Speaker 1Most people don't relapse because drugs got stronger. They relapse because they quietly stopped living a certain way. Weeks before they ever picked up. The honesty slips. The asking for help slipped. The staying connected slipped. That's what today's talk is about. The way of living underneath the principles that keep me sober today. I can't stress enough how important it is to live as a principled man in my life today. To act in an integral way. With integrity. Integral. That doesn't work there. To act with integrity. To do the right thing when nobody's watching. This is the stuff that keeps me sober. That I have to rely on. That I have to check. When we're talking about motive. What is my motive? I focus on principles over motive. Focusing on. The underlying principle of what I'm doing. Rather than what is my motive here. Because motive we can get really ego involved with motive. And yeah I'm doing the right thing. And I'm doing it for this reason. And we don't even know we're doing it for the wrong reason. And a lot of the time the reason why I do things is not as important as the principle underneath. Principle before personalities means we are focusing on living rightly. And we're not focusing on the person and the ego. And the ego. We're focusing on the behavior rather than the person. Or their personality. And what we think about them. And how we judge them. Welcome back to Recovering Out Loud. Or welcome to Recovering Out Loud podcast. My name is Anthony. I'm an alcoholic and an addict. Been in recovery since 2015. Had a relapse at about seven and a half years. Today I'm about a year and a half sober again. And we're going to talk about how to live as a principled person. So that we can stay sober. And benefit those around us. You know when I was in active addiction. There was no principles in my life whatsoever. There was no moral code. I broke every law. Every promise I made to myself. Every rule I made. I broke it all. I did things I said I would never do. I treated people the way I would never treat them sober. And I made decisions that today I look back and say I would never do that sober. I would never do these things. Unless high or drunk. Or under the influence. Or spiritually sick. If you belong to 12-step fellowship. These are the principles that stand. Behind the steps. So you work the steps. And again. This is. I'm not going to go into a 12-step recovery talk here. This is just the principles behind it. I think these principles apply to everybody. Not just alcoholics. Not just addicts. And not just people in 12-step recovery. This applies across the board. If you live according to these principles. Your life will improve. You will stay sober. In my experience. My opinion. Working the steps is one thing. But then living the principles behind the steps. That's the stuff that actually keeps you sober. That's the stuff that actually keeps you sober. My mentor always asks me. How are you living today Anthony? It's easy for me to go into meetings. And be a star in recovery. To shake hands. And smile. And say everything is going amazing. And I'm such a great guy. And I'm helping others. And everything is great guys. But what do I do with the 99% of my life. Outside of recovery rooms. That's the stuff. That's the magic right there. That's the stuff that separates the men from the boys. The girls from the women. The children from the adults. If you will. So here's the line that reframed the entire thing for me. Step 12 says to practice these principles in all of our affairs. Not in the meeting. Not on your anniversary. In all of it. Your homes. Your job. Your family life. All of our affairs. The traffic. The argument. The boring Wednesday afternoon. If you think about what addiction actually ran on. For me it ran. On dishonesty. Isolation. And being the center of my own universe. Being the main character. All the time. On resentment. I fed instead of faced. On judgments I had of other people and things. That was the operating system. That controlled my entire life. I was run on emotions. And thoughts. And behavior. And judgments. And ideals. And beliefs. It's a horrible, horrible way to live. Recovery didn't work because of that. It didn't work because I white-knuckled the old system harder. It worked because I started running a different one. A new operating system. We're talking about a new pair of glasses here. A different perspective, perception. A different way of living and acting in the world. The principles, that's the different system. So when I say they keep you sober, I mean it almost mechanically. You can't be honest, connected, of service, and paying attention. And also. Be quietly walking toward a relapse. Those two things cannot run at the same time. We are rewiring our patterns, our brains, our behaviors. So I'm going to break them down. These are 12 principles that keep me sober today. And will help you. Number one. Honesty. The secret is the relapse. Secrets keep you sick. You always hear this. Honesty. Every slip I've had. Or watched up close. Started as a secret. Something small I didn't say out loud. Honesty keeps you sober. Because a secret is where a relapse grows in the dark. We live this double life. The alcoholic has a stage character that he or she presents to the world. The second you say it to another person. You turn the light on. And it can't grow the same way. Living this one isn't dramatic. It's telling your sponsor, your mentor, your friend, your therapist. The thing you'd rather skip. It's not laundering. The story to look better. Manipulating the story. Spinning the story. It's the small truth on time. This one's a tough one. Because it's easy for me to be dishonest in areas that will benefit me. That really won't cause too much harm to other people. I think anyways. I will justify telling the insurance company why it wasn't my fault that I got into an accident. So that my insurance rates won't go up. And I can spin the story in my head and rationalize and justify and say. This is for the best. This is going to help my recovery. This is going to benefit me and not hurt anyone else. When in turn. I'm the one that has to go with to bed with myself at the night. At the end of the night. Knowing that I didn't tell the truth. And it seems so small and insignificant and stupid. But this is where the power of principles come in. If you are rigorously honest in your life.
