January 17, 2025 • 60 mins
In our ongoing journey through the 12 Steps of Al Anon, we arrive at Step 7, which encourages us to humbly ask our Higher Power to remove our shortcomings. While succinct in its wording, this step is profound in its demands and implications. It challenges us to embrace humility, not as humiliation, but as self-acceptance...
The post Shortcomings and Self-Acceptance: Step 7 – 425 appeared first on The Recovery Show.
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(00:01):
In step seven, we humbly ask our higherpower to remove our shortcomings.
What does this mean in practice?
Welcome to episode 425 of The Recovery Show.
This episode is brought to you bySandra, Leslie, Brandy, and John.
They used the donation button on our website.
Thank you, Sandra, Leslie, Brandy, andJohn for your generous contributions.
(00:22):
This episode is for you.
We are friends and family members of alcoholics andaddicts who have found a path to serenity and happiness.
We who live or have lived with the seemingly hopelessproblem of addiction understand as perhaps few others can.
So much depends on our own attitudes, and webelieve that changed attitudes can aid recovery.
(00:43):
Before we begin, we would like to state that in this showwe represent ourselves rather than any 12 step program.
During this show, we will share our own experiences.
The opinions expressed here are strictlythose of the person who gave them.
Take what you like and leave the rest.
We hope that you will find something inour sharing that speaks to your life.
My name is Spencer.
(01:04):
I am your host today.
Joining me today is Mary.
Welcome back to The Recovery Show, Mary.
Thanks, Spencer.
We're going to dive right into our conversation about Step7 because our readings are built into the conversation.
We're reading from the book How Al AnonWorks for Families and Friends of Alcoholics in Chapter 8, which is the 12 steps.
(01:28):
We're reading the section for Step 7.
Step 7 says humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.
It's very short but it's not so short in the doing.
Yeah, I think it's the shortest step in terms of words.
First paragraph.
Many people confuse humility with humiliation,but humiliation is a form of abuse and has no place in our spiritual growth.
(01:55):
When we speak of humility, we speak about self acceptance.
In Step 6, we learn to accept our part inour relationship with our higher power.
We recognize that we are not all powerful and thatthere are limits to what we can achieve by ourselves.
We can no longer go back to the oblivion of denial,yet we're not capable of effectively eliminating those aspects of our personalities that cause us embarrassment or make our lives unmanageable.
(02:21):
We have little choice but to accept ourselvesas we are, with all our limitations.
And chief among those limitations isthe fact that we cannot cure ourselves.
By accepting that God can do for us what we cannotdo for ourselves, we begin to achieve the humility that is necessary for change to take place.
In Step 7, we put that acceptance to work.
(02:44):
We take action.
What does this paragraph say to you, Mary?
I like that it focuses on the first wordof the step, which is humbly, and that it emphasizes, humility is not about humiliation.
I think shame and guilt and feelingembarrassed and humiliated can be a common feeling in families with alcoholism.
(03:10):
It can feel quite daunting, I think, too.
You know that we need to be humble when we ask higherpower to remove our shortcomings, but I like the clarification that this paragraph makes that it's not about humiliation but really about accepting ourselves as we are, and asking our higher power to do something that we cannot do for ourselves.
(03:34):
I have heard in the rooms, definitionof humility as teachability.
but it also, for me, is about the self acceptancethat this part of the reading speaks about.
It says here, chief among those limitationsis the fact that we cannot cure ourselves.
(03:57):
that takes me back to the three C's in step one.
we didn't cause the alcoholism.
We can't cure the alcoholism.
We can't control the alcoholism.
Well, I guess in some sense I caused my shortcomings.
but, clearly I have not been able to curethem myself, because if I could have, at least some of them I would have, you know?
(04:21):
Yeah.
I mean, I tried very hard before program toactually remove my own defects of character.
That was part of my perfectionism.
I thought if I just tried harder, then I couldbecome this saintly perfect person with no faults.
And, in program, I learned that was a defensemechanism to the chaos and the unpredictability that was around me, I tried to become perfect so that I wouldn't have pain, basically, and have, people fault me for things and, punish me for things.
(04:59):
And I still actually try to do that sometimes, I think.
That perfectionistic voice is very strong in me.
but I think it's admitting that I need help tohave some of those defects of character removed.
In this second to last sentence, it says, by acceptingthat God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
(05:20):
I had a really strong example of thatrelatively early in my time in Al Anon.
If you're a regular listener to the show, I've talkedabout this before, but it fits really well right here, which is that I was full of rage that would just splash out on whoever around me did something that activated it.
(05:43):
, the rage response was always way out ofproportion to the so called offense.
Which might have been a co worker disagreeing withme, and I would be like, no, that's a better, or it might be my kids spilling a teaspoon of milk by knocking over their almost empty glass on the table and I would scream and pound the table, and it just was so out of proportion and I didn't want to do it.
(06:11):
I had no success in trying to stop doing it myself.
After something like six monthsin the program, it was lifted.
It wasn't happening anymore.
I was nowhere near step seven at that point.
I was somewhere in the middle of step three.
And I think that was really good evidence for me, if youwant to use that word, that there was a higher power.
(06:38):
was doing for me what I could not do for myself.
Wow, you're like levels ahead of me because it tookme way more than six months to have that removed.
I was working.
I was working the program hard.
I'll tell you.
I really was.
I like to paraphrase the big book there and say, you knowthat no human power could have relieved me of my rage.
(07:05):
Because that was sort of at least one of my addictions.
Yeah, were addicted to feeling anger
I got drunk on anger.
because it made you feel powerful?
Yeah,
also I think because I was stuffing a wholelot of things and that was how it came out.
I too have been mostly alleviatedfrom, I call it the snapping.
(07:31):
My husband used to tell me multiple times that he did notlike it when I snapped at him, and he said it was not the what of it, it was like my tone, the tone that I would and I was very resistant for a long time to admit that I had this problem, but I did snap at him and it was exactly
what you said, all these feelings that I had that I wasstuffed down would leak out because in my mind, I know the, five times that I was patient with something, but he doesn't know that, but at the sixth time I would snap.
(08:04):
And it's because I hadn't been honest aboutwhat was bothering me, the first five times.
And of course I'm gonna snap.
I would snap at my kids.
probably year 8, 9, 10 of recovery, Irealized, my telltale sign that something is off is, like, when I started snapping more.
Especially at my kids and, as a parent, I'm sure,things just happen when you're parenting that are unexpected, that put a wrench in your day.
(08:32):
You know, somebody forgets something, somebody spillssomething, and it's all just very human things.
And sometimes these things would putme in a bundle of energy and nerves.
And I would also have that overreaction to these things.
But, I have to say in the last few years, this,defect of character has mostly been removed and I think it's because I keep working the program.
(08:56):
I think if I left and tried to just, do iton my own again, I think that would be one of the first character defects to come back.
I'm not perfect.
I still get angry and do things inthat anger that I don't want to do.
but I
have seen such a huge, dramatic change.
(09:18):
It's been a long time since my husbandtold me, That I snapped at him, or that he didn't like my tone with something.
Did I tell you the story of the mango incident?
It, for me, epitomizes, this self will andthe perfectionism and, the lashing out thing.
When my child was younger, They have this phasewhere they want to do everything themselves.
(09:42):
I cut up a mango and, mangoes are very sticky and hereally wanted to eat it himself, but I really didn't want him to, because that would mean a mess, that would mean I would have to clean his hands up, blah, blah, blah.
And I was in a hurry to get the rest of my day done.
And we had this little fight, little will fight.
(10:04):
Am I going to feed him this mango oris he going to get to eat it himself?
And I won because I'm the mother and I was biggerand I have more power in this relationship.
But afterwards I realized like, what was that for?
Like it was such a nothing.
And that's when I realized like my self will and myneed to control and this rigidity and having control over something that's not even that important.
(10:31):
How important is it?
Right.
so that's my mango incident that helped me open my eyes to
my rigidity and need to control.
Yeah.
I still have times when I might raise my voice.
I might have that tone.
I might've talked about this inmaybe the five or step six episode.
(10:53):
One of the things that would happen at workis, I might interrupt somebody who's trying to tell me something because I feel like what they're telling me is redundant or whatever, okay?
It doesn't matter.
when I took some time to look at that and tolook at the cause of the cause, if you will.
Mhmm.
why did I do that?
(11:13):
Well, I was feeling angry.
Why was I feeling angry?
Because I thought that we were wasting ourtime and we had more important things to do.
why did I feel we were wasting our time?
because, I want to move on to the next step.
Why do I want to move on to the next step?
Because I'm impatient.
The shortcoming that I want to ask to be removed, thatI am becoming ready to have removed, is impatience.
(11:38):
And maybe there's something behind that, butI haven't been able to identify it yet, okay?
So it's not in this case about anger, it's about impatience.
Right.
When I recognize that, then I can ask forsomething that will actually meet my needs, which is a phrase somewhere else in the literature.
(11:59):
I think that's in the step one reading in this book,where we're turning away from the illusion of control to something that can actually meet our needs.
Anyway, let's move on to the next paragraph.
Could you read that for me?
Sure.
Paragraph 2.
Nonetheless, even after we accept the fact that weneed the assistance of a higher power, many of us try to figure out exactly what we need and hand our higher power a list of tasks to fulfill on our behalf.
(12:25):
This is not humility.
This is self will.
True humility is based upon letting go of self willand relying instead upon the will of our higher power.
Again, we admit that our own resourceshave let us down and we need help.
To ask for such help is to take a huge leap of faith.
(12:46):
To truly place ourselves, our futures,and our actions in the care of God.
Oy.
Yeah, it's not, Hey God, make me less angry.
Yeah.
it's, Hey God, do for me the things that Ican't do so that I'm able to be less angry.
(13:06):
I'm able to yell at my kids less or not at all.
Also, and it doesn't really say it here, but I knowthat the wording here says remove our shortcomings.
It doesn't say remove particular shortcomings.
It doesn't say remove the shortcomings that wewant gone, And in step six, there was this all our defects of character of wording, right?
(13:34):
I know there's another reading somewhere that talksabout, hey, God's going to work on the ones that in our higher powers opinion, need to be worked on first.
and we might not get exactly the resultthat we are anticipating, expecting.
Care of a Higher Power, thisreally goes back to Step 3 again.
(13:56):
I know in one of the books, the Step 6 reading, Ithink in both of them, it talks about how step six really relies on a full acceptance of step three.
It's really hard to do step six, and I would say step seven,
Yeah.
without that faith that our higherpower will take care of us, right?
(14:19):
yes.
I find it very interesting that this stepdoes not say, humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings and have them be removed.
It doesn't say anything about whatyou're gonna get after you ask.
The only thing we do is we ask anddo it humbly and not demand it.
(14:44):
Whether that happens or not is up to higher power.
But yeah, needing that we need help and that we don'thave within ourselves the whatever it takes to remove our shortcomings ourselves is such a key part of this program, I think, and, why this program exists.
