Speaker 1Ultra running shoes are all about space. The space to go further, to feel better, to do something you never thought possible. And this space starts with UltraFit. Unlike traditional running shoes, UltraFit gives toes more room to move naturally, so every step is strong, balanced, and comfortable. Whatever you're lacing up for, stay out there. With Ultra, shop now at ultrarunning.com. That's A-L-T-R-A running dot com.
Speaker 2Tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's Wholesale Club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up.
Speaker 3Have you met my kids?
Speaker 2And with BJ's gas, she gets there for less.
Speaker 3They call me the road warrior.
Speaker 2This is your home, road warrior mom. Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer, new members only. BJ's. Home of the Save.
Speaker 4Today I'm going to be talking about spirituality. I know what you're thinking already. I don't believe in God. I was brought up Catholic or Christian and fuck all that shit. I don't, God ruined my life or church ruined my life. There's a big difference between spirituality and religion. Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have been to hell and don't want to go back. I think you and I have been to hell. If you're anything like me, you've been to hell many times. So what you're going to do is you're going to go to hell. What I'm going to get out of today's episode is my perception on spirituality and what it does for me. We're going to talk about what is spirituality? What is spirituality in recovery? Why is it important in recovery? Spiritual void and addiction. Practical spiritual tools that you can connect with a power greater than yourself or something greater than you. Spiritual growth through pain. And then my personal experience with spirituality, how it's grown from when I first came in to eight years of recovery to now I'm in a state of recovery. Now, almost a year again, sober and clean. And then how to build a spiritual practice if you're new. What I hope that you get out of this episode is simply this. I want people, I hope that people see things differently after this. Shift your perspective. Keep an open mind with this episode, okay? I'm going to be saying the word God a lot. And when I say God, I just mean my perception of God, my higher power. I call it God because it's easy. It's a three-letter word. You can use great outdoors, good orderly. Lead direction, group of drunks. If you go to recovery meetings and you use the power of other people, a collective of consciousness as your power, your guiding force, it's simple. It's a guiding force. It's an inner teacher. I believe in every man, woman, and child, there is this idea of God, this idea of spirituality. When we're living in addiction, we're just not tapped into it. And I believe that everybody has a longing for this connection. We're just asleep. Most of the time. So I challenge you wake up conscious contact with a power greater than yourself will do wonders for you in recovery in life in general, but it has done wonders for me and I'm going to explain how, so again, spirituality is not dogma, it's not religion, it's connection meaning, and it's things that help us stay grounded when things get loud in life, it's a lighthouse, a North star. If you will again, hi, I'm Anthony. I'm an addict and alcoholic in recovery. I came into recovery in 25. 15. I put together eight years clean and sober. I relapsed after at the eight year mark, went out and did some more research. Don't recommend it. Now I'm back. I work at a rehab. I'm an admissions counselor. I am. I also create videos on social media. If you're not following me yet at recovering out loud pod, I do some funny stuff, some tips, some tools, some relatable stuff. Hopefully you get something out of it. If you like my content, I am not making any money off this. I do it solely out of this. I do it solely out of service to stay sober myself and to help the still suffering addict or alcoholic, please like, subscribe, follow rate the podcast. It means so much to me, please. So my intention today is not to make you believe in anything specific. It's about exploring what keeps you sober when your willpower isn't enough. I can't explain my idea of God. I just know that there's some sort of force out there that guides me through my days and keeps me on the right path. When I choose to listen to it. me. When I choose to block myself off from it and live in ego and control everything and do things my way and try to manipulate outcomes to suit me, I am asleep. I am not in contact with the power greater than myself, which I call God. I don't go to church. I'm not religious. I grew up Catholic, but I haven't been to church in forever. So I don't know. I'm a spiritual person. I follow the path that I believe is laid out for me. And that involves service to others. That is my sole purpose on this earth is to be of service to other people because when I am in service to other people, things just tend to go a lot better for me. The alcoholic and addict is a self-centered creature, right? We are always thinking about ourselves. I'm always thinking about how to please me, how to get my way. And I avoid a lot of situations that don't cater to me if left unchecked. So let's check that. There's no perfection or purity here. There's no better than, there's no gurus. There's no pretending life is easy and I'm perfect. It's