Just For The Day
Just For The Day
#23 - September 6, 2025 - Replacing the Props in Our Minds
Jay and Diane read the NA daily reader for September 6, which explores the value of regular meeting attendance in replacing negative influences with positive alternatives to create a sustainable path forward.
They discuss the stage analogy of our mind, as well as which wolves we choose to feed. They also discuss the strengths that addictive personalities commonly possess and what powerhouses they can be when that passion is re-channeled.
Question: What new props do you use to replace your old ones?
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.
The views expressed are solely those of the hosts and guests. Take what you like and leave the rest.
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:And today is September 6th regular meeting attendance.
Speaker 2:Which I'm very underwhelmed by, but we're going to give it a try and see what comes up.
Speaker 1:We've already prejudged the reading.
Speaker 2:I have.
Speaker 1:The quote at the top is we have learned from our group experience that those who keep coming to our meetings regularly stay clean.
Speaker 2:The NA program gives us a new pattern of living. One of the basic elements of that new pattern is regular meeting attendance. For the newcomer, living clean is a brand new experience. All that once was familiar is changed. The old people, places and things that served as props on the stage of their lives are gone. New stresses appear, no longer masked or deadened by drugs. That's why we often suggest that newcomers attend a meeting every day. No matter what comes up, no matter how crazy the day gets. We know that our daily meeting awaits us. There we can renew contact with other recovering addicts, people who know what we're going through because they've been through it themselves. No day need to go by without the relief we get only from such fellowship.
Speaker 1:As we mature in recovery, we get the same kinds of benefits from regular meeting attendance. Regardless of how long we've been clean, we never stop being addicts. True, we probably won't immediately start using mass quantities of drugs if we miss our meetings for a few days, but the more regularly we attend NA meetings, the more we reinforce our identity as recovering addicts, and each meeting helps us put that much further from becoming using addicts again.
Speaker 2:Just for today, I will make a commitment to include regular meeting attendance as a part of my new pattern of living. Full disclosure I'm skipping today's meeting because I'm going to a friend's house and taking honey off her hive, so I will not be at my Al-Anon meeting.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's funny. Yeah, that's hilarious. We're reading about regular meeting attendance and you're planning on missing your weekly meeting.
Speaker 2:I am skipping it this week Judgment, judgment. Now, that being said, I know that there are other meetings in the area. If I really if I feel like my program is slipping, I just have to drive a little bit further and see other meetings.
Speaker 1:This sentence is pulling out to me in the first paragraph the old people, places and things that served as props on the stage of our lives are gone.
Speaker 2:That also stuck out to me. Why?
Speaker 1:I just like the imagery of we have a stage and the people, places and things that we spend time on. Are props there, meaning they're unimportant? When I think of a prop, what do you think of a prop? When I think of a prop, I think of an unimportant item that adds flavor but is not the core. And I'm looking at that and going what's the play? What are the actors? I guess we're the actors and the props affect us. The play what are the actors? I guess we're the actors and the props affect us. I just that's an interesting way to the props. The props on the stage of our lives are gone, I guess because they can be removed and swapped out yeah, they're just inanimate objects that tell the story right, yeah, that leave that.
Speaker 1:Bring the story along in a play yeah, but they do set the stage and they do affect the mood and they do affect the scene. They definitely do frequently right?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think, when I read that, the thought that came to my mind was that idea of the wolves. Right, I've got two wolves in my mind. Which wolf do I feed? And I've heard the same kind of analogy. You, you've heard the the wolf thing right, yeah, the old I guess the old man that was was asked.
Speaker 2:I don't remember the background of it, I'm gonna butcher the wolf thing, right? Yeah, the old I guess the old man that was was asked. I don't remember the background of it, I'm gonna butcher the whole thing. But basically he said there are two wolves in every person and one is is trying to drive you towards the good and one's trying to drive you towards the bad. And the person he was talking to, I think was a kid, said well, and which wolf wins? And he said the one you feed, right, yeah, yeah and um, and I think that that came to my mind because I have another analogy that I had been told a long time ago that the stage, your mind, is like a stage and you choose what's going to be on the stage and what's not going to be on the stage, and it's similar to which wolf do you entertain?
Speaker 1:right.
Speaker 2:And so there have been times in my life when I have had to train my mind to do things whether that's not to criticize or when I was younger I was really crass and I would tell a lot of sexual innuendos and I was trying to get away from that.
Speaker 1:You're going to starve that out, basically by not feeding it right.
Speaker 2:So every time that that would come on to my stage and and I'm assuming with addicts There'd be something like the obsession or the whatever that would come on to the stage Every time that something like that would come on to my stage, I would. I would kick it off the stage. But I was also told the stage won't stay empty. You have to fill the stage.
