Speaker 1Today, we're going to do another borrowed wisdom episode, which means I'm going to read the highlight clips from my favorite speaker tapes in recovery, quotes that changed my life and helped me stay sober today, helped me achieve sobriety for one more day, helped me shift perspective, because alcoholism addiction is a disease of perception. I'm looking at things through my lens all the time, through a fear lens all the time, self-pity lens all the time. Today's talk is Bob D, and Bob D is one of my favorite speakers. I know I say that about everybody, but let's get into some of my favorite quotes from this talk. Bob says, I didn't come from an alcoholic family. My family was pretty normal. There's a lot of love in my household. But I suspect that there was something wrong with me before I ever picked up a drink. Because way before I could ever, ever drink, I didn't really feel like the other people looked. There was a lot of love in our family, but I was so wrapped up in myself that I couldn't feel it. I couldn't see it. And I could understand it intellectually that it was there, but I couldn't feel it. I was that disconnected from life. And the people around me, even as a young kid. And nobody did that to me. I was just born with an inclination towards self-involvement. I was restless, irritable, and discontent little kid. I was always that kid that was always looking for the next thing. I never could appreciate this thing. It's always, what's the next thing? Oh my God. Can anyone else relate to that? That sums up the way I feel perfectly. Alcohol and drugs made all of that go away. Made none of that matter. I felt like I wasn't given the manual to life. Everybody else had a manual and I didn't. I was always in fear. I always felt as a kid that I had the wrong life. Even though my childhood was great. I had this feeling that I didn't feel. I didn't feel fit in the life I was given. I always wanted what you had. I wanted your things and your family. Even though mine was great. I was never satisfied with this thing. This is why gratitude is so important in recovery. It's never enough. I always want to be over there. And when I'm over there, I want to be over there. And when I'm over there, I want to be back over there. It never ends. This is why steroids never worked for me either. I would get real big. And I would look real fit. And it was never enough. There was always more jacked. And always more fit. This is a disease of not enough. This is a disease of more. And he says, I love the inclination towards self involvement. Yeah, everything's about me all the time. If you think you're not selfish, just think about how many times you think about yourself in a day. You're selfish. We all are. By default. Some people are just better at rewiring it and repurposing it and being more other involved. God centered instead of self centered. Okay, next he goes on to talk about his one of his first drinks. I took a big hit off that bottle and said, Oh, man, it about burned me up. But when the burning stopped, I started to feel so good that the way I could the way I would be without that feeling from that moment on would never be enough for me again. And without ever realizing it, I just started to live for the opportunity to get lit up. Matter of fact, it seemed like from that moment on, my life was just I existed between opportunities to party. And it really was the most important thing in my life. Yeah, alcohol and drugs. My dad even said to me when I was younger, Anthony, all you care about is the next party. And it pissed me right off. But he was right. That's all I cared about. I didn't care about showing up for anything else. If it wasn't going to get me high, I didn't want any part of it. And if it was going to get in the way of me getting high, I was going to get take it down or avoid it or never ever do it again. Everything revolved around me. And me partying me getting high me having fun. If it wasn't fun, I didn't want to do it. If I didn't want to do it, I didn't want to do it. And I didn't do it. This is why I'm so adamant on working on this stuff because it doesn't go away. We don't just get other involved and be selfless when we get sober. I talk about it at length in my selfishness episode. Okay, next, the phenomenon of craving. So this is a test for whether you're an alcoholic or not. He says, somewhere around the second drink, as I'm starting to feel the effect, the allergic reaction is I break out with a yearning for more of that feeling. And consequently, I could never really get enough. I have never in all my years of drinking, never once sat in a bar or at a party and have after an hour have had the bartender come over and say, Bob, would you like another drink? I have never once had the experience of sitting there and thinking to myself, honestly, no, this is just right. Never once. It's always one more, one more, one more, one more. And if you have that, if you can't get enough, you are always going to drink too much. That's the way we do it, man. If I'm high, more high must be better. I am never satisfied. This is why I was one of those guys that could never turn in for the night. I didn't understand. I didn't want to hang out with people that were going home at the end of the night. I always wanted to be with the after party guys. Okay, next. He talks about the original Jekyll and Hyde. The book. He said, even in the face of all that, I still like myself better as Mr. Hyde than I ever liked myself as Dr. Jekyll. And that was my reality. I still like myself better when I was drunk than I ever liked myself when I was sober. And that was my big secret. Because I can't tell anybody that. Because that's crazy. In the light of the destruction that I am creating in my life, that