September 22, 2023 • 49 mins
Hello listeners! Welcome back to another episode of the Strength in Recovery podcast. This week, we have two returning guests: Amber Denton & Henry Love, our St. Charles Alumni Coordinators! They introduce Jaye to the self-disclosure deck of cards. Each card prompts questions related to the journey of recovery. Tune in to hear Amber, Henry, and Jaye discuss their idea of a higher power, fear, and more! *The views and opinions expressed by the guests of this podcast are their own and not necessarily those of RCA. These interviews are personal testimonials of recovery and should not be considered medical or treatment advice.Need treatment? Call 1-833-RCAALUM today.Looking for support? Visit www.rcaalumni.com
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I don't like that one.
(00:18):
No, too much for you.
No, stop messing with you.
Okay, you got another one.
Welcome to Strength and Recovery Podcast.
We are sitting around the office, the alumni office at the St. Charles location today.
And Henry, our alumni coordinator here, just pulled out a box of cards.
(00:39):
So tell me what you're doing.
Hey, Jay.
These cards right here, I like to use these here as a tool.
And how it works is, sometimes I share with our patients here at RCA.
And how I start my mornings.
And usually that is with reading of literature, prayer, meditation, and oftentimes, most times,
(01:09):
inspirational music.
And how I explain it is, those are just tools to get me in the right mindset for what I
have to do.
These cards about self-reflection.
And they're just, they're a deck of cards.
They're a deck of cards.
And they just stay on them.
I got to put my glasses on.
(01:30):
They just say self-reflection from wellness, reproductions, publishing, wellness resources.
These are super cool.
And how I use them is, they ask some questions.
Excuse me, I'm so sorry.
This is real and raw today.
Yes, it is.
And these cards, how they help, they ask questions for the person who's dealing with
(01:53):
addiction and in treatment for recovery.
It allows them a chance to think, to look inside themselves, to be honest with themselves,
and answer that question.
And in doing so, it opens up a topic for discussion.
And I don't know about, Amber's here with us too.
She's an alum of RCA Capital Region.
(02:15):
And we're super excited to have her on the team.
But I don't know about you, but as soon as somebody says they're going to ask me a question,
I'm like getting all nervous.
So Henry's box of cards, we're not calming to me, especially self-reflection.
What about you?
No, I'm extremely nervous, not knowing what's on the side of that card.
I freeze up when I'm on the spot like that.
(02:36):
And we've been doing that all day, haven't we?
It's a great idea though.
Some of them are really good.
They really get you thinking.
And why do we think, I guess, I'm more comfortable asking the question.
So I'm just going to ask the question.
Why do we think getting personal, getting vulnerable, looking at self-reflection can
(02:57):
be so difficult?
It's very difficult to look within.
It really, really is.
To pull up those emotions, those memories, it can be a struggle.
Those are the things that we typically want to push deep down inside and not face.
That's why it's a struggle for me.
(03:20):
Got any thoughts on that?
Piggybacking off of what Amber just said, it is.
For myself, for example.
I didn't plan on doing this, but I'll share something with you.
I've been struggling with what we, in the rooms, we call it unresolved resentments.
(03:41):
How that happened, I was actually a part of a big book study.
I was sharing in a big book study, and we were dealing with a fourth step.
And reading the fourth step, I was sharing.
And as I was sharing, something impactful came back up.
And it just hit me in my chest.
(04:03):
I had a difficult time completing my share, at least talking about what I was dealing
with.
And it was something like Amber just said, I had pushed down.
And I thought that I had dealt with it.
I thought that it was a resolved issue.
And just for the sake of transparency, it was an issue concerning my dad.
(04:23):
And a lot of my struggles were based on my relationship with my father.
And the thing is, like this, I'm going to go back to this card here.
He's going to get us in those cards.
I am trying to look at me trying to avoid this.
And then we come right back out to those cards.
(04:45):
This particular card in my hand, look, it says, it says, share something for which you have
forgiven yourself.
What were your feelings and how did you start the process of forgiving yourself?
Now, just with that card right there, I can answer.
I could say, I could share something about not forgiving myself or something.
(05:06):
But in reading this card, and in line with the topic I was just saying concerning unresolved
resentments, it came to me that even though I thought I had dealt with it, I hadn't.
And it came to find out that it's because I had pushed it down.
Just like Amber said, I had pushed it down and I wanted to forget about it because a
(05:31):
form of PTSD, it was something I didn't want to face.
I thought that I did.
But on a subconscious level, I hadn't completely gotten over it.
And it's one of those issues where it was about forgiveness, not forgiveness of myself,
but forgiveness of my father for the things that he has done, for the way he treated myself,
my brother, my mother.
(05:53):
And I'm dealing with it now.
I am talking about it.
I shared it with Amber.
And Amber said I should speak to my sponsor about it, which I did.
And we're working it out.
As a matter of fact, I was given a good piece of advice.
It was about, and it comes from the Big Book.
(06:14):
The Big Book teaches in working with you through your fourth step about, you've ever heard
the saying that sick people, that hurt people, hurt people?
It's that same thing.
I had to look at where my dad, his environment that he grew up in, his relationship with his
(06:37):
father and why he was the man that he was.
And in doing so, I had to look at how that relationship affected my relationship with
my father.
And the thing that what I came to was this.
He was doing the best that he could.
The way he grew up, the environment he grew up in, being a dad to him was being that strong,
(07:04):
disciplinarian, heavy handed.
He thought what he was doing was the best thing to do.
It was not good for me.
It wasn't the best environment for me to be in.
But I'm slowly starting to understand because of the environment he grew up in and the way
he was raised as a father, he was doing the best he could.
(07:26):
So I'm still working on it, but I'm getting better with forgiving my dad for the way he
behaved as a father.
So I don't know where that's going, but that's that.
And I think there's a sense at which maybe early in recovery or maybe there's a time
and place to deal with those things when you have the resources and the skills.
(07:49):
It's like this is coming back up now because you've got the strength to handle it.
There you go.
Maybe reframing it in that, like, okay, I can think about this broader.
I've got some new tools in my toolbox that I've honed a little bit that I know how to
use that I can apply to what was a difficult situation.
(08:10):
Yeah.
I like how you put that.
It's about, because I think that's probably why early in my recovery I pushed it down
or in my mind, I thought I'd had resolved it.
But truthfully, I had and what I did, I just, it was like a project I was working on and
I just didn't complete it.
But now, like you said, now that I have the tools to complete or to face the job better,
(08:31):
I'm better equipped.
There you go.
I'm better equipped to deal with certain situations, to actually live and confront life, you know,
on life terms, as we say, and being able to do so in a more comfortable environment, meaning
I know how to see things or how to view, you know, a few things differently now.
(08:53):
And it's all because of the tools that I have now, the people I surround myself with, the
people I can have conversations with, things like that.
So you're right.
What I didn't have early on is the reason why, you know, it was never resolved.
And now I can, you know, it can be resolved now because now I have the tools.
I'm equipped.
I'm better equipped.
Thank you.
(09:14):
You just give me another piece.
Well, it's a perfect thing to go along with more will be revealed.
There you go.
That's exactly what that means.
There you go.
Thank you.
You know, higher power reveals that when you're ready to deal with it.
Talk a little bit more about that.
I mean, yeah, it's, talking about that was self-reflection.
(09:36):
Like early on for me in my recovery, I wasn't able to even look inward like that at all
because I was not ready to deal with the emotions, the traumas from my past or worry about the
trauma my parents put me through.
But slowly over time as I got a little recovery under my belt and I started relying on a higher
(09:57):
power and I started working the steps and having the fellowship, all of those things
together, you know, my higher power slowly revealed to me, you know, different areas
in my life, which I was ready to face, overcome or uncover, discover and discard, so to speak.
And don't you think that's a little bit of the fear of entering recovery, maybe even
(10:21):
entering treatment is like, you know, I got stuff and I'm not ready to unpack this yet.
And if I go into treatment, they're going to start picking at the stuff and I'm not
ready to pull the scab off quite yet.
I just got it, you know, covered over.
(10:42):
And I think that's the beauty of somewhat and the surprise of what we do when someone
enters treatment.
It's like, no, we're not going to try to unpack this all in 30 days and wrap it up in a bow.
We're going to put you on a path where you're going to meet people, you're going to meet
(11:02):
maybe sponsors, you're going to meet peers in recovery, you're going to meet a therapist,
maybe you need a pastor, maybe you need all of these pieces of this puzzle where you can
start to unpack this on a journey, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
I think too, it's difficult because, you know, when I came into treatment, I was very much
(11:25):
playing the victim.
I spoke victimize all day long and it was everyone else's fault and is, you know, that's
what I did my whole life.
It's telling victimize that's a new one.
I got that from my sponsor.
Yeah, just playing the victim all the time.
It was always everybody else.
So I spoke that very well, you know, I used it to gain sympathy, to gain self pity from
(11:51):
people or to gain pity from people to live in self pity, blaming everybody else for everything
that ever happened to me.
But you know, slowly realizing that 99% of the choices I made in my life, you know, were
my choices.
