Spiritually Committed To Recovery Or Being Preoccupied By Recovery

Joseph, Hello and welcome. I am your host. Joseph Devlin, and please, if you found this podcast to be helpful or useful to you in any way, please like and subscribe the to this podcast as it boosts the algorithm and will definitely help get this message out to more people, and I want to thank you in advance for doing that. And on today's show, what we're going to discuss is this idea of spiritually committed to recovery or being preoccupied by recovery. So let's get at it. So this statement was brought to me by a friend and a whole group and community of people that I, I am connected with. And the gentleman threw out the idea. He said, I read this thing, and it says, Are you spiritually committed to recovery?

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Are you being preoccupied by recovery? And,

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initially I just thought, Okay, well, this is just about living recovery, or just kind of doing something. But as I start to think about it a little bit more, and I thought about recovery as being like the mind, the body and the spirit, those three parts. And yes, once I stop putting that substance or that addiction into my body, or I start stop participating in that. You know, my body feels better, my mind starts feeling a little bit clearer. I begin feeling a little bit more spiritually connected to people and being and feeling alive again. So you know that it happens automatically. However, in the recovery field, there

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with your engaged in a 12 step community, you're asked to do things. There's suggestions out there saying, Hey, listen, if you want to have long term sobriety, here's some things that you can do. And often the suggestion, the first suggestion is, go to 90 meetings in 90 days. This is so valuable. Was so crucial to myself in the beginning of my recovery. I'm so grateful for that. There were so many things that I learned from that it it had to do with, you know, developing a routine. It preoccupied me from not participating in, you know, in my addiction and doing something constructive. I was able to meet people. I was able to, you know, begin opening up and hearing different ideas. I mean, it was so valuable.

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However, if all I ever did was just go to meetings, go to meetings,

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after a period of time, there would be something I missed, I would just be preoccupied with recovery that's not really living, you know, not taking anything from those meetings. So it wouldn't be really living on spiritual principles.

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So, you know,

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in recovery and in life in general, many times we look for the black and white. It's either this or it's that.

