Speaker 1Hello, everybody. Welcome back or welcome to Recovering Out Loud podcast. My name is Anthony. I'm an addict and alcoholic in recovery. Been in recovery since 2015. Had a relapse at about the eight-year mark, seven-and-a-half-year mark, and I'm back with a year-and-a-half clean and sober again. I'm so glad that you're here. Today, I'm going to do another Borrowed Wisdom episode. I'm going to read the highlight clips, the highlight quotes from some of my favorite speaker tapes. And today, we have a good one on feelings and your feelings not being your reality. So your feelings being real, but not having to run the show today. Emotional sobriety, things that'll keep you sober long-term from somebody that has many years of recovery and sobriety. A lot of good wisdom in this episode. It's from Don M, and we are going to get into it. He touches on everything from ego and self-centeredness to action versus feeling to deceptiveness of the disease of alcoholism. We get a step in. In a sense, into his mind and the way his mind works. And I think you'll find a lot of similarities in the way my mind works, at least. We talk about rock bottom. We talk about steps and instructions, sponsorship, bottoming out, and relationships and active addiction and spiritual growth. So let's get into it. Okay, on self-centeredness and the ego. So first, Don says, the way you feel has always been the most important thing in the universe to you. I love this idea of no doubt about it. And I'm noticing that my feelings are not the most important thing in the world. And that's not to say that your feelings don't matter or they're irrelevant. They are valid, but they don't need to run your show today. They don't need to call the shots in your life. They don't need to make decisions for me. My feelings today are not the most important thing in the universe to me. What is the most important thing in the universe to me is my actions. The way I show up in the world, in my relationships. Am I a good person? Am I living rightly? Am I following a set of principles? Am I sober? And am I emotionally sober? So am I physically sober? And am I emotionally sober? Am I able to show up as my true authentic self? Am I asking for help? Am I being authentic? Am I being honest? Am I practicing hope, faith? Am I practicing service? Am I practicing humility? Awareness? Am I aware? Of how I'm acting in the world. Yesterday, I'm riding my bike downtown Toronto, and I see this guy in a Tesla going full speed from left lane to right lane. I'm in a dedicated bike lane. Okay. Full speed stop directly cuts over three lanes from left to right and just slams his brakes right in front of me. Now I saw this coming. So I was defensively biking. I guess you could call it defensively driving. I slowed down with enough time to not smoke the back end of this guy's trunk. If I wasn't paying attention, it was a split second thing. I could have ended up on the floor, injured, maybe dead. No, I was not wearing a helmet. So don't yell at me. But at the end of the day, I have control over my action in that moment. Now, here's my point with all of this. My first thought, my first thought, my first emotion is pure anger. I wanted to, my brain is telling me to embarrass this guy, show him, yell at him, slam into the back of his trunk so that he learns a lesson. I'm right. You're wrong. My ego is on full display in my head here. Here's the cool thing about recovery and meditation and what it has brought to my life to one of the most important tools in my life today. Meditation. I don't need to act on my emotions. I can let them pass like trains at a train station. I don't need to freak out and embarrass a guy. So what happened was I wrote, I drove by him. He rolled down his window. I'm assuming he had sense, or he's in his Tesla that probably went crazy when I almost smoked him from behind. And I just said, dude, you can't do that. This is a bike lane instead of, Hey, you fucking idiot. And punching his window, because that's what I wanted to do. That's where my brain goes in. That's my first thought. And what was I taught? First thought wrong. My point is I'm able today to create space between my feelings and my actions. I don't need to act on every emotion that pops up into my head. Whereas before in addiction, active addiction, running on self-will, I'm acting on every first emotion and first thought because I don't have awareness. I don't have control. I don't have the ability to pause, which is what recovery gives me
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Speaker 1network is busy. See terms. Okay. Next he says, alcoholism is an illness of superlatives. We don't tend to think in terms of good or bad. We tend to think in terms of best and worst. Yeah, that's me to a T man. I'm an all or nothing guy. I, there's no middle of the road emotion for me. No middle of the road solution for me. I am black or white thinking my default is black or white. It's either horrible or extremely good in my life today. I like to think, and I remind myself that I don't get to decide what's good or bad in my life today. And what I mean by that is I'll give you an example. My alcoholism, my addiction was at one point in my life, the worst ever happened to me. It was the biggest curse on planet earth. How could I become a drug addict? I can't drink or use normally. How did I get here? How did this happen today? It is the greatest gift, not even one of the greatest gifts. It is the greatest gift in my life. The ability to use a spiritual toolkit that has been forced upon me because I needed to change. Now I get to use that to live my life and be at peace and find serenity. There is so much pain and suffering in this world. I noticed it just yesterday when I went to do this lady's podcast with her. And I was a guest on a podcast. I'm standing outside and I'm watching people in the streets of Toronto. And I watched these two people get into an altercation over the sidewalk. One guy was walking his dog. The other girl said something because she