Intro

[00:00:01] Spencer: How do you react and act when the future is uncertain? Welcome to episode 445 of the Recovery Show. This episode is brought to you by Christina, Holly and Jennifer. They used the donation button on our website. Thank you, Christina, Holly, and Jennifer for your generous contributions. This episode is for you.

[00:00:23] 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.

[00:00:41] Ester: 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'll find something in our sharing that speaks to your life.

[00:01:02] Spencer: My name is Spencer. I am your host today. Joining me today is Ester. Welcome back to the Recovery Show. It has been a little while. I went back and looked and we've done five episodes together in between number 3 38 and number 3 74. So that was still a few years ago, wasn't it?

[00:01:21] Ester: It was, thanks. It's great to be back. and yeah, think we were doing them during, 2021 and 2022, as I recall. So, yeah, it has been a while.

[00:01:32] Spencer: It was during the pandemic, right? And we were all like cocooning at home.

[00:01:37] Ester: Yes. Were we ever

Living in Uncertainty

[00:01:39] Spencer: We're gonna talk today about how you are dealing with some of the uncertainty in your life. .

[00:01:45] Ester: Yes, absolutely.

[00:01:48] Spencer: Let's start with your reading that you picked.

[00:01:50] Ester: I went to a go-to book for me these days, which is One Day at a Time in Al-Anon.I love that book 'cause it's got some fairly bluntly expressed messages, which is something that works really well for me, I think I've found. So this is from June 25 in the ODAT reader.

[00:02:10] It is in step 11 that I find the actively spiritual prescription for the practice of the Al-Anon program. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us, and the power to carry that out if we are living by the Al-Anon counsel, first things first, prayer and meditation come before all else, since it is in this way that we receive guidance for our decisions.

[00:02:38] Today's reminder: Am I too busy to pray? Have I no time for meditation? Then let me ask myself whether I have been able to solve my problems without help. As I face them day by day, I want to acknowledge my need for his guidance. I will not let this day pass nor any day from now on without making myself consciously aware of God.

[00:03:01] And the quote from Psalms is, it is God that good of me with strength and maketh my way perfect.

[00:03:09] Spencer: I think I see one of the ways in which you're living in uncertainty is through that contact with a power greater than yourself.

[00:03:17] Ester: Yes, most definitely. It's also timely that we're doing this in November and this is coincidentally a step 11 related reading. I didn't do that deliberately, but I did find that it spoke to the most effective and keep it simple principle for me right now about how to deal with uncertainty. And the fact that I don't know what's in my future. It's such a straightforward circuit breaker, in a way, to dial back into prayer and meditation to include it in a daily practice. And whenever I feel tempted to think, I'm pretty busy, I could eliminate whatever program practice I had scheduled in today, I always remember that whatever it is that I'm working through outside my program is always very much helped by me practicing my program. So I don't see it as a time eater. I see it as a net gain in my time. So prayer is an example of that for me.

[00:04:22] Spencer: When you wrote to me to propose this topic, you said, you wanted to talk about the permanent state of the temporary in your life.

[00:04:33] Would you expand on that a little?

[00:04:36] Ester: Sure. I've lived in various kinds of limbo, I would say, in significant aspects of my life for several years. One of them has been a personal limbo. I was living long distance from my partner for six years. We hadn't planned for it to be six years, but circumstance led things that way. Part of it was to do with pandemic border closures that lasted longer than we expected.

[00:05:07] Part of it was to do with the precarity of the job market, and the need to maintain job security as a first order priority, so that we could maintain our finances, so that we could live. Our personal preference to live in the same place took a backseat for a while, but we sorthad enough of that and we really did feel like we were living in a permanent state of temporary when it came to that. So we were looking for ways to end that situation. And an opportunity came up to live in the same place. My partner got offered a job in the location that he grew up in and that he was born in, where his immediate family lives. And I was verbally offered a job along with him. I didn't, however, sign a contract. But there was trust involved in that decision and we thought that it was too important to take that leap because of all of the other factors that we cared about. So we decided, let's do it. Let's see what happens. And I made one very wise decision in that process, which was not to resign from my job, but to negotiate extended unpaid leave. Which would mean that if something fell through with the gamble, I could, if need be, return to my paid position and not be left in a kind of permanent state of unemployment. We, of course, preferred that I wouldn't have to take that route 'cause that would return us to a new state of limbo. But, given that I wasn't signing anything, we thought it was prudent to take that step. So I'm very pleased that we did that. Because about a month after my partner signed his contract, the employer informed him that they'd be hiring freezes. And that a turn in government policy would lead to a very different situation in the workplace, both for him, in his job, and also for the prospect of having me also get a position. So that really changed things. And I have spent this year maintaining my cv. I would say I have been working, but I've been working on my own timetable. I've been working on things that I care about.

