Be Good To You

I’m Paul Summers, your neighborhood addict, alcoholic, overeater, and co-dependent. Good God Man! Thank you for clicking on this translation of the Taking Steps 2020 episode from my Be Good To You Podcast: Step One, admitting we’re powerless over our vices and that our lives have begun spinning out of control. If you feel like you are unable to live with or without drugs, booze, binge-eating, or an unhealthy relationship, keep reading… “ The ultimate weapon for recovery is the recovering person.” (Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text {Fifth Edition Pg. 15}) For this Taking Steps 2020 post, I’m breaking up the monthly topics to coincide with the twelve steps which began with AA, and are used by NA, Celebrate Recovery, Al-Anon as well as other rehab and treatment centers. If the program you’re working is influenced by the twelve steps and wasn’t mentioned, please notify me, I would like to include it. I cannot stress enough the importance of going through each month’s topic starting from January: Step One. These Taking Steps Episodes are in order for a reason. I know from experience, that it can be very tempting to jump forward. For example, maybe you’ve been clean or sober for a little while now and you’re really feeling the clarity of your actions, so you’d like to make it up to those you’ve harmed. Please hold on; you’ll need to practice trust and patience. Trust that the steps are in order for a reason; they are the result of generations of trial and error and continuous improvement. Have patience in knowing there’s more internal work you’ll need to do before you move on. We’re either growing or molding. This month’s Topic is two-fold: Powerlessness , and Unmanageability . Part One: Powerlessness. The first thing we need to work on is staying clean. If your story is like mine, you were not a person of integrity nor accountability when you were loaded. I was so broken by my years of active using, it was easy for me to identify myself as an addict and alcoholic. If you have trouble with this admission, I can only suggest that you try to be open minded. If you don’t believe identifying yourself in this way is an admission of the truth, and not some variation on denying what is, or how things could or should be, then keep listening, maybe even try praying before deciding. Now, I’m all over social media. I spend hours researching public opinion. That glutton-for-punishment side of myself just won’t die-it doesn’t seem to want to go away! Anyway, I’m seeing the negative comments attached to identifying as an addict, alcoholic, etc; that it’s demeaning, that it’s a cultish breaking of spirit. In over a decade of recovery, I haven’t seen any evidence of that being the case. I’ve never seen anyone harmed by admitting they suspect something about their life is unhealthy. Ask yourself this, “Could you ever control your using for any length of time?” I couldn’t. I tried many times and in many ways. This happens at varying degrees for each individual. I’ve tried using different combinations of drugs, different drugs, and devoted abstinence from one (which was booze) by substitution of another (pain pills). I stopped drinking for ten years while my opioid and stimulant abuse spiraled out of control. Here’s another example: You might be able to go a month having just one line before work. Then, one weekend, you go apeshit and burn through two 8-balls and miss work Monday, then Tuesday you're back to one line. This could be your reality for years. Then it changes. That’s when you know. Your ability to control the vice is waning, fast. And it is progressive. I’ll get into why you might have the disease of addiction, and help you with a clear understanding of what that means, in a different podcast. Powerlessness is using against our will. It’s acknowledging the endless thoughts related to using, getting more, and never running out of drugs. It’s also the compulsive impulse to continue using, no matter what happens. There is a part of you who really wants to stop. This part of you is clawing its way up through the denial, justification and rationalization of unhealthy thoughts and behaviors. If those aspects win, you’ll end up either on the streets, in prison, leaching the lifeblood out of someone who loves you, or you will die. I can’t describe your options any more truthfully than that. Have you tried quitting and could not? Have you tried doctors, treatment programs, religion, moving, changing jobs, getting into crazy relationships, or being intentionally alone? Me too. No instant fix all my complex thoughts could think of could permanently hold back my obsession to get loaded again. It always resurfaced. When I ran out of ways to trick myself that I didn’t have a problem. When the truth became undeniable that I could not overcome my own unhealthy compulsions, I again asked for help—this time, however, I opened up to receive it, to allow it, to give it a chance. I surrendered my destructive will for a willingness to listen to people who were getting and staying clean. The message of recovery is a pain in the ass sometimes. But since we can’t save our face and our ass at the same time, we’re better off allowing ourselves to give it some thought. Looking good on the outside is not going to save your life. Part Two: Unmanageability. When I ran out of ways to trick myself that I didn’t have a problem. When the truth became undeniable that I could not overcome my own unhealthy compulsions, I again asked for help—this time, however, I opened up to receive it, to allow it, to give it a chance. I surrendered my destructive will for a willingness to listen to people who were getting and staying clean. Indulging in my vices, I concluded, would always lead me back to physical, mental, and spiritual pain. And no matter how much I isolated myself to protect those who loved me, no matter how cruelly I severed my ties, I still hurt people when I partook of those vices. It’s what we as addicts, alcoholics, overeaters, and co-dependents do. It’s one thing we have in common. We end up in a place where our lying to ourselves has to stop if we’re ever hoping to get well. The lies are what led us to believe we were doing okay, when in reality, our lives had become unmanageable. I remember thinking this way when I ran out of dope: If I could just take one more hit, I could shut off my craving’s-infected brain long enough to figure out how to abstain – for good this time. Then, after I got that ‘one more hit,’ which was usually more than one – just in case, my brain would tell me to go ahead and finish off the last of this most recent score, THEN I will stop. In fact, I often obsessed on getting clean immediately after I took that hit! What was really going on was that I found a way to beat myself up for doing what I wanted, and for not doing what I wanted. Eventually that feeling of self-loathing, coupled with a lack of worthiness, brought me to a hopeless place where I didn’t give a shit anymore. Fuck it. If you don’t think your life is unmanageable, ask someone who loves you. They may not tell you in the kindest terms. They may tell you in a way that ‘makes’ you want to go get loaded. If that’s not enough proof, go to a meeting of people who have reclaimed their lives from their destructive vices, and listen. If you don’t identify with anything they are saying, try somewhere else. Please don’t allow your wandering mind to get caught up in crap that has nothing to do with your recovery. It will want to. It will want to tell you you are different. It will want to tell you you are not that bad off. It will want to tell you you can’t do this; you can’t have what these recovering people have. It won’t tell you that you’ll need to completely change how you think or you’ll likely go back to using. It won’t tell you you’re destroying a beautiful being. It won’t tell you You may have to wait until you can no longer stand how you go about life. Not until something drastic compels you to admit to the unmanageability which plagues you— Not until then are you able to see how drugs have been unwillingly given the power to change you into someone you didn’t ever want to be. Hey. We need each other. I don’t know of anyone, successful or otherwise, who has mastered the ability to manage their life completely alone. So what makes us believe we can when we’ve totally isolated ourselves from family, relationships, employment, and social interaction? We need to be connected to be able to know ourselves more deeply and clearly. By opening our mouth’s, we are fed. This long-overdue admission of being sick and tired of being sick and tired sets us headed in a new direction. We may come to find a Power greater than ourselves has been there with us all along. We may have heard or witnessed glimpses of a kinder, loving, presence which saved us from certain demise. You are loved. Even those who have died of our vices were loved. I hope this helps you. I live for interaction and connection. Remember, Be Good To You.

