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.
In this episode we talk about how the current quarantine is affecting our recoveries, and by proxy, our lives. Are we finding more time to put into our recovery efforts, disconnection from humanity, or something in between? We also answer some questions a non-12 step member has about 12 step programs and recap last week’s episode. Join the conversation by leaving a message, emailing us at RecoverySortOf@gmail.com, find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RecoverySortOf or Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/recovery_sort_of/.
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4/26/20 In this episode we talk about how the current quarantine is affecting our recoveries, and by proxy, our lives. Are we finding more time to put into our recovery efforts, disconnection from humanity, or something in between? We also answer some questions a non-12 step member has about 12 step programs and recap last week’s episode.
Transcript:
no rhyme or reason no
hey what’s that everything Oh trying to get up and get moving for the day I spent all day yesterday working on my bathroom and now body’s all sore guard why’d you work that’s crazy I know well now all five of us are trying to use one bathroom and it’s annoying yeah that’s that’s not a good thing and on top of that the kids got a trek through our bathroom so that’s even worse I when I first got into the plumbing and steam fitting Union a buddy and the that was a plumber and knew what he was doing and me helped fix my mom’s bathroom but she only had one bathroom in her house and so we were doing like a total redesign and we were just doing it in the evenings and so she kind of went like four days without a bathroom altogether I mean I think the toilet worked but she had to go like next door to shower for a couple of times yeah sure that’s rough yeah that’s what this is this was like a complete gut it all the way down to the rafters I mean it wasn’t intended to be that in the beginning but as I got into it it’s an old house you know I mean so everything’s fun it’s like layers layers of flooring and layers on layers of wall and I’m like I can’t just put more layers on top you know we’re gonna look right it’s not gonna come out even so it’s like it literally ripped it all down end up with this really skinny bathroom right you’ve done lost four inches on each wall cause it’s weird [ _ ] it’s kind it’s it’s mildly fun if it wouldn’t be so physically exhausting which the part that sucks it’s up and down steps and then like all the [ _ ] I had to take out was all old plaster walls and then it was old plaster walls with layers of tile on top of it so it’s heavy [ _ ] it’s up and down the steps you know just that [ _ ] is like it sucks hopefully you had masks ready for that yeah well now at least I’m to the rebuilding now I just started putting the subfloor back in then I’ll put the walls up so the rebuilding is better you don’t make your kids help with like carrying out trash and stuff like that and I haven’t no I just do it myself you know it’s easier I mean I say easier it’s just less it just gets done the way I wanted to get done so all right that’s impressive yeah no couldn’t say I doing the same I would definitely have my kid scary and that’s it once I said the djinn yesterday I said I think I should make them come in and like learn how to do some of this [ _ ] it’s like plumbing carpentry cuz now I got it all down I’m like so all the plumbing in there is a hundred years old you know its original so it’s like [ _ ] it might as well run all new water lines might as well run new drain back to the mean you know so I it just ended up being that might as well run new electric we want to add an outlet over here so let’s add an outlet over here so it’s [ _ ] you know it’s kind of fun though I try to like at least grab one of my kids one of the older ones each time that I’m doing some tasks and maybe they don’t really see me doing it completely or watch that intently but I feel like just having them around there they’re getting more comfortable with the idea of like holding a tool and helping out and like that it’s not that bad or not that it’s not overwhelming to take on I guess that’s what I’m hoping to give them at least when I do I get Billy whatever I’m using fun tools and let him mess around with fun tools or breaking [ _ ] he likes to do that how’s your week uh pretty uneventful pretty uneventful I listened to the step 4 podcast earlier this week cuz where did we drive Oh Kim and I drove to pick up masks from somebody we had got masks from somebody I was a bit of a drive so we listened to the step four episode and it was a the audio was awful it’s yeah it’s bad and then it got me all sad about the podcast and and then finally we had to do another Drive Friday she went down to her school to pick up some stuff and we listen to whatever came after that what was that the other promotion one or whatever and the audio was way better but I was still I don’t know I’m just been kinda it’s like man place about listening to us and I’m like damn that’s not good it’s funny me too so I it might have been the promotion so I think which one I’m listening to now and I came home I told Jan I’m like I am depressed about listening to myself like I don’t the way that I come off I don’t it just it feels weird so like today even I was like alright I’m gonna go back to meditating before the podcast so it was like only decided that like 15 minutes before the podcast so I’m like art I can get in a 10-minute minutes so I was like because I thought I don’t know when I listen back I’m like I don’t understand what I was thinking like I don’t but I’m listening to it not in the middle of the conversation I have different thoughts it’s weird so yeah I’ve had that experience and I’ve also had the experience where I’m listening and you made a really good point the other in one of them I think it was the promotion one and I was so intent I guess in the moment of like keeping us on script and everything that I’ve totally [ _ ] missed it and I heard it when I was listening to it I was like I want to respond to that now it’s a good point yeah it’s weird so I saw the same thing I thought man you know I guess we just need to get back to normal I’m ready to be back to normal what is I don’t know if it’s that I was like and part and that’s partly why I texted you and said I don’t want a topic I was like is it just like – like detailed of a topic or – focused of a topic and it’s got a saint I don’t know yeah I was sad about it it’s like yeah it sucks so I don’t know I just keep doing it everybody’s audio sounds like [ _ ] though I would listen to all kinds you know I listen to the wounded well Joe Rogan’s podcast and he’s got people on there [ _ ] breaking up there in the thing and you know cuz they’re doing remote stuff and people with bad connections right he’s still doing live he still having people out in his studio and [ _ ] like there’s a lot of people that don’t seem to care no not anymore you care for about what two weeks yeah it’s just novel for two weeks and then I think like this my niece had a birthday party across the street you know she had a birthday party for her daughter who’s turning 4 or 5 Wow my kids went over there was like six or seven kids they’re you know they’re no more I’m trying to stick with it I think part of the problem with people we do it when it’s fun it’s fun it’s new it’s a unique experience and then when it impedes on what we really want we don’t want to do it anymore and I’m trying to I guess I don’t know somebody told me before patience is actually like defined as long-suffering so I kind of feel like I’m supposed to be it a little bit of suffering and not doing what I want not just this doesn’t feel good so I’ll stop and I guess so now my thinking is okay so what are we social distancing for like at this point like if it all you hear about on the news is alright we got all these you know I guess they got more beds and they even originally plan these emergency beds umm I know at least around here like the hospitals are not overwhelmed were not overrun with cases the system isn’t breaking down or taxed to any major extreme well and when you say that where are you hearing the information so my boss Jimmy went to two different hospitals recently and both of them he said when he went in there was like nobody there one he went to the emergency room over and Elkton this was what would have been maybe a week ago let’s see monday was maybe a week or so ago he went into the emergency room at Elkton and he went to the door there’s a guard there at the door and he said look you know I hate to come here but I don’t know what else to do he was having horrible back pains he’s like I can’t even barely walk I called my regular doctor who isn’t taking appointments and they said if you’re that bad you have to go to the emergency room so that’s what he did so he’s like I don’t even know if I should be here you know I know I feel like an [ _ ] even coming here but I don’t know what else to do and the guy he said you know are they busy or they the guys like no come on in so he went in the emergency room and he said there was nobody not one other person in the whole emergency room and the doctors and [ _ ] are just standing around doing nothing so then he had to get an MRI and he went right down to the MRI place he said was the fastest hospital visit he’s ever been he was in and out of there in like an hour and he said there was [ _ ] they didn’t see one other patient in the whole place so then he went through all that got his MRI and all that stuff then a week later he went back to christiana because he had to get a procedure on his back where they do shot some kind of nut core with some similar shots and he said when he went into Christiana exact same he’s like I went in you see nobody around there’s no there’s not like all this giant you know rush of emergency or nothing else he’s like the place is like [ _ ] half empty so so that was his two experiences at two different hospitals so see I said the same question that you just said the other day cuz I was like I feel like we we are worried was that we’re gonna run out of resources to help these people and it would be overwhelmed and I haven’t seen that happen even in New York I haven’t really heard much of that happening and one of our friends is a nurse and she talks about how overwhelmed they really are behind the scenes like Heather there and I don’t know and that’s why I’m like I just don’t understand it because my I I you know I hear this description of like the front end of it but then I hear that in the back end that I’m like well what the [ _ ] man where’s she what hospitals yet you know I do not all more is it up this way no it’s she lives in I want to say she’s in Hartford County at a hospital because she lives like at the upper edge of Harford County right before you cross over yeah and I wonder there’s a guy that’s in my home group that’s a nurse too and he works it open I should ask him yeah just it’s cuz I’ve been having the same kind of thoughts like and I hate to be a conspiracy theorist or any of that but I just I keep hearing how overwhelming this is and yet I don’t see that I just see the number counts right and that’s pretty overwhelming yeah and I guess my big thing is okay are we now at this point are we just saying well we’re just gonna social distance until this is over cuz I don’t know that it’s gonna be over okay you know are we just this just this is what we do now and now they’re talking about oh and fall when regular flu season comes back in you know we’re gonna have kovat in the flu and it’s like okay so now we’re talking about September on we’re gonna still be doing this in [ _ ] October are you serious like you know what are we trying to what do we you know I don’t understand at this point I’m really baffled by a lot of it man because I just don’t understand yeah like you said I really don’t know like what and it doesn’t seem like okay so somebody I know from from our program got it like a month ago and they had a really rough like week and a half period where they weren’t really sure they were gonna live and then they posted back on Facebook oh my God thank God I made it through that I was really unsure I would live through that blabbity blah and then they were fine for like three weeks and now they’re back in the hospital pretty much getting ready to die and I don’t understand like that’s not my understanding of how this works I thought you went through it and then that was it yeah or I’ve heard like I’ve heard it’ll get bad then you’ll feel like you’re getting better for a couple days but I hadn’t heard weeks you know yeah this was definitely no thanks fine now that’s crazy I know and so I’m like what the hell do we really know about this maybe we should oh yeah maybe we don’t know maybe that’s the problem I’ll show you that I would feel better if they said look we don’t have a [ _ ] clue instead that the president telling you to drink bleach bleach and stand a Sun your insides gotta be in the Sun bleach your insides might end up in the Sun yeah we gotta get you on the inside it’s like grease yeah but I would feel better about that if they just said hey we don’t really know we’re [ _ ] just trying to just hold off until we figure somebody’s [ _ ] out we have no idea what we’re talking about well look man