Intro

[00:00:01] Carolyn: Al-Anon healed parts of myself, but it couldn’t get to the AA parts of myself. I was still hiding some of that selfishness from my Al-Anon program.

[00:00:14] Spencer: Welcome to episode 465 of The Recovery Show. This episode is brought to you by Alba and David. They used the donation button on our website. Thank you, Alba and David, for your generous contributions. This episode is for you.

[00:00:29] We are friends and family members of alcoholics and addicts who have found a path to serenity and happiness. We who live or have lived with the seemingly hopeless problem of addiction understand as perhaps few others can. So much depends on our own attitudes, and we believe that changed attitudes can aid recovery.

[00:00:47] Carolyn: Before we begin, we would like to state that in this show, we represent ourselves rather than any 12-step program. During this show, we will share our own experiences. The opinions expressed here are strictly those of the persons who gave them. Take what you like and leave the rest. We hope that you will find something in our sharing that speaks to your life.

[00:01:08] Spencer: My name is Spencer. I am your host today, and joining me today is Carolyn. Welcome to the Recovery Show, Carolyn.

[00:01:15] Carolyn: Thanks, Spencer.

Finding recovery

[00:01:17] Spencer: I asked, Carolyn to bring a reading. Why don’t you share that with us?

[00:01:21] Carolyn: First I wanted to note that for me, I now see abstinence to mean both physical sobriety as well as emotional sobriety. So for Al-Anon listeners, if you lean into that through this reading, it really speaks to me a lot more when I do that.

[00:01:37] This is from Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women, February fourth. It’s one of AA literature.

[00:01:46] Genius is the talent for seeing things straight. It is seeing things in a straight line without any bending or breaking or aberration of sight, seeing them as they are without any warping of vision. Maud Adams.

[00:02:01] We are learning each day about abstinence to see more clearly what lies before us. Less and less are we hampered by our own selfish needs distorting that which we face. We all have within us the talent for seeing things as they really are. But it is a process that takes practice, a process of turning within to the untapped talent, which is one of the gifts of our spiritual life. We are spiritual entities, one and all, and the genius to see as God sees is ours for the asking. This program is paving our way. Each day it becomes easier to live an honest life. Each day we trust more the people we encounter. Each day we take greater risks for being our true selves. The need to distort that which we see ahead, lessens as we begin reaping the benefits of the honest, caring, spirit-filled life. Our unhealthy egos stood in our way in the past, and they can get in the way even now if we forget to look ahead with the eyes of our inner genius. My path today is straight, clean, and love-filled if I choose to follow my genius.”

[00:03:21] Spencer: It’s pretty easy to see that reading speaking to either program, any program of recovery really.And this word abstinence, if I think about abstinence from codependent behaviors, abstinence from trying to control somebody else’s life, abstinence from worrying about somebody else’s life.

[00:03:48] Carolyn: And abstinence from numbing in whatever way, whether it’s scrolling on your phone, whether it’s eating sugar, whether it’s whatever it might be.

[00:03:57] Spencer: I hadn’t even thought about the different kinds of emotional numbing that I do or did. Yeah. So true. So true.

[00:04:06] You wrote to me saying, “Hey, I had this journey in recovery in Al-Anon, and I’d like to talk about it.” And maybe somebody who listens to the podcast would be interested in hearing that journey and connecting it to their own journey.

[00:04:24] Carolyn: Yeah

[00:04:25] Spencer: So let’s go there.

[00:04:28] Carolyn: All right. I have spent 10 years in Al-Anon, and Al-Anon has really opened the doors to my recovery. It came into my life at a time when I had a breakdown because when my father passed away, a whole bunch of things happened at the same time, and I couldn’t keep going anymore. I identified as having depression and anxiety, and I ended up in a rehab, and I didn’t know that it was 12 steps, and that was my first introduction to 12 steps. And I most certainly did not see myself as an alcoholic. I would go out with friends on the weekend sometimes, and when I drank, I would get drunk, but I was never the worst drinker in the room, so I never considered that I could be an alcoholic

[00:05:18] But it was from going to that clinic that I could see everybody else’s defects of character. I could see that there was problems with the other people in my life, so I could accept going to Al-Anon. So I started going to Al-Anon, and I started working the steps, and I started seeing my life change. As far as my drinking went, it was reduced to I might have half a glass of wine if we were having dinner with a friend.I’d often pass that half a glass of wine back to my husband, ’cause I didn’t want to finish drinking it. And I always thought that that meant that there’s no way I could be an alcoholic. But over the years, I’ve come to accept that it’s not how much you drink. I have just happened to get off the death train way ahead of a lot of people,

[00:06:12] In AA, there’s a term of the yet’s.I haven’t gone to jail, yet. I don’t drink every day, yet. I don’t do all of these things, yet. But if I don’t show up for my recovery, if I don’t do the spiritual work, If I don’t reach for that emotional sobriety, the temptation, that little voice in my head that speaks about how life is too hard or poor me or… it can creep up. They saywhen you have alcoholic tendencies, if you… So it’s like there’s a switch. If I drink more than a certain amount, it doesn’t matter how much I’ve like, “No, I’m not going to get drunk tonight. I’m not gonna drink tonight,” it’s unpredictable whether I’m gonna be able to not drink or not. Even in that 10 years of Al-Anon, there were times when I went to a party, and I’d, be like, “Oh, I’ll just have one,” and then I got a little excited, and then I end up being completely drunk. And Yeah, feeling a bit guilty about it the next day, and a little unsure, having blackout moments where I couldn’t remember what I’d done exactly. And all of it was relatively harmless. None of that caused real problems in my life.