(15:06):
Because, this disease is, cunning, baffling,and powerful, and we cannot fight it alone.
We cannot overcome, the destructive effects of it alone,and we need each other and our higher power to help us.
I'm gonna go ahead to the third paragraph,third and last paragraph in this section.
Then for the first time in the 12steps, we ask God directly for help.
(15:30):
We neither grovel regarding our needs as shameful,nor do we demand, treating our needs is all important.
There are a variety of ways to ask.
We may pray, meditate, visualize, write,speak aloud, or sing our requests.
But whatever form we choose, we communicateour desire to be free of excess baggage.
(15:51):
We simply speak from the heart.
I've never really thought about the how of the asking.
I just.
I'm trying to think like what I did, and it'sHey, here's these things I've identified.
I probably wrote them out.
I, I had a list or something.
I certainly didn't sing them.
(16:12):
ha ha ha
I think at least partly, I visualized,what would I be like without this?
I guess it's time for my second example, Ihad this almost paralyzing fear of financial insecurity, which for a time was, you know, Not unmerited, because we were financially insecure.
(16:36):
We were spending more than we made.
We were getting late fees on bills and all that fun stuff.
Part of that was because my fear led me to do thingslike not open bills, not look at the balance when I went to the teller in the bank or took money from the ATM.
(16:59):
Which is logically not a goodway to stay financially secure.
I remember we were on a trip once.
And I tried to use the credit cardin a restaurant and it was declined.
So then I called them and I think it wasbecause we were late on the payment, or it might be because we'd hit the credit limit.
(17:19):
I don't remember.
I called them and I, over the phone, had thempay part of the bill, so that we could continue to use the card for the rest of the trip.
I think I knew before we left that I needed to pay thebill, or pay the amount of the bill that I could afford to pay, but I didn't because of this paralyzing fear.
(17:40):
I needed that to be relieved.
So I put that out there, I said, Please help me with this.
and one day I went to the bank,I think it was making a deposit.
I went to the teller and when I got the receipt, Ilooked at the total, at the bottom of the receipt.
I looked at the balance and I didn't die.
(18:04):
I was able to do it.
The way that I understand that is that my higherpower removed the fear of seeing the balance.
and I want to talk a little bit about theother part, which is then I took the action.
Because I didn't know whether that fear was completelygone, but it was gone enough that I could take the action of looking at it instead of just crumpling up the receipt and throwing it in the trash, which was my usual.
(18:30):
. You know, God didn't look at the receipt for me, right?
I had a new behavior that my higherpower gave me the ability to do.
And this reading doesn't really talk about that.
I went to another book, Paths to Recovery, whichis got a chapter for each step with a longer reading and with some, shares by members and in Paths to Recovery on page 73 under step 7, it says,
(19:00):
At the same time, we must take some action.
Sitting back and behaving in all the same old wayswhile asking God to remove the defects is not effective.
We cannot continue to do the same thingsover and over and expect different results.
Recovery is a journey, not a destination.
This is my understanding that My higher powerwill make a spiritual change in me that enables me to more easily act in a different way.
(19:28):
God doesn't reach down and make my handturn the receipt so that my eyes can see it.
That didn't happen.
I had to practice that.
I had to practice looking at the balance.
Now that in the modern era, I can look atthe balance anytime I want by opening up my phone and opening up the, bank app, and in fact, if I want to deposit a check, I have to,
(19:51):
because it just shows you the balance rightaway, like you don't have to ask for it, it's right there on the front screen, and I can do that, Sometimes I still have a little hesitation.
I let the check sit on the table for a couple of days,which drives my wife crazy, before I actually deposit it.
But, I don't make her deposit it.
That would still be living in the fear.
(20:12):
and this, , Leads right into this additional readingfrom Paths to Recovery a little bit further down.
In turning to the God of our understanding forremoval of our shortcomings, we find we are given countless opportunities to see our requests answered.
New situations appear in our lives, givingus opportunities either to repeat our same old responses or to practice something new.
(20:35):
Yeah.
When my parents died, they had sold part of theirproperty to a neighbor on a land contract, which meant that the neighbor was paying them every month.
they were effectively holding the mortgagenote, is the other way to look at it.
and then My siblings and I inherited that mortgage.
And so every month I get a check from thisperson, for, my portion of the mortgage payment.
(20:59):
And so every month, I get the opportunity to practiceopening up the bank app and depositing a check and seeing the balance and it's getting easier and easier.
It's taken years, but it's getting there.
Wow.
opportunities.
How about you?
I've been talking a lot.
Let's, let's go over to you.
Yeah, I think fear is definitely one of thosethings that we want higher power to, remove.
(21:29):
I have heard pretty often in the rooms and meetingsas like framing fear as like a character defect.
I personally do not think fear is a character defect.
I think it's what we do with that fear that may bemore of a, Character defect than the fear itself.
(21:52):
life can be scary.
There are a lot of things that we can't control.
And right now with the economy, the wayit is, a lot of people are looking for jobs for a longer time or out of jobs.
You know, reorganization people, companies, all this,Economic turmoil and like inflation, all of that stuff.
(22:14):
And, fear is a real thing and death is a real thing.
Alcoholism is a real thing.
It wrecks havoc on finances a lot of times too.
I don't think fear is, a character defect.
I think it's a natural response to this,sometimes scary world that we live in.
I think when I get in trouble is when I.
(22:39):
have fear be the only feeling, and forgetthat there is actually a higher power taking care of me as we, realize in step two.
I've not experienced Like true poverty.
I did grow up quite poor ish.
After the war, everybody was poor, the Korean war.
(23:00):
So my parents actually grew up in, in lots ofpoverty and, they passed on those values to me.
I think what I had, it was more of like a scarcity mindset,not fear that I will ever go without, but, Fear that I need to save and scrimp and be very frugal with everything.
(23:26):
I've been working for over 20 yearsnow, so I'm pretty far into my career.
When I started making like middle class income.
In some ways I still behaved as if I was a collegestudent, like looking for the cheapest places to shop.
Just being very tight with my moneywhen I didn't really need to be.
(23:47):
And, I had to make very intentional choicesand tell myself, remind myself, you are fine.
Like, you do, You can pay for a parking spot insteadof trying to circle 10 times to get a free spot.
these kinds of things.
And you don't have to look forthe cheapest thing on the menu.
You can actually eat what you want to eat.
these kinds of things I've had to, It's part of self care,I think it's that scarcity mindset, the mindset that I'm trying to change into a more like abundant mindset, like trusting that I will be, taking care of and be provided for, while also at the same time being responsible.
(24:27):
we have our traditions and we're, our Al Anon groupsare, financially self sufficient, and so I, I want to practice that too in, in my affairs, in all our affairs.
so I do practice, I don't overspend, I, try not to havedebt, But yeah, it is definitely a spiritual practice to keep on trusting that higher power is going to provide.
(24:55):
Yeah.
Have you heard the saying, higher power can't takeaway our shortcomings if we keep practicing them?
I don't know that I've heard that exactly,but it makes a whole lot of sense.
yeah, if I keep practicing, uh, procrastination,
Yes.
that's a big one.
(25:16):
okay?
If I keep practicing that, then whatever myhigher power's doing is not helping me, you know?
Yeah.
A favorite example is being late formeetings, being late for appointments.
Again, that was one where I had someemotional resistance to being early.
(25:36):
I was, like, wasting time.
Wasting time sitting in the dentist's waiting room.
When I could have been doing, I don't know what.
that's the, when you really start to look at thesethings logically, it's like, well, what, what would I have been doing with that five or 10 minutes otherwise?
(25:58):
So in the way I see my higher power working inmy life, it might have reduced the intensity of that feeling that I would be wasting time,
makes it easier for me to actuallyshow up a little bit early.
And be respectful of their time,whether or not they're actually on time.
(26:21):
. I should be respectful of their time because they might be.
and if I'm late, then I'm probably goingto make them late for somebody after me,
you know?
I'm now at the point where I get pretty antsy if I'm aminute or two late for a doctor appointment or something.
Mhm.
It's like, doesn't feel good anymore to be late.
Whatever, I don't think it ever feltgood, but it didn't feel bad, right?
(26:44):
I felt justified.
Oh, there's a word, justified.
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
Another aspect of Step 7, which again is covered in thePaths to Recovery reading, recognizes that what I consider to be a shortcoming might actually have mixed value.
(27:06):
It might be partly an asset and partly a defect.
The example they give is judgment.
We may find that there are assets hidden in our faults.
For example, judgment is a negative trait when used to woundand criticize, but judgment is positive when it allows us to recognize quality and distinguish good work from mediocre.
(27:26):
And our higher power understands better thanwe do how our shortcomings can be removed.
Something else that I might putin that category is perfectionism.
The desire to do things perfectly can be areal shortcoming if I take it to extreme.
And by taking it to extreme usually means it'snever perfect and so it doesn't get finished.
(27:52):
But I still want to do things as well as I can.
That's the positive side of perfectionism,like this desire to do things well.,
Yeah, I think the way we look at our characteristics,as defects or assets is a spiritual thing, and, like the reading said, each asset has a corresponding defect and each defect has a corresponding asset.
(28:20):
And, yeah, I totally agree withyou about the perfectionism thing.
there's nothing wrong with wanting to do thingswell or having high standards for things.
it's when that turns into this rigidity or likecriticizing others when they don't have the same standard as you, that's when it makes our life unmanageable.
(28:41):
I was also going to say, the wholetime wasting and efficiency thing.
I also have that, too.
I try to time, going to the airport perfectly, so that I'mnot wasting time, and it has probably added some stress to my life, because I make the margin so razor thin.
(29:06):
So then if there's a little bit more traffic than Ianticipated or whatever, or if the TSA line is a little bit longer, then I'm in the zone of Oh my God, I am going to have only a few minutes before they, start opening the gates and close boarding or whatever.
So, you know, it's pros and cons of thedifferent things that are priorities for us.
Yeah, for me, perfectionism is definitely a charactertrait that I came to realize more in program as a response to the chaos and the trauma of my childhood.
(29:39):
I Do see it as an asset.
I produce, high quality work and I like to do things well.
but also it's when it gets to be a hindrance, likeyou said, like prohibiting me from finishing things and that's when it, Makes my life unmanageable.
I'm doing pottery.
I picked up pottery, in the last year,
and boy, do my perfectionistic tendencies come out.
(30:02):
Like, it's so easy.
But then, I also produce, some beautiful pots.
so it's, it goes, yeah.
are you throwing on a wheel,
I am throwing on a wheel, yeah, and it'staken me about a year to get the hang of it.
but I can throw a lot of what I want to throw now.
(30:24):
I'll just put it that way.
It's so easy to ding that clay in every stage.
And just to remind myself like I'm doingthis for fun like I'm doing this for fun.
yes, oh my.
And it doesn't have to be perfect.
Some people are like, Oh, that's why peoplelike handmade pottery because it's not perfect.
(30:47):
But in my mind it's Oh, I want to get rid of that ding.
