Just For The Day
Just For The Day
#21 - August 3, 2025 - The Power of Anonymity in Recovery
Jay and Diane read the NA daily reading for September 3rd and explore the spiritual principle of anonymity and how it forms the foundation for humility in recovery, examining the complex relationship between seeking validation versus getting yourself "out of the way"
Question: Is your biggest anonymity challenge wanting to stay hidden or wanting praise and accreditation?
Jay and Diane's Just For The Day podcast is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Just for Today, any 12-Step program, or any other recovery-based product or organization. They should not replace your regular group or sponsor meetings.
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Welcome back to another episode of Just for the Day. I'm Jay and I'm a recovering addict.
Speaker 2:I'm Diane and I'm codependent.
Speaker 1:Today is September 3rd. The reading today is entitled Humility Expressed by Anonymity, and the quote at the top is Humility is a byproduct that allows us to grow and develop in an atmosphere of freedom and removes the fear of becoming known by our employers, families or friends as addicts.
Speaker 2:Many of us may not have understood the idea that anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions. We wondered how this could be. What does anonymity have to do with our spiritual life?
Speaker 1:The answer is plenty. By guarding and cherishing our anonymity, we earn spiritual rewards beyond comprehension. There is great virtue in doing something nice for someone and not telling anyone about it, by the same token resisting the impulse to proudly announce our membership in NA to the world. In effect, asking everyone to acknowledge how wonderful we are makes us value our recovery all the more.
Speaker 2:Recovery is a gift that we've received from a power greater than ourselves. Boasting about our recovery as if it were our own doing leads to prideful feelings and grandiosity, but keeping our anonymity leads to humility and feelings of gratitude. Recovery is its own reward. Public acclaim can't make it any more valuable than it already is.
Speaker 1:Just for today. Recovery is its own reward. I don't need to have mine approved of publicly. I will maintain and cherish my anonymity. The relationship between anonymity and humility is fascinating.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is.
Speaker 1:It seems it's too tempting for a person to want to take the notoriety that it's not worth the cost to the humility, because humility and I love this definition allows us to grow and develop period full stop and any degree of pride you have or lack of humility you can deploy directly correlates to the degree to which you cannot grow and develop.
Speaker 2:I like that this is a very relevant reading for me.
Speaker 1:Tell me.
Speaker 2:I have a tendency to I wouldn't say toot my own horn, but to do things very loud and publicly. My own horn, but to do things very loud and publicly. In the past I have been assigned different tasks that people weren't familiar with, and when I take on the task, I bring it to the light, I get more information from people. I I promote it a little bit more so that it's more successful.
Speaker 2:When I'm given projects, I I involve more people in the project right and so by doing that, I I kind of extend the sphere of it, and I've had people come up to me many times and be like I don't know who did this before you, but they didn't do as good a job right, no idea and, and I don't know, I I think that my motivation is always I'm going to do the best that I can do with this, and that does involve including other people or marketing or whatever it is that hasn't been done in the past, and I think that's my motivation.
Speaker 2:And yet I love the feedback of you are so good at this. You are the best this ever Like there's a lot of. There is a lot of my self-doubt from my past. That looks for external validation and I know I've gotten that before I've gotten it when I've mentioned how long I've been in the program for.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:That people are like oh, wow, like there's an element of respect, oh, you've been here over a decade. Like you must know your crap right. And anonymity doesn't just say don't bring in your professions but you don't need to bring on any of that, your history, anything, your track record?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm interested in what itch does that scratch for you?
Speaker 2:Oh, I just said, it's the external validation.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what that is. But I mean, maybe maybe that's the wrong question. I just, it doesn't occur to me that that's the itch. What's the itch? What is it? What does it gratify inside you? What does it? Why is it so tasty to you to be validated externally, to get seen for the record, for the recognition, to have the 10 years?
Speaker 2:Well, it goes back to my childhood right, where I was looked over, where I was looked over, where I was neglected, where I was kind of cast aside by my siblings and my parents a lot right and so when people are able to see me as somebody worth talking, to see me as someone who knows something and they're willing to listen to me, I think it scratches the itch. Of my self-esteem gets built up by feeling like people are looking at me.
