#86 I am the student, Life is the Teacher

How do we learn? There are basically two disciplinarians Pain & Love. I need to learn to read the spiritual context of my life, to learn the lessons that are being presented. Includes group discussion!~

Chapters

• 0:00 Sobriety Milestone & Learning Question
• 2:00 Self-Reliance, Pain, and Shame
• 5:10 Bottoms Beyond Drinking
• 7:20 Reframing God and Unconditional Love
• 10:10 Life as Classroom, Student Mindset
• 13:00 Steps Reveal Thinking Errors
• 16:30 Goals, Control, and Acceptance
• 20:00 Inviting God and Accessing Higher Power
• 23:10 Opening Shares: Powerlessness & Humility
• 26:30 Recovery Amid Unsupportive Environments
• 29:20 The Serenity Prayer Deconstructed
• 32:40 Holding Suffering Without Fixing
• 35:20 Perfectionism, Craft, and Letting Go
• 39:30 Principles, Early Slogans, and Daily Peace
• 43:20 Stages of Life and Thinning Herd
• 47:00 Service, Seeds, and Long Arc Change
• 51:00 River Metaphor: We Shape Each Other

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:07

Roger alcoholic. Um in a couple weeks, October 11th, it'll be forty-seven years continuous sobriety doing the things that we talk about here. Um one of the things that's been coming up lately with uh people that have been calling me and sponsees and stuff, we're talking about um how do you learn? How do you learn? You know, as a as a baby, we learn through observation and repetition. And then we take those conclusions, which are always false, predicated on the appearance of things, and we turn them into ideas, concepts, and our belief system over time. So, hey, George. Um, so the question is we all have a philosophy, uh a concept, a design for living, if you will, that we carry with us. The question for most of us, the truth is in recovery, that is the beginning of the new life because it's the failure of the old one. It's the failure of my old programming, the uh the program I have for happiness, right? What is it? Is it the business? Is it getting my own business? Is it money? Is it a relationship? Is it kids? What is it? And we we fashion that when we're little boys and girls, and then we go out and try and produce it. And when we don't succeed, we struggle. And the struggle is this this whole thing I'm talking about is predicated on self-reliance and self-determination, willpower. And we know from the first step in our program that's what failed us. It's good for certain things, but it's not good at all for a spiritual malady. So there are two disciplinarians. There are two disciplinarians. Um, one is pain and one is love. And most of us learn from the painful part. And the challenge in one of the challenges in this is as I'm doing my trial and error, it never occurs to me that there's any way other than my own. And so instead of instead of admitting this isn't working and trying something different, I double down and I try harder. And I try harder. Because when you carry a lot of fear, I'm not safe, and a lot of shame, I'm broken, I'm unredeemable, I'm incomplete, I'm unlovable, I'm regrettable. Mistakes can't be tolerated. Because when I make a mistake, it's not, oh, I made a mistake, it's I am a mistake, that shame. And so that's why when I produce a consequence with a choice I make, I tend to push that consequence away because it's embarrassing, it's humiliating, and I don't want to admit the failure. The problem is the consequence has the seed of the answer to the problem. And I don't know that. So I spend a whole bunch of years of my life, at least the first 30, 35, pushing the consequences away. So I can't learn anything. I can't learn. I can't even learn from the pain. That's also one of the things that that helps the drinking of the drugs. It's painkiller. And it's a false sense of security, it's a false sense of tomorrow's a do-over, we'll be we'll do better tomorrow. Just got to try a little harder, get a little bigger hammer. Right? So my inability to learn from my mistakes, because that's where the gift is. You don't learn from doing stuff right, you don't learn when things are going your way. You learn when you're in the valley, when things are not going my way, when things are I'm struggling, right? I'm I'm wrestling with something or some things, and I have to get to the point of capitulation. I give up. That's usually what we call our bottom. And you can have more than one bottom in this thing. You can have the bottom around the chemical dependency stuff, but then you're gonna have several other bottoms. There's gonna be a bottom around fear, there's gonna be a bottom around self-reliance, there's gonna be a bottom around closed-mindedness. The the ideas that prevent me from considering another approach, right? I was I was reading one of my daily readings today. We were talking, he was talking about concept of God. And most of us come here in adult form with a child's concept of God. Got an angry God, got a disciplinarian God, got a this God, got a punishing God, got a wrathful God. And it's a it's a non-starter. I'm not gonna give myself to that. And I don't even realize that I could choose another approach. That's why in our book it says you can choose your own concept, but get something you're willing to grow towards, right? So pain is a disciplinarian. So in the in the in the process of learning, when you're shame-based and you have a victim mentality, everything that happens that doesn't correspond with my personal agenda is something that's being done to me. Why is this happening to me? Why not you? Why not this other guy? Why is this always happening to