I not that I completely I don’t think governments a total fuck-up but you know maybe they got it wrong right but I go by stuff like Disney World there is no goddamn way Disney World would have its doors closed to all that goddamn money they’re missing out on and and talk about being stay in that way until 2021 which is what they’re talking about right now unless this was something serious and so to me I say if Disneyworld is passing on all this cash flow coming in then something is going on out there that is very and so maybe weak maybe it really is maybe they don’t want to tell everybody like hey we have no [ _ ] clue this is just killing people and we don’t know what the [ _ ] to do about it maybe that’s the reason they don’t want to SEC it and that’s why hey just stay the [ _ ] home it’s safer well and I guess still like I keep watching yeah for me my [ _ ] whatever canary in the coal mine has been Sweden whoo they didn’t do like their lockdown all the businesses and legal quarantine or whatever they just said they presented all the stuff and they’re doing a lot of the same like their governments just making these suggestions like they’re like look you know we think we should be doing this social distancing we think people should we Baron masks you know those kind of things and they’re doing a few things but like they didn’t shut down schools they haven’t shut down all their businesses you can still go out to restaurants and eat and you know do all that stuff now it’s Sweden so I know they said like as a country they generally are better at following directions of their government like they trust their government a little more so they do listen to them a little more and try to take what they say seriously so they are implementing a lot of this stuff on their own without being forced but they haven’t shut down businesses and all kind you see you know there’s people out on the streets and you’ll see restaurants and there’s people sitting at these outside restaurants and [ _ ] and they’re not dropping like flies you know they’re not [ _ ] dying everywhere in the streets I mean I don’t I don’t know I don’t know well they’re not going to go to war with Kova they’ve never gone to war with anything they’ve just taken a little more of a like Emmas is what I felt like is like why don’t we just say look you know if you’re high risk for any reason oh that’s another thing I heard recently and again maybe this is one of those things are either making up or they’re just learning as they go but they said I guess vaping you got to watch out if you’ve eight because that puts whatever undue stress on your which I know that before but I said to Jan I’m like holy [ _ ] you know maybe we do gotta be a little more careful cuz she vapes you know I don’t [ _ ] want her to get it get really safer die right so I had heard that for like a week I kept seeing that everywhere about how that puts you at a higher risk and then I finally did see something I can’t remember when sometime within the past ten days that said the FDA finally had to acknowledge they’ve really don’t have any evidence of that it’s just a belief like there aints of theory they really don’t have anything any proof that says that for sure at all oh they’re just saying I’ve get that feeling that people are just people wanting to be so bad for you I don’t know that vaping is terrible for you I’m sure it’s not like eating broccoli right like I know I don’t anticipate it to be good but I think people just want it to be bad for you so bad that they say everything Oh popcorn long that turned out to be a big hoax and it’s like what the [ _ ] God why do y’all hate this [ _ ] service here knows something they hate oh yeah so I’m gonna give me one minute and then if we can get our I guess we should still keep recording on the phones I don’t know the the one I listened to him promotion I thought the audio was actually pretty decent for the most part yeah just coming from this I do think we should put into play whenever we want to try to interject to like hold a hand up or something and the other person can pause because I noticed whenever we talk at the same time you almost can’t hear either hmm and so that that’s the only thing but I think the sound itself is pretty decent yeah and I can’t whichever one likes a hear I can tell you in a second because it’s on my podcast player whatever when I was listening to I thought the sound was actually pretty good I was just special interest meetings okay that one I thought the audio was pretty decent like it didn’t seem terrible were we still in person for that no mm-hm we did that remotely really yeah we did I thought step four was the first one remotely was it maybe I’m that’s why I’m maybe I’m wrong March 29th yeah we would have definitely been on oh yeah because the week before that was what is our responsibility during the quarantine so do we do I’m just I’m trying to remember talking to you I don’t think so I think that’s the first one we did no I think I think we were in the room I think we were in the room together yeah I do cuz I remember like being all over the couch as we were debating it oh okay maybe then that’s I have to go back and look at yeah March 29th so damp we were still meeting up in person by that we were [ _ ] up Billy holy [ __ ] yeah all right yeah I’m still hung I’m Way behind I’m never catching up takes me longer to listen to one than it does to get a new one out yeah it’s definitely hard to find time to listen when I don’t go anywhere I know see oh that’s what it was the easy record all right all right give me one sec I’ll be right back okay
so we do got a few things to talk about nothing fancy just a couple of posts on Twitter a couple of posts on Facebook two emails well one one email and then we got that other email where the lady asks us a bunch of questions so we could always like kind of address some of that if we find ourselves interested in it I don’t want to follow any too scripted plan I don’t really at this point after listening to us talk about something super specific I’m like out the [ _ ] just it’s just babble yeah I mean just me personally lately about like how this is affecting my personal recovery like how of course i noticed one obviously for me is a lack of meetings and a lack of participation in meetings and my recovery in general I just don’t I don’t really communicate with a lot of people at all this is so I’m not getting to really meetings other than my home group this week I had to force myself to do my home I mean I was actually not even gonna do it and then it like 8:03 it was like you can’t [ _ ] miss your home like just think of like you have to go to your you know you know better so i logged on a couple minutes late then I kind of force myself to do it like I don’t want to [ _ ] do this anymore I want to do it I don’t mean it that way it’s not like I got sorry but it’s just like I just you know I like going to my home group you know it’s inconvenient sometimes but it’s still something that I really enjoy and even meetings in general like for the most part I like going to meetings you know just seeing new people and being around people and you know catching up with people I don’t see that often um I want to put that is a huge part of Miss you know it’s just messing me up but then I know there’s a guy in my home group that was just sharing and he said a couple of he’s [ _ ] loving it he’s just like you know and not even that he’s going to a ton more meetings but he has a lot of social anxiety and it’s hard for him being in you know the rooms with people and now that he’s at home and he could share like this he’s all excited he’s doing his anniversary next week you know he’s like oh I’m definitely doing my anniversary like this I feel way better like this than being in a room in front of people you know and he’s talking about how great he’s doing with all his personal stuff and he’s exercising again and do another like hi I’m the opposite I’m tanking you know and he’s got to agree well and I think what you’re saying is probably so I think we should address our little tabs I got open here and then I think that’s a great idea to talk about you know how this is affecting our life slash recovery or recovery slash life however hey I think that’s probably where a lot of people are trying to evaluate and B I just I think that’s personal to us like that’s an interesting topic I doesn’t have to be super formal I just want to battle now chat yeah right right okay are you ready to record yeah sounds good of course we’ve been recording on here all the time but I hit record wait iPhone went to sleep which I never knew oh okay I think what I hit start at well I think I got it set up that way oh no did I have to go in it now I can’t remember no one will find out it recorded last time whatever I did I didn’t change anything so okay recording and we’ll do the clap but don’t try to wait for me okay your your 1-2-3 cap okay okay one one two two three now what happened that time I think it seemed like you were trying to wait for me to get in sync but I know I went first in my at least my hearing right so when I said to I still felt like I was waiting for you maybe it’s at the same time who knows I tried to look down and not even look at you get down so I couldn’t see you I guess I could still hear you I’m just going for the the the general one two three go count in my head that’s what I tried to go with yeah so are you okay with like interjection like if I have something to kind of cut in with like a little snarky remark just to hold my hand up and you’ll cause oh yeah and that’s something else I think I mean I noticed with me a lot and I think you do it sometimes too I talked I made too many points at one time and then we kind of get off of whatever point we’re talking about you’ll say something they don’t make three different points and they were miss their original thing yeah I don’t know it’s just yeah I think and one of the things I’ve gotten away from too is paying attention to my talk like a lot of times earlier or and I feel like I paid more attention to purposefully avoiding saying men you know things of that nature and I’ve kind of gotten completely away from that and I don’t know that I say um a lot anyway but I’m just not as conscious and focused on it as I have been like my nose is stuffed up all right I guess we’re ready yep oh [ _ ] what a nice what was that gonna say hold on now I need a second can’t remember what I was gonna say I had a long statement [ _ ] what was it
killing me and now I gotta look it up I don’t want to look it up thanks to you goddamn long oh do you remember [ __ ] now the things that recorded you remember when I don’t know maybe don’t remember this when phones came out I used to look at like old people and how they used them and it was so different like I was always a thumb guy in one hand and they were like I feel like that guy now mmm or when I got to get my kids and go how the hell do you turn this that’s what I feel old I do that occasionally like what has my phone doing this can you tell me dude I’m waiting for that day I want my kids to stop my goddamn tech problems and they can’t okay I’ll go with that
okay yeah hey welcome back recovery sort of as it is every week I’m Jason I’m a guy with the Long Island iced tea not really I’m Billie I’m a person in long term abstinence based recovery awesome and so today we’re gonna you know recap some of these things that have we’ve been talking about we’re gonna email with some questions in it and we’re gonna I believe just take it a little bit easier on the topic we’ve had a couple of really focused topic oriented podcasts lately and I think we’re just gonna relax today just a little bit and so you know we went back we posted about the clarity statement and and how a a doesn’t really necessarily have a clarity statement but they do have you know just a concept of like talk about alcohol and not drugs in their meetings we posted that a couple of places on Twitter Facebook are normal spots on Twitter somebody said in there and a group they clarify that one doesn’t need to say clean and sober or draw and alcohol because it implies there’s two separate diseases and they said however the by-step joules still say cleaned and sober and then they they went on to say same person addict in recovery said in any meeting he refers to drugs and substances and refers to himself as an addict but when he goes to a a for somebody’s anniversary they do say alcoholic and drinking so nothing out of the ordinary there it seemed pretty respectful yeah so do you know I don’t know what that bisexual ISTEP Jules oh I guess that means they go to both okay I never heard that term before I wasn’t sure what they meant so they must mean they go to both fellowships or I think yeah like instead of bisexuals they work steps in both places okay yeah I never heard that yeah yeah somebody else asked if I was talking about war stories or legitimate sharing I guess they’re both legitimate sharing