didn't have space to walk on the sidewalk. He called her names I hadn't heard before. She responded with even worse slurs and remarks. And it was just a horrible, horrible, uncomfortable energy in the air. And I witnessed this all happening. People are angry, man. There's a suffering in the world. What a gift for me to be able to not indulge in that and not have to be at war with my fellow, with the rest of God's children. I can coexist and be a nice person and just be at peace. I don't have to buy into that negative energy. Because I'll tell you this, those two people were probably in their head for at least the next 10, 20 minutes. If it was me, I would have been in my head all day about how I reacted in that situation, how I felt bad and how that person wronged me and resentment. I don't need to buy into resentment today. I can check it and move on. Okay. Next he says, I have all my life been perfectly capable of feeling too good for something and not nearly good enough for the same thing at the same time. Oh man. So many good juxtapositions. And as alcoholics and addicts, we have this capability of this ability of feeling too good to do something or for something or for someone, and then not nearly good enough at the same time for the same thing. It's this weird, I'm the biggest piece of shit in the world, but I'm also the most important piece of shit in the world. I am too good, but at the same time, I'm not good enough for the same thing. I'm not good enough for the same thing. I'm not also not good enough. It's this weird dichotomy as an alcoholic addict to feel like you're better than everyone, but worse at the same time. If you know, you know, it's kind of hard to explain. Okay. Next he says, I've had to be careful all my life, drunk and sober, not to be a legend in my own mind. Yeah. This is an important part of recovery that we can't get too big on ourselves, because that's kind of an easy thing to do when we come in here and we start to get our life back and things start to fall into place and we start to feel good again. We can really outgrow, easily outgrow recovery. I think that's why I relapse. That's why a lot of people relapse is they get too big for recovery, too good for recovery. Their life gets big and then they start blaming the world for their problems, but all the successes are my own. None of this is my own. I'm here to tell you, I followed a plan. Somebody else's plan that they got from somebody else and my life is amazing today because i followed those that plan none of it is my doing this is all the universe god and me just showing up continually i have zero control over the outcomes in my life the results i leave them up to the universe which i choose to call god a power greater than myself none of that is my doing and this is a hard thing for us to to really wrap our heads around and me certainly because with hustle culture and alex ramosi and this kind of you got to go after it and get it and nothing's going to come to you there's a interesting counterpoint to that of not trying to control the outcomes and having the outcomes come anyways if you just do the next right thing so i look at it this way i just try to focus on doing the things i ought to be doing in recovery the small do things the prayer the meditation the journaling the meetings whatever your thing is the service and then just not having expectations of how it's going to turn out but knowing that i'll be taken care of i don't know what the next chapter is going to be but i trust the author and the author is not me i can do the things on a day in and day out basis but in the long run i have zero control over the outcomes the results so the more i try to control them the worse my life gets the more i just focus on today and the next right thing and leave the results up to the universe god higher power the better my life gets okay we're getting into the feelings part so he says what i have finally learned by the grace of god is that while my feelings are real and my thoughts are real they are not reality yes yes yes yes yes this is the whole crux of the whole talk which i love your feelings are real they are valid however they are not always true they're not necessarily truth they are not reality i can spin stories about any circumstance to tell you it's horrible it's bad it's this and that if it's raining today it's raining it's a bad day because i put a story on it and say it ruined my barbecue therefore it's raining therefore it's bad because it ruined my barbecue it ruined my day when halfway around the world somebody that's a farmer might tell you they're happy when it rains somebody that has a garden that hasn't gotten watered in a long time can't afford water will tell you it's a good day because their crops are being watered it's a good day because look how beautiful the rain is what a gift perspective perception perspective perspective perspective perception disease of perception i need to shift my perception today my perception is the problem my thinking is the problem the drinking was just a so it was a solution a failed solution but it was just a side effect it was a symptom of my alcoholism it was my relief my off switch okay next he says recovery did not necessarily mean those things would go away it meant i would get to the point where i could usually recognize they would go away i would get to the point where they were not reality and i did not have to obey them i don't have to build a shrine to a feeling okay he goes on to say the only therapy that has ever done any good was going on and doing the right thing when i didn't feel like doing it if i keep waiting to feel like doing the right thing to do the right thing that's what i always want and it never comes you're never going to feel like doing things you ought to do you're never going to feel like doing things you ought to do you're never going to feel like doing things you ought to be doing maybe you will one day i found that after time you will start to feel like doing it you will start to enjoy doing it