Intro

[00:00:01] Spencer: How do you practice self-sufficiency? And what does the Al-Anon seventh tradition suggest?

[00:00:08] Welcome to episode 463 of The Recovery Show. This episode is brought to you by John and Laura. They used the donation button on our website. Thank you, John and Laura, for your generous contributions. This episode is for you.

[00:00:21] 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.

[00:00:40] Patrick: 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 person 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.

[00:01:01] Spencer: My name is Spencer. I am your host today, and joining me today is Patrick. Welcome back to the Recovery Show, Patrick. We spoke recently in episode 454 about sponsorship.

[00:01:14] Patrick: Thank you, Spencer. I enjoy being able to share whatever I've gathered in the years that I've been in Al-Anon.

[00:01:21] Spencer: And there we are, step 12.

Tradition 7

[00:01:23] Spencer: Today we'll be reading from the book How Al-Anon Works, the section on Tradition Seven, which is page 116 to 117 . This is in chapter 16, titled The 12 Traditions.

[00:01:38] Tradition Seven says, “Every group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.” Very short. It's the shortest one, I think.

[00:01:48] First paragraph of the reading.

[00:01:51] Before Al-Anon, we often looked outside of ourselves for our peace of mind. If only the alcoholics in our lives would stop drinking, we would be okay. As we obsessed about them, we failed to look after ourselves.

[00:02:04] What do you read in this short paragraph about this short tradition?

[00:02:09] Patrick: We failed to look after ourselves because it's so easy to look at the other person. It's so much more fun to look at the other person, and we don't really want to look at ourselves and believe that possibly we might be contributing to the disease.

[00:02:29] Spencer: Yeah. One of the things I see here is something that has showed up in my inventories, which is my desire at least, possibly need, to find validation for myself from other people. Then you put alcoholism on top of that and give me something to obsess about another person and try to fix, and a large part of my energy, maybe all of my energy, goes into that and I'm not taking care of myself.

[00:03:00] Patrick: I was just gonna say they have a clear target on their back that they are the ones with the problems and not us.

[00:03:08] Spencer: Yeah. I recently had a realization of how deeply I looked to other people in my life to fill something in me. I was able to identify a particular behavior related to that back to fifth or sixth grade. So maybe 10 years old, 11 years old, something like that. I was like, “Wow, okay, this has been part of me using somebody else to make me feel good for a long time.”

[00:03:44] You want to read the next paragraph?

[00:03:46] Patrick: Sure.

[00:03:47] Al-Anon, we learn to take responsibility for our own recovery rather than expecting others to do our work for us. With the help of our higher power and fellow members, we realize we no longer need to look for inner contentment outside of ourselves. We begin to care for ourselves financially, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

[00:04:09] This has been probably the first lesson I learned in Al-Anon and, the most profound to care for ourselves financially, emotionally, physically, and spiritually myself. I coined, my own saying that self-care for me is job one. I gotta put that above all other issues and anybody else. I go, “I have to take care of myself,” because if I don't take care of myself, I'm not gonna be good for anybody.

[00:04:44] How about you?

[00:04:46] Spencer: There's a reading July 15th in the Al-Anon Daily Reader, A Little Time for Myself. It talks about tradition seven and about caring for ourselves. This reader, which is the most recent daily reader, always has a question after the reading, and the question is, “How can I meet my own needs today?”

[00:05:09] And I reflected on that. That working the Al-Anon program, and in particular working through the 12 steps, but also coming to meeting, hearing people's shares, reflecting on other people's shares and how it relates to me, helped me to understand what it is that I actually need. Because in the past I didn't necessarily know what I actually needed for myself. I was much more in tune with what other people needed, I thought. Some of the shares in the meeting were interesting in that somebody was like, “I don't know what I need.” Yeah, that's exactly where I was, you know? And that's exactly what this program has helped me is to understand how to take care for myself. Particularly emotionally and spiritually, those are a lot more, shall I say, ethereal. They're less concrete than what I need financially. That's pretty obvious. And taking care of myself financially is something that I had to grow into through the program, because I was not doing a good job taking care of myself financially before I got into recovery.