I’m Paul Summers, your neighborhood addict, alcoholic, overeater, and co-dependent. Good God Man! Thank you for clicking on this translation of the Taking Steps 2020 Be Good To You Podcast: Step Two, Coming to believe someone or something greater than ourselves could guide us away from the insanity of using. If you feel like you are unable to live with or without drugs, booze, binge-eating, or an unhealthy relationship, keep listening… “The ultimate weapon for recovery is the recovering person.” (Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text {Fifth Edition Pg. 14}) I cannot stress enough the importance of going through each Taking Steps Episode starting from January. They are in order for a reason. I know from experience, that it can be very tempting to jump forward. Please hold on; you’ll need to practice trust and patience. Trust that the steps are the result of generations of trial and error and continuous improvement. Have patience in knowing there is internal work you’ll need to do before you move on. We’re either ripening or we’re regressing. – Paul Summers Alright, so let’s get started on this month’s Topic, which really is HOPE – coming to believe that, not in, a Power greater than ourselves which could restore our lives to sanity. As I said in the Step One podcast, the first thing we need to work on each time we start our day is how to stay clean by getting through today. Once we’ve been able to abstain from our vice; once we’ve given our focus to the tools of recovery, how do we keep from returning to not only using, but the wildly unmanageable, unhealthy, undermining, destructive thoughts and behaviors which we know have the ability spin like a tornado in our head? I mean, many of us got to the point where we were so used to the tornado, it’s whirlwind and it’s damage felt normal. We couldn’t see how picking up, maybe not picking up, maybe even knowing we want to pick up, is what set the tornado in motion. It’s our thoughts which need to be changed, but how? How do we alter our thought-led behaviors? Haven’t we tried this already? I know I did, in multiple ways. For example, As a musician, I wrote and performed music – it brought me to dark places – addiction – when I first got clean I thought, if I stop doing music – then maybe I won’t want to get high. Depriving yourself, or being a martyr encourages unhealthy thought-led behaviors. My disease used deception to bring me to a point of feeling dismissed-a point where rationalization gave me the validation my disease needed so that I’d keep using. I began to feel alone again. Before long, life became too hard to bear. What is going to replace our old thinking, if not ourselves? My sponsor, Eric E. shared at a meeting that “we can’t expect our minds to come up with a new way of thinking on their own.” There was a time I didn’t think I needed anybody. I had all the answers. All you humans couldn’t fix me as well as I could, right? But how does that work if I’m the one breaking me in the first place? Only someone with the experience and clarity of clean/sober time can have the openness and mental functionality to digest a new thought. How obvious is the insanity of the following behaviors to you? When I didn’t want to use, I would go score a bag. Being unable to decide between rent and a bag of the good shit. Deciding between a child support payment and a bottle—regardless of the consequences. Choosing between showing up for work on time or waiting outside in the cold and rain where your dealer said she’d meet you? Life can be, and is at different times, hard for every human on the planet. We have spent many hours using just to not feel this pain deeply or struggle daily. As we return to experiencing reality as it is, without the numbing or enhancements, we might also begin to see the root or at least a cause of many of those difficulties was our vice – drugs, booze, life-threatening sex, overeating, etc. Take a deep breath. There is a Power working in your life which is greater than you or me. It may have a lot to do with why you are still alive to listen to this podcast. It is kinder to you and more loving of you than you have been to and of yourself. This Power wants to have a relationship with you, where you are open to a way of thinking besides your own – where you are open to allowing self-care, connection and interaction with people who are striving toward beneficial living, healthy decision making, and actions. Progress, not perfection. If you’re like me, all of your original plans or attempts to quit just made things worse. But when you tried a suggestion made by someone who has found success at staying clean, you were given evidence it could be done. Evidence. There is evidence of a Power working in your life if you look around to find it. In the program I work, I am free to decide for myself, free to choose for myself, what my understanding of this Power is, provided it is more caring, nurturing, and greater than me. I came to call this power, this Higher Power, God. I wasn’t raised with religion, so the word God doesn’t come with baggage for me. For you it might—and I understand it may be hard to separate a religious deity from a spiritual embodiment. This is your decision to make without any repercussion, criticism, or judgement. A loving Power will guide you towards love, courage, humility, compassion, respect, and an awareness of spiritual values. I think most religions began aspiring towards these values, but – ha, being run by humans – fell short. It may be uncomfortable. I’m suggesting that you nudge yourself gently to be open to a different set of thoughts than the ones you’ve been hiding from in your personal tornado shelter. I’m suggesting you look for coincidences which seem too unlikely, or miracles, or as my sponsor says, Neon Arrows. We don’t have to understand our HP completely to be open to it and it’s messages. Then see if it makes sense to be willing to try out what it suggests of us instead of sticking with what we think we know. In the First Step Podcast, we admitted that we are powerless over our vices, right? Part of admitting this shows a willingness to, at the very least entertain the idea, that stubbornly clinging to our thoughts has brought us to a place we never sought to end up. We are not in control of everything. We are not suffering a moral deficiency, thus there is no need for a religious exorcism or repentance to earn approval of others. We may have leaned too heavily on our own pride for answers, meanwhile closing ourselves off to solutions. We may have suffered tragedy which led to lost faith, feeling wronged, and have found temporary relief by blaming the skies for life’s terms. It really comes down to choosing whether or not you wish to stay in those patterns, or be open to a different perception. Mostly what is being asked is for you to ponder an alternate belief, look for proof either way, practice your finding, then honestly assess which path leads to a more rational thinking you can come to believe in. I hope this helps you. I live for interacting with you. Remember, Be Good To You.