[00:07:28] But all it takes is for the timing to be at a time when I’m in the poor mes, and that suicidality creeps in, and it can take me to a really dark place real quick. That’s why I have to really work my program and really lean into that spiritual growth.

[00:07:50] Going back to how I used to drink, when I was a teenager, there were a few times when I drank until I had a blackout, and I scared myself so much. A blackout, for those who don’t know, is when you drink to the point where you wake up the next day and you can’t remember anything that happened. There were a couple of times when that happened, where I was freaked out so much by it that I swore off, and I was able to control… So not sobriety, but control, and stop myself. It wasn’t free of obsession. If I was out at a pub or whatever with friends, or at a dinner party. It’s not I could put the glass down and be like, “Oh, yeah, I don’t need to think about it anymore.” It’s that I would put that glass down, and I would be thinking about it and pushing it away. And if my husband had a bottle of wine in the fridge. It was once said to me, it’s like, “It’s not like a cucumber, is it? You know exactly where it is. You know exactly how much alcohol is in it. You’re tapped in and aware of that alcohol, even though I’m not drinking it.” So it’s this, presence of awareness of it.

[00:09:03] I heard somebody else describing that awareness. An AA member talking about his relationship with alcohol, and I was like, ” that’s kind of scary.” I found it kind of intriguing that that was how his mind was working, his relationship with alcohol. But, wait, what if it’s not alcohol that’s the object, but my loved one who’s an alcoholic that’s the object? I’m not anymore, thank God, but was I totally focused on how much she was drinking, how much she had available to drink? Was she maybe gonna run out, and then what would happen? When I am able to just flip the object of the obsession, now I relate to it a lot more closely. Yeah. And I can be the same with, say, YouTube. I’ve blocked the app on my phone, but then I’ve… It’s like the parent and the teenager, so the parent’s trying to control what the child can get access to, but then I’m also the teenager that’s sneaking and figuring out, “Oh, if I go through the, if I go through the browser window, I can still get to YouTube, and I can still scroll on all of the reels.” and it’s like, oh my gosh. Yeah, it’s like that, that craving, the wanting, the give me more. yeah. Just coming to accept that I have that thinking, and that it’s not freedom. It’s not serenity.

[00:10:36] Spencer: For sure

[00:10:37] Carolyn: Yeah, and even though I wasn’t, quote-unquote, “acting out” and it wasn’t causing huge issues in my life, I was never able to get…

[00:10:48] Al-Anon was never able to quite dig into my recovery to the point of serenity. I was never quite able to… it was like there was a wall there that I couldn’t quite cross. So then this year, I took some advice from my therapist and, I’ve actually relocated, and because I was relocating, I had to find all new meetings and all new everything anyway. So instead of looking for Al-Anon meetings, I ended up deciding, okay, how about I just give it a shot? I’m just going to find a ton of AA meetings and go to them in person, and I’ll give it six months. If it resonates, then I’ll stick at it, and if it doesn’t, I’ll walk away and find my Al-Anon again. Either way, I’m still working recovery. So I did that, and I’m really glad that I did, because I hear parts of myself that I didn’t realize I was still hiding in Al-Anon. There were parts of my shares that I wasn’t saying that bit out loud because I didn’t hear it in the room. And I hear those parts when I go to AA.

[00:11:58] There are also a couple of tools that they use in AA that I find so helpful and I wish were still used in Al-Anon.For example, using the set-aside prayer while I’m working the steps, particularly while I’m working step four. For those who don’t know the set-aside prayer, I’ll read it out.

[00:12:20] The set-aside prayer is creation. Please set aside everything I think I know about myself, my disease, the steps, the big book, sobriety, and you. Please help me have an open mind so I may have a new experience and discover the truth. Sometimes I work it outside of doing the AA steps. I actually use this regularly when I’m going into an argument with my husband, when I’m going into figuring something out or even before therapy sessions, I’ll sit down and I’ll do the set-aside prayer, and I might switch out, say, the big book for whatever’s relevant for me at the time for that situation. I found that doing that has really helped me work my fourth step in a cleaner way.I’ve been able to get to a greater level of honesty.

[00:13:11] Spencer: Just a week or two ago was in a meeting, and a person was speaking who is, as we say sometimes, a double winner, and said, “I had to use the set aside prayer to come into this meeting.” Presumably setting aside whatever they thought they knew about Al-Anon, and themselves and so on, in order to be able to come into the meeting with a mindset to receive whatever was going to be given in the meeting.

[00:13:49] I’m curious, did you find going the other direction from Al-Anon to AA to be something where you had to set aside preconceived notions about AA?

[00:14:01] Carolyn: About sobriety, about alcoholism, absolutely. As I said, I didn’t meet my own definition of what an alcoholic was. In fact, I often have to use the set-aside prayer, particularly at the beginning, when I was going to AA meetings, because I could… I can still sit in an AA meeting and disqualify myself from so many other people’s shares, because here they’re talking about this compulsion to drink, this daily thing, and they’re just further along the train. When I can reconnect with that analogy of the death train and the yet’s, it’s like, “Okay, I’m just not there yet. I have the thinking that will take me there if I let it go.”

