Mental Health conversation centered around 12 step recovery and related topics. We talk about spiritual living, living with addiction and growing in the 12 steps. Find us on our home at https://recoverysortof.com/. If you want to join the conversation, email us at RecoverySortOf@gmail.com, find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RecoverySortOf, Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/recovery_sort_of/, or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Recovery-Sort-Of-112376247161866/?view_public_for=112376247161866.
We have Jenny on the show to tell us about the program of Recovery Dharma. We ask questions to better understand what the Recovery Dharma program is, and how it could help someone on their journey in recovery. We ask what Recovery Dharma is, how they define addiction, how they treat addiction, and what the program can do for you. And check out Recovery Dharma – How to Use Buddhist Practices and Principles to Heal the Suffering of Addiction. When you sign up for a free 30-day trial using our link, we earn a small commission! 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/.
To learn more about Recovery Dharma, visit their website: https://recoverydharma.org/
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5/24/20 We have Jenny on the show to tell us about the program of Recovery Dharma. We ask questions to better understand what the Recovery Dharma program is, and how it could help someone on their journey in recovery. And check out Recovery Dharma – How to Use Buddhist Practices and Principles to Heal the Suffering of Addiction.
Click the link above to access on Audible and sign up for a free 30-day trial. When you use our link to sign up, we earn a small commission!
For more information on Recovery Dharma: https://recoverydharma.org/
Transcript:
I can hear you can you hear me yes yeah get my head out alright hi guys hello
mornin sorry I don’t get out much yeah even regularly I don’t get out much so this is like you know technology it’s incredible it really is it’s just I think it’s it’s a little early for myself that’s why I’m I stayed up too late so the the trickiest part of all this is if one of us laughs or one of us has a quick interjection that’s funny the two voices almost cancel each other out and you don’t hear much anything and so the the trickiest part for us well today is like one person talk at a time and Billy and I even though we don’t use it very often we kind of just are very patient but we’ve kind of come up with the idea that if you really need to interject something you hold up a finger and then the other person will stop for a second just in case there’s any great interjection points I know and I might use my uh the mute on and off I don’t know I’ll try it see what happens so Billy what kind of uh I remember when we originally thought about doing this we were both making our own lists of questions which probably overlaps greatly and we never really got together and like sorted that out did you again do you still have your list I do and so I just figured you know you can kind of take the lead and I’ll kind of chime in like Jenny say what she’s gonna say and just kind of sit back and then if there’s anything I really want to add in I’ll wait you know what I mean like I’ll just be patient and wait I have my list on my phone of questions I thought about that last night I was like oh maybe we should have went over these and then I said we’ll just figure it out I’ll just sit back and kind of be a little bit quiet in my list and you know I’m sure it’ll be okay yeah there’s I mean so I had my list and then you know I putting it on social media people had lots of questions as well and and some of them fit into mind some of them didn’t one of the things somebody said was you should just let you should just let the person talk about it and not ask questions so I was almost like maybe I should do that first and then I asked questions after maybe like a five to ten minute section of just talking about the the program yeah that works for me okay so I have like two little pieces of what is that that’s weird that doesn’t even belong here Oh apparently whenever we were first looking at interview and you Jenny they had just come out with a new a a study that showed that a a supposedly definitely works or whatever or I work and I had brought that in I was gonna I don’t know why I don’t remember my point to that I don’t know if I was gonna ask if you I don’t even know I said about like so you don’t good it was I’m not gonna ask that well way to the okay way to a road beyond that I don’t really have any feedback from last week what was that about again oh the shopping cart thing yeah people a couple people talked about putting shopping carts back but missed the point I don’t know if they missed the point but you know I don’t know if we even had a point last week it may with Jenny as well like so I was at my first like in person in a meeting this week my home group met we had and unfortunately we went to eleven people so I know which the meeting started and there was seven of us and it went until like ten minutes after eight you know the meeting it opened we had done all the readings we already shared and then four people showed up like all together from a record house so I was like oh great now you put us over 11 but the meeting was already going and we just we were outside but that was sort of coincidental because it was a super nice day and it was real pretty out so everybody was like hey what did the church say about did you call him what did they say uh I don’t know I didn’t call them so I don’t know the Jimmy my boss who pays the rent contacted them and said they didn’t really care I mean they aren’t using the facility for anything right now so but we didn’t end up going in anyway so I mean we went in got some chairs brought him out and then took the chairs reckon we we had our outdoor meeting and we had five people the first weekend just for the next week we lucked out with the weather and then some people are willing to go inside I’m not like I just want to stay outside so we haven’t gone inside yet I’m just hoping we luck out with weather because I I think having an outdoor meeting if we go inside that defeats the point of having an outdoor meeting to be safe and I look we’ll go over ten we don’t usually around here this this might come up in the big interview we haven’t been very big but um it’s I mean still worth it to me to keep going so I don’t but back to your point I don’t want to go inside yet I’m not ready when you were outside Jenni did you wear a mask no you didn’t we stayed no we stayed apart we are around a fire pit and uh oh so with this how am I allowed to mention voices Cecil County how I think you guys do talk about that stuff yeah so yes so we were at um we were at that’s fine I just adjusted my screen to see you guys better which is it’s really like um I’m getting used to this you guys are you guys look very cool by the way I like your background Billy’s right yeah and you have an IT setup to your headphones like I um anyway um this is just my like sitting chair where I read I’m like but you guys are professional I actually got interests and wash my face i brushed my teeth up to see you guys but anyway so yes we met at voices at the fire pit and the logs around the fire are six feet apart and then so some guys like I might be a little hyper about it because I want the meeting to be a success I don’t want us to get shut down but I also don’t want to catch the coronavirus so I’m like no we’re not going inside no go to the bathroom before you come and no hugs or handshakes but like one guy kind of creeped up on my car and I was like you know like we’re supposed to be distant dudes I gotta have a mask on so but I just I’m just kind of following the rules I’m good with us I’m good with programs that happened – I actually so I went in with the intention of like I’m not hugging anybody I’m not and I ended up hugging two people mostly because they just did the old they came in and big hug and it was just like oh my god I guess we’re doing this and ended up now most of the people there weren’t hugging and there were a few people that were like no way like I’m not don’t come near which is probably how I should have been cuz after I left I’m like aw man what did I do oh the instinct was there like I saw my wandering I was like like you know we both had that same like oh you know like okay you know when we first saw each other at the first meeting and then the second meeting I was more cool about it but it was beautiful having the meeting outdoors if you guys want to take that space at voices because the the woods you know like it’s like woods and birds and yes the highways there but you really can tune that out you know and just it’s just a really great space so we’re lucky to have that I’m so I don’t know I had somebody that I like talked to me about it might be that I’m scared and that’s I’m staying inside and I’m just so over talking about current a virus and to get people I’m like we’re I think part of why I don’t go out is so I don’t run into those situations of not wanting to hug and other people being somewhere I’m not and yeah so they’re all one oh no I’m with you though the one guy he wanted to ride together and I was like no and he was like and after the meeting after the meeting he’s like come on we’re the only people coming from southern seas County she just ride together and like no really you know he just doesn’t take it seriously and I I was really like wow okay you know he just doesn’t take it that seriously and I’m there I’m on the other end I’m like I I’m you know so I’m with you so we we don’t have a whole lot of back stuff to talk about I did when I posted it this week I mostly asked if people had questions for somebody in a different country modality you know to get them to do the work for me so I don’t have to think it’s hard and I did get some response to that always as usual you know Twitter got a [ __ ] ton of response on Facebook I like next to none and I’m like I don’t understand that at all why people are different I do have a couple little quick things to recap not about anything in particular just about random stuff but that shouldn’t take long with that I guess we can just jump right into it after we start bill you got anything you need to say here no not really oh I need to come up with something oh I have one more injection okay so I messaged a friend who has more recovery just arm experience than me and she said the only thing I should avoid is talking about the Nowell of vine case because it was a lawsuit and I can say I was in refuge recovery but I shouldn’t gossip about what happened I shouldn’t talk about the case I can say that yes I started as refugee covery and then we moved on right yeah just don’t want this to be torn they’re happy for this interview this woman was happy for the interview and she’s like don’t talk about the no Labine stuff now see that fair I just and I’m like I didn’t plan on asking you about it I’m just worried about my own humorous comments about it and that’s you and just if my response is like uh-huh you know like it’s because I can’t talk about it have any question about any of that so yeah that wasn’t I can’t I’m choosing not to I’m choosing you know part of Buddhism is why speech and I’m I’m choosing to not gossip about it or you know do like conjecture like I definitely have an opinion about stuff but you know I especially in this kind of platform I’m not gonna talk about it too much I’ll just say yeah something happened I didn’t like the response so we moved on I think really yeah I think really the only point of even bringing it up at all would probably be to explain where a recovery Dharma came from that’s great beyond that it’s kind of like that for somebody who’s still in refuge recovery and ask them why it doesn’t bother them yes I’m curious and I’m curious what people might say in response to this like what questions they’ll have after this so I’ll definitely be tuning into your Twitter like well you want to know I like to see what people have to say it will be interesting alright I guess if we’re ready we can be ready