my friend Brittany oh this sir this was one of the interesting points that we definitely had about a friend of Irish Brittany she said that when she first started coming around there was a few groups that read it and she can’t remember that the last time she heard it at this point because I guess it’s faded out of out of fashion in her area but she said that she really liked it so when she came around she was a more you know she identified more because of the alcohol than anything she just liked na because she felt more comfortable there and had some friends there and the clarity statement for her made her feel like she was in the right place it didn’t matter what she used or that she had only used alcohol and so I thought that was an interesting like clarity statement in Reverse I had never heard that concept that it made somebody who only drank alcohol or mostly drank alcohol feel much more welcome because they didn’t feel like they were different because of the alcohol have you ever like considered that I know I that’s actually a really good point I guess what I think about and I didn’t mention this during that episode was we already have a reading where we say thinking of alcohol is different it’s cause a great maniac that’s before coming to a fellowship of any you know many of us viewed alcohol separately but we cannot afford to be confused I mean that is something that is already addressed in a reading that I’m pretty sure they read in most every meeting that I go to or have ever but I’m sure some meetings them because they are autonomous but yeah that was the other thing which that we already sort of addressed that enemy in a breeding do we not I guess feel like that does it adequately enough hmm yeah I don’t know I don’t know I I guess for me here in her would you say it was a good man her point was very good yeah yes she just she just celebrated to Friday night down at Virginia so congratulations Brittany
made a said different for meeting to meeting even it within her area so this was an interesting observation and this is one person’s observation it said frankly meetings dominated by older white men have zero tolerance for drug discussion older white women are only a little better age 60 and under both sexes somewhat better most try to focus on the recovery and not the addiction so I’m assuming that’s in a a meeting but interesting to notice the demographic difference at least as noticed by them and talked about the clarity statement and they read it in her home group but she said that generally the terminology suggested for people to come to their own understanding and this is kind of what everybody got around to Joe Kim operation recovery Coldwell counseling center please stay home recovery man generally what everybody came to the sentiment of at least in Twitter was that it really isn’t harmful to read but if anybody uses that to justify making people feel unwelcome either during or after the meeting that’s shitty like right so just read it and say hey this is what we do here and go on with your meeting and not you know if people say clean and sober or whatever who gives a [ _ ] what they say it’s just we read this statement because it’s important to us and yeah and that is that is a beautiful statement you know it’s it’s that’s really the most important thing it’s like reading it like I I agree with the words of it I think it’s a great reading but I think when it’s used in a way to correct or regulate people that’s when it gets bad so yeah yeah we had actually remember right after we got finished recording last week we looked up some stuff and I was like damn these are really [ _ ] good points and I don’t even remember what they were at this point but they were really good points I was like holy [ __ ] you know what they might be in the in the text I sent you I don’t know I’ll see if I can come up with that while we’re while we’re doing this so we did post this on you know a recovery page on Facebook and so Kirsten said that she really doesn’t mind you know about the clarity statement we all have the same problem something outside ourselves made our life unmanageable I would completely agree with that and then Jenny said I haven’t listened to this episode yet but did you know we don’t identify as anything specific in recovery Dharma Jenny’s our our friend who is eventually gonna come tell us about recovery Dharma she just said they just say their names and even that’s optional like you don’t even have to introduce yourself I guess you could just start talking I’m like I’m like her there but she said that so many people do say their name and you know that they’re an alcoholic or an addict just because it’s such a habitual thing to do for us and I completely get that because I am constantly not nervous but I’m just sure that one of these days I’m gonna introduce myself in a school setting or a professional session at a group meeting or something I’m an app named Jason yeah that’s for sure I know I’ve felt the same way then our buddy David said na is too wordy in its literature in readings just my opinion I really I wanted to ask him if he also thought the other fellowship was or not but I never did get around to that so David if you’re listening write in and tell us if you think that about every fellowship did so we there was another spot on Facebook we posted it
daniel said we do not read the clarity statement at his home group nor does he cut into anyone sharing to let them know we say clean here we get a lot of people from treatment and he didn’t think that doing that is attractive anytime he shares in a meeting or he talks to people after a meeting he sticks you know himself with na lingo but others come to their own decisions about how to do that and so he can says he still considers himself somewhat of a newcomer and that he listens for people who speak and deliver a clear and a message for people he wants in his network and when he’s looking for speakers and so I think that’s a pretty proactive way to deal with it to just basically talk about how you handle it right like he completely went to not what do other people do but what do I do it’s I talk in any lingo yeah and I think that’s you know the way I try to address it for myself is I just try to be mindful of how I address myself and introduce myself and you know I think overall the fellowship has gotten more I’m gonna use the word lean you know maybe that’s a more compassionate maybe as a better way to say it I mean you always hear the old school you know where the old school members would come in and tell people you know sit down and shut up and if we want to hear how to get high we’ll talk to you and that kind of stuff and everybody loves like that kind of stuff and they kind of chuckle and laugh but I think that’s faded away along I think as a fellowship you know we tend to be a little more compassionate nowadays and I think that is the same with the clarity statement I think it sort of people are a little more understand about it nowadays I hope no no I definitely I think you’re right I did find that thing we found online I’ll read it just real quick I don’t know how relevant it is really but it says there are many related facilities and outside enterprises devoted to understanding addiction and eating recovery like ma each has its particular primary purpose that is reflected in its literature and its message while that purpose may be similar to ours it will not be the same as ours because the organization is separate from us we use na literature and speakers in our meetings to help us fulfill na s primary purpose an NA group that uses another organization literature or speakers endorses that organization’s primary purpose not ours and so I think it was Caroline that originally posed that question about using outside speakers and that is from our literature and she needs to know where she will ask and I will tell her and I thought that was you know it was interesting so you know if we if we don’t keep with our specific language we do sort of lose our primary purpose to some extent and I don’t know it was just interesting somebody else brought up the idea that you know love is an important spiritual principle when we’re talking about oh hey we need to love the newcomer and invite them in and yet at the same time it’s not the only spiritual principle right and so there’s some other ones that are important and sometimes I think I lose sight of that I don’t know about other people but I I can get so bogged down in this one spiritual principle that I’m focused on that I miss the bigger picture of like like even if I said hey you know the only way to go is to correct people right because it’s a spiritual principle of discipline and following our rules in blabbity blah like well then I’m missing the spiritual principle of love that says hey be inclusive and loving of everybody and don’t you know yell at them when they do it wrong and so I can get locked into one and sometimes I need to remember that there’s a bunch of them yeah and and I guess not that I want to go down this road too much but I did think about safe bits when we talk about you know at least in Narcotics Anonymous it says the narcotics and anonymous message is that an addict any addict can stop using lose the desire to use and find a new way to live so you know and I just thought well when we say any addict doesn’t you know will say black addict wait addict you know Hispanic addict lesbian addict gay addict you know all these addicts well what do we care if it’s alcoholic sex addict gambling addict you know we what does it matter what they call themselves we say any addict so the sort of like we almost are saying well we don’t care what you call yourself or what you’re here for if you’re an addict we’re here to help that’s kind of a when I look at what our message is and then when that I guess it gets a little confusing in our primary purpose because you know our primary purpose isn’t really to help any addict I mean just to be honest it’s I guess it can help any addict but it’s I don’t think it’s correct for someone to come in who’s maybe a gambling addict and share a whole meeting about gambling you know so so no we’re not cotton synonymous right we’re we’re about drugs I mean that’s what we are and I like that I have nothing against that I don’t think we should change that I think that’s important distinction but maybe we need to be a little more clear about that yeah maybe it would help in this in this modern day of everything’s in addiction you know we have shopping addicts and food addicts and clothes addicts and you know all these other addicts maybe we need to sort of I mean I guess probably back in the 50s and 60s it wasn’t you didn’t have all these addictions like you have right and so yeah like because they’re kind of I think that a lot of us who have struggled with the drug portion of it move into them as we get clean and and we say that our program and the steps can address those two but yeah I don’t think we’re the place to come if that’s where you start like I agree with that I think all right now don’t we define addiction it says what makes us addicts is not the drug but our allergic reaction to it and so I think we kind of in our definition of what makes us addicts do specify that it’s about the substance to some extent not that it is the substance but it’s our reaction to a substance that makes us an addict and so when we I think from our programs perspective it’s kind of like how our definition of clean is different than maybe what somebody on you know methadone or suboxone is definition of clean right they they also are clean but according to our program they’re not and I get it really not that our program is the be-all end-all on that statement it’s just that this program is a program of complete abstinence right it’s not about that anyway we say complete abstinence and then you know we have pain medicine when we go through surgery and whatever else we might be doing but it yeah so the definitions are a little I don’t think there is a good one and I have to watch myself because I’ve belonged to a couple of different you know Facebook recovery groups and stuff and I see people post and it’s like every time they they word something a certain way so one of them is a opioids something group and you know talks a lot about opioid addiction and stuff and you’ll constantly have people say things like I have been free from heroin for three years and I’m like oh that means you still drink it smoke pot like I know what that means in my head you know I always put those unfair judgments on people based on that language you know I’ve been I’ve been sort of brainwashed into a certain a certain view of language you know from going to one fellowship and sharing one common set of these words that we use and develop in what I think is the correct understanding of those words so it’s it’s interesting and then you’ll see people make comments about being in recovery but still going out and drinking on the weekends and stuff like that it just it’s funny I being in that group I try to read that stuff mostly just to have a little more open mind and and or to get to see like hey you know some of these words mean different things to different people they don’t mean exactly the same thing to everyone yet I think you make a very valid point ah I don’t want to say you know brainwashed into one belief system but yeah like that’s been my exposure and so my first inclination is right there with yours oh yeah you’re still snorting coke for the bathroom if I truly sat here and thought about it this guy might drink and smoke weed everyday and might have been cleaned from heroin for four years and might be a much more productive member of society than he was that he might be actually like loving on his children sometimes and do I think he’s in a better place abso-fucking-lutely I do okay thank god you’ve been off heroin for four years regardless of whatever it is you do and that’s of course usually most of their posts is how great their life’s go and three and four years off of heroin or methadone or opioid like say this groups about opioid so a lot of them will share their experience you know being off opioids and I guess it’s really good that they can find groups or places that support that because you know that’s not what some of the 12-step fellowships you know don’t wanna say allow that but that’s really frowned upon you know right right getting back to this post Elizabeth said she identifies as an addict because she did not have a problem with just alcohol but assorted drugs it’s limiting I don’t call people out on it when they do it there they say they’re an alcoholic I have friends in AAA and out of respect I must she refers to herself as an alcoholic in their meetings a clarity statement does inform someone new she respects and thanks AAA for the traditions but she’s made a home in NX disease is so much bigger than a bottle she says summer sober for multiple years and still smoked a little pot or take valium as prescribed Maddox can’t do this