[00:06:22] One of the effects of this family disease of alcoholism on me, was to be financially irresponsible in many ways.Physically, okay, I gotta go to the doctor, I gotta do some exercise, whatever, that's pretty obvious. I gotta eat. I gotta eat not too much, although again, that was an issue for me for a while. But just emotional and spiritual care, what do I need emotionally? And I'll come back to this idea that I used other people to care for my emotions, which, not healthy, doesn't always work, especially when the other person suddenly decides, “You know what? I'm not taking care of your emotions anymore,” which has happened to me.

[00:07:11] And spiritually, whoa, that is something that was not even in my realm of thinking, before I started coming here and talking about a spiritual solution. Going back to the religious community of my upbringing, felt very much at home, when I walked in there after 30 years gone. I could start to think about what does it mean to feed my spirit? So this is really about me here. We start out with this thing about every group is fully self-supporting, and all of a sudden we're at taking care of ourselves. What a shift, and what an important principle to pull out from that.

[00:07:53] Patrick: I did not take care of myself. I also did not really know, like you said, I didn't know what I needed. I was so focused on making sure the other person, I knew what they needed and, but I didn't know what I needed. And it was a growing process oftrial and error of what do I like. I don't know. Whatever she says I like, I like. And I had to say,what is it I like?” Oh, I do like broccoli. Oh, I do like Brussels sprouts. No, I still don't like asparagus. That's just still… That's a her thing. I've learned things that I do like.

[00:08:34] And, taking care of myself means going to the doctor regularly, going to the doctor when I feel ill, and not trying to explain away aches and pains and say, “Yeah, I need to go get an expert opinion on that.”

[00:08:51] Yeah, it's been a, a lifestyle change to be self-supporting in all ways.

[00:09:00] Spencer: The next paragraph says: The idea of self-support found in Tradition Seven is essential to Al-Anon. It works within our personal lives, and it works within our groups, areas, and world service. Although there are no dues or fees for membership, Al-Anon is a self-supporting program. Because we accept no outside funding, as members, we are asked to participate in supporting our own groups as well as Al-Anon World Services by contributing what we can. As we give, we gain a greater sense of belonging and responsibility for the health of our group.

[00:09:35] Not explicit in this paragraph, but I think central to it. If we have self-support, we're not taking in money from outside the group, from outside the program. As I recall, the Al-Anon traditions are based on the 12 traditions that AA developed over the first 15 years of its existence. Avoiding outside influence on the program is one of the key principles here. If we were dependent on support from… Well, let's say our group meets in a church. If we were not being self-supporting, paying some rent to the church, but instead the church was saying, “Yeah, this is the XYZ Church Al-Anon group,”we might find ourselves being influenced by the philosophies and actions of the church itself. And would be potentially pulling away from a purely Al-Anon program. I definitely have friends in the program who were very suspicious when they found that almost all of the Al-Anon meetings in our area met in churches, and that they were gonna get proselytized and to be pulled into some particular church or community.

[00:10:57] This tradition helps keep that independence, and make Al-Anon welcoming to anybody, no matter where we meet, and no matter who's providing the physical space, and the heat, and the air conditioning, that we need for our meetings.

[00:11:14] Patrick: We had an appeal from our area information services is needing some additional funds this summer. A lady in one of my meetings is a member of the church we were at, and she says, “Oh,I can get our church to donate some money to the AIS.” And we says, “Sorry, we appreciate the thought, but we cannot accept money from your church. If you want to donate, being a member of Al-Anon, you're welcome to donate. But, we could not accept a donation from this facility. Because that would be a violation of self-support.

[00:11:52] Spencer: Absolutely. The other thing in this paragraph is the fact that we are being asked to participate in supporting not only the groups, but the structure of Al-Anon around the groups and across the world.

[00:12:09] You know, Al-Anon World Services gives us, for example, our conference-approved literature. It takes time, energy, and money to create that literature, and presumably they recoup some of that when they're actually able to sell it. But if they didn't have money to have offices and space for people to do that work, we would be much less likely to have the rich literature that we do have today.

[00:12:37] Patrick: Next paragraph.

[00:12:39] Each group is urged to take responsibility for its own well-being. Basic to this is to be financially self-supporting. Even the most well-meaning offers of monetary support from outside Al-Anon can adversely affect our groups. By taking care of our own needs, we remain free from outside influence. Our finances have no strings attached. This allows our groups to be independent, and we benefit from seeing that we are capable of meeting our own needs.