me? Well, it's because I set it up. Unconsciously, I set it up with the attitudes I hold that that form the perception I have, which births the actions I take. And that births the consequences. So I've talked about this before, but the the concept of God is unconditional love takes God off the market for being punishing, for being vengeful, for being wrathful, for being anything, being manipulative even. So Jesus taught it this way: the divinity of man, deep down in every one of us is this divine spark. AA pasteurized that into deep down in every man, woman, child is a fundamental idea of God, which is an idea is is a packet of energy. When you see it in a PET scan in your brain, it's just energy. So I accept a new discipline with the steps. And they teach me. They teach me, they reveal to me what my problem is. In the first seven steps, it's all about your thinking. That's my problem. The reason, as long as I think things are happening will be because of externals, I can't get well. But if I can start to understand, those resentments are all based. I'm not saying that bad stuff doesn't happen, but I'm just saying most of the resentments I have are based on my perception that I've been harmed or wronged. And maybe I have, maybe I haven't. But most of the time it was imagined, it wasn't real. And then fear is the same way. So I'm living in the past, I'm living in the future. The past is dead, the future hasn't happened. And when I'm stewing in my resentments, I'm just bringing that thing, that historic thing, into the present tense and making it alive. So instead of this God idea as being the uh the punisher, um I like the classroom metaphor. I like life's a classroom. So I'm the student and life is the teacher. I'm the student, life's the teacher. So now when something goes down and I have an adverse or a negative reaction to it, one of my stop gaps as I back out of that is well, what's this trying to show me? What's this trying to teach me? When I have that posture, I'm not fighting against the appearance of things, or even maybe the perceived reality of things. I'm dealing with it from a place of humility. Teach me, show me. That takes a lot of the pressure out of the resistance. I don't want this to be true. That's why we suffer. We suffer because we can't accept what's going on right now in this moment, right? Because I think it should be something else. And my inability to accept that it is what it is, produces my suffering. So if I can turn that around and go, well, what's this trying to show me? Well, it's trying to show me I'm judgmental, it's trying to show me I'm afraid, it's trying to show me I don't have much acceptance or forgiveness or tolerance. Those things are in there, and I don't the beast, the part of me that's sick, the ism, the lower spectrum of the ego, the beast doesn't want me to even look at these questions. Because this is how it keeps us captive, this is how it runs our lives, this is how it functions. So, what's life trying to teach me? And it's it's in the principles of the steps, too. You know, the the possibility that maybe I've been wrong, the possibility that I could be wrong. Where does that start? In the first step. I allow in this idea that I'm powerless. I never thought I was powerless when I was drinking. I thought I was empowered, I thought it was powerful, I thought it was bulletproof. And uh that's a radical idea. And every one of those steps introduces us to a radical idea because they're all trying to get us to turn inward. And the question is, what's your experience? What is your history trying to show you? Well, the first time we even look at our history, it's in the fourth step. I got a lot of a lot a lot of perception of being harmed and hurt. Some of those were real. Some of them I just made up because I didn't like the way you looked at me. I didn't like the way you responded. You didn't respond the way I needed you to respond. So I resent that, right? I perceive that as a slander, a hurt. Whether it's a little one or a big one, it doesn't matter. I got a whole quiver full of those things. And my fear is based on the failure of my self-reliance. If I'm relying on me for all the outcomes, if I'm relying on me for all the results, the fear is always there, nibbling around the edges. This isn't gonna work. You're never gonna pull it off. Then you pull it off and go, well, you're never gonna do it again, you're never gonna do it twice, right? Or you find out we talked about this before, the uh agendas, the goals we get conditioned to set. You need it, you need a goal, work for the goal. And what is the promise of the goal? When I get to the goal, I'm gonna be happy, I'm gonna be satisfied, I'm gonna be AA's version, happy, joyous, and free. When I get the goal, I won't feel like this. What is this? It's uncomfortable, it's incomplete, it's annoying, it's irritated, it's constantly going through the world, pushing against everything. And if I can just get to a place where I can just back up and go, whatever, have at it. Most of this stuff doesn't involve me. Is it really your business? Is it really your business? The answer most of the time is no. Another question is have you been invited into the conversation? Most of the time it's no. So I insert myself where I haven't been invited, and I get negative outcomes. Because I'm not sharing experience, I'm telling people what they need to be doing. And what's the agenda about that? That's about I need you to do this so I feel better. And we get into the arena of selfish self-centeredness, and that's usually fueled