be vicious terrible animals we can just be people who struggle with the disease even clean yeah so I like that I’m glad we that got brought up I didn’t even think about that when he made the comment Rick says this step is of willingness willingness is the spiritual principle of step 6 spiritual direction yeah I get that it’s funny I don’t ever think of willingness as the step six spiritual principle but he was I don’t know he was big he was in a religion and we talked a little bit about that which I so as as interesting I love to hear the practical aspects from people who don’t believe in God like I love when you put that stuff out there but I’m actually also just as curious about people who got in recovery and and you know went back to or found a religion and a lot of strength and that I’m just as interested at has at how they work the steps and how that works for them differently because I don’t have that experience either I’m not like here in Baptist Church like working step six and figuring out how that could help me with it so I don’t know just curiosity it’s interesting to me but I don’t know do you think of willingness I know when we when we read the literature talked about willingness being pretty important I don’t think of willingness as a step six thing I know it is no for me I mean I think the willingness comes more in seven like I mean my head I think willingness comes more in seven right I have this this like list I went through the step working guide and in the step working guide in our program it shows like the top character defect the top spiritual principle like it’s got a section for each step called spiritual principles and then it’ll showing you the first one and so I made a list of the 12 steps and wrote down the first one for each one unless the first one had already been covered right and so I believe step two is willingness no three step three is willingness and so when I got to six even if it said willingness was first he’s left the meeting
I don’t know what happened what happened I hit the wrong button and jump myself out when I went to do something else sorry that’s right ah [ __ ] I don’t every what I was saying now accepted to do oh yeah I’m trying to piece this together so I wrote down the 12 steps and then I wrote down the first spiritual principle that was listed in the step working guide but the only time I did something different was if that spiritual principle had already been covered and so step three was willingness so even if step six the first spiritual principle was willingness that’s not the one I wrote I just skipped to the next one and wrote something different oh so I think perseverance maybe maybe that’s six perseverance and I don’t know something like that but yeah I guess willingness is there it’s just not what I think of I’m not thinking I guess you have to be willing to write your character defects and look at yourself yeah hey hold on one second I’ll tell you cuz I have a book right here I was like I know I have a step working guide somewhere right around here I can look in like three seconds okay okay so let’s look step six
and then I gotta find the page
yeah it says commitment and perseverance willingness faith and trust and self-acceptance yes so I had commitment and perseverance on mine because willingness had already been addressed so I didn’t want to write that again not the reason I did that I was using the numbers as when I saw them in day to day life to remind me of spiritual principles to think about it and live and I didn’t want to double up even though I could always use double willingness yeah yeah right but yeah that was his thing he was uh he was big on the the willingness aspect of it so then we come to Rachel who had a good point that I I don’t know how the hell we forgot it but just maybe that not so much that we forgot it we didn’t really put put it out there the way she did she said her biggest takeaway was when she’s not maintaining her spiritual condition and when she stops paying attention they come right back they’re just like the disease they’re never really gone just arrested and I don’t know that we specifically said that last weekend when she wrote it I was just like man how the how did we not say that that’s important right like this is not just I become entirely ready and never have to deal with these again now that doesn’t necessarily mean at least in my experience I’ve become entirely ready and some things have been removed and I had not found the need to do them again right kind of like the drugs that’s one of them but there’s been a couple others that for whatever reason I don’t have to do any more but for most of those she’s right like this is not uh it’s a daily reprieve it’s a you know what kind of work am I putting into making sure I’m not doing this because as soon as I stop consciously paying attention to what comes out of my mouth and the ways I treat people I can go right back into the mode of you know being a jerk by default and I don’t know why that is but it’s definitely that they’re arrested and not you know gone oh yeah for sure and I thought we did talk about this maybe not I have to go back and read listen but yeah for sure I mean for me personally like say I don’t you know these these defects are always present you know it’s almost like we talked about earlier like they’re always they’re always there as tools in my toolbox it just do I have other tools that are gonna be better and that’s you know again when I’m doing my tenth and eleventh step when I’m doing my daily maintenance you know to maintain my spirit I’m less likely to pull those old two tools and use you know some of the new stuff that I’ve learned so yeah that’s super important it’s almost like step six is another version of a step one to some extent it’s like we we talked about you know the disease is not the drug