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What I have learned over

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a long period of time, and it's continuing to expand, is that it's not just black and white. There's many shades of gray, and that allows me to feel happy with myself and how I live and how I interact with others. So I want you to keep that in mind as some as as we're talking today, and you know, some of the suggestions that also come from recovery, you know, is like 90 meetings in 90 days. Hey, you know, share a meeting. Be part of the service and make the coffee. Share at meetings, get involved. Have a sponsor. Have sponsors. These are things that you know can fill up your day extremely quick. And again, if this is all I'm doing, you know, it's great in the beginning, because I did need a preoccupation. I mean, I needed to be preoccupied from my addiction. You know, those those moments where I just could feel a common at peace, when I was engaged in the community. However, you know, if that's all I ever did, you know, and I've seen it happen with people you know, a year later, two years later, they're, you know, the talk for them is often like, oh, I chair this many meetings this month. I have this many spawn sees. Over the weekend, I listened to this. Any you know, fifth steps I shared at this meeting. And as you can hear it, the the commonality there is the i statement, I did this, I did that, and it almost becomes like this checklist. And I've seen them the mindset being that, hey, I'm continuing to be very, very active. I'm helping all these people, which is extremely important. It's a cornerstone of remaining sober, is being able to help people. However, when it just becomes about me, I've seen the mindset change to be like, hey, you know what? Maybe I just needed to put a few more disciplines in my life. Hey, maybe things weren't really as bad as they were. And it starts opening that door to saying, like, hey, maybe you know, I could just go back out again and start using a little bit because, hey, I know I can do this. See, look at all this wonderful stuff I've been doing, and without that spiritual connectedness, without that spiritual change in the recovery, you know, being able to, you know, have, you know, listen to somebody's, you know, fifth step, and not just go on to the next one, but maybe to be able to process Some things out to say, hey, wait, that sounded really familiar. And getting a chance to kind of look at myself and go, Oh, my I never made that connection before. That same thing happened in my life. I need to go make it amends, or sometimes even in that process, you know, where I can slow down enough and be present with somebody when they're, you know, when they're sharing with me, you know, their fifth step and and I go, Oh my, I did something very similar to that. Now I see your point of view, and I could see how this other person would have responded. You know, it gives me more of that empathy for other people, but it also encourages me on this spiritual level that, hey, you know, I, you know, one of my values and one of my motives in life is not to make anybody's life more miserable. Like, if I can avoid that, I don't want to do that. So I can start seeing how, oh, maybe this person did respond that way, and I'm not seeing any of this, if, again, it's just, I'm just trying to see how many people I can just run out there and help. And I see it because through good mentorship, through being connected with people, just on an individual basis, for even the person who throughout this challenge, you know, are you? Are you living that, you know, spiritually committed to recovery, or am I being preoccupied by recovery? You know, if I don't have folks like that sharpening me and then having a community to speak to about it, I'm not going to grow, and I'm going to miss some of these just amazing things to learn even more about my values and my motives, and some of that started, you know, by being connected, you know, originally coming into the program and working through, you know, some inventories. People call it your fourth step, or even just looking at a review of my day and how I responded to people. I start looking at, hey, what are my motives? And, you know, being able to outline values, you know, what are those values I want to live by today? So, you know, I this. Hopefully you can see, I've seen this, you know, too often, that it becomes in the just solely the doing of something that overtakes this whole recovery process, meaning that spiritual life living this different spiritual life. And so if you do know somebody in recovery, feel free to ask them, you know, questions like, Hey, how come it's important to you to, you know, chair this meeting, hey, you know, what is it about this meeting that you go to that you really appreciate just starting to understand some of their connectedness. Hey, what is some of the benefits you've had from being able to listen to somebody's, you know, taking somebody through their fourth and fifth step, and you know, it would create some really great opportunities for them to even learn about themselves. And you know, it will spark that next level of, hmm, yeah, I'm really appreciating, you know, what I'm doing, and they can figure out the the whys they're doing what they're doing, and the values behind that, because I know when folks, I know, who are just kind of doing things and serving in all different capacities in the 12 step community, if they don't expand beyond that, they definitely ask themselves that question, is this all there is, and I'm here to tell you, there's so much more. And you know, it's also a beauty about being. Recovery is that in the recovery field, like you're going to ask yourself that question, is this it? And you're going to get to that question faster than most people do, because I think almost everyone in society asks themselves that question, is this it? And I'm telling you, there's so much more, and this kind of brings me to, like, really the second point I just want to be able to cover. It's like, you know, beyond the the doing in in the 12 step community, in recovery, there's this idea that as long as I'm spiritually fit, I can go anywhere and do anything, even in things that, like in my act of addiction, I never thought that I could go back and do so, for example, like going back into a bar, like how I thought I could never do that again. But as long as I'm on Fit spiritual ground, I can do that. And you know, the fun part about this is like, hey, how do I know if I'm on firm spits, firm fit spiritual ground. Well, I have to, for me, I need to know, like my values and what my motives, what are the things that I'm doing? Why am I doing what I'm doing? And I also need to, you know, take that time, to take that introspective look at myself. I need to have those interpersonal relationships where I'm talking with at least one other person to kind of bounce some ideas off of here, kind of what's going on in their life. And then I also need to be in a community of people, community of people who are looking to continue to know God continually to build on spiritual principles and live a different spiritual way of life. And, you know, I just want to give you some of these ideas about being like, you know, being on firm speech, firm spiritual ground. Now, not recommending this for anybody. But when I got sober, I was bartending, and I believe it was enough that I was committed to staying sober, that God really helped me as I was going to work, and I wasn't picking up, you know, and I wasn't using while I was working as a bartender, and, you know, but I knew I came to that realization I believe, you know, God really put that conviction inside of me that said, Listen, you cannot continue to do this. You continue to do this, it's not going to work out well for you. You're not staying sober. And I had to deal with the dilemma of, okay, well, what am I going to do? Like this has been my livelihood. This is what's putting, a roof over my head.