[00:07:25] Spencer: Just, as a note here, for those who are not in academic employment, CV is what we use, curriculum vitae, instead of the word resume.

[00:07:36] Ester: Aha.

[00:07:38] Spencer: I think most people are probably more familiar with resume,

[00:07:43] Ester: Fair point.

[00:07:44] so just wanted to clarify things for the listener, For sure.

[00:07:48] Spencer: And also, talking about government policy and so on, we're actually not talking about the US government in this case, right?

[00:07:56] Ester: Correct

[00:07:58] Spencer: Just get that potential source of conflict out of the way.

[00:08:02] Ester: indeed.yes, it's it's in a different country. It's interesting that I've enjoyed a level of autonomy around how I work, even though of course there's a level of background frustration that I'm doing it on my own time, not getting paid.But I've also gotten very used to not feeling obliged to my inbox. And, the idea of potentially returning to a very overcrowded working life and schedule that isn't entirely determined by me,is something I would have to find a way to get used to again. But, I don't know what I'm going to do because on December 3rd, I'm contractually obliged to tell my employer whether I'm resigning or returning. At the moment there are several things that may inform what I say about that. And I dunno what that's going to be yet.

[00:08:57] Spencer: And again for clarity for the listener. I'm currently in a backlog situation with the podcast, which is a great thing, but that means that this episode is going to air as it were, after you've had to make that decision.

[00:09:12] So we'll leave our listener in limbo.

[00:09:17] Ester: Yes. Yes. By then, something will have been decided for sure, and there will be lots of variables in that, which I have no control over. I have control over the final decision that I deliver, but the various things that inform that are quite outside my control. They include things like whether my partner is offered a job in the place where my existing employer is. Whether he's offered that job in time for me to deliver that decision. Whether we apply for jobs in other places that aren't either of the places that our families live. And also just our willingness to gamble, whether it be financially, personally, professionally, or some combination of all of those. There's no very simple, clear route. I think for me, Al-Anon has been the only way I've been able to navigate that without going into a state of quite frenzied control, or analysis paralysis, all of those things.

[00:10:23] Spencer: Something that our financial advisor asked us when we were starting the process of doing financial planning for retirement was, what is your risk profile? Do you want almost no risk? Are you willing to take a lot of risk? Are you somewhere in between?

[00:10:42] It feels to me like that question could come up in your situation here. Some of the options, certainly seem to have some risk with them.What was more important for us than that question as it related to retirement planning was, do we, the two of us have similar risk taking or risk averseness,

[00:11:06] Ester: Hmm.

[00:11:07] Spencer: because if one person is like, no, I need to know that things are gonna be okay ahead of time, and the other person is like, well, let's see what happens. Then that makes that kind of decision making a little harder as a couple, right?

[00:11:24] Ester: Right.

[00:11:25] Spencer: That was something that came up in my head as you were talking about all these choices. Do you know. Whether you guys have a similar attitude towards risk or safety or not.

[00:11:35] Ester: Hmm. it's a good question and I think it's fluctuated over the course of our situation. Part of it is fluctuated with my state of peace and serenity. Part of it has fluctuated with how close we were to the various rock bottoms we've experienced. ‘Cause my partner is my alcoholic loved one. And part of it also relates to different phases of life that we feel as though we are entering, shifting priorities, getting better at speaking openly about our feelings about these things as they come up, as opposed to waiting until a really drastic change is about to happen and then dropping,oh by the way, I'm not comfortable with this out of nowhere.

[00:12:24] Spencer: So we're getting better at communicating about it, which helps us reach a kind of group unity, I suppose. You know, tradition one.

[00:12:33] You wanted to talk about how you're using Al-Anon, the Al-Anon tools, principles to help you in your permanent state of the temporary.

[00:12:44] Ester: For sure. I think one of the important things for me is easy to access Al-Anon tools. So if I'm feeling overwhelmed or if I'm feeling like I'm going into certain old habits, I would say of thinking whereI get into the three Ps, procrastination, perfectionism, paralysis.

[00:13:10] Spencer: Yeah.

[00:13:11] Ester: Or I get into obsession and control, which is the whole reason I'm in the program.

[00:13:16] Then I have these quick tools I can draw on. Some of them include slogans that are go-tos for me since the very beginning of my time in Al-Anon, which are, let it begin with me. That's a really important one because I have a tendency to look over my shoulder to see what the other person is thinking or saying about something and what possible impression might I make by making one or another decision? What might my family think? These kinds of things are very deeply ingrained in me, so I have to work very hard to strip that away and to think, how will this affect me if I make one or another decision? I don't always have clarity on that. So yeah, let it begin with me is crucial for that.