[00:13:14] Spencer: I feel like we already talked to this one a lot. You have anything to add to that?

[00:13:18] Patrick: We also have a provision for bequest of somebody who passes away. You can get, a document from WSO that talks about bequest, and people can allocate some money to WSO or any of our service arms up to a certain amount of their budget. We're not allowed to accept a big, huge, jackpot of the lottery kind of donation because that would have some unspoken strings attached.

[00:13:53] Spencer: I found a flyer from Al-Anon. Remember Al-Anon in your will. It contains, for example, some suggested wording. “I give and bequeath to Al-Anon family Group headquarters,” blah, blah, blah, “the sum of blank dollars for its general purpose.”

[00:14:10] Patrick: In the service manual under Digest of Al-Anon and Alateen, it's under bequests. It says WSO may accept a one-time bequest from an Al-Anon members estate or trust. Bequest amounts up to ten percent of the total revenue of the WSO general fund, as identified in previous years' audit, will be placed into general funds. Members may designate in spirit of gratitude more than ten percent. However, the portion above ten percent will be reported separately on the financial statements. Okay, that's where I heard of a limit.

[00:14:48] Spencer: Okay, Al-Anon service manual, page 104 in the latest. So you can give money to Al-Anon when you die. And they have limits on how they use it, which is interesting.They're not saying you can't give more than that, but we're only going to use a particular portion of it.

[00:15:09] Next paragraph says, “Each group is encouraged to designate a portion of its money to support Al-Anon at the local, area, national, and international levels. Our contributions make it possible for local service offices and the World Service Office to provide information to anyone who wants to find an Al-Anon meeting in our area. The World Service Office also maintains an international meeting list so that wherever we travel, we are likely to be able to make contact with an Al-Anon group. Our monthly magazine, The Forum, could not exist without the support of our groups. Our donations enable Al-Anon's message to be carried to those in hospitals and prisons. They also make it possible for Al-Anon literature to be translated into more than thirty languages, allowing the comfort and wisdom of our program to be carried to millions of people all over the world. These are only a few of the many functions made possible by our contributions. Thus, when we support the service arms of our fellowship, we ensure that the Al-Anon message will continue to be available to anyone who needs it.”

[00:16:13] We mentioned this notion that the money that I give in my groups, some of that goes to support Al-Anon outside the group.

[00:16:24] Patrick: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:25] Spencer: the minimal thing here is finding an Al-Anon meeting, right?

[00:16:30] Patrick: Right

[00:16:30] Spencer: there's a pretty good meeting finder now on al-anon.org to find both physical meetings in your area and also electronic meetings in many different forms. Many of us think of Zoom, but there are other ways of meeting electronically, including the old telephone. There are email meetings. I've never participated in one of those, so I don't really know how they work.There's meetings on other online services. There's an Al-Anon app that has electronic meetings in it. There are a lot of things that are provided for people anywhere to be able to find a meeting when they need it. Just on Sunday, we had somebody who had never been in our meeting join us. Because, as he said, “I really needed a meeting right now.” Found us online, was able to join us on Zoom. I have no idea where in the world he lives, you know?

[00:17:34] Now, I think this is where we wanna actually dive into the money.

[00:17:40] Patrick: It's really difficult to talk about money in a meeting. It's kinda hard sometimes to say, “Listen, if you're only putting one buck in, do you know that the average donation in nineteen fifty-one when Al-Anon started was one dollar per person per meeting?” and that the average donation today, according to Google Gemini, the AI, the average donation at a meeting today is one dollar. Whereas the average new car in fifty-one was eighteen hundred dollars, and the average new car today is fifty-one thousand dollars.

[00:18:25] My delegate came back from conference this year, and at conference this year, WSO reported that WSO provides services to one hundred percent of the groups. But not one hundred percent of the groups sent money to WSO for its support. The cost they calculated for each group for WSO services was almost three hundred and fifty-eight dollars per group per year, to be self-supporting just for WSO services.