They weren't other people.
It wasn't everyone else's fault.
(12:12):
And you can have both, right?
Like bad things can have happened.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Two us.
And it might not be my fault, right?
But yeah.
I still need someone to blame though, you know, when it usually isn't my fault and reality
I blame myself for it anyway, self crucify myself on the inside.
(12:34):
But yeah, coming into treatment, no, you don't.
That's really scary.
That was really scary for me to have these new memories pop up of different traumas and
then like, well, how am I going to deal with it?
And it became overwhelming, you know, but really, again, you know, my higher power was
just bringing to the surface the things that I needed to deal with in that moment or in
(12:57):
that 30 days, you know, and then the next 30 and then the next 30, you know, it was something
else.
So it is a process.
But I think, you know, myself included, we get sober and everything just floods right
back and now we're trying to separate all these different things thinking that, yeah,
we have to deal with it today.
(13:18):
Like everything has to be solved today.
What's the saying like the best thing about being sober is you have all these new feelings
and emotions and the worst thing about being sober is you have all these new feelings and
emotions.
Yeah, yes.
Learning how to navigate just the emotions alone is very overwhelming.
(13:39):
I used to say all the time, like, oh, I feel, you know, this or I feel that this sucks.
Like I don't I don't like feeling, but I knew, you know, that was necessary.
Like that's what normal people do is have feelings.
So we had to learn to have feelings.
Like you're normal.
You sound a little bitter about that.
Yeah, well, because they do.
(14:01):
I mean, honestly, sometimes, you know, having my heart broken or having being full of anxiety,
it sucks.
But I learned the coping skills to get through that, you know, and I know that those feelings
don't last forever.
It's just a feeling it will pass no matter what it is.
And then our fee, I think one of the biggest things through time that I have learned is
(14:25):
just speaking for myself is that feelings aren't facts.
Not facts.
No, not at all.
You know, I can remember my I used to tell my kids that all the time feelings aren't
facts, you know, that was kind of saying in our house and I'm teaching my daughter to
drive and she comes up to a stop sign and she had no sense of direction.
(14:45):
It was so crazy.
And the phones had ruined them for life.
They have GPS.
And so I was like, it was a road she'd been on a million times and I was like, which way
do I go?
Which way do I go?
And I'm like, well, which way feels right?
And she goes, feelings aren't facts, mom.
Feelings aren't facts.
Tell me which way to go.
Like, so that one came back to bite me.
But yeah, I mean, how we feel today isn't necessarily how we'll feel tomorrow.
(15:11):
And it's not necessarily true.
Right.
Like what we tell ourselves is, you know, and my feeling about something in a moment.
Right.
That's a hard lesson to learn.
It is.
Yeah.
Because in the moment, like it feels really real.
Right.
If you don't mind, I wanted to go back to what Amber said something and it's so true
(15:32):
what you said about choice.
What, you know, choosing that.
Basically when you said it, I was thinking, you know, even though my dad was the kind
of man that he was and even understand that he was doing his best, I can't put all the
fault, all the blame on him.
You were someone along those lines.
I still had a choice in my drinking and my drug use.
(15:57):
I know I would love to just say, well, it's all dad's fault.
But truth be told, I'm at a certain age.
Dad even though, you know, he had an impact on me and it may have been a negative one,
but I still had a choice.
I still have a choice.
And that's what came to me was this, that the power to choose, I have the power of choice.
(16:21):
And today I choose to be sober.
I choose not to use.
I choose not to drink.
And I don't know, it just popped in my head.
I just want to share it real quick.
Because the power to choose is so important when it comes to a deal with sobriety and
being recovered from addiction.
We have that power.
Comes in the form of our higher power.
(16:41):
You know, it comes in the form of the rooms, the recovery rooms.
It comes in the fellowship.
But the power is there.
We have to use it.
And if we don't, then it's, I think, what we say, we surrender the outcome.
So if I don't choose to use the power, if I don't choose to make the right decisions,
(17:03):
the outcome is on me.
I have to surrender to that.
I mean, it comes down, go back to psychology, just taking back your autonomy.
Giving yourself, you know, I do have choices in this situation.
And that does give you, it can also be going back to the feelings of anxiety and overwhelm.
(17:24):
Now I'm responsible.
If I take that autonomy, you know, before, if I blame default or I blame dad or I blame
the bad guy in my life, then I'm not responsible.
When I start taking back my own autonomy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Then you have the power.
That gives you the power over.
(17:45):
That's something I never understood.
I, you know, I always let everything else have the power over my life.
But it was really in my choices, really looking at it that my own choices that I've made,
you know, that is my life ended up the way it did because of all the choices that I
made.
(18:05):
And even if there were choices, you know, things that had happened to me that were at
no fault of my own, I chose to carry it with me and let it affect me the rest of my life.
So when I switched over and was able to self reflect and realize that, you know, my life,
you know, I need to be responsible for my own actions, my own life.
(18:27):
That gave me the power to actually bring about the change that was necessary for me was,
you know, admitting that, um, yeah, my poor choices got me to where I am today, but I'm
going to take that power back today and put you in the driver's seat.
Yeah.
Put me straight in the driver's seat and, you know, and most of us like control.
(18:47):
Right.
Well, I do.
I definitely do.
I like control.
Right.
Yes.
And being, you know, accountable, responsible for my own actions, my own choices, that gives
me the power that I needed to, um, you know, change my life for the better.
What are the cards you got in there, Henry?
(19:08):
This is what I'm looking at right now.
It says share your concept.
Share your concept of your higher power.
Yeah.
I can speak to that.
Henry likes these cards.
He loves them.
Um, for a long time, um, I share like this here, growing up, growing up, my mom and dad,
(19:31):
they didn't, they didn't, um, they didn't take me to church, so to speak.
They didn't take me to church.
They, um, they sent me to church.
No, we had a church on the corner from where I live and they would say, go to church.
And I would go and, and I would just listen to how people, how the preacher would talk
about God and his concept of God or his version of God.
And I'm a kid.
(19:52):
This is when I'm maybe 12, 13 years old, but you got to remember this is the thing.
Uh, when I was 12, 13 years old, the home that I used to go back to.
So the home that I used to go back to was not conducive to the God that this man was talking
about.
So I grew up with that.
And when I did finally become a man and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, get out on my
(20:14):
own, my understanding was God was never the same as the one I heard in church.
Um, it didn't, it took, you know, a long time and a lot of pain, a lot of struggling to
finally understand my own understanding of God, my own concept of God.
And believe it or not, I got that understanding from being in the rooms of alcoholist anonymous
(20:37):
someone.
I, when I was actually introduced to the concept of God, of my understanding and my concept
of God, how I saw it was this.
Um, and I shared this with, I can't control the way my heart beats.
I can't stop my heart and start, start it back.
Um, the way my lungs allow me to breathe, the way my eyes focus, the way I, anything
(20:57):
that I do inside this body, I have no control over it.
And my thing is whoever controls that, whoever could, she created that, that to me is God.
Now how I use that is, um, the vertical and horizontal.
For me, the concept of God is creation.
(21:18):
He created me and I say he, I'm sorry if I'm, if I'm somebody, but God created me and then
created me, created everything around me.
With that understanding, I have a relationship with the creator of myself and the one who
created me.
And that gives me what I call a vertical understanding or a vertical relationship of God.
(21:40):
Now because of that relationship, I now have a relationship with, in the rooms we call
our fellows, I have a relationship with my fellows, the people around me, which gives
me a horizontal relationship with the people around me.
So I know it comes in the form of a cross and that's just a representation of a religion
that I happen to follow.
Um, and that's how I get the concept of God.
(22:03):
God is creator, the same God that created me, created everything that I see, everything
that's around me.
I have a relationship with that creation, with that creative, which gives me a relationship
with the people around me.
And with that being understood for me, it, you know, it gives me a sense of content,
a sense of peace, serenity we call it.
(22:26):
So that's my concept of God.
And that's how when I feel bad, when I feel out of place, I don't say, you know, I have
a problem.
I look up to my creator and say, you got a problem.
You've got a problem.
And you got to fix it.
And then I leave it in, you know, I leave it to my God.
That's my understanding of God, my concept.
(22:47):
How about you?
My concept, um, I struggled with that concept at first.
I mean, I'm straight up big book style, right?
Like I, I, um, struggled with, uh, the word God because I, I was always raised to believe,
um, the fire and brimstone, you're going to hell God.
(23:08):
Um, nobody ever taught me the, the loving part of that.
So I had a problem with that.
Um, you know, it was always used as a scare tactic growing up, you know, you're going
to go to hell.
You know, you're so bad.
This is what's going to happen.
So I couldn't grasp on to the word God.
But as I went through the big book and, um, you know, it said, you can create your own
(23:31):
conception of God.
And I didn't know that I could do that.
I thought I was stuck with the God from my childhood, the religious God that was used
to scare me all the time.
So I didn't even know that was possible until I got a sponsor and started working the steps.
And that worked for me.
I had to write down my own conception of what a higher power was, what God was.
