The Gospel In The Game Sports Podcast
Conversation and stories about real athletes and the journey thru sport, faith and life.
Connecting athletes, sports families and the church. Build bridges and telling real stories to help repair, build and grow people.
Hosts Dan Dromarsky and Dave Dawson
The Gospel In The Game Sports Podcast
Habits and Addiction Part 1 of 2
This episode promises a thought-provoking journey through the everyday routines that define us, inviting you to reflect on your own habits.
Explore with us the transformative power of developing good habits as we illustrate life lessons through the lens of farming and sports. We unpack how consistent practice can outshine raw talent, using a personal story about a young athlete to highlight the dedication needed to realize potential. We also touch on the fragility of good habits, offering insights into how they can be easily undone. Our discussion emphasizes the importance of conscious choices and the perseverance required to nurture routines that lead to lasting benefits, both in personal and athletic endeavors.
As we round out the episode, we challenge ourselves—and you—to confront the complexities of habits and addiction, encouraging a step outside comfort zones to embrace positive changes. With a blend of humor, personal stories, and practical insights, this episode of Gospel in the Game inspires a fresh look at daily routines and their impact on our lives.
morning coffee. Some people can't live without it. Morning, well, anytime coffee. Now, is it coffee flavor? Or is it just coffee, like some people are? Like, I'll have coffee, everything. Coffee, crisp coffee, this coffee, that right, it's like the pumpkin spice thing in October. Coffee, beans, coffee, yeah, exactly Coffee jelly yeah. And I think more or less I'm like, yeah, Some people are like I can't wake up without my coffee. I'll admit.
Speaker 2:I'm one of those guys that I can go through my morning routine and, within about three hours, be I. I can go through my morning routine and, within about three hours, be like you don't want to have it on my coffee. Yet I could use a coffee, okay, but if after like one or two days I haven't had my coffee, I'll start to get headaches and things like that.
Speaker 1:So now, let's say it's a morning and you don't have to be anywhere. Do you wake up? Do you make a pot? Do you make a pod? Do you make a pod? Do you go somewhere?
Speaker 2:Okay, here is what's lame about my life is that I'm very predictable on some things, not predictable on others. My routine based on where I live in the city. I don't live too far from a fast food restaurant that sells pretty cheap coffee, so and they have the little stickers right now to try and win all kinds of things, so I'll leave my place, go on a nice walk. The people there know me. The restaurant manager, she knows me by name.
Speaker 1:You walk in and it's like Dave.
Speaker 2:I'm doing it literally every day for six months. Wow, and I'm waiting for the budgeters out there to go. Imagine all the money you would save. However it's, I enjoy interacting with people and I just love conversation. So for me, a dollar 35, five out of seven days. In a week. I'll get free coffee at church on Sunday, and then there's a day during the week I probably won't make it over there for coffee. So six bucks a week for coffee. I'm like. I had a conversation with and I will qualify this Somebody last week who says they could never drink fast food restaurant coffee, only the, the latte slash only the, what the kids would call the bougie, the bougie bougie coffee, the bougie coffee.
Speaker 2:They will go and spend $7 a day Wow, Just I mean, and maybe in the afternoon too. This is their morning coffee, because that's just they have to. Now. That's a little excessive to me.
Speaker 1:Do they happen to carry a Stanley mug everywhere they go?
Speaker 2:Well, and some people call it a Stanley cup. It's a Stanley cup, yeah, well, and some people call it a Stanley cup.
Speaker 1:It's a Stanley cup, yeah.
Speaker 2:These are all the all the Maple Leaf fans.
Speaker 1:It's my Stanley cup, the only one you're going to ever touch.
Speaker 2:But yeah, coffee certainly is something. You a coffee guy.
Speaker 1:Um, you know what I? I can go with or without, I I have. I have a coffee a day. I do Like if I wake up in the morning it's not like a go-to must thing, like I'll leave the house without having one, yeah, um, but I usually have one every morning and I'll have one after lunch. I mean, I, I, I like it in the morning, I'll like one right after a meal. On that type of coffee drinker, yeah, I'm the type of guy that can like have one at like 8 pm or 9 pm and it does not affect me as he holds up his coffee cup. And that reminds me I probably should have grabbed a coffee before we started this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I probably could have got you one. This, by the way, is episode 15 of the Gospel in the Game. It is I am gay if I practice that enough now. That is Dan.