use the drug use is just a symptom of our disease and so you know I always equate that the best thing I’ve heard is if you have a cold you don’t say you don’t treat the runny nose right you treat the cold the runny nose is just a symptom of it and so the character defects to me are almost like an extension of one where it’s like I’m recognizing that oK we’ve we’ve established and got the runny nose out of the way and now we’re dealing with oh [ _ ] there’s a sore throat there’s [ _ ] up ears that aren’t drain and right or whatever like my temperature is high I got a rash on my leg like it’s all the other symptoms that go along with the disease yeah or I think I mean I think it’s more like the root cause so you know just to kind of go with your analogy like yeah I might have a runny nose and I can treat the runny nose but what’s causing that you know is the allergies like I haven’t I’ve allergies or I have the flu and you know I can treat the runny nose but until I deal with the flu that runny nose is going to keep coming back and that’s for me what I believe you know there’s defects of character or what leads me back again to use it you know that puts me in a place where I feel like such a piece of [ __ ] I feel like zero self-worth I feel like of whatever feeling I have that just leads me back the one to get high right right yeah no I mean that makes total sense Stephanie said she learned that some of her beautiful assets were being suffocated by her defects for example she’s super creative and loved art but she’s a control freak perfectionist and so she was opting to not create or to hate everything she created because it wasn’t as perfect as she wanted it to be and she said it was the same with her experiences with her children being a moms her favorite job in the world but when she was overwhelming herself trying to be everything perfectly like putting the kids in too many activities or trying to be the you know run the the parent-teacher organization and coached t-ball and whatever else she was doing she became exhausted and burnout and didn’t enjoy being a mom anymore and so a big part of her step six was understanding that she needed to come back down to a more humanistic role like the perfectionism is okay to an extent but the blown out of proportion way that we do it makes her life unmanageable and miserable all over again and so I don’t know I thought that was interesting that she realized that it was like not only were these defects blown out of proportion but it was ruining and and like kind of like the weeds choking out the pretty flowers in your garden right like it’s not only that they’re they’re making the garden unattractive because there is weeds but it’s also that the weeds were choking out the good stuff yeah and it’s interesting because they do talk about that in some of our literature that our character defects are overblown assets talks about that and the step working guide but I like the way that she puts it a little better because I don’t always know that it it words it in a way there that makes it seem like no these are these are these assets can be really positive things in your life if you can just reel them back a little bit they’re beautiful but you tend to take them too far you know or I tend to take them too far and and they become defects yeah it was a nice little you know story she gave for sure Francis said he learned that his judgmental thinking was keeping him from being compassionate sounds very similar to you know what Caroline was mentioning
Michael said that he was just as powerless over his defects as he was over drugs or alcohol was entirely ready to have God remove he learned character defects or demons his job was to get ready to have God remove him man sometimes like autocorrect it makes it really hard to figure out what the hell is going on here yeah so he was he was trying to say he had to do his part as well so if he wanted God to remove like lust he had to get rid of lustful things like you can’t keep your closet full of pornography collection if you’re trying to like you know it’s not a good idea to tempt ourselves with paraphernalia for drugs like it’s probably also not a good idea to you know keep your the ways you act on your character defects around if you’re truly trying to be rid of them all right yeah makes sense and then we actually had an interesting conversation he told a story about a farmer planted a field of good seed and then a jealous neighbor contaminated the field with bad seeds with weeds and they both started to blossom together and the farmhands asked what to do and the owner of the field said leave them grow together until harvest time then we’ll separate him will destroy the bed and keep the good and so I wasn’t I was kind of trying to figure that out a little I don’t know it reminded me kind of other throwing the baby out with the bathwater and say like you don’t you can’t get rid of the bed all the time without also throwing out the good like if you just said oh there’s some weeds in this garden [ _ ] it just burn it all like you lose all the good part of the crops too and so you kind of have to just deal I don’t know I don’t know where I was going with that really I was hoping you would take over it I could shut up yeah yeah I don’t quite get that story sounds to me like a Bible parable and I was trying to remember the Bible parable and I can’t remember what it is but anyway so I kind of got lost in that trying to remember I think that comes from the Bible yeah I think it does too it kind of made some sense I I do like the idea that we can’t we shouldn’t just throw ourselves away or choking ourselves up the failures just because there’s some bad parts I think we are trained as society and definitely as people like us we are trained to see only the bad parts of us and so we need these steps to kind