[00:14:01] Other slogans that I really love for this, I keep an open mind. Listen and learn. Let go, let God. How important is it? I think keep an open mind is extra important. Because I have a tendency to look at all the possible ways that something could go and I research things thoroughly and I think things through very carefully. I can assume that therefore I've thought of all the possible options that exist. Thankfully this program's taught me, that is not usually how it goes. Usually things may strike me without my having thought through them. Circumstances may change that I absolutely could not have predicted. And the results of those circumstances may be a whole new set of options that could be before me that didn't occur to me. They get perhaps highlighted at the 11th hour, and then I would make a whole different decision than what I thought I had in front of me. So keep an open mind is really front and center for me in my program now.

[00:15:10] In addition to the slogans, I think, some basic principles that have taught me how to navigate life in general have been particularly important at this time. And they include patience, which is not a trait that comes easily to me.at this point I have, yeah, what, whatever, two and a half weeks or something before I have to make a decision, which isn't that long. But if I'm speaking through these options, as they are in front of me, right now with my partner every day. 'cause it's not just about me. That is actually quite a lot of not making a decision.

[00:15:52] Spencer: Oh my, yes. I think where I see patience explicitly showing up in the Al-Anon program is in steps six and seven. Particularly step seven, where we ask for God to remove our shortcomings and it happens, and I'm sure this phrase is in the literature somewhere, in his time, not mine.

[00:16:11] Ester: Exactly. In his time, not mine. And sometimes when I share my permanent state of temporary, as it is now with people around me, maybe those who I don't know that well, but. Let's say they're asking me to do something in January and I say, I don't know where I'm going to be in January, but theoretically, sure.They will often say things like, wow, that sounds really difficult. I don't know if I could stand not knowing. That's where I really recognize how this program has made basically all the difference between being likely very unmanageable in a scenario like this and being serene and being at peace, being mostly pretty okay with the fact that I don't know the answer to this stuff yet. That's not me every day, but it is me most of the time. And I would consider that a huge gift of this program and the tools that it's given me. The fact that I've had this year to really work it, and I have chosen to do that. I've got a sponsor. I've got a lot of active daily practice that I put in place very deliberately. Because I've seen what happens when I take long breaks.I'm not dogmatic or disciplinarian in that sense, but for me, I've found, 'cause I've had times when I've just circumstantially not been able to get to meetings for a period of time. I've not had books with me. I've not had the regularity of the routine of my practice. And I don't even notice it's happening.

[00:17:53] But the backslide is quite intense. And by the time I get to the point where I notice, I'm already very unmanageable. And so I really need. For me, I need the regularity, the frequency, the maintenance part of the program is extremely important to me personally.

[00:18:14] Spencer: Yeah. We were traveling this summer, and part of that travel involved going to the AA international convention.So we got lots of recovery there, on an almost hourly basis. Right.But then we also took a cruise, we took it as part of a group of recovering people. And so there were almost daily meetings, talks and a lot of people that we could talk recovery with if we needed to.

[00:18:47] And so didn't have my regular meetings, but it was there if I needed it. We had each other too. We work different programs, but there's a lot of similarity,in the working, right.so yeah, I can feel that.

[00:19:02] But back to you and patience, or maybe you're done with patience.

[00:19:08] Ester: Yes.I've lost patience with patience.

[00:19:12] I think another one is perspective. That really helps me, and I think this also comes from Al-Anon. I remember hearing a very raw share during a Zoom meeting that I attended while we were all locked down, with a person who I'd never encountered in the rooms before, who said, something like, and it really cut through and I've never forgotten it. He said something like, life's too short for me to worry about all this stuff. I just wanna live, you know, something like that. The life's too short part really stuck with me. I don't wanna put energy into things that don't serve me. That has really informed my perspective on where I choose to place my energy. I have the things I need. I have everything I need. I have food, shelter, I have a partner that I love. I have a safe place to be. I don't live with my family of origin, but I have a good relationship with my family of origin. Which is something that's also a gift of this program. That was not always the way.

[00:20:23] I've gotten to live in all these cool places and meet all these cool people, because of something that I could perceive of as instability. And in some senses, yes, it's instability and uncertainty and limbo and all those things, but it's also been a blessing.

[00:20:38] Al-Anon helps me keep that at the center of my consciousness, even when I'm feeling some anxiety about the, okay, I don't know what tomorrow's bringing, part of things. So I'm very grateful for that. that's a gratitude thing, right? That's a classic Al-Anon gratitude thing.

[00:20:58] Finding gratitude for what I have, rather than wishing for what I don't have. Exactly.