[00:19:00] And that's not including the services that groups use, for their area or their district or if they live in an area with an AIS, an Al-Anon Information Service or an intergroup. The intergroup also needs money. So it's really hard to say, “Hey, guys, you need to be giving more money.” But at the same time, we're having trouble because WSO, said at conference, our delegate reported that if it hadn't been for some sizable bequeaths last year, WSO would have been into the red and having to take money out of ample reserves. But they didn't have to because of the bequeath. And this year they are also, hurting for money that's, that's not being sent out.

[00:19:54] My group recently got a record of what our group has given to WSO this year. They actually sent out a new report recently letting groups know, “This is what we see you've donated. Let us know if this is right or not right.” And so it became a, a little KITA. You know that acronym K-I-T-A? Kick in the tail.

[00:20:20] Spencer: Yeah. So I just did a real quick calculation here. I took this $358 and divided it by 52. It comes to just under $7 a week. The groups that I'm a member of make periodic distributions of excess funds to, in most cases around here, our district, our area and WSO. Some groups do one-third to each. Other groups divide it up differently. What that means is, let's say you divided it up evenly, that means you would need $21 a week over your expenses.

[00:21:04] Patrick: Your rent and your, GR support to have your GR go to assembly.

[00:21:10] Spencer: And in the case of a hybrid meeting, you're charged for Zoom or something. If you're providing free literature, that would be another expense that the group would have.If you've got, say, coffee at the meeting, okay, there's an expense again. Add those all up, and then how many people are in your meeting? How many people in the meeting actually put something in the basket?

[00:21:36] Consider what you personally, the value that you get from that meeting, from that group, is that worth the price of a cup of coffee? If you would drop, what, I don't know what it is even at Starbucks these days. Five bucks. Let's say five bucks. It's probably more than that, especially if you're getting a fancy one. If you would drop five bucks on a cup of coffee maybe every day, could you drop five bucks in the basket at your Al-Anon meeting, which certainly gives me more personal value than a cup of coffee.

[00:22:11] I found this reading from the AA Daily Reflections book. It's the July 26th reading. This is from 1990, so again, inflation. “When I go shopping, I look at the prices, and if I need what I see, I buy it and pay. Now that I am supposed to be in rehabilitation, I have to straighten out my life. When I go to a meeting, I take a coffee with sugar and milk, sometimes more than one. But at the collection time, I am either too busy to take money out of my purse or I do not have enough, but I am there because I need this meeting. I heard someone suggest dropping the price of a beer into the basket, and I thought, ‘That's too much.' I almost never give $1. Like many others, I rely on the more generous members to finance the fellowship. I forget that it takes money to rent the meeting room, to buy my milk, sugar, and cups. I will pay without hesitation 90 cents for a cup of coffee at a restaurant after the meeting. I always have money for that. So how much is my sobriety and my inner peace worth?”

[00:23:12] I'm like, damn. You know? Is your serenity, your inner peace worth more than the price of a cup of coffee? Just think about it.

[00:23:24] Patrick: Down here in the South we have Waffle House, and a cup of Waffle House coffee is up to $2.50

[00:23:30] In the service manual, they have suggestedpassing the basket, and it says, “We have no dues or fees. According to our seventh tradition, every group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. We contribute in gratitude for what we have received in Al-Anon.”

[00:23:49] I've had a couple of meetings put that in there. They took out the, the suggested donation is in number of dollars. And I said, “Instead of just saying that, let's say we contribute in gratitude for what we have received from Al-Anon.” And it becomes a question of how grateful are we that the meeting is there?

[00:24:09] Spencer: Yeah, exactly. That is on page 17 of this Al-Anon service manual. Moving on from money, I think this is your paragraph

[00:24:19] Patrick: Okay.

[00:24:20] But financial support is only part of the story. As individual members, we support our groups through active participation. Al-Anon's literature and other materials are developed from the personal sharings of our members. These stories of experience, strength, and hope help to unify and sustain our fellowship, providing topics for discussion within meetings and food for thought between meetings.

[00:24:46] Spencer: This is where we get into the other kinds of contributions, the other kinds of support that as members we provide. The key words here are active participation.

[00:24:59] Patrick: Yes

[00:25:01] Spencer: and Al-Anon's literature and other materials are developed from the personal sharings of our members.

