Recovery
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day today.
I really am.
Why am I having an outstanding day? You
ask.
I think I can tell you.
It is
mostly because
I feel deep inside
that I am not entitled to
for me. That's a big deal.
I'll talk about that more in a minute.
I have to say that I'm grateful that I'm
sober.
I do not take my sobriety for granted.
Woke up today and the opponent
that I like to call the desire to drink
was not in the ring.
And
I believe that is God
for me. That's God as I understand God.
We have a daily reprieve that's
contingent on the maintenance of our
spiritual condition according to our
book Alcoholics Anonymous.
And uh that's it.
I know that I say that a lot on this
show.
I think it's important. It's important
for me. It's in my mind.
It's like the lead story in my brain. If
my brain were a newspaper, if it's the
headline
as I go throughout the day,
I think about it a lot. Why do I think
about it a lot? because
I know what it's like to have the
obsession to drink
and not want it to be there. And it is
hell on earth
and I don't have it today and I feel
like I understand why I don't have it
today.
You know, a lot of people will say they
really don't know how it works.
I don't know what's keeping me sober. I
hear people say that. So, I just do 50
things and hopefully one of them is
doing it. And
[clears throat]
the beautiful thing about Alcoholics
Anonymous is everybody is entitled to
their own take, their own experience,
their own opinion, their own beliefs.
And it's beautiful.
That's why AA is so awesome.
You can disagree with everything that I
say and that's okay.
I'm just one ding ding.
But I personally don't feel that way in
terms of not knowing what's going on.
Feel like I got the message clearly
delivered to me and shown to me many
many years ago and that message has
stuck. And that message is
in a nutshell as an alcoholic
I crossed a line at some point during my
drinking
where the most powerful desire to stop
drinking isn't there anymore.
And now the power to stay sober has to
ultimately come from a higher power.
So my responsibility is to stay
unblocked as best I can from that power.
Another
way that I look at it is like let's say
like a higher power is the sun
and my job is to keep my blinds open.
Keep the curtains open.
That's my job.
My job is not to make amazing things
happen. My job is not to keep myself
sober. My job is not to I don't have the
power.
But I do have the power with God's help
to keep my blinds open.
Not all the time,
of course. It's funny. I always feel I
always feel obligated to say that
because whenever
I say anything about,
you know, these principles working,
right away I feel this knee-jerk
reaction to almost apologize for it and
say, you know, but I'm not perfect.
I could can we just put that to bed? Can
we just kill that now? Yeah.
No one's perfect. No one does this
perfectly. I up all the time.
Everyone does. We're people. We're
humans.
We cannot maintain perfect adherence to
spiritual principles, but we can
achieve them.
Just can't maintain them.
So anyways, I feel like my job is to
stay out of self as best I can
through unselfish constructive action.
and
prayer and meditation. So
anyways,
so I'm just so grateful
that I do not want to drink right now
today. The power does not come from me.
I don't think.
And another reason that's a big deal I
think is but a I'm also saying that I
don't know if I will be sober tomorrow
and I can't know that today
and I know
people have said it many times I'm sure
you'll make it blah blah blah chances
are blah blah good just you know how can
you doubt it. I doubt it. I don't know.
I believe the big book. The big book
says we have a daily reprieve, not a 48
hour reprieve, a daily reprieve. And I
believe that
my spiritual condition is important
right now. And right now is the only
time I can do anything about my
spiritual condition. I can't do anything
about my spiritual condition tomorrow.
my spiritual condition right now.
Right now. So what does that mean
to me? It's to me I'm doing okay when
I'm I'm not that attached to my own
opinion about anything.
To me, I'm doing okay when
I do not feel the desire to defend
my point of view.
Defend it.
To me, I'm doing pretty good when
I
am looking
at people
and what is good about them.
To me, I'm doing good when I feel open
to being spontaneous.
To me, I'm doing pretty good when I am
willing to
be of service and inconvenienced
by being of service.
To me, I'm doing pretty good when I'm
not replaying anything
over and over
in my head.
To me, I'm doing pretty good when
I am
in a state of mind where I'm looking to
see what I could contribute.
By the way, I'm having this new tea
I just want to tell you about it for a
minute.
No, they don't sponsor the show. No one
does. But I just want to tell you about
this tea. This tea, it is kind of sleepy
time honey, I think.
And if you like honey, it's good. And I
don't know why I'm drinking sleepy time
in the middle of the day,
but it's not my alcoholism, I'll tell
you that. It's just my wackiness.
Anyways,
>> [clears throat]
>> back to um what I was talking about at
the beginning,
which is that part of the reason I'm
having such a spectacular day is that
I
I'm real honed in today on the fact that
I'm not entitled to
the guy who really showed me
what sobriety
looked like in an attractive way to me.
Allowed me to do a inventory with him
one time.
It was a resentment that I had.
I couldn't get past it.
And uh
he was such an interesting guy. He had a
to his house there was a you heard a dog
barking, but it was a fake dog. When you
approached the fence, you were a fence
the recording a recording would go off
and a dog would start barking and
he got he thought that was so funny.
He's the guy I talked about him before.
His name is Mike. He had a a lighter on
his watch and he had all these gadgets.
Anyways,
we're sitting in his den and he has all
this AA memorabilia everywhere and
there's pictures of Bill Wilson and then
next to the picture of Bill Wilson is a
picture of him standing in the exact
same spot in the same position
as Bill Wilson and he was just an a nut.
and he let me do a uh
inventory with him and
and he he he [clears throat]
would ask me why in a way no one had
ever asked. He said, you know, why are
you mad? And I said, well, because he
pissed me off.