of start to look at the fact that yeah there are these rough parts of ourselves but there’s also these good parts of ourselves and if we just if we just throw out all the rough parts we throw away all the good parts – like yeah and that’s not let’s this is why we work this program because we’re trying to nurture this good side of us that also exists that we weren’t even aware of and in doing that we can’t just throw ourselves away we need to like you know look at some of these negative parts and and try to fix them to the best of our ability and let the positive pieces shine through yeah and like these these a lot of our character defects you know they’re their coping mechanisms for life you know doesn’t mean they’re not good coping mechanisms but they’re still coping mechanisms and if that’s all we have you know and then we just try to stop doing them then you know we leave ourselves sort of defenseless and with nothing and like it takes some time to learn positive healthy you know better alternatives to what we know yes which brings us right into the next one Abdul Abdul Rashid said for me the stick the sixth step was acknowledging once I acknowledge them I had to put spiritual principles of trust and faith into practice most of all acceptance knowing that all my life I thought it was just the way I am only to find out in my higher power that I too can change and have grown in so many ways and I love that it’s just the idea I agree I thought and I think we did kind of talk about this a little bit just I thought I was just stuck that way like there was just nothing you could do you’re born with your personality and maybe your parents give you some of it but then you’re stuck and if you’re an [ _ ] oh you’re just an [ _ ] bad luck for you right maybe next life and so it was nice to realize that like hey now that I see this stuff there’s actually something that can be about it like I can try to do something new kind of like you said once you realize that there was the option to you know maybe apply a spiritual principle instead it was like a freeing kind of feeling yeah definitely and like say I knew like there was a part of me that knew like I wasn’t a bad person it wasn’t like I like to hurt people or like to calls all this harm that I was causing it just seemed to be the result you know of my actions and I couldn’t figure out how to stop you know like like so I’d say I felt powerless over you know reacting to life the way that I did because that’s all I knew and I didn’t know any other better ways so say we never had a six-step right say we did one two three you know we were powerless over our drugs or our alcohol or whatever we’re powerless over and you know maybe we can be restored to sanity and let me just try not to control the outcomes and fight life right I can’t he can let him whatever you want to say the first three I’m just trying to picture this for a normal person because I don’t feel like I don’t feel like the general everyday average person takes their inventory I don’t feel like they ever look at themselves and say hmm is it possible that something I do throughout the day is not the way I’d like to do it is it possible I’m being absolute [ _ ] at work during my regular day to day life is it possible that me imposing my views on people’s Facebook comments are just it’s just really shitty of me to do that right like is it possible I’m not allowing others to have their opinions and me to have mine I don’t do people I don’t think people take this kind of inventory of themselves and so I’m picturing like without without us doing a six like do we ever even realize that something isn’t quite right with us do we ever realize that at all so I like to think I mean and this gets outside of this is not a twelve-step maybe or rappers of Narcotics Anonymous you this is my view but I tend to think it’s it’s that six step and those character defects that lead us to be addicts in the first place you know you got to be a pretty [ _ ] up person and you got a print think pretty low of yourself to go back time and time again to using drugs and killing yourself you know what I mean like healthy people don’t make those choices healthy people recognize like oh [ _ ] this is having tremendously devastating effects in my life this is causing me to do a bunch of [ _ ] that I don’t like it’s causing me to steal from people I love I better stop you know and then they stop and I think that’s what separates someone who’s an addict from someone who’s not an addict like a normal you know let’s say a normal non attak person goes off to college and they get into college and they start you know it’s their first they start drinking a lot and carrying on and then they missed some classes at school maybe cheat on a girlfriend they really love and then they go well [ _ ] this isn’t working out I’m gonna knock this [ _ ] off and get serious this is wrecking my whole path that I had going for me and they just fixed that [ _ ] you know what I mean like where is weird like we’ll ride that [ _ ] kill the rails fall off you’re like that can’t be it like for me personally I think I felt so low and like such a piece of [ _ ] about myself because of my character defects that using was the only place that I found relief you know using was the only time that I didn’t I wasn’t left feeling like a piece of [ _ ] you know as long as I was high and as long as I was you know out under the influence of some kind of drugs I didn’t have to feel all those defects I didn’t have to face the consequences of all those bad choices so that’s why I think if you don’t get into doing like a fifth six you know 7th step if you don’t really get into dealing with those defects you’re [ _ ] doomed to use again you know it’s like that’s the only if you’re stuck living in all your bad thinking hmm now see I wouldn’t I mean I don’t