alright welcome back to recovery sort of I’m Jason I’m a guy wearing long johns I’m Billy I’m a person in long-term recovery and today we have Jenny hi good morning we’re good afternoon whenever you’re listening yeah that’s a good point I know actually do we say good morning usually we might I don’t really know I don’t pay attention yeah I’m not sure
Jenny’s with us today we’re going to talk about a different type of recovery program called recovery Dharma and we have a billion and six questions about that because it seems really interesting that it does not you know I was exposed to this whole 12-step model you get a sponsor you you do your service and bam you’re clean and that’s how it works and so I’m super curious to hear about some other thing that does not work exactly like the thing that works for me I want to know more about it Before we jump into that I do want to take a second a buddy of ours Joe over at the brutally sober podcast has nine months clean and I just wanted to recognize anything now is that that’s [ __ ] awesome yeah and I also wanted to acknowledge week I don’t know how we forgot I forgot to bring this up last week I say we I forgot to bring it up we have a new logo I don’t even know if you’ve noticed it Billy we have a new logo I got a compliment about our new logo and I meant to tell you someone saw that I said you’ve noticed that logo he said yeah I notice it right away it came up on my thing I was like what is that and I looked at he said it’s really cool so I said Jason would love it he got confident about the logo that was somebody’s been working on so that’s so awesome yeah it’s uh it’s it’s cool it’s way better than I mean dude we had like this standard you know create your own logo on anchor which was just words with like a color behind it it was awful if she drove me crazy and it’s taken us you know seven months to get something a little more official looking and so I was super excited we got it and then I completely forgot to mention it last week and so I’m like yeah now we can make clothes we got to make only revealing clothes they got to be like you know selling sex and advertisements that’s the only way this works really is to give away like panties and bras with recovery sort of and I really don’t think that works either but I don’t know at some point I want a hoodie I think yeah there you go so where we are at we kind of put this out there to the world we got a lot of feedback on Twitter I was really I was a little confused there was like three or four different people that I don’t know if they read my Twitter as if I was being a jerk because I basically just said hey if you run into somebody who’s in a different recovery program what questions would you have for them and there was like three or four people who were like I wouldn’t ask him anything I wouldn’t be arrogant to you know judged everyone like I wasn’t trying to be arrogant I was curious right but the weird thing was even when I laid out afterwards what I was really doing none of them really responded her head any more to say about it I was like maybe I don’t know maybe they just really don’t want to ask about anybody’s program I have no idea but we did get a lot of feedback one of the more interesting comments was from just some sober guy who also just celebrated some clean time I think if I remember correctly like six years but he he said don’t ask questions just let them tell their story and you’ll learn what you need to learn and so I think that is the place we’ll start we’ll let Jenny just tell her story of recovery Dharma okay well um I guess I’ll start by saying I am NOT like a spokesperson for recovery Dharma I’ll just tell my experience if that works for you guys so in 2016 I got sober in 2013 and I started with AAA and then around 2016 and I so you know I you know I did the 12 steps and I was very involved and it worked around 2016 I heard of Refuge recovery and which was a Buddhist face recovery program now anytime in a a anybody brought up any kind of like Buddhist wisdom my ears always like picked up like oh wow that’s really cool and and some of the spiritual books that I was reading cuz my sponsor and I’m reading the rooms was like you know you got to get into spirituality and I was definitely leaning towards Buddhism refuge had been around longer but I hadn’t heard about it till about my fourth year of recovery and so I checked them out but they’re too far away it was in Wilmington which from where I live is about an hour and 10 so I went to a couple of those meetings but it was like right at rush hour is hard to get to and I have a family so I can’t take that much time to take off so I checked it out for about a month and then I stopped well then an opportunity showed up I guess not the next summer I’m almost a year later to start my own meeting where I live so I took it and I started as refuge and we did that for about a year and then things happened anybody you know his refuge kind of knows a little bit about what happened and a new group formed called recovery Dharma and that really resonated with me and us more so we switched to recovery Dharma and the program is similar I’ll tell you about a start I’ll tell you about how a meeting goes you know like a it’s an hour about an hour there’s a little opening and then we start with a 10 to 15 minute meditation usually guided sometimes silent you can sit how you like in a chair on the floor I mean one person laid down you totally can you don’t have to be a perfect meditator we’re all learning and usually the meditations are of two varieties either like an awareness meditation guided or a heart practice guided and we can talk more about that if you have questions so after the meditation we come back to the room you know mentally and then we do a little reading from the book usually we just don’t over in the book just chapter by chapter and it prompts a discussion we discuss kind of round robin and then lately we’ve also been ending with a five minute meditation by someone someone outside a recovery dharma but who also joins with the sun gram and then and then we end and we all see you later but then it’s not just the meeting I guess the practice of recovery Dharma too is when you go home you’re kind of expected to meditate at home kind of like a a you know you’re expected to keep up with readings and practices at home same with recovery Dharma also I should say the book it’s not just Buddhism it’s recovery Buddhist based recovery and so that’s the practice and I mean in addition to meditation at home you can check out Dharma talks online other readings it’s encouraged to do yoga get involved in your community and how am i doing got any questions yes I heard nothing about step work and so I think I want to do that Park it sounds great well um we don’t have step work per se but so in Buddhism we have the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path and the book chapters are divided up like that you start with the Four Noble Truths well first you start with how the program works then you go over the Four Noble Truths and then you go to Eightfold Path and after at the end of each chapter are some question prompts so inquiries they call enquiries now these inquiries you can work with a mentor you can work in a group but it is expected as you’re working the program to consider these inquiries about yourself about your addiction about how you relate to the world also recovery Dharma isn’t just drugs and alcohol it’s like process addictions like eating sex relations anything you could be addicted to so this program is designed for the whole spectrum of addiction so the the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path 4 + 8 is 12 what’s up with the 12 number in recovery I don’t get it yeah that’s a coincidence I think so for anybody who’s unaware refuge recovery had and this is you know maybe I know Jenny doesn’t want to talk about this too much in the sense of any judgmental type talk but she might be able to correct some of my facts this was like me reading a quick blurb the other day to learn more about it the gentleman who kind of started it wrote the refuge recovery literature but then donated his book to the program in order for the program to work without like to be a fellowship of free fellowship – where I understand there wasn’t a paid program he was also the gentleman who wrote the book was also involved in some other endeavors that were paid endeavors and in those other endeavors he you know did some possibly unethical things with students or you know people of the opposite sex you know some some Bill Clinton type stuff I think and then you know they just decided that people decided that it wouldn’t be associated with that and so there was a lawsuit a court thing the programs kind of split so there still is Refuge recovery he has nothing to do with it he completely donated all the material that was his so that he doesn’t make any money off of it and they’re free of him and he’s not on the board anymore and then there’s recovery Dharma which is very similar but just not associated with him at all is that sounds pretty good synopsis yeah okay you know honestly I haven’t kept up with the Nowell of vine news lately so yeah maybe he did donate the book I’m not sure the new group recovery Dharma it was formed from the former Board of Refuge recovery and the book is a little it’s less personal like we’re no alignment his book I think is hmm it’s very him and it’s great you know and then so recovery Dharma book it’s a little thinner and uh I guess it seems like broader it’s it’s um we call it peer peer-led so there’s no leaders no teachers recovery recovery Dharma peer led no leaders no teachers whereas or it’s any teacher you want I guess and then um as long as they’re Buddhists and then nola vines it’s it’s him you know that’s him okay so I don’t know how they worked that out from what I could understand his that program is definitely run by a board now – oh no Jenny can’t hear us I can’t hear you that’s not good – no sound I’m know I’m assuming Geller we could hear each other we could hear her
that’s very strange okay I can’t hear you guys that second