Speaker 1:Hold up, you know what, without anything.
Speaker 2:Three times in the last 14. I'm Dan what I'm not Dan. Why does that keep happening?
Speaker 1:I like it. This is becoming routine. Well, and half of our names are similar. In my defense it is, and you know what? And it's yeah, it's not exactly the most uncommon name, no.
Speaker 2:No, pretty well known what is common Habits and addiction, also in today's society, fairly common.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is a deep enough pool that we want to cover both subjects, but we don't necessarily want an extended length podcast. We've kind of kept everything at about a half hour. Don't want anyone falling asleep and trailing off the road Exactly, at the same time trying to cut it too short without going in depth about some of the conversation around it, because I think there's enough conversation here with it that it could potentially carry over.
Speaker 2:Well, as you and I were thinking about this, you were hashing out some of the concepts and the idea of what it could potentially look like, and you know habits are something everybody wants in their life. Yeah, you want good habits. We all try to have good habits and, whether or not you want them, we all have bad habits and we all just have habits, things that we do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's not just life stage or age habits or something that are formed young and um. You, when you're young, you learn how to use the washroom on your own, so you're not living lifelong in diapers. At the same time, you're probably raised to wash your hands before you eat. Don't put your fingers up your nose, all these different things, or other people's nose or other people's nose. You pick your nose and pick for your friends, but you can't pick your friend's nose. You can. You can but it's really awkward.
Speaker 2:Or you want an awkward friend too, um, habits. So yeah, great time to breach that subject. So, routine and habits right, we all have habits, we all have routine. What is the difference between the two?
Speaker 1:yeah and um. I think you used in our pre-conversation. We used a really good picture of talking about how habits is something that you would carry over and that you do. You can use the example of a farmer, and a farmer goes out and he plants seeds. Without planting any seeds, there will be no crop. Without any crop, there will be no food, and so, because this is a routine that he may do over and over and over again, there's daily rituals that come with that, and so, if it's not raining from the sky, it's important to give your crop water.
Speaker 1:You're not getting much sunshine. You've got to find a way to get some light, heat, temperature, all these things that are variables that you may not be in control of with the weather, but you do your best to give that soil the best growth potential, and so I think, when it comes to people, we form habits in order to give ourselves the greatest growth potential, and so, with that, I think we develop routines as part of that. That's fair, that makes sense. So we develop routines, and some of the routines we might think of as mundane because it's oh, I'm just doing this for the sake of doing it Sure, but that's not always the case, is it?
Speaker 2:No, and in a routine what can happen is when a farmer plants, a vegetable plants, you know, strawberries, carrots, whatever it is he with anticipation knows, okay, these are going to grow, someone is going to buy these from me, and then they're going to go into a store, the produce section. Some family will then buy them, eat them and they will be nourished. You don't necessarily know what is going to happen from them when they are fed. You don't know where they go. Is going to happen from them when they are fed? You don't know where they go.
Speaker 1:But part of the good things out of your routine is providing sustenance for somebody else, or even yourself, yeah, and in the same way, we don't know the details behind that, where so-and-so might be low on this vitamin, but because you produced this crop, it's really helping person A substantially more than person B, sure. And maybe person C is doing it strictly out of obligation to obey their mother by eating their vegetables. Right, that's true, it is, yeah, and so sometimes I even think of that with sometimes the routine. And one of the famous videos on YouTube is by a general, four-star general, to a graduating class, and it's called Make your Bed, and it talks about the importance of those simple, mundane habits and having them ingrained within you as a good habit-forming thing to help you in your future. Yeah, because now, all of a sudden, these habits become routines.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like going to bed early. Yeah Right, that's another good one too. Whether your habit is getting to bed at 10, scrolling on your phone mindlessly, and then you're asleep at 1130 and you're groggy. Okay, well, maybe put your phone down, that will.