[00:21:05] I'm reminded of the cliche, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, but rephrase that, like when life gives me cherries and what I really wanted was apples. Well, cherries are still good,I love a cherry. Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Sometimes my choices don't always lead me to the places that are best for me. So sometimes things that aren't my choices are actually good. I think back to where I had a choice between two institutions I was applying to do my doctorate in and I applied for one that I really believed was the best one for me with the supervisor, who I believed was the best one for me. And because of the requirements of that country and that program, I wasn't able to be accepted because of my international status. It's complicated, but basically that's what it came down to. The supervisor was interested, but the institution wouldn't accept me. The second choice with a different supervisor, which I wanted less, but was still interesting to me, was the choice that I got accepted into. And it turned out in retrospect that that was absolutely the right place for me to be with absolutely the right supervisor. And there's no way I could have known that with the information I had at the time. That was not my choice. I didn't get my choice. So I feel like there's things like that in my life that give me evidence that I don't always know best. I need that reminder sometimes.

[00:22:46] Which comes back to faith. And I think that's a really big part of this whole situation for me, is I need to dial back into faith. When I don't have control over the really big pieces of my life, like where I'm gonna live, potentially who I'm gonna live with, how I'm gonna make money, like those things, it reminds me of the reality that's already there, which is I don't have control over most things. The little day-to-day things that I think I have control over that give me some semblance of routine and stability. Like they can be taken away from me too. I don't know what tomorrow's gonna bring.I don't need to live like I assume things are gonna be taken away from me. But it is helpful for me to remember that I am not in charge of everything.

[00:23:32] So faith in a power greater than me, whatever that looks like, I'm not God, is a big piece of this and helps to ground me and to bring me back to a state of peace when I'm feeling, oh, the ground is shifting from under me. I don't know what's gonna happen. Which I do still feel sometimes.

[00:23:53] Spencer: Thinking about perspective and changed perspective from working the Al-Anon program, is an understanding, a realization that even when things didn't work out the way I wanted them to do, even when potentially terrible things were happening, I was always okay. I might not have been where I wanted to be. But I was okay. And that perspective, I think, makes it easier for me to have faith that whatever comes, I will also be okay.

[00:24:30] Ester: Yes, definitely. There's a part of me that would really like certain outcomes. And would probably be annoyed, maybe a little resentful, if certain things didn't transpire the way that I preferred them to. Yet I do know that even if that's the case, I will be okay. I do know that, because I've had evidence of that in every area of my life so far. I was even okay when I thought my world was coming to some kind of crashing, burning end, when my partner was hitting a rock bottom with drinking.

[00:25:10] My surrender was, I can't handle this anymore. You need to leave my space. At the time, that felt like kind of an evil act. Because I was Al-Anonic and I thought it was my role to rescue and to keep this person safe and make sure that it was okay. Even if I was losing my mind. And yet it turned out to be the thing I needed to do in that moment. And it, it led me to genuinely be okay. And that wasn't something I premeditated or wanted or anticipated. And yet it led me to a better way of life in the long run.

[00:25:57] If I think about all the ways that this program has helped me with my relationships, with my family of origin, with my partner, with my workplace. and of course with myself. I am one of those people now, one of those crazy people in the rooms that says, I am grateful for the fact that I had a circumstance that brought me to these rooms, even though that circumstance was difficult at the time. I'm one of those people. Never thought I would be.

[00:26:28] Spencer: Yeah, me too. I'm still not completely clear whether I'm grateful that my loved one is an alcoholic,

[00:26:35] Ester: right.

[00:26:37] Spencer: even though she's got 20 years of sobriety under her belt now, she's still an alcoholic and she still falls prey to the isms of her disease. But I am certainly grateful that her alcoholism brought me to Al-Anon.

[00:26:55] Ester: I think the last episode we did was me sharing about the new information that my partner had stopped going to AA and revealed that to me.

[00:27:06] Spencer: Number 3 74. My recovery is not conditional on yours.

[00:27:11] Ester: Yeah. So that's really interesting to think that it's been that long now. So, I have a partner who is an alcoholic, not in recovery, and hasn't drank as far as I'm aware. At least not when we're together.For that long. And we're okay.

[00:27:30] Spencer: That was February, 2022, so three and a half

[00:27:33] years ago.

[00:27:35] Ester: I didn't like it.

[00:27:37] I had to talk to my sponsor and I had to dial into what am I here for? And it kept coming back. And my recovery is not conditional on his or anybody else's. It still helps the broader family.

[00:27:55] that's not why I do it, but that is a very,blessed byproduct of my recovery continuing, regardless of whether he's in his own program or not.

[00:28:05] Spencer: What else is supporting you in your permanent state of temporariness?

[00:28:11] Ester: Keep it simple. I am working through some very, very complex decisions, and I would like to overcomplicate everything. ‘Cause it's what I do. And I'm good at it. But, if I'm doing that, this program helps me find a way back to some of the core principles of Al-Anon. Step one, I'm powerless over people, places, and things. If I say those words out loud or read them, I'm like, oh yeah, that's why I'm here. That's why I came.

[00:28:43] Spencer: I was listening to a podcast on a totally unrelated topic about brains and aging. One of the people in the conversation said, sometimes when I'm going to bed at night, I worry about whether I locked the doors or not. And what I've started doing is telling myself out loud, I locked the back door, I locked the side door, I locked the front door.