but there's a lot of more time i would argue spent in not feeling like doing the things that do things the thing whatever it is pushing through fear going on and doing the right thing when i didn't feel like doing it this spreads across so many aspects anything you want in life anything is going to rely on your ability going to depend on your ability to show up when it's uncomfortable to show up when your brain is telling you it's not worth it to show up when your brain is despite your best thinking my best thinking says i'd rather stay on the couch and watch netflix instead of go to this thing do this podcast for this person show up think about all the things that impact the outcome of your life just by choosing to say yes how many things have you said yes to where if you follow the thread has turned out to be the greatest gift ever or something you never expected i'm trying to say yes more in my life today because that's my problem is i i default to no because it's comfortable it's comfort it's really it's it's peaceful it's quiet it's easy to say no my life usually gets better when i say yes to more things to new experiences to things i don't feel like doing it's been my experience that i've never been ready to do said thing and i just do it anyways and then the outcome the reward is later delayed gratification versus instant gratification of picking up the drugs and the instant relief of picking up the alcohol what difference does it make whether i feel like going to work i've got to go to work it really doesn't matter i have to go to work whether i feel like it or not i have to go if i want to earn a good living if i want to keep my house if i want to be a contributing member of society if i want to be a giver not a taker i can never name the ultimate ultimate veto power in my brain because it always feels like common sense yeah that first thought wrong comes to mind here the ultimate veto power that i don't want to do that nope not doing it closed-mindedness it always feels like common sense in the moment your brain will trick you and tell you that this is rational this is justified you're right they're wrong this is the way don't worry about it anthony choose comfort over pain no insane idea ever wakes up and says good morning dawn i'm a crazy idea and i'm here to try and kill you today it says good morning dawn i'm common sense oh man love this guy my bottoms today are about 85 percent a decision so he's talking about rock bottoms here my bottoms today are about 85 percent a decision a decision over which i've got a world of control so he's saying majority of his decisions are of his own making of our his own rock bottoms are what he chooses to continue doing my intentions do not become decisions until i'm acting on them you can have all the good intentions in the world i have an intention to get sober to stay sober until you do something about it it's just a thought it's just an emotion it's not real it's not it's not reality it's in your head it has all the power over you because it is in your head on repeat and you are justifying rationalizing it until it feels comfortable or until you're at rock bottom and you need to do something about it to change my rock bottoms are always the same they are decisions that i will do anything to keep from feeling the way i've been feeling and living the way i've been living recovery on alcoholism so whatever your recovery program is 12 step smart recovery buddhist whatever your practice is they're just like penicillin that works on an infection i don't need to understand it i just need to take it as directed it's like a prescription man recovery is like a prescription and it's free and the side effects are all good maybe they they're painful in the moment but the the great result of recovery and doing recovery things is a contented sober life and freedom i don't need to understand it life is lived forward and understood in reverse i don't need to understand it i don't need to understand it i don't need to understand it i don't need to understand it i don't need to understand it i don't need to understand the things i'm doing today don't really make sense it's like the karate kid if you've ever watched the original karate kid he has to wax on and wax off his master's car he doesn't understand why he's doing it he's pissed off he's annoyed and he keeps doing it he keeps showing up because he trusts his master he wants what he has what his master has and he keeps doing it he's waxing his car waxing his it doesn't make any sense it seems like it's only benefiting the master the final fight scene comes and daniel's son goes to block a punch and realizes that he's that he uses the wax on wax off mechanism to win the fight it's in that moment when it all makes sense all the training all the carrying the water and chopping wood up until that point all the washing of the car the wax on wax off has won him the fight and suddenly it all comes into focus and makes sense just keep going sobriety is not a learning process recovery is a doing process not a learning process this is a program of action i need to act my way into good thinking i can't think my way into good action i can't think my way out of my problems i can't think my way into being a good person i need to act my way into being a man of integrity a man that i can look in the mirror and say hey this guy's pretty cool i like this guy i like what's looking back at me today i actually love what's looking back at me today way to go man you've come a long way you can't put out a fire with gasoline treating an illness of self-centeredness with more obsession on self simply is not going to work i asked god to remove every defective character that stands in the way of my usefulness to god and my fellows i don't get a vote on which ones i just asked to be removed my character defects i don't i don't pick and choose which one that's pouring gasoline on a fire i am using self-will to try and be a better person to try and show up in the world it's not going to work a sick mind isn't