[00:25:07] Patrick: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:09] When I look at, say, that most recent daily reader that came out in 2023, some member of Al-Anon wrote every single one of those 365 sharings, that helped to unify and sustain our fellowship, providing topics for discussion within meetings and food for thought between meetings. . As I did couple weeks ago when I read from A Little Time for Myself, in a meeting. That provided topic for discussion and some really good discussion in that meeting.They're always asking for shares to be forum writings. And, I have frequently been to assemblies where the literature chair has a workshop where you do a writing of your experience, strength, and hope to be submitted to the forum. And it doesn't mean it's gonna get published, but the, they have to get so many because a certain percentage they know will not be shared, but there's a certain percentage that will be shared. And that's where we get our conference-approved literature, is through the writings of members.

[00:26:22] Spencer: One of my meetings is currently reading from the book Intimacy in Alcoholic Relationships. There are, I don't even know how many member shares in there. The book has chapters on biggish topics like trust. But then within that, there might be a dozen or more sharings on these topics. This last Sunday, we had some people looking really deeply as they were inspired by that particular share. And it feels like, wow, it's gonna take a while to get through this book. But if one person's story can lead to a whole meeting's worth of deep sharing. and one member expressing, “Wow, I'm really glad I heard that. I didn't know I needed it, but it really touched me?” That's what these sharings do. This is why we are asked to contribute to the literature.

[00:27:20] All right, here we are, the final paragraph. Our groups are strengthened whenever we show up at meetings and share our experiences with one another. We offer support when we listen to a fellow Al-Anon member who needs to be heard, and when we exchange ideas and encouragement. These are forms of Al-Anon service. Other forms of service, such as setting up chairs, serving as group secretary, are equally indispensable. Al-Anon survives and grows because of the involvement and commitment of its members at many levels, from the group to the world service.

[00:27:56] Patrick: Talking about other forms of service, such as setting up chairs, serving as group secretary. When we read in the service manual the concepts of service, it talks about carrying the message as suggested in the twelfth step is service, Al-Anon's third legacy.

[00:28:13] Service, a vital purpose of Al-Anon is action. Members strive to do as well as to be. Anything to help a relative or a friend of an alcoholic is service. A telephone call to a despairing member, sponsoring a newcomer, telling one story at meetings, forming groups, arranging for public outreach, distributing literature and financial supporting groups and local services, and the World Service Office.

[00:28:39] That to me is we are carrying the message, as it says in the twelfth tradition, by not only just going out and doing public outreach or something like that, but also a telephone call to a despairing member, sponsoring a newcomer, telling one story at meeting. Doing all these services, that helps us be self-supporting because we are spreading the experience, strength, and hope. We are sharing the hope we have of what we have gathered in Al-Anon, and we can share it with those who are still suffering.

[00:29:17] Spencer: Absolutely. You know, one of the things that I love about this paragraph is it points out that you don't have to have a, quote, “service position” to provide service, to provide support for your group, for the people in your group. Showing up, just being there is supporting.

[00:29:41] Patrick: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:42] Spencer: If I walk into a meeting, if it's a brand-new meeting to me, if there's a bunch of people there, it must be a good meeting, because all of these people, they've taken the time, made the effort to show up. Then the next step is actually saying something in the meeting, because I don't know about you, but I get most of my insights into myself, most of my new ideas, most of my tools that I can use, from hearing other people share about what they do.

[00:30:19] If I was totally self-sufficient and I knew everything I needed to do to live a successful and serene life, maybe I wouldn't need to go to meetings. But you know what? I don't know. I often say that people in the program are my God with skin on. If I'm looking for guidance from my higher power, one of the most fruitful ways for me to get guidance from my higher power is to listen to other people, whether it's somebody sharing in a meeting, something in a piece of literature, a daily reading, whatever it is. I have to get out of myself to hear the voice of my higher power.

[00:31:01] Being there, sharing, maybe giving a lead, oh, that's scary. But also setting up chairs, so when I walk into the meeting, there's somewhere to sit.and when we're done with the meeting, the chairs get put away so that the institution that is hosting us doesn't get pissed off at us and tell us we're gonna have to find a different place to meet. We want to be a good citizen of the world in that sense, the, the meeting being a good citizen and cleaning up our own mess, so that, we continue to be invited back.