I don’t know iw you’re mad go talk to Elizabeth on Facebook because it’s definitely not me even though I have heard their stories yeah not me Vic said he thinks it’s important when they read his home group when he was new we truly believe that alcohol was different and used alcohol to try and stop using other drugs which always took him to the same place so I asked him if people actually listened and understood it and he said that can be said for all the readings there’s usually commotion in the beginning but eventually people get it and I guess my question was well if they get it do they get it because of the we read it or know it’s funny I swear you know my family my wife everybody my life has told me that I’m like the devil’s advocate or always contrary to what anybody says and I noticed that more and more I will sit here we’ll debate something for an hour and a half and I am definitely on side a and then I post this on Facebook and somebody takes side a and now I’m on side B arguing what else we got here so that was mostly about it somebody else I did get in a conversation with somebody else I don’t know where it’s at if they’re listening sorry it was another interesting kind of back and forth about whether it was really useful or not and oh they were talking about addicts and alcoholics being fundamentally different and I’m that kind of blew my mind so I was like really curious I was asking him why and they were saying that you could he said if you gave Alcoholics alcohol for 10 days straight only like 1 in 10 would become an alcoholic or if he gave people alcohol for 10 days straight one in 10 would become an alcoholic but if you gave people heroin for 10 days straight ten out of ten would be heroin addicts and I was like what like I’ve never heard that kind of research no and I don’t agree with that either I think that’s I mean from what I’ve known the scientific aspect of it that’s actually false yeah and that’s and anecdotally the evidence I have of that is completely false like I know people who tried here when a couple of times it didn’t like it so I don’t know I was curious and then I was like well okay even if that’s true for heroin what about like cocaine or marijuana like their drugs that you can also come into our program and be an addict for and he I don’t know it just got convoluted from there I don’t think he ever really understood the point I was trying to make but it was just I was so kind of baffled by what he said that I was interested and I think most people tend to I can’t say most people a lot of people or some people tend to lump like we’re confused I’ll say addiction with dependency like chemical dependency and think that those two things are the same and because you can get I mean I would say yes if you gave anyone heroin for ten days or you know any kind of opiates for ten days they might become physically dependent on that drug but that doesn’t make them an addict at least my understanding of what addiction is you know addiction and chemical dependency are two different things this is like in all the research studies where they gotta at the beginning define what they mean by their research word for that particular study and so I guess some people would define addiction as a chemical dependency I mean I think I heard that argument early in my in my treatment days like that there was that argument of what addiction was whether it was a dependency or whether it was you know more along the lines of what our program talks about like where it’s not the substance or the dependency it’s more of every physical or our you know reaction to the substance the way we react so another person I just wanted to thank this guy on Twitter sober biker I have no [ __ ] idea who this is maybe it’s one of our friends I had no idea they showed a picture of phishing and said they were out fishing listening to recovery sort of and I appreciated that that was nice I said they were gonna catch a headache
and then Selena sent us another email she was talking about running a virtual 5k race and listening to us and so I thought that was interesting she also talked about you know used to she used to be able to speak at the the youth and recovery meeting and then she got old and they don’t invite her anymore which I thought was funny but at the whole virtual 5k race and I’ve heard another running friend talk about these virtual races and I I’m almost like there’s a part of me that ten years ago probably what I said that’s the dumbest [ _ ] ever and there’s a party now but those I’m so impressed with it like all these people with our fancy electronic watches and stuff that GPSS like people can literally go out and run a race in their area against other people all around the world and they could do it at the same time they could do it over time and compare I just think that’s so cool one what I’ve learned about running is the race it’s not about like a race like we think of the Olympics like nobody really gives a [ _ ] who wins except you know the top ten people in the world care but everybody else is just running it because they enjoy running and it’s a reason to train for it but it’s I actually think it’s really cool I’m almost wondering I’m like damn Oh what do I do that I can get into virtually more because I think virtual races is neat yeah that’s pretty I wonder that sometimes too I’ve been doing some running since I was exercising when I’m most recently but before I was doing some running and I have always wanted to do a 5k but only if I felt like I could like win or finish really high like I I’ve just never been a person that wants to go out and like hey I’m gonna just run a 5k for the sake of running a 5k like oh no if I’m gonna do it like I want to be competitive like I want to be right in there and so it’s interesting to think about running a race that doesn’t matter but then another thing I have heard before and I heard it again recently was about doing things that are hard just for the sake of doing it like doing things that are hard or difficult or challenging are good for your character they’re good for your spirit they’re good to help us just you know overcome whatever we feel like our own personal limitations in our mind and so I thought well maybe that’s a good reason to try to go out and run a 5k just to see if I can do it you know obviously I think I can do it but maybe just and it would be hard so maybe try a virtual 5k that way if I’m embarrassed I don’t have to let anybody in if that makes total sense I so I don’t know what the the 5k running community is like the one individual I talk to it’s a runner it’s more about the really long distance runs marathons and and more really you know ultra marathons for them in particular but apparently that running community is really really supportive it’s I guess very much in tune with kind of you know how our fellowship can be very supportive for us like they have found a running community of people who you know because you’re running such long distances you got a you know pair up and have somebody sort of monitoring or watching you or you frequently run you know at a pace around somebody who also runs around that pace and you stay together for long stretches of run and it’s just really interesting it’s mostly encouraging and people build each other up it’s not about you know beating other people or being better it’s just about being supportive and everybody we want everybody to finish it’s kind of cool how they do it I don’t know I just I think it’s an interesting concept I’m wondering what else we could do virtually I’ve obviously we do virtual meetings I’ve seen I just seen post Malone who’s a I guess a rapper singer whatever you want to call him him there was a guitarist a bassist and a drummer and they looked like they were all in like different I guess States I don’t know at least in different houses they recorded a goddamn hour-long concert together covering Nirvana songs I’m like what the hell like huh it’s pretty incredible what people are doing yeah there’s and there’s been a lot of different music stuff on that are you know similar to what you’re talking about collaborations of musicians that aren’t even in the same house you know right that’s some kind of yeah there’s there’s gonna be some interesting results from all the online connectivity and the practice that we’re getting right now the sort of what do you call that when it’s just thrown on us all the sudden you know now people are improvising and learning and becoming creative and and some of these things are gonna stick you know yeah I don’t often get the chance to use the word thrust but we this was thrust upon us yeah yeah seize the opportunity to use that word I ran the other day we go outside and walk pretty much every day and I’ve been trying to keep it a little interesting I’ve ridden my bike a couple times and I runnings hard but I did it the other day I got like 1.8 something miles it’s it’s tough I’m still sore this is like five days later like kind of recovering from a leg strain if you don’t run don’t go out and run 1.8 something miles because you will probably straighten your you know your hamstring like identically I don’t know interesting interesting okay so I guess we should probably just hit our break here while we have a nice little stop spot and then we’ll come back and hit maybe some of those questions Julie had or maybe maybe we’ll just ignore that all together I don’t know what the [ __ ] we’ll do let’s hit pause for a break real quick
I always feel like I can’t breathe when we’re talking I don’t get it like I get too amped up or something like why can’t I breathe seems like it should be so easy yeah I don’t think I have a breathing problem I catch myself like taking deep breaths like gasping for it I’m like what the [ _ ] all right what does Julie have here is it a requirement to remain anonymous or is everyone just anonymous by default and it’s your individual choice if you want to remain that way okay that seems like a good place to start push ups make me sore too apparently oh yeah I think I’ve done a bunch of push-ups twice now during the core it’s one of those I keep telling myself I’m gonna get up in the morning do some exercise it’ll feel good I do I like one day it’s hard to find I’m like oh I’ve been carrying all this heavy [ _ ] up and down all these steps and lifting you know plywood carrying plywood and two-by-fours you know us I’m like that’s enough exercise for now it’s tough man so I did we would walk along our Road out front and I would do push-ups like every driveway and the first day I did it like ten of them each time then I did like 15 of them each time and then we did a workout in my yard where we were doing like modified pull-ups in between doing sets of push-ups I think we might have did that twice and any other day I was like lazy again and just did the walking you know in different ways and it was like every other driveway because it was too much and yeah so I’ve done it like what like five times and I still I’m like I’m gonna do this every other [ _ ] day okay and it’s raining today I’ll probably do absolutely nothing yeah another rainy day I don’t think this helps the mood either this rain I mean I thought Jan I said I don’t know this whole month has felt like we’ve been in [ _ ] Seattle or something with the overcast and the rain and the mild weather like in the 50s oh yeah like it’s a nice rain where you feel like oh that’s kind of nice out I can still go out like now it’s [ _ ] cold right and I was kind of wondering about that about the average temperature in May or in April sorry because it seems like it’s been different this year yeah we’re like 10 degrees below normal the last week or so it should be in there like 60s you know mid to low 60s okay so you have actually listen to this yeah I was I solved McKim I said I need to look that [ _ ] up because something just feels colder this year I don’t like it yeah we’re about right now seasonally we’re about 10 degrees cooler than normal Wow okay okay so it’s not just me now and I think this week coming up they’re saying the same [ _ ] it’s the same crappy 50s and [ _ ] brainy everyday which I guess the thing april showers bring May flowers yeah yeah I guess it came from one year back in like 1746 and we’re having