by fear. I'm not safe. Damn it, I'm not safe. And I'll never be safe if I'm relying on you and them and it for my safety. My safety is to come to my relationship with the creator, whatever you call that. I need to have something that is not conditioned on profit and loss, that's not conditioned on people's responses to me, on my reviews, if you will, that's not predicated on externals. And the beast doesn't want us to look inside. And all the steps are turning us inward. Where are you at with this? Where are you at with this? Where are you at with this? What what where are you at with the God idea? Not do you believe in God, just are you willing to believe in the possibility? What is what is my life teaching me? My life taught me that everything I was doing didn't work. Everything I didn't do was bankrupt. I was almost dead by the time I was 30. That's what it was showing me, but I didn't have an alternative. And then I got here, and you say, We got a path for you. We can show you how to do this. We can walk you right through it. And then the beast says, Well, I don't know. I'm not really a joiner, you know. And and what is it you got that I'm supposed to want so bad, etc., etc. And then the argument comes up from that side. They have lives at work. They found a way through this maze where they have a modicum of happiness and peace most of the time. Do you? No, I don't. No, I don't. That should be attractive to me, because it's what I've always been looking for. But I don't, the beast doesn't want me to do the examination. Where are you at? Six and seven. What do you still cling to? Oh, that's sometimes quite a long list. I've identified these flaws in my character, but some of them I'm quite enamored with. And I don't like the restitution idea. Right? I don't like any of the ideas. Then we get when we if we can slog through that to the best of your ability. It's taught me if nothing else that I need help. I need an assist from a higher authority. You can call it God, you can call it the Creator, you can call it Big Wally, you can call it love, truth, peace, whatever. But I need to access something that is not affected by the appearance of this three-dimensional world, right? I need something of a higher order. And sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, right? Because we design the lesson plan. We design how this works, we design how long it takes, we design how hard it is. Because it's designed in our programming. Our bias, our prejudices, our fixed ideas. This is non-negotiable. You're screwed. You're screwed until you exhaust that idea. How do I exhaust that idea? Failure. Pain. Discord. Dissonance. That's how I exhaust that idea. So all of this is about the search for God. And I don't know I'm on a search for God because I don't believe in God when I start. But it's that divine spark, it's that thing in you and I that when we were doing something we shouldn't be doing, we always knew. Probably not a good idea. But the instincts and the beast overrode it and said, We're going for it. Come on. Because God is a very quiet. God is not coercive. God is just saying, I'm here if you need me. I'm here if you want me. I'm here if you'll access me. But it has to be my invitation. It has to be my effort, my opening up to say, okay, what do you got? What do you got? So life is a teacher. That's much better than life is unfair and punishing. I'm the student, life's the teacher. What am I learning? I learn stuff all the time. Some stuff I gotta relearn because I forget it, right? Different layers. There's layers of acceptance, there's layers of forgiveness, there's layers of tolerance. There's, you know, I do really well for a while and then I bang into something that's the same thing, only on a deeper level. Tolerance. Lack of acceptance. Self-will reasserts itself. I'm gonna make this happen. I'm gonna try and get this thing that I'm powerless over to conform to my will. It's impossible. So the end result is frustration, and hopefully some desperation, to the point where I can say, okay, I'm done. I admit that I'm powerless here too, right? So show me, show me. And you see it all the time. Tolerance, patience, forgiveness, love, charity, kindness, helpfulness, prayer, meditation, it's all there. Turn yourself in that direction. How do I know? How do I know if I'm going the right direction? You'll know it by the results you get. And the first results are gonna piss you off, they're gonna scare you, right? Because I don't the beast doesn't want me to change. And I don't believe when I listen to the beast that it's possible for me to change. Because I've always been this way. You know? A leopard can't change his spots. I got news for you. You can. You can change your spots. You can't change your history, but you can change your life from this point forward. So when if I can become a student of my experience, I have negated the resistance to change. And it's I'm not saying it's easy. I'm just saying for me, if I can just assume the posture of the student here, there's some humility there. I become teachable. And sometimes it takes a while to be able to recognize what the lesson is. And it comes around in different forms until I finally go, Oh, okay, I get it. So, so opening to my uh Zoomers and the people in the room here. The question is, um, what's life taught you? What's some of the best lessons life's taught you? What are the lessons you resist, right? So floor's open. Who wants to start? All right. Zoomers, start it out. Life as a teacher. You as a student, come on. Guess we're going home early.