[00:14:42] Spencer: I’m curious about how you have used it in working step four, because step four is often seen as a barrier.

[00:14:52] Carolyn: Step four is liberation. Just like the reading that I said at the beginning, it allows us to see the truth, and we can only find freedom when we see the truth.

[00:15:02] Spencer: I agree. But I also think seeing those 12 steps and seeing the fourth step in particular, also the ninth step, may have been a barrier to my entry into recovery. Like, I’m never gonna do that. I said that to myself more than once. It was the gift of desperation that got me into the program. I so needed some recovery from the anxiety, obsession, depression, anger, resentment, fear that I was living in, that I was motivated to move forward with the steps. Because what I heard in rooms was, we came in like you. And we got better and this is how we did it.

[00:15:50] I guess, without actually at that time being aware of the set-aside prayer, I must have had to do some of that. You know, I think this is gonna be a horrible experience, but I have to set that aside and do it. And it wasn’t a horrible experience. Like you say, it was liberating.

[00:16:10] Yeah, I find… for me, alcoholism as a whole, it’s a disease of denial. We trick ourselves into… We skew reality so much, and at least for me, when I was in Al-Anon, and something that I heard many other people share about, is that they go into the fourth step, particularly if they don’t have a sponsor. But they go into the first step thinking that it’s going to be them admitting that they were wrong for everything they’ve ever done in their whole lives. ‘ Cause we’re just so good at blaming ourselves and punishing ourselves and criticizing ourselves, and half of the work of the fourth step for me is owning my blessings, owning my gifts, and seeing myself right size. A lot of the stuff that I ended up writing down in my fourth step, and I’ve done it three times now, every time, I still do it, where I’m writing down things on my fourth step that to me are like, “Oh my gosh, this is the worst thing anyone has ever done in life, ever.” And then my sponsor reflects it back to me, and they’re like, “This shouldn’t even be on here. this is not a big deal.” I wish I could think of an example off the top of my head, but, yeah, it’s just amazing just getting that perspective on seeing reality for what it is instead of blaming myself or holding that shame inside. And the terminal uniqueness. Oh my gosh, so much terminal uniqueness

[00:17:45] Yeah. For me, I worked the steps with a group the first time. I think I’ve done a solo four-step once, and every other time through the steps it was with a group. One of the wonderful things about doing that was it put paid to the terminal uniqueness. We would get to a question about some horrible character defect, and there would be a whole bunch of me-toos around the table. “Oh, yeah, I do that.” To discover that I wasn’t uniquely broken, was wonderful. Even though I might have known that intellectually, try to convince the little kid inside that that’s true. The only way for me to really experience that was to live it.

[00:18:33] Carolyn: Yeah, some of the most liberating experiences I’ve had in 12 Step has been having the courage to share in a meeting some of my deepest shames, and have people laugh and smile along and nod. Not laughing at me, but laughing as, “Oh, me too.”

[00:18:53] And it’s like, “Oh, I don’t have to carry that anymore”

[00:18:59] Spencer: Yes. That is so wonderful So where do we want to go?

[00:19:06] Carolyn: There was one kind of big aha in my transformation since joining AA that I wanted to share. Which for me has been, yeah, it’s been really huge, is just seeing and learning to admit out loud that at times I see myself as being superior to the people around me, in front of me. I do it at meetings sometimes, I do it with friends sometimes, I do it at different places where there’s a little voice or a little part of myself that feels like I’m wiser, kinder, smarter, or better somehow. And when that little voice or that part of me flares up, there’s another part of me that reacts with so much disgust, that I then humiliate myself.

[00:19:55] I make myself small, either physically make myself small, maybe I’ll use a baby voice, or I’ll turn my words to be less direct. So maybes or softening my language, and I make myself smaller and I belittle myself. I put myself down. And I used to think that was humility, but that is not humility. My disease of alcoholism is simultaneously feeling better than and less than, so I’m simultaneously the best and the worst person in the room at any given time. I hid that from people. I hid that from myself for so long.

[00:20:36] I thought that when I would say that out loud, people would also respond by feeling disgust and reject me. But when I’ve owned it, I’ve actually found that it opens up a connection. People relate to me more. ‘Cause they already feel that anyway. They already know that. That’s my shadow. They can see it. They can see it in different ways. They’re already reacting to it. So when I can say it out loud and own it, people, it’s like they breathe out, like, “Oh, she sees it, too.” So it opens up, it deepens my connection with these people in a way that I’ve never been able to before.

[00:21:18] I found it be quite profound, and it still feels like walking through fire whenever I think of doing something like that.My body reacts. But it’s so freeing when I do it.

[00:21:30] Spencer: When you were talking about making yourself smaller, I was like, I do that. I notice that when I’m editing the podcast, because I will use kind of, sort of, maybe, the question right at the end of a sentence. Like, oh, I need, validation. I need to be uncertain. And most of the time when I’m editing, I take those things out. I know I’m using them as a crutch. I know I’m using them to say, ” This is what I think, but in just in case you don’t think that way, here’s my out.” Because I didn’t make a statement. I made a kind of statement.