[00:29:04] Now I have three sensory inputs that I actually did it. I did it, I said that I did it. So I formed the words in my head and then I heard myself say that I did it. And that has helped a whole lot. When you said, saying it out loud, one of the places that I found this in program is step five. It's not enough to just say it to myself. It's not enough to say it in my head to my higher power. If I say it to another person, that kind of reifies it. Makes it real.

[00:29:42] Writing it down. One of the readings, I think on step four is, why do I have to write my inventory? Because it makes it more real. If I just think it in my head, okay, thought it, it's gone. 'cause thoughts do that they go away. If I write it down on paper, it doesn't go away, you know?

[00:30:06] And what I've found is when I start writing, sometimes I write something that I didn't know I was gonna write. That might also be true of saying it out loud, like, you know, talking in a meeting. Getting it out of my head so it can come back inhas been important to me.

[00:30:25] Ester: Yes. That's also been my experience. My first sponsor, insisted that I hand write everything, when I worked the steps. She said, you're gonna have a different connection to the words you write if you do that. I followed her instruction and I did it. And I found that to be true. I found it to be true that I was able to connect with a higher power through the written word, with a pen and paper. In a way that other forms of documenting it might not have allowed for. For example, if I'm typing in a word processor, I can edit myself very easily. And I do. In the written word, if I am scribbling things out, the evidence is there. I scribbled it out.

[00:31:11] There is something about that helps me to get to another level of honesty, I think.

[00:31:18] Spencer: So I have to ask, have you tried journaling about what's going on right now in your life?

[00:31:26] Ester: I haven't really journaled since I was a child.

[00:31:29] Spencer: Okay, whatever the equivalent is.

[00:31:32] Ester: You mean just writing it down?

[00:31:33] Spencer: Writing. Writing it out. Yeah. Writing out, okay, this is what I'm facing. Here are the options.is that helpful?

[00:31:41] Ester: Yeah. it's funny, I've talked about doing this as a group exercise with my partner since it's a group decision. But there's resistance from him.

[00:31:49] Spencer: Oh, okay.

[00:31:51] Ester: I'm not completely sure why. If I recall the conversation we had about this, it's something to do with. He believes that we will better go with our gut if we don't try to do like a pros and cons columns or, like, writing it out in a kind of systematic way. But it sounds like you're not necessarily asking about that. You're just asking about writing, like doing a brain dump of some kind.

[00:32:12] Spencer: Yeah.

[00:32:13] Ester: The answer is no. I have spoken about it a fair bit with different people in my life, which I find to be a very helpful process because, I find it working through things aloud with people who I trust. I've gotten to a lot of decisions in my life in that way, and I find that it's a teamwork thing. I tap intothe wisdom and experience of various people I know. It doesn't mean that what they say is going to change what I do, but I incorporate it into my overall thought process. But that's a really interesting question. Maybe I should do that. I'm gonna think about that.

[00:32:55] Spencer: I know that I've, as a sponsor, you get a call like, I'm facing this big decision and I don't know what to do about it. My first response is, I can't tell you what to do about it.

[00:33:06] Ester: Yeah.

[00:33:07] Spencer: So I say things like, tell me about your fears. Tell me about your hopes. Tell me what would be good about one decision or the other. Tell me what would be not so good about one decision or the other. and through that process, I can hope that will help lead them to a decision that they're comfortable with.

[00:33:27] If it's a couple decision it's that much harder. Being able to have that conversation as a couple, seems essential.

[00:33:36] Ester: it is. And in the background, life still continues. The stresses of life, the things that happen day to day that have nothing to do with this decision. At least not clearly to us today. They still happen. We have to continue living our lives. My partner's aunt is very unwell, and we've been doing a lot of hospital visits over a month now. And, you know, it's not my aunt. And so there is a bit more of a supporting role that I feel like I take in that.

[00:34:09] Doesn't mean I'm not affected, but I can have a little more loving detachment, perhaps with a bit more ease than someone that it's their aunt.but we've had to incorporate that into our routine and the routine is already very full. Also there's the question of how much we reveal to the people.For example, my father-in-law who was so happy when he found out that his son was moving back to town after 20 years away. The idea of having to potentially share a decision and actually, we're outta here. See you later. Which of course we wouldn't do in that way, but I think it would be very heartbreaking. And it's not worth us preempting the heartbreak. So we've made a decision not to share with him that we're 50 50.it just doesn't seem worth the emotional energy for him and it doesn't add anything to our situation or make our decision any easier.

[00:35:09] That's an agreement that we had that, that it's not dishonesty by omission, it's just not necessary information right now, and it would actually potentially harm somebody else, especially given that his sister is in hospital and he's got all this other stuff going on in his life. So there's those things that, they keep going.