SPEAKER_07: 19:09

Hi, this is uh Tom, an alcoholic.

SPEAKER_01: 19:12

Thanks, Tom.

SPEAKER_07: 19:14

Hi Roger. I was uh I was reviewing um Bringman's uh Father Richard Rohr's book, uh Breathing Underwater, and he talked about uh step number one, and step number one being the the harness that most people never really don't don't really move off it, and that's that's powerless. And that for being the story in my life, I was uh I really steered away from um getting sober or joining anything because there's no way to say powerless, there's no way I could possibly say that. My my ego was so big and my humility was so small that I remained drinking and ruining my life and potentially my family but because I wouldn't admit that I was powerless. And uh when I did that I was powerless, then just really things just start really, really moving. And um so um so we're gonna that's that's step number one, and I think that's that's uh no my surviving just for uh for life as a whole, I've gotten closer to God with that my humility's gotten. I've become aware and conscious and literally kind of working on humility. Um so so thanks, thank you, Roger.

SPEAKER_01: 20:43

Thanks, Tom. Thanks, Tom. What else? Life as a teacher.

unknown: 20:51

Hey Roger. It's Paul Alcaller.

SPEAKER_01: 20:54

Hey Pa.

SPEAKER_04: 20:55

Um actually, if you don't mind turning over and flip flip a question back to you. Um so you know, the idea of the recognition uh of our teachers and you know, pain being I think I I speak for myself, but that that's always always the direction that I would go would be I would learn things the hard way. Um and then after we learn them over and over and over again. Um and that's the try-harder mantra. And so, you know, as the as I move through this, um, you know, the the awareness that comes from you know attending meetings like this and and our and the meetings, it's you know, the realization that it's you know the majority of the majority of my problems, especially if I'm learning the painful way, start start with what what's in my head and how that moves from thought to idea to action, right? Yeah, and being able to pause that is one of the ways in which I'm I'm able to make progress. I guess that's the best way for me to say it. I you know, as you well know, I don't I I have I still have flare-ups and blow-ups and desktops. But I think the awareness piece of it, and then you know, avoiding the painful lesson is key. But as as we're talking about this, I'm sitting here wondering, like I, you know, my experience, I've been fortunate enough in my family and you know, I was the chaos creator. I was the I was the one that was constantly putting everybody in a you know in a very uncomfortable place as a result of my drinking and behavior. And if there's more than one of those in an environment in a family, I mean I just can't imagine how it seems like to me it would be so difficult if one person in a family or even if it's an extended family is trying to trying to work the program and gets over, and you got all this, again, negative reinforcement all around you, you know, just kind of by default. What's what's your take on how to how to help the past that move through?

SPEAKER_01: 23:56

The self-will you mean?

SPEAKER_04: 23:59

Not the self-will, but just just the you know, a person really sober, trying to work a program, trying to understand these concepts, and they got people in their meeting environment that are not rolling in that direction at all.

SPEAKER_01: 24:14

Yeah, that's hard. That's hard. Yeah, you see that in couples a lot. I need if if I get sober and you don't, she doesn't, or she does and I don't, that remaining partner has got to be supportive of what you're doing because what happens is we find that we created those relationships in our illness. And now I'm changing, and you're gonna have to either do a parallel track with me. You don't have to get into recovery necessarily, but you can't be undermining it either. You can't be you can't be uh poo-pooing it. So one of the things with new people I do, if you if you have a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, take them to an open speaker meeting and let them get exposed to other people's experiences, right? Because it's it's uh it's a bitch. It's hard enough to do this alone, but when you have when you have a partner that's not supportive, it's almost impossible. That's why so many relationships fail in early recovery, because one's changing and the other's not, and a lot of times they want you to be the way you used to be. You know, we used to party, it was fun, just don't drink quite so much, and we'll be fine. I've I can't tell you how many times I've heard that, you know. It's not it's not that you need to quit, you just need to ratchet it back a little bit. Because you're my drinking buddy. You know, you're my drinking buddy. The other thing, uh, I'm thinking about what Tom was saying too. This thing about powerless, we're always powerless. And if you if you take the serenity prayer apart, except what I can't change. And this is not an uh a sweeping generalization, but if you examine that really closely, there's nothing out here I can change. There's nothing I can do about the weather, about your attitude, about how you're showing up, whether you're late, whether you're on time. I can't do anything about any of that. I can't do anything about any of these externals, right? But then it says change the things I can. What can I change, Tom? The only thing I can change is my attitude. The only thing I can change is what I'm thinking, what I'm telling myself. And then the rest of the prayer is I need discernment. I need to know if this is the right direction or not. And and uh Jesus riff is you'll know by the fruit it bears. You'll know it by the results you get. And if you don't get results that are satisfactory, take it apart, find out what where you went wrong, and adjust it. Adjust it. Because we're not powerless to choose, but most of our choice prior to recovery and in the early recovery is not conscious choice, it's habituated responses and reactions, and that's why it's so confounding, because I think I'm doing better, and then all of a sudden I become this beast again. Thank you. That's good. I don't know if that was helpful or not. Someone else want to share on that? It is an open meeting.