I’m Paul Summers, your neighborhood addict, alcoholic, overeater, and co-dependent. Good God Man! Thank you for clicking on this translation of the Taking Steps 2020 Be Good To You Podcast: Step Three, making a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of our Higher Power, God, as we understand that Power. I’ll explain why I chose to change-up the wording in a minute. If you feel like you are unable to live with or without drugs, booze, binge-eating, or an unhealthy relationship, reading… “The ultimate weapon for recovery is the recovering person.” (Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text {Fifth Edition Pg. 15}) I cannot stress enough the importance of going through each Taking Steps episode starting from January. They are in order for a reason. I know from experience, that it can be very tempting to jump forward. Please hold on; if following rules, taking orders, doing things in order, or following someone else’s process is difficult for you, I understand. But if you’re willing to try something different for a brief period of time just to see if it works in ways which benefit you physically, mentally, or spiritually, I’m merely suggesting that you try practicing trust and patience. Trust that the order and the wording of the steps are the result of generations of trial and error and adapting through continuous improvement. Patience in knowing there is internal work you’ll need to pause long enough to work out before you move on from one to two to three, etc. This month’s Topic is FAITH – making a decision, then having faith in the outcome of the decision. As I said in the Step One podcast, the first thing we need to work on each time we start our day is how to stay clean/sober by getting through today. Right off the bat, you might be saying, this is a challenge. You might ask, “Am I supposed to make a decision, when I’ve already admitted my life is unmanageable? – When I’ve acknowledged how out of control I can get with or without drugs? – I mean, I used because things got out of control; then my using got out of control, which made everything else around me get even more out of control! … Now I’m supposed to make a decision?” Ok, ok. I get it. We’ve mostly never been able to control our using, so Where has all that effort and energy we’ve devoted to controlling everyone and everything around us gotten us? Are we able to turn these fear-based actions over? Could we let them go? But … but, if we do, who or what will replace them? It’s too scary, right? We’ve never known any other way. Our survival skills have become so distorted that, as we sink toward our bottom, the only thing that looks or shows promise is the path or action which leads us to the most immediate gratification. This path is deceiving. This path is a long, long loop back to square one. Maybe it beheld wonderful scenery and pleasurable perspectives; elation and rollercoaster dips that went so low that when we came up we actually believed it was our own doing – like an accomplishment. What we don’t always see is that every time we come back to the start, behind us are burned bridges and wreckage. Our disease in our heads tells us to go around again, that this time will be different; that given the right combination of substances and situations, we’ll be able to fix it all in short order. Our disease within lies in mythical proportions. When this loop becomes our routine, believe it or not, we’re in one of the most suitable places to seek something outside ourselves – something more caring and loving than we are to ourselves – to rely on. As addicts, we have a strange relation to destruction and detachment. We can keep breaking down more and more of our lives—much more than normal people. We’re so resourceful, we can hit a bottom and dig out a tunnel to a new bottom. And so on. It goes on until it doesn’t. If we’re among the luckiest ones, we get an “Oh Crap!” moment. In that moment, we can turn that stubborn will over to the care of a Higher Power. For you, the listener, I say H.P. instead of God because I don’t want you to stop reading before the miracle of recovery can find its way in. God and Higher Power are interchangeable words. The only difference is our perception of the concept. If you believe God is a female entity, or a collective conscience, or a non-entity, or anything, there is no limiting belief system you have to adhere to – ever – period. The Third step is not a religious obligation. In fact, none of them are. As I was saying, I don’t want you to click away from reading this before the miracle of recovery can find its way in to sit itself down right beside the disease within your head and offer an alternative to the thoughts you’ve, up until now, felt obliged to follow. In the Step Two Podcast, I asked: What is going to replace our old thinking, if not ourselves? This time I’m asking, how many times have your turned your will and your life over to getting loaded—turned it over to the destructive power of our disease? It’s probably been in your head for a while that a decision needs to be made. But our disease tricks us into believing the only decision we have is between going through withdrawals or taking more ‘medicine.’ Did you ever call it medicine? I did. I called it my relief, my cure; I’ve even called it my god. Eventually, we reach the point where even the first choice, to just deal with the withdrawals is not really feasible—especially if you’ve gone through the horrible suffering of withdrawals, then days or weeks later turned right back around and went back to using. This point at which our ability to decide has a different outer appearance for each of us. It might be reached when someone you love dearly is at wits end—distraught, broken by your confusing, conflicting words and actions. It might be on an especially cold night—when you’ve pissed through your sleeping bag tucked under the freeway. It might be when you can no longer pretend to function at work—maybe at the dream job you finally landed after years of struggling, which you’re about to lose but you say you don’t care because it no longer brings you joy. In my case, the day in which the outer appearance was no longer deniable came the day my then wife emptied our apartment while I was working, taking our daughter away indefinitely. For many of us, we had to reach this point in order to be willing to accept that the path we kept choosing to follow; the same one which has looped around on us time and again might just be unalterable. (by this point we discover that we’re not powerful enough to change it) We either find a way off of the path, or accept our fate: jail, death, or some drugged up institution in which any semblance of our personality disappears. Throughout our addiction, our willingness could be traced to our actions. I didn’t realize this until after a few years clean. If you’ve promised your kids you’d pick them up after school, but then didn’t show up until an hour later if at all, your actually weren’t willing to pick them up. If you needed to work a shift to pay for the fifth you planned on buying to get through the weekend, you worked. You made it through, maybe miserably, because you were willing to