I want to, make it perfect.
but it gives me a lot of opportunities to practicenot being perfect and accept that things are beautiful with the dings and it's true, like the handmade pottery is beautiful because it's not perfect.
one of my teachers used to say, if I wanted everythingthat looked perfect, I would go to Ikea and buy a $5 dish.
(31:10):
we wouldn't pay, all this money to have handmade stuff.
and I have to remind myself of that for sure.
yeah, true.
the other thing that I tell myself is Isee the flaws because I know they're there.
Right.
Other people are actually much less likely to see the flaws.
(31:31):
Yes.
I need to remember that.
A few years ago I took the hundred yearold dining table that we have that my great grandfather made, and that had a hundred years worth of wear and tear, and refinished the top.
and of course I wanted to do it perfectly.
I did it.
(31:52):
I think I did it pretty well.
And there are some spots that I can spot becauseI know they're there, where it's not perfect.
It's very nice, and it doesn't have roughspots where somebody set something hot on it 50 years ago or whatever, but it's not perfect.
(32:13):
I'm sure it's beautiful.
I'm also not willing to do the whole thing over again.
It was a lot of work.
Having the ability to dial it back, to have the desireto achieve perfection, but also the ability to stop at good enough, I think is the balance that, that I like to have, and that my higher power is helping me to achieve.
(32:41):
I also want to note, when we do thepodcast, I put together a little script.
I have a template that I create it from, and at thetop, right before we start talking, and at the bottom, right after we finish talking, it says, and it's highlighted, remember, it doesn't have to be perfect.
What a good reminder.
(33:02):
For sure.
Any final thoughts on step seven?
I think one of the characters defects slashshortcomings that I had to ask Higher Power to remove was like this need to be right.
This need to be correct and right and be better than.
I don't know why I chose to marry an alcoholic.
(33:26):
It was definitely not intentional.
But I think there was a part of me thatwanted to feel like I was better than I was.
My spouse.
Whoa.
I think that was deep, deep, deep in there.
And, having this, alcoholism dangling that in front of himas something to criticize, and all the, the characters that came along with being an alcoholic, I think that gave me a sense of superiority and it was nothing that I ever like
(33:57):
consciously, chose or knew even, but I think program helpedme uncover, I did have this need, and I sometimes still do have this need to be better than or, you know, right.
That was one of the things that Ithink I did ask Higher Power to remove.
for me this step was actually really quick.
I just did a prayer and basically just said,Higher Power, please remove my shortcomings.
(34:21):
These character traits that are causing me pain,probably causing pain to the people around me.
I don't want to do them anymore.
I don't know how to stop doing them.
Please remove them.
And I think it was really quick,but but it was very profound.
And I think it's also a step that I continue to takeevery time I go to a meeting, every time I reach out to somebody else, when I make an Al Anon call.
(34:45):
Every time I need that I need help, I'm doing this step.
it's definitely not a one and done step.
it is not for me either.
And I think, this bit of the reading fromPaths to Recovery, that we are given countless opportunities to see our requests answered.
I know when my higher power is trying to, toget me to actually do the new behavior that
(35:09):
has been enabled.
I start running into this problemover and over, whatever it might be.
and, it reminds me like, oh yeah, I wantto act differently in this situation.
I can act differently in this situationand I want to practice doing that.
And yeah, maybe that's not exactly part of the step.
(35:30):
per se.
It's not part of the immediate action of the step, butfor me, it is part of the work that the step entails.
Yeah.
If you're listening and you're like,ah, step seven, man, that is so far off.
That's okay.
Because as has been my experience, like actually what wasone of the most important character traits that was removed from me happened long before I was actually working Step 7.
(35:59):
it came as a result of making thatcommitment to work the program and doing so,
Yeah.
We'll take a little break, but first, we want toknow what is the song that you brought us today?
Alright, I picked one song, for today.
(36:20):
It's called Oh Mother, and it's by an artist named Milk.
M I L C K, and I had to think, actually, I had tothink, deeply why this song reminded me of, step seven.
And, I think for me being humbleis about being like right sized.
(36:42):
That's another term that I've.
Commonly heard in meetings, thisconcept of being right size.
Not being filled with myself or with the ego,but also doesn't mean that I don't matter.
not being too big, not being too small.
there's a humbleness to showing up for a relationship, Ithink, because I'm admitting that I need that relationship.
(37:04):
I want that relationship.
And, there's an honesty to this songthat acknowledges shortcomings, but also a commitment to grow and heal together.
And I think step seven is about showing up, showing up andowning our part and humbly asking higher power to, you know, take away some of these parts of us that are causing us pain and, This song is showing up, honestly, and admitting, Our parts, there's a line that says, we're complicated, we're up and we're down, we're right and we're wrong.
(37:41):
We let the bottom fall out when we're blindwith emotion, when words turn to shouts.
We keep making it hard.
To want to stick around.
And it talks to, this complicated motherdaughter relationship where you love each other, but you still do things that hurt each other.
The refrain, the chorus is but I keepshowing up and, I'm going to keep showing up.
(38:05):
and that's the best that we can do.
and I think it's powerful, so giveit a listen if you haven't listened.
It's a tearjerker, this one, so get your tissues ready.
ha.
She's the one that had that viralsong in the Me Too movement, right?
yes, I'm glad you recognize her, yes.
I replayed her Tiny Desk many times.
(38:26):
She posted this song on a solo piano version on Instagram.
That's how I came to learn of this song.
And I
thought it was so beautiful.
And then I recently, she released,an actually produced version of it.
I think she finally got the courage to talkabout the song with her mom and stuff like that.
I can put that link, at least alink to Instagram, in the show notes
(38:50):
At therecovery.
show slash 425.
I always put the YouTube videos, but, since that wasthe original, I want to get that in there somehow too.
Yeah, I prefer the Instagram version.
Okay.
That's good to know.
(39:12):
In this section of the podcast, wetalk about our lives in recovery.
How have we experienced recovery recently?
So last Friday, you know, we were talking about the airport.
My wife is visiting some friends.
She has a friend who has a heart problem that couldtake him in a week, or it could take him in a few years.
This is a friend from high school, and shedecided she really should go visit him, because she would be really pissed off if she didn't go visit and he died next week, you know?
(39:41):
So we booked flights and all that.
We're going to the airport on Friday and she'srunning late, which is not unusual, but we got there with what should have been just barely enough time, cutting it close, like you said.
I dropped her off, I came home, I did some stuff,and I get a text from her that says I missed it.
(40:03):
The airport terminal she's going from is very long.
It actually, if you walk from oneend to the other it's like a mile.
She said, I didn't look at the signs wellenough, I should have taken the tram.
That might've gotten her there before the door shut.
I don't know, but it still would have been like squeak.
I wanted to say, what can I do to fix this?
(40:25):
I didn't.
and she didn't say, I need you to do something.
She said, I talked to the gate agent whosent me down to the customer service desk.
I got myself standby at four o'clock inthe afternoon and confirmed on an eight o'clock flight and I'm feeling acceptance.
(40:48):
And I was like, then I'll just accept it too, you know?
You're like, great.
yeah, it was good.
I didn't have to do anything about it, but,
Mm-hmm
and I was happy because I was going to aholiday party in the evening and didn't have to mess that up and so on and so forth.
It is such a different feeling from how I used to bewhere something like that would have just thrown me into a whirlwind of Trying to fix it and maybe blame.
(41:20):
I did not, did not lay any blame.
The contrast between mostly calm acceptanceand the frantic whirlwind that I would have been in is pretty astounding, really.
In a couple of my meetings, when we have anewcomer, we'll do a first step topic for them.
(41:41):
It often involves reading first step from one ofthe, one of the books, and then, people share their experience of what brought them to Al Anon, etc.
You know, what it was like, what happened, and maybea little bit of what it's like now, kind of thing.
I got to the point where I had the same share every time.
This is my five minute version of my story.
(42:02):
Recently I've started changing that becausewhat my story didn't really recognize was the effect my loved ones drinking on me.
I'm started to go more of, yeah, I had thisrage and I had this fear and I had this despair,
(42:24):
rather than the, yeah, I had this likemoment of clarity and I came to a meeting and everything and I felt so wonderful afterwards.
which is also a good part of the story, but Ifeel I might be a little bit more relatable.
If I talk about some of the negative feelings that wedon't want to admit, but which the person who's new in the meeting might be absolutely in the middle of.
(42:51):
And to have somebody say, yeah, I felt that way too.
Yeah.
I think it can be powerful.
I don't know.
I did it.
It changes with time and it will change again.
I know, but that's something that haschanged for me recently and in how I tell my story when we're doing a first step.
Okay.
I experienced recovery pretty much every day.
(43:13):
recently I had the opportunity to practicerecovery as I was helping my son, apply to college, which is a whole process in itself.
he, wrote the essays, so we helped, revise themand gave him some feedback and stuff like that.
So nowadays, they have these common applications,and it's very easy to apply to multiple colleges.
(43:38):
And I guess this kind of relates to thescarcity mindset, maybe a little bit.
So, we had discussed, like, how many colleges he wasgoing to apply to, and each application is 60 or 70 bucks.
And so if you choose 10, that's a good 700 bucks.
Right.
there.
And he started listing off all of theseschools that he was going to apply to.
(44:00):
And I express that that was probably unnecessary.
He gets pretty decent grades and he wasprobably going to get into a lot of them.
And if you know you're going to get into, yourtop whatever, then you don't need to apply to 10.
You only need to apply to the top five or whatever, right?
So I express my opinion and, His otherparent, my husband, had a different opinion.
(44:24):
He felt that our son should applyto whatever college he wanted.
And he expressed his opinion and it was latein the day and very close to the deadline.
it was past my bedtime, so I went to bed.
And the next day I discovered that, they had appliedto probably more colleges than I, I would have wanted.
For more UN videos visit www.
un.
org And to me, that was like a waste, wasting money, right?
(44:48):
it was already done, so there was nothing I could do.
Obviously, can't request a refund or anything like that.
But what was bothering me was feeling dismissed.
Like, my thoughts didn't matter.
Like , my opinion didn't matter.
For me, when something is lingering in my heartand it's not, just vanishing into thin air, that's when I know, it's something that I need to address.
(45:16):
Cause I don't want that to fester and poison myrelationships, So I decided to have a short conversation with my husband about it And I expressed how I felt, that, this is why I felt the way I felt, and blah, blah, blah, and then he expressed his feelings.
And for me, it was a really, recovery moment,because one of the ways that I coped with the family disease was to just suppress.
(45:41):
Suppress my feelings, suppress my needs, suppressmyself, and I really did try to have, no needs at all.
I didn't ask for anything.
I was a very quiet child and become perfect,perfect grades, perfect attendance, so that, there was no need for me to interact with these crazy adults who, who were, had unpredictable behavior.
And for me, it was a real recovery to, express, like, how Ifelt and what I needed in that moment, to feel acknowledged and heard and, like, my point of view was valid, right?
