vol 286. Contently Growing with Reed

SPEAKER_00 0:01 We believe that alcoholism is a disease and that Alcoholics Anonymous is one solution to that disease. I'm here to bring you the voices of its members, and everyone that comes on the show, including myself, is an active member and has found recovery in the rooms of AA. As you listen, please take what works for you and leave the rest. SPEAKER_01 0:25 Hi, my name is Reed, and I'm a recovering alcoholic.

We'll go through that. So I was born in southern Idaho in 1958. And although my hometown, Nampa, only had uh 14,000 people in it, it was the second largest in Idaho. But it still felt pretty uh rural, lots of farms around.

And my my family was anything but like I saw growing up, my friends' families. They had a mother and a father that raised their kids, and you know, dad worked and mom stayed home mostly. And that wasn't exactly how mine family went. We had a pretty troubled family history.

The first time I remember was uh being about three or four, probably three years old. I remember being acknowledged that my uh my dad beat my mom fairly regularly. There was uh a lot of violence and and yelling. It was only later that I found that my my father and my mother, this was their second marriage, and that was pretty atypical for my hometown and the time.

And and it caused a lot of uh big eyes looking at me. Uh we weren't real well accepted because there was this, you know, I guess you'd think you'd get you could get a divorce was contagious. So my mother was very abusive emotionally, psychologically, even sexually, abused me. I think that was because I was the only one.

My dad would beat my mom and and she took it out on me. So I was a pretty scared guy when I was growing up. My mom didn't drive, she had a few friends, so she didn't have any, you know, outlet the other than me. So I remember the second grade we were going to go to a place uh they were gonna go to to play cards at a friend's.

I think it was a Saturday, feels like it was the Saturday. I was in the backseat, and she was saying something that she didn't want to go to this play cards. And he says, Well, let's go back and I'll convince you that you want to. I will convince you that you want to go play cards.

We got back to the house, and as soon as I stepped out, my my mom yelled, run to the tailor's house, which I did, and that was about four blocks away. Told them what was going on, dealt the man in the house. He drove over and picked up my mom, took us walls over to my uh my grandparents. So that was pretty weird, uh, that was pretty scary.

There wasn't a lot of stability going on. And then this instability continued up until about the age of 14. Uh more marriage, more people coming in, men coming in and out of my into my life, get attached to them, and they would, and then they were gone. So I learned pretty quick not to uh not to get too involved with anybody, you know.

So finally, at marriage five, she married a man that I didn't want to want to uh I didn't want to live with him, didn't like his religion, didn't want to be uh involved with him, so I ran away. Of course, I didn't get very far. Picked up, I refused to go back, so I ended up in foster homes. There I looked also looked for some way of having a family.

I just wanted to have a family, but you know, foster homes are are always, I think, temporary things. So that just never happened. There were three foster homes that I went to before 18. And um the last one was the foster home.

It was it was at the fosters, that was their last name. I was working full-time and going to school. I'd work at it from 3 to 11, and I would go to school in the in the day. And one of my fellow, my fellow workers, we would quite often we would stop off and get, you know, he was four years older than I was.

He would buy a six-pack of beer, we'd go over to his house, I would suck down as many of those that I could, and then uh drive myself uh home, and and uh and that was a regular thing. I liked the feel. I I needed that uh it may be uh made me laugh, made me feel carefree, which was my my life was anything but carefree. By the time I got to uh my senior year, I was a daily drinker.

A lot of time it was just when I uh on the way home, but you know, there was and there was occasionally before I got to school, there was always a bottle of vodka in my pickup. I got married to my first wife uh the day after I turned 18. And she was a Norby, but she was a partier, and and so uh I thought this is great, you know. I'll have somebody to have we can do a regular party thing.

My my drinking started to affect my performance at work, and pretty quick I lost my job, and she wasn't very keen on that, so she ended up leaving me too, and everything. Uh, so I pretty much lost everything at that point. So I uh I moved to a place called Cascade. Figured, well, I'll go new new place, new new beginnings.