going to fix a sick mind i need help every day so now he talks about when you first come in when you're in active addiction coming in for the first time or you're a newcomer you are way too sick to have any valid thoughts feelings or beliefs whatsoever your thoughts feelings and beliefs are your illness yes first thought wrong now you get some recovery time and you start to heal and you start to recover but when you're first coming in man you're riddled with alcoholism and it's run rampant your brain is wired to choose alcohol and drugs over work over family over recovery because that's what you're so used to your mind is trained to do that just be aware of that you might need more help than you think and that's okay we all did we all do whether you live or die is going to be determined solely by what you do yeah the only difference between me and the guy that can't get sober i say this all the time the only difference is that i took one contrary action one action contrary to my best thinking in the beginning and then i continued to take that action contrary to my best thinking i don't really agree or believe with a lot of stuff i'm doing but i'm going to do it anyways because it's working for me and i'm going to do it for myself and i'm going to do it for myself and i'm working for you and i have hope that maybe there's another way maybe i'm wrong maybe my i don't know how to get sober and i need help maybe i'm more screwed than i thought i was and maybe there is
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Speaker 1it's not my way it's not my default thoughts my default plan my plan and to me it's not my way it's not my default plan my plan and to me it's not my way it's not my default plan my plan and to me up in hotel rooms up in hotel rooms up in hotel rooms using drugs and alcohol by myself my using drugs and alcohol by myself my using drugs and alcohol by myself my spiritual progress has been a couple spiritual progress has been a couple spiritual progress has been a couple steps in the right direction steps in the right direction steps in the right direction get knocked over get up start over and get knocked over get up start over and get knocked over get up start over and say whoops excuse me and just keep going say whoops excuse me and just keep going say whoops excuse me and just keep going if i had made a list of everything i if i had made a list of everything i if i had made a list of everything i thought at nine years sober was the best thought at nine years sober was the best thought at nine years sober was the best i could have i could have i could have i would have shortchanged myself in i would have shortchanged myself in i would have shortchanged myself in every area of my life i'm going to leave you with that today i'm going to leave you with that today i'm going to leave you with that today if i wrote down the way my life would if i wrote down the way my life would if i wrote down the way my life would have turned out even at a year and a have turned out even at a year and a have turned out even at a year and a half sober half sober half sober again i would have shortchanged myself again i would have shortchanged myself again i would have shortchanged myself every area of my life every single time every area of my life every single time every area of my life every single time i can't see the great plan whatever i can't see the great plan whatever i can't see the great plan whatever you're going through today you're going through today you're going through today if you're suffering struggling like i if you're suffering struggling like i if you're suffering struggling like i have been have been have been i feel like i'm on the other side of it i feel like i'm on the other side of it i feel like i'm on the other side of it i'm i'm in a peak right now not a valley i'm i'm in a peak right now not a valley i'm i'm in a peak right now not a valley because i kept showing up and trusting because i kept showing up and trusting because i kept showing up and trusting the process the process the process my debt problems are a lot more my debt problems are a lot more my debt problems are a lot more difficult to deal with than to not buy difficult to deal with than to not buy difficult to deal with than to not buy things i don't need things i don't need things i don't need it's been painful and stressful but i'm it's been painful and stressful but i'm it's been painful and stressful but i'm alive i have food on the table my house alive i have food on the table my house alive i have food on the table my house is is is i have a roof over my head what a gift i have a roof over my head what a gift i have a roof over my head what a gift and i'm sober today and i'm sober today and i'm sober today i'm here to tell you whatever you're i'm here to tell you whatever you're i'm here to tell you whatever you're going through it's simply a part of the going through it's simply a part of the plan just keep going plan just keep going plan just keep going this is all a part of the plan you are this is all a part of the plan you are this is all a part of the plan you are exactly where you need to be in this exactly where you need to be in this exactly where you need to be in this moment i promise you just keep doing the moment i promise you just keep doing the moment i promise you just keep doing the next right thing next right thing next right thing stick to recovery stick to recovery stick to recovery choose choose choose action over feelings and you will be action over feelings and you will be action over feelings and you will be okay if no one has told you this yet i okay if no one has told you this yet i okay if no one has told you this yet i love you please follow and like the love you please follow and like the love you please follow and like the podcast i appreciate every single one of podcast i appreciate every single one of podcast i appreciate every single one of you recovery is simple you recovery is simple
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