that same year a 100 year repeat right now yeah I just look at the 10 day every so often and I I think next Saturday was the first day I saw that was even close to being like 70 yeah so that was kind of exciting I was like hey we might get a 70 degree day of course by the time it gets here it’ll be 65 and rainy but yeah right I know that’s what’s happened every time this week or this last two weeks yeah all right you ready yep all right we’re back so we’re gonna get to some of these questions we had friend of ours Julie you know sent us an email and had some questions Julie is is not from her description in here is not a member of a particular 12-step program like Nara a she’s I guess that’s how it sounds so the first question she had was is it a requirement to anonymous or is everyone just anonymous by default and it’s your individual choice if you want to remain that way I would let you feel that okay so I guess she would mean in public if you’re a member of a 12-step fellowship and out in public whether you want to remain anonymous and I think in this understanding the spirit of anonymity it’s best to remain anonymous within affiliation to a specific group the dangers of quote-unquote outing yourself you know to the public are of course the stigma the whatever you want to call it rumor so things people might say about you if you identify yourself as an addict how that might impact you in different areas of your life but it’s also a protection for the fellowship itself that you’re not a spokesman or or you know poster person of that particular fellowship you mentioned staying anonymous in public and I just you know sillily as always my brain goes to can you be like anti Anonymous in your house like is that possible what do you put like a a symbol in the front of your house er and then in your public statements right now I got she made a couple of statements later on in the email that kind of referred to as her understanding of addiction as somebody who’s I guess dealt with some family members who might have struggled with that she doesn’t look at relapse as failure and you know so she her point was if people are breaking the stigma say like you know famous people and they’re breaking the stigma by being members of 12-step programs and being you know out so to speak about that it wouldn’t necessarily be that the program doesn’t work if they relapsed it would just be hey that’s another person is struggling all the more reason we still need to have these resources and continue to need these programs and so oh I think that’s great that that’s our understanding I don’t necessarily know that that’s gonna be the across the board or the majority understanding if you see someone famous you know use again after they’ve represented or told said they’ve been part of a program if I was not part of the program it’s possible I could very easily think that program doesn’t work or worse yet it might not even be about a relapse what if for whatever sake the famous person doesn’t relapse but they get caught having sex with underage kids or something right like now everybody in our program is a pedophile right because that’s what we do in the world as we just say it’s everybody who associated with that must be just like them and known about it like and so I think that’s where some of our are breaking anonymity can come into fear I guess for the average guy like you or me who maybe isn’t so celebrity or important in a large scale in that sense I don’t know I think I’m allowed to break my anonymity just not at the level of press radio and film to the best of my understanding which I am NOT a part of press radio or film so that’s pretty safe for me I
guess for me and my we kind of touched on this I think in the episode it’s it’s more about what’s the purpose like am i trying to break my anonymity to seem special or my breaking my anonymity because I think it’s gonna be useful where I’m breaking it right am i trying to be a resource for somebody or share my experience with them right and if I’m sharing my experience with a friend or a family member or you know whatever co-worker on a one-on-one situation you know I think that’s very different than going into you know let’s say a health department or a public facility as a speaker or a representative of you know a particular group or fellowship like those are very different scenarios and I think as you mentioned you know it’s we talk about at the level of press radio films I think we’re also talking about you know in these I think the spirit of that is meant to be in like social or public gatherings centered around this stuff and I think of like our health department and having you know look cool right now they do local community meetings and they do you know a opioid task force or addiction task force meetings that are sort of these public meetings and I have to be very careful if I go in there and start identifying myself as a member of a specific fellowship or group yeah and I think that’s another good point like we say at the beginning of this podcast that our you know opinions are our own right and that’s something that can get misconstrued if I go into a public policy meeting and I say I’m in long-term recovery and your guys ideas are [ _ ] stupid right that’s fine if I go into a public policy meeting and I say man I’m here from Narcotics Anonymous and your policies are [ _ ] stupid well now I’m trying to give it a like that could be misconstrued is that na has an opinion on their policies and na does not have an opinion on their policies they could give a [ _ ] less na has no opinion on outside issues that’s their whole point and so yeah I think it helps with clarity to kind of remain anonymous for the most part but I agree it’s and I think you’ve brought it up a few times that there’s the anonymous movie that kind of was the attempt to you know how do we have a voice while also protecting these fellowships and programs yeah and there’s another danger to relapses and things that aren’t specific to a program I think when we talk about stigma and the stigma that comes with addiction or alcoholism or whatever you know our problem is the stigma that you know addicts never get better or they just well there’s no hope for addicts and I don’t know that relapses are necessarily a reflection that the program itself doesn’t work but it can definitely help to read force that idea that see addicts never really stayed clean they might get it for a little bit but they always use again you know they’re they’re never gonna make it I think relapses do that harm more than anything so when we’re identifying ourselves as addicts in treatment now or addicts in recovery now or addicts that are in 12-step groups and then we do have a relapse which I think I agree with their comment I don’t think relapse it should be shameful or you know it’s it’s a part of what comes with addiction if you’re lucky enough to survive through it you know great find recovery quick because people are dying rapidly nowadays but there definitely is a stigma that addicts will never get better yeah yeah I agree I we keep saying it’s funny cuz uh so Alcoholics Anonymous alcoholics are people and gamblers anonymous there’s a gamblers Emmaus or gambling Anonymous I don’t know I just all thought they were about people and I feel like Narcotics Anonymous we’re not narcotics like we miss named it we should maybe be Narcotics Anonymous or something like yeah gotta clear drugs I don’t know her next question oh [ _ ] here we go ah a woman I follow on Twitter said she really liked na but stopped going because they are against her use of suboxone is na as an organization against that I don’t even want to [ _ ] answer that well we have a bulletin I think it’s number 35 that addresses that issue and it basically says that Narcotics Anonymous is an abstinence based program and that drugs use like replacement therapy what is that dr tees drug replacement therapies and ma tees are not I don’t know what the word I don’t want to say acceptable but are not a form of recovery that we support basically and yet we’ve also addressed here that that bulletins are not and a you know group sanctioned literature they are just what a few people at the top have decided to get together in a room and write and have an opinion about right right so does that mean na is has a stance on it or is that just what you know some people at the top decided to put out a bulletin because we do frequently I think look to them as the answers but I think you made a good point in our other episode where that’s not necessarily the belief of everyone or the majority that’s what we were told that doesn’t have to be our truth yeah I would say there’s a little difference at least I’ll say anecdotally in in what I know of people in this specific area I would say the majority do not support drug replacement therapies as far as now I say if support I support drug replacement therapy I think people that need it or people that want it for you know whatever it’s definitely a better option than using I just think that is something very different from what we do in Narcotics Anonymous you know it’s we again just like we aren’t a fellowship that addresses maybe other mental health issues we aren’t a fellowship that addresses gambling addiction you know we we can help in those areas but that’s not our primary purpose that’s not what we do that’s not what we’re based on I think our primary purpose is abstinence based recovery and that we don’t have to have a negative judgment or negative opinion of people who are doing something different in order to say that is not what we do that is not what we’re about that doesn’t mean we have to dislike or be against or hate those people that’s just not specifically what we do and I think it’s interesting how she asked the question like is na as an organization and I think it’s really tough for na members much less anyone outside na to really understand the complete service structure how it’s not a normal business where it’s not top-down there’s not somebody at the top deciding how this works the fellowship the addict who goes and has a home group and and has a vote that’s the top of the service structure like all those singular addicts who go and get a singular home group the home groups all vote and then that passes itself down like that information gets passed down to the people who are you know would normally be considered like the top of the service structure they’re just there to do service for four people depending on what the vote is and so that’s a little tricky to understand but then if you go a little more into it I would say I agree with you add anywhere I have lived which is you know the Baltimore area and and now up here the pulse of meetings and and what people believe is that that’s not part of being clean I don’t think that people are necessarily against it right I don’t think that’s a unified stance that like oh if you’re on suboxone or methadone just get the [ _ ] out of the meeting like I that’s not what I’ve heard I’ve heard okay you’re welcome you’re just not clean by our standards you you can’t get up and celebrate clean time right you you can’t really share somewhat honestly so I think that’s the interesting point that people who are on suboxone or methadone are probably looking for a place to participate and we’re not really the place for that they’re welcome to come but I would say the sentiment of NA is generally no we really don’t want you to participate we want you to hang out until you’re ready to live like us which is a little you know we’re better than you holier than thou like we kind of think we’re the next step up from where they’re at and if you’re not doing it this way you’re probably not doing it the right way we appreciate where you’re at that’s great keep coming back hopefully you’ll get where we are and so that’s not a very loving place to be honestly but that is I think the heartbeat of where we stand as a fellowship yeah and at the same time I have known people that are in recovery actively involved in different areas obviously I’m not gonna name any names but I have known people that are actively involved in our service structure that are actively involved in their local recovery communities that are on suboxone specifically I have heard you know of people sponsoring people that are on suboxone with years clean you know in in our area recently there was a discussion about you know a home group member went to their meeting and said I’m coming up on my two-year anniversary but I’ve been on suboxone the whole time am I allowed to celebrate at the meeting and you know there’s different things like that that that happened so there isn’t a direct answer obviously I have my feelings about it I wouldn’t even say for myself personally that I think that I’m a step better than anyone on a maintenance program I would just say you know with addiction there’s different ways to achieve recovery there’s different ways to combat addiction and you know drug replacement therapies therapies methadone suboxone and that’s just one of them just like you know therapy cognitive behavioral therapy group therapy there’s there’s many different things you can do outside of 12-step fellowships word we don’t corner the market on any of this and our success rates are you know astounding to the point that we think we should have the corner on the market for sure so you know I encourage a find what works for you and