Uh it was a little work there. Uh met a guy at a bar, of course. We would work on his on houses, you know, he was a remodeler, and then met another man at that same bar. He was a a contractor with the Forest Service, planting trees and thinning trees.

You know, we go plant in the spring and summer, then in the fall, and the winter was off, and it was all over northwest Idaho, and ended up uh spending three winters wintering in uh northern Montana in ATP, but uh it was still any time we could get to town, which wasn't all that often in the middle of winter, you know, I had money, so I because it was all stockpiled during the spring and the fall, and I would get as much alcohol as I could bring back and go ahead and proceed uh proceed to uh to deal with that. And finally, after the third winter, I was asked actually asked not to uh not to return. So back to uh my hometown, got a job that I barely kept on. Still drinking, of course, but uh uh a high school teacher.

We got married. That only lasted about uh a year because I just couldn't couldn't hold a job, couldn't, couldn't quit drinking. After that divorce, I I decided I was gonna go do something crazy. I knew that people went to uh there were street music musicians in in uh Portland, Oregon.

So I hitchhiked myself over there with with one guitar and and enough clothes and left what little I still had. I stowed at my parents, grandparents, you know, my my uh my Kiki cover and all that. And I went to Portland. I met a guy there, we played music together on the streets, we made good money, but of course, drinking was was was paramount.

So I uh ended up uh the guy, my my partner says, you know, you're just not you're too unpredictable. Can't you just slow down on the drinking? And I tried and couldn't. He finally says, Well, he's he's got another guy that he's going to play guitar for him, and uh I was out.

So back to Idaho again. It wasn't all that much fun there. Uh I found it's harder and harder to find a job in the uh early 90s in Idaho. So I uh I met a guy who uh some some friends had a band, and they're a guitar player.

Uh we got close, and he was he was from Sacramento, and he was gonna move back. And I sort of followed, so that was my my another geographic thing. We met a band here, but lo and behold, you know, uh drinking, and of course having maybe having affair with the bass player, I had something to do with that too. I got married to the bass player's girlfriend, and we had a son, but as always, we met we met she managed to keep up with or keep me for three three years, which was uh something to say.

We had the latter son, but it didn't last because I'm drinking and I can't hold a job, and she just hadn't had enough, so they left. And uh at that point I found a job that I actually could work at because it was uh a nighttime work. There wasn't anybody else from my company with me. I was cleaning uh through the floors on at grocery stores.

There was the crew that was supposed to was stalking the stuff, but they were part of my company, so and I wasn't always right next to them, so they didn't know whether I was drinking or not. There was a little drinking going on, but afterwards, yeah, it was on. You know, we just uh same old thing. Met a girl at a bar, and she was a nurse, and uh we got married, and she said, Listen, I know you got a drinking problem, it's okay.

Why don't you just stay home, take care of the house, you know, cook. I was a better cook than she was, and she'll make all the money. I said, sure. Oh wow, somebody's gonna let me drink.

So of course it escalated. It got really bad. That only lasted about a year. And uh she wanted to be gone.

So I still had the job. Um, you know, uh, I oh I got the job back from doing the floors and hired me back. I had to look for a someplace to rent a room, so I rented a room from the place that I still live, yeah, from a woman named Marcia. Marcia was very different for me.

There was something something really important with her. And uh, but here I am drinking, and it comes down to that point where she just she doesn't think that she wants to be around me anymore. And that was the point where everything fell apart for me, but uh hit my bottom because I did not want to lose this person. So I made a phone call.

I you know, back then you had uh phone books and you looked them up and and I looked up AA, made a phone call, they told me where there was a meeting. So I went to a meeting. I didn't know really what AA was all about. There was all these people that were, there was a lot of laughter, there was uh there was a lot of really people were sharing from their heart.

I could tell they were doing that. So I wanted that. Whatever they had, I wanted it. They had this, you know, they had this 12 steps on on the wall.