(23:53):
And I wrote down, you know, pretty much, uh, you know, God is in all things is loving and
kind and non-judgmental and caring, you know, it's everything.
And like you said, right, something makes the sunrise and sunset and it ain't me, you
know, and my God is in all things.
That worked for me in the beginning.
That is all that I needed was, um, nature, mother nature, just everything, you know, God
(24:19):
is the creator of all, just like you said, but the creator.
But I couldn't, I had to forget the religious God of growing up, my childhood God.
I had to put it out of my mind and completely, uh, gain a new idea of what that word God
meant to me or higher power.
Um, I use both.
Um, but, and it's funny how it changes over the years.
(24:43):
Now over the years, sometimes that religious God from my past pops back up in my life.
Some days it's my original, uh, you know, concept of what a higher power is.
Um, and I, I'm sure in a couple more years it's going to change into something else.
But for me, um, that, that's my own conception.
(25:04):
Just it's my higher powers and everything.
Like you said, the creator of everything, um, the air I breathe, you know, the, the,
the tides, the sun going up, the sun going down.
Um, that is that, that, that's all I got.
Yours is all like in depth and all this stuff.
Mine's basic.
That's basic concept of higher power.
(25:26):
Talk to me a little bit more about, you said you, you have that morning, that discipline,
the routine.
Um, do you have that as well?
Amber?
Oh yeah.
Absolutely.
And it started in RCA, you know, getting up and doing the daily readings that just for
today in the N.A. the daily reflections when I got out, I kept that routine.
(25:50):
Um, and now I implement other daily readings as well, celebrate recovery and life recovery
into that.
And then I have, you know, the short meditation time in the morning.
Um, if I don't start my day out on that routine, um, my day is already off.
Um, and then, you know, I go into my regular routine, but I always have to start the morning
(26:11):
with recovery.
And how different is that from when you were in active addiction, just having that sense
of routine?
Oh, well that depended on if you had, if you had enough drugs or alcohol in the morning,
you know, um, routine was not, it was all over the place.
(26:32):
There was no routine for me anyway.
I had no routine other than wake up, make sure I have enough drugs or money to get drugs
or ride to go get drugs.
Um, is, you know, how my morning went.
Yeah.
It was no, it was just hit or miss.
Was no, uh, structure at all.
If I had to explain it, I would put it in the context of it had no, my life, it had
(26:54):
no purpose.
Um, when I used to, when I used to get up in my active addiction and I'm talking not,
um, just being in the streets when you don't talk about with a, with a wife and kids and
going to work, I would wake up.
Um, just like Amber, if I didn't have what I needed to get the day started, it was not,
(27:15):
it wasn't right for me.
But if I woke up in the morning opposite of what I, how I wake up now and I would just
walk out the door with no sense of direction, no purpose.
I would just walk out the door and hopefully I make it back home.
And I don't mean like I'm going into the street to some war or anything, but my mind was racing
all the time on trying to, you know, get high to drink or whatever.
(27:39):
It was never any direction.
It was just, you know, hit or miss.
But you know, I just, I'm so grateful by the grace of God that today I wake up and I'm
actually grateful that I woke up.
You know, I'm thankful that I get to, even right here, I, I shared this with, with, with
the guys on the, on the campus that, um, I get out of my car in a parking lot, right?
And I walk up to this campus and I get to look across this field and it's a, it's a
(28:04):
beautiful campus.
And I just think about how, how blessed I am that this is what I get to call my work,
which isn't work.
It's a, it's a gift.
It's a gift.
And then I'm focused when I come here.
And my main focus is this, to help somebody else.
That's my whole reason for coming in here every day is I get an opportunity to help somebody
(28:24):
else, to give somebody what somebody else gave me.
And how do you teach for people to find their purpose?
I think that's a real struggle.
You know, I think it's stroke for everybody, right?
What am I, why am I here?
Oh, that's, Jay, that's a good question.
Thanks for even asking that because I actually said to one, one, one, one patient, um, but
(28:49):
anyway, um, someone asked me like, why do I do this?
And I know the big book answer is that, you know, we give it away, not the big book, but
in the rooms we say, we give it away in order to keep it.
And how does that work?
Um, when I'm sharing, like I'm talking to you guys right now, but I hear the words coming
out of my mouth when I'm sharing with the patient.
I hear what I'm saying.
(29:11):
So not only I can, I can say that that's the given away piece, but because I hear it and
I understand what's going on.
And sometimes even my own voice, um, and what I'm sharing can have an emotional impact on
me in a sense it'll take me back to that place.
I'm not trying to go there now, but I remember and sometimes it's not always, you know, sharing
(29:32):
does that for me.
But what happens when I give it to someone else and they're impacted by it.
And they, they, they say, or they start to, you know, behaving in a way that changes them.
I feel a sense of pride in myself, not boastful pride, but a pride that I did something to
(29:53):
help someone else.
So I stepped outside of myself and it's, it's in that.
So service.
There you go.
That's basically what I'm getting back to.
It's the serving piece that helps me.
And I actually, I can tell you another, it's this, this, I've shared on the other podcast.
Um, I consider myself a servant helper and I once shared that with somebody and they
(30:17):
told me that, that I was more than a servant, but see, they misunderstood what I meant by
serving.
I don't mean serving in the sense that I'm forced to do what I do or, you know, to be
in a, in a subservient position.
No, I'm a servant in the fact that I'm, I'm, I'm grateful to be able to help somebody
else.
I'm grateful to be able to be of use to somebody else.
(30:39):
And we, I know, I almost said, but I know that in serving, I don't, I serve because
of my higher power.
My higher power blesses me and I don't want to say I owe, but out of gratitude, out of
gratitude, I want to help somebody else.
And the question was, how do I find purpose?
How do you teach others to find purpose?
(31:00):
Like, you know, I think that's really hard.
Especially for young people, you know, I spent a lot of time, years in education and working
with college students and there's some that get to that stage of life as just, I'm so
lost.
What do I do?
All I can say to that is, and this is what I told the gentleman was, if it brings you
peace, if you feel content doing it, then it's your purpose.
(31:21):
If it's something that, you know, there's, there's, there's, there's a sense of, what
do you call it, passion?
There's a passion for it.
And I believe another word for passion is sacrifice.
If you feel, if what you're doing brings you a sense of pleasure, contentment, and you
know, you're just generally all around happy for helping someone else, then that's gotta
(31:42):
be.
I think, I think maybe what people miss sometimes is that helping other people hard.
Because we say, you know, it's, it's, I think we've raised a generation where it's like
find, find what makes you happy and you'll never work a day in your life.
Well, that doesn't always pay the bills, right?
Sometimes we have to go to work to pay the bills.
(32:05):
You may not get to do something for a career that fulfills you 100% completely when you
got a wife and two kids and you got to pay bills.
You know, you got all the things, right?
So I like what you're saying when you add service to other people.
It gives you purpose beyond our responsibilities.
(32:27):
Oh, I like that, Jay.
Yeah.
I don't know.
What do you think came from that?
Well, I can only share my experience with that.
I walked around my whole life wondering what my purpose was.
I would cry about it.
Like what is the reason I'm here?
I literally have no purpose.
I'm just a lump sucking up oxygen.
(32:48):
So you know, again, I found my purpose in life when I got sober and started working with
others.
Since I started being of service to other people, you know, and it started out small,
just learning to be of service is a process.
And you didn't start out working in recovery?
No, I did not.
No, my service works really started when I was in RCA as a patient and I just, for whatever
(33:15):
reason, just started helping the people that would just come in, you know, their first
day, their second day and show them around and that started to make me feel good to do
that.
So I'm all about making myself feel good, you know what I mean?
So you know, it kind of went from there.
But then once I got out and I joined a program, you know, and learning that I have to act
(33:38):
selfish, selflessly, start doing for others and thinking of other people, the blessings
will start coming back to me.
How do you bring that sense of purpose to the mundane to, because I don't know if it's
okay to share.
Yeah, but like you probably weren't working your dream job the moment you got out of recovery.
(34:01):
No, not at all.
Or out of treatment.
I hated the job I was working when I got up.
But you did it.
But I did it because I had to.
So how do you bring that purpose to the mundane?
Well, again, my experience, you know, by going to meetings, number one, and, you know, learning
to be of service to the people in those meetings.
(34:22):
And then after that, branching out to being of service to people all around me, even on
my job.
But you know, if it wasn't for having a relationship with a higher power and, you know, even wanting
to do those things, I never would have gotten to the place where, you know, I'm working
my dream job and I finally have a purpose after 40 years.
(34:44):
Do you have a memory of doing an active service, either one of you, that you would have never
done before and going, oh my goodness, this is a new me?
Small little acts of service.
Buying people coffee, you know, in the line at Starbucks for no reason other than to be
(35:06):
nice.
Because that would have never happened.
And that's a little random act of being of service to someone else.
Right off the top of my head.
That was so not me.
I have one, actually now it doesn't seem strange at all.
But when I did get sober, the first time I ever served in a food line in a food kitchen,
(35:30):
that was it.