SPEAKER_02: 27:43

Hey Bill! Yeah, you just uh you know, I I came here, I knew I'd here's something I needed to hear. Um the last three or four months, I just feel like I've just kind of been almost surrounded by like other people's tragedy. And if it wasn't for this program and just kind of understanding that, like, you know, my my son's back out there. My mom's still using, you know, yeah all the stuff. Families I work with, and people are just yeah, people are suffering right now. Oh, and so I don't think I'd have the capacity to sit with it if it wasn't for that ability to just sort of like, okay, you know, I can't control any of this.

SPEAKER_01: 28:26

Not my business.

SPEAKER_02: 28:28

However, I'm like, I'm getting exhausted and I'm finding myself kind of getting cynical and sort of um yeah, just kind of sort of having sort of a busy attitude, like, oh, it's gonna happen today. But you just said, you know, you can't control your attitude. And to me, that was something I I think I needed a refresher on notice. And I can control my attitude.

SPEAKER_01: 28:50

Yeah. It's a choice. And what happens is I get overwhelmed with the reaction. I have a I have a saying that I use on myself, and it it cuts both ways. When stuff is going on, heavy stuff is going on around me. The beast is always going, Jesus, I can't handle this. But the truth is, I say this all the time: life is preparatory. I'm being prepared for stuff that's coming, and I don't know what's coming, and I don't even know I'm being prepared. But then when life presents, I find out to have a capacity that I didn't know I had. So that's the gift, that's the teacher, and that's the lesson, right? Instead of, I don't have to fix this, but who do I want to be with this? Can I be kind? Can I be compassionate? Sometimes it just can I listen? Can I just be your witness, you know? Because there's I can't fix it. I can't fix it. And so now we're talking about compassion and empathy and not getting sucked in to being the fixer. Sometimes I wish God didn't have so much faith in me.

SPEAKER_02: 30:04

That's what my ego says. Like, oh, yeah, I I can handle this.

SPEAKER_01: 30:10

And I know what you need to do, and I know what you need to do too. You just need to let go, even though I can't let go. I know what you need to do. Anyone else? Zoomers? Hey.

SPEAKER_06: 30:26

So in sobriety, I became a handyman. And then I evolved and it didn't evolve.

SPEAKER_05: 30:33

So I evolved even further and um became a cabinet maker, uh self-employed cabinet maker. And just I bought a house 30 years ago, and ever since I've been working on it. And well, not ever, yeah, not ever since I took a break. But in the first 20 years of working house, my perfectionist of tendencies just were off the they were off the charts. And almost to the point where I wouldn't let anybody in the house because I was afraid that they were going to mess up my grave work. So back to being a cabin maker. Every time I took a job to someone's house, a uh a kitchen full of cabinets that I created, no matter what, there was always a very, it was usually a minor incident with the cabinets. I could not get around not having some sort of incident. I would I would need to bump the cabinet against something, taking it in, I would need to it would shift in the trailer, something. And I and it was just like, ah, you know, why and so the solution was just to give up being a tablet maker.

SPEAKER_01: 31:48

Or get a new attitude about it.