I couldn't figure that out. Somebody told me during the break when we would go out and have a cigarette in those days. I said, uh, well, well, you need to get a sponsor if you're gonna really do this. So I found a guy that at that meeting and asked him to be my sponsor, and he said yes.

I diligently worked my program. I was in service positions, I did 90 meetings and 90 days, 180 meetings and 180 days. I loved going to meetings, you know, I fell alive from them. But I got uh I got a job, daytime job, so I could be home with my now Marcia and I married October the 20th of 2001.

So I had only been sober for about uh four months. And we're still together, if that says anything about how AA works. So I did everything that my sponsor suggested. I worked diligently at my program, got a daytime job, installing switching equipment at central offices for at back then it was Pacific Bell.

It was good money, it was uh it was a good job, weekends off. It was was pretty cool, but uh it didn't last very long because the dot-com thing that was going on, it was a there was more dot-com little companies, you know, that that were running internet and you could shake a stick at, and it just it popped. And so there was a lot of people who lost everything. But I just all I did was lose my job.

Got a job working for uh direct PV, and that was six days a week, and it was longer hours, and you didn't know exactly where you were going, you could go wherever to install these things. And I heard a job that there was really good money doing the rollout for the lottery. They were changing everything from DSL to satellite, and it was really good money. Was a subcontractor to that, and that worked for about six months, and it was all over the place.

Oregon border, Nevada borders. There were times I didn't get home for several days, and me was hard to get to, you know, it was hard to get to, and that job ended, and the next job I got was working for a nursery, and it was it was crazy. That was seven days a week, and it lasted for 10, 10 and a half months every year. So all of a sudden it was almost impossible to get to a meeting, but I I didn't drink.

I'm not gonna say I was sober, but I was definitely I wasn't drinking. I was absolutely petrified of drinking. I am not drinking now. This is the first time in my life I've ever gone without as an adult that I've ever gone without drinking.

I'm not giving that up. So bad health came, bad heart that I was born with had to be repaired. I didn't drink, and this crazy uh uh job, I kept it, and I kept it for uh 10 years, you know. You know, that that's that was unheard of for me.

I finally got a uh hiring uh a merchandiser, so there was less hours for me. So I decided I wanted to play music again, so I formed a band and we played in bars. I didn't drink. There wasn't a problem with not drinking.

But I wasn't nearly, I wasn't that same ecstatic feeling wonderful that I had when I was going to meetings. But after a while it got to where I wasn't even thinking about meetings. And then in 2016, I had a stroke. The only thing that wiped out was my entire language program.

I I couldn't spell, I couldn't, I only had a couple of words. Uh all the Latin and Greek that I had used for uh defining plants, you know, with their uh uh binomial name. I could I could sometimes sing them in my head, but I couldn't get them out of my mouth. I was in uh speech therapy for three years.

And uh I learned to read again, uh learned to somewhat talk. But after that stroke, things changed. I'm disabled, I'm home. My wife is going to work.

Things started to get really dark in inside me, and as we as it progressed, it got really dark, and then COVID hit, and it got even darker. Now my my wife is home because uh she just stayed home. She had uh decided to make a an Etsy shop that she still has. I was uh I would just do the bookkeeping, but it wasn't wasn't very satisfying.

There, you know, there was that and taking care of the chickens and kind of trying to cook and do those kind of things, but it was just it got darker and darker and darker. Marcia and I quit sleeping together just because I wasn't a very I was a pretty surly guy to be hanging around with, and well we lived in that house for uh for years, well during that COVID times, in the same house, but uh and we were cordial most of the time to each other, and we would eat together, but that's about it. The rest of the time I stayed in my uh my office bedroom, and she stayed in hers. And it got so dark that I was really thinking, well, this is this is this is life, this is all I get.

So I don't really my kids are grown, Marcia's kids, they're old and they're they're they're gone. I just couldn't see any reason to stay around. So uh I was pretty for spent a couple of weeks really contemplating how I was going to end my life without uh causing too much. I didn't want any blood around the house.