connection out here at roville so yeah that makes for technical difficulties that always makes things fun yeah I had to cut that out for sure so and I can add a little bit I did go to one recovery Dharma well I think it was refuge recovery when I went this in fact when they first one of the first meetings that when they opened in this area and it was pretty interesting it was very much what Jenny described we went in did a meditation then did some reading out of the book you know it was it was interesting it was definitely different than what I was used to different than what I had experienced hello sound yeah that’s weird we can still hear her and we can hear each other but uh yeah I found it pretty interesting and at the time I don’t think I was meditating as regularly as I am now so I wasn’t as into it but I know like say we for me it was just a little different than what I was used to as far as the 12-step meeting you know is definitely more open with the Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths I’m so sorry so that’s all right we know how to solve it if it happens again now okay turn off and on I had just said I went to a I think it was still refuge recovery when I went but I had went to I think one of the first meetings in this area when they opened out at the RCA facility Mountain Chestertown or ovo where the hacked up places and it was interesting you know I really liked it I thought it was pretty neat I wasn’t meditating as regularly then as I am now so it was you know a little uncomfortable just because I’m not used to going to a meeting where you sit there for the first twenty minutes and nobody says anything but it was interesting you know it was really neat I went to an online NA meeting in Germany I think it was Germany a couple weeks back and it was a meditation meeting and we meditated so basically I sat there for 20 minutes and stared the people in the screen who all cut their cameras out while they meditated and I was like if I turn my camera off I’m not gonna meditate I’m gonna like type something and if tab or do a google search like I’m not gonna do this so I left my camera on and meditated so I got to say one of the things I find completely mind-blowing coming from Baltimore City we have a variety of all kinds of different programs and and there’s things everywhere you can find a debtors anonymous or a sex addicts anonymous or al-anon or like all these things are plentiful right and so I came up here and looked for some of these when I first moved up here and maybe it’s changed I don’t think I’ve only been here a year and a half but there was like nothing like look you can go to na or AAA Wow Thanks so what I find interesting is I had never been exposed to Refuge recovery or recovery Dharma when I lived in Baltimore and so to come up here to see like not as much not as many different types of groups and then to find one that I’ve never heard of was like whoa hey how’d that happened and so when Jenny said there’s only five members there I was like yeah but you have a meeting it’s still good yeah well um and part of the reason we went to recovery excuse me recovery Dharma was because we have support santรฉ Sangha community is Sangha there’s a big Sangha down in Baltimore City that used to be refuge that is now recovery Dharma so and then so they’re close by and I’m friends with someone there and we’re supportive if I ever have a question or something I might even buzz him and he’s great I have a lot of like social media friends around the area you know that I’ve met through covering Dharma and then the other big group is Lancaster so and their recovery Dharma so that’s another reason why we chose recovery Dharma but yeah Baltimore City has it is what my point in response to your question yeah I wonder if like you know na and AAA just because they’ve been around so long and they’re very established and they’re very status quo people know about them they’re like hey go there like I I I guess it’s very well could have been that they are down in Baltimore and I just never heard of them and I’m just curious like how they get the word out how do you spread the word is it attraction rather than promotion in recovery Dartmouth yeah we’re definitely attraction rather than promotion and for us what what we did was we got so there’s a online meeting list so if you go to their website you can find a local meeting and then locally we advertise through voices word-of-mouth you know cuz many of us not all many of us still go to like AAA or NA to so we just were like oh hey I noticed you were interested in Buddhism you want to check out this Buddhist meeting with me you know but we made up business cards and put them in coffee shops library handed them out we took on the Westminster house in New York just so like you know get the word out and then basically if if you’re interested in Buddhism you know you kind of know each other in the meetings like oh yeah you quoted like tick not hon you want to check this out you know so that’s how we advertise but now it’s different oh you don’t want to talk about the coronavirus we can’t go in stores because we kind of we have a new meeting scheduled now like the Earlville one closed till further notice and we opened up the outdoor meeting in Elkton because that’s more central to the county and we want to help as many people as possible and we know like from what Billy said people are like we’re Earl though we’re you know it’s 10 minutes from me which was awesome but my real point is I want to help more people so we chose Alton have if we’re gonna start one outdoor meeting we chose out then so okay so you mentioned something that I want to get into later but I think I want to save it for later because it’s the juicy pits of this conversation not juicy as in like hard to do but juicier as in more of what I’m I don’t know anyway let’s stick with some of the the specifics so what does recovery Dharma say that addiction is oh okay it’s um it’s a process of craving so you’re trying to avoid you’re trying to hang on to pleasure and avoid pain so it’s the repetitive behavior and that’s a very Buddhist thing thank you yeah absolutely but if anybody who has not heard of Buddhism that is a entirely Buddhist concept not that I’m any Buddhist expert but I have you know yeah I’ll be like when when this is released this podcast I’m like worried people are gonna be on there like she doesn’t know anything but obviously my experience you know right so help me learn if I’m wrong tell me tell me you know yeah feedback is always great help us all learn please yeah so what would you say since that’s the what addiction is according to recovery Dharma what is their method for treating that how do they try to stop people from you know chasing pleasure to not live in pain so you you need to get to know your mind by using meditation and practicing and studying the Eightfold Path and for normal truth so using meditation you just kind of train your brain you know you start you cultivate your heart with the heart practices so compassion joy forgiveness equanimity and then you train your mind with awareness like oh you start with awareness of breath or nassif sound awareness of body and then awareness of thoughts and thought processes and as you watch your mind and watch your tendencies you you become you just you you stop being addicted I guess that’s all right that’s funny what what would be the qualifications for membership Oh all are welcome yeah all are welcome it’s probably better if you’re not drinking and doing drugs but you know complete abstinence is preferred but like you know the case of food obviously you can’t quit food but you should work on a plan probably with a professional or a mentor to have a proper eating schedule program but yeah you can’t really meditate when you’re on drugs interesting interesting observation it’s just so I was looking at like a lot of these questions come from and they’re kind of one-sided because I’m a na guy but they’re kind of one-sided in the sense that like I hear these cliches of like a the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using right and I’m like huh I wonder what the requirement for membership somewhere else like they’re mostly born out of just sayings that I’ve heard in my particular you know mode of recovery but I think it’s interesting that like like we would totally and this isn’t a knock in any way but we would say hey yeah if you’re you know if you’re how I come to the meeting maybe just sitting there and I’ll rub off on you or something like we you know who knows we’d probably be like that too I don’t see anybody who’s like still drinking or using drugs like want to hang out for an hour with a bunch of meditators you know if they’re still like you know like I mean if they’re coming then they’re probably interested and they’re probably going to get into it or they’re gonna go do something else I’ve honestly never understood people who came to meetings hi at all because if I was like that’s the last place I want to be like weirdos just sign my paper so I can go off here well there it is do you sign for clips that was coming up maybe nobody’s asked me to would you yeah I think so I didn’t know if there was like a program stance so going off of that statement is like our meetings are you know autonomous except where they affect other meetings are your meetings allowed to make your own rules or is there like a governing body at the top well I guess um there is it’s kind of a governing body but more like a guiding body um I don’t know you know we we host our meeting according to the book kind of loosely we’ve kind of dropped the opening because we’ve heard it so many times we just kind of get it into it unless there’s a new person and we’ll we’ll do that for them we send some money to the website you know to keep the Homebase going or we don’t send a lot because we don’t have a lot haven’t really thought deeply about that one that’s interesting so I going to some of the other groups in Baltimore they have a specific routine that they do each week but then they also if there is a new member who’s never been before they have like this other paper they pull out from under the stack you’re like oh well we read this one there’s a new member so if you’ve only ever been to to an NA or an AAA meeting and you’re very used to that mode of recovery like there’s generally almost always somebody new there at least at bigger meetings and so you would never have that kind of option so I guess going to some of these other fellowships you get exposed to new concepts and ideas like hey we don’t even bother reading that unless somebody new comes like it’s a very unheard-of thing and a larger meaning yeah and we’re so small we do have that freedom to kind of like fudge fudge the format a little bit like oh yeah we know the routine but so what what does your program promise is there a promise of what you’ll gain if you attend and work your program or are there any you know this is what you’ll get out of this if you come and do this less suffering less suffering less suffering yeah it will get you sorry my kids are knocking at the door I’ll be out a little bit on sorry guys
so yeah it’s got a very Buddhist thing like less suffering you can get sober with this you you can totally get sober stay sober have a happier less stressful life a more fulfilling life I’m not sure if this is in the material or just this is just Jenny I like it so okay one of the things you kind of alluded to earlier you know that you started in AAA and you mentioned that quite a few of the people are still in another fellowship along with recovery Dharma and so to me it’s almost like from that standpoint it’s like oh we’re come Dharma is a great you know complementary fellowship or supplementary or whatever you would like to call it but and I know in our conversations we’ve kind of I think I’ve I have asked you this at one point and and you say that recovery Dharma could completely be a standalone recovery space I’m just so why do people go to other places still I think it can totally be a standalone I think what we’re lacking though is population I think we just are not big enough and so we many of us came from AAA or na and we still have friends there that we want to see so it’s just our recovery friends and so some people have come to Cecil County recovery Dharma and this is just all they do and like I I still keep in touch with a lot of my AAA friends but I even before quarantine I was only going to like one a a meeting like every month or two it’s just kind of like oh I have some free time I’m gonna have some coffee with my friends and uh I just think what we’re missing here in Cecil County is the lack we just don’t have enough members and people need more and I think that might I think some people have checked us out but they’re like oh you’re small I want I need a bigger community and so they don’t come back because they had they want to spend their time in a bigger group and and because we are attraction rather promotion it’s like hey man you either want to get enlightened or you don’t you know like you’re not gonna go out there starting a war to get people to join us I think you know what will grow slowly if just if you want