And I've shared, I told you about a friend of mine actually came through that line and
he didn't see me until he raised his head to take the food.
And when we locked eyes, it was a moment.
Yeah, because I could have been exactly where he was because we lived the same lifestyle.
(35:54):
But the fact that I knew I had changed, because one, I felt, you know what, it was one of
those moments when you, in my act of addiction, I would say like, you know, you got to be
crazy to stand up there and serve somebody else.
It was not something I saw as being a random act of kindness, didn't exist.
(36:19):
I didn't know what that was.
And then for me to be, you know, to be removed from that place, meaning, I don't know which
place, but to actually be serving somebody else and feel glad about it.
That, you know, when I knew I had changed.
I knew I wanted to, this is what I wanted to do.
(36:41):
Not being paid for it, just showed up and helped.
And I've been doing that.
And I hope to continue doing it.
I think the only other one off the top of my head is sharing my experience, strength and
hope with other people.
Oh, that's a good one.
Because it doesn't sound like that was ever something you would get up in front of a crowd
(37:03):
of people and talk.
No.
About anything.
Your experience, strength and hope.
Not at all.
I was the complete opposite.
You know.
And we had you speak just to give everyone a from reference.
She spoke at our Capital Region alumni event.
200 people there, tons of alums.
(37:27):
Yeah.
I mean, and you were fabulous.
Thank you.
I was nervous, but I still do it because it is helping other people.
I know now that, you know, even if I think that my story might not be as bad to someone
else's or, but I know now that it's my story and it will help other people.
What was that like that?
(37:51):
Agreeing to do that for the first time.
Oh, it was scary.
I was very, very nervous.
Was it something you had said, no, I'm not doing that?
I said, well, because I'm a people pleaser, I automatically will say yes.
And then I'm like, oh, I should have never said that.
And then I'm thinking, you're getting a sore throat.
Yes.
But, uh, tummy ache.
I'm sorry.
(38:12):
I can't be there today.
My hands were sweating.
Yeah.
Look, coming up with the excuse is not to do it, but I did it anyway.
But I just to get through it at the beginning, I'm like, I am so nervous.
I really hope I don't mess this up.
And then I just did it.
And once I did that for the first time, it was, it was weird.
It was like a weight lifted off my shoulders.
(38:33):
Now in the beginning sharing my story, now like, I can, like an emotional thing happens
when you're done because you've talked about certain things.
So the next day can kind of be off.
At least it was for me in the very beginning, but I did it.
And once I did that for the first time and people were nodding their heads at me or saying,
yeah, me too.
(38:54):
There's no feeling like that.
Um, in helping someone else by sharing my experience helps other people.
And you know, from there, I just was like, I'm game.
I'll do it because there, there is, there's nothing like the feeling of saying someone,
we, man, me too.
You helped me a lot with that.
(39:15):
And here again, I think my story is like, yeah, whatever.
You know, it's nothing, but it's really not to someone else.
It can be, um, you know, a life, lifesaver to someone else, you know, so, um, that gave
me my purpose.
And, um, that is, yeah, the best, uh, being of service that I can do.
(39:37):
So yeah, that's good.
What other cards you got, Henry?
I mean, call another card from the day.
Another card.
I don't know about that one.
Oh, let's see what this says.
What fairy tale character would you represent, would, would most represent you?
(40:00):
Please explain.
It just popped in my head as I read it.
He was going to put it away till he got an answer.
He didn't care about us having an answer.
As I read it, what fairy tale character would most represent you?
Please explain the beast from beauty and the beast.
Misunderstood.
And if you, the, in this story, not just misunderstood, but he was so self-centered,
(40:25):
you know, it's all about himself in the beginning and he had to go through something, meaning
being transformed to a beast.
Um, oh wow, I'm thinking of that story too.
He had to go through that.
He had to be transformed into a beast and experienced life like that in that state.
(40:46):
And someone had to actually, what, care for him, which he cared for nobody, but somebody
had to care for him in order for that spell to be broken.
Yeah, I think because in the beginning, when I, oh, that one kind of got me.
Early in my addiction, throughout my addiction, that was me.
(41:08):
I was so self-centered.
I was so much into myself and what I could get, even from other people.
I didn't care about how I treated people or how, you know, what I did to them and how
it affected them.
You know, it was all about Henry.
It was all about me.
And it actually took for, you know, I'm thinking about my wife right now.
(41:29):
It took for somebody else to actually, you know, stand with me and understand.
Wow.
I wasn't, I wasn't that bad of a person.
I was a mess, but my wife has been with me for 26 years now.
25, I'm sorry, just turned 25.
25 years now, throughout my addiction, she's still there.
(41:54):
Yeah, because she didn't see what I was, how I saw myself, the way I treated people.
I think she met me.
I know for a fact she met me during a time, you know, when I was not a child.
I was addicted.
You know, in my addiction, I've had those moments where I put together a little time
(42:17):
and when I wasn't using the drinking, I think God had to have a hand in that.
I met her in one of those gaps.
So when that other person showed up, my addicted self showed up, the beast part of me showed
up.
She knew knew me different than that.
That wasn't me.
And she stood with me throughout, throughout it all.
(42:38):
And wow, that is so incredible.
That's coming in my head right now.
That's all I'm saying about that.
Not a question for me.
I can't think of one fairytale.
Me either.
Character at all.
Henry, you can draw another part.
Yeah, like Forrest Gump said, that's all I have to say about that.
(43:05):
You want to hit this one?
I saw the word fear, but it says share what it feels like to you when you feel fear, both
physically and emotionally.
And it acts another part.
What is that a healthy way of coping with fear?
(43:27):
That's a good one.
Yeah, that's a little in depth.
For me, I mean, what it feels like when I'm afraid I get anxiety.
Yeah, that's hard for me to describe.
I'm not good at expressing how I feel.
(43:51):
But my mind starts to race.
I will start to isolate.
I will come up with excuses of not reasons why I'm not going to do something.
My heart will race.
My hands will sweat.
But today, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot more that goes into that.
(44:13):
But today, the healthy way that I cope with that today is I rely on my higher power.
Fear is so in threaded in me.
It goes so far down and it applies to every area of my life.
And if I let that control me, it will stop me from doing just about anything.
(44:34):
And the only way that I can cope with getting over my fear is asking my higher power to
remove that fear, give me courage.
Now that's usually where I go.
Now sometimes if I'm afraid, I can share about it with another alcoholic or addict.
And just sharing that feeling, expressing how I feel and then getting maybe a little
(44:58):
feedback will give me the courage.
But nine times out of ten, it's my higher power.
And usually I think fear is tricky.
You can get over a fear and it comes back on you, that same fear.
And you have to go through.
Yeah.
You have to push back.
You kind of have to take your, we go back to that autonomy, we go back to that control,
that power.
Yeah.
(45:19):
Wait a minute.
Yeah.
You have to go through this and you have to completely do the cycle again.
Yeah.
It never goes away.
A fear of judgment that pops up.
I'm afraid of people judging me.
But I know that, you know, that it just, the reality of that is nobody's judging me.
You know what I mean?
(45:39):
And even if they are, it doesn't matter.
But I have to constantly tell that, yeah, I can get rid of that today, but it'll be
back tomorrow.
It'll come right back tomorrow.
It'll come right back tomorrow.
So.
And sometimes we misunderstand, it's like, well, I didn't, it didn't work for me.
Right.
Because it's coming back.
And no, it worked.
You just got to keep working.
Keep doing it.
Right?
(46:00):
You got to keep doing it.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And those are the things that, you know, because I work a program and, you know, giving
that stuff and asking God to remove those defects.
That's a character defect for me is fear.
And you know, I have to constantly on a daily basis ask God to remove that fear.
But if it pops up, which it does, yeah, just spot check and talk to myself, you know, face
(46:21):
that fear.
Think about how it is in the real reality and not the fear based reality I'm creating
in my mind.
But yeah.
This has been so good.
Thank you both for sharing with us today.
Thank you listeners for joining us on the podcast.
If you have a question you'd like to ask Amber or Henry or myself or just that we could use
(46:46):
on a future podcast inbox us, we would love to hear from you.
Love to hear your ideas and your thoughts on the podcast.
If you would give us a little review on the podcast, we would love that.
Give us all the stars you can give us.
And we just want to be of service.
I think this is the biggest thing about the podcast is sharing experience, strength and
(47:07):
hope of our alums and our coordinators and other staff and friends of RCA and then just
really giving back and being of service.
So thank you for listening today.
Thank you Amber and Henry.
For all you do for our alums, check out RCA alumni dot com for a full calendar of events
(47:29):
coming near you soon.
(47:52):
Thank you for listening to the Strength and Recovery podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, please tap the subscribe button and leave us a review.
We love hearing from our listeners and hope to reach more of you out there as we continue
to share these incredible stories of recovery.
The RCA alumni team aims to provide a safe, supportive environment for those in the recovery
(48:16):
community regardless of their affiliation with RCA.