Speaker 1:Attention. And they're paying attention to me yeah, you equate from your childhood. I'll just say it back. What I'm hearing is you equate attention from others with value. And it feels valuable. It feels a buoy to my self-esteem when I see people's eyes as they pause on me and say, ah, she's got 10 years. Ah, she did a great job with that pageant. Ah, she did, she kicked that.
Speaker 2:But like now, we're paying attention because of Diane yeah, yeah that's interesting so it's it's an an area that I need to be ultra aware of right so that when I'm in meetings I'm not flaunting how long I've been there, right? I'm not flaunting how many sponsees I've had or how many sponsors I've gone through. I'm not flaunting how many times I've been through the steps I have to constantly bring myself back to saying if I'm going to contribute in this meeting, what is, what is the applicability today?
Speaker 1:yeah, you know what I love that's. That feels like a minefield rot because you're very you're. What I'm hearing you say is you've got to be hypersensitive because you're particularly vulnerable to times when you might be able to showcase a little bit or speak to some history or some experience or whatever to be seen right.
Speaker 1:Because it's particularly filling for your self-esteem, and if we were to worry about all the different elements of how that can manifest? What I love about this reading is it focuses on the one thing that can solve that problem. It's a firm commitment to anonymity. If you have a firm commitment to anonymity, you won't ever have to worry about that because, you know, the spiritual principle is I have nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1:right, I need to get out of the way, and I really love that. The simplicity in anonymity is a commitment that I have to make.
Speaker 2:Right. Any progress that I've made, I need to give due the credit where credit is due Right. And the credit is due to my higher power Right. And the people that he's placed in my path yeah. And the resources that have come to my attention and the ways that people have shown me how to implement those resources, which has healed my relationships.
Speaker 1:What you've been given.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's all stuff that has been given to me. It's not stuff that I've earned in any way. I've just been handed all of these tools and the explanation of how to use them, when to use them through other people's stories, and then, as I've used them, I've been rewarded and conditioned to continue using them.
Speaker 1:You know, something else I really love about that is there is this contagious nature in both directions. What I'm hearing you describe is a commitment to anonymity results in gratitude. What I'm hearing you describe is a commitment to anonymity results in gratitude. I can't help, as I focus less on me, I have to focus on the others that gave me and thus have to sit in gratitude.
Speaker 1:And so there's this. So anonymity, which breeds humility, leads to gratitude, and so there's this contagious nature that they come, they compound they, and I think it, I, I, I often say this the winds of recovery are just as fast as the winds of addiction winds, as in w-i-n-d-s, and they, and it's because of the there's a contagious nature both ways, like distrust, self-destructive behaviors breed self-destructive behaviors, just as and I just really like how that popped out of there- Well, definitely.
Speaker 2:I can see how anonymity breeds gratitude, and then I can see how gratitude leads to humility.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, and so those three things are very tied together.
Speaker 1:It's fascinating.
Speaker 2:So I want to go back to the quote at the beginning. Okay, I have a question about it. Humility is a byproduct that allows us to grow and develop in an atmosphere of freedom and removes the fear of becoming known by our employers, families or friends as addicts. I feel like that's a really heavy statement. What I get out of it is that there are so many people in program who don't want people to know that they're in program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:Because we don't want people to know that our life is insane and a mess and whatever. And so humility isn't the motivation, it's not the main thing, it's a byproduct that removes the fear of becoming known.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I what do you like about that?
Speaker 2:there's just yeah there's just something that's not gelling in there. That, um, it allows us to grow. Definitely, humility is a byproduct that allows us to grow I definitely agree with that and develop I agree with that in an atmosphere of freedom, okay, so I'm kind of caught up on that. Why? In an atmosphere of freedom? Okay, so I'm kind of caught up on that, why In? An atmosphere of freedom. Why? What do you think it means?
Speaker 1:Well, it tells you in the back half of that. It removes the fear. So fear is we talked about this a little while ago. I really loved the description in Dune, the movie where it talks about. Fear is the little death. It's a cage. Fear is a fake cage. There's only one fear is a fake cage that we self-impose upon ourselves to feel comfort and when you remove that fear.