[00:22:19] Carolyn: Yeah.

[00:22:20] Spencer: Thank you for actually putting that into a frame for me. As with the inventory, when I’m able to have a label or an understanding of a behavior, then I actually know what to ask my higher power to take from me, right?

[00:22:40] There we go, right?

[00:22:42] I gotta leave that one in, right?

[00:22:47] Carolyn: It becomes right size instead of being this big, scary unknown that I don’t understand. It becomes something, “Oh, this is a thing. I can look at it, I can hold it, I can see it. I don’t identify with it”

[00:23:02] I also wanted to share a little bit more about, coming to accept or identify as an alcoholic, as someone who identified as an Al-Anon, and I couldn’t see where that link was. I couldn’t see why I would go to AA.

[00:23:19] Spencer: Yeah. Please.

[00:23:20] Carolyn: I used to always think that I was, if anything, I was empathic. I was focused on other people. I would care about them, like very, that Al-Anon thing, right? But what I’ve come to see in AA is that I was always trying to get something. I was always trying to get people to respect me, or I was trying to be liked. I was trying to be seen as a nice, good person. Maybe I was trying to get their pity, or I was trying to get credit for something.

[00:23:53] But I wasn’t genuinely present with the people in front of me and connecting with them one to one. It was always masked by this, or blocked by this self-centered motive. And the truth of it boiled down to I felt my inner core felt like I’m not enough. I’m not lovable. So I have to somehow manipulate or coerce people into thinking or seeing this good version of me that I want to be known for.

[00:24:22] Spencer: Yeah

[00:24:23] Carolyn: So yeah, and that’s the AA side of it. That’s that self-centered, that’s that self-seeking, that’s my alcoholism. That’s my disease.

[00:24:33] Spencer: The thought that that brought up for me is I used to say I’m a people pleaser. I heard somebody else recast that and I’m like, “Oh, yeah, that’s right,” which is I’m an approval seeker. I do things that I think will please you so that I’ll get your approval. I figured that out after, 20 some odd years in recovery.

[00:24:58] Carolyn: Yeah, right

[00:24:59] Spencer: It’s still a journey. It’s still progress.

[00:25:03] Are you participating in Al-Anon and AA at the same time or did you kind of just step over?

[00:25:09] Carolyn: For now I have stepped over. When I moved, I just started really focusing. I was going to a couple of Al-Anon meetings, but I’m still trying to figure out where that line is between the two programs. And how I fit and balance between them. Because there’s so much between both of them that they both share. But then there are other pieces that are kind of polar opposite.Like the Al-Anon is learning to become more self-focused and take… I guess they’re both trying to take ownership, but to take the focus away from looking at other people. Whereas for the AA, it’s usually going from that self pity party, that self-centered focus, to more outward, how can I be of service?

[00:26:00] Trying to find the balance for myself between those two sides has been interesting, but something that I’ve found throughout all of my recovery, throughout all of my therapy and everything is- It’s not black and white. It’s not all or nothing. A lot of it is finding that balance in the middle. So I am still leaning more on the AA, and I do plan to incorporate both of them together more.but yeah, I’m still working on that one.

[00:26:33] Spencer: You’re still figuring it out.

[00:26:35] When I first got a sponsee who was also in AA and was relatively new in Al-Anon, I asked my sponsor, “How am I gonna do this? How do I sponsor this person in Al-Anon?” What I was told was that he needed to be clear that he should not drop his AA program for his Al-Anon program because the AA for him was primary, and without that he was gonna die.

[00:27:08] This guy was coming to Al-Anon because he had a loved one who was in addiction and he couldn’t get her out. He’s like, “I know what she needs to do, and she won’t do it.” and I’m like, “Yeah, that’s why you’re here. But don’t destroy your AA program for that.”

[00:27:28] Do you feel like you really need to focus on the AA at this point, and that at some time when you feel secure in AA that you could bring Al-Anon back in?

[00:27:40] Carolyn: Yeah, I still practice principles from Al-Anon. I’m always forever will need to remind myself to stop taking other people’s inventory because it’s not my business.and to just have that humility. And I definitely see whenever I’m in AA meetings, there’s nearly always one Al-Anon chair in an AA meeting. I often go up to the person at the end of the meeting and they often don’t know about Al-Anon.But the way that I see it is that for every alcoholic, they probably know another alcoholic. There’s a good chance they might need Al-Anon too.

[00:28:21] Spencer: Once I got over my anger at alcoholism and everybody who had it, I totally could see that. Like, oh God, you guys have all got friends and family who are alcoholics, I’m sure, unless you’re a total hermit.

[00:28:40] Carolyn: Yeah

[00:28:41] Spencer: My wife admits that she could use some Al-Anon wisdom, and sometimes she comes to me for it. She’s gone to an Al-Anon meeting with me when we’re traveling and it’s easier for us to both go to the same meeting. But she’s never felt the need to add it as a program.

[00:28:57] In your email, you wrote, “Working the steps in Al-Anon opened the door to my healing. Working the steps in AA has deepened my recovery in ways Al-Anon never could.” That’s somewhat a provocative statement.