progress, not perfection. So a lot of people walk into recovery and they hear God and they run away. Like I said, they're scared of this idea of religion. It's not religion. It's a power you choose. It's just not you. Simple as that. A lot of people talk about turning your will and your life, your thoughts and your actions over to a care of a higher power, turn it over to something more qualified. My power is to be of service to higher power. My God, my directing force is a more qualified thing than I am. Entity, force, I let it run the show. I'm just a janitor in the play, mopping the floor. That's it. I'm a role player. That keeps me grounded and it really does help me in my spiritual path, but also my recovery. So spirituality can be as simple as just tools for grounding, meaning and alignment. What a great word, alignment. Self-awareness, right? Knowing yourself in recovery. When I'm acting up and I'm being selfish. Knowing my part in all situations, apologizing and making amends for things that I do, mistakes that I make. All right. So what spirituality is in recovery? It's a connection to something bigger than you. Full stop. Bigger than your impulsive brain. When I run the show, this is the way I like to explain it to people. When I run the show, when I do things my way, I end up kicked out of my house, in hotel rooms, doing cocaine until all hours of the morning by myself. Every single time. Gives you a sense of purpose, spirituality. Why am I staying sober? It practices that you slow down enough to hear yourself think, to get your ego out of the way, right? We're going to be talking a lot about ego today too, because ego is the thing that keeps me disconnected, keeps me untapped. There are two types of people in this world. Those who are tapped in and those who are not tapped in. People that are tapped in are living in service. They're not selfish. They're not running life according to them. They pause before they react. People that are untapped are selfish, running on self-will. Doing bad things, stealing, manipulating, lying, cheating. People that are tapped in are able to accept circumstances. They control what they can control and leave the results up to the universe. Spirituality also connects you to your values, integrity, honesty, courage, service, and you're building inner resources instead of relying on substances for emotional regulation. Wow. Powerful. What a gift. Before I came into recovery, I was turning my will and my life, so my thoughts and my actions, over to the bottle. Over to the drugs. Whenever I had a problem, an emotion, a discomfort, a disease, an unease about me, whenever that cropped up, what did we do? We took drugs or drank. I used to turn all my problems, my will and my life, over to substances. Now I come into recovery, I got to replace that with something. And it can't be a material thing. It cannot be an external thing. It has to come from within. It has to be an intrinsic motivator. Why not a force greater than you? Why not the universe? Why not a power greater than yourself? Today, when a problem arises, I literally picture myself grabbing the problem, turning it over to the universe, and letting the outcome take care of itself. That doesn't mean that I don't go to work, I don't show up to school, I don't do the do things, journal, connect with my higher power. It just means that I leave the outcomes up to God, up to the universe. So from an evidence-based perspective, many recovery models emphasize spirituality because it reduces isolation. Increases resilience and supports long-term behavior change. There's a lot of research about positive psychological reactions from trusting in a power greater than yourself, or having hope and faith. It's a trust that things are going to work out if you keep doing the next right thing, if you keep staying sober. I don't know the next chapter, but I trust the author. I trust that it's going to work out if I just keep doing what I'm doing, if I keep on the recovery path, if I keep helping others, if I keep on the recovery path, if I keep on the recovery path, things tend to turn out beneficial in my life. I do it because it makes me happy. It makes me content. I'm not worrying about the fact that I don't have enough money to buy groceries or that I don't particularly like school. I just trust that it's going to work out, the plan. So whenever this anxiety comes up, I just turn it over. Universe, you handle this while I work on, I'll check back in with you tomorrow. You handle this, I'll check back in with you tomorrow. That silence, that's when the answer comes, every single time. It's hard to do. Sometimes you want to turn over some things and not others, right? right? If I turn over everything in my life today, every problem, every emotion, it tends to work out and that's not avoiding it either. I don't avoid it. I sit with it instead of sitting in it. I'll check back in with you later. Just, it's like going into a movie and before you go into the movie, you take your problem and you leave it at the door, right? Your anxiety, your fear, your money problem, your worry about the future, your fear of the future. You leave it at the door. You go watch the movie and when you come back out, suddenly you have a new perspective and you know how to handle that problem. That's what spirituality does for me today. Okay, so the spiritual void in addiction. So addiction shrinks your world. You