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And I said, Okay, well, one thing I could do is step gradually back, you know, step down from this. So can I start waiting tables? And I'm like, if I start waiting tables, are going to make a lot less money. I don't know what's going to happen, but I really knew I had to make some kind of changes. So as I was stepping out of bartending, I started waiting tables. And you know, I a firm believer that when my motives and my intentions are right, you know, God's going to provide and protect in those scenarios. And lo and behold, like when I was waiting tables, if I wasn't making as much, I was making more on many evenings. And unlike maybe the one shift that I would still have to bartend until I could fully move out from waiting tables, I would make double the money that I had ever made. And so it was just these things I knew I was moving in the right direction till I could finally, you know, move myself back out, go back to school and, you know, get into counseling. So never, ever thought that I could possibly be in that particular place. But part of recovery and living a spiritual life is that, like I love the idea that, hey, I could still be on the firing lines of life. I still need to show up. I still need to be fully self supporting. I still need to be, you know, providing that roof over my head and be engaged with people and be in places and available for people who, who do need assistance. And sometimes it just meant that I was going to have to bartend for a little bit. And, you know, but I'll give you another example. You know, I was about six months sober, and, you know, football season was coming around, and I had two friends, and you know, you know, I rationalized this idea of going out to a bar that night and watching Monday Night Football with them, because it was a big game, and at the time, you know, you only had Monday Night Football on one channel, and I didn't have that channel. And so we all, we all went out and we had a, you know, we had a good time. Nobody drank like we were good, you know. And we, we left. That evening. We had some fun together, but we left that evening, and, you know, the buddy of mine who was who was sober as as well, you know, we talked about it afterwards, and we were like, Yeah, that was good.

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We enjoyed, sticking our head in the lion's den.

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I don't think the positive motive was really there. I mean, did the game really change our life? But, you know, knowing that we liked to kind of play with fire a little bit, but then we made the other decision to say, You know what, okay, we did that, but you know what, we don't need to do that again. And so we didn't and, and that's okay, but I had somebody else there that I could, you know, bounce that idea off of. That's something that we went through that experience with together, and that was really important. And if I'm just, you know, preoccupied with my recovery, I mean, I could have gone in there and tried to pull people off the bar stools and tell them that they needed AA, and just shout it from the rooftops, you know, that you got to do things my way. I could have gone there and just completely, you know, missed having any fun or interactions with people, you know, but I had this opportunity to really check and say, What were my motives? Am I really living on spiritual principles? And for me, that decision was, you know, no this, this was something I did, but now I get to reel it back in and live a little bit different, a little live a little bit differently in a way of life, and the people I want to spend time with and be connected with. And this last point that I want to really bring up with you today is as I was digging deeper into, you know, this question and this challenge, like, how was I living my recovery out? And I want to read something right from the book Alcoholics Anonymous. And there's this thought that not only could you go anywhere that you want once you're on firm spit, you know, firm fit spiritual condition, right? But also this idea that we we cease fighting everything and everyone. And so here it says, After all, our problems were of our own making. The addictions were only a symbol. Besides, we had, we have stopped fighting anybody or anything. We have to. There's another piece in recovery we have to.

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There's such a fortunate thing about me going into recovery, I often, would say, I am a grateful, I'm a grateful addict, because the thing is, I had to take this look at myself and this concept that I had to stop fighting everything and everyone, because my life depends upon it. In recovery, many people can go through life, and they can fight with whoever they want, but their life doesn't depend upon it. If I go back out into substances, right? I don't know what's going to happen.

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I may not be here tomorrow. But for other for other people go through life, they don't. They don't have that. They don't. It's not the stakes aren't that high. Mine is death. So if you're in the recovery field, taking that, taking that, what I just read to heart, really means something. And so it's like, well, how do I stop fighting everything and everyone. I mean, I'm a person who walks into my house and, you know, I walk into the wrong room. I was going to go pick something out of that room, and I walk into it, and I'm like, Why was I coming in here? I'm such an idiot. I'm so stupid. I can never remember anything. I'm fighting myself, and I don't want to live that way. So first I I have to, like, really look at this, this process of, how do I stop fighting with myself? And, that's a problem of my own making,