I didn't finally figured out how to do it. And then I was sitting there thinking about it. I had it planned for two or three days from when I finally made the decision, this is what I'm gonna do. And it hit just like this little flash, and this little thing in the back of my head says, hey, maybe you should go to an AA meeting.

And that just that kept going in my back of my my head, maybe you should go to an AA meeting. So finally, I decided I announced I am going. So I went to a uh to a meeting, and there I was, the same acceptance, the same heartfelt sharing, the thing that I I had missed, that but that I had I loved so much that I had just done and it didn't I didn't have for all those years. So that was 20 years of not drinking and not going to meetings.

So when I went back, I was okay, I need to find a sponsor because I want to do this. This is what I want to do. You got no reason to not do this now. Your home all the time.

You can go to these meetings. So I got a sponsor that night. I started working the steps. And the steps were different this time.

They were rich. The depth to them was different. I said earlier about emotional sobriety. There was a point when I got to this place where I had to, I I had to I had to get rid of the big bad thing that was in my heart.

That was my shame and my pain and my trauma. And uh it was difficult to do that because, you know, given up all this other things, can't I at least keep my pain? Because that's really who I am. That was I am my pain is me.

And uh I found it, I found a way to to do that by finding a way to forgive my my mother who had passed, and we had never really reconciled from the time we were 14. Uh but uh I found a way to do that, and when I did that, all that stuff left. Just almost, I noticed it the next day. Something was different.

It took me a while to figure out what was going on, and it was replaced with this I don't know, I'm just gonna call it love. So all this stuff and just kind of went in and told all of a sudden I had all the space in my heart in my heart, and and my higher power told that with love. So uh today my life is a uh is full, it is it is rich. I have friends, which I've never really had friends before, or definitely can keep them, but I have friends that I'm in daily contact with that uh that uh that mean the world to me.

We study things together, we we read with each other, I have the best sponsor in the world. I have a higher power that I although I don't have a name for it, I I don't have to know it. But I I I'm pretty sure that it knows me. I'm learning things like uh besides diligently follow this my program, I have been learning about stoicism, which really tells me how little I can control in the world.

You know, I've got very little that I can do. The only thing I can control are my actions. I can't I can't even control my body. You know, it's it's aging, it's gonna it's gonna die one of these days.

So obviously I'm not gonna control that. The only thing I actually own are my actions. And today I can stand on those actions and feel good. I don't do anything perfect.

I try, I try, but uh it doesn't happen. And that's I understand that that's part of being human. So I've studied uh a lot about Taoism. That's a lot about just letting things go, which I taught me about how to let things go.

I have a very anxious mind, it always wants to go future driven. I I'm learning how to let all that stuff go. And I've I'm now I'm reading some Hinduism and I'm doing some I've learned some Buddhism. And in my house, there's uh a sense of joy in my house, not just for me, but from from my wife, the dogs.

I don't know whether chickens have caught it, but but it's it's a rich, wonderful house to live in. So my my life is filled with uh with with love and gentleness. I am not the angry person that I was. I am not the surly guy that I was.

I'm uh learning to be the person I used to when I was a kid. I used to be able to sometimes see who I wanted to be, who I was. Now I get to be that, and it is wonderful when you find yourself again because I was pretty lost, you know. Frogs told me pretty on that you know, you have to be, you have to take me with you, because you will never get through anything if I'm not with you.

And that was a lie. That was a lie that I accepted. So I don't have to deal with that anymore. I can wake up uh without a hangover with uh with a smile.

I wake up often with a smile on my face, and uh I look over at the dog on the on the on the bed and I laugh. The day is as good as I want it. So let the day be. So I think I'm done.

