Recovery Radio [music] KMP300anding [music] 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.