SPEAKER_05: 31:52

Um I loved so much of my perfectionism as a result of I think this program I'm gonna I'm gonna attribute it just because I got nothing else to attribute it to. But um it's it's um it's an immense uh weight lifted. I mean, I'm telling you. I now I think now that I didn't see before and appreciate things that I never did. And it's just I I don't know what to say. It's it's um yeah, it's just something that happened in my life, and and as a result, I think it's it's made me uh better, you know, just I I don't know what you know, just so yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 32:31

There's a question in there, why is my best not good enough? Why is my best not good enough? It should be good enough, but I measure against perfection, which doesn't exist, right? And then I'm then I weigh in what are they gonna think and what are people gonna think about this? So I'm not getting no one's coming to my house because I don't want their opinions, thank you very much. It's a work in progress, as I am, right? Anyone else? Oh, we do did we lose them?

SPEAKER_00: 33:00

Yeah, just great.

SPEAKER_01: 33:08

Was it dropped a drop signal?

SPEAKER_02: 33:10

No, it was somewhat outlook, or I don't know why the hell outlook cares whether or not we're doing Zoom.

SPEAKER_01: 33:18

Jesus. Well, who else?

unknown: 33:23

I'm George, I'm an alcoholic.

SPEAKER_01: 33:25

Hey George.

SPEAKER_03: 33:26

Um the lessons I've learned. Uh you know, I was uh I was born and uh raised in a highly principled household. Um, but the way I felt, you know what, I found a solution in alcoholism. And you know what that carried me uh through many years and and certainly a lot of disasters and and severe illness at the end. Um and then only when I was I got sober and and I had nothing left did I start to understand all these principled lessons that were given to me early on, the the things that are innate with me and started to listen to. Um and uh and what were some of those things?

SPEAKER_01: 34:22

The innate things that were there?

SPEAKER_03: 34:25

You know what? Real simply, doing the right thing. I know I've mentioned a phrase here in this room, but you know, the things that we know to do right and true, and we can feel it within us, you know? And also one thing that many people had told me was to just hey, do nothing. Shutting the mouth, do nothing. And that was probably one of the greatest actions I was told to perform early on in this thing. And with all my intents and my intensity and my intent to do this and that, the other thing, and then you know what, just do nothing. And so frequently that turned out to be the right thing. Um but you know, those at the end of the day, to help others, those things that just it feels right, and to be caring and compassionate, to not listen to the world all around me. That was taken away for a long time. It was in treatment for a long time, you know, fortunately, and and no phone calls even. And and so all that happening in my life and everything being taken away. I had uh a certain section of of close to purity, and all I did was was this, and and I worked in the middle, and I'm quite sure that I don't have this peace in mind and that pureness, I think to use the term serenity, but uh that I had when I was one, two, and three years in this program. Yep, you know, and and life has grown. I haven't drunk, I've done some good things, and raised a child nowhere near perfectly, and raised him to this point. He's 18, but like his father, he's got the mind of a of a 12-year-old still, and uh and I'm married for 22 years. Um I haven't done that perfectly, but this evening it was sort of nice, and got a hug, and I left to come here. Um and anyway, the the things I've learned, my best things have come from really these core principles in AA. And uh so frequently I would say, early on in business, I would get anxious about things, and and I'm doing six different things at work at once, and and in these rooms I first saw down in the basements of Altoon, Pennsylvania, was first things first, you know what? And I would repeat that to myself when I'm sitting there estimating and working on things, and that's how I get through it. And my mind is sort of scattered just the way it's built. And uh, but those signs on the wall in in church basements frequently applied directly to me at that moment, even after you know, several years in the program. It's like, hey, I repeat this stuff, I I have it on my wall in my office where nobody can see it. It's like, hey, how am I going about this? And boom, I settle down and I accomplish things. But, you know, all the goodness that I've been involved with has been all most all of it AA-based and AA initiated, okay? Reminders of those core things inside of me and the things I was taught early on by good people, you know. It wasn't my expectations were different. I wanted some things, I needed to receive things that were not given to me in the manner I thought I needed. But at the end of the day, those lessons coupled with what's in it and what A brought back to me has given me a life, a full life.