And he would say, but why? And I would
say, well, because I just didn't like
what he was doing.
And he would say, "Why?" He said,
"You're just answering in a circle. Go
deeper. Why?"
And he didn't
he wouldn't tell me what the next level
was that he could see and understand,
but he said he could tell me what, but
he wasn't going to because he would rob
me of the experience of discovering it.
But I'll share with you what I found at
the bottom.
There's dubs. Doves [clears throat] go
outside.
I have doves in my yard right now.
get a lot of comments from people on the
birds here.
I do watch the birds
and sometimes they uh are loud enough to
be picked up on the mic and I don't
care. Anyways, he said why? Why?
Ask yourself why. And at the bottom of
this, what I discovered was this,
I think, false belief
that I'm entitled
to anything.
The fact that we're here
is a gift.
It's not right.
I know once we're here, you could, you
know, having rights, that's a whole
different conversation, but
[clears throat]
it's a gift that I was born and I'm
here.
And then moreover, everything that
happened to me
in my life that I love and enjoy and
experience today happened as a result of
grace.
I treated everyone like dragged
myself into the ground, scared everyone
away from me,
and
found
God as I understand God.
I found spiritual principles that solve
all of my problems. That's crazy.
It's amazing.
So if I wake up and I think to myself,
I'm entitled
to things. I'm entitled for today to go
a certain way. I'm entitled for, you
know, I'm entitled to have people do
certain things and things to turn out a
certain way.
To me, I'm not doing well.
That to me is a red flag. what I feel
and when I'm in that state of mind and I
know when I'm in that state of mind
because drum roll I'm uncomfortable
trying to play God and control
and uh
but when I when I'm in the state of mind
like I am today, which is this is all a
present. All of it.
All of it. Every card you're dealt today
is a present. The good ones, the bad
ones, what you think are good and bad,
all of them. They're presents.
When you're just grateful to get cards
dealt at all,
it is really hard to have a day that is
anything other than
amazing.
This takes time
in my life.
I'm going to share a story about my
friend Bill
I've talked about before. Got sober
together. Hi Bill. He listens to the
show.
There was one night and I'm sharing this
because
I want to express somehow how bumpy the
road was for me to get to this place I'm
at today.
how bumpy and rickety and confusing and
scary and up and down the road was.
I didn't get sober and just feel deep
with gratitude. Deep gratitude didn't
happen. It was sporadic and challenging
and messy.
Anyways,
I remember one time me and Bill were at
Denny's.
used to go to Denny's all the time back
when you couldn't
sit there and chain smoke at Denny's
and uh
there was a smoking section and there
was a non-smoking section and it was all
the same section
and sit there for hours.
One night we were there and
we were probably both sober a year or
two,
maybe longer. I don't remember now. I
think more than a couple years.
We were sober a good while. And I was
freaking out. Used to do it all the
time. I was just freaking out.
But I was really freaking out. And I was
I wanted to do acid.
I don't know why.
I don't know why that's where I went and
what I was honed in on, but
I was sober for a couple years and I
just wanted to do acid and I didn't
really want to do acid. I
was just in misery. I was miserable. I
wanted to do acid. Told Bill I'm I want
to do acid. I'm just freaking out. Bill
is so great. He said uh just get in. He
had this Volkswagen bus and he just
put me inside of it and I curled up in a
ball on the floor the passenger side
and he just drove
and he drove and he drove and he didn't
know where he was going. He didn't know
where he was going.
And uh he was just driving, driving
roads we've never been on, areas we've
never seen.
It's the middle of the night, just
driving. Gets this area is windy roads,
pitch black, pitch black. We don't see
anything with driving. I'm curled up in
a ball on the floor, yelping,
moaning, telling him that how bad life
is and how much I'm hurting and
struggling
about what today. I could tell you not
at all. I have no idea what was going
on. But it was just the end of the
world. And
and then all of a sudden, we got to this
church
just appeared out of nowhere. I was all
lit up and
[clears throat] uh
this huge peace came over both of us.
We got out, walked around and we're just
tripping out. Can you believe this? Can
you believe this feeling?
And I don't think I've told that story
in 25 years to anyone.
And
it was just something that happened. I'm
not making a commentary on church. I'm
not making a commentary on
pro or against religion.
I'm not. I'm telling you what happened.
I was freaking out. I wanted to do acid.
We were driving around. It was pitch
black. All of a sudden, we were at this
church
and it was all lit up. seemed like we
were in the middle of nowhere and this
incredible peace came over both of us.
I've never forgotten that.
It's nuts.
I'm telling you that story because
sometimes I'll hear myself talk and I'll
think,
I don't know what I would have thought
when I was new or six months sober or a
year sober or two years sober or three
years sober or five years sober hearing
this. I don't know what I would have
thought because
to me those were jagged times. It was
rough. So,
but not like that for me today.
Very grateful for the calm and peace
that I have today.
My head's quiet today,
but I continue to take inventory and I
continue to work with others and I
continue to seek a higher power as I
understand him.
And uh
it feels good today.
I have a hot day today with my wife. I'm
going to go on it now.
And uh I know I'm drinking tea, but
we're going to go get some coffee.
So,
thank you for listening. You can email
me.
I'll read some more of your emails soon.
Thank you. You can email me at sarcastic
bigbook@gmail.com.
You can find me on Instagram.