We host a full calendar of virtual and in-person meetings seven days a week, 365 days a year
as well as free sober events every month.
To learn more about what we do, find us at RCA alumni dot com.
(48:37):
Remember if you or a loved one is struggling with addiction, pick up the phone and dial
1-833-RCA-ALUMN.
Help is available 24 seven.
Listen to another episode now or join us next time for the Strength and Recovery podcast.
I don't like that one.
(00:18):
No, too much for you.
No, stop messing with you.
Okay, you got another one.
Welcome to Strength and Recovery Podcast.
We are sitting around the office, the alumni office at the St. Charles location today.
And Henry, our alumni coordinator here, just pulled out a box of cards.
(00:39):
So tell me what you're doing.
Hey, Jay.
These cards right here, I like to use these here as a tool.
And how it works is, sometimes I share with our patients here at RCA.
And how I start my mornings.
And usually that is with reading of literature, prayer, meditation, and oftentimes, most times,
(01:09):
inspirational music.
And how I explain it is, those are just tools to get me in the right mindset for what I
have to do.
These cards about self-reflection.
And they're just, they're a deck of cards.
They're a deck of cards.
And they just stay on them.
I got to put my glasses on.
(01:30):
They just say self-reflection from wellness, reproductions, publishing, wellness resources.
These are super cool.
And how I use them is, they ask some questions.
Excuse me, I'm so sorry.
This is real and raw today.
Yes, it is.
And these cards, how they help, they ask questions for the person who's dealing with
(01:53):
addiction and in treatment for recovery.
It allows them a chance to think, to look inside themselves, to be honest with themselves,
and answer that question.
And in doing so, it opens up a topic for discussion.
And I don't know about, Amber's here with us too.
She's an alum of RCA Capital Region.
(02:15):
And we're super excited to have her on the team.
But I don't know about you, but as soon as somebody says they're going to ask me a question,
I'm like getting all nervous.
So Henry's box of cards, we're not calming to me, especially self-reflection.
What about you?
No, I'm extremely nervous, not knowing what's on the side of that card.
I freeze up when I'm on the spot like that.
(02:36):
And we've been doing that all day, haven't we?
It's a great idea though.
Some of them are really good.
They really get you thinking.
And why do we think, I guess, I'm more comfortable asking the question.
So I'm just going to ask the question.
Why do we think getting personal, getting vulnerable, looking at self-reflection can
(02:57):
be so difficult?
It's very difficult to look within.
It really, really is.
To pull up those emotions, those memories, it can be a struggle.
Those are the things that we typically want to push deep down inside and not face.
That's why it's a struggle for me.
(03:20):
Got any thoughts on that?
Piggybacking off of what Amber just said, it is.
For myself, for example.
I didn't plan on doing this, but I'll share something with you.
I've been struggling with what we, in the rooms, we call it unresolved resentments.
(03:41):
How that happened, I was actually a part of a big book study.
I was sharing in a big book study, and we were dealing with a fourth step.
And reading the fourth step, I was sharing.
And as I was sharing, something impactful came back up.
And it just hit me in my chest.
(04:03):
I had a difficult time completing my share, at least talking about what I was dealing
with.
And it was something like Amber just said, I had pushed down.
And I thought that I had dealt with it.
I thought that it was a resolved issue.
And just for the sake of transparency, it was an issue concerning my dad.
(04:23):
And a lot of my struggles were based on my relationship with my father.
And the thing is, like this, I'm going to go back to this card here.
He's going to get us in those cards.
I am trying to look at me trying to avoid this.
And then we come right back out to those cards.
(04:45):
This particular card in my hand, look, it says, it says, share something for which you have
forgiven yourself.
What were your feelings and how did you start the process of forgiving yourself?
Now, just with that card right there, I can answer.
I could say, I could share something about not forgiving myself or something.
(05:06):
But in reading this card, and in line with the topic I was just saying concerning unresolved
resentments, it came to me that even though I thought I had dealt with it, I hadn't.
And it came to find out that it's because I had pushed it down.
Just like Amber said, I had pushed it down and I wanted to forget about it because a
(05:31):
form of PTSD, it was something I didn't want to face.
I thought that I did.
But on a subconscious level, I hadn't completely gotten over it.
And it's one of those issues where it was about forgiveness, not forgiveness of myself,
but forgiveness of my father for the things that he has done, for the way he treated myself,
my brother, my mother.
(05:53):
And I'm dealing with it now.
I am talking about it.
I shared it with Amber.
And Amber said I should speak to my sponsor about it, which I did.
And we're working it out.
As a matter of fact, I was given a good piece of advice.
It was about, and it comes from the Big Book.
(06:14):
The Big Book teaches in working with you through your fourth step about, you've ever heard
the saying that sick people, that hurt people, hurt people?
It's that same thing.
I had to look at where my dad, his environment that he grew up in, his relationship with his
(06:37):
father and why he was the man that he was.
And in doing so, I had to look at how that relationship affected my relationship with
my father.
And the thing that what I came to was this.
He was doing the best that he could.
The way he grew up, the environment he grew up in, being a dad to him was being that strong,
(07:04):
disciplinarian, heavy handed.
He thought what he was doing was the best thing to do.
It was not good for me.
It wasn't the best environment for me to be in.
But I'm slowly starting to understand because of the environment he grew up in and the way
he was raised as a father, he was doing the best he could.
(07:26):
So I'm still working on it, but I'm getting better with forgiving my dad for the way he
behaved as a father.
So I don't know where that's going, but that's that.
And I think there's a sense at which maybe early in recovery or maybe there's a time
and place to deal with those things when you have the resources and the skills.
(07:49):
It's like this is coming back up now because you've got the strength to handle it.
There you go.
Maybe reframing it in that, like, okay, I can think about this broader.
I've got some new tools in my toolbox that I've honed a little bit that I know how to
use that I can apply to what was a difficult situation.
(08:10):
Yeah.
I like how you put that.
It's about, because I think that's probably why early in my recovery I pushed it down
or in my mind, I thought I'd had resolved it.
But truthfully, I had and what I did, I just, it was like a project I was working on and
I just didn't complete it.
But now, like you said, now that I have the tools to complete or to face the job better,
(08:31):
I'm better equipped.
There you go.
I'm better equipped to deal with certain situations, to actually live and confront life, you know,
on life terms, as we say, and being able to do so in a more comfortable environment, meaning
I know how to see things or how to view, you know, a few things differently now.
(08:53):
And it's all because of the tools that I have now, the people I surround myself with, the
people I can have conversations with, things like that.
So you're right.
What I didn't have early on is the reason why, you know, it was never resolved.
And now I can, you know, it can be resolved now because now I have the tools.
I'm equipped.
I'm better equipped.
Thank you.
(09:14):
You just give me another piece.
Well, it's a perfect thing to go along with more will be revealed.
There you go.
That's exactly what that means.
There you go.
Thank you.
You know, higher power reveals that when you're ready to deal with it.
Talk a little bit more about that.
I mean, yeah, it's, talking about that was self-reflection.
(09:36):
Like early on for me in my recovery, I wasn't able to even look inward like that at all
because I was not ready to deal with the emotions, the traumas from my past or worry about the
trauma my parents put me through.
But slowly over time as I got a little recovery under my belt and I started relying on a higher
(09:57):
power and I started working the steps and having the fellowship, all of those things
together, you know, my higher power slowly revealed to me, you know, different areas
in my life, which I was ready to face, overcome or uncover, discover and discard, so to speak.
And don't you think that's a little bit of the fear of entering recovery, maybe even
(10:21):
entering treatment is like, you know, I got stuff and I'm not ready to unpack this yet.
And if I go into treatment, they're going to start picking at the stuff and I'm not
ready to pull the scab off quite yet.
I just got it, you know, covered over.
(10:42):
And I think that's the beauty of somewhat and the surprise of what we do when someone
enters treatment.
It's like, no, we're not going to try to unpack this all in 30 days and wrap it up in a bow.
We're going to put you on a path where you're going to meet people, you're going to meet
(11:02):
maybe sponsors, you're going to meet peers in recovery, you're going to meet a therapist,
maybe you need a pastor, maybe you need all of these pieces of this puzzle where you can
start to unpack this on a journey, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
I think too, it's difficult because, you know, when I came into treatment, I was very much
(11:25):
playing the victim.
I spoke victimize all day long and it was everyone else's fault and is, you know, that's
what I did my whole life.
It's telling victimize that's a new one.
I got that from my sponsor.
Yeah, just playing the victim all the time.
It was always everybody else.
So I spoke that very well, you know, I used it to gain sympathy, to gain self pity from
(11:51):
people or to gain pity from people to live in self pity, blaming everybody else for everything
that ever happened to me.
But you know, slowly realizing that 99% of the choices I made in my life, you know, were
my choices.
They weren't other people.
It wasn't everyone else's fault.
(12:12):
And you can have both, right?
Like bad things can have happened.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Two us.
And it might not be my fault, right?
But yeah.
I still need someone to blame though, you know, when it usually isn't my fault and reality
I blame myself for it anyway, self crucify myself on the inside.