SPEAKER_01: 38:16

Yeah. You know, you keep going back to my imperfect parenting, my imperfect everything. This is the spirituality of imperfection. That's our imperfections are what are the are what are the the thing that drives the transformation. If I didn't have the imperfection, I wouldn't want to strive to get rid of it. The pain that it produces, right? So it's a gift. It's a gift. And we don't ever get done being human, right? But I can be better. I can be a little better than I was yesterday. I can be better. And that's all I'm striving for. I'm not in competition with you or anyone else. I'm in competition with myself. How'd you show up today? That's your 11th step at the end of the night. How'd you show up today? Did you give more than you took? Were you helpful? Were you trying to make someone's way a little easier? Did you do anything that didn't serve you, that just served someone else? Were you see where you can pack into things, what you could give to life rather than what you could get? Those are constructive questions. And when I accidentally give more than I take, those are days that I go, that's a good day. And I didn't connect it. You know, in my early, in my early recovery, I didn't know what produced a good day. I accidentally have one. And then I go, I like to do what I did yesterday today. It doesn't work. Because yesterday is dead. I have to do it and re reinvest in it every day. That's the daily reprieve concept, right? Based on the maintenance of my spiritual condition. And if my maintenance is lousy, the results are gonna be lousy. But it doesn't mean I'm gonna drink. It doesn't mean I'm gonna drink. It might mean that I've I'm held in this discomfort long enough to move out of it, to move through it, instead of avoid it and and trying to do an end run around it, right? Zoomers, welcome back, some of you. Everyone didn't make it. Anyone on Zoom want to share? Kevin.

SPEAKER_08: 40:30

Kevin, I'm following. Yeah, I just uh I there's certain things that come down the bike that you're talking about, and things in particular are because we're all over forever changing, and as we get older, even more so it seems to me. Lately. Even with my the circle that I started with early sobriety, there's a lot of people I have no I have no contact with anymore. And so the circle seems to get smaller and smaller now, and a part of me has a sadness about it, but a part of me is also at peace with it. You know what I mean? So I'm at this point in my life where I'm kind of reflecting and and and kind of contemplating and being with myself more with my partner and and kind of being alone. And and it's not I'm not lonely, but it's it's it's it's wearing this outfit that I haven't worn before, and I'm starting to kind of go into this older place. I'm just an older person too. So things have changed in some of the circle. Initially I have judgment about like you know, those fucking people you're gonna be in the whatever human language, but but I also realized that everybody changes, and certain people come into your life at a certain point when you need it, and then some people go away. So I'm I'm just kind of living with that right now, and kind of that's what's been chewing on me. That's what's chewing on me is just being part of my awareness and my contemplation, my meditation. So I'm just I'm kind of in that place right now. So I just I appreciate that with this like, oh, I gotta get on the show and uh listen to what Rogers is saying. So thanks for being there.

SPEAKER_01: 42:17

You bet. Well, you brought up an interesting point, stages of life. When I'm 30, I got a different drive than when I'm 40. And then there's a review around in the 50s, and then I'm getting I'm getting into my 60s, and I have some historical perspective and timeline. The uh, and I'm I'm in the last lap. I'm 76. It looks different from here. It's supposed to look different because it is different, right? And what matters today is much different than what mattered 25 years ago, right? To your point, Kevin, and there's another one too that I'm reminded of when you said that one of my mentors um used to tell me the longer you're here, the thinner the herd. And you know this from being around a while. You know, most of the people I came with came in with aren't here anymore. They're not here. I don't know where they went. Some of them are dead, some of them moved on, if you will, but I made a commitment to this being a way of life, a lifestyle, a design for living, rather than something I do not to drink. This is something that serves me. It keeps transforming me because it keeps putting me in front of my incompleteness, my humanness, which is code for my need for a relationship with God. Right? And that keeps turning me back to that power that supersedes all this appearance of the worldly crap, right? Anyone else?

SPEAKER_03: 44:03

That need for God, 100% of that can be gained from my actions in giving.

SPEAKER_01: 44:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_03: 44:10

Uh you know what? I I you mentioned people cast it away, and I remember it was 27 years ago, and all the old guys at 2218, and you'd see them upstairs, and they I think there was still smoking at that point inside the building. And I had just gotten here, and that's when I met you. But I would see all these old friends, you know, and and they were old, man. And then I had a certain opinion. However, I really came to enjoy that. I'd walk in and and I knew some of their names, you know, and and some even responded to me. And you know, and it was like, and it and it felt like home. And uh and it was right, and they were present for a reason. And today I'm you know, for many years, uh, I do a meeting at at uh at a sober house and I bring a meeting there, and mostly they're all young guys, you know, and I see these guys, and it's been going on for 18 years. I I see them years later, and it's like, what the heck? And um anyone, it's pleasant to see that. A quick little story. I was with Chris one day, and we took a meeting to this eighth floor of uh part of a U event hospital, and it was an eight-story building that most of all these people were never coming back. They needed medical care, but but they were on life support, and and then there were a couple of guys that that just had certain conditions and had some impairment, and we would do a meeting there, and then he showed up in a wheelchair, someone still drooling on themselves. And one fellow, um all of a sudden he we didn't see him for a few months, and then we saw him in 2218, and then five years ago, I'm driving down the street right from my house. There's a coffee shop, and I look over and I said, Hey, don't I know you? And the guy looks up and he's reading the newspaper, he goes, No. And I said, Don't don't I know you from 2218? And he goes, He goes, No. I said, Are you sure? And then he goes, he goes, you know what? You're right. And I wanted to look over. And it was this guy, we met, and and there were four or five people in wheelchairs, he was one of them, and none of these people I thought were ever coming back, but we were taking the meeting just to take the meeting. And there he was in the coffee shop. And after that, Brandon Jarini had gotten his job back in the insurance company and had retired, and there he was sitting. Anyway, sorry for the story, but you know what? No, it's very pleasant.