[00:29:09] Carolyn: Yeah

[00:29:10] Spencer: I know a whole lot more people who have come the other way and who say, “Yeah, AA saved my life, and Al-Anon is now helping me learn how to live my life.” You’ve kind of turned it around.

[00:29:24] Carolyn: I most certainly didn’t mean it in a way that AA is better than Al-Anon,

[00:29:29] Spencer: And I didn’t take it that way.

[00:29:31] Carolyn: But more that for me, Al-Anon healed parts of myself, but it couldn’t get to the AA parts of myself. I was still hiding some of that selfishness from my Al-Anon program because I didn’t feel safe, I suppose.

[00:29:50] But, I think it’s even more than that. It’s… I was still in denial about it. It was really going into the rooms of AA that I was able to hear other people telling me their… Like, I could see in them, and them owning their shadow self that I could then see it was my shadow, too. So it helped me deepen my self-awareness. For me, Al-Anon could never quite scratch that itch. It could never get to that perspective that I really needed help healing.

[00:30:28] Spencer: I’m really glad to hear you express that. Because you’ve helped me to understand friends that I’ve had in Al-Anon who have also found the need of a different program. That there were parts of them that Al-Anon wasn’t reaching because that part was not, is not in the goal of the Al-Anon program. Thank you for expressing that. I learn something every day.

[00:30:59] Carolyn: I also want to share that for me, as someone who grew up with spiritual abuse, I was really reluctant with the whole God thing, and I hear many people talk about that. It took me a really long time to open up to that, and over the years I’ve faked it till I made it, and it’s been more recently that I’ve really started to lean into the spiritual piece, and really get the spiritual part of it. I was starting to do that right before I moved, where I was really starting to get into the meditation and into the praying and into trusting. Like, I was so scared that I would hand over my power. It’s like, “I’ve been working so hard to get my power back,” like “you want me to hand it away?” Because I felt so powerless for most of my life.

[00:31:49] And Martha Beck, she does this meditation, I think she calls it the stillness meditation, that really helps me a lot.She gets you to go in, and looks at it from the perspective of looking at all of the atoms inside your heart, and then looking at all of the space inside those atoms, because all atoms are, like, 90% space. So all of the stillness inside all of those atoms, and then all of the stillness throughout your whole body, your whole being, and then the stillness throughout the whole universe, all connected and all holding us together in a fabric with love and patience. When I connect with that and I go to that place of really feeling into that stillness and that connection with me and everything in the universe, the words start to have meaning around my creator and around those things, and I have to replace God with creation or something like that.

[00:32:53] I can see in life that it’s a miracle that a seed can turn into a grand oak tree. I can see that miracle, these these miracles of life happening around us all the time. So I can relate to that. And it’s through connecting with that on a daily basis and feeling it in my body, that, that shift. That when I’m working the steps from that space, I can hear my higher power in ways that I couldn’t before.

[00:33:25] There’s another prayer that I do every day that I find really helps me anchor in, and that prayer, and once again, this is an AA tool that I wish was in Al-Anon. It’s the seventh step prayer. Every day I read this: “My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go out to do your bidding.”

[00:33:55] Spencer: I have used this on occasion. There was a while I was reciting both the third step prayer and the seventh step prayer on a daily basis. For me, the heart of that prayer is “Which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.” I’m not asking “make me feel better.”

[00:34:17] Carolyn: Yeah.

[00:34:18] Spencer: Which hopefully is also gonna happen. But make me more useful in the world. Remove these things that stand in the way.

[00:34:29] Carolyn: Yeah. Let’s not remove every defect of character immediately, ’cause some of my defects of character can be helpful at different times.

[00:34:40] Spencer: You know, there’s another perspective, opportunity here, which is, many of the character traits, maybe all of them, that I now consider defects, I probably have them because at some point in my life they were helpful. It’s just they’re not now.

[00:35:00] Think about babies. They are totally selfish, because they’re totally helpless. They need somebody else to give them everything. But as I grew up, I was able to do more and more things for myself, but I kept some of that attitude of, “I need you to give me these things that I want. I need you to give me these things that I need,” rather than, “I can do it for myself.” Getting to multiple decades and still hanging on to some of those things that worked when I was a child, but I don’t need them anymore.

[00:35:35] Let’s remove from me every single defective character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows, and grant me strength. This ain’t easy.

[00:35:46] Carolyn: Yeah, right.And I can’t do this on my own.

[00:35:49] Spencer: And I can’t do it on my own. Exactly.Learning how to ask for help. It’s okay to ask for help even if I’m a guy.

[00:36:02] Carolyn: Yes Especially,

[00:36:04] Spencer: Maybe especially if I’m a guy. Yeah.

[00:36:08] What would you want to say to an Al-Anon member or maybe anybody who is questioning whether they’re an alcoholic, based on your own experience?

[00:36:21] Carolyn: I would say the same advice that I got when I came to Al-Anon, and that is go to six meetings, six different meetings, and listen for the similarities, not the differences. And if you hear parts of your story, if it resonates with you, keep going. It doesn’t matter if you’re an alcoholic or not. The only… what does it say? The only thing of membership is the desire to stop drinking.

[00:36:47] Spencer: Yes

[00:36:48] Carolyn: So even if you don’t have a problem stopping drinking, just don’t drink while you’re going. That’s all you need. Just keep showing up, and if it keeps resonating, keep going.