(46:10):
And
that's all that.
we need at times, it's not for somebody to agree withme, but for them to hear me out and accept me and accept that my point of view, my opinion is valid too.
So yeah, we had a great conversation.
nobody needed to blame anybody for anything.
And, for me, it was a real, moment of recovery.
(46:31):
Awesome.
What's coming up in the podcast and obviously, ourupcoming topics are going to include the following steps, like eight through 12, I'll be sending out emails to the email list, asking for, shares.
or participation in the podcast for those steps.
probably one at a time.
(46:53):
That seems to work best for me.
We welcome your thoughts, whether it's about today's topicof step seven or later steps, you can join our conversation, leave us a voicemail or send us an email with your feedback or your questions and Mary, how can people do that?
You can send us a voice memo oremail to feedback at therecovery.
(47:13):
show, or if you prefer, you can call andleave us a voicemail at 734 707 8795.
You can also use the voicemail button on thewebsite to join the conversation from your computer.
We'd love to hear from you.
Share your experience, strength, and hope, or yourquestions about today's topic of Step 7, or any of our upcoming topics, including Steps 8 through 12.
(47:39):
If you have a topic you'd likeus to talk about, let us know.
If you would like advance notice for some of ourtopics, so that you can contribute to that topic, you can sign up for our mailing list by sending an email to feedback at the recovery dot show.
Put quote email in the subjectline to make it easier to spot.
(48:00):
Our website is therecovery.
show.
What you find there is mostly the notes for eachepisode, which you can find this one at therecovery.
show slash 425.
In those notes, there will be links to the booksthat we read from, or you can buy them from Al Anon, or if it's not an Al Anon book, maybe from Amazon.
videos for the music that we chose, andalso available, there are some links to other recovery podcasts and websites.
(48:27):
There are so many, this is a very smallselection, ones that, that I, listen to or visit.
And we'll take a little break before we lookat whatever feedback has come to us this week.
The second musical selection, which is alsoavailable on the website, is Breathe Me by Sia.
I have used this song before.
(48:49):
I love this song.
Every time I start it up, like tears come into my eyes.
and it, to me, really captures the Step 7 experienceof asking for help and of needing to ask for it over and over, but also giving some grace for that, I think.
(49:15):
the song starts out,
help, I have done it again.
I have been here many times before, hurt myself againtoday, and the worst part is there's no one else to blame.
Be my friend.
Hold me.
Wrap me up and fold me.
I am small and needy.
(49:35):
Warm me up and breathe me.
The video that I chose for this is alive performance from South by Southwest.
So check it out!
It's, I just say, every time.
Gets me.
No matter how many times I've listened to it, it gets me.
(49:58):
And now for some listener feedback.
Marcel wrote,
Dear Spencer and company, I just wanted toexpress my gratitude for The Recovery Show.
In so many ways, you have helped me to make my life betterand may actually help me make it great as I work my program.
I started in March 2024 and your podcasts supportmy recovery so very much in between my meetings.
(50:20):
You're handing out diamonds, you guys.
Please keep reaching out.
We are all here listening, working ourprograms, and not only surviving but thriving.
And taking recovery to others.
I search for specific podcasts on what I'mworking on, which are so, so very useful.
I listen multiple times, share them sometimes, and whenI'm done mining the podcast history of my specific topics, I go to the more recent ones and just start listening.
(50:45):
I'm working my way backwards.
With deep gratitude that brings tears, Marcel.
Thank you so much, Marcel.
I like that you're both looking for specifictopics, but also keeping up with current episodes.
I understand the people who like, I'm going tostart at number one and go all the way through.
But, they're missing the more recent insights or something.
(51:08):
Thanks.
Julie responds to episode 424, Addiction's Little Sister.
Great show.
I love Al Anon and really appreciatedyour musical suggestion from Emerson, Lake Palmer's album, Brain Salad Surgery.
The quote, Welcome back, my friends,to the show that never ends.
We're so glad you could attend.
Come inside.
(51:29):
Come inside.
Oh, yes.
What a great metaphor for the insanityof living with slash loving an alcoholic.
So glad I'm living less of that insanity show since I'mseven years into my journey of life with Al Anon by my side.
Julie.
Thanks, Julie.
Glad somebody else appreciates that song.
(51:51):
Heidi wrote, dear Spencer, Liz Coin talkedabout doing morning pages, as described in The Artist's Way, to unleash creativity.
Julia Cameron, the author, is a recovering alcoholic.
Twelve step spirituality is woven into herbooks, including one of my favorites called Answered Prayers, Love Letters from the Divine.
(52:13):
Liz talked about how she came to treatherself with kindness and compassion.
Julia Cameron channels that forall of us in Answered Prayers.
Check it out.
One of my kids is struggling with some really toughstuff, and she is awfulizing everything in her life, even though she has some really great stuff going on, too.
I shared with my daughter an excerpt from episode424, starting at 23 minutes and 20 seconds.
(52:38):
She said it helped.
I remember before recovery feeling that I was beingdisloyal to my troubles if I weren't angry all the time.
Al Anon taught me to savor all the good moments and to putmy troubles on a shelf or in a God box whenever I could.
Yes, I'd have to deal with them at some point, but Iwasn't obligated to be upset every minute of every day.
(53:00):
Spencer, thanks for the podcast.
Keep them coming.
I may write about my experience with stepstwo and 11, how I came to believe in a higher power and how I connect with it now.
Agnostic and scientist experimenting to find faith.
Best, Heidi R.
from New Hampshire.
Thanks, Heidi.
and thanks for those additional notes on The Artist's Way.
(53:22):
Makes me even more inclined to check it out.
Brandon writes, Hi Spencer, I've been listeningto your show ever since I became a coin carrying member of Al Anon, about three and a half years ago.
Your podcast is one of the tools I reach for whenI'm feeling triggered, out of control, or as I like to call it, experiencing the codependent crazies.
(53:44):
Much like going to a meeting and talking to mysponsor, it's the sound of a calm voice who can identify with my pain and offer strength, hope, and wisdom that help steer me back towards sanity.
Today, I listened to episode 423 on transformation.
The topic seemed fitting here at the start of anew year as I'm renewing my commitment to personal health with the oh so cliche trip to the gym.
(54:07):
I've heard some say that transformationbegan for them at step 3.
Others have said step 8.
This episode talks about step 6.
We each have our own path, and the only promiseis that a transformation will occur by step 12 in the form of a spiritual awakening.
My own path has not been so much as alightbulb moment, but a gradual awakening.
(54:29):
Sure, there were some explosive awakenings along the way.
For example, I didn't know who my qualifierwas until the tail end of my Step 4 inventory.
Kudos to my sponsor for pointing out the nowobvious that I was living with an active alcoholic for a significant portion of my adolescence.
I had written her off as my crazy stepmom at best andblocked out certain memories that truly were the worst.
(54:54):
Most profoundly, I became a father of two amazing boys.
That was a journey of awakening in and of itself, and Imight honestly say that the mere thought of fatherhood is what drove me into recovery in the first place.
My life already felt out of control and unmanageable.
Step one was a foregone conclusion, andI already believed in God's abilities.
(55:14):
I just couldn't understand why and when he deserted me.
Step 8 has shown me that it was me who built thewalls and created separation from my higher power.
And it may be my life's work to return to the innocenceand pure love I see in my boys, which is God incarnate.
I know you're a big music fan, which is somethingI've always appreciated about your podcast.
(55:35):
I'm an artist myself, and there is no doubt thatmy program work is now embedded in my songwriting.
I just released the first of a handful of songs thatwere written over these past few transformative years.
It's called Serenity.
I think you'll appreciate it, especiallythe bridge into the call and response part.
Here's a link where you can hear the songand redirects to other streaming platforms.
(55:55):
And he gives a link, which I willput in the show notes at therecovery.
show slash 425.
Continuing with Brandon's email, Lastly, but not least, asa musician, producer, and engineer, I can appreciate the countless hours it takes to build a skill set and portfolio that is often grossly overlooked and underappreciated.
(56:16):
Thanks for the work you do, and for the 424episodes and counting that have undoubtedly helped so many on their paths, my own to say the least.
Signed, Brandon.
Thanks, Brandon, for sharing your experience,strength, and hope, and I am checking out your song, and hopefully others will as well.
(56:38):
Got a note from Belinda, again in response tothe Addictions Little Sister episode number 424.
she asks about online Nar Anon meetings.
I forwarded her email to Liz for that response.
And she writes, I am struggling to notlet my husband's anger penetrate my soul.
(56:59):
It has been an ongoing struggle for 20 years.
I am either a genius or mentally retarded.
These are his words.
I've tried to visualize ducking or holding up an imaginarytennis racket to have his hurtful words miss me, but after years and years of verbal abuse, I am often deflated.
I've tried to remember that it is his disease talking.
I know he has gotten better, but my immunesystem for his cutting words is weak.
(57:23):
I know I'm not an idiot.
I have my master's degree andam a respected retired teacher.
I'm introverted.
I hold most things inside.
He is extroverted and everything comes out of his mouthand he has no filters, especially when he has an audience.
I melt.
I feel like a total loser.
I am shying away from social situations because he dominatesthe conversation, talks over me, and I feel invisible.
(57:47):
I know that you have shared about your anger.
I'm wondering if you could shed some light on my situation,or perhaps you have a podcast where this is covered.
I've been listening to your podcast for years, andyou have made such a difference in my thinking.
I appreciate your experience, strength, and hope.
Belinda.
I feel like you're to some extentin the opposite place where I was.
(58:08):
I'm the extrovert in my relationship with my wife.
She's the introvert.
I guess from the program perspective, number one, reachingout for a sponsor to get a person in your life who can see you as you are, and can help guide you in particularly your fourth step inventory, focusing on your assets, on the things that you like about yourself that are helpful to you, might be a positive direction to move in.
(58:42):
Clearly you're, you're not gettingthat sort of support from your husband.
Program and a loving higher power can be a placeto find it, I think is what I've got to say, yeah.
I want to thank everybody for writing,and that's our feedback for this episode.
(59:03):
Mary, I want to thank you again for joiningme today for our conversation on step seven.
Thanks.
Thank you for having me as always
Our Last song selection I chose, If I Needed You, andthe performance by Emmylou Harris and Don Williams.
It's a lovely duet.
Again, you can listen to it on the website.
(59:23):
The song was originally written by Townes Van Zandt.
I might put a version by him in a Spotify playlist.
I also put up a Spotify playlist with some of the othersongs that I considered that we didn't end up picking, so if you want more music on Step 7, check that out.
That will also be on the show notes.
lyrics.
(59:43):
I think this is the chorus.
If I needed you, would you come to me?
Would you come to me for to ease my pain?
If you needed me, I would come to you.
I would swim the sea for to ease your pain.
It's a song about reaching out for help and, in Step7 we're reaching out for help to our higher power, but we also reach out for help to each other within the program or in our friends and we're there for each other,
(01:00:11):
for sure.
Thank you for listening.
Please keep coming back.