Speaker 1:habit can then become a routine that you are doing, which could lead to better things, as well, Now isn't there like a famous saying or something like that about like it takes three weeks to form a good habit. I think it's 30 days or 90 days or something like that. And then something really small to ruin it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, and so I think everyone can kind of speak to that, something that maybe that they've tried to do, but they've never been able to form that habit, that good habit, instead of they're kind of stuck where they're at. And so I think there's. The one of the things that we wanted to touch on is, when we talk about habits, we're not always talking about good, but yet we're not always talking about bad. They really can go either way, but we have a choice, don't we Sure?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and some of them don't produce health in your life, be it physical health or emotional health. Let's think in a sports situation, right? So you know, I remember growing up there was a pro football player in my city that a lot of people loved. He was a guy that put up a lot of great numbers. He's a Hall of Famer.
Speaker 2:However, the word on the street was that he didn't spend a lot of time watching film Mm-hmm. So that was just a habit that he had. No, I just have pure talent, so I'm going to go out there and do the things that I can do and he put up some pretty good numbers. Career a little shortened, he didn't have a longer career. He put up a lot of numbers in a short period of time, but it just become a habit of no, I'm not going to watch film. There are other guys out there that maybe have less skill but spend a lot of time in the film room and you can tell as their habits and patterns and all those things, their skill sets get better because they're now understanding the opponent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're making me think of talking with one of my sons about going to the gym and going to the gym and how his hockey team goes to the gym on a weekly basis, once a week, and I was asking him when he went this past weekend if it was really beneficial going and talking about who was participating while they were there, who wasn't, who does extra things with him, who doesn't, who participates in other activities outside of the sport during the week, and talking about how, even though you may see the habits firsthand and you're the only one within the gym that sees your teammates who's working out and who's not it will become evident outside of the gym by who has habits and who doesn't and who's actually making use of what's there in front of them. So good.
Speaker 2:I'm surprised my brain didn't go there first, but it's been one thing that I've adopted into my life since the early September. I made it a priority. Now, at my age, I need to worry about my health, so I've been spending time going to the gym and I was telling a friend today that I'm not necessarily seeing the benefits on the strength side of my body, but I'm yet, which it's slowly coming, but I'm seeing the difference on the health side of my body when it comes to circulation and not having discomforts in areas of my body that I was.
Speaker 2:Well, this is dangerous. I shouldn't be having a discomfort here. Those are kind of going away. I'm sleeping better. I'm craving different foods. I feel like in a lot of ways, my attitude is better in certain situations. I'm reacting differently in conversations that might not have yielded a better response. I have different appetites to spend time with the Lord and my prayer life and all those kinds of things. And again, it's not perfect. But you know, and I was encouraged by another friend who spent a lot of time in the gym. He said, you know, don't be discouraged if those results don't come right away, because you are already yielding results that you don't see. Yeah, I can see them, I can see this and this.
Speaker 1:I'm like, oh okay, that does make a difference yeah, I heard from someone not too long ago about how, initially, when we participate in something for creating change, that initially we do it and we participate in it and we get like this big, like rush about how, look at this, I'm implementing change in my life and I'm doing something to fill a void or something that I I know that's there, that I need to put something into it, and I notice it and you're eager for others to notice that as well, without you having to mention it. Walk in with your bag. Oh, I just went to the gym.
Speaker 1:I just went to the gym today, but at the same time there's almost an even higher, bigger response when others acknowledge, without you even bringing it up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I think there's like this, almost there's this. I called it a void when we were preparing for this. There's like a hole there. That's like there's something that needs to be filled.
Speaker 2:So here's what's interesting, because we as human beings are a body that have a spirit and a soul attached to it. Right so if you are going to the gym and your mind is all a part of that as well, right so, if you're going to the gym, it's good for your body, it's good for your mind, probably good for your spirit, but there's something bigger that's missing with that, and I found that that, yes, I'm enjoying going to the gym, but if being at the gym and being healthier and more, you know, feeling healthier wasn't leading me to spiritual gratification by enjoying reading the Bible, spending more time worshiping I listen to worship music when I work out, and you know, if those two weren't hand in hand, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't feel as satisfied.