Buddhism we’re here and I have a lot of friends on these main social media so I do feel like I’m part of a bigger community so that’s me that like you know I like Instagram I like Facebook and I like I can keep in touch that way and feel connected to a bigger community than just what I have here in season so again I yeah I’m gonna do what I did before I’ll be back so Billy are you how you feeling over there are you ready to interject I got like a [ __ ] ton of questions I’m I mean I’m pretty good going along I don’t have a lot to say I want to make snarky comments but I’m not gonna do that so really not in a bad way but I like snarky comments um well I thought if we have three people talking it’s gonna be weird it’s a little tough yeah I already try not to talk over each other starting off littler a third person hi sorry stupid country yeah I live in the country we don’t have the most reliable internet I don’t know if that’s what weird what’s happening is related to that so yeah I’m not sure either I haven’t run into too much of that but who knows I mean it is what it is you know this is what you get when you record remotely yeah I’m trying to talk Jason into going and meeting back at the place I don’t think he’s ready yet I’m ready to go meet in person and do their podcast in person she’s frozen Oh No can you hear Jenny oh sorry can you hear me I can hear you okay so I hope you can edit all this stuff out sorry okay so here’s a here’s a question what signs in someone’s life would tell them in recovery dharma that they are in the recovery process and what signs would tell them that they might want to like check yourself before you wreck yourself kind of stuff mm-hmm what what signs of those type of things going on in my in my own life you know I could see it with friends I try not to judge other people’s experiences too much unless they asked me but uh yeah when you start to see friction you know it’s like shaking them like to slow down and let’s take a look at this you know and you know if you find yourself getting snappy with your relationships or or just frustrated angry you know your your judging and it’s not going well like let’s take a moment and let’s look inside what’s going on you know like I know and like an a a there was like are you hungry angry lonely and you’re tired I think this program gives you more tools to look at more details inside like because you kind of always always working on something you know you’re working on you know the right amount of effort you know you’re putting towards your program or the you know are you doing is this the right kind of work you want to do in the world or like right now I’m kind of on a speech thing I’m you know I gotta watch my speech you know and make sure I’m not gossiping it’s and it’s not like a linear path the Eightfold Path you you work on you know all things as they come you know you don’t do we’re gonna all at once you’ll just burn out but you you can kind of pick a topic and you know you’re like how am I doing there and you work on it and the book will help guide you with questions and stuff good so in typical 12-step recovery we have or a sponsor or someone to like guide you through the step process is there something similar in recovery Dharma or is it more self guided or self so yeah we do have Mentors um I can tell you here in Sue’s County again we’re small so we’re just and and uh most of us over there are already done step four or five and so we’re not like as urgent you know we’re not as urgent but we can still you know you people do those things over again so that’s kind of how I’m doing it as we go along in the book I’m doing a personal journey and if I feel the need I have weak wise friends I can bounce stuff off of I don’t have a mentor in recovery Dharma though the recovery Dharma program does encourage mentors but we just don’t have the population here and if I bump into something I have lots of recovery friends that I can be like oh this is like this is a problem for me can you help me walk me through this I’ll go to like my old sponsor or just friends peers people type spiritual friends who aren’t even in recovery that I’ll even just talk to them you know like they’re just they have like spiritual principles at all depends on what the topic is you know it’s sticking with me interestingly I so I you know and it in my program I keep saying those letters I’m gonna try not to for a little while I’m gonna try to work on my speech while we’re on this Jenny so I I’ve always heard you know you get one sponsor because if you have more than one sponsor there could be conflict and disagreement you miss that the other and but I have worked the steps out of a book that’s not really a part of any fellowship it’s just about 12 steps in general and it mentioned having like three or four guides and not one specifically and so I just thought that was interesting that like it’s when you leave when you’ve only had exposure to one program and you hear one thing on your life and then you kind of go out and explore the world and you see that there’s all these other varying opinions of like oh no sure have five mentors it’s a great idea it’s like really but I have yet to see the drawbacks of any of these other paths yeah and we’re you know Buddhism and recovery Dharma in general it’s all about finding your own truth it’s about slowing down and listening yourself and finding out what works for you so you mentioned that you got the community of you know another fellowship maybe one of the larger ones and and you found that very useful you still meet up with them once every month or two months or so just for coffee and you enjoy them what else did you get out of when you say you went to AAA what else did you get out of hey hey that if you’d have just gone to recovery Dharma you feel like you might have missed out on if you didn’t go to AAA first what did I get out of AAA yeah was there anything that like you got there and you’re glad you went there first and got that because you feel like you might have missed it yeah well um like I mentioned earlier the sign ice there’s a lot more meetings a lot more people a lot more time and they do have a lot yeah a lot more because of the amount of people in a a they have a lot more like social and community activities and and that that was really great I have no regrets about starting an a a you know it totally worked for me it’s probably what I needed because I it’s like so you know part of my addiction I was mostly alcohol alcoholic you know like part of that too it was I never thought I was good enough for Buddhism I know that sounds weird but you know all the mental stuff that goes on with addiction so even though I had interest in Buddhism back in my drinking days I just never thought I was good enough so I know it sounds weird but I probably wouldn’t have gone to that program so well cuz I wouldn’t have begun as well and that program besides such low self-esteem it it’s I just didn’t I needed I think AAA helped me get where I was going like if I went into a five-person meeting of Buddhists I don’t know if it would have worked as well or as fast worked as well as fast gotcha are there and this is kind of a two-part question are there specific rules to follow in order to be clean or free of whatever addictive path that people might struggle with and is there any celebration of that sort of freedom from active using time you know they they want you to stop it’s encouraged to stop using drugs or alcohol or whatever you’re addicted to but we don’t do coins or tags though we we’re happy if people come in and say uh today’s my one-year we’re like yeah well I was just curious because like you know a lot of our other programs we have a bottom line of like this is what it looks like to be clean or sober or you know well like hey you don’t drink your definition of clean sobriety and so I was just curious like you know I know you said this is all inclusive and so four things like sex addiction or Internet addiction or you know I guess food addiction obviously you don’t really have a complete just stop using it as your your definition people in other fellowships people almost have to come up with their own definitions of what it is to not use those substances or things in their life and to be free of the addictive portion of it and so I just didn’t know if you guys like laid that out for people or if they had to come up with their own idea of what it looked like to be free from editor I guess they have to come up with their own ideas I don’t know yeah I guess it’s so much harder when it’s not a substance I think I think we almost have easy sometimes when it is a substance yeah yeah I mean if it’s like a people addiction you know like you can’t just not see you know like you can’t just cut off all relationships it’s it’s really up to you so since its kind of self-guided is this your program say anything about dating in your program specifically does it say anything about dating in the first year
remember either but everybody will tell you that it is in rehab they were like in your first year like you know don’t know breakups no new relationships don’t move if you don’t have to and don’t have a baby and I got pregnant in my first year recovery is there any sort of end or graduation to your program or is it a lifelong program lifelong lifelong okay so one of the questions we had that someone asks Jem asks what is your new passion what’s replaced you’re using time and attention and where is your focus now and I think that’s all kind of one question in three different varieties where’s my I guess family community you know Buddhism you know I like I enjoy studying that you know me do you feel like recovery Dharma that’s kind of what that path has led you to is to say
I just have to keep doing just keep restarting yeah bad internet can’t believe that’s the thing still but I guess she is way out there in the country I’m just surprised that like cuts out the voice if anything is to cut out the picture yeah yeah I think the old yeah the audio would stay but the video would drop out I wonder if it’s a if it’s an Internet issue or something else I don’t know what else it could be