as long as you’re making steps at improving your life great things are getting better for you and you find something that works awesome go for it have at it I support you a hundred percent but that doesn’t necessarily you know I’m gonna say give you the right to come in to our group which has a what I’ll say is pretty clearly defined approach to how we want to address our addiction problem and say well you need to change your mind you know and change your program to suit me like I don’t I don’t want to do that yes so that makes it tricky so to kind of wrap what we’ve set up I agree with you I’ve seen somebody share that they just celebrated 10 years recently and eight and a half of that was one suboxone and that kind of like the whole like I don’t know I thought half to me she’s gonna walk out I’ve definitely seen somebody celebrating here that I I knew was on it I think the problem lies in the fact that it’s really not encouraged for anyone to participate in our program if they are on a maintenance or a drug replacement therapy and I believe and like again I’ve not taken a formal survey I don’t know across you know the world if that is the way people feel about it but definitely the places I’ve lived that is what we believe is that you know to in order to be clean you are completely free from mine and mood-altering substances and we we don’t look at that as being clean or you know able to participate in our particular program it’s not so much of whether we’re for it or against it because really we don’t have any opinion on that adds a fellowship but even as people I don’t think that I don’t whatever like I don’t do whatever works for you right I’m not for or against it personally it’s just yeah I’m with you it’s not what our program is about please feel free to form a program so that people can get help in that way I don’t know if that really answers the question or not I guess na as an organization is not against it but they’re also not considered clean in na I don’t know other thoughts she mentioned number three was if she hears the speakers from out of town she’s more likely to try to be there as she might not get to hear them again and she likes to hear different perspectives other than those regular she’s regularly exposed to I guess that was talking about like our out-of-town speakers and if you are advertising or promoting she mentioned that she she enjoys hearing enjoys hearing na speakers and so she does kind of like when they’re advertised because it’s not something she gets to hear very often and then you know she asked a question we kind of touched on this a little too people really blame na when someone relapses or does relapse really reflect poorly on na I think we kind of already touched that she said she wouldn’t blame the doctor if an illness returned but the cancer came back and so she can’t get around her she can’t wrap her head around the idea that na would be blamed for a relapse I thought that’s kind of an interesting way to put it you know I I definitely wouldn’t say that [ _ ] doctor he made that cancer come back or he didn’t do it right like no it’s obviously not the way it works and I guess that goes back to do you consider you know addiction and and disease or not well I would say if you look at the way people would look at cancer there’s a sort of belief like oh you don’t beat cancer when you get cancer it’s you know you’re lucky if you live but you never beat it you know and and I would say yeah you look at addiction like that you don’t necessarily blame the doctor you just think it’s something that’s a death sentence an addiction you know is the same it’s like you don’t necessarily blame the fellowship for say it doesn’t work you just say oh you know once an addict always an addict you know that kind of thing right I like yeah no I don’t wanna said don’t disagree with that statement but I don’t disagree with it much differently than people mean it like people mean it like you’re always gonna be a piece of crap I think and my belief is more like what you said about cancers like we’ll have to on a daily basis take my you know air-quote medicines to keep me from you know acting in this disease or living in this disease so whatever that means with my daily basis and I think we’re going to get into what that means of my daily basis because you we’re talking about how this is affecting your life right now your recovery your life yeah so talking about the whole quarantine thing and that’s how it’s affected you know my quality of my recovery a large part of my recovery support network is based on just personal like one-on-one interactions personal interactions with people my home group is a place that I look forward to going to not even necessarily because I think I’m gonna get this great recovery message but it’s like these are guys that are my friends that I’ve known a long time and the social aspect of that is as important if not more important than the actual message of recovery itself having those relationships just just being around other people that you know have shared values that are seeking fun and enjoyment out of life through what substances they can use or how they can you know alter their mind and mood you know helps me be encouraged to continue in recovery that sort of thing and you know even like your and I relationship for example we are kind of meeting up at least once a week doing the podcasts or getting out to a meeting and doing some things and that’s of course obviously dropped off because we don’t have those opportunities as much and as a result I find that my attitude towards recovery I don’t even know if my attitude towards recovery so I think a lot of the values that are important in recovery start to sort of slide to the background you know and and old behaviors of getting like locked in the you know projects at home are locked into self-centeredness because I’m not being reminded there’s subtle reminders of you know hey I am a self-centered self-serving person by nature I tended to to not be the person that’s best to make decisions for my life on a daily basis I need the influence of other people to help me make good decisions those kind of things those aren’t being reinforced on a regular basis right now because I’m not getting too many meetings not getting around my normal social network and so slowly but surely that self-centeredness creeps right back up and then it’s like hey I’m just you know I’m not running my ideas by anybody I’m just doing what I want to do and and acting the way I want to act and you know I don’t see it coming but I slowly become a person that I don’t even like very much I got P so I needed a break and I figured uh leave a little black spot there to make it easy to [ _ ] yeah very packed
yeah this little piece I tried to put it on one time I don’t know what happened well I kind of want new ones but I I don’t know why it’s like why spend money if these still work all right you ready
yeah so I I find that uh I find that partially true and yet partially not true for me I’ve kind of there’s like a lot of time to reflect during all this and so one big question I have of myself is what does it say about me that I don’t feel like this is affecting me at all right what is it what does it say about me that I am in really no real hurry to get back to whatever we used to call normal like I kind of enjoy all this time and being home and I guess that would be different if I was working every day like you are like it probably doesn’t feel all that different for you like to me this is I just basically don’t leave my house you know except to go to the grocery store and I I kind of love it and I don’t know what that means about Who I am as a person or and I’m trying to I ask myself that I’m like this does that make me an introvert is that I don’t know what the [ _ ] it means so that’s an interesting aspect for me I think another thing I’m kind of realizing so I I’m hitting a lot of meetings so okay before this started I generally got to my home group each week if there was a really important anniversary it’s possible I was able to make it to that but that that’s like my weekly meeting attendance right was my home group and not that I don’t do something for my recovery every day because I do that right but it wasn’t meetings so to speak frequently at least six days a week usually and so I look at this and I say I have hit way the [ _ ] more meetings than that each week right I’ve the past few weeks I’ve been in one almost every goddamn day this week I think that might have been actually unhealthy and so I’ve stepped back a little bit because I do some other online meeting stuff I do a support group for for not us twice a week and I have some other things I do and so I was like okay I can’t I’m like wasting too much time trying to force these meetings into every day of my life so let me step back a little bit but I’m still you know three four five meetings a week easily and it’s so easy to hit them that unlike damn okay so that part of my recovery increased I don’t share as much in online meetings I’m noticing and I don’t know what that is it’s almost like if I go to a new area of the world and a whole inline meeting I’m shy all over again it’s like a my whole shyness comes out and I don’t want to talk I just I gotta sit here and listen I don’t need to say anything I think one of the things you’ve pointed out and I and I think it’s a place I’ve struggled with a lot of times we come to this this podcast episode recording and we have all these new things to talk about right there’s there’s stuff going on in our life and I think you and I both frequently seek outside healthy input whether that’s other podcasts that we listen to whether that’s audiobooks whether that’s something we’re putting in these new fresh you know self-help type ideas into our life and and just you know assimilating them and thinking about them and you know things of that nature I am struggling to find time to do that frequently like I have all this time to do stuff with my family we’re taking walks I’m getting probably better daily exercise than I ever had before and but I’m struggling with the input of positive material and time for that and so I’m wondering if that might be an area I’m struggling in that’s not helping me like I can still get caught up in self-centeredness and and want what I want and so I’m not meditating anywhere near as well as I was or often I should say I don’t want to put a judgment quality on it as well I’m meditating horribly no I’m just not meditating that’s the problem and I’m not inputting all these positive outside sources and so I feel connected when we do this I feel connected to you is it quite the same as being a person no it’s not but it’s it’s pretty cool and I did another one last week not a podcast but just a video chat with a buddy of mine from Baltimore and we had a nice like hour and 15 minute chat and that felt really cool and I’m like I love these connections on video which is crazy because I hated this [ _ ] two months ago but what do you I mean what part of it of this do you think it really is you think it’s just the not in person or I think that’s part of it I also know for myself over my history that I am a creature of habit you know as an addict that should be obvious right all right you know I like to get into a routine and keep that routine all the time you know that’s just my personality I don’t know I don’t speak for all addicts on this I’m just talking about Billy I have a person that likes routine and regularity and and you know maybe because I lack discipline but that’s where I function best you know I get up in the morning that’s what I do then I go to work then I come home then I do this if it was up to me I’d probably have the same thing for dinner each week Monday we have this to do we have that Wednesday they have that it just makes my life easier you know it’s it’s less thinking less anxiety over this daily mundane stuff because I overthink simple things you know what I mean I can overthink oh what am I gonna wear today what am I gonna you know what am I gonna do for dinner later on all that those decisions you know in my head get confusing and I put too much energy into it so it’s way easier when I am in a regular routine of this is what I do on this day and this is how it goes you know with some subtle interjections of fun in there and so I think some people are better at adapting to change than others and I tend to struggle with it usually I will eventually find my way it just takes me a little longer and I am very resistant to it but I think identifying that and just owning it and trying to take responsibility for it helps so that’s kind of where I’m at now I’m like you know because my gut reaction is to be resistant like I am already to the point where sort of saying to myself and even starting to say it out loud like [ _ ] this quarantine [ _ ] these online meetings I’m just gonna call some people and invite them over the house I’m gonna do some stuff you know socially with other people I’m gonna call up a friend and we’ll get together like I’m already saying those things oh my I have a relative that lives close yesterday she had a birthday party for her daughter my kids went you know they could walk over so obviously they weren’t practicing social distancing because there was six or seven other kids and she had some friends over there so you know when I was flying with that so I could see