[00:31:33] Patrick: There's lots of kinds of service.I have a, a regular meeting where in the opening, we always ask for a couple of people to put the chairs away and return the room to its original condition. We always get more than two hands going up.That's awesome

[00:31:50] Spencer: It's an easy form of service. It doesn't require you to, open your mouth in front of a room full of people and say something scary.

[00:31:58] Patrick: I used to be afraid of… the meetings I go to a lot of times there is a program chairperson, and then they select somebody to bring the topic. And a topic bringer, a lot of time I was afraid of, what can I bring that's gonna make a difference in people's lives or whatever. I had a grandiose idea that I could do that. You know, that was before step one. But I realized that, what I was being asked to do was I was asked to be in touch with my spiritual higher power and finding what topic they wanted everyone else to talk about. And my job was, like, to kickstart the flywheel.

[00:32:42] And that's all I could do, is just throw it out there and kickstart the flywheel. Not to give out some big earth-shattering revelation or anything, but just introduce the topic, say what I need to say, and shut up, and let higher power take the discussion. Because one person talks, and then that triggers another person talks, which triggers another person talk. And where the discussion goes, I have no control over. That's up to higher powers. So once I realized that my only job was to kick it off, then I go, “Okay, higher power, what do you want me to bring today?” So anytime somebody asked me to bring a topic, I always said yes. I don't know what I'll bring, but I'm sure it will be good.

[00:33:27] The last time I was the lead at a meeting. This meeting we pass around a clipboard, and it says sign up to be the lead. So I signed up for a date, and then I totally forgot about it. I got there, and I was like, “Oh, I'm leading the meeting today.” Oops

[00:33:43] Spencer: So I said, “Well, I did a lot of preparation for this.” Meaning I thought about it for about 30 seconds after I got to the meeting and realized I was leading today.Didn't matter because what I was moved to say then prompted other discussion.When you were talking about this sort of ripple effect, where somebody says something which then triggers somebody else to say something, which then triggers somebody else to say something. I had this happen in a meeting recently where the person giving the lead said something that triggered a realization in me about something I hadn't thought of before, so I shared about that, and then that triggered somebody else to share their experience, which then that came back to me and expanded my understanding of the thing that I had just shared about.

[00:34:35] How does that happen?

[00:34:37] Patrick: It's a God thing

[00:34:39] Spencer: It is. so being in a meeting, being inspired to say a few words is awesome service.

[00:34:47] Patrick: Yes.

[00:34:48] Spencer: And supports our group, supports our meeting

[00:34:51] After a short break, we will continue with Our Lives in Recovery, where we talk about how recovery works in our daily lives and in our meetings. You picked music for me. Thank you.

Song 1

[00:35:03] Patrick: Yeah, the first musical selection is Pink Floyd's Money. That was the first thing that came to my mind when I was thinking of what music did I want to bring to this topic. Some of the lyrics go, “New car, caviar, four-star daydream, I think I'll buy me a football team.” The songs I lead are more of not really profound, but they are fun songs about money.

[00:35:29] Spencer: I just wanna throw one in here because the only song that I actually came up with is the song Flowers by Miley Cyrus. I thought, “Well, this is a breakup song, but it's also about finding the things that she can do for herself that she used to need another person to do for her.” The chorus here, “I can buy myself flowers, write my name in the sand, talk to myself for hours, say things you don't understand. I can take myself dancing and I can hold my own hand. Yeah, I can love me better than you can.”

[00:36:04] So you see the breakup, but also all these things, she's like, “No, I can do this for myself. I don't have to wait for somebody else to buy me flowers. I can buy my own flowers, damn it.” I saw her performance live at the Grammys, which has a great mic drop at the end. I might put that one up on the website.

[00:36:21] Patrick: Awesome

[00:36:22]

Our Lives in Recovery

[00:36:30] Spencer: In this section of the podcast, we talk about our lives in recovery. How have we experienced recovery recently?

[00:36:37] I'm in a group that is working through the 12 steps together. We meet weekly an hour before a regular meeting, and we meet in a room across the hall from where the meeting is. We work through typically a couple of the questions in the book, Paths to Recovery each week, each person sharing their response or understanding of the question.