sorry that’s right yes so do you what the hell was I saying oh yeah do you think it’s it’s recovery Dharma and your work in there has guided you to those passions and focus like does that what you’ve learned through recovery Dharma’s oh [ _ ] I really want to mess with my family and myself and spend time on my Buddhism practice and I think it was always there I think it helped me I think it helped open me up to show me like this is my real passion because you know when I think about little ten-year-old Jenny I wanted a family but then somehow I got lost and I started drinking around 13 and I started my people-pleasing really kicked in and I you know I became this person I really wasn’t and then doing this I know I always wanted a family and that theme was always there even when I was drinking and then finally getting sober helped me pull back the layers of [ _ ] and like oh yeah Jenny just slow down just have that family nobody stopped yeah that’s awesome so me I think I think and somebody’s gonna correct me because y’all probably know better than me celebrate recovery is like the Christian version of the 12 steps right like they’d still do the 12 steps but they do Christianity is that what yes ok thank you that’s about this so if that’s like the Christian version I know Buddhism the 12 steps obviously don’t work specifically well for that and that’s why you probably don’t use them in the Buddhist version of you know recovery program but would you say that that’s a similar type thing to a Christian program but for Buddhist like is that kind of how that works uh so is a religion for some people but for others it’s more like a philosophy Buddhism’s like I think of it as the oldest psychology you know like I think the Buddha was the earliest psychologist and uh so I think of it more as like psychology like a secular thing now for Buddhism Buddhism is a religion for some people and uh but when I you know when I go in a recovery Dharma I treat it as a secular kind of thing and I think of it like psychology that’s a really interesting way to put that God could you give us just a maybe a brief description or a review of the for mobile Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path I think that’s kind of the direction I guess where the steps so yeah for Noble Truths I have to pull it out for the Eightfold Path as I always forget one the first noble truth is in life there is suffering the second noble truth is suffering is caused by craving or seeking pleasure avoiding pain the third noble truth is there is a way out away from there is a way to avoid suffering and then the fourth is it’s the Eightfold Path which leads me into the Eightfold Path which I’m just going to read because I always forget so wise understanding wise intention wise speech wise action wise livelihood wise effort wise mindfulness and nice concentration I like it I like it it so when you and this kind of ties into what you had just said you know that it’s not really so much a religion in the sense of the way you use it so is there a specific I don’t know how to ask this exactly right to be in line with Buddhism but is there a specific type of higher power or religious belief along with this or is it more on the secular side of it um the way I think of it is the higher power is like the Little Buddha in you you know like you have the power to free yourself from addiction and you have to believe in that you have to believe in your ability to be free this is gonna be way too easy for you
unknown said if you had to convince your program into one didn’t work thank you yeah I wasn’t raised what she said whoops so there’s no powerlessness it sounds like in no powerlessness oh is that a thing is there no you said power in yourself yeah I missed the last half minute of audio sorry that’s fine yeah there is say it again Billy sorry I said it sounds like it doesn’t there isn’t like this sense of powerlessness that we sort of don’t say teach or express in like in typical 12-step recovery you have to admit your powerlessness and that you need a Power greater than yourself or outside of yourself whereas it sounds like you’re saying you need to find that power within yourself so I agree with you and again I’m a little self-conscious because I don’t know if I’m doing this right but that’s I would agree and that is part of my attraction this program I was I was getting a little tired of being told that I was always wrong you know in a a like yeah you don’t that’s your alcoholic mine you don’t know you know and it’s like well pardon part of me is right right you know so it is it is yet it it says like you know you are good inside let’s find that let’s find that a lot of I haven’t mentioned this part yet but a lot of Buddhism to is is the kindness every step of this is be kind to yourself the kinds of others you know be gentle with you know a big theme of you know you did what you did because that’s what you had to do to get by you are not that person you know and I really appreciate that you know I need I need to be you know treated gently and sometimes that was a little tough and you know a a like that kind of rugged like just don’t drink and get on with your life you know and you know I I was thinking about this you know I think I I never understood this like you want to drink here here’s $20 you just go drink like what the heck is that you know do they do that in any like like it’s dying out but yeah nice to be sit there and shut up and you know yeah now to your ears and stick it in your mouth and that kind of stuff yeah it’s a little rough and like I like the kindness feature it’s just a little gentler like yeah you know it you’re you’re messed up but you’re gonna be okay and we’re gonna help you you know I’m not saying everybody in a a is you know rough and gruff but they’re the whole philosophy in Buddhism and recovery Dharma is is kindness you know almost first and foremost you know just be gentle with yourself and others and we’ll get through this it was so rough I had to start saying that I would take the cotton candy out of my ears and put it in my mouth it seemed a little softer
so unknown asked if you had to convince your program into one word what would it be one word can it be hyphenated a
Buddhist meditation fun question yeah uh he’s an interesting character yes obviously Tim said he wanted to know about support network self improvement in growth awareness and how are all of those done what do you get here’s a good part of this what do you get that you weren’t getting in AAA or that you liked better for you the Buddhist program recovery Dharma I think it offers me more specific guidance for a total package so also part of my Adickes um a CoA – and um you talked about there’s like a very few meetings around here there’s like when I was looking for an ACA meeting Juan okay there was one and it was at an odd time and I ended up going to a therapist to work on my ACA stuff and and that worked I think recovery dharma has it’s a the package is more all-encompassing so it’s not just my addiction to alcohol but it also my other features like my a CoA stuff and you know sometimes I have food issues and I definitely have kind of like a I don’t I don’t even know how to define it yet but I definitely have weird relationships with people so I don’t want to say people depiction but so I think recovery Dharma helps address all of that not just not drinking okay in the recovery Dharma meetings do you
guess she lost us again so I’m gonna ask I don’t know if they have like a share I don’t remember there being like a sharing session as you would have almost like group there you know like I consider our meetings are almost group therapy where you come in and you share um can you hear us now so you know she’s still can hear and I don’t remember that being a part of that I remember you know coming in and reading you know doing the meditation reading the book and then talking a little bit about that teaching but I don’t remember a sharing session interesting so one day we could just say what we want to say and chat our questions to her just let her talk be hard without feedback but yeah I would be pretty tough to do that I mean I guess it would work but I don’t know how well it would work yeah cuz then we would be talking and then I’d type and then she’d see that hopefully and talk back like yeah choppy it’s a choppy audio yeah well this isn’t working a lot of editing for sure oh no that’s never fun I’m so yes yeah okay yeah so I guess will will operate under trying to type the questions to Jenny to finish it is that so Billie was about to ask something actually okay yeah oh you know type it oh yeah I was gonna say say do you have a sharing session during the meetings
yes so that’s interesting cuz I kind of wanted to ask about like crosstalking to when she said I think she mentioned there was a little bit of a share somewhere anything yeah we do have sharing sessions uh so after that we do meditation and then we do a little reading and then we have discussion and that’s a chance for people to share I prefer no cross talking and when we started up this new outdoor meeting I kind of reestablished that rule that would be better we don’t crosstalk mmm and so exploits of a nobody asked was there a a or na wasn’t working for you were you working the program like in 12 steps and what is it about this that speaks to your purpose and so that’s what they wanted tonight yeah
Richard as well wanted to know what the program did her I’m so sorry about this audio guys I’m looking for that message it just popped up various okay so I was doing a a and it just it wasn’t a a wasn’t as fulfilling I just I was trying different meetings to see if I could find something and I guess Buddhism feels that spiritual spirituality that I was craving and you know AAA’s at least around here is more Christian I don’t know if that’s a rule but it sure you know practices more Christian and then there’s the there’s the atheists and I guess I’m I would consider myself agnostic I’m not sure what I’m still looking but Buddhism fulfills the spiritual part of my recovery and my life interesting so yeah I think so so new outlook detox asked if the emphasis of the program was on accountability and if that was to another person and how does it address the issues that had you know someone using to begin with
as far as accountability I guess we’ll go back to the kindness thing like you know we don’t report to each other you know how it’s going it’s kind of on you you and you so to answer your question how does the program address the issues that you had how’d you use anything with like going back to exploring your past is that what you mean do I have my phone yeah oh that’s a good idea okay I guess I could I could try to tune in with my phone if you want
this is gonna be yeah boo I’ll be I’ll be edit until next Sunday if we try to do remote interviews next time it’s already can you send us the results of three speed tests before we agreed yes we need to make sure you’re not into rural urban area hi sorry hello okay I don’t know thanks for being so easygoing oh man this is this is all a test okay I can’t wait to hear what you guys say what I’m like my audios off I’m gonna be trying to edit til the next Sunday so I are you okay yeah for now but in the bottom right right in the bottom right there’s a little three dots if you move your mouse around and if you click on it there’s a setting that says use a phone for audio and that’s what I was trying to I didn’t know if that would work better if it went out again or not do you have good phone service out there did it go out already figure that out I’ve never tried that either I think it doesn’t sound as nice I think it sounds like a telephone call but oh yeah right
probably yeah the audio probably sucks on your phone I was wondering if she could just join from her phone and that would work any better one time I was doing an interview I was messing with a local music magazine in Baltimore and I was supposed to go interview these guys this rock band and like for whatever reason the interviews got cancelled that night if the dude wasn’t feeling well or something so we all got sent home and then I just I interviewed my daughter with a mask on instead that’s interesting I can yeah interesting yeah sound quality okay not quite as good but better than no sound better than nothing ever here yeah so that’s working it seems to be working I could try the Bluetooth on here
alright I’m afraid I’ll they’re free to do anything like I gotta lose ya try that maybe doesn’t help the audio hello hello Oh how’s that audio now a little louder yeah oh okay well how would how’s it going it’s going
we’ll start from the top so we were uh we were at asking if the if there was an emphasis on accountability in your program and you were mentioning no no no
I think so oh okay now now so hello what happened oh yeah no uh-uh I don’t know what happened but you were asking oh yeah if there was any kind of emphasis on accountability and I think you started to answer that a little better okay um no I don’t know if I understand questions so you want people like report in whether they’ve done drugs or not err well I think part of what what kind of works in the other programs not so much accountability of like whether they stayed not using no