myself already becoming frustrated and annoyed and I want to do my best to be responsible you know to follow the law to follow you know what other people think because I don’t know you know I don’t I don’t know if what we’re doing is right or wrong but right now that’s what we’re told to do as far as the why I don’t like the online meetings I think for me just the personal in person interactions are meaningful to me I don’t necessarily know why but I feel the same way about phone conversations I can talk to people on the phone but it’s not the same you know it’s just for me personally it’s not the same doing you know the online meetings or even this get-together like I’m already like how this sucks we should be doing it at the center like [ _ ] these we can just meet and do it nobody will know and it’ll be fine and we’ll go back to doing it in person it’ll be so much better that’s the way that I feel about it so we might be done the podcast right now because we spent 27 episodes of me being baffled by how you thought differently than me because I think we’re the same person and finally episode 28 we agree I’m with you the routine the knowing what dinner is the overthinking [ _ ] simple decisions I loved it I was like yes he’s talking about me finally so I’ve read this theory that maybe it’s the the what they call cognitive dissonance of we think we’re in person through this video chat but our bodies are not receiving the energy that usually transmitted when we are in person and so it’s like the dissonance of our body expecting to get this energy transfer you know that it usually gets from this a kind of interaction but it’s not and so its living in this it’s almost like the idea of motion sickness like your body feels like it’s moving but you can’t see that you’re moving or you don’t have the input that you’re moving and so you get sick because your brain thinks you’ve been poisoned because the signals aren’t matching up and so it’s kind of the same with this like we’re seeing people we’re having these conversations and our body’s expecting this transfer of you know energy and input and it’s not getting it and so it’s feeling out of whack due to it yeah make sense and that reminded me of something similar but a little different that I heard someone speaking about consciousness and that we always had this belief that consciousness was just something that was like in our brain that it was inside of our heads and that as they understand consciousness they’re starting to understand that it actually sort of flows through our entire body and you know it’s consciousness is that since like when someone’s standing like close behind you or whatever and you kind of feel them being there that that’s a extension of your consciousness or like you know sticking your hand out towards a wall and you with your eyes closed and you can almost feel the wall before you actually touch it like that that’s your consciousness extends out you know in your body and that you know being in someone else’s consciousness being in someone else’s presence you know there’s a there’s a energy behind that so I’m struggling like you are with seeing other people live their life normally or doing things that seem like normal life and kind of wishing I could or I don’t even know that I wish I could really but I guess some of this stuff I want to be able to do what I want to be able to do when I want to be able to do it basically is what it comes down to but I look at stuff like you were talking about your kids going over to that party and I think that part of our problem is there aren’t immediate consequences for any of this right so your kids go to the party they come back nothing happened cool I guess it’s okay to do that right and it’s almost like so if I trying to find an analogy my neighbor has a plumber come over and the plumber tells them how they should fix their their waste slide out of their tulitt and the neighbors like that’s [ _ ] stupid the neighbor pipes their waste line out to the stream out back of our houses right and then comes and tells me and says man that plumber was dumb as [ _ ] I just piped my waistline right out to that stream the [ _ ] goes right out and it washes right away and I’m like yeah I don’t see any negative consequences let’s all do that and so now the whole town pipes they’re there you know to–let’s out to the stream out back well that shit’s going somewhere right downstream obviously to the next town probably where they get their drinking water or something but we don’t see that for a while and so we just all think it’s okay when like the plumber probably saw that coming because he was the expert but we didn’t want to listen to him we just did what we thought would felt good and didn’t seem to have consequences and so that’s where I like you know that’s where I get concerned like look I don’t I’m not a biological contagion expert right I have no [ _ ] clue I barely know anything about biology at all honestly and so I can do what seems like it’s gonna be okay and what doesn’t seem to have consequences I just worry about the you know we talked about it before that hard-won experience I’m not sure I want hard-won experience in this area right I want to just play it safe I think yeah and I think the lack of understanding on coronavirus over 19 is part of the problem for me you know I can look at all around the world there are different countries that have different approaches to how they’re addressing this and in countries that are having more lacks restrictions and they’re putting it more on like personal responsibility there they have some of the same practices but they haven’t like shut down their whole country they haven’t shut down all the restaurants they haven’t shut down their social gatherings and they’re not seeing negative health consequences and then in this country it’s almost the reverse like we’re we’ve you know shut down all these things and we’re doing all these restrictions to try to mitigate the problem but yet every day the numbers I mean now they’re pretty staggering we’re up over 900,000 cases will we had a million cases probably by the end of the week you know before we get into May we’ll be at a million cases and probably 60,000 plus deaths and it’s like I thought we were trying to reduce the search I don’t know that we’re ever gonna stop the spread of the virus so I’m not sure why staying at home is helping that I don’t know like say there’s there’s just a lot of different information out there and and I try get it from different sources and different people have different approaches some of that are way less draconian that seem to be having as good a results as we’re having yeah it’s and what you’re saying is interesting like I’ve looked into some of this I try not to dive too deeply into it because I’ll lose my mind but I do I do think it’s possible we’re talking about opening up businesses you know based on the risk level and things like that and I think that’s a kind of a great idea there’s places where you interact in more of a one-on-one basis that probably would not be that threatening to – you know what you’re speaking of like to the spread of it I’ve read that there are some countries that have extremely low numbers or extremely low death rates but nobody even though they have theories as to why that is or you know they say hey it could because the way we’re handling this nobody really could prove that or is completely 100% sure that’s true even the people inside of the country aren’t really sure that’s why it’s going so well and like I guess if they knew it was if there was this proven method much more countries around the world would adopt it and the fact is that we really don’t understand a whole lot about this is what I’m thinking more and more is that we’re just really baffled by how this is working and what’s going on I remember reading early on that if if you weren’t getting like a 12% positive rate when you tested you weren’t testing enough people and that’s what about should be the the right you know positive test and every time I look at anywhere in the u.s. that’s testing it’s like a 33 percent positive rate and so I say we’re really just testing super sick people at this point we’re not really testing to find out who has it we’re just testing people we’re pretty sure habit and yeah and I was telling you I have the anecdotal you know my friend who got sick like a month ago with this and had a really brutal time and and and she thought she might die and then she got better and she’s been better for like two weeks and now she’s on her deathbed again and it’s like whew that’s not my understanding of how this works what the [ _ ] like what is real with this and I said this to you before we got on the actual podcast but listen Disneyworld is shut the [ _ ] down right now right Disneyworld who makes billions from having people at their parks is shut down and is not even thinking about opening up and is talking about not opening up until 2021 so you can say what you want about governments being overprotective or too reactive or or people being stupid or whatever if Disney World is turning away all these billions of dollars right there’s a [ _ ] reason and to me that I’m wondering if we’re not almost not being told the extent of what we don’t know because they don’t want you know a global panic but I think this shit’s more dangerous than we realize and I think that’s why this company is foregoing all this money and everybody’s kind of on board with [ _ ] shutdown like I think there’s more to this than we really know yeah and I mean again I can see I mean I’m not a pandemic expert either I don’t know what the [ _ ] I’m talking about I’m just trying to make common sense out of it right but I can see like huge gatherings not being a good idea I can see you know maybe we shouldn’t be having concerts at our local concert venue where there’s 30,000 or 40,000 people you know crammed together sharing bathrooms and space and not like that that makes sense you know that’s that’s probably a good idea but is going to the local restaurant or the gym like is that really the same thing is being locked in a facility with they’re not locked in but being you know put in a facility with 50,000 people like you know I don’t know the other thing I think is crazy about all this is you’re right we are only testing sick people I mean obviously if you look at all the testing centers at least the ones are opening up around Maryland every one of them you need a doctor’s note before you can even go get a test and you owe your doctor which we did for two different occasions and said hey you know one was for my daughter when she was sick they said um now you don’t need to be tested or anything you probably you might even have it but we’re not gonna test you for it it’s like what the [ _ ] you know if you and so we’re not testing people unless they are high risk and you know probably have it yeah and believe you saw probably our friend David his you know little child had a high fever and they were in the hospital and they refused to test yeah like damn and there’s misinformation there and then there’s of course rumors but I guess conspiracy theories if you want to call it that that okay so for hospitals right now the funding their their income is way off because they’ve closed a lot of elective surgeries they’ve canceled a lot of elective you know procedures things like that they’re trying to really keep you you know a minimum amount of what I’ll call customers coming in I guess patients is a better way they’re trying to limit the amount of patients they have coming in but yet they have completely ramped up you know all these things like ventilators and emergency care and all that so they have this drastically increased cost of operations and a drastically decreed decreased clientele coming in so what they’re doing is they get more funding for kovat 19 patients under the cares Act so any confirmed case that they have they get additional funding from Medicaid or Medicare whichever one to take care of that customer so the rumor is anyone that even remotely shows signs and then dies of let’s say a heart attack or something that has totally unrelated if they have it or possibly had it they’re just counting them as being a Kovan related death so there’s things like that that are being reported again I don’t have the evidence to say whether that’s true or not but they’re saying that that’s increasing the number of deaths related to a virus as well that’s possible III mean anything really is possible when it when it comes to this I’m sure I don’t like to just automatically exclude conspiracy theories I get that sometimes governments connect in shady ways behind closed doors I’m not gonna say that doesn’t happen I will say I get lost a lot of times when people start going a little into the conspiracy theory realm it gets a little too much for me quickly like real quickly like when they’re oh my god I don’t even wanna get into what I looked at the other day uh it was it was out there for me maybe it was very normal I don’t know but it seemed very out there and so I like you I just try to look at some common sense behaviors out of this right I try to put together little factors that I can I’m not a biological expert whatsoever so I try to look at information I do have and say what makes sense about this information and so like I said if huge companies are foregoing money look people don’t give up