get this tunnel vision, this disconnection, loss of purpose. You're only focusing on pleasing yourself. I'm only focusing on pleasing me, getting high, getting drunk. It starts with shame. It turns into hiding, into isolation. The real addiction is often escape, not the substances, right? I'm not looking to get high. I'm looking to escape reality. I'm looking to turn my problems over. Like I said, I'm looking to check out. Spirituality fills that void that we have in addiction by giving you direction, rebuilding your identity, learning about yourself. Like I said, the self examination, honest self appraisal, reconnecting you with other people because my higher power, my God speaks through other people, creating meaning out of pain. So all the bad things that happen in my life, life has lived forward and understood. So I'm looking to get high. I'm looking in reverse. How many times have bad things happened in my life where they've turned out to be the greatest gifts ever? I just haven't seen it at the time because my perspective was skewed. As time passes, my perspective changes. My perception changes. That's what spirituality does. That's what recovery does. It changes your perception. I wake up every morning looking to shift my perception. Maybe I'm wrong. My biggest problem today is I'm right, right? Whenever I think something has to go a certain way or the answer is clearly this, I'm in a world of trouble. Addiction from yourself, recovery reconnects you. Spirituality is the bridge, the catalyst. All right. Practical spiritual tools. So here's some ways to connect with your spirituality, connect with yourself, stillness and mindfulness. So we've heard of meditation, breathing exercises, grounding techniques, sitting in a chair and just breathing. As the thoughts come into your mind, as they will, as they always do, you picture them. I had a therapist tell me this once. Picture your thoughts when you're meditating as class. Imagine the clouds and bubbles just floating by. Those are your thoughts. Or if you're a computer person, you're deleting the thoughts on a computer. You're slowly one by one erasing the words. Let it pass through you. Why it works. It reduces impulsivity, increases emotional regulation. It creates, meditation creates a pause between action and reaction. I don't react when I get cut off in traffic. I mean, I do, but I'm working on it and it's something that I work towards, right? It creates a space between action and reaction. I don't react when I get cut off in traffic. It creates a space for you to react, respond, not react. Second thing is gratitude and perspective shifts. So first thing was stillness and mindfulness. Now gratitude and perspective shifts. The brain literally rewires when gratitude is practiced constantly. So that's a gratitude list every morning. Three things I'm grateful for. Coffee, my podcast, and my wife. Do that every day and come up with new things. I'm grateful for my legs. I'm grateful for the fact that I have a home with heat. It helps. Gratitude lists and perspective shifts help you shift from surviving to living in the moment. That's the important thing. Yesterday and tomorrow don't exist, but we love to live there. Now is the only time. The presence is the only time that exists. God doesn't exist in the future or in the past. God is only right here. That's how I connect to it, him, whatever you want to call it, the universe. All right. C, community and service. Service reduces self-centered thinking. So when I'm helping somebody else who's still suffering, alcoholic and addict, when I'm in their shit, I'm out of my shit. I'm not thinking about me and my poor self. I'm not thinking about myself. I'm not thinking about myself. I'm not thinking about my poor life, my problem. I'm trying to help them. Community provides belonging. The opposite of addiction is connection. So when I'm connected to other people, when I'm in group settings or sitting down with another person, addict, alcoholic, someone struggling, I'm connected. I'm like, I'm not ruminating about my poor life. All right, next meaning making. So D, meaning making, turning your story into something that helps others. Oh, I love this one. If you were sexually abused as a child, this is just an example. This might sound a little extreme to you, but it's true. I know a lot of people that were abused as children, and they've taken that. They're survivors. They're not victims. They've shifted their mentality, their mindset around it. They now have an experience, as horrible as it is, can help somebody else that's been through that. What a gift. If you've been through serious trauma in your life, you now have the opportunity to be of service to somebody else that's been through the exact same thing. That's a free purpose card. God just hooked you the fuck up. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know it doesn't seem like it. Maybe that sounds outlandish and crazy to you, but you can be of service to somebody that's been where you have been, that's been through what you have been, where nobody else can. It helps you understand the why behind your sobriety. I've been through some shit. Now I can use that experience. Relapsing after eight years is a perfect example. I can use that experience to help others avoid that horrible situation and not relapse after long-term recovery, because it's a fucking horrible experience. I spent four months of using every single day before I came back. The next one is surrender and acceptance. So letting go of control. Addicts and alcoholics, we love control, man. Oh my God, we love control. I want to be able to control everything. If you're not living according to my script, you're not doing things my way, I have a resentment towards you. I can rearrange that and unlearn that behavior and help other people. Let go. If I had to sum up recovery in two words, I would say, I'm not doing things my way. I'm not doing things my way. I'm words, it would be that let go. You let go of the drinking and the drugging. Now you got to let go of your thinking, your will, your actions, your selfishness, your poor behavior, your lying and cheating and stealing. You let it go. Your problems, you let it go. Let somebody more qualified deal with it. A power greater than yourself. Accepting reality without collapsing into hopelessness, right? This is a good one. When things happen in my life, am I able to just accept them? The faster I'm able to accept things in my life, outcomes, situations, circumstances, the better off I'll be. And that doesn't mean I get to, you know, I have to be a doormat. It just, I can accept things that I can't control, like gas prices or the prime minister or laws that are being passed or the fact that some people still think addiction is a choice and not a disease. I can let that go. And I can just say, I'm a role player playing my role. I'm on my spiritual path. Thank God. Thank God. I am not playing that person's role today. The angry man at work yelling at everybody and screaming and being miserable all the time. Thank God I don't have to play that role today. Another thing that helps me with when people piss me off, this might help you too. Alex Ramosi said it. It's when somebody does something that I don't agree with or vice versa, but when someone does something that pisses me off, I can simply now say to myself before reacting, because I want to react all the time. I want to tell them how they're wrong. And I want to be passive aggressive and embarrass them about it. That person is simply not living in a way in which I would prefer. That person is simply not living in a way in which I would prefer and vice versa. When I piss somebody else off or somebody doesn't like me or the things that I'm doing, I am not living in a way in which they would prefer. Wow. Who would have thought I can disagree with people respectfully and live and let live, not comment on. All right. So just to recap that one, practical spiritual tools. We talked about stillness and mindfulness, gratitude and perspective shifts, community and service, meaning making, surrender and acceptance. That's a big one. Surrender and acceptance. If you can surrender and accept your life on a daily basis, it doesn't mean that you don't have to do anything to change it. I have no control over so many things in this world, especially outcomes. Control what you can control. Leave the rest up to God to do. You can't control the rest of the universe to your higher power. Okay. Next spiritual growth through pain has a tough one. Pain is the touchstone of all spiritual growth, trauma, loss, relapses, all become teachers and experiences where you can help others. Pain is a catalyst for awakening. A lot of the time I have to screw up multiple times before I learn a lesson. For example, not telling the truth. I relapsed after eight years because I wasn't honest with myself and I wasn't honest with other people. So I had to scrape my knee. Constantly before I learned that lesson where it was like, I can't even tell a white lie today. I can't because one lie spirals and it starts this little spark and then it turns into a fire that I'm hiding behind my house. I can't lie because when I do things just go in a horrible direction and then I'm using drugs and drinking again because I'm so ashamed about the lie that I've spun up, the story that I've spun up. When everything else falls apart, when the world is collapsing, the sky is falling, spirituality becomes the anchor. I don't know why you're doing this to me, world, universe, God, but I trust you. I trust the plan. It's for a reason. The question that changes my recovery is what is this trying to teach me? It's a tough one to wrap your head around, but when you're in it and you're going through it and you're struggling, what is this trying to teach me? There is a lesson here. There's a silver lining. There's a reason this is happening. I need to learn something or unlearn something. Using drugs and alcohol and constantly being out there, is a perfect example of this. I tried every single concoction of medication and drugs so that I could safely use without going off the deep end and using a whole bottle of prescription pills. Failed every time. I thought I could control it. Had to scrape my knee. Finally learned I have lost my right to chemical peace of mind. I can't use outside things to change my insides, even though I want to. It doesn't work. I have no control once I take one. With everything, all mood and mind altering substances. I had to relearn that and it was hard and painful, but it taught me a lot. My relapse taught me a lot. Okay, next, my personal experience. So spirituality to me in early recovery, I don't know. I just, I came in and when I first came into recovery in 2015, all these people I was hanging around with were talking about God and I didn't