disagree with that I just remember like and and I want to talk from my experience but really I want to talk from yours because I’m trying to convince you just say something else but I remember you talking about like dealing with your co-workers and I mean I know on plenty of jobs I’ve been that I worked with [ _ ] and I mean look in general do I believe any singular person is a true [ _ ] no I think we all come with our you know childhood traumas and they turn us into people who react in negative ways to other people or don’t consider other people right but for general use yeah I’ve worked with [ _ ] and they’re not overly concerned about taking their inventory or being better people they’re very happy being who they are and being grumpy and being shitty with you and look are they miserable at the end of their day quite possibly but that doesn’t mean they’re drug addicts or alcoholics and I just don’t ever see these people having I don’t see normal people I almost feel like I’m blessed to have a drug issue because then it has led me to seek out further bettering of myself whereas I feel like a lot of general people in the society don’t ever even think to look at themselves they just walk around all day being an [ _ ] and assuming they’re right and everybody else is wrong well I would definitely say I think there are a lot of spiritually unhealthy people I guess in in my example I’m trying to relate it towards maybe healthier people that have healthy coping skills and that are living like a life that they’d say like they were happy about and that they generally like themselves and like the world and have a positive you know view of life itself I so I don’t attribute that to normal all what I would call non addicts is really like there’s a lot of people out there that are non addicts that are still [ _ ] miserable and they hate life and you know their problem is just for whatever reason they haven’t found drugs yet if they found drugs they probably wrecked their life with them too but and I think you’re more optimistic than I am for sure would you say there’s more of the healthy variety of people or more of the the [ _ ] ish unhappy type of people in the world that you encounter um that sounds like for the tape yeah I would I would say that in general people don’t want to be miserable unhappy people there are a lot of them but I don’t think they want to be that way I think they just they’re sort of stuck in their own bad thinking and own misinformation you know what I mean they’re stuck being sold the bill of goods that society tells us like oh go out and get the job and make the money and buy the house and get more stuff and then you’ll be happy you know and and you know make sure you got the right shoes in the right [ _ ] car and you know if you keep up with this trend in that trend then you’ll have lots of friends and things will be good and I think a lot of people fall into that trap so they’re not happy and they can’t figure out why but I don’t think that’s because they’re bad people or because they have you know bad intentions okay so yeah going going with that I would absolutely 1000% even though it’s not a real thing but I 1000% agree with you because I yeah I don’t believe anybody personally I really don’t yet believe that anybody is a bad person I think we’re all products of like you said society the environment the nature the nurture a little bit of all that and you know that forces us into some reactions that don’t work out well for us but we don’t know how to quite change even when they’re not working out right that’s just I don’t I just don’t feel like normal people normal court unquote people get the opportunity that we get to really look at themselves as often I think it’s easier for the normal person to say it must be everybody else whereas we’re kind of in a place or a program where if we have a network in a sponsor while we’re running around saying it’s everybody else they’re gonna you know we’re gonna believe them and trust them when they say maybe the problem is you yeah right thank agree I mean I think I definitely think a lot of people could benefit from some self-reflection and some you know honest so appraisal of their life I would say the difference for addicts is that without the help of a Power greater than ourselves we’re not capable with that whereas I think maybe some normal people if they would were just you know and again normal what the hell is that mean but some non addicts might be able to sit down if if they were to take the time and do a little bit of meditation and self reflection they could probably pick out some of the errors in their life pretty easily mom but that could be a naive assessment I’ve never done counselling or therapy with normal people so I don’t know yeah I don’t know it’s a it’s a skewed view when you’re doing therapy with people because you’re you’re not meeting you’re not meeting what we would quote-unquote say the normal person right you’re meeting people who want to do something about their problem which is in everybody so you’re only meeting a very subsidized you know piece of the population yes but that’s why partisan politics and [ _ ] work so well nowadays it’s like you get to pick a team and you get to be right make it to be [ _ ] and wrong and you know what I mean like that’s why all that stuff sells so well right that’s crazy yeah Cheryl says that she learned in her step six that she’s no better than anyone else they’re arrested and not gone and she can revert back at any time if not vigilant which is very much in line with what I loved about Rachael’s statement you know that this is just we’re not better than anybody no matter well I don’t know I I don’t when I’m in a good place I’m not better than anybody else right I’m not gonna sit here and act like I don’t think it from time to time but I generally