money that’s all I know right people in this world love money and they want more of it and so for them to turn it away that means something serious to me right for people to shut down schools and stuff like that seems really serious to me and I guess I just look at the seriousness of the decisions we’ve made and I say that scares me because I don’t see us making these kind of decisions over something that’s you know quoted as being just like the flu or a minor deal like that decisions you make when shits a really big deal and it would everybody go into a panic be a good idea know so maybe you don’t tell everybody the whole of what you know or maybe you just don’t know like maybe you really have no [ _ ] clue what this stuff does how its spread you’re like look keep six feet away and wear a [ _ ] mask that’s the best ideas we got like it’s just to see people give up money and make these drastic decisions to me says damn this must be [ _ ] huge yeah and not to get too far over this but that is I guess the sad state of affairs I think with most of our country now is that we really don’t trust our government to tell us the truth or to give the information that we think is honest that we know our politicians have a tendency to just say whatever [ _ ] they think is gonna you know make the situation work best for them and that you know there really is no trust in the information coming out of them and on top of that with a lot of this virus stuff we do know for a fact that reporting of cases has been can inconsistent testing across states has been very inconsistent the tests that are being used are in you know different depending on where you go and and whatnot and the reported deaths has been inconsistent like different there’s different things in place in all these different states so it’s so it is very scary I do think personally I think it’s very serious I think you know it’s definitely way worse than the flu I would agree with that I don’t think it’s so conspiracy that really it’s nothing and that they’re just trying to control us I don’t think any of that I just think there’s so much distrust of the government and distrust of the information that comes out of them on top of the fact that the information changes every couple days weeks you know you’re hearing something new that you didn’t know before oh now dogs can get it and cats can get it and it’s like well [ _ ] does that mean dogs and cats can transmit it to people or does that just mean they get it themselves are they getting the same thing as we have is my dog gonna die you know just all these little things creep out and then you’re sent into a whole nother tailspin of information yeah it’s it’s tough I think the best thing the best way to get information is a little bit of both and that’s another struggle I feel like we get a lot of one-sided information if you just listen to any particular news like you almost have to seek out multiple news sources or different news sources just to hear some appa said opinions because there’s so it seems like new sources just get to one opinion and stick with it and it’s almost like anything contrary to that they just cut out of their their news reporting and it’s like I want to hear both like I won’t give me both sides let me decide for myself let me get all the information and put it together and figure something out like I don’t know I don’t I don’t want to go too far in the the kovat direction I’m sure everybody you know has their news place to get it and talk about it I think like you mentioned it’s just this is affecting our lives you know for me I will say I’m hitting more meetings I’m getting more daily physical exercise like aerobic type exercise I mean I used to go to the gym pretty regularly but now I’m outside walk in a couple miles each day or god I think yesterday my thing said I walked like four and a half miles or I’m I’m running some of those days or I’m on my bike some of those days that should I never had time for before and like now it easily fits into my day I picked up a step work I set the time to do that and I’m doing that once a week at least if not more because there’s extra time to do that and so I just feel like a lot of things for me have increased like I said the one who that hasn’t is the inputting of you know audio books and stuff that’s been tough to get to I have done a little bit but I’d like more but yeah I’ve increased a lot of positives obviously decreased social connection what are you finding for you I guess you’re increasing some of your things around your house you’re doing some of your projects yeah I am a busy person I like to stay busy and doing things all the time and maybe that’s part of my social needs is that I like to be going out and doing things and participating in Little League and meetings and whatever else is going on and maybe that busyness comes from the social interactions and I just never really realized that that was a core part of it but so now yeah I’m working on a lot of projects around the house basically just we ripped apart our bathroom and we’ve been doing some things outside when it’s not raining and overcast which has been every seems like every day this last couple of weeks we got some sunshine yesterday we got out in the yard and did a little bit stuff but I have definitely fallen off on my physical exercise I’m not really getting much other than the physical labor that I do which has been kind of a lot but you know it’s not regular exercise routine meditation has been on or on and off a lot because my my meditation app actually expired it was set to renew and I didn’t want to pay for it basically it was a hundred and some dollars for the year and I was like [ _ ] that I’m not yeah that’s too much I’m not paying that and I did the typical what happens with a lot of those subscriptions I said I’m gonna let it lapse I’m not gonna pay it and so it went from a hundred and nineteen dollars I think it was then they sent me an offer for ninety nine dollars for the year and I said I’m still not gonna pay $99 that’s still too much and then the other day they sent me an offer for forty nine dollars for the year it was you got 72 hours for $49 I thought I’m willing to pay $49 for so I paid the $49 I’ve got my meditation app again for a year so you know meditations been on and off but I’m not in a normal routine like I don’t even get up at the same time every morning some mornings I’m getting up at 6:00 some I’m getting up at 7:00 some of them getting up at 5:30 you know I’m just I’m all over the place right right I I don’t know we did a fire last night out back and it was nice but I was thinking I was like you know Billy right before it was a little while before all this started you were talking about having a couple people over or a night with a fire and I was like I wonder if Billy had a fire now if I would go over there or not and that’s so I’m a guy who is trying to say like long-suffering right patience is long-suffering and it’s putting up with what I don’t want to do because it’s for the best but I’m still sitting here like maybe I’d go for her if you had a fire like I’m 6 feet away from people I can do that in a responsible way right right I don’t know so what you were talking we were mentioned something that suffering and I kind of I look at suffering you were saying as physical exertion that’s what we were talking I’m running and you were talking about physical exertion being like spiritual to an extent or good for the spirit good for things like that I’ve always tried to look at things that don’t feel good as that like almost when we went to the sweat lodge before it was like hey I almost want to put myself in this I don’t wanna say painful or suffering type position because I think that increases my spiritual experience to me things like that I think that’s why people fast I’ve always considered fasting to be an option things that are uncomfortable get me closer to my higher power right I’m almost forced to like seek out help because I’m in this situation that I don’t like and and I’m kind of trying to use this as one of those two as an opportunity to do things like fast if I really want to but just the fact that I know this is definitely very first world suffering right my [ _ ] comfy ass house with my Wi-Fi and anything I want to please me and all the food in the world but it’s suffering to an extent I can’t do the things I want to do whenever I want to do them and so I’m forced to kind of sit with that uncomfortability of not being able to do what I want and I’m trying to use that as a reason to get closer to my higher power yeah that’s maybe a good way to look at it you know I haven’t really looked at it that way I keep I think looking at it from the perspective of all right this is [ _ ] ridiculous this is going to end any time now we’re just gonna be done and realize how stupid this is and that is not happening so I think I have to come to the realization that okay this is a situation that’s gonna be uncomfortable for a little while longer because even as they’re talking about opening things back up it’s not like in two weeks from now just shits gonna be back to normal and maybe I need to look at it as I guess we hear about it as the opportunity you know there’s an opportunity here for growth and there’s an opportunity here for me too face some uncomfortable feelings to do some difficult things and grow through it I’m hoping you build a sweat lodge in your backyard while we go through all this there’s plenty of time that would be much more convenient for me than than the other place we’ve gone I would probably I don’t know about a sweat lodge either would work I guess either working you know I was thinking our kids or my kids at least I guess yours are on the same type of schedule they’re out till May 15th at this point and like I’ve had this nervousness that they might go back I’m like ah that would be [ _ ] awful like I’m really enjoying our life I don’t want them to go back but I did realize yesterday I was talking about my wife about it and if they go back at least there’s a break from them until summer hits whatever that is I’m like you know that might not be awful either like they do kind of drive me crazy some days I don’t know I guess I just want to be open to whatever it is I keep having an opinion about what I want and then getting nervous that I’m not gonna get what I want out of it and like really what I’ve wanted is I hope we just keep staying shut down I love it right but I keep hoping for that and getting nervous I’m not gonna get that and so I need to get better in tune with just whatever it is right if we go back to school and we all open back up then that’s what we do if that’s not what we do then we stay in quarantine if it’s something in between then we do that like I just need to I need to go with the flow I need to third step it yeah and I think that’s exactly when I talk about my self-centeredness creeping back in like this is the exact you know specific area where it’s happening it’s like I’m not getting what I want it’s not going the way I want you know our leaders aren’t making the decisions that I think they should make so now instead of just trying to accept things as they are I am resisting and you know sort of pouting throwing a temper tantrum you know being annoyed and disgusted and you know it’s like I want to take my ball and go home at this point you know you guys aren’t doing what I want this isn’t going the way I want it to go so [ _ ] you guys I’m just gonna you know I’m gonna ignore what you say and do what I want to do you know that’s that when I talk about self-centeredness that’s what you know that’s my self-centeredness creep Avakian I think I know what’s best I think I know what I need to make me happy and I don’t give a [ _ ] about anyone else hmm no now that makes total sense I’m with ya I definitely need to continue to get that external input you know and that’s what I think could most help my life this week meditation and external more external input maybe that’s my two focuses before we meet up next week yes I guess it does is next week Maddie are we on step 5 already oh wow yeah we’ll be me is there anything to even say about step 5 shortest podcast ever just to make mention for anybody who normally listens on the app right now as we’re recording not to get technical but we’re recording on video software and I’m not editing it what’s so [ _ ] everone video software and so if you actually listen to us on YouTube I would I guess normally people would call it bonus material is on there for us it might be like penalty material to have you listen to an extra half an hour of us talking about what the [ _ ] ever but you’re welcome to do that if you want to look for us on YouTube there’s extra conversation that is not on the actual podcast episode that’s just I’m not editing out so what the [ __ ] I don’t know it’s probably not any more interesting than what we talked about here but it’s there you got anything else you’re thinking about today yeah that’s it for my week it’s pretty pretty unactive yeah I haven’t uh that much going on for me there but I think it was good I think we had a nice conversation today I kind of enjoyed not having uh not having as much of a focus topic I think was a little nice for a break I don’t you know I think it’s nice to do a little each so I enjoyed it and I hope you guys did too and we will look forward to doing this again next Sunday see you then