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to really take a look at that and take that responsibility. I believe that's a spiritual principle when I'm taking the responsibility for my life and saying my problems were from my own making my problems were happening with my body as I'm ingesting substance. My body's happening. It's affecting me on a cellular level. It's affecting my mind in the way I'm thinking, and it's making me feel spiritually dead, thinking that, hey, I don't even belong here, like I'd be better off dead. And I'm glad that the substances have been put down. I'm glad that I have hope today that there's a different way to live life, because these problems were all of my own making. I know the God I serve, he tells me I'm a child of God. Yeah, and he tells me that I am important, and, you know, he wants to see me and have fun in this life. And I never thought of that, you know, so if, if you, if you know somebody who's in recovery, this is a great place to bring it back to right, like, have we stopped fighting anybody or anything. And you know that anybody started with me, and then that anything, you know, would be going to a meeting and not liking what somebody was sharing about, and boom, you know, I mean, that's just fighting in my own head about this, like I'm creating these own problems in my own mind, and I don't get that if I'm not networked in with, like a sponsor, a mentor, with people who are who are looking to make the changes I was looking to make in my life. And if I'm not connected in a community that's wanting to grow spiritually. And you know, this really does, you know, all of these talks got me to thinking about, you know, in in Luke 10, Jesus talks about sending out the 72 two by two. And he says, You go and you preach the gospel. You share that with people, but you also go and you heal. You show people that there's this different way of living, and I needed that. I needed somebody to show me there was a different way of recovery, but I also needed somebody to show me that there was a different spiritual path, like because there is more from what I remember as a kid, the spirituality, the relationship with God. I just remembered it differently, and I had kind of gone away from it, and I needed to get reconnected with that. So when people show me a way to live that is on spiritual principles, man, I'm like, I want to know more from them. I'm gonna get hungry and I want to know more. So, like, there's this responsibility for me to be able to do that, not only in my own recovery, with reaching out for other people, also spiritually, I need to be reaching out to people, showing that there's another spiritual way to live, to live life. And you know, one thing I really do like about that these passages in Luke is also at the way, and many of you are very, very familiar with the story of Martha and Mary, and Martha's she's serving, and she's, you know, she's being preoccupied with doing so many things, and yet Mary's just sitting at the feet of Jesus, learning from him, spending time with him. And Jesus says, Yes, Martha, what you're doing is great, but Mary has chosen the greater. So there in lies this, this gray area that we're talking about is that we need to be engaged and we need to be active, but yet there's times to be just sit and be spiritually, get spiritually fed so I can go and do and for me that is so inspiring and so encouraging that I they have to remind myself that, you know, I know that I live in a world that is set up to keep going and going and going and not celebrate, just go on to the next thing. And I've learned that I need to slow down and celebrate accomplishments, you know, because I can, you know, I can live in this world. I don't have to live of the world. And I can set up my own routines and my own ways of hey, what am I taking How am I taking care of myself, uh, physically, how am I taking care of myself mentally? How am I taking care of myself spiritually? And these are questions you can ask anybody who's in recovery, and see what they say. See, you know, see what that discussion really leads to. And you know, if I am not digging deeper on these spiritual levels, I am not going to be as good to other people. It's just the way it is. So I want to put out a challenge to everybody this week. And really, here is the challenge. It's spend some time with your family, just getting to know them. Spend time if you're in a 12 step community, go there, right, but or learn about the 12 step community, getting to know them and what they're what they're about. Spend time with God, because you will get to know him, and then spend time with your spouse or your Spartan or your partner and get to know them. And if you don't have a spouse or a partner, really close good friend, and it's about being intentional with your time you. And what I have learned in through recovery is that I have the ability to really set aside intentional times and create what I want to do in those intentional times. So make it fun where you can, or at least make it peace filled. Set up those set up those times, you know, invite people in when they're spending those times with them. It could be, you know, the easy one is a cup of coffee, or a board game, or a card game, you know, something just where you're sitting around, kind of in a circle many times, you know, or just at the table and, you know, just, you know, asking them about their day, a high and low of the day, if that's all you get. You know, if this is a challenge for you, it's such a valuable question, you know, like, hey, what was a high of the day? What was a low of the day? You know, what would you goal you would like to do today? Hey, how will you celebrate your alone time today? And that allows them to slow down as well. And I'm telling you, when you do this with these, with these groups of folks, right, you're going to find that you're going to experience more energy, you're going to you're going to have a vibrance for yourself, and you're going to have a decrease in stress level. And my experience is that when you do this, you will want to do it again. So thank you for being here with me today and until our next episode, remember sobriety is a family affair.