[00:37:01] Spencer: And that echoes what I say to people who are like, “I don’t know why I’m here in Al-Anon except what you say resonates with me.” Well, as long as it’s resonating with you, keep coming if it helps.

[00:37:18] There’s so much similarity between the programs, but I really appreciate you calling out the way in which they spoke to you differently. And maybe somebody else will say, “Oh-” I’ll give that a try ‘ cause maybe it’ll help me.

[00:37:36] Carolyn: Yeah. Another maybe giveaway that I had personally was I found that when AA members would come into Al-Anon, I could usually pick them, and I would find them so uncomfortable. I would feel so uncomfortable, and there’s a thing in psychology that says if you spot it, you got it. What am I denying about myself that makes it so intolerable for me to see it in front of me?

[00:38:05] Spencer: That’s a good point.

[00:38:07] Carolyn: Honestly, my own personal opinion, I personally see it all as the same disease, but it has different shadows and different ways of showing up, and different ways that we focus on to numb. But at the end of the day, we’re all trying to escape our internal emotions and our internal world through some external form of numbing, through some external fixation, and we need help seeing our shadows, seeing the parts of ourselves that we are in denial about, so that we can become more honest and more full, integrated humans.

[00:38:46] Spencer: I cannot add to that.

Song 1

[00:38:50] Spencer: We’ll take a little break from heavy duty recovery and come back with Our Lives in Recovery, where we talk about how recovery is working in our daily lives. But first, I asked you to bring music. What’s your first song that you picked?

[00:39:06] Carolyn: The first song that I picked is by Katie Gavin, and it’s called The Baton or Baton. This song really hits something deep inside me every time I listen to it. It speaks to my relationship with my mother, with myself, and with my children. We were all handed the baton of trauma that’s passed down from generation to generation to generation within our families. Alcoholism doesn’t start from nowhere. It starts from trauma, and it’s passed down. My grandmother did as much healing that she could do and passed on from where she was at to my mother. My mother did as much healing as she could do, and passed that baton onto me. I’m doing as much healing that I can do, and then I’ll one day pass it on to my daughter. I can’t take her where she’s going to go, just like my mom couldn’t take me where I needed to go. It just really helps me connect with that humility and that reconnect, and being someone who I, at the beginning of my recovery, had to cut ties with my mom for several years. I’m now rebuilding that relationship, thanks to Al-Anon, thanks to recovery. Learning to see even the people who hurt us, or the people who we’ve experienced pain from, as human that are doing the best with what they’ve got, even if it’s painful.

[00:40:33]

Our LIves in Recovery

[00:40:41] Spencer: In this section of the podcast, we talk about our lives in recovery. How have we experienced recovery recently?

[00:40:48] I talked in an earlier episode about my dealing with my brother’s health issues.I went to visit him last week as we’re recording this. It’ll be a few weeks ago when this is finally published. Both to see him, to be with him. And to learn more, with him exploring what he’s thinking about how he wants to deal with this issue. Which is absolutely life-threatening. The doctors gave him a low to high range, which is not very long.

[00:41:25] They’re not through with the diagnosis, but we’re pretty sure what it is, what’s going on. So we spent some time just being together, seeing how tired he is. He’s in pain a lot of the time now.I did some laundry because I’m not sure he’s actually physically able to get to his washing machine now.

[00:41:49] One of the important parts of the visit was to really hear from him how he’s thinking about what kind of treatment options he might want to take or not take.My sister was also there. She lives near him, so she’s been much more closely connected to what’s going on. We spent time looking at his medical directives, his will, because that’s where we are. He stated very clearly in his medical directive the things that he does and does not want to have done for him, or as I think he sees it, to him.

[00:42:27] That’s hard to accept because, as his brother, I kinda want him around as long as possible. But his quality of life might be severely degraded, and he doesn’t want that. And I understand that.

[00:42:44] So I’m taken back. I’m taken back to when I was still living with active alcoholism, and my loved one was not making the decisions that I wanted her to make to get better, to get over it, whatever phrase you wanna use there, to stop drinking, to get sober. And that with the help of Al-Anon and with the help of all the people in Al-Anon and of my higher power, I was able to live with that, to live with the uncertainty of what yet did she have coming, and to not obsess about it, to not try to control things I couldn’t control.

[00:43:29] And here I am. You know, I can say things to him, but I cannot make decisions for him. And if it gets to the point where I am making decisions for him, I have a very clear statement of what decisions he wants me to make.

[00:43:46] So I’m sitting with this. I’m accepting it, that it is what it is, and there’s a whole lot of uncertainty at the moment, because there’s stuff we don’t know yet. It takes time, and it can be so frustrating to wait for the appointments, to wait for the analysis, to wait for the final diagnosis or the more precise diagnosis than we currently have.

[00:44:13] But I’m not sitting in the rocking chair going back and forth saying, “I can’t do anything. I can’t live my life until we know.” Because that’s what I learned in recovery, is do the things I can do today. I’ll let go of the rest till tomorrow, and then if there’s anything more I can do tomorrow to do it.