do whatever it takes to buy that bottle. Until, of course, you weren’t. I mention this because this Willingness to make the decision to turn your will and your life over needs to come from you. Only you. Only you. If anyone makes this decision for you, you will never know the sense of accomplishment it promises. This sense is HUGE for the future of anyone’s recovery. It could be a deal breaker, that’s how epic making this decision on your own is. If faith is not a reinforced strong suit for you. I suggest you look around for reinforcement. Search for people who have made this decision and pay attention to the outcome it provided for them. Let me clarify how making this decision is an ‘as needed’ action to take. I don’t think any part of the steps can be approached as a contract where you “have to do it this way until you die, or else.” It’s not that rigid. I wouldn’t have stuck around if it was. So let’s say we’ve become willing. We’ve decided, for now at least, we’re going to have faith in our decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understand God. Now what? Two cliché phrases I hear often come to mind. 1) let go and let God 2) The Third Step Prayer: Take my will and my life. Guide me in my recovery. Show me how to live. You might say, these are just words. But words are powerful. We pray with words, we confirm our hearts, emotions, and desires with words. Spoken words are a kind of outward expression of inner conviction. Organically, taking this decisive action implies that we are willing to surrender our will to our Higher Power—also known as turning it over. One simple way is to ask for guidance, then be prepared to hear, or see, feel or get an answer. It will come. Some know it in their gut. Some of us, depending on what we’re asking guidance for, it takes a little more than just a nudging feeling. And I hate saying don’t, but don’t ever feel you’re better off just to give up, that you aren’t’ cut out for this just because you ignored your Higher Power even when it seemed pretty clear what the guidance you were supposed to follow was. Looking at our situation that way is what I’ve come to find is just another opportunity for our disease to coerce us to go back to our ways. Even after we know it to our core that our Higher Power’s help is our best, most powerful source of strength and courage, every single one of us in recovery have, at some point, taken our will back. That’s why I said a few minutes ago that we need to revisit this decision and remake it as often as we realize it. This gets easier each time we remember to ask for our Higher Power’s will. We gradually find that our request to understand God’s will comes more and more from a place of honesty and sincerity. Don’t worry, we don’t get perfect! I’d like to say we get better, but the definition of ‘better’ is up to each person individually. If hopelessness is waning; if the way we live no longer resembles the insanity and manic survival of our active addiction, then we’ve become blessed to be given proof that our Higher Power is working. For some of us, just the fact that things are going well is so frightening, our disease goes right back to work on our brains. This is a point where we really need to kick into gear to stave off the relentless barrage of lies, deceptions, denials, and rationalizations our disease will undoubtedly manufacture. Take a deep breath. There is a Power working in your life which is greater than you or me. It is kinder to you and more loving of you than you have been to and of yourself. This Power wants to have a relationship with you, where you are open to a way of thinking besides your own – where you are open to allowing self-care, connection and interaction with people who are striving toward beneficial living, healthy decision making, and actions. It really comes down to choosing whether or not you wish to stay in those patterns, or be open to a different perception - to ponder an alternate belief. As mentioned in Step Two, I suggest that you look for proof either way, practice your finding, then honestly assess which path leads to a more rational thinking you can come to believe in. I hope this helps you. I live for interacting with you. Remember, Be Good To You. Paul

The ultimate weapon for recovery is the person living in recovery. I cannot stress enough the importance of going through each Taking Steps 2020 episode starting from Step One in January. They are in order for a reason. If you want to proceed anyway, Please hold on; if following rules, taking orders, doing things in order, or following someone else’s process is difficult for you, I understand. But if you’re willing to try something different for a brief period of time, you can see for yourself if it works in ways which benefit you physically, mentally, or spiritually, I’m suggesting that you try this. Practicing trust and patience used to be huge no-no’s for me, but the outcomes I experienced by doing everything my way on my time were eventually enough proof for me to see that my way doesn’t work. Allow yourself a chance to try something different, then decide. Trust in that the order and the wording of the steps are the result of generations of trial and error and adapting through continuous improvement. Know that humans are incapable of perfection, so give yourself a break. Oh, and give a break to those who are living examples of who you’d like to be, for none are perfect teachers. Find patience by allowing for the time it takes to do the internal work. You’ll need to pause long enough to work these through before you move on from one to two to three, etc. Alright, so let’s get started on this month’s Topic, which really is COURAGE TO CHANGE – the courage it takes to live as a person of integrity. We’re going to be looking at the times we haven’t exactly been an honest, reliable, accountable, responsible person, what we told ourselves when we weren’t those things, but also how often we were, and what we were telling ourselves that motivated us positively to see what happens. Even if we’ve put together some clean time, step four is the worst possible place to stop doing the work. So let’s keep the momentum going. In AA, the Big Book states that “A business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke.” Step Four says, “We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” One question I hear right off the bat is, “Why moral? I thought we could choose our own Higher Power. Moral brings to mind thoughts of sin and Christianity and guilt. How is this different?” There is no condemnation via the twelve steps. Before we begin on our inventory, we pray to our Higher Power for the ability to be thorough. Remember, the 12 steps are a program which offers Freedom Of Conscience. There is absolute personal autonomy when it comes to what and how you wish to believe. Our choice in picking a Higher Power is highly individualistic. Our affliction is of a body-mind-soul disease. The disease part is not immoral, it just is. But our behaviors which are evidenced in the form of actions we take that originate from the disease are immoral. Our predecessors figured out that we all carry an enormous burden of guilt. The reason for