Whatever your problems, there arethose among us who have had them too.
If we did not talk about a problem you arefacing today, feel free to contact us so we can talk about it in a future episode.
(01:00:32):
May understanding, love, and peacegrow in you one day at a time.
In step seven, we humbly ask our higherpower to remove our shortcomings.
What does this mean in practice?
Welcome to episode 425 of The Recovery Show.
This episode is brought to you bySandra, Leslie, Brandy, and John.
They used the donation button on our website.
Thank you, Sandra, Leslie, Brandy, andJohn for your generous contributions.
(00:22):
This episode is for you.
We are friends and family members of alcoholics andaddicts who have found a path to serenity and happiness.
We who live or have lived with the seemingly hopelessproblem of addiction understand as perhaps few others can.
So much depends on our own attitudes, and webelieve that changed attitudes can aid recovery.
(00:43):
Before we begin, we would like to state that in this showwe represent ourselves rather than any 12 step program.
During this show, we will share our own experiences.
The opinions expressed here are strictlythose of the person who gave them.
Take what you like and leave the rest.
We hope that you will find something inour sharing that speaks to your life.
My name is Spencer.
(01:04):
I am your host today.
Joining me today is Mary.
Welcome back to The Recovery Show, Mary.
Thanks, Spencer.
We're going to dive right into our conversation about Step7 because our readings are built into the conversation.
We're reading from the book How Al AnonWorks for Families and Friends of Alcoholics in Chapter 8, which is the 12 steps.
(01:28):
We're reading the section for Step 7.
Step 7 says humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.
It's very short but it's not so short in the doing.
Yeah, I think it's the shortest step in terms of words.
First paragraph.
Many people confuse humility with humiliation,but humiliation is a form of abuse and has no place in our spiritual growth.
(01:55):
When we speak of humility, we speak about self acceptance.
In Step 6, we learn to accept our part inour relationship with our higher power.
We recognize that we are not all powerful and thatthere are limits to what we can achieve by ourselves.
We can no longer go back to the oblivion of denial,yet we're not capable of effectively eliminating those aspects of our personalities that cause us embarrassment or make our lives unmanageable.
(02:21):
We have little choice but to accept ourselvesas we are, with all our limitations.
And chief among those limitations isthe fact that we cannot cure ourselves.
By accepting that God can do for us what we cannotdo for ourselves, we begin to achieve the humility that is necessary for change to take place.
In Step 7, we put that acceptance to work.
(02:44):
We take action.
What does this paragraph say to you, Mary?
I like that it focuses on the first wordof the step, which is humbly, and that it emphasizes, humility is not about humiliation.
I think shame and guilt and feelingembarrassed and humiliated can be a common feeling in families with alcoholism.
(03:10):
It can feel quite daunting, I think, too.
You know that we need to be humble when we ask higherpower to remove our shortcomings, but I like the clarification that this paragraph makes that it's not about humiliation but really about accepting ourselves as we are, and asking our higher power to do something that we cannot do for ourselves.
(03:34):
I have heard in the rooms, definitionof humility as teachability.
but it also, for me, is about the self acceptancethat this part of the reading speaks about.
It says here, chief among those limitationsis the fact that we cannot cure ourselves.
(03:57):
that takes me back to the three C's in step one.
we didn't cause the alcoholism.
We can't cure the alcoholism.
We can't control the alcoholism.
Well, I guess in some sense I caused my shortcomings.
but, clearly I have not been able to curethem myself, because if I could have, at least some of them I would have, you know?
(04:21):
Yeah.
I mean, I tried very hard before program toactually remove my own defects of character.
That was part of my perfectionism.
I thought if I just tried harder, then I couldbecome this saintly perfect person with no faults.
And, in program, I learned that was a defensemechanism to the chaos and the unpredictability that was around me, I tried to become perfect so that I wouldn't have pain, basically, and have, people fault me for things and, punish me for things.
(04:59):
And I still actually try to do that sometimes, I think.
That perfectionistic voice is very strong in me.
but I think it's admitting that I need help tohave some of those defects of character removed.
In this second to last sentence, it says, by acceptingthat God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
(05:20):
I had a really strong example of thatrelatively early in my time in Al Anon.
If you're a regular listener to the show, I've talkedabout this before, but it fits really well right here, which is that I was full of rage that would just splash out on whoever around me did something that activated it.
(05:43):
, the rage response was always way out ofproportion to the so called offense.
Which might have been a co worker disagreeing withme, and I would be like, no, that's a better, or it might be my kids spilling a teaspoon of milk by knocking over their almost empty glass on the table and I would scream and pound the table, and it just was so out of proportion and I didn't want to do it.
(06:11):
I had no success in trying to stop doing it myself.
After something like six monthsin the program, it was lifted.
It wasn't happening anymore.
I was nowhere near step seven at that point.
I was somewhere in the middle of step three.
And I think that was really good evidence for me, if youwant to use that word, that there was a higher power.
(06:38):
was doing for me what I could not do for myself.
Wow, you're like levels ahead of me because it tookme way more than six months to have that removed.
I was working.
I was working the program hard.
I'll tell you.
I really was.
I like to paraphrase the big book there and say, you knowthat no human power could have relieved me of my rage.
(07:05):
Because that was sort of at least one of my addictions.
Yeah, were addicted to feeling anger
I got drunk on anger.
because it made you feel powerful?
Yeah,
also I think because I was stuffing a wholelot of things and that was how it came out.
I too have been mostly alleviatedfrom, I call it the snapping.
(07:31):
My husband used to tell me multiple times that he did notlike it when I snapped at him, and he said it was not the what of it, it was like my tone, the tone that I would and I was very resistant for a long time to admit that I had this problem, but I did snap at him and it was exactly
what you said, all these feelings that I had that I wasstuffed down would leak out because in my mind, I know the, five times that I was patient with something, but he doesn't know that, but at the sixth time I would snap.
(08:04):
And it's because I hadn't been honest aboutwhat was bothering me, the first five times.
And of course I'm gonna snap.
I would snap at my kids.
probably year 8, 9, 10 of recovery, Irealized, my telltale sign that something is off is, like, when I started snapping more.
Especially at my kids and, as a parent, I'm sure,things just happen when you're parenting that are unexpected, that put a wrench in your day.
(08:32):
You know, somebody forgets something, somebody spillssomething, and it's all just very human things.
And sometimes these things would putme in a bundle of energy and nerves.
And I would also have that overreaction to these things.
But, I have to say in the last few years, this,defect of character has mostly been removed and I think it's because I keep working the program.
(08:56):
I think if I left and tried to just, do iton my own again, I think that would be one of the first character defects to come back.
I'm not perfect.
I still get angry and do things inthat anger that I don't want to do.
but I
have seen such a huge, dramatic change.
(09:18):
It's been a long time since my husbandtold me, That I snapped at him, or that he didn't like my tone with something.
Did I tell you the story of the mango incident?
It, for me, epitomizes, this self will andthe perfectionism and, the lashing out thing.
When my child was younger, They have this phasewhere they want to do everything themselves.
(09:42):
I cut up a mango and, mangoes are very sticky and hereally wanted to eat it himself, but I really didn't want him to, because that would mean a mess, that would mean I would have to clean his hands up, blah, blah, blah.
And I was in a hurry to get the rest of my day done.
And we had this little fight, little will fight.
(10:04):
Am I going to feed him this mango oris he going to get to eat it himself?
And I won because I'm the mother and I was biggerand I have more power in this relationship.
But afterwards I realized like, what was that for?
Like it was such a nothing.
And that's when I realized like my self will and myneed to control and this rigidity and having control over something that's not even that important.
(10:31):
How important is it?
Right.
so that's my mango incident that helped me open my eyes to
my rigidity and need to control.
Yeah.
I still have times when I might raise my voice.
I might have that tone.
I might've talked about this inmaybe the five or step six episode.
(10:53):
One of the things that would happen at workis, I might interrupt somebody who's trying to tell me something because I feel like what they're telling me is redundant or whatever, okay?
It doesn't matter.
when I took some time to look at that and tolook at the cause of the cause, if you will.
Mhmm.
why did I do that?
(11:13):
Well, I was feeling angry.
Why was I feeling angry?
Because I thought that we were wasting ourtime and we had more important things to do.
why did I feel we were wasting our time?
because, I want to move on to the next step.
Why do I want to move on to the next step?
Because I'm impatient.
The shortcoming that I want to ask to be removed, thatI am becoming ready to have removed, is impatience.
(11:38):
And maybe there's something behind that, butI haven't been able to identify it yet, okay?
So it's not in this case about anger, it's about impatience.
Right.
When I recognize that, then I can ask forsomething that will actually meet my needs, which is a phrase somewhere else in the literature.
(11:59):
I think that's in the step one reading in this book,where we're turning away from the illusion of control to something that can actually meet our needs.
Anyway, let's move on to the next paragraph.
Could you read that for me?
Sure.
Paragraph 2.
Nonetheless, even after we accept the fact that weneed the assistance of a higher power, many of us try to figure out exactly what we need and hand our higher power a list of tasks to fulfill on our behalf.
(12:25):
This is not humility.
This is self will.
True humility is based upon letting go of self willand relying instead upon the will of our higher power.
Again, we admit that our own resourceshave let us down and we need help.
To ask for such help is to take a huge leap of faith.
(12:46):
To truly place ourselves, our futures,and our actions in the care of God.
Oy.
Yeah, it's not, Hey God, make me less angry.
Yeah.
it's, Hey God, do for me the things that Ican't do so that I'm able to be less angry.
(13:06):
I'm able to yell at my kids less or not at all.
Also, and it doesn't really say it here, but I knowthat the wording here says remove our shortcomings.
It doesn't say remove particular shortcomings.
It doesn't say remove the shortcomings that wewant gone, And in step six, there was this all our defects of character of wording, right?
(13:34):
I know there's another reading somewhere that talksabout, hey, God's going to work on the ones that in our higher powers opinion, need to be worked on first.
and we might not get exactly the resultthat we are anticipating, expecting.
Care of a Higher Power, thisreally goes back to Step 3 again.
(13:56):
I know in one of the books, the Step 6 reading, Ithink in both of them, it talks about how step six really relies on a full acceptance of step three.
It's really hard to do step six, and I would say step seven,
Yeah.
without that faith that our higherpower will take care of us, right?
(14:19):
yes.
I find it very interesting that this stepdoes not say, humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings and have them be removed.
It doesn't say anything about whatyou're gonna get after you ask.
The only thing we do is we ask anddo it humbly and not demand it.
(14:44):
Whether that happens or not is up to higher power.
But yeah, needing that we need help and that we don'thave within ourselves the whatever it takes to remove our shortcomings ourselves is such a key part of this program, I think, and, why this program exists.
(15:06):
Because, this disease is, cunning, baffling,and powerful, and we cannot fight it alone.
We cannot overcome, the destructive effects of it alone,and we need each other and our higher power to help us.
I'm gonna go ahead to the third paragraph,third and last paragraph in this section.