[00:37:02] We're just starting into step four, which is a long one. There's this phrase in step four, moral inventory. There's that word moral, right? I think what Bill Wilson and the writers of the book Alcoholics Anonymous meant by moral, was contrasting it with physical. Okay? It's pretty clear what a physical inventory is. You look at what you've got, you count it up, you figure out what you've got enough of, what you've got too much of, what you don't have enough of.

[00:37:35] That's not what we're doing here. But it is what we're doing here. We're looking at our character traits, our actions, maybe feelings, our reactions and in the end, we're saying, “So which of these do I have enough of? Which of these do I not have enough of? Which of these am I totally lacking? Which of these do I have too much of?”

[00:38:00] That is my understanding of the word moral here. In particular, it's not about some externally imposed system of morals, which I think is how I probably saw it the first time I saw the word, honestly. It's about me and what works for me and what doesn't work for me, and I don't know what those are. Until I've gone through the exercise of looking at myself in whatever level of detail and depth I'm able to do today.

[00:38:35] Patrick: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:37] Spencer: This is not the first time I've worked through step four.The first time, I know there were things that I just totally glided right over, didn't think about, didn't see, or wasn't ready to see or was afraid of seeing. And that's the searching and fearless part of the step. Every time I do it, maybe I get a little bit deeper. I find things I didn't find.I've been in this program over 20 years, and there are things that I realized recently that were not in any of the previous inventories I did. Oops. No, it's not oops. It's like I wasn't ready to have that realization yet.

[00:39:20] Maybe I needed some more experience of me working with something that was turned up to 11 that needed to be turned down to seven,to really understand that this is not helping me. This is hurting me.Maybe I needed some experience where I'm not doing something that would be really helpful to me, to my peace of mind, to my serenity, to my happiness, to my peace and interaction with other people in my life, which is where a lot of my problems come up.

[00:39:54] So I need to do this periodically, and it's been over a decade since my last one, so I really… It's time, and I'm doing it. And yeah, I think that's where I'm gonna stop.

[00:40:05] Patrick: Okay. This few weeks is gonna be very busy for me. This past weekend, I went to a roundup that was being put on by some AAs and some Al-Anons. It happens once a year, and I've been going to it for probably 10, maybe 15 years. Even when I didn't live here, I flew back for this roundup because it's always so much fun. One of the main speakers that was there last week was from that town when I was living away from here.

[00:40:39] And he recognized me, and he said, “Patrick, my favorite Al-Anon.” And I go, “Aw, that's– that was nice of him.” So that was really an encouraging weekend. And then this coming weekend, I am going down to south of our state, about four-hour drive away, not counting pit stops, to have the statewide Al-Anon convention that gets moved around the state every year.

[00:41:08] And it's gonna be in the south of our state this year. I'm agreed to host one of the speakers, which means I also get to lead the, the speaker meeting when he speaks. But I will see a bunch of my statewide Al-Anon friends that I don't get to see hardly anymore. Since I don't have a area-level service position right now, I don't get to go to assembly. So, that will be good. And I've got a vacation coming up starting the week after that. I'm going on a cruise. And I tell people, “Hi, I'm Patrick. I'm a cruise-aholic.” This is just my latest fix. That'll be a lot of fun. So I've been very busy, and I'm gonna be very busy, and it's just an exciting time right now for me.

[00:41:58] And oh, by the way, I was asked to tell my story again. So I'm telling my story this coming Thursday night at my home group. I haven't talked at my home group. I haven't told them my story in a while. And then at the other end of the city, somebody asked me to tell my story. And I've always been told that in Al-Anon service, unless there's anything that you've already committed to, then your automatic answer is yes.

[00:42:25] So I will be going south of town to tell my story in a couple of weeks. a busy time for me right now. And, I'm also part of a thought force that's meeting to discuss some heavy stuff. I think that higher power has me busy right now for a reason, and I'm grateful for that.

[00:42:45] So yeah, that's what I've been doing and gonna be doing for a while.

[00:42:50] Spencer:

Upcoming

[00:42:51] Spencer: Looking forward in the podcast, my friend Eric has proposed a topic of the law of attraction. The law of attraction suggests that positive thoughts can help you achieve the outcomes you want, while negative thoughts can hold you back. He's seen this happening in his recovery. Have you seen this happening in your recovery?We welcome your thoughts, your sharing. You can join our conversation. Leave us a voicemail or send us an email. And Patrick, how can people do that?