maybe she should call in phone all right so what kind of works so accountability you’re explained in that part yeah I was trying to I was gonna send you the call do you get good phone service like mobile phone yeah okay yeah callin in would work better I don’t know I’m trying to solve this technical issue now I can’t hear her we’re gonna do this and find out it was actually the Bluetooth all along yeah right we can go back to how that’s our weird we can hear her yes yeah this is so old-fashioned so no not I think to get back to the question a little bit I don’t think it’s so much like reporting in on whether I got higher not this week I think of accountability more like like when I got my first service commitment at my first home group it was like hey you’re the coffee maker and I I just felt like hey I should probably show up and make this coffee it’s my job and then like in having a home group I sort of if I don’t show up people are probably going to call me and say hey you ain’t been here for two weeks just that kind of accountability not really accountability in the sense of like reporting in on your status do you have anything similar to this yeah we tried to take turns running the meeting some people are more self-conscious about reading a meditation than others so we started playing meditations from the phone so insight timer has all the recovery dharma meditations so we just kind of we try to take turns leading the meeting and we have different contexts who would be like the point person for the location of the meeting just kind of unofficial but we don’t we don’t do coffee I mean on some meetings do I maybe just cuz we’re so small and uh but you know we haven’t had much need to do coffee or clean up very much because we’re just so small I would think with with kind of meditate you might want to do decaf tea exactly right you know six shots of espresso right before your meditation energy drinks every Dharma meeting so Dave asks how do you deal with anger fear or sadness and I almost so interestingly enough what he mentioned was well I think so when I read his question I was kind of like man that’s sort of what our third step and in my program talks about like we don’t have to fight these feelings anymore we can allow them to exist and I almost felt like you sort of touched on it earlier that like that seems to kind of be the Buddhist path is the whole third step concept of like we don’t have to fight our feelings we can allow our feelings to be and just be there with them mm-hmm I don’t know if you have any more input into that with how you guys deal with anger and fear and sadness yeah I mean feelings common feelings go you know let them happen and and watch for a pattern you know you know are you getting angry at a certain time of day or with certain people certain places you know watch for the pattern and try to tweak your life in a better direction yeah it’s a billy did you have any questions I think of almost run through everything I got her my only question was more I guess do it’s a like a kind of personal question for Jenny so like growing up were you Liddy’s growing up or were you really raised in a house that had any sort of religion and then how did you come into like Buddhism and figuring out that that was something you were interested in I was raised Lutheran and I did Sunday school up until about 13 14 years old right about the time when I started drinking coincidence but yeah we have to go to church every Sunday and then around 13 or 14 of that’s when my parents got divorced everything’s filed out of control and then I did starts drinking and doing drugs Buddhism it’s funny I just found an old coloring book my mom brought me some old stuff and I was drawing pictures of Japan when I was like 7 or 8 so I think Asian culture interested me way back then and so I first picked up a Dali Lama book in college age it was the art of happiness and I was reading and I’m like yeah this is great I really like this I’m really yeah like I said then they got to the part where like no intoxicants like oh wait not for me so I like I actually literally put it down but I still had the book and then when I found recovery and they said you got to find a spiritual side I was like you know that book in college that art of happiness book I’m going to pick that up again and I read the whole thing even the no intoxicants part I was down with that and then I just kind of took off from there then so the the Lutheran I think was good because it was like a program in the sense I’m good with programs you know I was a good girl scout I was good insurance you know give me a routine and I can I can do it you know home schooling now like just give me a program I can do it so but I remember even in Lutheran I was like I don’t know like I had a lot of questions about God like I don’t know and I I seriously I still don’t know like I and that’s what I’m doing I’m kind of exploring what is my concept of God if any and Buddha is a good companion for that for me is well I’m gonna go a completely different direction so okay yeah so I don’t know if this ties into that or not but I curious if if your program maybe has a type of person it would work best for write or is there types of people that maybe wouldn’t probably be so successful in your fellowship and maybe should go to a different place first or altogether because they just probably wouldn’t align well with like I didn’t know if there was if it was a better fit for some people than others and if there was some way to kind of gauge that before you walked into a meeting I don’t know but I’m the kind of person who thinks we should all be meditating so I think the whole we’d all be better if we were all meditating I I think people who are doing practicing recovery Dharma when they I think it enhances their relationship with other recovery programs I think when when we practice recovery Dharma we can be better in a a we could be better in na I think we I think we could be better Christians if we’re doing practicing Buddhist principles and we do have you know we have Christians in our recovery Dharma program you know they just because it’s more like a psychology to them than a religion so my question would be so in typical like I would say traditional like 12-step fellowships there seems to be like this abstinence based ideology behind either a a or na or whatever if you had people that said hey I think I have a drinking problem but I would like to drink responsibly like is that something recovery Dharma would help with that or is it really kind of more I don’t know like a like a more abstinence based approach to dealing with addictions hmm renunciation is really part of our program if somebody came in I don’t know why they would come see us if they just had a little bit of a drinking like that different area would go yeah there aren’t having programs out there now that would say that you could be say an alcoholic totally wreck your life but we can help you learn to manage and drink responsibly like you know there are there are programs that will help people learn to kind of get there maybe drinking or using under control and I didn’t know if recovery dharma would be something that did that or is it more really we and that’s an approach to any it should not necessarily drugs or alcohol obviously they can be fairly destructive but you know any addictions is there like a management component there ya know I don’t I haven’t I have no experience of that I don’t know anybody who has I don’t think that’s really our department oh man I want to throw you really under the bus now so somebody comes into recovery Dharma and they are on suboxone and they’ve decided that that’s the path for them right there they’re completely like their life is way better than it was do you treat that different than somebody who’s on Prozac like are they allowed to be boxing and work your program or is that not yeah yes I’m sorry it’s my editor my last question was in conflict to yours I didn’t mean for it to be if somebody’s managing their recovery with suboxone or if somebody’s managing their mental health with prozac or whatever I’m not going to tell them to stop first of all they don’t have to disclose that to me that’s not my business but if they’re working with a medical professional that’s prescribing that that that’s that they can do that you know they don’t even have to tell me or anybody that’s their private thing so I feel like when people come to maybe Nara they sort of need that identification of like oh my god I’ve done some of these awful things in my using time and I need to know that some other people also did these awful things and can say me too and life got better do you feel like recovery Dharma has space for that or because people are sharing about so many different things that they’re recovering from that maybe people won’t feel as inclined to share some of that deeper dirtier stuff in a meeting I you know I’ve only been to smaller meetings so I’m not sure how a bigger meeting would go and we we’ve had the whole the whole gamut of shares some people share some really you know dark stuff and some people share the really service stuff and I feel like we have connected with each other enough and not sure how it would go with the bigger meeting I you know I just have no experience so yeah I had mentioned some bigger communities let’s say in like Baltimore or I know Wilmington probably Wilmington Delaware well well there’s one but Lancaster actually has a pretty big meeting okay I just I was curious if you had an opportunity to get to any of those areas just to see maybe a little bit of difference if you were at like a bigger meeting er well I haven’t been to their like their regular weekly meeting but Lancaster has a spring and fall retreat and I’ve joined them then and that’s how we became friends and now we’re you know we’re online and Facebook group and so that would be like the biggest recovery Dharma meeting it was a it was a retreat I had gone to a couple of us went it was nice to connect with them so when you I know you say you still go to a a this might be judgey from me like generally when we worked to 12 steps right 11 says pray and meditate 12 says hey carry this message to others right and it doesn’t tell you how and it doesn’t say you need to do that in a a right if you go to a a or na there seems to be this sentiment of people were here to freely give you this stuff and now for the rest of your life you kind of need to show up and give it back to them freely and it’s a pretty beautiful concept I get it right I’m not saying I’m totally sold on that’s the only way to do it I think there’s other places to freely give back and just as useful in life hopefully through the principles of the steps we’re being people who freely give back in a whole lot of different areas of our life and so I’m not sold on the fact that I’m required to be a member of this 12-step program for the rest of my life just because they saved my life I do appreciate it and so far I am still a member not sold on the fact that I have to be or that anyone else has to be right I’m just curious how hard that decision was for you to say hey I feel like maybe these people saved my life or gave me a life worth living but now I think it’s time for me to kind of stop participating in their Fellowship or program I really want to do this other one I just think it’s better for my life and I can give back there and not feel bad about it yeah you know that was pretty much it good job I had to do what was right for me you know I it was getting to be a drag I was coming home from a meetings like not pumped up like drained I was like oh you know and I was like I need to find some because I have a limited time I have a family I need to you know be home for I have limited time to spend outside of the house on my recovery I needed you know as more you know as much of powerful time as I could so you know so I needed to find a better system for me and so you know I don’t I don’t think I’ve abandoned AAA I feel like I feel like I changed all you know I’m changing still who knows I may get back into it you know like