listing our guilt in this step is because they also figured out that, if we don’t resolve the guilt of the past, we are much more likely to relapse. They found this out through experience. As Father Martin said, “Resolve the guilt of the past because you cannot live with the guilt clean.” This list is essential to fully experiencing the joyous freedom you are getting clean to enjoy. This is where we begin to see that our recovery is about doing much more than being abstinent. It’s about honesty. We put what we know to be true on paper. We let ourselves see that being truthful is braver than being dishonest. We can finally, fearlessly let our secrets out, for they’ve been liabilities far too long. And in trusting we’ll be okay doing so, we can begin to look at our assets. For many of us, there is a lifetime of self-deception to unravel. We can start today. It’s been said that an inventory is one of the most loving things we can do for ourselves. I believe that. We look our instincts, desires, motives, tendencies, and compulsions, what NA literature calls our basic nature with its flaws and its strengths . It is also suggested that each person has guidance and support while working this step. This is where a sponsor is a huge asset. And while this is true, the literature states that this step is to be shared with ourselves, God, and another human being—that person does not have to be our sponsor. I’ve put a lot of thought into how I would touch on the key points of the fourth step for my Taking Steps 2020 Be Good To You podcast. I’ve got to admit, this step presents a challenge. I could say to you, alright, grab a couple sheets of paper and let’s get started. There’s a little more groundwork to lay beforehand. To identify as many things as we can and be thorough as possible for our inventory, we have to look back through as many memories as we can muster about people, institutions, organizations, principles or beliefs, events, situations and resulting circumstances, and how these bring out positive and negative feelings. Let’s start on this step together with a prayer. “Higher Power/God. We’re grateful for this opportunity to heal. Thank you for allowing recovery in our lives. We pray for the courage to be thorough when writing out our inventory. We pray for your guidance and honesty as we recall people, places, and events. And we pray for your strength and love as we write out these things. Amen.” The way it was taught to me was: Start with the heading: Part I: Grudges - slash - Resentments. In the first column, list People, Institutions, and Principles. In the second, list Cause/Reason. In the third, list Affects My. In the fourth, list End result Was. A couple examples. An institution I listed was Capitalism. My reason was because it places money above people. This affects me in that I believed I was unworthy when I was broke, which was most of the time. The result was isolation and resentment towards those who had more. A person I listed was my first girlfriend. My reason was that she cheated on me then dumped me. This affected my pride and fear in future relationships. The result was insecurity. Take up as many pages as you need. On a new sheet, put at the top, PART II: Fear. Write down as many deep dark fears as you can think of that you keep inside and don’t want anyone to know about you. Most of the sentences I wrote started with the word, “OF.” Some examples: Of my parents disapproval. Of my girlfriends disapproval. My bosses disapproval. Of getting old. Of being with someone indifferent to my needs. Of being unattractive. In listing your fears, be thinking of past resentments, what motivated you, what was your part, what were the repercussions, how did you harm others, how did you feel about your actions, & their reactions. On a new sheet, put at the top PART III: Relationships. Ewwww, I know. In the first column, list the heading with the person’s name. In the second column, list the harm caused. Just look at your part. In the third column, list how it made them feel. In the last column, list the result. I can’t go into examples, because they are personal names of those in my past. I think you get the idea on this one. Make every attempt to acknowledge your most painful, embarrassing, most difficult events, thoughts, emotions, and actions, since these were actually at the root of our addictive behaviors. I ask that you recall feelings of fear, pride, self-will, self-pity, guilt, shame, sexuality, abuse, secrets, and then the hardest one for many of us, assets. On the last page, yep! Almost done. At the top of the page write: PART IV – What Am I Proud of myself for? What are some of your positive contributions? What are some of your compulsions to be positive? Healthy behaviors? We have a lot of ground to cover. Take a deep breath. I said this before and I’ll say it again: There is a Power working in your life which is greater than you or me. It is kinder to you and more loving of you than you are of yourself. This Power wants to have a relationship with you, a connection. This Power wants to help you find the courage to answer these questions thoroughly, honestly, and willingly. The Higher Power of your choosing is not afraid of your fears. My Sponsor, Eric E. has often said self-centeredness and fear are at the core of our disease. If I look closely, Fear is behind some of my worst actions and inactions. The times I’ve tried to protect myself from imagined worse case scenarios were the times I drove the bus off the cliff—which was pretty much anytime I attempted to control my life and the lives of people and things around me. I sought, and found many ways to do this: by using or manipulating or cheating, plotting my eventual personal victory, lying and scheming, then lying more to cover up schemes, and then scheming more to cover up lies. I was setting up failures. Painful failures. Have you ever found yourself pushing people away just so you could get loaded without remorse? Isn’t it odd that we don’t see that until we find recovery? These kinds of patterns of behaviors become apparent when we write them out. Our brains get full, maybe even overflowing, with bouncing echoes of thoughts and counterthoughts around quitting. We get overwhelmed by our own ideas of how to break the cycle. When we are able to look at and write out what we’ve done, and how we’ve tried, we are granted a gift. We can finally see that every time we broke our own promises and deadlines, we broke our own spines. We decreased our hope. The first three steps are proving to us that hope can be restored. But for a fourth step inventory to really help you, you’ve got to be thorough, and you’ve got to do it with another person. If that’s too great of a leap of faith for you, I will help you out. It really comes down to choosing whether or not you wish to stay in those patterns, or be open to a different perception – is it asking too much that you ponder an alternate belief? Just try it. I suggest that you look for proof either way, practice your finding, then honestly assess which path leads to a rational thinking you can come to believe in. I hope this helps. I live for interacting with you. Remember, Be Good To You.