is crazy. I'm not. I may be crazy, but I'm not so crazy that I don't know that that's crazy. I think we all know, right? We all know when we've crossed that point where we actually start to enjoy ourselves more as the drunk perversion or the high version. Because I don't really feel anything when I'm drunk or high. I think other people like the drunk or high me better because it's quieter in my brain. And I feel like I'm more fun. I'm in distortion of reality. I'm not living in reality. Where the problem lives. So next he says, "The real problem of alcoholism starts where the bottle ends." And that is what is so baffling to me. I go to meetings and I really don't want to drink anymore. But in short order, I start coming up to the conclusion that whatever is wrong with me is not obviously the same thing that's wrong with you. Because I stopped drinking and I got the depression, the anxiety, and I'll fit anywhere. It's awful. Abstinence feels like I'm doing time. The good news is that maybe if I went to thousands of these stupid meetings nonstop, I'd probably stay sober for the rest of my life. And the bad news, I'm going to live a long time. This is the antithesis of dry drunk. We're talking here about removing the solution to our problem and not replacing the solution with another solution. So you take away my alcohol. And I'm still stuck with me. I move to Thailand to get sober, let's say, for example. And I still bring me with me. You can go to any place in the world. Places that are dry. Places that don't have alcohol. And you will find a way to escape yourself. Whether through gambling or drugs. This is just inevitable. It's only a matter of time. Because you're bringing yourself everywhere you go. And because you don't have the ability to escape yourself, you're bringing yourself everywhere you go. And because you don't have the ability to escape yourself, you're bringing yourself everywhere you go. And because you don't have the ability to escape yourself, you're bringing yourself everywhere you go. And because you don't have the ability to escape yourself, you're bringing yourself everywhere you go. dry, places that don't have alcohol, and you will find a way to escape yourself. Whether through gambling or drugs, this is just inevitable. It's only a matter of time because you're bringing yourself everywhere you go and because you don't have a recovery program. Now, the recovery program, the power greater than ourselves, the connection to this thing that we call, some people call God, higher power, that replaces the alcohol and that becomes your solution. The meetings that you go to, the recovery community you're involved in, the people that you surround yourself with, your community, the connection, that replaces alcohol and ensures that I'm not a dry drunk today because a dry drunk is one of the scariest things in the world to me. I'm working with a guy right now. He's got years in sobriety, years of recovery, and he's dry as fuck. I can feel the depression on him and the anxiety, the lack of motivation and lack of purpose. You can feel it when they walk around. And again, I'm not here to take anyone's inventory, but being a dry drunk is one of the most miserable places I've ever been in my life. Being an attender rather than a member of recovery, being a pretender, not even a pretender actually, I would just say an attender, or maybe you're not even an attender. Having no recovery program, that scares the shit out of me because left to my own devices, when I'm in my head all day and not connecting, community or power greater than myself in general i'm going to relapse eventually it's only a matter of time you can't stay disturbed and sober for a long time you can't stay unhappy and sober for a long time you can't stay in fear and sober for a long time eventually i'm going to relapse and that relapse is going to be worse than the last time because it always is okay next bob says and he's talking to an old-timer reframed service to him so the old-timer this is bob he says listen kid if you wait until you feel ready before you try to help somebody you probably have already have died of alcoholism because you don't ever feel ready or whole enough to do that you just do that and those actions will take you toward completeness yes yes yes i hear all the time well i don't i'm not ready to to sponsor or to be a mentor to help someone through their recovery program i'm not i'm not ready yet you're never going to be ready you're never going to be ready for anything any opportunity you just do it and then you become ready while you're doing it i was shown this way to get sober now my obligation my responsibility my job in my opinion is to bring that to other people recovery is like a pyramid scheme without the scheme whatever somebody did for you just replicate that and do it for someone else put your own flavor on it if you wait to be ready to help someone you'll be dead before before you can help them go and do it do your best you can't keep anyone sober anyways you won't so whether you do good or you do bad you're not going to make someone relapse by doing a bad job just show up and if you need help ask for help ask for guidance okay next he talks about helping this guy out and he says i'm not ready to be ready into a detox and this is a powerful story i love this he starts to tell me about himself and he starts to tell me about the shame and the guilt that he couldn't even drink away anymore for the things he did to his mother and father he told me that for some time he'd been thinking about killing himself but he just didn't have the courage and then he really got me he said i don't know why you're wasting your time with me i'm not like you but i'm not like you but i'm not like you people