Speaker 1:It's really interesting. You've mentioned that before about listening to worship music when you work out. I cannot listen to anything calm when I'm working out. It has to be ragey, it's not Well, no, not ragey, but actually you know what? It's really kind of interesting. I listen to something that is Some people listen to books on. That is like some people listen to like books on no, no, they listen to books audiobooks and say I have the same thing.
Speaker 2:I'm just like what?
Speaker 1:no, I can't. I couldn't do that either. No, I gotta have something that's like upbeat, but like it's got a good sound to it that I got cranked. I just have it. It cranked Like I'm focusing on nothing else Like the hockey warm-up song Like Tsunami, no Sandstorm.
Speaker 2:Again, 10 times in a row.
Speaker 1:I've done so many reps because I listen to Sandstorm over and over. No, it's not. It's usually like really hard heavy rock or something, except from the 90s playlist. No, actually, you know what? I probably have a favorite band with that. It's funny because we were coming back from the gym and I brought up to my kid I'm like, oh man, this song is great and it was like POD and he looked at me like you just used great in this, in the same sentence here's what's incredible about Dan as modern and cultured he is in almost every area of life, the areas that he lacks are movies and music.
Speaker 2:Whoa, there are not all the time, but there are some movies that I'm like, I refer to and you've never seen them. Okay, I'm going to your musical playlist. I'm guessing. No, no, no.
Speaker 1:I'm going to agree with you but disagree with you. I'll agree with you on the movies part. You are definitely way more well-versed on the movies part. You are definitely way more well-versed on the movie side of things than I am you are, and I usually like having four kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would see movie times. No, but I would be like movie night. Oh man, have I seen this one? Yes, the answer is yes. That means I get to nap, sure so, and that's why I hate those. I hate those movie theaters with the recliners. Now I'm like this is bad.
Speaker 2:Yes, we did go to. What movie did we see on opening night?
Speaker 1:I stayed awake on that one, though. I stayed awake on that one. 007? Was it 007? No, it wasn't 007.
Speaker 2:It was on opening night, we did go see 007, yes, we're going to go. I'm like dude, it's 10.50 pm, I don't care, it's a three-hour movie.
Speaker 1:We're going. I stayed awake for that one, I could, but man, it's hard in those comfy chairs, I don't know. Back to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the point of Wait, go for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the other half the other half, I only mentioned half of that. Plethora is deep and not many people know that about me. Okay, like I'll go to classical music concerts, to country I listened to, to modern, to a lot of things there's a lot of music Right. And, and trust me, if you saw my Spotify account, you'd say wow, okay, this is variety.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not to boast, but it's, it's not to boast, but it's, it's, it's something that you put effort into. I think is I have to like I, I want to have I've.
Speaker 1:I was raised in a very well-rounded musical house where my dad used to try and race over the the rat hole, which was a big the Beatles. At the same time I had my mom, when I was in her womb, went to a Gordon Lightfoot concert, and so it's like Do you remember hearing this? The music was like the music is all over the place for ID. It's one of my best memories as a kid. Yeah right.
Speaker 2:Mom turn it up a little louder Tap, tap, tap, tap.
Speaker 1:Oh, we're going to labor. Yeah right, Turn it up a little louder.
Speaker 2:Tap, tap, tap, tap. Oh, we're going to get labor. But in all seriousness, so when you're doing something that you enjoy and you have associated music to it whatever that might be right You're in a spot. You're like going on a road trip. I need my good music. Yeah, whatever that is Like. What would be an example for that? That you would need your music, together with, like, what does your music?
Speaker 1:go with. See when I, when I, road trip, is a really good example. Okay, when going on road trips, and if I'm by myself or with one kid, we will each pick an album that we both enjoy not just an artist, not just a song and we will listen to it front to back and we will talk about it and, as the the person selects it, we'll go through and say this is what this song means to me, this is why I enjoy this song. This is this part. Really, I have a memory of this and that right, and we have a discussion about it, we talk about it, sure, and so like, and sometimes it'll like their album. You almost have to live in anticipation of bringing your album because you only get one album to select on the trip. Sure, so it's got to be meaningful, and so it's really neat to see, to hear not only the music that my kid enjoys, but to hear from it his perspective, not just what the artist is trying to bring out in it, but what did the artist bring out in them?