Then for the first time in the 12steps, we ask God directly for help.
(15:30):
We neither grovel regarding our needs as shameful,nor do we demand, treating our needs is all important.
There are a variety of ways to ask.
We may pray, meditate, visualize, write,speak aloud, or sing our requests.
But whatever form we choose, we communicateour desire to be free of excess baggage.
(15:51):
We simply speak from the heart.
I've never really thought about the how of the asking.
I just.
I'm trying to think like what I did, and it'sHey, here's these things I've identified.
I probably wrote them out.
I, I had a list or something.
I certainly didn't sing them.
(16:12):
ha ha ha
I think at least partly, I visualized,what would I be like without this?
I guess it's time for my second example, Ihad this almost paralyzing fear of financial insecurity, which for a time was, you know, Not unmerited, because we were financially insecure.
(16:36):
We were spending more than we made.
We were getting late fees on bills and all that fun stuff.
Part of that was because my fear led me to do thingslike not open bills, not look at the balance when I went to the teller in the bank or took money from the ATM.
(16:59):
Which is logically not a goodway to stay financially secure.
I remember we were on a trip once.
And I tried to use the credit cardin a restaurant and it was declined.
So then I called them and I think it wasbecause we were late on the payment, or it might be because we'd hit the credit limit.
(17:19):
I don't remember.
I called them and I, over the phone, had thempay part of the bill, so that we could continue to use the card for the rest of the trip.
I think I knew before we left that I needed to pay thebill, or pay the amount of the bill that I could afford to pay, but I didn't because of this paralyzing fear.
(17:40):
I needed that to be relieved.
So I put that out there, I said, Please help me with this.
and one day I went to the bank,I think it was making a deposit.
I went to the teller and when I got the receipt, Ilooked at the total, at the bottom of the receipt.
I looked at the balance and I didn't die.
(18:04):
I was able to do it.
The way that I understand that is that my higherpower removed the fear of seeing the balance.
and I want to talk a little bit about theother part, which is then I took the action.
Because I didn't know whether that fear was completelygone, but it was gone enough that I could take the action of looking at it instead of just crumpling up the receipt and throwing it in the trash, which was my usual.
(18:30):
. You know, God didn't look at the receipt for me, right?
I had a new behavior that my higherpower gave me the ability to do.
And this reading doesn't really talk about that.
I went to another book, Paths to Recovery, whichis got a chapter for each step with a longer reading and with some, shares by members and in Paths to Recovery on page 73 under step 7, it says,
(19:00):
At the same time, we must take some action.
Sitting back and behaving in all the same old wayswhile asking God to remove the defects is not effective.
We cannot continue to do the same thingsover and over and expect different results.
Recovery is a journey, not a destination.
This is my understanding that My higher powerwill make a spiritual change in me that enables me to more easily act in a different way.
(19:28):
God doesn't reach down and make my handturn the receipt so that my eyes can see it.
That didn't happen.
I had to practice that.
I had to practice looking at the balance.
Now that in the modern era, I can look atthe balance anytime I want by opening up my phone and opening up the, bank app, and in fact, if I want to deposit a check, I have to,
(19:51):
because it just shows you the balance rightaway, like you don't have to ask for it, it's right there on the front screen, and I can do that, Sometimes I still have a little hesitation.
I let the check sit on the table for a couple of days,which drives my wife crazy, before I actually deposit it.
But, I don't make her deposit it.
That would still be living in the fear.
(20:12):
and this, , Leads right into this additional readingfrom Paths to Recovery a little bit further down.
In turning to the God of our understanding forremoval of our shortcomings, we find we are given countless opportunities to see our requests answered.
New situations appear in our lives, givingus opportunities either to repeat our same old responses or to practice something new.
(20:35):
Yeah.
When my parents died, they had sold part of theirproperty to a neighbor on a land contract, which meant that the neighbor was paying them every month.
they were effectively holding the mortgagenote, is the other way to look at it.
and then My siblings and I inherited that mortgage.
And so every month I get a check from thisperson, for, my portion of the mortgage payment.
(20:59):
And so every month, I get the opportunity to practiceopening up the bank app and depositing a check and seeing the balance and it's getting easier and easier.
It's taken years, but it's getting there.
Wow.
opportunities.
How about you?
I've been talking a lot.
Let's, let's go over to you.
Yeah, I think fear is definitely one of thosethings that we want higher power to, remove.
(21:29):
I have heard pretty often in the rooms and meetingsas like framing fear as like a character defect.
I personally do not think fear is a character defect.
I think it's what we do with that fear that may bemore of a, Character defect than the fear itself.
(21:52):
life can be scary.
There are a lot of things that we can't control.
And right now with the economy, the wayit is, a lot of people are looking for jobs for a longer time or out of jobs.
You know, reorganization people, companies, all this,Economic turmoil and like inflation, all of that stuff.
(22:14):
And, fear is a real thing and death is a real thing.
Alcoholism is a real thing.
It wrecks havoc on finances a lot of times too.
I don't think fear is, a character defect.
I think it's a natural response to this,sometimes scary world that we live in.
I think when I get in trouble is when I.
(22:39):
have fear be the only feeling, and forgetthat there is actually a higher power taking care of me as we, realize in step two.
I've not experienced Like true poverty.
I did grow up quite poor ish.
After the war, everybody was poor, the Korean war.
(23:00):
So my parents actually grew up in, in lots ofpoverty and, they passed on those values to me.
I think what I had, it was more of like a scarcity mindset,not fear that I will ever go without, but, Fear that I need to save and scrimp and be very frugal with everything.
(23:26):
I've been working for over 20 yearsnow, so I'm pretty far into my career.
When I started making like middle class income.
In some ways I still behaved as if I was a collegestudent, like looking for the cheapest places to shop.
Just being very tight with my moneywhen I didn't really need to be.
(23:47):
And, I had to make very intentional choicesand tell myself, remind myself, you are fine.
Like, you do, You can pay for a parking spot insteadof trying to circle 10 times to get a free spot.
these kinds of things.
And you don't have to look forthe cheapest thing on the menu.
You can actually eat what you want to eat.
these kinds of things I've had to, It's part of self care,I think it's that scarcity mindset, the mindset that I'm trying to change into a more like abundant mindset, like trusting that I will be, taking care of and be provided for, while also at the same time being responsible.
(24:27):
we have our traditions and we're, our Al Anon groupsare, financially self sufficient, and so I, I want to practice that too in, in my affairs, in all our affairs.
so I do practice, I don't overspend, I, try not to havedebt, But yeah, it is definitely a spiritual practice to keep on trusting that higher power is going to provide.
(24:55):
Yeah.
Have you heard the saying, higher power can't takeaway our shortcomings if we keep practicing them?
I don't know that I've heard that exactly,but it makes a whole lot of sense.
yeah, if I keep practicing, uh, procrastination,
Yes.
that's a big one.
(25:16):
okay?
If I keep practicing that, then whatever myhigher power's doing is not helping me, you know?
Yeah.
A favorite example is being late formeetings, being late for appointments.
Again, that was one where I had someemotional resistance to being early.
(25:36):
I was, like, wasting time.
Wasting time sitting in the dentist's waiting room.
When I could have been doing, I don't know what.
that's the, when you really start to look at thesethings logically, it's like, well, what, what would I have been doing with that five or 10 minutes otherwise?
(25:58):
So in the way I see my higher power working inmy life, it might have reduced the intensity of that feeling that I would be wasting time,
makes it easier for me to actuallyshow up a little bit early.
And be respectful of their time,whether or not they're actually on time.
(26:21):
. I should be respectful of their time because they might be.
and if I'm late, then I'm probably goingto make them late for somebody after me,
you know?
I'm now at the point where I get pretty antsy if I'm aminute or two late for a doctor appointment or something.
Mhm.
It's like, doesn't feel good anymore to be late.
Whatever, I don't think it ever feltgood, but it didn't feel bad, right?
(26:44):
I felt justified.
Oh, there's a word, justified.
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
Another aspect of Step 7, which again is covered in thePaths to Recovery reading, recognizes that what I consider to be a shortcoming might actually have mixed value.
(27:06):
It might be partly an asset and partly a defect.
The example they give is judgment.
We may find that there are assets hidden in our faults.
For example, judgment is a negative trait when used to woundand criticize, but judgment is positive when it allows us to recognize quality and distinguish good work from mediocre.
(27:26):
And our higher power understands better thanwe do how our shortcomings can be removed.
Something else that I might putin that category is perfectionism.
The desire to do things perfectly can be areal shortcoming if I take it to extreme.
And by taking it to extreme usually means it'snever perfect and so it doesn't get finished.
(27:52):
But I still want to do things as well as I can.
That's the positive side of perfectionism,like this desire to do things well.,
Yeah, I think the way we look at our characteristics,as defects or assets is a spiritual thing, and, like the reading said, each asset has a corresponding defect and each defect has a corresponding asset.
(28:20):
And, yeah, I totally agree withyou about the perfectionism thing.
there's nothing wrong with wanting to do thingswell or having high standards for things.
it's when that turns into this rigidity or likecriticizing others when they don't have the same standard as you, that's when it makes our life unmanageable.
(28:41):
I was also going to say, the wholetime wasting and efficiency thing.
I also have that, too.
I try to time, going to the airport perfectly, so that I'mnot wasting time, and it has probably added some stress to my life, because I make the margin so razor thin.
(29:06):
So then if there's a little bit more traffic than Ianticipated or whatever, or if the TSA line is a little bit longer, then I'm in the zone of Oh my God, I am going to have only a few minutes before they, start opening the gates and close boarding or whatever.
So, you know, it's pros and cons of thedifferent things that are priorities for us.
Yeah, for me, perfectionism is definitely a charactertrait that I came to realize more in program as a response to the chaos and the trauma of my childhood.
(29:39):
I Do see it as an asset.
I produce, high quality work and I like to do things well.
but also it's when it gets to be a hindrance, likeyou said, like prohibiting me from finishing things and that's when it, Makes my life unmanageable.
I'm doing pottery.
I picked up pottery, in the last year,
and boy, do my perfectionistic tendencies come out.
(30:02):
Like, it's so easy.
But then, I also produce, some beautiful pots.
so it's, it goes, yeah.
are you throwing on a wheel,
I am throwing on a wheel, yeah, and it'staken me about a year to get the hang of it.
but I can throw a lot of what I want to throw now.
(30:24):
I'll just put it that way.
It's so easy to ding that clay in every stage.
And just to remind myself like I'm doingthis for fun like I'm doing this for fun.
yes, oh my.
And it doesn't have to be perfect.
Some people are like, Oh, that's why peoplelike handmade pottery because it's not perfect.
(30:47):
But in my mind it's Oh, I want to get rid of that ding.
I want to, make it perfect.
but it gives me a lot of opportunities to practicenot being perfect and accept that things are beautiful with the dings and it's true, like the handmade pottery is beautiful because it's not perfect.
one of my teachers used to say, if I wanted everythingthat looked perfect, I would go to Ikea and buy a $5 dish.