I might you know if once you know the kids are back in school stuff I might be dying to go to meetings during the day when they’re in school you know it’s I you know I change all the time I didn’t foresee me starting a Buddhist recovery meeting in Earl bill when I first started this path I don’t foresee what I’ll be doing another five years from now so for now this is what’s working for me and it’s it’s working pretty great I feel like almost to my detriment at times I will hold on to this like stoic or British sense of commitment even when it’s not serving me well yeah I definitely have it my wife Adele yeah in a lot of areas but yeah in recovery so I definitely good quality it is but I applaud your ability to do what you know probably a couple of my therapists I’ve told me makes more sense which is difference right for your life what you feel you’re supposed to be doing yes talked about yeah I talked about it with my sponsor like I kind of want to do this and she encouraged this was an a a sponsor she’s like you need to do you know what’s best for your recovery you know she didn’t want to see me go and I you know technically I didn’t go but I just decreased a lot right I still have tons of a friends effect right before quarantine I was asked to speak at an a a meeting right so that’s Thursday before your interview feels like that I’m supposed to do like we were supposed to be that Sunday before quarantine and that earlier we guide the speaker so I was all pumped up for the interview I said ready to communicate to the world you know so that was my last a a meeting so I mean I’m still I it was nice because I’m still like kind of a valued member like they still see me as part of their group you know even though I’m not there that much was nice to be invited to speak how does that feel for you to speak are you you’re not really technically working the program right this moment right or haven’t for a while mm-hmm so how did that feel do you feel I don’t know I guess for me I might feel a little imposter –is– to some extent I didn’t feel that way I just I just told her my experience you know you know I even told him I started the recovery dar meeting I mean that was part of my story and you know I told how a a you know a save me and here’s our man today that was a short version did you did you get through all 12 steps before you switched over I sure did that’s awesome yeah Oh have you have his recovery Dharma had online meetings during this quarantine yes they have they have like hundreds so that’s why I didn’t start one for our group because there is our so many out there I was like what more could we offer and but yeah if you go to the website there’s tons still going on and actually I didn’t you know I didn’t go to any of them because I just got so busy managing the house and the kids and everything I just did my own normal home you know meditation program that I do and so that’s why I was really kind of thirsty for a meeting that in-person meeting it was good to be with a group again oh you know it so my daughter I mean with my daughter’s school we had seven to ten zooom meetings a week so by the end of that I was like I am NOT getting on another zoom into recovery friends either you know over the phone or through social media every day so I didn’t feel like kind of loose or flapping in the wind I still felt pretty grounded and I joke about homeschooling being my new program but that there is some seriousness to that I just really dug into that and got us established so we could do well yeah and I would just like to compliment you I’m your friend on Facebook so I follow some of their homeschooling things and it’s it really looks like you’re having a lot of fun and doing great with it so I commend you for that effort it looks really fun oh thanks yeah we are having fun with it you know the school provides all the material I’m like alright let’s do this you know thank you we are having I’ve went the other way in quarantine I’ve gotten like lazy and I kind of haven’t been doing a lot for myself just not eating well so actually this week was the first week I started like alright I got to get back and a better routine this quarantine thing’s kicking my ass so Jenny you don’t look good for anybody that doesn’t know Jenny Jenny is the Facebook friend that you don’t dislike they’re not doing it for applause but they’re doing such fun and great stuff with their family that it makes you feel a little bit that’s hilarious you got any other questions bill I think I’ve exhausted all my questions about it for the most part just the last one is where are you guys meet and how can you find recovery Dharma and Cecil County well we are meeting in Elton on Thursday nights at 6:30 at the voices of hope Recovery Center 409 West Pulaski Highway and we are meeting in the fire pit out back bring your own chair there’s some logs there but bring your own chair or meditation cushion and we are respecting social distancing and so no hugs or handshakes please first and six feet apart and the bathroom is available to us but we are trying to all like hey just go pee before you leave and try this don’t have to enter the building and we’re trying to keep you know you safe them safe everybody stays nice and roughly how long is the meeting or about an hour we’re talking about because there’s somebody Bruce things we want to talk about so we’re talking about doing the meeting for an hour and then if nobody has the fire could after us just kind of hanging out to talk about those like you know other Buddhist topics that maybe didn’t fit into the meeting like oh hey I listen to this talk or what do you think about you know some guy wants to talk about chakras I was like I don’t know if that’s appropriate for the meeting but why don’t we talk about it after the meeting there you go that’s funny do you think the Buddhism thing will throw people off like some people will be turned off by that idea like people who might have come to recovery dharma if you just mentioned hey we have these principles and they’re pretty nice but then they hear buddhism and they’re like yeah that’s not for me i don’t i don’t know if anyone would find recovery dharma and not know that buddhism is a big part of it dharma in the title interesting interesting and so yes feel free to go attend recovery dharma try it out i know i’ve heard in some other fellowships that i’ve gone to that if you go to a meeting and each meeting has its own style and feel and vibe and so maybe you should attend like six different meetings before you decide if a certain program is right for you or not and so i always think that’s a great thing to say when you’re thinking about a new me I think at some point I will try recovery Dharma as a meeting at least maybe not as a replacement I don’t think I’m ready to quite yet but maybe maybe I’m still I’m still in not leaving my house mode but maybe when things get a little normal I will definitely at least come visit and say hi you said it’s Thursday night Thursday night and we’re outside and we’re spaced out not spaced out meditation spaced apart I know I keep saying I want to try to make it Thursday’s my home group night so I’m like a 6:30 to 7:30 if I left right from there I might make it by 8:00 so we’ll see well I don’t think we’re going anywhere if we’ve made it this long with like five people were you know we’re good I mean we’ve gotten up to ten but it’s usually a meetings you see about like five people awesome did you have anything else any final thoughts you wanted to say oh what’s the is there any main differences between refuge recovery and recovery Dharma at this point so recovery Dharma is peer-led with you know no leaders no teachers and the book is different and that’s just them but I mean if you went to a refuge recovery meeting do you feel like good was it a big difference switching over from one to the other or did it feel pretty similar it felt pretty similar like if I move to new area and Refugee covers there I would go to that but if I’m starting a meeting it’s going to be recovery Dharma gotcha yeah good I could understand that I’m not gonna say any more about it thank you so much for coming on Jenny we really appreciate it yes thank you so much this was that this was fun I’m so sorry about the audio you’re gonna have to do but um so and I’m I’m a fan of the show you got you actually in especially in early corn feed you guys were my meetings I was listening to your podcast show seriously so I’m a fan keep keep up the good work thank you for this thank you very much I will talk to you soon Benny all right bye-bye ah so that was nice interesting yeah first up to interview and over technology with technical difficulties imagine that and so yeah I don’t god I’m gonna saw editing this suck I’m actually gonna have to listen to this whole [ _ ] thing just to edit that’s gonna be terrible god I don’t think people realize I don’t listen to this at all we just talk and get it out that’s it right now right now and all my podcast do that’s hard it’s so hard I guess driving let’s do another one recently and not it was more about like the so what things can you do to help your immune system in case you get sick sick with anything but specifically with Corona Mars going around like you know it’s some people have a good immune response and some people don’t so what things can you do for your you know better immune response and they say take vitamin D that vitamin D is a really good one and then one of the guys that my Hogan group is a nurse at Elton Hospital and he said that’s actually one of the things in their treatment regimen is vitamin D like you just load them up with vitamin D so it’s very cheap I went and bought some vitamin D and now we’re all my whole family’s taking vitamin D and vitamin C supplements every day so I figured hurt I mean it was a fifteen dollar investment for a month you know what I mean for a month worth for everybody so I thought what the hell I mean worst case your peer will be a little bit more yellow you know best case we’ll have some immunity so who knows better immunity dude I’m still you know again I really no interest in talking about ya coronavirus I just for me I’m like trying to I don’t think it’s about the I mean I guess it is like the riskier situation like I don’t want to go in the middle of a festival of 50,000 people but it’s more for me limiting the risk of number of risks right like I mean I’d drop my kids off with my mother yesterday and you know I didn’t is that risky possibly she goes to work right but then like you mentioned let’s meet up and do this in person and I’m like well okay so I’ve already met my mom right there’s one risk factor she goes to work at a grocery store that’s a whole lot of risk that she’s bringing to me now if I go meet Billy in person somewhere now we’re talking about everybody that Billy works around and whoever they run into now we’re talking about everybody that Billy sees at the meeting and whoever they like it’s just how much that’s exactly what hit me after the meeting you know what I mean like that whole that whole concept that you’re talking about it’s like and I didn’t look I didn’t project that going into the meeting but then after the meeting I’m like oh [ _ ] you know yeah that’s a lotta exposure that you just went through it’s exponential it’s exponential to meet up with you in a room is like exponentially increasing my risk factor and I’m like yeah is there a quiet place we can record outside with masks oh and I might try that