Speaker 2:But that's not what it's saying yeah, yeah. You remove the fear, the fear, and thus live in an atmosphere of freedom okay and you can remove the fear of being known by everybody in your life as addicts because of the anonymity clause.
Speaker 1:Right, because underneath most people there is a fear of Now. People don't have to be afraid of that. I'm not afraid of that anymore. It sucks when I tell people that I'm an addict and they judge me. It happened just last week and honestly, the only thought in my head was like yeah, okay, that might cost me, and yet that's their problem. It has nothing to do with me. I'm a recovering addict. My life is better. I'm allowed to be an addict.
Speaker 1:I'm allowed to suffer and struggle Right. So there's this. People have a fear that they're going to be judged by others because they lack an understanding of the true value of things. If people were truly humble, they wouldn't worry about that at all.
Speaker 2:And what?
Speaker 1:this is saying I mean in my perspective is is that humility is a gift that comes from removing the fear. This fear right and an easy way to remove that fear is to make a commitment to anonymity, meaning I'm not going to share that with anybody, because and that's the lower level, I would think because eventually it shouldn't matter to be known for who you are you should wear your badges, you should wear my opinions, you should wear your sufferings and pains as badges of honor.
Speaker 2:But isn't that counteracting the anonymity? Right, because in my mind I'm like okay, so you can say the opposite would be pride, that's right. Right, and it would be pride of I'm holding my crap together.
Speaker 1:You're absolutely correct.
Speaker 2:But then you also have, okay, pride of I'm holding my crap together and I'm not going to let anybody know that behind these walls things are broken and whatever. Right, there's that pride. But then you come into the meetings and you start working your program and you've got this anonymity and this humility that comes with it. But but then can you swing to the other side of the pendulum with your pride and say I don't care, I'll tell anybody that I'm an addict because I'm in recovery and I'm doing really well and if they're going to judge me, that's there. Like there's a little bit of a pride there too you can well, because you actually gave a.
Speaker 1:I really love the way you described that is there was pride in the anonymity, pride in that I'm afraid to tell people who I am, I'm going to hide Right and rather than anonymity being a spiritual principle of it's not about me. That's a very different statement right.
Speaker 1:Hiding, because I'm afraid it's fine If that's all, if, if you're, if you're, if you're making commit, and this is just I'm just talking. I don't know right, I could be totally wrong, but what I just heard, and what you just said is is that you can actually be prideful in the anonymity in that, oh, I'm hiding because I'm worried about what people will think.
Speaker 1:That's a. That's not a bad reason to be anonymous, and yet the better version of that is that it has nothing to do with me and I'm not important. Everything was given to me. These are all gifts of the program and they and they're not on me. So anonymity is a is a commitment to and they're not on me, so anonymity is a commitment to it has nothing to do with me versus, I'm afraid, does that make sense?
Speaker 1:And then, in humility, you could probably be prideful, actually in a weird way, in the program in recovery by saying look how great I am versus the humility of actually, I don't really care what you think.
Speaker 1:If you're going to judge me based on my behaviors and what I've done in the past, that's on you and I don't have to wear it. That's very different than oh, look at how great I am because I have some sobriety Right, and I think one of the things that's really hard is it's too. I really appreciate your vulnerability in that you have a particular, you know, sensitivity to wanting to be seen. Everyone has that, like that's a normal human condition. It's it's intoxicating. That's why social media, right, is so intoxicating to people, because it's attention. Attention is intoxicating. So you know, it's probably important enough that you keep anonymous anyway just because, rather than cause.
Speaker 1:I mean, one of the things that this is clear is is that it costs humility too much. Uh, it's, it's, it hurts the, it hurts the to be known actually hurts the ability to be humble to, the ability to get the, to get the spiritual principles. What I'm hearing you say is is that you know there's a line between, okay, you know, not caring and actually kind of flaunting it as a like oh, look at me.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and all those things are on the spectrum, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Your fear is on the spectrum, your pride is on the spectrum, and you can swing to the extreme both ways, in any situation.