SPEAKER_00 27:13 Thank you, Reese. SPEAKER_01 27:15 I appreciate your your time. SPEAKER_00 27:18 Yeah, I um I'm marinating on your description there at the end where you said drugs or alcohol says you have to take me with you, or you'll never get through anything in life. And that is a poignant accurate reflection that brought me to I guess an old realization or maybe a new one at the same time.

But that is what the lie is. You won't be able to get to anything if you have this fear of it being taken away and functioning without it. The reason why people get sober, but they hold on to substances in their house, like I'm not ready to throw it away yet. And it's a sponsor that often comes in and says, come on, let's get rid of all of it, right?

Because combine this lie, but the day will come when you will need me again, so keep me around just in case, because you'll need me. SPEAKER_01 28:14 Yeah, you never know what you're gonna need, man. SPEAKER_00 28:18 I know, I know. SPEAKER_01 28:20 Yeah, uh I don't need any of it.

There's so little that I actually need. Um I need to eat. I'm a vegetarian now, you know. I uh I'm lighter inside, outside.

Uh uh, I just I I've learned patience. I wanted to talk just one little thing about that is that there are two things that I use daily, some of them uh less effective than others, but and that is patience and the principle of impermanence. Patience keeps me from escalating anger to rage and from fear into what terrors state where I'm you know cringing in the corner, and the impermanence transforms everything. Everything transformed the whole universe.

That's what is I think it's I think that's its principle. It's just we're gonna transfer one thing to another. So what they're gonna transform these two things. Well, the big two big things in my life are those fear and anger.

Anger can be transformed into acceptance, just accepting that how people are can't do anything about it. So okay, you know, don't get don't get worried about it, don't do anything about it, just accept things. And fear can be transformed into understanding, you know, why am I afraid? Where did this fear come from?

Because I never had the tools to do that until the people in the fellowship gave me those those tools to look in there and say, well, okay, oh, here's why you're afraid. What's that based on? Well, is it based on today? No.

And here comes that other things, just you know, letting those things go, just to be able to let that go. It's it's a wonderful thing for me. SPEAKER_00 30:30 You listed a few more isms of um Taoism, Stoistism, Hinduism, Buddhism, of course, alcoholism. How have these teachings impacted your day-to-day living?

SPEAKER_01 30:48 Well, Taoism is a uh basically it's just that's just letting go. Let the day be itself. It's taught me that there's never going to be a day that is my day. The day wasn't created for me.

But I was created for it. I have I now have I have the tools, no matter what the day is, to stay in that state I call joy, that that state of awareness, uh, that uh in the moment thing. That's what that's what uh the big thing with with Taoism has done. Buddhism is uh is a wonderful uh thing to look at.

I haven't got that far into it. I've looked at it over the years once or twice, but you know, of course, when I was drunk, I was gonna do that. What do you mean? I'm not gonna do that.

I don't know how to do that. And uh Hinduism, uh I I mostly I love this this the stories. Supposedly what it is, I just like the stories, you know. And it's a lot of it is about yeah, don't get caught up thinking you're special.

Years ago, I realized I was in the bank, and I was waiting in the line. There were some tellers up in the front. I was in the line. I finally got to the end of that line, and I and I realized, guess what, Reed?

Here, you are in a unique situation. You're the only one that is next. I am next. Yeah, and I was.

All the people in the in the the line behind me, they were in the line. They were, and there were lots of them, and there were all these people who were getting taken care of. I was the only one who was next. But recently looking back at that, I realized how short was I going to be there?

How long was I gonna have to stay there? You don't you don't stay there for days and years, you can't be special for days and years or unique for you years. It only lasted moments. So it's taught me that don't get caught up on thinking that you're all that.

I mean, I have people that think that that uh that are people that are important to me, and maybe I'm important to them too, but but in the in the larger scheme of things, I have this beautiful, wonderful light, and that is unique in itself, but it doesn't make doesn't make me to stand around with my chest all puffed out and look at me. You know, it isn't that, and that's pretty liberating to I have to carry that with where I've got to be something I'm not. That's the beautiful thing for me, too. I'm also uh also a Winnie the Poohism.