[00:44:32] You know, I’m not him. I am not the one ultimately making whatever decisions he might decide to make. And I’m okay. I’m not happy about the situation. There’s no reason I could be happy about the situation, but I’m okay. I know that what will happen is in some sense what is supposed to happen. And I don’t know what that is. I am so grateful for my recovery program because I see other people around him who do not have that serenity. That’s what’s going on with me right now. How about you?

[00:45:06] Carolyn: That’s really honest. Thank you for sharing that.

[00:45:09] I got a few things going on for me. I’m realizing that I’m coming to the age where I’m about to move into menopause, or perimenopause, and figuring out what all of that is like, “Oh, great. Here I finally got my body back from having kids, and, now I’m gonna lose it again for the next 10, 15 years. Hooray. This is great. I love being a woman.”And then I go into that pity party, poor mes, and the hating life, hating creation, hating why, “Why is this so painful? Why is this so hard?”

[00:45:48] So just holding myself with some compassion, and being like, “Yeah, this is hard, and it’s not gonna be fun, and that’s okay, and it’s okay that I’m angry. I’m allowed to be angry.”I actually woke up in the middle of the night last night with my first hot flash, and I woke up with just complete irrational rage. I just felt so angry. I didn’t know what I was angry at, but I was so angry. And it’s like this is part of the process. It’s part of the process to feel my emotions and to ride that rollercoaster.

[00:46:23] I’m so grateful that I’ve had the recovery and the awareness that I have. It’s like life on life’s terms, right? I don’t get to choose. I don’t get to opt out. What I’ve learnt is that when I numb my feelings, that’s when life goes to shit. That’s when things don’t work out. So, when I can just be honest, and being honest involves saying, “I’m really angry at creation right now. I’m really angry at life for designing us this way.” I can be angry at that and own that.

[00:47:00] And luckily there’s women’s meetings, and places that I can take this. I can take this to my sponsor. I can bitch about it to my husband. Like,I have release valves now that I didn’t have before, and it doesn’t have to be numbing out with, I don’t know, sugar or scrolling or my partner, fixating on something. I don’t have to go there, and I certainly don’t have to have a drink. Yeah, I’m feeling a lot of gratitude for my recovery and being in this program.

[00:47:32] I also recently did my ninth step officially with my mom. Where I actually called her and I owned, I said, “I’m really sorry that I blamed you for everything that went wrong in my life.” And it was really healing to do that and really connecting. And I can now see her and my sister as human beings. They have their stuff, and their stuff doesn’t shatter the ground from underneath me like it used to.

[00:48:00] I can now see them as being their own people with their own pain and their own stories, and it doesn’t have to mean anything about me or mine. So that’s me.

[00:48:11] Spencer: Thank you.

[00:48:13] You wanted to share a little bit about what you’re doing with your life these days.

[00:48:18] Carolyn: Yeah, so I am working as a certified life coach, and I help lots of clients see their shadows and find their path, find their truth, and figure out their boundaries and the direction that they need. So if anything that I have said today resonates with you and you feel curious about working with me further, please come and check out my website. It’s goldenfluidart.com. I’d love to see if we’re a fit or see if I can help you in any way that I can.

[00:48:51] Spencer: And you’re physically in Australia.

[00:48:55] Carolyn: Yes.

[00:48:56] Spencer: But you can work with people anywhere?

[00:49:00] Carolyn: I do all my work online, so it doesn’t matter where you are. It’s just a matter of timing

[00:49:05] Spencer: There’s the whole time zone thing, yeah. It’s Wednesday for me, it’s Thursday for you.

[00:49:11] Carolyn: Sometimes that can work really well because if I’m working business hours and you’re working business hours too and can only do it at night, then that actually works really well.

[00:49:21] Spencer: I will put that link in the show notes at therecovery.show/465, so people don’t have to remember it or scribble it down while they’re driving, which would be a bad thing.

[00:49:35] Carolyn: Yes, don’t do that.

[00:49:37] Spencer: Looking forward, we have a proposed episode on the law of attraction. We haven’t scheduled it yet. The law of attraction, if you’re not familiar with it, suggests that positive thoughts can help you achieve the outcomes that you want, while negative thoughts can hold you back. Have you seen this happening in your life, your recovery?

[00:49:57] We welcome your thoughts. You can join our conversation. Leave us a voicemail or send us an email with your feedback or your questions. Carolyn, how can people send us feedback?

[00:50:09] Carolyn: You can send a voice memo, or email to feedback@therecovery.show. Or if you prefer, you can call and leave us a voicemail at seven three four seven zero seven eight seven nine five. You can also use the voicemail button on the website to join the conversation from your computer. We’d love to hear from you, share your experience, strength, and hope, or questions. If you have a topic you’d like us to talk about, let us know.

[00:50:42] If you would like advance notice for some of our topics so that you can contribute to the topic, you can sign up for our mailing list by sending an email to feedback@therecovery.show. Put email in the subject line to make it easier to spot.

[00:51:00] Spencer, where can our listeners find out more about the Recovery Show?

[00:51:05] Spencer: That would be our website, the recovery dot show, which we have information about the show, mostly notes for each episode, which would include a link to the book that you read from. Also, videos or other links for the music that Carolyn chose. And also there you can find links to some other recovery podcasts and websites.Because you’re outside the US, I just want to point out that on that phone number, you would put a plus one.