I’m offended when people do think that other people are less than you know we talked a little bit before we got on here about some of the views of people in our county have about drug addicts or things like that about those people being less than I I stand up for people who you know have sex offenses just because I think it’s [ _ ] shitty that we think they’re terrible people I don’t believe that I don’t believe they’re less than people they’re sick people that have done some awful things I’m not trying to take away from it but I generally get the opinion that society as a whole is mostly on board with [ _ ] them dudes right [ _ ] them pedophile dudes they’re their [ _ ] and I just have a hard time believing I’m better than them I know that’s uh I’m gonna get very disagreed with and I know I’m gonna he’ll you know I don’t have the high ground on this argument that’s for sure yeah what’s interesting I mean that’s you saying it that way is very eye-opening to me just from the conversation we had earlier because again I know there’s a large constituency of people here definitely in Cecil County that feel like you know this you know we’ll talk about in our literature like the tired old lie like once an addict always an addict you know like they feel like that’s the truth and that addicts are worthless pieces of [ _ ] and the world will be off better without them and sure a few of them might get better but for the most part you know they just dragged everyone else down they make everything worse they steal they lie they cheat and [ _ ] them you know that would be and if you go on and read enough Facebook comments you’ll see some people outright say that stuff you know what I mean one of the comments what we do with you know drug addicts in our county right now was you know 20 bullets or 25 cents you know that’s that’s gonna be the new Cecil County drug policy you know and people feel that way about annex –an to me of course that’s offensive and you know like wait a minute you know now I know plenty of people that are good people that have done some wrong in their life but now they’re assets to the community and blah blah blah I would generally not say that about what I would consider to be sex offender like pedophiles and stuff I’ll be like oh they’re sick for life there’s no fixing them [ _ ] them you know we’re better off locking them up or killing them like I would say all the same things just change the change the issue and I would say that about the other group yeah bullets 25 cents yeah so that’s pretty eye-opening actually did you say it that way I mean coming from your experience if that was my experience I can’t say that I would hold this thoughts right I don’t know that I just I definitely get bothered because for anybody who doesn’t know I have a criminal record right it’s not for sex offenses in any way shape or form thank God but it does include some felonies and excuse me part of my issue is that these kind of crimes even though they’re not particularly devious per se they just fall under the code of being a felony as opposed to a misdemeanor they stick with you and like my understanding of our judicial system was always that once you had completed your sentence whatever that may be that you were even right like you paid your debt to society which meant you were even again and when these things stay with you and job applications for the rest of your life that doesn’t feel very even and so I look at people who have sex offenses and how they are now on a [ _ ] registry online and permanently tainted for life right like I remember trying to move into a specific housing complex near around Baltimore and I was turned down because of my criminal record and I’m like are you [ _ ] kidding me like I can’t live here and so I’m just looking at like what people must go through who have their sex offense on an online registry where they can live who they can be around I think the entire thing is a joke personally because we’re gonna sit here and worry about the sex offender who already paid his debt to society which theoretically is enough to deter him from doing his crime again as opposed to the other six sex offenders in the neighborhood that haven’t been caught yet we’re not going to be concerned with them okay let’s focus on Brett we have people who’ve already done the time that should have deterred them right so it’s just it all seems wack to me man and I hope there were people’s lives for the rest of their life and it’s like when are you ever free when do you ever break that mold yeah and it’s fascinating because I as the more I think about this I’m like wow that is so true like I have never done I’ve done zero research to see you know what the recidivism rate is of pedophiles – no you know if there’s some forms of treatment out there or not or what the likelihood that they’ll repeat it you know what I mean like I’ve done no research and I’m it could go one way or the other I would almost bet if you did the research on addicts it is pretty [ _ ] bleak you know what I mean like the the statistics that you would look at are pretty bleak but I would still defend the Attic you know because I know personally know so many of them you know and I’ve seen so many people who you know like myself we’re criminals bad people that have now become really good people and really assets to their community you know I’m like well we can’t you know almost like we talked about earlier you can’t throw out the baby with the bathwater like you there’s some good people in here that can be you know fixed saved whatever but yet in that category in this in a sex offender category there is no forgiveness it’s no chrome all out all of them baby bathwater a whole [ _ ] lot of them in the criminal justice unit in New York there’s a special division for heinous products doesn’t done who knew this was gonna