SPEAKER_00 33:51 Oh, what is that? SPEAKER_01 33:53 Oh, I love Winnie the Pooh. Winnie the Pooh teaches me so much stuff. I uh read this the the two books at least twice a year.

I know all the stories, but it's just looking at it again and just reading them again. Because Pooh is a you a unique thing. He is he is the uncarved block. He just walks around, does his little thing, you know, hum makes up a hum, eats some honey, wanders around having adventures, and he's happy.

He's not like our rabbit who's always worried or uh well, Tigger's kind of that way too. Tigger is is is is a uh he's pretty much himself. But what in Taoism they call the unpar block. It could be anything until you carve it, start carving it.

Then all of a sudden it limits things. But here's that wonderful story where uh they decided they were gonna go discover uh Christopher Robin and then the rest of the gang, they're gonna go out and have an exploration, they're gonna find the North Pole. Don't know what the North Pole is, but they're gonna go find it. So they all set off to find the North Pole.

Well, Little Roo, he gets in, well, they're by a stream, and and he jumps in the stream, and you know, wow, he's he's so excited. Hey mom, I can I can swim, I can swim. But nobody can figure out how to get him to come back on shore. And so Pooh looked down, grabbed up this big branch that'd fallen off a tree, put it uh across the little stream, and and Root picked it up.

And they were able to move it to the shore. And Christopher Rob was out there saying, Wow, that was really cool. Oh, where did you get that uh that that branch? He said, Oh, right here.

He says, Well, you've you've discovered the North Pole. That's cool. Things will take care of themselves if I wait long enough and I have the right attitude, things will take care of themselves. In Taoism, it says, Are you patient enough to let the water clear so you can actually see what's on the bottom?

Or am I going to be over there with a stick in there trying to actually stirring more stuff up? SPEAKER_00 36:30 Yes, my mother would call that fiddle fucking around. SPEAKER_01 36:35 Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that's true. And the other thing I love about it is that when I first came to I I needed uh protection from my drinking.

So I used that shield that a bad for me. I used it. SPEAKER_00 36:53 Say more. SPEAKER_01 36:55 Pardon?

SPEAKER_00 36:56 Say more about that before you talk about comparing it to today. SPEAKER_01 36:59 What should oh well um you know I needed uh I needed to stay with everybody. I needed to be involved in everything around everything became and still in some uh some expense. It's it's I still everything is pretty much AA.

But for a different purpose now. But then it it would protect me until my obsession to drink went away. It was uh I needed that protection. And then afterwards, well, you know, for the next couple of years, I it was I was uh protect me from the world because I didn't know how to live, I didn't know how to react to anybody.

But now, through those those principles, the guys that you guys have taught me into the fellowship, that uh I can live in a live a life that I don't need any protection because I have these tools, because I have this these tools, and I'm also through this time, I don't put myself in weird positions where uh I'm gonna get afraid of somebody, or uh I I don't like I don't hear people's voices in the same way I used to. I was looking for somebody who was uh upset at me or that I could interpret it that way. Because yeah, well look how look how I'm look how sad little guy I am. Well how I'm not a sad little guy.

It's nice I have these, I have the tools I can, I have the people I can talk to. I have uh that's an such an important thing. Such an important thing to have somebody to help, to help haul. Haul haul haul wood and you know carry water.

We get to do that together and enjoy that while we're doing it. Such a great joy being in this fellowship that I I saw it before, but I now I get to participate with it. SPEAKER_00 39:22 I hear you saying that you don't need the protection because you have the tools, but maybe the tools in the fellowship are the protection. SPEAKER_01 39:31 Maybe that is, but I'm not gonna look too hard in it.

SPEAKER_00 39:34 Yeah, fair enough. And it also reminds me of where alcohol was saying, you need to take me with you. You're gonna you're gonna need me at some point. The new thing that you take with you is the tools of the program and the steps and the fellowship and I take I take AAA with me.