you see i always drink again and he's telling me about me and in the wee hours of the morning sitting in this waiting room of an emergency room in a hospital i fell in love with this guy i don't know why he can't help me he can't get me a better job he's not even going to stay sober for a year probably there's nothing this guy can do for me except that he suffered from alcoholism exactly like i suffered from alcoholism and at that moment i wanted a good life for him and i wanted him to get better probably more than i wanted it for myself this is the shift that a lot of us get when we start to work a recovery program you start to naturally think about other people and their well-being people start to pop in your mind and self-seeking slips away you start to really care about the well-being of others and you really want other people to get sober perhaps more than you do yourself because when you work with a new person you realize that it's you talking to you you're talking to yourself in a different meat suit and i've been doing this for 10 years i can't i've never heard anything different when i the guys that i work with it's always the same pattern i always feel even the girls that i talk to on the phone at the rehab it's i always feel like i'm talking to myself over the phone i know them and i don't know them addiction is addiction is addiction is addiction i may not know your story or your consequences or your circumstances but i know addiction and that is a powerful bind that connects us we have one common problem and one common solution go help somebody else you're never going to be ready okay next we have a metaphor here the red woods that he talks about so he has a closing parable trees that topple when they grow alone and this is the last analogy he lands on it is their nature to aspire to grow to such magnificent heights that what happens is when they grow up alone they literally will outgrow their roots capacity to support themselves and they'll literally eventually topple over on their own what must happen is that they must grow up in community and they literally intertwine their roots into a net below the floor of the forest and they literally intertwine their roots into a net and literally feel feed and support each other and that allows them in god's plan to grow into their nature and then i came to you and i got a mentor and i started mentoring guys i got a recovery program i intertwined the very foundation of my life with yours and you have allowed me to grow up into my nature a nature i could not change because it is of me thank you for my life it's an interesting metaphor this is why i always preach community being such an important part of recovery i need to be around people with a common goal i need to be around people that are doing better than me and when i say better than me i mean what do i mean i just people that have what i want in recovery and sobriety people that are connected to their higher power people that are calm and peaceful and bring ease in the rooms that they walk around in people that don't cry when they spill milk people that are grateful for the little things in their life and don't let insignificant problems bother them you're not going to be able to do that if you get sober by osmosis you still need to do the work in recovery but if you surround yourself more with people that are that have what you want and are successful in their recovery programs have a connection to some power greater than themselves have a solution to their to their drinking and drugging problem if you hang out with those people eventually you will start to do what they want to do and you will be able to do what they want to do and you will be able to do what they do in order to get what they have because that's the only way you're going to get it if i go to the gym and sit and watch people work out i'm not going to get bigger and stronger i have to pick up the weights one at a time over and over again consistently to get the results and it takes time if i go if i went to the bar i never went to the bar in addiction watched people drink listen to how drunk they got and expected to get the ease and comfort from alcohol i always took the drink to get the effect so why wouldn't i take the action in recovery that is asked of me that is suggested of me to get the desired result seems pretty simple to me what action are you avoiding today this month this week what is it going to take what does it look like if you do that action if you push through that fear what's the worst thing that'll happen you end up on your friend's couch because you lose your house because it was a big decision you start a business because you don't want to work for anyone anymore it's the worst thing that happens you lose your house you sleep on a friend's couch i think you're going to be okay what's the best thing that happens possibilities are endless i think at the end of the day i think we all know what we need to do to get what we want it's the indecision that keeps us stuck i know that sounds really simple but it's true there's one action that we most likely know we have to take that we're avoiding because what if this happens what if i get judged what if they make fun of me what if it doesn't work what if i look stupid what if i don't get accepted this is a program of action not contemplation not wishing not hoping not praying those are all involved at the end of the day action is the only thing that'll see you through to the other side everything you want is on the other side of fear if no one has told you this yet i love you please follow the podcast on any platform that you're on greatly appreciate it don't ever forget recovery is simple not easy
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