Speaker 1:So I went through like a year and a half where I had songs going through my head all day just every day just to keep all the stuff I didn't want on my stage off of my stage in my mind, which is no different than an addict in early recovery, because you have to change the people, places and things that you spend time with and that's how you start to recover and do that by. It's hard at first to remove them off the stage. They keep coming back and you have to literally remove them or like remove yourself from them and keep working on that until they're gone.
Speaker 2:Right, well, and I'm using the analogy of what's in your mind, but there's also the people, the places, the things, the props that are in your life as well yeah, that's what I'm saying, yeah so there's both yeah, yeah, so I like that and I like how they connected it with regular meeting attendance.
Speaker 1:So that's how you, that's a core component of how you remove those things.
Speaker 2:Well, because you're replacing them. You can't just take stuff away. You can't just not go to you know, the house party or the bar or the whatever you need to actively choose to go to you know, the house party or the bar or the whatever you need to actively choose to go to a meeting. You can't just cut these friends out of your life because they're a bad influence. You need to replace them with a sponsor and with positive people at the meeting. You can't just, you know, take out the, the props, the addiction, the substances. You replace them with literature, you replace them with slogans, you replace them with whatever and all of those things are available at meetings, knowing that you're cutting a substantial amount of your life out.
Speaker 2:Yeah you have to replace all of those things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're cutting them out and replacing them with this, with new spiritual practices. Yeah, I also like the second sentence after that, where it says new stresses appear no longer masked or deadened by drugs. That's a very common experience, where oftentimes it's more painful shortly after recovery starts, because you're now being invited to face the things you were avoiding, partly by deadening and blunting, by the use of drugs and escapes.
Speaker 2:And now they're just coming full force and full force. You have to face them and tackle them. Yeah, figure that out, yeah. And then it refers back to the everyday right. Newcomers, addicts, are suggested that they go to 90 meetings in 90 days.
Speaker 1:Sometimes yeah.
Speaker 2:A lot of groups will say 90 meetings in 90 days.
Speaker 1:For the most suffering addict. That's a really good suggestion.
Speaker 2:Why do you think that is?
Speaker 1:Well, because you're hitting it hard, you can do a lot in 90 days. You can become a new person by digesting the recovery program that consistently.
Speaker 2:I've read a lot of books that talk about starting habits and that it takes like 21 days or something like that to to start to solidify a habit. So I imagine after 90 days you've got a pretty solid habit.
Speaker 1:Some people also have a harder. Some people's families are addicts. Some people live in addictions like settings. Some people are homeless and you can't get away from drugs because that's the setting right. So I think that's partly why that is. That was not my experience. I had a family that wasn't using drugs and alcohol, right, so it wasn't totally unnatural to be able to have an escape to a space where I wasn't around it all the time, where other people can't escape it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, you were very lucky. You're welcome, so generous of you. There's something else here, and we've talked about this many, many times Regardless of how long we've been clean, we never stop being addicts, and the idea behind that is when you think you've won the fight, you've lost the war, you've lost the war. You have to stay on guard. Once an addict, always an addict.
Speaker 1:But again, like we talked about a couple days ago, I don't demonize that label. Other people would gawk at that and say, well, that sucks, I'm never going to be free. And that's because they're looking at it like it's a negative thing. It's simply a behavior that I'm a part of and that, I've learned, has some good benefits from it. Has some good benefits from it. Right, I have an insatiable personality.
Speaker 1:I'm very passionate about things that I sink my teeth into. That's no different than my addiction. It just happens to be. When it's about a positive thing, it's fantastic.
Speaker 2:When it's not it's destructive.
Speaker 1:And so you know that name once an addict, always an addict, is not a negative thing. I don't see it as a poor or bad label. It's that I have a journey to go on and it's part of my life.
Speaker 2:lesson Well, it's just like the kid at school that gets in all the fights and their parents take them and put them in martial arts and say if you have this energy and this aggression, let's channel it appropriately. The addictive personality can be a powerhouse personality if it's channeled towards the right things.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:If you're addicted to you know your family to you know making them thrive and survive and whatever, there can be really positive things that come out of that passion, that focus, that obsession.
Speaker 1:So what you just talked about is actually Freud in early psychodynamic theory coined the term sublimation to describe the defense mechanism where somebody takes an unacceptable habit and funnels it into an acceptable one, and that's a really good description you just gave.
Speaker 2:Sublimation, sublimation. So recognizing that your addiction is not a bad thing, but that you maybe need to channel it. And part of channeling it is replacing the people, places and things that have propped along your story of addiction with more positive people, places and things but you don't have to figure that out.
Speaker 1:It's not complex, it's go to meetings. That's what I love about this reading it. It's regular meeting attendance. It's that simple. Keep coming back. That's right, just for today. Make a commitment to include regular meeting attendance as part of your new pattern of living, and thus stay clean.
Speaker 2:We'll be here for you every day. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1:See you next time.