be the sex addict version of our podcast that’s great uh anyway moving on let’s let’s get away from the sex for a second that’s the first time I’ll ever say that Patrick says his defects were in the way of becoming a better human being they separated him from God and from other people he started realizing later on how much of him that he wasn’t turning over to the care of his higher power and I guess that’s maybe in six realizing that like okay and three I turned over a lot of meat to my higher power you know over to the care of him but how much of that is not true and I guess trying to come from a standpoint from where I am of you know believing in some universal power I kind of get that right like hey I’m turning over a lot of the parts of my life that I don’t want to have to fight anymore and yet here I am in six and I’m realizing I’m still using all these manipulative character defects to try to make you all like me like why can’t I just turn over the fact that you’ll like me right like why can’t I just a trust that some people will like me in some won’t and I got a manipulate to try to make all of you like me right yeah well that’s just I mean that’s the that’s the bad thinking that we need to fix I mean for me you know everyone needed like I felt so low or so worth less that everyone needed to like me you know what I mean like if one person didn’t like me that just reaffirmed everything that I thought about myself already but if everybody liked me then I must be okay you know and and that was the broken thinking it was that you know it doesn’t matter what I do some people aren’t gonna like me even if I don’t ever make any mistakes in their life they might not like my [ _ ] hair they might not like that I wore some certain color shirt on some certain day you know who knows what you know that’s it’s understanding that I am you know I am Who I am and some people were gonna like me and some people aren’t and I just need to be okay with that hmm yes it is completely okay if you were listening that you don’t like me but I’ll tell you right now if you tell me you’ll probably still hurt my feelings oh yeah I mean just Noemi doesn’t mean my feelings won’t be hurt it just means I don’t so what I would do in the past was change who I was and present myself in a different way to try to get you to like me oh you don’t like that about me you don’t like that I wear that shirt we’ll [ _ ] I’ll never wear that shirt again I’ll get rid of that even if I like it you know I’ll get rid of it oh you know in this group with these people we need to like this kind of music okay I like that kind of music now that’s what I like now that’s what I’m into because that’s what these guys like and you know I want their approval instead of saying no that means a [ _ ] man I don’t you know like I don’t like that I like this over here no I totally get it I remember elementary school third grade so I guess we’re talking like 1988-89 I got in a class picture my face tshirt the Baltimore Orioles shirt but it was it was a pink shirt right and this was like before that craze of having team apparel that wasn’t the right color of the team and so I don’t know back then it was still you know if you had a penis apparently you couldn’t wear pink it was only born by vaginas I guess yeah and so I called a lot of flack for liking that shirt and I think eventually probably stopped wearing it because I didn’t like getting picked on and I wanted to be liked by these people you know and then come to find out I was just a [ _ ] hipster because like eight years later that was what everybody did was wore pink [ __ ] had their team won it was like you pastors but now I agree I there could be you know a hundred people in a room and 99 of them love me and I just completely ignore that and focused on the one person who doesn’t because I need every last person to like me it’s just not enough if not the next comment was Jennifer that said she learned all her defects of character come from reactions to the past resentment present anger and future fear triangle of self obsession which she is powerless over she can practice the spiritual opposites acceptance love and faith and stay in position for God to remove her shortcomings and that was a interesting I didn’t I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anybody say anything about the triangle of self obsession in six I guess it makes sense for sure I just I’ve never really liked I loved the the pamphlet the triangle of self obsession it blew my mind when I read it and still can but I didn’t realize that all the defects come from reactions to that but I I’d be hard-pressed to argue that yeah and I mean I remember my first sponsor telling me you know that all of our defects come from self centered fear you know that that all of our defects come from a fear of something and you know if we figure out what that and it’s all self centered fears and if we can get to the root of that you know that will help sort of work through some of those defects I think that’s what you know where she ties him with the triangle self-obsession I think that’s a similar idea yes oh and to follow that up the last comment here is James who says he learned he only has one true defect he’s completely self-centered all the other things I see is defects and shortcomings are just manifestations of my all-encompassing self-centeredness which is very much in line with what you must have got sponsored by that same guy