Glimpse Into How We Can Live Free Thank you. Step Five says, “We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” Some say this step is the beginning of freedom. Some say the Spiritual Nature of this step is Integrity. I say it’s a glimpse into how we can finally begin to live free by acknowledging once and for all that booze and dope was not the cause of our problems, we were. The exact nature of our wrongs was not getting loaded, it was us; the way our brain processed the world around us. The nature of our wrongs have been identified, but are yet to be named. We’re onto them. Not all of them at once, but now we have an idea of how to find them. They are in our Step Four inventory. If we keep them inside us, they will get strong again. In the dark they will grow. In the light they will die. Exposing them will free us. Holding on to them will increase our likelihood for relapse. This step is about admission. You can’t admit to something you haven’t done. Therefore, action is required. The first part was writing out lists. The second is saying them out loud in front of God (our Higher Power) and another human being. Think about how many times you kept quiet about what was really going on inside your head. The guilt, the shame, the regret, the animosity and resentment. Nobody wanted to hear about that shit. It just made you look bad to express it. So there it stayed, in your head, alive and well and picking up momentum like a rock rolling down a hill. Snowballing. When we hear a lie enough times it starts to sound true – or at the very least believable. The disease in our head knows this. This momentum is built upon when we isolate and keep the spinning tales to ourselves. No wonder we lash out. No wonder we flail and flounder in waves. No wonder we are unpredictable, often explosive. No wonder we are seen as inconsistent, untrustworthy, or even dangerous. We’ve sweep things under the rug until they become the gorilla in the room. By then it’s too late. We never learned how to realize we are doing this. People end up avoiding us. We lack the discipline to catch ourselves from reacting to life because we have a lie machine spewing propaganda on a 24 hour basis. Our only chance of coming up for air to breathe in some light and truth is to open our mouths. This is why we share our Fourth Step Inventory out loud. Our Higher Power hears us. Our chosen, trusted listener hears us. And we hear our own voice tell an honest tale. Truth from our own lips. How often does that happen when we’re steeped in the darkness of denial and the absence of our addiction? If you’re like me, not often if ever. This is our first opportunity to practice earning integrity. You have it inside of you. Yes, you do. You just weren’t comfortable expressing or acting on it because of your addiction. Because your addiction had you doing things that weren’t good for anyone within 100 heartbeats. Because your disease HAD TO HIDE, lest the church or the law or the family member who needed to protect themselves from you took drastic measures to change you. You and I are so much alike. We can make that change by admitting the exact nature of our wrongs to ourselves, God, and another human being. We do need to choose a person we trust to share anything about ourselves with. What laws we broke, what people we’ve harmed. What sick, twisted habit we have. What strange idiosyncrasy we indulge in. There’s some “weird” in us we’ve never wanted anyone to know about. It’s time to share that “weird” with someone. Trusting in their ability to have discretion and integrity are important. We no longer have a reason to fear telling our truth. That was also a lie our disease had us believe. Chances are very high that even our weirdest weird isn’t that weird. We might choose someone who has a weird that makes you feel very normal. Wouldn’t that be weird? The wonderous reality we live in today allows for another possibility. Sharing our Fourth Step with a total stranger. This person might be less likely to judge or criticize. It’s hard to say, though. I personally don’t feel confident that anyone in the digital realm could be trusted with my deepest, darkest secrets. But you might, and that’s okay. The purpose of this step is to expose the starting point of our actions and the motivations behind them. It’s time to start changing the tone of that voice inside which has always told us we’re disgusting and bad at our core. This isn’t about feeling guilty, it’s about feeling empowered. We make choices. We follow up on them with actions. If we’ve always believed we had to act out or respond a certain way, then we can also believe our reaction can be changed – our behavior can be altered by changing our perception. That said, it’s important to note that this is not a time to take out the bat and start beating ourselves with it. It’s not a moment to focus on what terrible people we’ve been and what horrible, harmful mistakes we’ve made. We might want to. Just be aware of wanting to. Oh! How our addict loves to trip us up. We’ve been masters of disguises. It’s time to take off all the masks – one at a time. God made us who and what we are. God never turned His back on us no matter how bad we’ve been. God wants us to stop fooling ourselves and to start living in our own skin – comfortably as possible. Can we do that? No? We will be able to. Lastly, be thorough. Tell all. If there’s some past behavior, even if it was only one time, we want to leave out, don’t. This is our time to be transparent. If we’re not, all sorts of sick thoughts will impregnate themselves. They will, over time, grow into something we’re familiar with straight out of the horror movie we directed in our past. Scary. Ugly. Sick. Dark. Our disease works on us in our sleep, through our joys, in choices we make, in choices we don’t make. Our biggest hope is to accept that it is with it and we must do things to keep it from taking over as it has in our past. Sharing a clear expression of this step will open the door for us to hear a transparent side of others. Now we are learning not to judge or criticize them. We become a little more tolerant, understanding that we’re part of a massive human culture of successes and failures, morals and ignorance, lawfulness and carelessness. We are better able to identify patterns. No one person is only one particular way all the time. We are complex beings who do things multiple ways to get what we want. If no one has told you this lately. You are okay just how you are. You can, however, be better – not because you should feel shameful about who you’ve been, but because you will never be perfect anyway. Were you trying to be? Why? Me, too. Every time I sought perfection, I fucked someone over. Today I’m trying my hardest to be me. But I have to figure out who that is first. And as I try to figure that out, I’m finding out who I am not. I am not that guy who meant to hurt people just so I could get my way.