(12:34):
But yeah, coming into treatment, no, you don't.
That's really scary.
That was really scary for me to have these new memories pop up of different traumas and
then like, well, how am I going to deal with it?
And it became overwhelming, you know, but really, again, you know, my higher power was
just bringing to the surface the things that I needed to deal with in that moment or in
(12:57):
that 30 days, you know, and then the next 30 and then the next 30, you know, it was something
else.
So it is a process.
But I think, you know, myself included, we get sober and everything just floods right
back and now we're trying to separate all these different things thinking that, yeah,
we have to deal with it today.
(13:18):
Like everything has to be solved today.
What's the saying like the best thing about being sober is you have all these new feelings
and emotions and the worst thing about being sober is you have all these new feelings and
emotions.
Yeah, yes.
Learning how to navigate just the emotions alone is very overwhelming.
(13:39):
I used to say all the time, like, oh, I feel, you know, this or I feel that this sucks.
Like I don't I don't like feeling, but I knew, you know, that was necessary.
Like that's what normal people do is have feelings.
So we had to learn to have feelings.
Like you're normal.
You sound a little bitter about that.
Yeah, well, because they do.
(14:01):
I mean, honestly, sometimes, you know, having my heart broken or having being full of anxiety,
it sucks.
But I learned the coping skills to get through that, you know, and I know that those feelings
don't last forever.
It's just a feeling it will pass no matter what it is.
And then our fee, I think one of the biggest things through time that I have learned is
(14:25):
just speaking for myself is that feelings aren't facts.
Not facts.
No, not at all.
You know, I can remember my I used to tell my kids that all the time feelings aren't
facts, you know, that was kind of saying in our house and I'm teaching my daughter to
drive and she comes up to a stop sign and she had no sense of direction.
(14:45):
It was so crazy.
And the phones had ruined them for life.
They have GPS.
And so I was like, it was a road she'd been on a million times and I was like, which way
do I go?
Which way do I go?
And I'm like, well, which way feels right?
And she goes, feelings aren't facts, mom.
Feelings aren't facts.
Tell me which way to go.
Like, so that one came back to bite me.
But yeah, I mean, how we feel today isn't necessarily how we'll feel tomorrow.
(15:11):
And it's not necessarily true.
Right.
Like what we tell ourselves is, you know, and my feeling about something in a moment.
Right.
That's a hard lesson to learn.
It is.
Yeah.
Because in the moment, like it feels really real.
Right.
If you don't mind, I wanted to go back to what Amber said something and it's so true
(15:32):
what you said about choice.
What, you know, choosing that.
Basically when you said it, I was thinking, you know, even though my dad was the kind
of man that he was and even understand that he was doing his best, I can't put all the
fault, all the blame on him.
You were someone along those lines.
I still had a choice in my drinking and my drug use.
(15:57):
I know I would love to just say, well, it's all dad's fault.
But truth be told, I'm at a certain age.
Dad even though, you know, he had an impact on me and it may have been a negative one,
but I still had a choice.
I still have a choice.
And that's what came to me was this, that the power to choose, I have the power of choice.
(16:21):
And today I choose to be sober.
I choose not to use.
I choose not to drink.
And I don't know, it just popped in my head.
I just want to share it real quick.
Because the power to choose is so important when it comes to a deal with sobriety and
being recovered from addiction.
We have that power.
Comes in the form of our higher power.
(16:41):
You know, it comes in the form of the rooms, the recovery rooms.
It comes in the fellowship.
But the power is there.
We have to use it.
And if we don't, then it's, I think, what we say, we surrender the outcome.
So if I don't choose to use the power, if I don't choose to make the right decisions,
(17:03):
the outcome is on me.
I have to surrender to that.
I mean, it comes down, go back to psychology, just taking back your autonomy.
Giving yourself, you know, I do have choices in this situation.
And that does give you, it can also be going back to the feelings of anxiety and overwhelm.
(17:24):
Now I'm responsible.
If I take that autonomy, you know, before, if I blame default or I blame dad or I blame
the bad guy in my life, then I'm not responsible.
When I start taking back my own autonomy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Then you have the power.
That gives you the power over.
(17:45):
That's something I never understood.
I, you know, I always let everything else have the power over my life.
But it was really in my choices, really looking at it that my own choices that I've made,
you know, that is my life ended up the way it did because of all the choices that I
made.
(18:05):
And even if there were choices, you know, things that had happened to me that were at
no fault of my own, I chose to carry it with me and let it affect me the rest of my life.
So when I switched over and was able to self reflect and realize that, you know, my life,
you know, I need to be responsible for my own actions, my own life.
(18:27):
That gave me the power to actually bring about the change that was necessary for me was,
you know, admitting that, um, yeah, my poor choices got me to where I am today, but I'm
going to take that power back today and put you in the driver's seat.
Yeah.
Put me straight in the driver's seat and, you know, and most of us like control.
(18:47):
Right.
Well, I do.
I definitely do.
I like control.
Right.
Yes.
And being, you know, accountable, responsible for my own actions, my own choices, that gives
me the power that I needed to, um, you know, change my life for the better.
What are the cards you got in there, Henry?
(19:08):
This is what I'm looking at right now.
It says share your concept.
Share your concept of your higher power.
Yeah.
I can speak to that.
Henry likes these cards.
He loves them.
Um, for a long time, um, I share like this here, growing up, growing up, my mom and dad,
(19:31):
they didn't, they didn't, um, they didn't take me to church, so to speak.
They didn't take me to church.
They, um, they sent me to church.
No, we had a church on the corner from where I live and they would say, go to church.
And I would go and, and I would just listen to how people, how the preacher would talk
about God and his concept of God or his version of God.
And I'm a kid.
(19:52):
This is when I'm maybe 12, 13 years old, but you got to remember this is the thing.
Uh, when I was 12, 13 years old, the home that I used to go back to.
So the home that I used to go back to was not conducive to the God that this man was talking
about.
So I grew up with that.
And when I did finally become a man and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, get out on my
(20:14):
own, my understanding was God was never the same as the one I heard in church.
Um, it didn't, it took, you know, a long time and a lot of pain, a lot of struggling to
finally understand my own understanding of God, my own concept of God.
And believe it or not, I got that understanding from being in the rooms of alcoholist anonymous
(20:37):
someone.
I, when I was actually introduced to the concept of God, of my understanding and my concept
of God, how I saw it was this.
Um, and I shared this with, I can't control the way my heart beats.
I can't stop my heart and start, start it back.
Um, the way my lungs allow me to breathe, the way my eyes focus, the way I, anything
(20:57):
that I do inside this body, I have no control over it.
And my thing is whoever controls that, whoever could, she created that, that to me is God.
Now how I use that is, um, the vertical and horizontal.
For me, the concept of God is creation.
(21:18):
He created me and I say he, I'm sorry if I'm, if I'm somebody, but God created me and then
created me, created everything around me.
With that understanding, I have a relationship with the creator of myself and the one who
created me.
And that gives me what I call a vertical understanding or a vertical relationship of God.
(21:40):
Now because of that relationship, I now have a relationship with, in the rooms we call
our fellows, I have a relationship with my fellows, the people around me, which gives
me a horizontal relationship with the people around me.
So I know it comes in the form of a cross and that's just a representation of a religion
that I happen to follow.
Um, and that's how I get the concept of God.
(22:03):
God is creator, the same God that created me, created everything that I see, everything
that's around me.
I have a relationship with that creation, with that creative, which gives me a relationship
with the people around me.
And with that being understood for me, it, you know, it gives me a sense of content,
a sense of peace, serenity we call it.
(22:26):
So that's my concept of God.
And that's how when I feel bad, when I feel out of place, I don't say, you know, I have
a problem.
I look up to my creator and say, you got a problem.
You've got a problem.
And you got to fix it.
And then I leave it in, you know, I leave it to my God.
That's my understanding of God, my concept.
(22:47):
How about you?
My concept, um, I struggled with that concept at first.
I mean, I'm straight up big book style, right?
Like I, I, um, struggled with, uh, the word God because I, I was always raised to believe,
um, the fire and brimstone, you're going to hell God.
(23:08):
Um, nobody ever taught me the, the loving part of that.
So I had a problem with that.
Um, you know, it was always used as a scare tactic growing up, you know, you're going
to go to hell.
You know, you're so bad.
This is what's going to happen.
So I couldn't grasp on to the word God.
But as I went through the big book and, um, you know, it said, you can create your own
(23:31):
conception of God.
And I didn't know that I could do that.
I thought I was stuck with the God from my childhood, the religious God that was used
to scare me all the time.
So I didn't even know that was possible until I got a sponsor and started working the steps.
And that worked for me.
I had to write down my own conception of what a higher power was, what God was.
(23:53):
And I wrote down, you know, pretty much, uh, you know, God is in all things is loving and
kind and non-judgmental and caring, you know, it's everything.
And like you said, right, something makes the sunrise and sunset and it ain't me, you
know, and my God is in all things.
That worked for me in the beginning.