Speaker 2:Okay, so let me ask you a question. You go on a trip. Your son told you this is the album that he wanted to play. He wasn't able to go. You hear the album. You don't get to hear the story behind it. Are you left feeling empty?
Speaker 1:Yeah, in some ways for sure, because of even that relationship and doing that now all of a sudden, if I don't have that person with us, I think of that person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's almost an expectation set that, oh man, am I missing out on this, right? Yeah, where you know, for me, to my example, when I'm at the gym, if I'm having a great day working out, I feel encouraged. You know my workout was great. And however it's not, you know I don't together do that part and parcel with playing worship music and for me it feels like there's something missing, right? So where we wanted to go with this topic today in part two is going to be about addiction. So habits and routine can lead you down a good path if you continue to pursue them. Well, right when. Often, through habits and routine, generally they lead to a goal. Generally they lead to a goal, yeah, right. So if you have a habit of putting $50 away every paycheck a hundred dollars away, and you have a goal, that is a good routine to have, cause when you achieve your goal you'll feel great, yeah Right. Sometimes, if we have habits and routine that either break or don't lead somewhere, that can lead us down a dark path to avoid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think sometimes when we have a habit or routine that we feel doesn't impact us or make that change that we wanted to get out of, that routine or habit or anything else doesn't meet the need, people are quick to try and fill it in with something else Right and create a different habit with it, thinking that that will implement the changes need to do it, and then it almost becomes a vicious cycle and it can turn very sour very quickly. Or if someone thought of themselves, of something, and then that gets broken. Share a little story in regards to a little bit of a habit. I went out to go speak at a camp and it was a youth camp. We're talking like we're talking about 16 to 18-year-olds. Big strong farm kid there, okay, big strong farm kid there, and he had you were, or was it?
Speaker 1:No, there was another kid I was a grown-up by this time and this young man, big, strong guy, has a habit of just crushing guys, like he is known for, like arm wrestling, like we're talking about. He hits the table you wonder if the legs are given out on it. And so come into the dining hall and here's this guy, just like dropping guys with arm, like with their arm wrestling. And uh, I just said, looked at him and just put my hand on the guy he was arm wrestling. And I just looked at him and just put my hand on the guy he was arm wrestling. And I said, like, do you honestly think you're going to beat this guy? And he just looks at me and goes no. And I just said to myself, like, really Like, then why are you even participating in this?
Speaker 1:This guy has had the habit of working out. He's strong, he has the routine of working on his farm. Everyone knows he's the biggest and strongest, but yet you're still stepping up to him. And it's almost like this David and Goliath mentality where I can kind of see how everyone chickened out of fighting Goliath. The guy's like way taller, way stronger, way bigger and the whole thing's on the line. And so I said to the guy I said you really shouldn't be doing this, and this kid looks at me in the eye. This like 18 year old, big, strong guy goes. How about you, dramarski? You up for this?
Speaker 1:And I just, I just like, like all of a sudden, if my wife was there she's like. Then, all of a sudden, I saw this look in your eye and you were like challenge challenge accepted, so anyway.
Speaker 1:so I said, I looked at him dead in the eye and I pulled up my wallet. And while I'm looking at him in the eye, I pulled a hundred dollars out of my wallet and I put it on the table. I said big guy, I'll tell you what. We'll have a match. If you beat me, you can have this, but if I beat you, you have to do exactly what I'm going to tell you. And he goes what's that? I said you're going to walk out of this building, go down on your knees and you're going to cluck like a chicken all the way back to your cabin. And he just looked at me. I said yeah. I said but you know what? We're not going to have an arm wrestle, we're going to have a mercy fight. So mercy fight is when you lock hands with each other and you grab each other and you twist and you pull and everything else, and the first one to say mercy loses. And so this guy grabs on and gives him everything he possibly can. And I'm just standing there holding it. And I just looked at him and I said what's the name of this dumb game anyway? And he goes mercy. And I go okay, you lost. And I let go of him and he just looks at me like just goes, ghost way. He's like what? And I go.