(31:10):
we wouldn't pay, all this money to have handmade stuff.
and I have to remind myself of that for sure.
yeah, true.
the other thing that I tell myself is Isee the flaws because I know they're there.
Right.
Other people are actually much less likely to see the flaws.
(31:31):
Yes.
I need to remember that.
A few years ago I took the hundred yearold dining table that we have that my great grandfather made, and that had a hundred years worth of wear and tear, and refinished the top.
and of course I wanted to do it perfectly.
I did it.
(31:52):
I think I did it pretty well.
And there are some spots that I can spot becauseI know they're there, where it's not perfect.
It's very nice, and it doesn't have roughspots where somebody set something hot on it 50 years ago or whatever, but it's not perfect.
(32:13):
I'm sure it's beautiful.
I'm also not willing to do the whole thing over again.
It was a lot of work.
Having the ability to dial it back, to have the desireto achieve perfection, but also the ability to stop at good enough, I think is the balance that, that I like to have, and that my higher power is helping me to achieve.
(32:41):
I also want to note, when we do thepodcast, I put together a little script.
I have a template that I create it from, and at thetop, right before we start talking, and at the bottom, right after we finish talking, it says, and it's highlighted, remember, it doesn't have to be perfect.
What a good reminder.
(33:02):
For sure.
Any final thoughts on step seven?
I think one of the characters defects slashshortcomings that I had to ask Higher Power to remove was like this need to be right.
This need to be correct and right and be better than.
I don't know why I chose to marry an alcoholic.
(33:26):
It was definitely not intentional.
But I think there was a part of me thatwanted to feel like I was better than I was.
My spouse.
Whoa.
I think that was deep, deep, deep in there.
And, having this, alcoholism dangling that in front of himas something to criticize, and all the, the characters that came along with being an alcoholic, I think that gave me a sense of superiority and it was nothing that I ever like
(33:57):
consciously, chose or knew even, but I think program helpedme uncover, I did have this need, and I sometimes still do have this need to be better than or, you know, right.
That was one of the things that Ithink I did ask Higher Power to remove.
for me this step was actually really quick.
I just did a prayer and basically just said,Higher Power, please remove my shortcomings.
(34:21):
These character traits that are causing me pain,probably causing pain to the people around me.
I don't want to do them anymore.
I don't know how to stop doing them.
Please remove them.
And I think it was really quick,but but it was very profound.
And I think it's also a step that I continue to takeevery time I go to a meeting, every time I reach out to somebody else, when I make an Al Anon call.
(34:45):
Every time I need that I need help, I'm doing this step.
it's definitely not a one and done step.
it is not for me either.
And I think, this bit of the reading fromPaths to Recovery, that we are given countless opportunities to see our requests answered.
I know when my higher power is trying to, toget me to actually do the new behavior that
(35:09):
has been enabled.
I start running into this problemover and over, whatever it might be.
and, it reminds me like, oh yeah, I wantto act differently in this situation.
I can act differently in this situationand I want to practice doing that.
And yeah, maybe that's not exactly part of the step.
(35:30):
per se.
It's not part of the immediate action of the step, butfor me, it is part of the work that the step entails.
Yeah.
If you're listening and you're like,ah, step seven, man, that is so far off.
That's okay.
Because as has been my experience, like actually what wasone of the most important character traits that was removed from me happened long before I was actually working Step 7.
(35:59):
it came as a result of making thatcommitment to work the program and doing so,
Yeah.
We'll take a little break, but first, we want toknow what is the song that you brought us today?
Alright, I picked one song, for today.
(36:20):
It's called Oh Mother, and it's by an artist named Milk.
M I L C K, and I had to think, actually, I had tothink, deeply why this song reminded me of, step seven.
And, I think for me being humbleis about being like right sized.
(36:42):
That's another term that I've.
Commonly heard in meetings, thisconcept of being right size.
Not being filled with myself or with the ego,but also doesn't mean that I don't matter.
not being too big, not being too small.
there's a humbleness to showing up for a relationship, Ithink, because I'm admitting that I need that relationship.
(37:04):
I want that relationship.
And, there's an honesty to this songthat acknowledges shortcomings, but also a commitment to grow and heal together.
And I think step seven is about showing up, showing up andowning our part and humbly asking higher power to, you know, take away some of these parts of us that are causing us pain and, This song is showing up, honestly, and admitting, Our parts, there's a line that says, we're complicated, we're up and we're down, we're right and we're wrong.
(37:41):
We let the bottom fall out when we're blindwith emotion, when words turn to shouts.
We keep making it hard.
To want to stick around.
And it talks to, this complicated motherdaughter relationship where you love each other, but you still do things that hurt each other.
The refrain, the chorus is but I keepshowing up and, I'm going to keep showing up.
(38:05):
and that's the best that we can do.
and I think it's powerful, so giveit a listen if you haven't listened.
It's a tearjerker, this one, so get your tissues ready.
ha.
She's the one that had that viralsong in the Me Too movement, right?
yes, I'm glad you recognize her, yes.
I replayed her Tiny Desk many times.
(38:26):
She posted this song on a solo piano version on Instagram.
That's how I came to learn of this song.
And I
thought it was so beautiful.
And then I recently, she released,an actually produced version of it.
I think she finally got the courage to talkabout the song with her mom and stuff like that.
I can put that link, at least alink to Instagram, in the show notes
(38:50):
At therecovery.
show slash 425.
I always put the YouTube videos, but, since that wasthe original, I want to get that in there somehow too.
Yeah, I prefer the Instagram version.
Okay.
That's good to know.
(39:12):
In this section of the podcast, wetalk about our lives in recovery.
How have we experienced recovery recently?
So last Friday, you know, we were talking about the airport.
My wife is visiting some friends.
She has a friend who has a heart problem that couldtake him in a week, or it could take him in a few years.
This is a friend from high school, and shedecided she really should go visit him, because she would be really pissed off if she didn't go visit and he died next week, you know?
(39:41):
So we booked flights and all that.
We're going to the airport on Friday and she'srunning late, which is not unusual, but we got there with what should have been just barely enough time, cutting it close, like you said.
I dropped her off, I came home, I did some stuff,and I get a text from her that says I missed it.
(40:03):
The airport terminal she's going from is very long.
It actually, if you walk from oneend to the other it's like a mile.
She said, I didn't look at the signs wellenough, I should have taken the tram.
That might've gotten her there before the door shut.
I don't know, but it still would have been like squeak.
I wanted to say, what can I do to fix this?
(40:25):
I didn't.
and she didn't say, I need you to do something.
She said, I talked to the gate agent whosent me down to the customer service desk.
I got myself standby at four o'clock inthe afternoon and confirmed on an eight o'clock flight and I'm feeling acceptance.
(40:48):
And I was like, then I'll just accept it too, you know?
You're like, great.
yeah, it was good.
I didn't have to do anything about it, but,
Mm-hmm
and I was happy because I was going to aholiday party in the evening and didn't have to mess that up and so on and so forth.
It is such a different feeling from how I used to bewhere something like that would have just thrown me into a whirlwind of Trying to fix it and maybe blame.
(41:20):
I did not, did not lay any blame.
The contrast between mostly calm acceptanceand the frantic whirlwind that I would have been in is pretty astounding, really.
In a couple of my meetings, when we have anewcomer, we'll do a first step topic for them.
(41:41):
It often involves reading first step from one ofthe, one of the books, and then, people share their experience of what brought them to Al Anon, etc.
You know, what it was like, what happened, and maybea little bit of what it's like now, kind of thing.
I got to the point where I had the same share every time.
This is my five minute version of my story.
(42:02):
Recently I've started changing that becausewhat my story didn't really recognize was the effect my loved ones drinking on me.
I'm started to go more of, yeah, I had thisrage and I had this fear and I had this despair,
(42:24):
rather than the, yeah, I had this likemoment of clarity and I came to a meeting and everything and I felt so wonderful afterwards.
which is also a good part of the story, but Ifeel I might be a little bit more relatable.
If I talk about some of the negative feelings that wedon't want to admit, but which the person who's new in the meeting might be absolutely in the middle of.
(42:51):
And to have somebody say, yeah, I felt that way too.
Yeah.
I think it can be powerful.
I don't know.
I did it.
It changes with time and it will change again.
I know, but that's something that haschanged for me recently and in how I tell my story when we're doing a first step.
Okay.
I experienced recovery pretty much every day.
(43:13):
recently I had the opportunity to practicerecovery as I was helping my son, apply to college, which is a whole process in itself.
he, wrote the essays, so we helped, revise themand gave him some feedback and stuff like that.
So nowadays, they have these common applications,and it's very easy to apply to multiple colleges.
(43:38):
And I guess this kind of relates to thescarcity mindset, maybe a little bit.
So, we had discussed, like, how many colleges he wasgoing to apply to, and each application is 60 or 70 bucks.
And so if you choose 10, that's a good 700 bucks.
Right.
there.
And he started listing off all of theseschools that he was going to apply to.
(44:00):
And I express that that was probably unnecessary.
He gets pretty decent grades and he wasprobably going to get into a lot of them.
And if you know you're going to get into, yourtop whatever, then you don't need to apply to 10.
You only need to apply to the top five or whatever, right?
So I express my opinion and, His otherparent, my husband, had a different opinion.
(44:24):
He felt that our son should applyto whatever college he wanted.
And he expressed his opinion and it was latein the day and very close to the deadline.
it was past my bedtime, so I went to bed.
And the next day I discovered that, they had appliedto probably more colleges than I, I would have wanted.
For more UN videos visit www.
un.
org And to me, that was like a waste, wasting money, right?
(44:48):
it was already done, so there was nothing I could do.
Obviously, can't request a refund or anything like that.
But what was bothering me was feeling dismissed.
Like, my thoughts didn't matter.
Like , my opinion didn't matter.
For me, when something is lingering in my heartand it's not, just vanishing into thin air, that's when I know, it's something that I need to address.
(45:16):
Cause I don't want that to fester and poison myrelationships, So I decided to have a short conversation with my husband about it And I expressed how I felt, that, this is why I felt the way I felt, and blah, blah, blah, and then he expressed his feelings.
And for me, it was a really, recovery moment,because one of the ways that I coped with the family disease was to just suppress.
(45:41):
Suppress my feelings, suppress my needs, suppressmyself, and I really did try to have, no needs at all.
I didn't ask for anything.
I was a very quiet child and become perfect,perfect grades, perfect attendance, so that, there was no need for me to interact with these crazy adults who, who were, had unpredictable behavior.
And for me, it was a real recovery to, express, like, how Ifelt and what I needed in that moment, to feel acknowledged and heard and, like, my point of view was valid, right?
(46:10):
And
that's all that.
we need at times, it's not for somebody to agree withme, but for them to hear me out and accept me and accept that my point of view, my opinion is valid too.
So yeah, we had a great conversation.
nobody needed to blame anybody for anything.