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Speaker 1You will like yourself straight up. You will just like yourself better because you are who you are. You are who you say you are. You're not hiding. You're not wearing masks. You are. You do what you say you're going to do. Two. Hope. Hope is what gets you to try before you have any proof any of this will work. It keeps you sober on the days the work feels pointless. Because it's the quiet belief that tomorrow can be different from today. I'm here to tell you tomorrow will be different than today. It might not be better. It might not be worse. But it'll be different. That's why we say get to bed sober. Just get through today one day at a time. Early on. I didn't have my own. So I borrowed it off people who are further down the road. Living hope is staying close to those people on purpose. I was hopeless when I came in. And that's one of the reasons that I came into recovery and got sober again. Because I was all out of hope. I didn't have any hope that tomorrow is going to be different than today. I had no hope. Whatsoever that anything was going to change. I thought my life was just going to go on like this. Or I was going to die or end up in jail. Hope becomes real when you start to go and attend recovery spaces. Whatever your recovery community is. You start to borrow it from other people and see that that guy had a pretty rough story. It was actually a lot crazier than mine. He spent a lot more years in addiction. He got through a lot more. Crazy shit. Why not me? I can do it. If he did it, why can't I? If she did it, why can't I? Three. Faith. Loosening the grip. Some call it surrender. Faith is hope that decided to act. Trusting the process enough to stop white knuckling it alone. It keeps you sober because the grip itself is exhausting. And exhaustion is where we reach for relief. Living. It is letting the group, the steps, The something bigger than me carry the part you are never able to carry by force. So yeah, whatever your group is, again, it doesn't have to be 12-step recovery. Something bigger out there, the universe, the group of people that I am in therapy with, that I am in rehab with, I have faith that no matter what, if I continue to show up and just trust the process and do the actions that are outlined to me that that person did, I'm going to get the results. You always hear this, but if you want what we had, you have to do what we did. It's really that simple. Faith is jumping, knowing that you will be caught. You don't know what that catch is going to look like, but you're not going to fall to your death because the people that are giving you the suggestions are doing better than me. Faith is knowing that if I jump off the cliff, I'm going to be caught. But the work in it all, the hardest part is taking the jump, the leap of faith, the crossing of the bridge, and just trusting that whatever happens, I'm going to be okay. But I have to take that action. I have to cross the bridge. I have to jump off the cliff into the arms of my fellows. I have to take the leap of faith. It's like walking through a foggy path, not being able to see the beautiful, on the other side of it, but you're, you just keep walking one step after another, knowing that there is a beautiful scenery waiting ahead. There is a solution ahead. I'm not really understanding why I'm doing these things, but I'm going to do them anyways, because the suggestions, like I said, are coming from someone doing better than me. I'm taking action contrary to my best thinking. I don't really know. I don't really believe in this. I don't really think it's going to work, but I'm going to do it anyways, because that guy said he did it and I can see that he's doing it and it worked for him. That girl, is talking about doing it. And I see that she's doing it and it worked for her. She's happy. She's content. She's free. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong about a lot of things. And so when I can dispel my old beliefs, discard my old ideas that this is how I get sober. I get sober by myself. When I throw that out the window and I put my faith in someone else, trust in someone else, I have to take the action. I have to continue on with the recovery program, recovery program is, but until I do that, I'm going to stay sick for courage, doing it scared. Courage isn't feeling brave. It's doing the hard, honest thing while still scared. It keeps you sober because avoidance is a slow leak. The stuff you won't look at doesn't disappear. It just waits. Living it is facing the inventory, the conversation, the truth. Anyway. Yeah. Avoidance is sweeping things under the rug. And then eventually a week, a month later, you have a huge pile in your living room, but the rug is covering it. I spent a lot of years sweeping things under the rug in active addiction. I'll deal with it. This is tomorrow. Anthony's problem. I'll deal with it tomorrow. And then I was just avoiding all of it. It never ends up well. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is doing it despite fear. Public speaking is, has been noted, notoriously noted as one of the, actually the biggest fear, number one fear that people have. Public speaking. When I speak publicly, which I still do today, once in a while, I still get nervous. I still get scared. It doesn't go away. I still get the butterflies in my stomach, but today I do it anyways. I do it scared. I do it. Vulnerability is showing up without knowing the outcome. And that's a lot what courage is. Courage is showing up without knowing the outcome. I don't really know what's going to happen, but I'm going to do it anyways, because I trust the process. Again, I have faith. I'm scared to do a lot of things. And I don't do a lot of things that I wish I did, but I'm working on it. And it's one of those things where the more reps you put in, the more shit you do scared, the easier it becomes. The quieter the voice is the, the more you just notice the butterflies in your stomach and do it anyways. Today, when I get nervous, I sit and I watch the pattern of energy going through my stomach. I feel it deep in my stomach. When I get nervous, I watch it. And I just say, wow, look at that's a pattern of energy. That's passing through me. The key word passing through me. It's transient. It's temporary. This too shall pass. Do it scared. Five, integrity. One version of you. Integrity is when the private you and the public you finally become the same person. It keeps you sober because a double life is enormous work. And that double life is what addiction thrives inside. Living it is small. Your word matching your actions when it'd be easier to fudge it, to avoid it, to lie. You're taking the route less traveled because it is the right thing to do. And how do you know what the right thing to do is? If you live in these principles, you really can't go wrong. If you honestly try to live according to these principles and do the right thing, whatever you think the right thing is to do. And you know, at the end of the day, we all have that built in right and wrong in us from being a child. That voice gets louder when you stay sober longer, that this is the right thing to do, Anthony. That North Star, it gets more obvious. And this is not to say that you're not going to make mistakes. I think it'd be ridiculous to say, don't make mistakes. That's stupid. We're all going to make mistakes. It's learning from the consequences of your mistakes that you find out what to do next time and not repeat the behavior and act with integrity, doing the right thing when no one is watching, doing the right thing, knowing that it could get you in trouble or it could not get you in trouble. It could negatively impact your life, but you do it anyways because it's the right thing to do. Taking that new person to a meeting, going out of your way to pick them up, call somebody when you're not getting any applause for it. You're not getting any recognition. You just do it because it's the right thing to do. You do enough right things to do. You do enough right things in your opinion, whatever the right thing is, you build confidence because you are who you say you are. This is how confidence is built, by doing the right thing over and over again and result, proof, evidence that you are a good person. And I'm here to tell you, you're all good people. We're just sick when we come in. I'm still sick. I'm still dealing with it. I still have to tap in every single day and pray and meditate and ask for the answer a lot of the time because I don't know. Six, willingness, staying open. Willingness is being ready to let go of the things that are hurting you. Even before you know how. It keeps you sober because the moment you decide you've got it all figured out, you stop growing. And stalling is where people slip. Living it is staying teachable when your ego wants to graduate. Yeah. Willingness is, willingness is not necessarily being ready. Don't get it confused with readiness. In my opinion, I don't, I think willingness is the ability to just do it. Anyways, you're letting go of what you think will happen or you, what your story. You're discarding the idea of how you think it'll turn out. For me, willingness was getting back into recovery, finding a new mentor, sponsor, and then reworking the steps. That was my experience of willingness. Showing up when I didn't want to. Praying for willingness is another thing that I have to do today. Willingness in my experience comes, over time by continuously showing up and doing the things that you ought to be doing. The things that other people are telling you worked for them. You're staying open to new ideas. Maybe I'm wrong. Seven, humility. You can't ask for help without it. Yeah. Humility is to be teachable. That's the way, my favorite definition, to be teachable. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I don't have all the answers. Maybe there's another way to do this. The single most sober thing I know how to do is ask for help before I need it. For years, my pride wouldn't let me. Humility gives that back. Not thinking less of yourself. Thinking of yourself less. I am not the center of my universe. I need to remind myself of that. I am not, it's not always about me. Enough to pick up the phone. It keeps you sober because pride says handle it alone. And alone is exactly where we're most vulnerable. And I'm not the center of my universe. I'm the most dangerous. We get a lot of lessons in humility when we come into recovery. A lot of lessons of feeling humbled, small, insignificant. Look up at the stars. You'll feel real humble real quick. I am not that important today. My plans and designs are not that important either. How can I be other-centered and not be the center of my universe today? How can I be of service to others while knowing that I am not the be-all and end-all? My outcomes and plans and desires are not the most important thing in the world today. My feelings are not the most important thing in the world today. Eight, love. Facing the wreck some say brotherly love love here isn't a warm feeling it's taking responsibility for who you've harmed it keeps you sober because you can't love people and keep running a tab of everyone you're avoiding that unfinished list is a weight and weight is what we use to medicate living it is being willing to make it right so i've made a lot of mistakes am i willing to own up to them today am i willing to make amends for the behaviors that i exude even sober can i love unconditionally the people in my life can i serve unconditionally the people in my life being able to see my mistakes and not other people's focusing on my mistakes my side of the street