Three simple ways you can Be Good To You. 1. Easy Does It. When I first got clean, this resonated with me the most because I sure as hell wasn’t ready nor willing to be easy about anything. I got clean to deal with life issues. It wasn’t really by choice, nor was it mandated by law. It was to save my relationship with my daughter. It was something I guess I could’ve chose not to do at that point, but I choose to do it. I’m grateful to God for the option to make the choice to get clean. It was the only chance I had to be in my daughter’s life. Easy does it helped me through so many difficult times and challenges. Because I stayed clean, after a while I discovered that a lot of my difficulties and challenges were self-inflicted—brought on by me. My struggles and difficulties were mostly self-made. When I told myself Easy Does It, I was also able to realize my part in things. It was my first lesson in finding that there is a way to pause and look at things from a different perspective than the one I had up until that point. Easy does it has helped a lot with breathing. There is a lot of talk in recovery podcasts about meditation. For me, this is still a challenge. I am trying to learn meditation. If you have difficulty with meditating like I have difficulty with it, I suggest you don’t give up on it. I can’t speak on meditation yet because I don’t practice it. I will only speak and write about things I know about from experience. Try this right now: Take a deep breath for five seconds. Count to five and hold it. Hold it for five seconds then exhale it. Exhale for five seconds. If you can, keep exhaling. Let all the tension in your body release with your breath. Repeat this two more times. For whatever reason this helps my brain drift away from the things it obsesses on. 2. Walk Barefoot upon the Earth . That’s right. Take off your shoes and socks and walk around outside on the earth. This can be a challenge if it’s wintertime. If it’s summertime and you’re in the desert where I’m originally from, this can be a challenge as well because that sun can burn your little doggies if you’re not careful. Some current science is telling us that this connects with the electromagnetic energy of the earth and can be revitalizing. For me, when I did this the other day, I started laughing with the idea of wondering, “what if my neighbors saw me walking around barefoot?” I don’t know why I should care, but I do. What I noticed, with those goofy thoughts, was that the action had taken my mind away from what I was obsessing about prior to taking off my shoes and socks. New replacement thoughts had won over my obsessive mind. This was helpful. 3. Take a long hot shower and scrub your feet . Scrubbing your feet with soap and/or a exfoliator or loofah is a healthy practice. Most of your nerve endings run through to the sole of your feet. Paying attention to them lovingly has a ripple effect through our bodies. There is a release of toxins which happen; a cleansing physically and spiritually. Massaging or scrubbing of feet with a loofah is an act of self-care. How many acts of self-care do you take part in each day? If you’re like me, it’s not a high number. I’m working on it. Take part in your own care. Scrubbing your feet is a way of saying to yourself, “I love me. I deserve to be taken well care of and pampered.” Why not? Put it out there in the Universe that you love yourself, and it will come back in healthy ways. This is especially true if you let it. Please do not confuse self-care with self-indulgence. Self-indulgence is taking a whole lot of something because a little bit of it feels great, but beyond feeling good, there are no other benefits. It is a form of taking care of the self, but with no moderation or boundaries. I used to jokingly tell my friends when I was so plastered I couldn’t function, “Ah yes, Confucius say, too much high life make low life.” Self-care is honoring our self. It is doing something to strengthen and nourish right down to our core. Listening to this podcast is a form of self-care. Just take a minute to show yourself that you’re worthy of self-care. Remember, be good to you!