[00:51:35] We’ll take a short break before diving into the mailbag.

Song 2

[00:51:39] Spencer: Our second musical selection is what?

[00:51:42] Carolyn: The second song that I picked for today was What It Sounds Like, which is a K-pop Demon Hunters song, by The Huntrix. To me, this song, in fact, the whole movie speaks to my journey of recovery.If you use the demons and the patterns on their skin as an analogy for internalized shame and shadows, things that we’re hiding. The more I speak my truth and the more I let my shame see the light, the more I heal and the more I deepen my connection with others.

[00:52:14] Spencer: I just want to say I love that song. I’ve watched the movie twice now. Only twice.But I have listened to the music many more times.

[00:52:26] Carolyn: My daughter is six and she makes me listen to it on repeat every trip that we’re

[00:52:31] Spencer: Oh, I’m sorry.

[00:52:33] Carolyn: I do actually love the song, so I don’t mind that much.

Listener Feedback

[00:52:44] Spencer: It’s time for some listener feedback.

[00:52:48] Patti wrote, “Thank you for your service in providing this wonderful podcast. I have listened to it almost every night for the past five years. I came upon episode 334, Voices, and really heard Dan share. I would love to contact him to see if he’d like to be a speaker for my Al-Anon group via Zoom. I’m also interested in any other of your guests that may have indicated that they would like to speak to other Al-Anon groups such as yourself, Patrick or Eric B. It is great to hear a male perspective since my group is predominantly women. I’m so grateful for your service. Best regards, Patti.

[00:53:22] I forwarded Patti’s email to Dan, Patrick, and Eric, and asked each of them to get in touch with Patti if they’re interested in sharing in her group. And if you were a guest on the podcast and would like to talk to Patti about being a speaker at her group, I can send her information to you. So contact me, feedback@therecovery.show if you’re interested.

[00:53:52] Got a voice memo from Sam.

[00:53:55] Sam: Hi, Spencer. This is Sam, and I’m coming at you from a kind of rural area. I’ve been a part of the Al-Anon space for a few years now, but have had to rely on remote meetings, which is a wonderful resource with Al-Anon, and have done a lot of work with my past relationships with addicts and a relationship that I’m currently in the process of leaving with an addict.

[00:54:30] The one thing I’ve struggled with and that I’m looking for is, I’m looking for a sponsor. Like I said, there are no in-person meetings around here where I live currently, and I’m hoping someday to get back to a more populated area where I can find a bigger community. I found a great sense of community in your podcast, and it’s meant a lot to me in my recovery.

[00:54:54] I have a bunch of the books. I’ve got the workbooks. But what I’m really finding I need is a sponsor. So I wanted to reach out and see if there’s any way, any kind of advice or connections or anything that you might be able to point in my direction, or point me towards. I’m really ready to continue the work, and I’ve found that I can get to step four on my own, but that I’m really needing a sponsor to move through the steps and work through my recovery process.

[00:55:30] Recently, I’ve loved Samantha Jo. I’ve loved Michelle. I mean, I love e-every part of your podcast, and it has been so helpful for me.

[00:55:38] So thank you for running this and for any advice you may be able to give me. Thank you so much.

[00:55:46] Spencer: Sam, this is not the first time I’ve gotten basically the same question. I would refer you first to episode four fifty-four, which was about sponsorship. I had a similar question there where I said, ” A first suggestion I have is to reach out in your online meetings. Many meetings have time for informal conversation before or after the formal meeting, which could be a time to speak up and say, ‘I’m looking for a sponsor.’

[00:56:10] If the meeting permits, you could also put a request in the chat box. If you don’t want to put it out to the whole group, maybe you can identify a person who seems to speak to your experience, then ask that person directly by chat or by speaking up in the before or after meeting time. I realize that this is probably not easy. It’s definitely harder, at least for me, than it is in person, but it can be a first step.

[00:56:32] Please know that choosing a sponsor is not a permanent decision. Either person can end the relationship for any reason if it’s not working for them.”

[00:56:40] I also sent her a copy of the online sponsorship meet and greet flyer, which happens every month, and I will put a copy of the current flyer for that in the show notes at therecovery.show/465.

[00:56:57] And that’s it for this week. We’ll see you next week.

Thank you, Carolyn

[00:57:01] Spencer: Carolyn, I wanna thank you for joining me today, for telling your story, for telling an Al-Anon recovery story that is not what you might consider the normal Al-Anon recovery story. I feel like it shone a light on some aspects of 12 step recovery that I have not really thought about before. So thank you for that.

[00:57:25] Carolyn: Yeah. it’s my pleasure.

Song 3

[00:57:27] Spencer: What is this third song that you picked for us?

[00:57:30] Carolyn: Yeah, I was having a hard time… there’s lots of amazing songs out there, but I was having a hard time connecting one with my recovery, and I ended up going with, the song For Good by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande from Wicked. I like how this song speaks to the gray area, how things are neither good nor bad, and sometimes our most painful relationships can transform us forever and define who we become.

[00:57:58]

Outro

[00:58:03] Spencer: Thank you for listening, and please keep coming back. Whatever your problems, there are those among us who have had them too. If we did not talk about a problem you are facing today, feel free to contact us so we can talk about it in a future episode. May understanding, love and peace grow in you one day at a time.