yeah it’s getting warmer now yeah I mean is there somewhere quiet we could do it I would I think I would record outside but we’d almost have to like yell at each other from 6 feet away yeah right interest I just have to computer far away yeah I don’t know I’m curious I’ve actually considered I like I like that YouTube gets the you know bonus material and I definitely do the air quotes during that because it’s really just us talking about nothing absolutely but I like that and I like not having to make the video for youtube out of just a standalone picture and our voices and so when we do end up back in person I want to a way to also record it yeah and I’m not sure how to do that I almost think we need I don’t know if we need two laptops or we need to do one of them on a phone or I don’t know it’s it’s not like this is a great recording I think I don’t I’ve only watched it once but I think it like flips back to whoever’s talking which is nice yeah so we’re just gonna have to kind of set a phone up to just record both of us I guess and the sound I don’t know it’s gonna be shitty but I I almost feel like that’s what we have to do to do it and I liked the video idea yeah good idea what do you got playing the rest of your day Oh probably [ _ ] twelve hours of editing no nothing nothing fantastic I gotta go meet my mother and you know grab two of my kids that stayed the night at her house last night but that’s it really now that I don’t have a Sunday night home group huh I don’t really do much of anything on Sunday I do this at the Parker at the building supposedly at the park the last I heard and then the time change to changed it was like it was at 7:00 and then it switched to 7:30 I saw or something I don’t know I really can’t keep up with that I’m I’m definitely not going I don’t know what you know I just know it’s actually kind of freeing did not have it Sunday night I never really wanted a Sunday night home group it just made the most sense for people coming to visit for my anniversary from Baltimore oh yeah I did good with Lucy this week oh yeah yeah the evil one no the what is that it’s a P a Nottingham oh they’re not yeah yeah yeah yeah I was pretty good meeting yeah there’s good people er there really is the one thing I didn’t like was that at least half of the meeting didn’t have cameras oh and they were like calling in or or they just had their camera turned off a lot of people been yeah that’s like the new thing I’ve seen that a lot of meetings and like it either I hate then if we like if we had to do this by phone it would be so much more difficult I’d truly enjoy looking at the person I’m talking to me tip for sure that’s and that’s one of the things I didn’t care for much with zoom meetings you know it’s and it seemed like it got I’ll say worse later but in the beginning it seemed like everyone had their cameras on and then slowly it was like just more and more people were just like turning their cameras off I’m like well that sucks like that kind of I mean it’s bad enough you’re already not in a meeting with a bunch of people now you’re turning your camera off you know I don’t know that was just for me but yeah that was the that was the only drawback but the meeting itself I mean they they’ve read a nice little piece of literature and then they you know had some good shares about it I I definitely enjoyed it so I’m gonna try to keep attending that I guess that would hold me up from going to recovery Dharma unless I took a yeah yeah cuz that’s a seven o’clock you wouldn’t you wouldn’t be able to make recovery Dharma yeah I don’t know what are you gonna you’re gonna tackle the bathroom today yeah that’ll be most of my day I’m trying to just get it done at this point it’s like one of those lingering things where it’s like [ _ ] I’ve been working on this for weeks but like you know it’s well here’s what keeps happening it’s we’ll get like I’ll get an hour or two when I get home from work I’ll do something gentle be like hey you want you to take a break and come down and just hang out with me tonight and so be like okay and then you know she was just saying like yesterday or tomorrow so crazy things kind of happened my 18 year old I think she’s temporarily moving out yeah kind of suddenly so there’s a girl that they’ve been going to school with one of her really good friends at school she was being raised by her grandmother and it was just her and her grandmother had an apartment in New York this girl’s 17 and my kids have known her 10 years you know plus however long she’s gone to this school anyway that girl’s grandmother died like suddenly like had a heart attack and died I’m gonna say what it’s been I think a week ago I think it was Sunday it was either Saturday or Sunday last week and so you know my daughter says hey can I go stay with Jade for a couple of days you know her grandmother just died and she’s in this apartment by herself and all the grandmas stuff still there and I guess they have a little bit of family support but not a lot um but anyway so through the week they’ve kind of been working on what this girl’s gonna do like what you know because she’s got like I think the girl has she turns 18 in like two months so she’s all I got a couple of months she’ll be 18 but her great-grandparents basically have said look if you want to stay in that apartment we’ll pay the rent and utilities as long as you continue to go to school and you know do those things that because the girls got a job and she goes to school they says long as you do those things we’ll pay for this apartment if you want to stay there and she seems to really want to stay there so my daughter is like well maybe I’ll move in with her you know to help her out and you know I don’t know so yeah pretty crazy pretty crazy so you know you know it’s weird Jen seems pretty I don’t know upset about it and to me like I’m almost excited I’m almost like that’s really you know here’s my kid she’s getting this sort of weird opportunity to like step out into like adulthood and start living this life and doing some new exciting stuff and you know how can we like support her and help her through that you know and and kind of teach her and like I remember being that age and wanting to get out on my own and my reasoning was completely different and I was doing it cuz I wanted to do drugs and get high and I wanted my parents to get off my ass Oh but but I don’t know I look at it as like this really cool kind of fun opportunity for my daughter who’s interesting but in any case she wants us to move some furniture for tomorrow of course because I got a truck so that’s what people do when you have it exactly what you do and you have a truck yeah so I maybe but it’s like you know now we’re gonna move furniture and then you know Jen’s like why don’t you invite your dad over and you know maybe we’ll have a campfire later I’m like here we go when we schedule all these things that means between the podcasts and then invite my dad over and then we do a campfire later I’ll get to work on the bathroom for like two hours today before 10:00 all the things come up and then it won’t get done this week it’ll be next week and it’s like that’s what keeps happening right yeah so I’m trying to just commit you know and be like this is my [ _ ] weekend where I’m just working on the bed and it just doesn’t happen do you have off tomorrow yeah I’m off tomorrow too so any plans for that either no we don’t really either oh you can’t do anything yeah and like you said I’m still I mean I don’t know I seemed okay with a meeting seemed kind of justifiable but a lot of other things really don’t you know I like just just going to hang out I mean we did go so Jen’s niece graduated from college and we did like a little there wasn’t very many people but we did a little bonfire at her sister’s house yesterday they did like a campfire where everybody was outside you know social distancing there wasn’t any like hugging or anything going on um everybody brought their own drinks and stuff you know we did that but yeah I I don’t know how comfortable I am doing a bunch of big social stuff I don’t you know I don’t think I want to be around a bunch of people I mean we just we really don’t know what’s gonna happen look a month from now we could have you know maybe the heat really does take all this down and maybe there’s been very few infections and we’re still going downhill and it’s all wonderful that’s a great but it could also look very different in a month yeah yeah so I’m trying to be not you know completely irresponsible or whatever but yeah we think we may invite my dad or maybe we’ll fight him over tomorrow night you know we’ll see cuz we haven’t seen him god it’s been a month you know he came over once for dinner and during this whole time right so we thought maybe we’ll invite him over for day and that’s where I’m doing my best to start getting used to the idea that there’s gonna be limited amounts of exposure now right and so like okay you know what if we’re gonna go see my mom we’ll go see my mom like I’m not gonna even question it anymore there will be limited amounts maybe if we need to run to a store to get something to eat we’ll do that and not think twice about it but I’m still want to keep those numbers down it’s just I’m gonna start allowing myself like the here and there do these little things so that I can start getting used to the idea of you know this is changing we are starting to open up yeah and it is pretty crazy I mean it’s and if anything I can say though at the meeting I mean I don’t know maybe this is a justification I don’t know but there was a guy at the meeting who he hasn’t he’s coming back off of relapse his [ _ ] wife overdosed and died like three weeks ago and mmm he went into like a treatment program down in Baltimore but he’s like I went into this treatment program he said they aren’t [ _ ] doing nothing you just stay in the house all day and they have you know group counseling with the guys in the house but they’re not getting you out to any meetings nobody’s going any meetings nobody’s really you know it’s so [ _ ] weird in recovery he’s like it really wasn’t helping me so I had to get out he’s like I found out there was a meeting and I couldn’t wait to get here so and unfortunately that’s one of the people I hug was him but he you know comes up you know arms out big hugs I haven’t seen him in years you know it’s been used and he yeah a couple years clean and I think he relapse like two years ago mani he brought the Baltimore cooties up yeah we was living up here until he went down there for treatment but yeah yeah carry it is man it is and again I look you can maybe it’s an overreaction maybe it is maybe it isn’t I don’t know I mean I look at the money the the main corporations are still closed I get that they’re starting to have a plan of reopening in June at some point but they’re still talking about having schools not be the same here and I’m like I just can’t believe all this fuss is about nothing scare right yeah it’s hard for me to believe that everybody would be like oh yeah we were all on board with being scared about nothing like now and I think that I mean I think really we’re hopefully most people I mean I know we got a few because there’s a few of my home group dinner [ _ ] that are like I’m wearing [ _ ] masks and [ _ ] these be and I think that’s it like an [ _ ] thing to do you know like I think you should still be reasonable you know we should still be safe and hopefully that is gonna be what helps like you know I’ll wear a mask I’m cool with that you know I mean it’s annoying but I don’t care really at the end of the day if it [ __ ] makes any difference and helps good you know yeah yeah I want to get it comfortable a really super comfortable mask yeah all right I won’t hold you up anymore yeah man we’ll figure out you know I might try to make it over to there that recovery Dharma I might try to go check it out well good job something talked about next week yeah right so I had to go well uh we’ll have to come up with a topic before next week yeah see what happens as a life opens back up yeah all right man we’ll have a good week I’ll talk to Bullock see ya
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