really understand it. I didn't have a problem with it because I wasn't an atheist or I grew up, you know, like I said, in the Catholic church. So I was intrigued because all the people that were talking about God had 20, 10, 20, 30, 40 years of sobriety and they were all happy all the time. I didn't know what they had, but I wanted it. And if you want what we have, you have to do what we did. So I was interested. I was intrigued. There've been many moments in my sobriety where spirituality saved the day. I mean, honestly, every day when I have problems or anxieties or fear, I literally pause and I stop and I talk to my higher power. I pray, I turn it over, take this from me, work on it. I'll check back in with you and it works. It honestly does. And yeah, your definition of spirituality will change over time. Your relationship with your higher power will change over time. I talked to him all day, every morning, every night. I thank him every day for another day sober. And then in the morning I asked him to guide me. I asked him to help me do the next right thing, to be of service, to get out of my own way, to get out of ego, to stop being selfish. So for me, prayer every morning, prayer every night, and then some meditation here and there. You don't have to do that, but that's what works for me. Okay. How to build a spiritual practice if you're new. So start simple. Three minutes of breath work. Use Insight Timers, an app that I, for guided meditation. If you're squirrely like me, let's put your headphones in and listen to some guided meditations. Journaling is another one. I do that every day. I journal out whatever's on my mind. It helps with creativity. It also helps get the shit out of my head. Write down what I'm grateful for. And I also clear my mind. I free write, free handwrite two or three pages. Try new things. If you're new, I'll be open-minded. All you need to get sober is honesty, honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. How do I get sober? How? H-O-W. Honesty, open-mindedness, willingness. I got to be willing to try new things that other people are doing and it's working for them. The best part is it's free. There's no strings attached. It's just, you got to just wrap your head around. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I don't have all the answers to living a good sober life. And then create your own conception of a higher power. You can, whatever you want. I've heard people have their dogs or their, you know, deceased parents be their higher power. It doesn't have to be the guy. It's definitely not the guy with the beard. It doesn't have to be the Judeo-Christian version. You choose your own conception. It could just be nature, the universe, a guiding force, the force from, the force from Star Wars. I really want to encourage, encourage curiosity here. Ask more questions. You don't have all the answers and that's okay. Try new things. You know, learn how to play the piano. Be a beginner mindset in early recovery. Be a sponge. Spirituality is a skill, not a switch. It's not a performance. It's a learned skill that comes with repetition and practice. Okay. So in closing, spirituality equals connection, meaning, grounding, and purpose. It's something you won't want to miss. Okay. Believe me, it is a beautiful thing to be connected to a power greater than yourself. Spirituality grows as you grow. So if you haven't figured it out yet, or you don't know what it is, that's okay. It'll grow over time with practice. And I still can't define mine. I still can't explain it to you. It's just things in my life happen that seem to line up sometimes where I'm like, Hmm, was it odd or was it God? Right? Was it a coincidence or is this part of the plan? Getting a job at the rehab that I worked at is a perfect example. I was about to, I hated my old job and I got a call from a friend of mine that owns a rehab and he offered me a job like almost perfectly in time with when I was thinking about leaving my other job. Now I work at the rehab. I love it. I absolutely love it. There is a plan for you to do it. There is a plan for you to do it. There is a plan for you. Just got to pay attention to it and be open and willing and clear your head of all the perception problems. We don't have, I don't have problems today. I have perception, bad perception. I'm looking at things wrong. I'm looking at the glass half empty all the time, not half full. I encourage you to find something that brings you peace. So a place, a quiet, a home sort of feeling this like out in nature, you're connected hiking, whatever it may be. Find that place. Find that place. Find that place. Find that place. Find that thing. What, what's one thing that makes you feel connected today? Could be people, could be coffee, could be going for a walk, could be praying, meditating. All right, guys, that's it for me. Thank you so much again for listening and subscribing. Thank you to all my loyal subscribers and listeners and DM me on Instagram at recovering out loud pod. I answer every single DM of mine probably because I'm not that big yet. And when I get bigger, I might not be able to answer everybody. But right now I honestly, I look at every single message. So if you're struggling, if you want me to talk about something, if you want to come on the podcast, more than willing to have you just send me a message. Remember, recovery is simple, not easy.
PodcastTranscript AI