That is all that I needed was, um, nature, mother nature, just everything, you know, God
(24:19):
is the creator of all, just like you said, but the creator.
But I couldn't, I had to forget the religious God of growing up, my childhood God.
I had to put it out of my mind and completely, uh, gain a new idea of what that word God
meant to me or higher power.
Um, I use both.
Um, but, and it's funny how it changes over the years.
(24:43):
Now over the years, sometimes that religious God from my past pops back up in my life.
Some days it's my original, uh, you know, concept of what a higher power is.
Um, and I, I'm sure in a couple more years it's going to change into something else.
But for me, um, that, that's my own conception.
(25:04):
Just it's my higher powers and everything.
Like you said, the creator of everything, um, the air I breathe, you know, the, the,
the tides, the sun going up, the sun going down.
Um, that is that, that, that's all I got.
Yours is all like in depth and all this stuff.
Mine's basic.
That's basic concept of higher power.
(25:26):
Talk to me a little bit more about, you said you, you have that morning, that discipline,
the routine.
Um, do you have that as well?
Amber?
Oh yeah.
Absolutely.
And it started in RCA, you know, getting up and doing the daily readings that just for
today in the N.A. the daily reflections when I got out, I kept that routine.
(25:50):
Um, and now I implement other daily readings as well, celebrate recovery and life recovery
into that.
And then I have, you know, the short meditation time in the morning.
Um, if I don't start my day out on that routine, um, my day is already off.
Um, and then, you know, I go into my regular routine, but I always have to start the morning
(26:11):
with recovery.
And how different is that from when you were in active addiction, just having that sense
of routine?
Oh, well that depended on if you had, if you had enough drugs or alcohol in the morning,
you know, um, routine was not, it was all over the place.
(26:32):
There was no routine for me anyway.
I had no routine other than wake up, make sure I have enough drugs or money to get drugs
or ride to go get drugs.
Um, is, you know, how my morning went.
Yeah.
It was no, it was just hit or miss.
Was no, uh, structure at all.
If I had to explain it, I would put it in the context of it had no, my life, it had
(26:54):
no purpose.
Um, when I used to, when I used to get up in my active addiction and I'm talking not,
um, just being in the streets when you don't talk about with a, with a wife and kids and
going to work, I would wake up.
Um, just like Amber, if I didn't have what I needed to get the day started, it was not,
(27:15):
it wasn't right for me.
But if I woke up in the morning opposite of what I, how I wake up now and I would just
walk out the door with no sense of direction, no purpose.
I would just walk out the door and hopefully I make it back home.
And I don't mean like I'm going into the street to some war or anything, but my mind was racing
all the time on trying to, you know, get high to drink or whatever.
(27:39):
It was never any direction.
It was just, you know, hit or miss.
But you know, I just, I'm so grateful by the grace of God that today I wake up and I'm
actually grateful that I woke up.
You know, I'm thankful that I get to, even right here, I, I shared this with, with, with
the guys on the, on the campus that, um, I get out of my car in a parking lot, right?
And I walk up to this campus and I get to look across this field and it's a, it's a
(28:04):
beautiful campus.
And I just think about how, how blessed I am that this is what I get to call my work,
which isn't work.
It's a, it's a gift.
It's a gift.
And then I'm focused when I come here.
And my main focus is this, to help somebody else.
That's my whole reason for coming in here every day is I get an opportunity to help somebody
(28:24):
else, to give somebody what somebody else gave me.
And how do you teach for people to find their purpose?
I think that's a real struggle.
You know, I think it's stroke for everybody, right?
What am I, why am I here?
Oh, that's, Jay, that's a good question.
Thanks for even asking that because I actually said to one, one, one, one patient, um, but
(28:49):
anyway, um, someone asked me like, why do I do this?
And I know the big book answer is that, you know, we give it away, not the big book, but
in the rooms we say, we give it away in order to keep it.
And how does that work?
Um, when I'm sharing, like I'm talking to you guys right now, but I hear the words coming
out of my mouth when I'm sharing with the patient.
I hear what I'm saying.
(29:11):
So not only I can, I can say that that's the given away piece, but because I hear it and
I understand what's going on.
And sometimes even my own voice, um, and what I'm sharing can have an emotional impact on
me in a sense it'll take me back to that place.
I'm not trying to go there now, but I remember and sometimes it's not always, you know, sharing
(29:32):
does that for me.
But what happens when I give it to someone else and they're impacted by it.
And they, they, they say, or they start to, you know, behaving in a way that changes them.
I feel a sense of pride in myself, not boastful pride, but a pride that I did something to
(29:53):
help someone else.
So I stepped outside of myself and it's, it's in that.
So service.
There you go.
That's basically what I'm getting back to.
It's the serving piece that helps me.
And I actually, I can tell you another, it's this, this, I've shared on the other podcast.
Um, I consider myself a servant helper and I once shared that with somebody and they
(30:17):
told me that, that I was more than a servant, but see, they misunderstood what I meant by
serving.
I don't mean serving in the sense that I'm forced to do what I do or, you know, to be
in a, in a subservient position.
No, I'm a servant in the fact that I'm, I'm, I'm grateful to be able to help somebody
else.
I'm grateful to be able to be of use to somebody else.
(30:39):
And we, I know, I almost said, but I know that in serving, I don't, I serve because
of my higher power.
My higher power blesses me and I don't want to say I owe, but out of gratitude, out of
gratitude, I want to help somebody else.
And the question was, how do I find purpose?
How do you teach others to find purpose?
(31:00):
Like, you know, I think that's really hard.
Especially for young people, you know, I spent a lot of time, years in education and working
with college students and there's some that get to that stage of life as just, I'm so
lost.
What do I do?
All I can say to that is, and this is what I told the gentleman was, if it brings you
peace, if you feel content doing it, then it's your purpose.
(31:21):
If it's something that, you know, there's, there's, there's, there's a sense of, what
do you call it, passion?
There's a passion for it.
And I believe another word for passion is sacrifice.
If you feel, if what you're doing brings you a sense of pleasure, contentment, and you
know, you're just generally all around happy for helping someone else, then that's gotta
(31:42):
be.
I think, I think maybe what people miss sometimes is that helping other people hard.
Because we say, you know, it's, it's, I think we've raised a generation where it's like
find, find what makes you happy and you'll never work a day in your life.
Well, that doesn't always pay the bills, right?
Sometimes we have to go to work to pay the bills.
(32:05):
You may not get to do something for a career that fulfills you 100% completely when you
got a wife and two kids and you got to pay bills.
You know, you got all the things, right?
So I like what you're saying when you add service to other people.
It gives you purpose beyond our responsibilities.
(32:27):
Oh, I like that, Jay.
Yeah.
I don't know.
What do you think came from that?
Well, I can only share my experience with that.
I walked around my whole life wondering what my purpose was.
I would cry about it.
Like what is the reason I'm here?
I literally have no purpose.
I'm just a lump sucking up oxygen.
(32:48):
So you know, again, I found my purpose in life when I got sober and started working with
others.
Since I started being of service to other people, you know, and it started out small,
just learning to be of service is a process.
And you didn't start out working in recovery?
No, I did not.
No, my service works really started when I was in RCA as a patient and I just, for whatever
(33:15):
reason, just started helping the people that would just come in, you know, their first
day, their second day and show them around and that started to make me feel good to do
that.
So I'm all about making myself feel good, you know what I mean?
So you know, it kind of went from there.
But then once I got out and I joined a program, you know, and learning that I have to act
(33:38):
selfish, selflessly, start doing for others and thinking of other people, the blessings
will start coming back to me.
How do you bring that sense of purpose to the mundane to, because I don't know if it's
okay to share.
Yeah, but like you probably weren't working your dream job the moment you got out of recovery.
(34:01):
No, not at all.
Or out of treatment.
I hated the job I was working when I got up.
But you did it.
But I did it because I had to.
So how do you bring that purpose to the mundane?
Well, again, my experience, you know, by going to meetings, number one, and, you know, learning
to be of service to the people in those meetings.
(34:22):
And then after that, branching out to being of service to people all around me, even on
my job.
But you know, if it wasn't for having a relationship with a higher power and, you know, even wanting
to do those things, I never would have gotten to the place where, you know, I'm working
my dream job and I finally have a purpose after 40 years.
(34:44):
Do you have a memory of doing an active service, either one of you, that you would have never
done before and going, oh my goodness, this is a new me?
Small little acts of service.
Buying people coffee, you know, in the line at Starbucks for no reason other than to be
(35:06):
nice.
Because that would have never happened.
And that's a little random act of being of service to someone else.
Right off the top of my head.
That was so not me.
I have one, actually now it doesn't seem strange at all.
But when I did get sober, the first time I ever served in a food line in a food kitchen,
(35:30):
that was it.
And I've shared, I told you about a friend of mine actually came through that line and
he didn't see me until he raised his head to take the food.
And when we locked eyes, it was a moment.
Yeah, because I could have been exactly where he was because we lived the same lifestyle.