Speaker 1:There's a very famous bible verse that says it exercise profiteth a man, little, grab my hundred bucks, put in my wallet, put it back in my pocket. What cabin are you in? He goes eight, eight's on the opposite side of camp and so he goes out. All these guys that he's probably demolished sure come up to him say you got to do it, you got to do it. He goes out in his bare knees and goes and clucks like a chicken all the way back to his cabin. And after he did that, one of the kitchen staff comes up to me and says thank you. I said why she's like he's been smashing guys all week and he needed a little bit of humbling.
Speaker 1:But when thinking about this subject, it came to mind because I thought about how, even though we may be experts at something, we may have great habits and be, like I've done, like pushups every day. I'm the best pushup person that I know. There's always someone bigger, there's always someone stronger, always someone with a better habit, and so your habits, even though you're the best at them, still won't finalize and fill in that void, no matter how much you think they do. There's only certain things that can fill in and satisfy and ultimately we know, those who know Jesus Christ know exactly what that is. And it's where there's a famous film, not film famous song hymn that says none but Christ can satisfy.
Speaker 1:And I think until you have that relationship with him, you'll never get that, you'll never understand that. You'll constantly try to just fill in that little void with those little things and those little habits. It just it won't make sense. And I think this kind of almost brings us to that question why do we try to fill in the void? Right, and the answer really is we don't. We don't have christ, but our human nature constantly still wants to try and substitute for it. Even for us that know christ, sure isn't that the wild thing that even though we know him and we understand him, our flesh still wants to try and creep in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we'll talk a little bit about that in episode number or episode part two, episode 16, which is going to be addiction. But I'm curious to hear and imagine in this gentleman's humility where he got humbled, where he would have gone from there Because that might've been his thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll tell you that answer.
Speaker 2:Well, next episode you can make everyone wait, why not play a little bit of an after the break?
Speaker 1:That's right. And after that, and now you'll hear the rest of the story.
Speaker 2:Sure, we'll want to finish it.
Speaker 1:Okay, no, yeah, okay, sure, I'll start off with the rest of the story next time.
Speaker 2:But so I mean to bring all that together. I mentioned a few minutes ago going to the gym. You know, we are a soul in a body with a spirit and we have a mind right. So, as Dan mentioned working out, if I was just doing that personally, speaking out of my, my experience, without giving glory to god through it, I could see, as I've tried to do this before, six or seven times in my life yeah, and it didn't continue because I wasn't seeing the results.
Speaker 2:I was doing it to try and prove a point of, like you said this. Well, no, I'm not. And now, the difference being this was something that the Lord is like. Your health is deteriorating. You need to be better and create some healthy habits. So, as I said at the beginning of the show, I'm not seeing as many of the results that I think that I should see.
Speaker 1:But it's not about the results, it's about continual habits and you never know what will come at the end of the road, and you know what I think, because that's something that you're doing that's physical and healthy and goes along with sport and activity and athletics. I think one of the things that I can challenge you with is, as we continue on through this journey and through this podcast, let's share some stories.
Speaker 1:Share some stories about how the Lord is not only working on you through this activity and through this habit that you've started, but start just telling us some of the stories on what has come out of it.
Speaker 2:Sure, Well, with a final thought to this, we didn't get to today's scripture, romans 12.2,. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. So the renewing of my mind, I think, is probably one of the biggest components to this. As we talked about, those all go hand in hand and I can tell stories about that in the next part, about how that's changed. But habits and addiction we knew it was going to be a little bit of a heavy, isn't the word? A loaded one? There was so much to talk about as I have my coffee at whatever 9, 30 pm, but here's the funny thing it's decaf well, and you know what this is um.
Speaker 1:part of the habit thing is challenging oneself, challenging oneself, formulating habits, making change and finding gratification outside of self by doing things with yourself. And yeah, 9.30 coffee. Here's one thing.
Speaker 2:you can do with yourself. Hit, subscribe and like and follow us on all places podcasts are found. This was Gospel in the Game, episode 15. Here's a habit. My name's Dave and that's Dan. Thanks for listening, and I'm Dan.
Speaker 1:And if you've enjoyed this, share. Share.
Speaker 2:Mercy mercy.