Speaker 1:And I feel like that's kind of what this reading is talking about, like where it says you know, by the same token, resisting the impulse to proudly announce our membership in NA to the world. In effect, asking everyone to acknowledge how wonderful we are makes us value our recovery all the more so. Like by trying to showboat, like actually hurts the recovery program. It hurts your recovery right, I think that's what it's suggesting is is that it takes away from um the gift that you're given.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the humility comes into play when you are able to constantly say I'm not an expert, We've been doing this for a long time and we're still learning. And we're been doing this for a long time and we're still learning and we're still working and we're still failing and we're still butting heads and we're still relapsing and fighting and whatever. But we're figuring out how to make it work, but we're not perfect.
Speaker 1:You know it's interesting. I appreciate you bringing this up because maybe I need to check myself, because I often maybe there is a part of me that likes the attention when I tell people that I've been in recovery for so long. I'm very selective on who I share that with.
Speaker 1:Like I don't tell everyone right, but there are moments where you know I'm sharing a spiritual principle with somebody and I feel like I want to give them a back. Actually, you know, that's interesting as I'm processing it. There have been times where I'm I'm trying to teach people, like I was having a conversation at work. I'll give an example I was having a conversation at work where I was trying to express the value of humility, the value of taking responsibility and the benefits of this right as and I was, and I found myself like wanting to back up the validity of the spiritual principle by telling them that I gained this knowledge through sobriety and I told
Speaker 1:the person I said. You know, I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm, but I'm a recovering addict. I'm 10 years sober from alcohol, as of, you know, june of this year. You know that, and and I've, and, and I've learned those things from that and I almost like this in my I'm, as I'm saying it now, I'm realizing the spiritual principle itself didn't stand enough in my own mind. I needed to back it up, and that's wrong. I should have been able to just state the spiritual principle and leave myself out of it.
Speaker 2:That's fascinating.
Speaker 1:The anonymity spawns from a doubt in my own heart that they're not going to, that they can't trust it. But, if they're not going to trust it, then what does it matter?
Speaker 2:It's like you have something to prove yeah, that's interesting like how many people have told us that we can't write books or we can't do podcasts or whatever, without the credentials, without this, without that, without? But the value speaks of itself yeah, either we have something to say or we don't, we don't and we've said before that we're doing this as our 12th step and we're not trying to get why do you think they make us qualify then? You mean at meetings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, isn't that kind of the opposite of that?
Speaker 2:Okay, so I was reading the Al-Anon World Service Manual, okay, okay, today, and this is not something I would normally read they elected me group rep, which again goes against the anonymity thing that.
Speaker 1:I'm like now I have to like, but like. I hope everyone is enjoying the very live vulnerability that we're giving here our own faults and fallacies, and that it's okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't normally read the world service manual.
Speaker 1:Okay, there you go, leave it there. I thought that was perfect.
Speaker 2:By the way, but they talk there about the different types of meetings, and there are meetings that are just for friends and family of alcoholics. They're kind of like the AA or NA closed meetings.
Speaker 2:And then there are open meetings, and you guys have them too open meetings where if somebody is not affected directly by the addiction, but there may be a psychological or a therapist or something that could potentially refer people there. But they want to know more about it. They can come to the open meetings. They're welcome, right? So we do have that differentiation in Al-Anon as well, and so it's interesting because, you're right, they do generally have you qualify when someone's a chairman. If there's new people in the in the meeting, there's a recommendation that they qualify, and usually what people will do is they'll. They'll say who their qualifier is. I'm coming here because my spouse is an addict or my child is suffering, or whatever.
Speaker 2:And that's kind of how they qualify themselves. Yeah, that's interesting, Right Until they've been there for a while. And then, once they've been there for a while, I think a lot of them come around to the fact that I'm my own qualifier. I just I. These are the people who brought me to the room, the reason I came to the room, but I stay for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's almost in a weird way. I'm assuming there's both a spiritual and a destructive version of this too. Where am I qualifying? Because, like, there's probably a version to qualify to create a group, to fit in, to be like okay, I have some credence and credential to be here. I'm allowed to be here, right.
Speaker 2:That doesn't feel right, no it doesn't feel right at all.
Speaker 1:But to qualify what would be the good version of qualifying then, what would be the the?
Speaker 2:fellowship. To let you know that you're with people who also who are suffering.