and so yeah I guess I kind of sort of believe a similar thing you know all the defects come from some kind of fear that’s a very Buddhist belief it’s weird ye always hear the 12 steps come from a you know Christianity based program but that’s very Buddhist to think that basically we’re ultimately at the core of everything we’re scared of dying right we’re scared of accepting the fact that death is part of life now we look at it as an ending instead of just another piece of it right and so it’s very zen to just become comfortable in the fact that death is as much a part of life as birth and we should be just as easy to you know exist with all of that and blah blah blah blah I got I don’t understand completely all of it I think in just in you know our society today I mean we’re sort of you know we aren’t really taught to embrace or to you know accept like discomfort or uncomfortable feelings or pain you know any of those things we are taught to like avoid and overcome and conquer you know what I mean and like cancer we’re gonna kick its ass you know and and we just whereas in I think more you know Western ideology it’s it’s about embracing those things like yes pain is a part of life suffering is a part of life I mean I know for me I was raised you know I have a overwhelming fear of like failing at something and almost like you talked about earlier like there’s a lot of things I won’t even try or I won’t even have the courage to step out and do because I’m worried I might not be good enough at it you know and and I think that’s common in our society his attics were super sensitive to it but that live in that way holds us back from so many things you know it really keeps us back from embracing the fullness of life and you know the reason we have fear is because no one wants to feel bad feelings no one wants to be hurt or feel sad or you know be disappointed so we just get in a mode of we’re you know reacting to life is is trying to avoid those things like the plague ya know I think you’re absolutely right I do want to clarify before I respond to that that when I say bla bla bla I don’t mean to offend anyone with Buddhist beliefs I’m very into Eastern philosophy I just say bla bla bla as in there’s a whole lot more after that and I’m not going to continue quoting it it’s kind of like a dot dot dot so that was all I meant it wasn’t to be offensive as if it was all Charlie Brown speak I I truly believed in a lot of it it’s great but I think it talks to you know speaks to what Billy was saying exactly which is that we’re we don’t face these things we don’t embrace sadness as part of life we don’t embrace pain or discomfort as part of life and I think we limit our existence really when we do that like yeah are we limiting our pain sure probably we’re probably distracting ourselves with enough Netflix and you know smartphone games and and text messages to not feel it hurt as much but I think the level to which we halt our hurt the you know the needle can’t go further than that the other direction either and so if we’ve never had any deep pain we’ve probably also never experienced any really deep fulfilling joy either I think the the more we limit ourselves in one direction we really cap our ability to go up to and that all of it as awful as it [ _ ] sounds and don’t ever ask me this when I’m in the middle of pain but the truth is that all of it is part of our rich life experience man and when we experience it it feels full right it doesn’t feel empty any yeah and I think you know early on I remember learning in recovery that you know life isn’t always about you know feeling like great wonderful you know overwhelming joy all the time like that’s what I thought life was supposed to be like it was only good if I was at the extreme of happy all the time you know at any forms of like state discomfort or pain or failure or any of that stuff was just the worst you know it was like as bad as death and you know and you know in recovery I remember learning like no life is like the ups and the downs and and some of those struggles like that’s a part of the process of being alive and you’re not gonna feel great all the time you know so you know you learn a couple things in that one is when you’re having those good times man you really learn to appreciate them you know you really learn to not take them for granted and not just expect that’s the way it’s supposed to be I have a nurse friend Bobby loved her dearly she has the you know the the EKG where it goes up and down and and the beeps and all it’s the you know do you always see it in every Hollywood medical show because people flatline and it just has that long beep and that means there did and she’s got that tattooed on her and told her that a nurse when she was bitching about the ups and downs and when does it ever like steady out another nurse friend of hers that she respected kind of explained to her that like that’s that flatline is death like you need life to be up and down just like the EKG monitor because that’s how it goes and when it stops going up and down you die and I just always thought that was kind of an interesting take on that yeah that’s pretty cool we did have one more thought about step six at least I’m gonna try to read this and not read the whole thing and sum it up a little code it’s like four paragraphs our buddy Stephanie on Instagram had sent us a message and she loved she loved the step six podcast she said thank Billy for his take the ready entirely ready to have spiritual principles replace my character FEX yeah I definitely think that should be the name of step six from now but she said she could totally get down with that and she said it puts the work and accountability where it should be on her when she went through six and seven she read the Supplemental books she was another person who mentioned dropped the rock and another book called the ripple effect which I had never heard of I might have to look into that at some point she said in there they had a list of defects with the spiritual principle to apply along with it and she said hearing it again it looked she was thinking about having to read through those books again she could identify was seeking validation outside of a relationship