[00:43:22] Patrick: You can send a voicemail or email to feedback@therecovery.show. Or if you prefer, you can call and leave us a voicemail at seven three four seven oh 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.

[00:43:48] Share your experience, strength, and hope or your questions about to- today's topic of Tradition Seven or of any upcoming topics, including the law of attraction. If you have a topic you'd like us to talk about, let us know.

[00:44:03] And if you would like to advance notice, for some of our topics so that you can contribute to that 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.

[00:44:19] Spencer, where can our listeners find out more about The Recovery Show?

[00:44:24] Spencer: Our website, therecovery.show, has all the information about the show, which is mostly notes for each episode. Those notes include a transcript of recent episodes, and in the notes you will find links to the books that we read from, and videos for the music we chose.

[00:44:43] I also generally put together a Spotify playlist of the songs from the episode, which may include some songs that didn't get chosen. Also on the website there are links to other recovery podcasts and websites.

[00:44:57] We'll take a little break before diving into our mailbag.

Song 2

[00:45:01] Spencer: What is the second song that you picked?

[00:45:05] Patrick: The second song I picked is Can't Buy Me Love by The Beatles. I'll buy you a diamond ring, my friend, if it makes you feel all right

[00:45:15] Spencer: I love that the title of the song is Can't Buy Me Love, and then right here he's trying to buy love

[00:45:19] Patrick: Yeah.

[00:45:22] Spencer: Amen

[00:45:23] Patrick: take it buy me love is can– I can't buy myself love or you can't buy my love. It can be read either way

[00:45:33] Spencer: That's true. Yeah.

Listener Feedback

[00:45:43] Spencer: Now it's time for your voices. Laurie wrote to me with a problem that she had when she tried to play the podcast on her phone. She wrote, “I'm still able to open them, but as the seconds tick on, audio does not.”

[00:45:59] And I thought, “Well, that doesn't sound right.”

[00:46:02] We had some back-and-forth emails, and it seemed to me that the problem was somehow in the web browser she was using.

[00:46:10] I sent a suggestion, “You might try using a podcast app instead.” I sent a link to a short video that describes how to select a podcast app on an Android phone. It's titled How to Listen to Podcasts on Android: Best Apps Explained.

[00:46:28] I continued, I have seen a recommendation for AntennaPod, which is one of the apps that was recommended in the video, as a decent free app.

[00:46:37] The subscribe page for ‘The Recovery Show' has a button, Subscribe on Android, that should simplify subscribing once you have installed your app.

[00:46:46] A little while later, she replied, “Yay, it worked. Thank you very much, Spencer. Enjoying listening again. Greatly appreciate you making and taking time to help. Laurie.”

[00:46:57] So if you have run into Laurie's problem, you might try that same solution.

[00:47:04] Jackie writes, “Hi. Thank you for your podcast. They're helpful and a new tool for me. I just finished listening to this episode,” and she meant episode 438, Embracing Spiritual Growth Through Step 11.

[00:47:17] She says, ” I'd like to know how your guest Sara was finally able to find a higher power she could rely on, trust, et cetera. I've been in the program for 18 years, and I'm still struggling to connect with a higher power. Any thoughts or help would be appreciated. Thank you. Jackie.”

[00:47:34] I suggested Sarah's earlier episode, number 417, which was titled Creating a Personal Higher Power in Recovery, where she describes in more detail how she came to find a higher power that works for her. I hope that helped, Jackie.

[00:47:53] That's all we got this time. See you next time.

Thank you, Patrick

[00:47:56] Patrick: Patrick, thank you for volunteering today. You just stepped right up, said, “Hey, if you're doing tradition seven, I'd like to do it with you.”It's one of my favorite traditions. Thank you for having me.

Song 3

[00:48:08] Spencer: Last song, also a money song.

[00:48:11] Patrick: Last song selection is Money, Money, Money by ABBA. Money, money, money is always funny in a rich man's world. I saw the video for this and it brought back memories from disco days of ABBA.

[00:48:26] Spencer: Oh my. And I just want to mention that all of these will be available at therecovery.show/463

[00:48:34]

Outro

[00:48:39] 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.

[00:48:56]