It has been said we can be in a crowd and still be alone. I can identify with that. Once I’m in my head, that’s where I am. I’m comforted by myself; my infatuation with myself, with being sensitive (not meant in a complimentary, compassionate way) to my surroundings. No one can argue with me; whatever my point of view is that I’m entertaining. Once in my head, no one can affect my will; no one can question my motives or point out how selfish I’m being. Even this podcast, as long as I do it alone, is an example of how my brain works left to its own thinking. I would like to have guests. That way I can be good to me. My goal for any of this work I do is to access the tools others have set within my Be Good To You toolbox. Loneliness. How does one joyfully combat the feeling of being all alone? Let’s start off with being of service. How do you get out of your head long enough to physically move to a place of feeling a part of, not apart from? Again, service is the antidote. All feelings pass. What’s dangerous about this statement is that none of us know how long it will take for the feelings to pass. Add to that the anxiety produced by not knowing can keep us stuck in this place of feeling alone—of returning to the thoughts which mother us poorly. The mother of those thoughts is like the type of mother who would let their 40 year old live in their basement – jobless, penniless, dependent, addicted – a person deprived of living life. Author Anne Lamott said, “The people we love the most in the world … they have to find their own answers; their own ways … you have to release them. It’s disrespectful not to. Help is often toxic. It’s the sunny side of control.” But a mother who cuts herself off from accepting the warning signals believes what she wants to believe. This is the damage our isolating thoughts can do to us. We’re all mothers. So when I want to help, I don’t like giving advice. I prefer to give suggestions. Suggestions are a healthy way of saying, “here is something I’ve tried which worked, so maybe you might want to try it.” My suggestion is: Don’t ISOLATE, Go help someone. Using the 40 year old person still living in the basement on the couch metaphor, think of how that adult living on the couch would be moved to a different mindset if they volunteered to help someone. Giving is a form of building. Giving is an energy which contributes to your essence. It does not feed on it. Some people are in a blessed position to be generous with their money. But then there are some who can only offer their physical presence. Either way, we connect when we give. We share our hearts when we give. This is a two-way street. When we let others give to us, we are also giving. Giving, however, can become harmful if it is done to the point in which the giver provides so much that they squash the self-esteem of the person receiving. I’ve included this because I’ve experienced it. I’m not telling about this experience to point a finger or give blame, it’s merely to provide anecdote. In my family of origin, I grew up with a little too much of the example below. “Hey, let me get this for you. I’ll take care of it. No, I’ve got this for you. I will not allow you to repay me or do the same for me.” It took me a long time being clean to recognize that my family was not allowing me to give back. If I took the inventory of any of my family members, I would determine how their behavior was stifling and controlling. The effect on me was harmful. I had to set a boundary. It was uncomfortable to change this dynamic. Not only was my personal reaction a learned one, but my family had never done things any other way. It came down to forcing myself to exhibit behaviors such as: “No thank you. I’m not going to accept any of your generosity until you accept some of mine.” This was met with insults and resistance at first. I heard excuses like, “Yeah but you have a kid to raise. You can’t afford this.” My dad once said, “As long as I’m alive you will never pay our bill at a restaurant.” WTF. I had to be the one to make sure they recognized the debilitating nature of their acts of kindness. This was not easy. Although it was just as hard for them, it went a long way for all of us and our relationships. Giving is not a competition. Be cognizant not only of what you’re intuitively sensing, but also to what the other person might be going through. If you’re new at giving, it’s okay to give any way you can. Remember it’s best to expect nothing in return, not even accolades. Try to walk away before you can even be thanked. Better yet, give anonymously. Try the action. A person might say, “I’m going to donate 20,000 dollars to the Tents for Downtown Homeless Project (fictitious) because my purpose is to be a philanthropist.” But is there an ulterior motive? Is the person wanting to get something in return? Is having their name in print, on television, or on the list of sponsors to thank; on a brick in the courthouse square, or to get a hefty tax write off really an act of someone with a generous sense of purpose? Is that really giving? Sounds ego-driven to me. Sounds like a legal way of stealing from the tax pool as well. Many government programs which are meant to uplift the underprivileged appear to more or less undermine those they are meant to aid. I have experienced firsthand moments of being given a handout when the handout contributed to my addiction. For example, I was given food stamps because I had no income. Well I had no income because I was spending the last of my savings on dope; because I was too strung out to look for work, let alone show up to earn money. I had no income because of my poor choices. I had no income because I was not held to any standard when I went to the government handout agency. Maybe I should’ve been drug tested so that I could’ve gotten actual help. It wasn’t very hard to persuade them to throw money at my disintegration. Never underestimate the resourcefulness of an addict. Plenty of times I figured out how to get around the system just to keep my high going. Times that by hundreds of thousands of addicts, and you have justified the need for handout programs. The vicious circle spins wider and wider. A person enabled is a person whose self-esteem is being compromised of his or her right to integrity. If you want to have the purpose of helping curbside communities, buy them some trash bags or clothes or food or sleeping bags. Bring them and personally hand them out to those you wish to help. The closer you are to the problem, the better able you are to gauge the difference between giving and enabling. Government programs pay dividends to those (typically wealthy privileged) people who create and manage them—not so much to the person they are meant to help. I believe in working for self-esteem. How would we feel about a person who says, “Hey system, let me leach off you because I want to keep my party going?” During one volunteer project, I met a woman who proudly boasted about how she cooks healthy meals and brings them to homeless camps to feed the people living there. “How do you feel about the cost to the city of Portland for having to clean up and dispose of 20 tons of trash along the five mile stretch of I-84 every few months?” I asked her. “That’s not gonna keep me from feeding people.” She responded angrily. I thanked her for helping me see the human side of the problem, then thanked God for people like her who take it on their own to go and do something personally. I don’t think people should starve to death either. Nor do I believe someone should collect five figures and government benefits for perpetuating programs which cater to the demeaning, demise, and death of a person experiencing the negative effects of bad decision making. Does it sound like I’m living in two houses? That I’m in one house called I Don’t Care and in one called I Do Care? I was on the streets. I came out of living like that because most people made it hard for me to live that way. The pain became too great. What about SERVICE? You don’t have to be in a program to be of service. As addicts, alcoholics, overeaters, and co-dependents, our disease distorts one crucial aspect which can be beneficial to us: a sense of purpose. Our sense of purpose can’t be an action or thing which, in the end, we will be a beneficiary of. I notice I can be myself when I have a purpose. When I give of myself to that human place or thing, I’m doing it as me. My greeting face is off the table. It’s no longer show time, it’s grow time. If you’re feeling alone. I’m here for you. I suggest you seek a place to serve. Look for that place, you will find it. Ask for help finding that place, and to you it will be shown. It is in taking the movement and the action. For me, this is when the God of my understanding takes the wheel. Sometimes it’s best to be uncomfortable so that you can be healthy.