(35:54):
But the fact that I knew I had changed, because one, I felt, you know what, it was one of
those moments when you, in my act of addiction, I would say like, you know, you got to be
crazy to stand up there and serve somebody else.
It was not something I saw as being a random act of kindness, didn't exist.
(36:19):
I didn't know what that was.
And then for me to be, you know, to be removed from that place, meaning, I don't know which
place, but to actually be serving somebody else and feel glad about it.
That, you know, when I knew I had changed.
I knew I wanted to, this is what I wanted to do.
(36:41):
Not being paid for it, just showed up and helped.
And I've been doing that.
And I hope to continue doing it.
I think the only other one off the top of my head is sharing my experience, strength and
hope with other people.
Oh, that's a good one.
Because it doesn't sound like that was ever something you would get up in front of a crowd
(37:03):
of people and talk.
No.
About anything.
Your experience, strength and hope.
Not at all.
I was the complete opposite.
You know.
And we had you speak just to give everyone a from reference.
She spoke at our Capital Region alumni event.
200 people there, tons of alums.
(37:27):
Yeah.
I mean, and you were fabulous.
Thank you.
I was nervous, but I still do it because it is helping other people.
I know now that, you know, even if I think that my story might not be as bad to someone
else's or, but I know now that it's my story and it will help other people.
What was that like that?
(37:51):
Agreeing to do that for the first time.
Oh, it was scary.
I was very, very nervous.
Was it something you had said, no, I'm not doing that?
I said, well, because I'm a people pleaser, I automatically will say yes.
And then I'm like, oh, I should have never said that.
And then I'm thinking, you're getting a sore throat.
Yes.
But, uh, tummy ache.
I'm sorry.
(38:12):
I can't be there today.
My hands were sweating.
Yeah.
Look, coming up with the excuse is not to do it, but I did it anyway.
But I just to get through it at the beginning, I'm like, I am so nervous.
I really hope I don't mess this up.
And then I just did it.
And once I did that for the first time, it was, it was weird.
It was like a weight lifted off my shoulders.
(38:33):
Now in the beginning sharing my story, now like, I can, like an emotional thing happens
when you're done because you've talked about certain things.
So the next day can kind of be off.
At least it was for me in the very beginning, but I did it.
And once I did that for the first time and people were nodding their heads at me or saying,
yeah, me too.
(38:54):
There's no feeling like that.
Um, in helping someone else by sharing my experience helps other people.
And you know, from there, I just was like, I'm game.
I'll do it because there, there is, there's nothing like the feeling of saying someone,
we, man, me too.
You helped me a lot with that.
(39:15):
And here again, I think my story is like, yeah, whatever.
You know, it's nothing, but it's really not to someone else.
It can be, um, you know, a life, lifesaver to someone else, you know, so, um, that gave
me my purpose.
And, um, that is, yeah, the best, uh, being of service that I can do.
(39:37):
So yeah, that's good.
What other cards you got, Henry?
I mean, call another card from the day.
Another card.
I don't know about that one.
Oh, let's see what this says.
What fairy tale character would you represent, would, would most represent you?
(40:00):
Please explain.
It just popped in my head as I read it.
He was going to put it away till he got an answer.
He didn't care about us having an answer.
As I read it, what fairy tale character would most represent you?
Please explain the beast from beauty and the beast.
Misunderstood.
And if you, the, in this story, not just misunderstood, but he was so self-centered,
(40:25):
you know, it's all about himself in the beginning and he had to go through something, meaning
being transformed to a beast.
Um, oh wow, I'm thinking of that story too.
He had to go through that.
He had to be transformed into a beast and experienced life like that in that state.
(40:46):
And someone had to actually, what, care for him, which he cared for nobody, but somebody
had to care for him in order for that spell to be broken.
Yeah, I think because in the beginning, when I, oh, that one kind of got me.
Early in my addiction, throughout my addiction, that was me.
(41:08):
I was so self-centered.
I was so much into myself and what I could get, even from other people.
I didn't care about how I treated people or how, you know, what I did to them and how
it affected them.
You know, it was all about Henry.
It was all about me.
And it actually took for, you know, I'm thinking about my wife right now.
(41:29):
It took for somebody else to actually, you know, stand with me and understand.
Wow.
I wasn't, I wasn't that bad of a person.
I was a mess, but my wife has been with me for 26 years now.
25, I'm sorry, just turned 25.
25 years now, throughout my addiction, she's still there.
(41:54):
Yeah, because she didn't see what I was, how I saw myself, the way I treated people.
I think she met me.
I know for a fact she met me during a time, you know, when I was not a child.
I was addicted.
You know, in my addiction, I've had those moments where I put together a little time
(42:17):
and when I wasn't using the drinking, I think God had to have a hand in that.
I met her in one of those gaps.
So when that other person showed up, my addicted self showed up, the beast part of me showed
up.
She knew knew me different than that.
That wasn't me.
And she stood with me throughout, throughout it all.
(42:38):
And wow, that is so incredible.
That's coming in my head right now.
That's all I'm saying about that.
Not a question for me.
I can't think of one fairytale.
Me either.
Character at all.
Henry, you can draw another part.
Yeah, like Forrest Gump said, that's all I have to say about that.
(43:05):
You want to hit this one?
I saw the word fear, but it says share what it feels like to you when you feel fear, both
physically and emotionally.
And it acts another part.
What is that a healthy way of coping with fear?
(43:27):
That's a good one.
Yeah, that's a little in depth.
For me, I mean, what it feels like when I'm afraid I get anxiety.
Yeah, that's hard for me to describe.
I'm not good at expressing how I feel.
(43:51):
But my mind starts to race.
I will start to isolate.
I will come up with excuses of not reasons why I'm not going to do something.
My heart will race.
My hands will sweat.
But today, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot more that goes into that.
(44:13):
But today, the healthy way that I cope with that today is I rely on my higher power.
Fear is so in threaded in me.
It goes so far down and it applies to every area of my life.
And if I let that control me, it will stop me from doing just about anything.
(44:34):
And the only way that I can cope with getting over my fear is asking my higher power to
remove that fear, give me courage.
Now that's usually where I go.
Now sometimes if I'm afraid, I can share about it with another alcoholic or addict.
And just sharing that feeling, expressing how I feel and then getting maybe a little
(44:58):
feedback will give me the courage.
But nine times out of ten, it's my higher power.
And usually I think fear is tricky.
You can get over a fear and it comes back on you, that same fear.
And you have to go through.
Yeah.
You have to push back.
You kind of have to take your, we go back to that autonomy, we go back to that control,
that power.
Yeah.
(45:19):
Wait a minute.
Yeah.
You have to go through this and you have to completely do the cycle again.
Yeah.
It never goes away.
A fear of judgment that pops up.
I'm afraid of people judging me.
But I know that, you know, that it just, the reality of that is nobody's judging me.
You know what I mean?
(45:39):
And even if they are, it doesn't matter.
But I have to constantly tell that, yeah, I can get rid of that today, but it'll be
back tomorrow.
It'll come right back tomorrow.
It'll come right back tomorrow.
So.
And sometimes we misunderstand, it's like, well, I didn't, it didn't work for me.
Right.
Because it's coming back.
And no, it worked.
You just got to keep working.
Keep doing it.
Right?
(46:00):
You got to keep doing it.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And those are the things that, you know, because I work a program and, you know, giving
that stuff and asking God to remove those defects.
That's a character defect for me is fear.
And you know, I have to constantly on a daily basis ask God to remove that fear.
But if it pops up, which it does, yeah, just spot check and talk to myself, you know, face
(46:21):
that fear.
Think about how it is in the real reality and not the fear based reality I'm creating
in my mind.
But yeah.
This has been so good.
Thank you both for sharing with us today.
Thank you listeners for joining us on the podcast.
If you have a question you'd like to ask Amber or Henry or myself or just that we could use
(46:46):
on a future podcast inbox us, we would love to hear from you.
Love to hear your ideas and your thoughts on the podcast.
If you would give us a little review on the podcast, we would love that.
Give us all the stars you can give us.
And we just want to be of service.
I think this is the biggest thing about the podcast is sharing experience, strength and
(47:07):
hope of our alums and our coordinators and other staff and friends of RCA and then just
really giving back and being of service.
So thank you for listening today.
Thank you Amber and Henry.
For all you do for our alums, check out RCA alumni dot com for a full calendar of events
(47:29):
coming near you soon.
(47:52):
Thank you for listening to the Strength and Recovery podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, please tap the subscribe button and leave us a review.
We love hearing from our listeners and hope to reach more of you out there as we continue
to share these incredible stories of recovery.
The RCA alumni team aims to provide a safe, supportive environment for those in the recovery
(48:16):
community regardless of their affiliation with RCA.
We host a full calendar of virtual and in-person meetings seven days a week, 365 days a year
as well as free sober events every month.
To learn more about what we do, find us at RCA alumni dot com.
(48:37):
Remember if you or a loved one is struggling with addiction, pick up the phone and dial
1-833-RCA-ALUMN.
Help is available 24 seven.
Listen to another episode now or join us next time for the Strength and Recovery podcast.
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