first started going to meetings you know liking the attention the people gave her but realizing that she felt like she should know better but that you know just a whole lot of stuff in there but I really appreciate her reaching out it was an interesting conversation I’m glad we were able to to talk some helpful things and I just again kind of like when she reaches out when you know what I was telling you about Matt earlier from Twitter like when people really feel benefited by this it just I don’t know it’s it does something to me because I don’t I guess I don’t expect maybe I still think less of myself and don’t expect anybody to get anything out of this but I’m just like damn and like I feel like I get so much out of this and I’m glad that our conversation is inspiring others to have conversations and talk more about this and get more out of it too yeah and this is probably going to be the you’ll get me to talk about some god stuff here so I don’t get that take credit for you know most of what I say because it comes from you know if I was going to use the word god it comes from the God in the universe it’s like information that’s been shared or freely given to me or stuff that’s been passed on to me that I’m picked up through you know conversations with other people in recovery or conversations with other spiritual principles and now you know I can just share that with others you know I’m humbled to that you know people listen and that they get something out of it that they make comments I mean it really is it really is amazing and I think a process of recovery you know can help so many people even a lot of them are people that are sick and loss you know they do need to do some of these steps they probably get some benefit out of it as we all I’m sure and when I first got clean like man everybody should work steps like this would make everyone’s lives better yeah yeah I would they say when I got here they were saying they need to make [ _ ] Anonymous and fill stadiums with it I could probably still go I probably still qualify oh goodness but ya know I think we’ve covered I don’t know I guess we’ll call this [ _ ] step six take two or something I hear a low up yeah so much good information and I really appreciate everybody having such good information and and maybe put your earthling friends on to the podcast so they can listen and not be [ _ ] anymore yeah good luck with that but yeah so I think I have exhausted what I have to say today maybe we’ll keep it a little shorter than usual people would probably be excited about that yeah definitely it’s dinner time now so we get to go make dinner my use of doing this in the evening so usually I got to go do grass mowed grass or something I know I’m a little weird too and I think they already ate and I’m gonna be mad if they had cheese steaks and I didn’t get mine until it’s cold but but now this is great and we’re looking forward to having Matt on next week so hopefully no nothing happens where that falls through that’ll be exciting to ask him a bunch of [ __ ] ton of questions about his pathway of recovery and learn more about something new that we don’t know much about and yeah this long let me just add in with Matt he is also an advocate of medical marijuana and medical cannabis stuff so if anyone has any questions or whatever about that stuff he’s very knowledgeable about that as well so yes yes yes so give us all your questions and we’ll put this out there and we hope to see you in our you know discussions online so find us on Facebook Instagram Twitter link up with us tell us all your comments so we can you know learn from you as well and we’ll see y’all soon
not bad yeah that was a lot of good comments on there yeah yeah I was I was really impressed man everybody had something to say and then it was like I just criticized people for not having [ _ ] to say after the fifth step and I was like saying none of them worked step 5 I guess maybe just Step five there ain’t [ _ ] to say about it yeah they just feel like how you say it all to your sponsor really just go confess your [ _ ] sins alright I’m gonna is that not working there they are now last week only one of them was working I’m like wait a minute these are both working again it’s going good so I’m gonna I’m gonna try to figure out how to [ _ ] we record this thing on video in person I’m thinking maybe we just try to record it on one like video on the laptop and then we can convert that to the sound we need for the audio I don’t know I’m gonna play around and try to figure that out this week and see how hard it is yeah then we’ll interview him next week and and then we’ll get back to [ __ ] in-person I guess yeah sounds good I’m ready awesome so at the other place are over at the new center we can do if you have a preference not really I mean if they don’t have nothing going on there is there a nice I feel like their basement might actually be better for recording because it seems quieter I don’t know why yeah and they have that one little small room which I don’t know if the smaller room would be better or the bigger room would be better but either one I’m actually not sure either yeah yeah yeah oh I have to figure that out where we want to go yeah I’m down with whatever we can try either ones equally close for me I guess I just thought that one might be a little bit closer for you but yeah it is slightly maybe five eight minutes all right well we’ll figure that out and uh I guess enjoy your dinner maybe we’ll try to catch up this week or something yeah sounds good let me know when you’re ready to start going to meeting some bona fide meetings everything may be coming though they’re talking about the second wave good I mean the numbers are going up and a whole lot of places yeah we’ll see yeah all right man I’ll let you guys dinner I’ll talk to you soon I’ll talk to ya