Speaker 2:I think that whenever there's a newcomer and they're coming into the group and say they're struggling with their child and they hear people talking about their interactions with their own child, that there's a little bit of relief, there's a little bit of common ground there and there's a little bit more opportunity for them to learn and take something out of it when they can see a similarity. So I think it is there as a as a as a way to connect people together a little bit more.
Speaker 1:But it it is interesting because it kind of goes against the anonymity well, and I guess this is what I'm taking away is is that in every situation there is both a good and a. I don't like extreme.
Speaker 2:There's an extreme on both ends.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say useful and not useful okay destructive and building maybe would be the spectrum I'm talking about that.
Speaker 1:There's a version of this where we're taking for a selfish reason or we're giving and am I qualifying to uh, express to someone else that I'm suffering alongside them and to reach out? Or am I qualifying to back up the reason why I'm there and that I fit in? Those are two very different, and yet the behavior is the same. What I find so fascinating about the program is that you can be doing the exact same thing as somebody else and take away a completely different meaning.
Speaker 1:I love how you call that out where we talked about how you could be in anonymity. Right, you could be doing it to hide or you can be doing it to get yourself out of the way. Two very different reasons, right, Okay, Are you going to sell and if you're just self-disclosing your recovery which happens, right, we do it all the time with people that you share your sobriety, that kind of stuff with well, are you doing it to give credence to your argument?
Speaker 2:which I volunteered. I was doing right, or are you?
Speaker 1:doing it to the point to reach out to a still suffering addict, right, and I find that fat and the behavior is the same, and yet the outcome couldn't be different, based on the intention, which is fascinating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's the attraction versus promotion, right that there is an aspect of when you're comfortable with it and you're feeling like secure in your skin and in your recovery. You want people to know, because you want people to feel safe to come to you and say you know, when is your group, where do you guys go? And I've had that with people where people have come up to me and said I'm really struggling with my spouse or my kid or whatever. Can I come with you to a meeting, right? Or they'll start asking me questions and I'll say why don't you just come with me to a meeting? And and that does it does open that door to help people to find the group.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you're definitely right. I think it has a lot to do with motives and I really also like how you mentioned and you said that I mentioned it, but I I heard it out of your mouth and it changed how I conceptualized it the idea of anonymity hiding in anonymity. Yeah, right that this is not our concern. You and I are big people with big personalities, but there are definitely people who who want the anonymity, who need the anonymity, who who use it. I mean, when I came into the rooms, what I was basically told about anonymity is you don't you don't mention anybody's names or stories, because people might see through them and people who come to al-anon might actually be in danger, like they may be in an abusive situation and they may not be allowed to come to Al-Anon and if they're doing that like it could come back as a repercussion to them.
Speaker 2:So anonymity is you don't say hi to them in public unless they say it first, because you don't want to give anything away to protect them. That was how I understood anonymity and I think that that's a very valid reason to want it. Of course, it is. I understood anonymity and I think that that's a very valid reason to want it. Of course it is. But I think that there are also people who for their band-aid, for their self-esteem band-aid, they want to be invisible, yeah.
Speaker 2:And that is dangerous. In order to face your triggers and to face your issues. And in order to face your triggers and to face your issues, if that's you, then you do need to become vulnerable with somebody. You need to put that aside and say as much as I want to. Just, you know, squeeze into the corner and listen to everybody's stories and not say a word.
Speaker 1:I need I need to share because I need to get out of my bubble. It's a great way to not grow, great, great, great way to secure that you'll never change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we. We have a saying that a comfort zone is a great place to hang out, but nothing grows there.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:So you know whether anonymity is your bandaid and you need to step out of it a little bit, or whether you're like us and you have that desire to be seen right or or trusted, or counted on, or believed, then our goal and program is to figure out why is that, what are our childhood experiences that led to that and what, as an adult, can we tell ourselves and do for ourselves to overcome that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, amen. Couldn't have said any better. So just for today, let recovery be its own reward. You do not need to have anyone else's approval publicly. I commit yourself to maintaining and cherishing your own anonymity.
Speaker 2:Thanks for joining us everybody. See you next time.