SPEAKER_01: 46:58

It's a good story because we go to do those things because someone did them for us. And we don't, this is Zorba the Greek. The man who plants a tree doesn't always enjoy the shade. I don't know when a seed is being planted. I don't know when it's gonna bloom, if it's gonna bloom, I don't know if it's taking root or not. And then I run to this guy years later, and he goes, Oh, that the I saw you at a big book thing you did in 1998 changed my life. I said, really? You remember me? No, I don't remember this morning. So that's why we do what we do: giving and receiving, giving and receiving, giving and receiving. And I have to be receptive to ask to invite God in, and I have to give it away. I have to share it. Share it in, I call them tender mercies, just in little quiet good deeds. Well, that'll be fine. And every once in a while, some guy, some woman will come into your life and you go, damn, this is uh what Kevin was talking about. Some people come in briefly and they leave. Some people can stay for a long time. I'll tell you a story about that. Years ago, I went down at 2400 Blazedale for about 15 years, and there were some people there that saved my life. I didn't know they saved it, but they were World War II vets and some Vietnam vets, a couple Korean vets, just a bunch of jar heads, you know, and I thought, here I am, you know, I'm a musician. I got hair down my waist, I live in black leather, and I'm going, this is my new posse. Fine. But there was a guy, we'll call him Tom. It's a Vietnam vet. And I just, he freaked me out. This is when everyone was going postal. That was in the news all the time, and I thought, we got to tap the pat this guy down when he comes in the house, because he was just pissed off, racist, bigoted, angry. And Vietnam vets got a short sheet when they came back, too. But be that as it may. So this is over 40 years ago. And last year I got an email. Is this Roger from the uh 2400 club? I went yeah, who's this? He said it's Tommy. And I went, oh shit. He found me. Right? And he started talking to me. He said, I I just want you to know, I you really helped me a lot in my early sobriety. I don't remember helping him at all. I remember avoiding him. He said, But those first couple years you saved my ass. He said, I just got I retired from the VI. I just spent 35 years helping vets with PTSD. I've retired. I'm out on the lake with my wife. My kids are grown. Here's a picture of my kids. They're all grown, got married, and uh, here are my grandbabies. Well, his daughter married a black guy. He's got brown grandbabies. So God took care of the bigotry and the racism and the whole deal. And it's at the end of this thing that I get this this information. So it's the metaphor is life's like a river. And we're in this river, and and you got a George boat, a Roger boat, Tommy boat. And these boats come together sometimes. Sometimes just glancing blow, sometimes they come together and we ride for quite a ways and then go apart. Very rarely, but sometimes they stay with us for a lifetime. What Kevin was referring to, different different seasons. But here's the thing once our boats come together, when they go apart, there's a little bit of George's boat on my boat and a little bit of my boat on George's. And we never know, we rarely know the effect that we have on other people. But we always have an effect. That's my experience, right?

SPEAKER_05: 50:54

So you can't get someone off your boat.

SPEAKER_01: 50:57

I've never had that problem. They're there for a reason. What is the guy teaching me? What is this sh teaching me? Who I this is a Buddhism thing. Every man is my teacher. Some teach me who I want to be, and some teach you who I don't want to be. So I just gotta make friends with it. Because I don't know what it means. I don't know. And sometimes you'll never find out, and sometimes you find out years later, decades later, minutes later. Just never know. We good zoomers? Yep. We never got them back. Alright. Anyone else got anything they want to throw down on this? If not, we'll close here. Um Thanks for being here. And uh let's close with a serenity prayer. And there's a bucket there, uh basket there if you want to do a donation for the club. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. That's a wrap. Thank you. Good to be with you.