SPEAKER_01 39:54 That's just that's that's beautiful. Thank you very much for that. Yeah, I get to take AAA with me, and it's more potent than drinking. It's more potent than my misunderstanding of anything.

So I get to carry that with me and live this live my life and enjoy it. Just enjoy it. You know, yeah. I I enjoy talking to people uh, you know, checking out my groceries or something.

Oh, the other day at uh checking some groceries out, and there's a man named Mohammed. Uh well, he's just a kid. And I never do that thing where you you know, hey, how are you today? Because everybody's just gonna say fine.

So I usually use, so what's new and exciting in your life today? Which is people don't get asked that a lot. And he looked at me. I could tell he was thinking, he says, Well, you know, I just got engaged last week.

And you could see the look on his face. He was just it was a wonderful thing for him, and I got to share that with a stranger. So here he is, and and and that that joy in him. And who knows where that joy that that I left him and he left me.

Well, who were well, they followed me around, and uh probably followed him around. Maybe the next person that got their groceries picked up, maybe there was different for them. Maybe who knows? You never know where it's gonna be.

Yeah, I I I like being, I only got to see these people once one time, you know. Maybe probably. I want to see this person one time. What can I do for this person?

I know that sounds really weird, but yeah, a lot of times that's exactly what college, what can I do? I know that people need to be heard. It's probably one of the things that we don't do is is listen to just to be heard. We listen to uh so we can figure out what our next uh uh response is going to be.

So when I ask somebody a question, and when they tell me something, when they are willing to tell me something, I get to hear that. And I try to let them, I don't know how I try that, but I listen to them, not to respond, but to just understand. And maybe that gets conveyed to people. Maybe that's the whole thing.

I don't know. I just try. SPEAKER_00 42:45 I like it. SPEAKER_01 42:46 Well, I didn't like people.

They scared this crap out of me. I'm not scared of people, I don't think. There are people I either are scary people, but um, but as far as personally, I just I don't I don't have that fear. That's just such a beautiful thing for me to be uh able to uh listen, to be able to uh be open-hearted and and forbearing, have uh you know, uh keeping my heart open, being kind.

That's a whole different life for me. Whole different life. SPEAKER_00 43:29 It sounds like you're very content. SPEAKER_01 43:33 Yeah, I am content, yeah.

I'm still looking. I still I I work my program every day. I'm still trying to I am trying to learn not so much knowledge, but a better way to be. SPEAKER_00 43:49 If that makes any sense at all.

It does. It absolutely does. Yeah, it sounds like growth. A contented growth mindset.

SPEAKER_01 44:00 There it is. Yeah. There's a few other there's a few of my best friends uh have that same thing going on. They're on the they're on the path.

My my path has is is a heart path. So I just stay on it. It's the destination. You know, put one foot in front of the other is the destination for me.

SPEAKER_00 44:22 I like that. Is there anything, Reed, that you are thinking of now or that you left out that you would like to share? SPEAKER_01 44:37 I I know I stumbled while I was trying to explain the past because it it's the past and you know where did this been, what came first, the chicken or the egg. And and also I have aphasia, so my language isn't real good.

Uh especially when I'm trying to recall, it's just it's different. But boy, when it comes to recovery, that's a whole different thing. I talk about that all day. I noticed that uh it I can be spontaneous with it.

It can't be spontaneous with the past. Hmm. That's true. My past, my past are like an old, I can look at 'em.

I can look in there and look at them. I can see the scars on in me, but they don't hurt anymore. And they're like pages in a history book. You know, when I read the uh Civil War, I can I can read the uh the destruction that happens there, but I don't have a firsthand wasn't there, so I don't have this I I can understand it, but I can't it doesn't I walk away from a page and it doesn't affect me all day long because it's it's history, and my past is my history.