And, for me, it was a real, moment of recovery.
(46:31):
Awesome.
What's coming up in the podcast and obviously, ourupcoming topics are going to include the following steps, like eight through 12, I'll be sending out emails to the email list, asking for, shares.
or participation in the podcast for those steps.
probably one at a time.
(46:53):
That seems to work best for me.
We welcome your thoughts, whether it's about today's topicof step seven or later steps, you can join our conversation, leave us a voicemail or send us an email with your feedback or your questions and Mary, how can people do that?
You can send us a voice memo oremail to feedback at therecovery.
(47:13):
show, or if you prefer, you can call andleave us a voicemail at 734 707 8795.
You can also use the voicemail button on thewebsite to join the conversation from your computer.
We'd love to hear from you.
Share your experience, strength, and hope, or yourquestions about today's topic of Step 7, or any of our upcoming topics, including Steps 8 through 12.
(47:39):
If you have a topic you'd likeus to talk about, let us know.
If you would like advance notice for some of ourtopics, so that you can contribute to that topic, you can sign up for our mailing list by sending an email to feedback at the recovery dot show.
Put quote email in the subjectline to make it easier to spot.
(48:00):
Our website is therecovery.
show.
What you find there is mostly the notes for eachepisode, which you can find this one at therecovery.
show slash 425.
In those notes, there will be links to the booksthat we read from, or you can buy them from Al Anon, or if it's not an Al Anon book, maybe from Amazon.
videos for the music that we chose, andalso available, there are some links to other recovery podcasts and websites.
(48:27):
There are so many, this is a very smallselection, ones that, that I, listen to or visit.
And we'll take a little break before we lookat whatever feedback has come to us this week.
The second musical selection, which is alsoavailable on the website, is Breathe Me by Sia.
I have used this song before.
(48:49):
I love this song.
Every time I start it up, like tears come into my eyes.
and it, to me, really captures the Step 7 experienceof asking for help and of needing to ask for it over and over, but also giving some grace for that, I think.
(49:15):
the song starts out,
help, I have done it again.
I have been here many times before, hurt myself againtoday, and the worst part is there's no one else to blame.
Be my friend.
Hold me.
Wrap me up and fold me.
I am small and needy.
(49:35):
Warm me up and breathe me.
The video that I chose for this is alive performance from South by Southwest.
So check it out!
It's, I just say, every time.
Gets me.
No matter how many times I've listened to it, it gets me.
(49:58):
And now for some listener feedback.
Marcel wrote,
Dear Spencer and company, I just wanted toexpress my gratitude for The Recovery Show.
In so many ways, you have helped me to make my life betterand may actually help me make it great as I work my program.
I started in March 2024 and your podcasts supportmy recovery so very much in between my meetings.
(50:20):
You're handing out diamonds, you guys.
Please keep reaching out.
We are all here listening, working ourprograms, and not only surviving but thriving.
And taking recovery to others.
I search for specific podcasts on what I'mworking on, which are so, so very useful.
I listen multiple times, share them sometimes, and whenI'm done mining the podcast history of my specific topics, I go to the more recent ones and just start listening.
(50:45):
I'm working my way backwards.
With deep gratitude that brings tears, Marcel.
Thank you so much, Marcel.
I like that you're both looking for specifictopics, but also keeping up with current episodes.
I understand the people who like, I'm going tostart at number one and go all the way through.
But, they're missing the more recent insights or something.
(51:08):
Thanks.
Julie responds to episode 424, Addiction's Little Sister.
Great show.
I love Al Anon and really appreciatedyour musical suggestion from Emerson, Lake Palmer's album, Brain Salad Surgery.
The quote, Welcome back, my friends,to the show that never ends.
We're so glad you could attend.
Come inside.
(51:29):
Come inside.
Oh, yes.
What a great metaphor for the insanityof living with slash loving an alcoholic.
So glad I'm living less of that insanity show since I'mseven years into my journey of life with Al Anon by my side.
Julie.
Thanks, Julie.
Glad somebody else appreciates that song.
(51:51):
Heidi wrote, dear Spencer, Liz Coin talkedabout doing morning pages, as described in The Artist's Way, to unleash creativity.
Julia Cameron, the author, is a recovering alcoholic.
Twelve step spirituality is woven into herbooks, including one of my favorites called Answered Prayers, Love Letters from the Divine.
(52:13):
Liz talked about how she came to treatherself with kindness and compassion.
Julia Cameron channels that forall of us in Answered Prayers.
Check it out.
One of my kids is struggling with some really toughstuff, and she is awfulizing everything in her life, even though she has some really great stuff going on, too.
I shared with my daughter an excerpt from episode424, starting at 23 minutes and 20 seconds.
(52:38):
She said it helped.
I remember before recovery feeling that I was beingdisloyal to my troubles if I weren't angry all the time.
Al Anon taught me to savor all the good moments and to putmy troubles on a shelf or in a God box whenever I could.
Yes, I'd have to deal with them at some point, but Iwasn't obligated to be upset every minute of every day.
(53:00):
Spencer, thanks for the podcast.
Keep them coming.
I may write about my experience with stepstwo and 11, how I came to believe in a higher power and how I connect with it now.
Agnostic and scientist experimenting to find faith.
Best, Heidi R.
from New Hampshire.
Thanks, Heidi.
and thanks for those additional notes on The Artist's Way.
(53:22):
Makes me even more inclined to check it out.
Brandon writes, Hi Spencer, I've been listeningto your show ever since I became a coin carrying member of Al Anon, about three and a half years ago.
Your podcast is one of the tools I reach for whenI'm feeling triggered, out of control, or as I like to call it, experiencing the codependent crazies.
(53:44):
Much like going to a meeting and talking to mysponsor, it's the sound of a calm voice who can identify with my pain and offer strength, hope, and wisdom that help steer me back towards sanity.
Today, I listened to episode 423 on transformation.
The topic seemed fitting here at the start of anew year as I'm renewing my commitment to personal health with the oh so cliche trip to the gym.
(54:07):
I've heard some say that transformationbegan for them at step 3.
Others have said step 8.
This episode talks about step 6.
We each have our own path, and the only promiseis that a transformation will occur by step 12 in the form of a spiritual awakening.
My own path has not been so much as alightbulb moment, but a gradual awakening.
(54:29):
Sure, there were some explosive awakenings along the way.
For example, I didn't know who my qualifierwas until the tail end of my Step 4 inventory.
Kudos to my sponsor for pointing out the nowobvious that I was living with an active alcoholic for a significant portion of my adolescence.
I had written her off as my crazy stepmom at best andblocked out certain memories that truly were the worst.
(54:54):
Most profoundly, I became a father of two amazing boys.
That was a journey of awakening in and of itself, and Imight honestly say that the mere thought of fatherhood is what drove me into recovery in the first place.
My life already felt out of control and unmanageable.
Step one was a foregone conclusion, andI already believed in God's abilities.
(55:14):
I just couldn't understand why and when he deserted me.
Step 8 has shown me that it was me who built thewalls and created separation from my higher power.
And it may be my life's work to return to the innocenceand pure love I see in my boys, which is God incarnate.
I know you're a big music fan, which is somethingI've always appreciated about your podcast.
(55:35):
I'm an artist myself, and there is no doubt thatmy program work is now embedded in my songwriting.
I just released the first of a handful of songs thatwere written over these past few transformative years.
It's called Serenity.
I think you'll appreciate it, especiallythe bridge into the call and response part.
Here's a link where you can hear the songand redirects to other streaming platforms.
(55:55):
And he gives a link, which I willput in the show notes at therecovery.
show slash 425.
Continuing with Brandon's email, Lastly, but not least, asa musician, producer, and engineer, I can appreciate the countless hours it takes to build a skill set and portfolio that is often grossly overlooked and underappreciated.
(56:16):
Thanks for the work you do, and for the 424episodes and counting that have undoubtedly helped so many on their paths, my own to say the least.
Signed, Brandon.
Thanks, Brandon, for sharing your experience,strength, and hope, and I am checking out your song, and hopefully others will as well.
(56:38):
Got a note from Belinda, again in response tothe Addictions Little Sister episode number 424.
she asks about online Nar Anon meetings.
I forwarded her email to Liz for that response.
And she writes, I am struggling to notlet my husband's anger penetrate my soul.
(56:59):
It has been an ongoing struggle for 20 years.
I am either a genius or mentally retarded.
These are his words.
I've tried to visualize ducking or holding up an imaginarytennis racket to have his hurtful words miss me, but after years and years of verbal abuse, I am often deflated.
I've tried to remember that it is his disease talking.
I know he has gotten better, but my immunesystem for his cutting words is weak.
(57:23):
I know I'm not an idiot.
I have my master's degree andam a respected retired teacher.
I'm introverted.
I hold most things inside.
He is extroverted and everything comes out of his mouthand he has no filters, especially when he has an audience.
I melt.
I feel like a total loser.
I am shying away from social situations because he dominatesthe conversation, talks over me, and I feel invisible.
(57:47):
I know that you have shared about your anger.
I'm wondering if you could shed some light on my situation,or perhaps you have a podcast where this is covered.
I've been listening to your podcast for years, andyou have made such a difference in my thinking.
I appreciate your experience, strength, and hope.
Belinda.
I feel like you're to some extentin the opposite place where I was.
(58:08):
I'm the extrovert in my relationship with my wife.
She's the introvert.
I guess from the program perspective, number one, reachingout for a sponsor to get a person in your life who can see you as you are, and can help guide you in particularly your fourth step inventory, focusing on your assets, on the things that you like about yourself that are helpful to you, might be a positive direction to move in.
(58:42):
Clearly you're, you're not gettingthat sort of support from your husband.
Program and a loving higher power can be a placeto find it, I think is what I've got to say, yeah.
I want to thank everybody for writing,and that's our feedback for this episode.
(59:03):
Mary, I want to thank you again for joiningme today for our conversation on step seven.
Thanks.
Thank you for having me as always
Our Last song selection I chose, If I Needed You, andthe performance by Emmylou Harris and Don Williams.
It's a lovely duet.
Again, you can listen to it on the website.
(59:23):
The song was originally written by Townes Van Zandt.
I might put a version by him in a Spotify playlist.
I also put up a Spotify playlist with some of the othersongs that I considered that we didn't end up picking, so if you want more music on Step 7, check that out.
That will also be on the show notes.
lyrics.
(59:43):
I think this is the chorus.
If I needed you, would you come to me?
Would you come to me for to ease my pain?
If you needed me, I would come to you.
I would swim the sea for to ease your pain.
It's a song about reaching out for help and, in Step7 we're reaching out for help to our higher power, but we also reach out for help to each other within the program or in our friends and we're there for each other,
(01:00:11):
for sure.
Thank you for listening.
Please keep coming back.
Whatever your problems, there arethose among us who have had them too.
If we did not talk about a problem you arefacing today, feel free to contact us so we can talk about it in a future episode.
(01:00:32):
May understanding, love, and peacegrow in you one day at a time.
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