loving others forgiving people for their mistakes i love thinking about my mistakes i love thinking about my mistakes i love thinking about thinking about it this way, anything that happens in my life today, anything that I'm disturbed about that, that rubs me the wrong way. I either forgive that person if I was wronged or harmed or make amends. It's really that simple. Okay. He did something terrible to me and he shouldn't have done that. Forgive him. Now you're free. I did something that I shouldn't have done. Make amends. Now I'm free. I'm not a saint, but I can amend my behavior and acknowledge that I made a mistake and not repeat the behavior and apologize. Nine, discipline. Actually making it right. Some say justice. This is the difference between apologizing to feel better and repairing to be better. Discipline keeps you sober because half measures, leave the guilt intact and guilt is fuel. Living it is doing the uncomfortable amend, even when there's nothing in it for you, especially then. Discipline is also building habits in your recovery, consistently showing up, habit stacking, removing obstacles so that you can stay disciplined. Discipline is built. It's not always fun. It's long-term gain over short-term pain. It's delayed gratification over instant gratification, putting in the small steps today so that it'll pay off in the long run. Ten, perseverance. Daily, not perfect. Some call it, say patience. Some say patience. You'll be dishonest by lunch and have to circle back. You'll blow the humility and catch it an hour later. Perseverance, it says, fine. Clean it up and go again. Start over. Start fresh. It keeps you sober because the people who make it aren't the ones who never fall short. They're the ones who keep coming back to the practice. Sober isn't a trophy you win. It's a thing you do again today. Just keep going. Perseverance. No matter what, I'm not going to give up because I'm worth it. And on the other side of this is freedom, patience with myself, to make mistakes and forgive myself and ask for forgiveness to higher power, God, universe, whatever you want to call it.
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Speaker 1better mistakes today. Less mistakes, but I'm still making mistakes and I'm learning from the consequences. I never learned anything from any mistake I made. I learned from the consequences of that mistake. The pain, the suffering I felt after making that mistake, the suffering I've caused. 11. Awareness. Catching the drift early. Some say spiritual awareness. Awareness is the daily inventory, the getting quiet, whatever your version is. It's an early warning system. It keeps you sober because the people who last aren't the ones who never drift. They're the ones who notice on day two instead of day 30. While it's still small and cheap to fix. Yeah. The sooner you catch yourself in this, the better. The sooner you're aware of your behavior and your thought pattern, your action, the better. Because then you can tell on yourself. Then you can blow up your spot. Awareness is important because I need to watch my thoughts and emotions and notice that I can detach from them. They are not me. I am not my emotions. I am not my thoughts. They're simply data. Awareness is creating space between thought, emotion, and action behavior. That space gets wider the longer I stay sober. And I can catch myself before it's too late a lot of the time. Sometimes I don't, but then is when we make amends after. And 12. Service. Out of your own head. Get out of your shit and into someone else's. When I'm spiraling, the fastest way out isn't thinking harder about myself and how to solve my problems. It's being useful to somebody else. Service keeps you sober because addiction is a disease of self-obsession. And helping another person is the only thing that reliably pulls me out of my own head. Every one of us is here because someone ahead of us practiced this. The whole thing exists. Because people kept passing it back. Pay it forward. Pass it on. I always say this, but recovery is like a pyramid scheme without the scheme. I am helping others so that they will help others. It's like a butterfly effect. It's beautiful, man. Fastest, most reliable way to get out of your own head and out of your problems is to be of service to someone else. Call someone and ask them how they're doing. Let's go for coffee. Let me buy you a coffee. Let me take you to a meeting. How are you today? Service is around you all the time. You just need to be aware of it. There's opportunities for service everywhere. Even in holding the door for someone, asking them how they are, smiling. Get out of your shit and into someone else's. It might save your life. So why do these principles keep you sober? Because sobriety was never really about the substance. It was about the way of living. It was about the way of living that made the substance feel necessary. Change the way of living and you change the need. Honesty keeps you out of the dark. Hope and faith give you a reason and let you loosen the grip. Courage, integrity, and willingness clear out what you've been running from. Humility keeps you in reach of people. Love and discipline settle the debts that used to weigh you down. And perseverance awaits you. Humility keeps you in reach of people. Love and discipline those are how you stay. Showing up daily, catching the drift early, getting out of your own head. You don't have to live all these 12 principles perfectly today. Pick the one that you made, pick the one that made you a little uncomfortable while I read it. That's usually the one with your name on it this week. Live that one on purpose for a few days. That's the whole practice. If you're not following the podcast, please follow the podcast. I love it. And remember, recovery is simple.
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