[00:35:28] And I have commitments that I have kept, which are demanding, cognitively demanding.They're work related. Some of them are activism related, and they matter a lot to me. So I've kept them, sometimes at the expense of my personal life. Those are decisions that I've made and stand by, because Al-Anon has helped me clarify where I wanna be putting my time.

[00:35:55] I don't make those decisions thoughtlessly anymore. I don't overcommit myself just by virtue of impulse, which is how I used to do that. Occasionally though my calendar does get very full and I still have to find a way to be honest about that. And to be honest, when I've over committed myself. This week is one of those weeks,

[00:36:13] Spencer: I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me then.

[00:36:16] Ester: this is good for me too.

[00:36:18] You know, this is recovery, right?

[00:36:20] Spencer: Absolutely.

[00:36:22] Ester: What do you wanna say to wrap this up?

[00:36:24] I think that remembering, as I work through these circumstances, these life challenges, that I'm still in Al-Anon regardless of whether the alcoholic is drinking, regardless of whether I have active addiction in my life, because Al-Anon helps me to live my best life. Importantly for me, that has led to my interpersonal interactions with people being so much higher quality than they used to be, which makes me feel good in turn. And that no matter what's going on, this program continues to give me that. So the uncertainty is okay, because I'm in this program. I'm very grateful for that, and I tap into that gratitude on a daily basis through my daily inventory and my step 11. I think I'll leave it there.

Song 1

[00:37:16] Spencer: Thank you. We'll take a little break from the serious matter here and we'll look at the first song that you chose. And then we'll come back and talk about our lives in recovery.

[00:37:27] Ester: The first musical selection, which you can listen to on the website@therecovery.show slash 4 45 is YAS with Staying Alive, Alberkam remix. And it's a SoundCloud link that will be provided rather than a YouTube one. 'cause the YouTube version doesn't have the full track on it. SoundCloud is free, so that's still fine. People can click on it and listen. There's a whole lot of lyrics in here that are about Al-Anon for me in this case, but I heard this very catchy remix of the already catchy Bee Gee's classic Staying Alive in the closing credits of a film that I watched.

[00:38:09] The refrain Staying Alive, it was the first time I heard that and thought, oh yeah, Al-Anon helps me to do much more than just stay alive. And I think when I was pre-programmed, that was the level I was at. It was staying alive. Like my baseline was low and now my baseline is staying alive, but living it well, I would say. This song is very joyous and makes me wanna dance, so that's why I included it.

[00:38:42]

Our Lives in Recovery

[00:38:50] Spencer: In this section of the podcast, we talk about our lives in recovery. How have we experienced recovery recently? And man, you've been talking about it a lot, so I'll talk about it a little.

[00:39:00] Something I've been thinking about, because I've been having some interactions with my wife where she is telling me that the way in which I respond to some things that she does and says has changed, and she doesn't like it. We had another, I can't call it a conversation, it was an interchange of opinions, last night where she said, you didn't used to do that. And I said, I think I did. She's like, well, you know, that's not how I see it. I can't take her inventory. I mean, I can, I do it all the time, but it's not recommended. And I can't change anything about her, anyway. I know that, I've learned that in a program. That's one thing that like really started me in the program. I can't change her.

[00:39:46] So I need to practice some inventory and some discernment and maybe some amends. You know, have I changed in this way? I don't think so, but maybe. So I want to be a little more self-aware of what's going on, when we interact in this way. What's going on with me?

[00:40:08] Maybe it is up to me to try to make some change, for the sake of our own unity and common welfare. I just had a conversation recently that will be on the podcast with a friend about tradition one, which speaks to unity and common welfare and personal progress.

[00:40:25] There we go. Steps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I'm kind of at the beginning of that, but think. I'm committed to doing a series of episodes on the Al-Anon traditions. Like I said, we just recorded, which by the time this conversation comes out, that one will already be there, tradition one, And then there's tradition two about how we make decisions together with the support of a loving higher power. Those can very definitely apply,in my day-to-day life.

[00:41:01] When you talked about getting back to the basics, getting back to the program, well, that's part of the program. And I hadn't even thought about how that would apply until you said that. So, thank you.

[00:41:12] Can you say a few words about how recovery's working in your life today?

[00:41:17] Ester: Something that happened yesterday, I'm feeling, it's not a phrase I would use too often in Al-Anon, but I feel it's fitting, I'm feeling quite proud of in terms of my recovery progress. Last night, I had to make, I didn't have to, I chose to make a small presentation in a group context, that I'll just broadly call advocacy. It was a presentation where I decided I was going to pose a challenge to the way that a group had been doing something. Because I felt that we could improve on this particular thing. And I felt that it was something that had occurred often enough that I felt it was worth responding to and thinking about. 'cause we were having a meeting about what next year's going to look like, setting aside the fact that I may or may not be here for next year. I just acted as if I will and went into it with that spirit.