It helped make me who I am, it it informed everything that got me here at 67 years old, but uh it's not who I am, yeah. SPEAKER_00 46:18 Um I don't know that I am as as um I don't know if healthy is the right word, as far along on my journey as you, in that when I dive deep into trauma of my past, which is pretty much you know, like the 30 years before I got sober, um, it does stay with me for the rest of the day. I'm not able to close a history book and be like, that's my past, but it doesn't impact me today. I'm not I'm not there yet on my journey.

So you prompt me with your with where you're at. Um I I appreciate you sharing, and I I suspect um with a bit more emotional sobriety, time, and work on my part, I too will be able to read the history of my past and shut the book and walk away. SPEAKER_01 47:13 Forgiveness work for me, but I was actually wanted. I looked at my mother, because she was she was two something.

You know, I think she was in her eighth marriage when she died. She didn't have a a center. All her center was in somebody else's. She gave it all to somebody else.

This is good person gonna save. That person's gonna save. This relationship's gonna save, instead of just trying to do that themselves. But when I got to that point where I was actually looked at that, I realized I would want the same healing that I'm here.

And that's where the forgiveness came. It wasn't like I forgive you. It was never, I don't think I ever said I forgive you, but mom, I sure wish I want you to heal. And that is where all that's where those things started to get sucked out of me.

The trauma makes sense, it has a purpose. It says in the book, and we you know, we no matter how far we've gone down, we'll see that you know we can use it for other people. But it's uh once I got let that go in that way. I want you to have what I have because I have this really good life.

I want you to have that. She's dead, I can't give her that. So as I'm healing, as I'm healing myself, I'm healing for her and my dad too. I'm healing for for everybody in my ancestry that I know of.

I want them to all heal too. I don't know whether they had a beautiful life or not, but uh just in case you have it, I'm here trying to have to uh I'm I'm healing myself so I can heal you. That's the same thing with the people right around me, you know, people you run into, uh, whatever I I want them to have, what I got. Not maybe not the AA thing because they're not alcoholics, but I just I want them to have this joy, I want them to be present, I want them to be because I get to do these wonderful things.

I do know that that vitality is contagious, it's sticky, so it gets gets on you and you can't get rid of it, you know. And so the more vitality or the more that I if I can convey any of that to anybody. I don't know whether I can or not, but I know I could, I know, I know I need to at least try that gets handed on, maybe, if that if that were actually works, if I'm able to actually give that love to somebody, and they take it with them, and the next person gets part of it. And you know, because the wonderful thing about love is you can give it away and still have just enough love.

Really unique thing. It starts right here. It starts with me, it starts with you, it starts with uh wood transformation. Well said.

We've been given uh we're given this this uh miracle. You mentioned that earlier, yeah, this miracle. It won't last if I sit here and uh it won't be very miraculous if I hold it to myself, give it, keep it to myself. I know it's socks in the big book.

We need to give it away, or we'll probably go back to drinking. Well, that sounds how is it sounded a little contractional? Oh well, I'll go sponsor this person or work with this person so that I don't drink. Well, put some like so far a lot of times that's exactly all it does, but that's not why I do it.

Because I want them what I have. I want them to have whatever their life is good. I want the best life for them. That's where it's at now.

It's all altruistic now, I think. SPEAKER_00 51:24 That's all very well said. We have come to the final question now. For the listener that is suffering, what would you like to leave them with?

SPEAKER_01 51:37 Well, be diligent. Be diligent with your program. You'll get a a good life. And then the main thing is talks about it and how it works, talks and defers and talks about honesty.

You have to quit lying to yourself. You have to do that. And that may sound really hard, but uh, you know, that's why that's why we have a fellowship. We're not you're nobody's alone.

You just have to do it. Be honest with yourself, be honest with everybody around you and work the steps. End up putting the steps in your heart. Don't leave it in the book, put it in your heart.

You know, they talk about taking the steps. Taking. Yeah, take it. Go over there, pick them up, put in your heart.

SPEAKER_00 52:29 For more information, read the first one hundred and sixty-four pages of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous or visit keepcoming back.net.