[00:42:09] So I prepared a short presentation in consultation with another person that I knew broadly agreed with me on this issue that I was raising. And we strategized a bit on how we would raise it. And we decided and agreed that I would raise it from the front and that he would then speak to it from the floor in the broader discussion. And we had our reasons for doing it that way. I knew that it was likely that I would be in a minority position on that issue, but I did it anyway. I didn't know quite how much of minority I would be. and there was, I wouldn't say pushback, but some people who felt that they needed to defend the way that things had been done, defended it quite vigorously as a result of me bringing it up. There was some heat, I would say, in some of the spirit of the defenses. Nothing ever got personal, but it was a spirited discussion. Out of a room of maybe 25 people, me and two others were in the same headspace about things. And actually one of the two others was 50 50 was unsure, but spoke a little bit in favor of what I'd said. A previous version of me would've really struggled with that. I would've taken it as an invalidation of my worth. I would've taken it personally. I was very reliant on the approval of others, not only of whether I do right or wrong things, but whether I say right or wrong things. More reliant than I would care to admit at the time. Last night, I stayed present while everyone was in their mode of disagreement. I was grateful that it led to a lot of people speaking up that otherwise wouldn't speak up in that context. For me, that was a net positive, even though they disagreed with me. At the end of it, even though the majority disagreed with me, people thanked me for bringing it up because it compelled us all to look at this core question of how we're doing things. I walked away from that, not thinking, oh my goodness, 95% of people disagreed with me. I walked away from it feeling that went really well. Most people disagreed, but that's okay. I think it planted some seeds and they were important seeds.

[00:44:29] And maybe I'm wrong. That's another piece of Al-Anon progress. It was something I put forward with the possibility that I might be misjudging things, but I didn't regret doing it. and that for me is a huge piece of Al-Anon progress that shows up in my daily life and in places where discord and disagreement are necessary in order to move forward and improve.

[00:44:56] The idea that I can do that without making it about myself and like, turning into a victim or turning into someone that feels like I'm not getting sufficient approval from people, that for me is a absolutely massive sign that I'm doing the work. And I felt good about it to the point that I even mentioned it to my partner. He wasn't at the meeting yesterday, but I came home and I said, you know, I'm really proud of myself. I don't normally do that, but I was. So that's a way that recovery is working for me today. One of them.

[00:45:24] Spencer: Can I ask a question?

[00:45:26] Ester: of course,

[00:45:27] Spencer: Have you studied the concepts of service in your time in Al-Anon?

[00:45:31] Ester: I've been in groups where we've discussed all of the steps, traditions, and concepts.

[00:45:35] Spencer: In your narration of what happened, I see at least a couple of those concepts in action. One, participation is the key to harmony.

[00:45:44] You coming in there and participating, then encouraged other people to participate, apparently. And in the end, even though you disagreed, the group was still in some form of harmony, right?

[00:45:59] Ester: right.

[00:46:00] Spencer: The second is, the rights of appeal and petition protect minorities and ensure that they be heard. The group let you put forward your minority opinion and took it seriously.

[00:46:11] Ester: Yes.

[00:46:12] Spencer: So if you haven't looked at the concepts, listener, they might apply in your life more than you know.

[00:46:19] Ester: Yeah. I hadn't thought about it with reference to the concepts, but that's true. I certainly do consciously think about the traditions when I go into situations like that. and sometimes my prayer before going into situations like that will be to include, help me remember the traditions, yeah, they totally apply when I'm dealing with any group situation whatsoever in my life.

[00:46:43] Spencer: Thank you for sharing that. I love examples of taking the things that we learned in our recovery and applying them, which is why I do this lives in recovery segment in the podcast and have since, not quite the first episode, but very early on, we added that segment in because recovery. As a friend of mine who has an AA podcast says, recovery is not just about putting down the drink, it's also about living our lives more fully and completely.

[00:47:12]

Upcoming

[00:47:13] Spencer: Speaking of the podcast, what's coming up?I've got, somebody coming on to talk about patience and acceptance, which is gonna be different 'cause it's a different context, different person.

[00:47:24] And then we haven't scheduled this yet, but been corresponding with one of my listeners, a friend, about estrangement. He's feeling estranged from his daughter, and it hurts. I put a note out to the mailing list and I got a whole bunch of responses. I was saying to, to Ester earlier that, when we do that, we've got so much material that the episode is gonna be, as my friend John M says, chock full of nuts. If you have experience with estrangement and you didn't get the email, and you wanna contribute, you can. Ester, how can people contribute to the podcast, send us feedback, et cetera.

[00:48:07] Ester: You can send a voice memo or email to feedback at the recovery dot show. If you prefer, you can call and leave us a voicemail at 7 3 4 7 0 7 8 7 9 5. You can also use the voicemail button on the website to join the conversation from your computer.

[00:48:28] We'd love to hear from you. Share your experience, strength, and hope, or your questions about today's topic of uncertainty or any of our upcoming topics, including patience and acceptance. If you have a topic you'd like us to talk about, let us know

[00:48:43] If you'd like advanced 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 at the recovery dot show. Put email in the subject line to make it easier to spot.

[00:48:58] Spencer, where can our listeners find out more about the recovery show?

[00:49:01] Spencer: Ester, that would be our website, which is the recovery dot show, where we have all the information about The Recovery Show. Which is basically the notes for each episode. Within those notes, you'll find links to the book or books that we read from videos or SoundCloud links to the music that Ester chose.

[00:49:23] I always love your musical choices because you come up with stuff that I'm not familiar with, and then I get a chance to expand my musical universe.

[00:49:32] Also on the website there's some links to other recovery podcasts and websites that you might wanna check out. Recently I added a list of the top 10 listened to episodes over all time. Probably making that list is gonna keep them in the top 10, but, obviously a lot of people have found value in those episodes, and so I thought, let's do that.

[00:49:56] Ester: Great.

[00:49:57]

Song 2

[00:49:57] Spencer: Now we're around to your second song.

[00:50:01] Ester: Our second musical selection available on the website is What is Your Decision by Willy Winfield and the Harptones? This song is from the 1950s, and it's early rhythm and blues, and it's gorgeous. There are,live recordings that people can find as well. This one's just audio only that I've provided. But it's obviously the question that I'm gonna need to answer at some point. Right now, I don't have a decision, but I'm gonna have to get there. And this song has some lyrics that are poking at somebody who hasn't made a decision, being like, all right, come on now, what's your decision? And I thought it was a lighthearted, response to my current situation.

[00:50:44]

Listener Feedback

[00:50:52] Spencer: I got a couple of emails to share this week.

[00:50:55] From Patrick, who was co-host in the episode on Tradition One:

[00:51:01] I found a copy of the Mary Pearl Traditions in Relationships Tape set. And a link, which I will put in the notes at the recovery dot show slash 4 4 5

[00:51:13] He says, I know that there are more recent versions at some of the Al-Anon Without Border sessions, especially the one on October 3rd, 2020 . Again, a link will be in the show notes. Thank you for those, Patrick.

[00:51:30] I just took a quick look at those two websites. The tape is from an event in 1988, Mary Pearl, speaking in Jackson, Mississippi.

[00:51:41] And the Al-Anon Without Borders sessions on traditions and relationships, there's two sessions, covering traditions one through six, and a second session covering traditions seven through 12. Those seem to be about two hours each.

[00:51:59] Lots of content there if you're interested to go check it out. And I have not heard those yet myself, but I have heard other talks by Mary Pearl. She's got some real depth of recovery and is also an entertaining speaker.

[00:52:15] I got an email from an anonymous listener who says in part. I am on episode one 19 and I just started listening four months ago. Not too shabby. You've had so many great co-hosts, and I've enjoyed your solo episodes too. I can't tell you how much the recovery show has helped me in my recovery.

[00:52:34] I learned so much from you and your co-hosts. I have one in-person meeting and one online meeting that I attend each week, and the recovery show feels like another meeting. I think hearing you and your co-host share has given me the courage to chair my online meeting. I chaired it Christmas day because no one else was volunteering, and I thought that might be a day when some people would need a meeting. The meeting went well and I just volunteered to chair again and also host a meeting.

[00:53:01] Thank you for writing. I'm happy to hear that as a result of listening to the recovery Show, at least in part, you have stepped up to provide some service to your meeting. And yeah, Christmas day I'm sure is a day when a lot of people could use a meeting. I'd be interested to hear how well it was attended. One of my in-person meetings is Wednesday and it meets in a church. And Wednesday, in 2025, was both New Year's Eve and Christmas Eve, and the church was having some event both nights. So that meeting just couldn't meet for two weeks. Online meetings don't have that problem, do they?

[00:53:43] That's it for this week. Love to hear from you. Send us a voicemail. Send us an email.

Thank you

[00:53:51] Spencer: Ester, thank you for suggesting this topic, for joining me today for this conversation about your permanent state of temporary, about uncertainty and how your program is helping you navigate uncertainty.

[00:54:07] Ester: Thanks Spencer.

[00:54:08] Spencer: And one more song.

[00:54:10]

Song 3

[00:54:10] Ester: Our last song selection is Que Sera Sera by Doris Day. An old classic, which you can listen to at the recovery dot show slash 4 4 5. I put this last because really every single lyric of this song pretty much spells out what I need to keep at the back of my mind as I am deliberating what my decision is. Whatever will be will be. I see the whole thing summarized by the slogan, Let go, let God as well, which of course isn't in the song, but that's how I read it.

[00:54:42]

Outro

[00:54:47] 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're 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.

[00:55:05]