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May 7 - Handle With Care · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:06
  All right, guys, this is me and Paris again, and it is May the 7th, and we got a little
• 0:14
  baby here with us too.
• 0:15
  So it is May the 7th, Handle with Care, the stone.
• 0:20
  Truth never should be used as a weapon.
• 0:25
  Growth requires honesty about myself, but always with care and respect toward others.
• 0:31
  Ripple 1 practical.
• 0:32
  Today I will take responsibility for my own actions without exposing or blaming others unnecessarily.
• 0:38
  I will speak truthfully, but with wisdom.
• 0:42
  Making sure my pursuit of healing does not come at someone else's expense.
• 0:47
  Ripple 2 spiritual.
• 0:49
  As I follow Christ, who is both truthful and compassionate,
• 0:54
  The Holy Spirit shapes my words and intentions.
• 0:57
  The Father teaches me that real maturity
• 1:00
  holds both honesty and love together.
• 1:03
  Over time, I learn to walk in truth
• 1:05
  that heals rather than harms.
• 1:08
  Yeah, up at the top up here, it says,
• 1:12
  and you kind of touched on it earlier,
• 1:15
  truth should never be used as a weapon.
• 1:17
  And I think you just talked about it not too long ago.
• 1:20
  And it says,
• 1:22
  the rule is we must be hard on ourselves,
• 1:25
  but always considerate of others.
• 1:28
  But also over here on page 77,
• 1:33
  bottom of 77 in the big book,
• 1:38
  and we're talking about amends here,
• 1:40
  says, under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue.
• 1:45
  Simply we'll tell him we will never get over drinking
• 1:48
  unless we have done our utmost to straighten out the paths.
• 1:52
  we are there to sweep off our side of the street
• 1:55
  realizing that nothing worthwhile
• 2:00
  can be accomplished until we do so
• 2:03
  never trying to tell him what he should do
• 2:07
  and that's a really cool deal
• 2:10
  that paragraph right there is very interesting
• 2:12
  how Bill Wilson puts this
• 2:15
  because it warns me twice
• 2:17
  or then it warns me again right here
• 2:20
  his faults are not to be discussed we stick to our own so that's you know in a in a small version
• 2:28
  because i mean i don't think we're not we can get into this a little bit but you know in a small
• 2:33
  version this kind of tells me how i should be with another person and maybe that other person you know
• 2:39
  because we talk about where we should practice this right and i think i need to we should emphasize
• 2:43
  this in our home first, occupation second, and affairs third. So I think about this when I'm
• 2:51
  talking to my significant other. And I mean, we bicker a lot, right? We've been bickering for four
• 3:00
  years, but I love her, man. But here's the thing. I'll tell her and be like, hey, you know,
• 3:07
  well, since you did this, I did this.
• 3:12
  Right?
• 3:12
  And that's an easy little, that's an easy little pass through.
• 3:16
  But, you know, if I really want to get down to how I need to be,
• 3:20
  is I need to just go ahead and say, hey, I did this.
• 3:25
  Because we, you know, it talks about that a little bit in the fourth step too, right?
• 3:28
  On page 67, it says we resolutely looked at our mistakes.
• 3:35
  So with determination, I'm looking at my mistake.
• 3:38
  I'm not looking at yours because we're forgetting about yours
• 3:41
  because you're not even the problem.
• 3:43
  Did you, you know, what a crazy thing that is, right?
• 3:46
  To think that this whole thing is I've always looked at it as a you problem.
• 3:51
  So it says on page 62 of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous says,
• 3:56
  so our troubles we think are basically of our own making, not just mine.
• 4:02
  It says our own making.
• 4:04
  They arise out of ourselves.
• 4:07
  Man, like, you know, that is the promise this book gives me, one of them.
• 4:10
  It's one of the biggest to me.
• 4:12
  And, you know, I didn't, you know, come up with those words on my own.
• 4:15
  I wish I did.
• 4:16
  But, you know, I think I got that from probably Joe Hawk.
• 4:19
  Yeah.
• 4:19
  But, you know, it stands true to me today, man.
• 4:22
  That is the biggest thing that I can get because all my problems, I could have, you know, well, you see me at my worst, too, right?
• 4:29
  They were always everybody else's problem.
• 4:31
  We're situational.
• 4:33
  I remember when I got the DUI at the Gold Club.
• 4:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 4:37
  Yeah.
• 4:38
  When I got that DUI, I remember my lawyer, I told, and my mom, I told this.
• 4:44
  I said, hey, man, you know, it didn't count because I wasn't driving.
• 4:48
  And, you know, I blame the Gold Club, I think.
• 4:51
  And if anybody doesn't know, the Gold Club's a strip club.
• 4:55
  But, you know, it was never my fault.
• 4:57
  No, actually, I think I blamed my significant other because we got in a fight that night.
• 5:02
  Or maybe it was my dad's fault because I was coming back from his memorial,
• 5:08
  and if he hadn't have died, you know, I would not have got the DUI.
• 5:11
  But, you know, that's how I viewed things in my life at that time.
• 5:15
  You know, and I'm not, and I don't want anybody hearing this.
• 5:18
  I don't want them to think that's how it really is today.
• 5:20
  But at that time in my life, man, it didn't matter if you were alive or dead.
• 5:25
  I would still blame you because I could never take ownership and responsibility of this.
• 5:30
  And this thing kind of goes into this.
• 5:31
  It says growth requires honesty about myself.
• 5:35
  And I could never be honest with myself.
• 5:38
  What do you think, Paris?
• 5:39
  Man, so, you know, man, I can relate to the toxiness.
• 5:45
  That's what we call it sometimes, you know, dealing with, you know, the past.
• 5:49
  You know, you talked about the DUI.
• 5:51
  You know, I had to be truthful with my DUI, too, because I also, you know, wasn't driving when I caught a DUI.
• 5:59
  You know, it was just the fact that I was on the side of the road in a ditch, you know, in a snowstorm.
• 6:05
  But, you know, going to this stone where you're talking about where it says the truth never should be used as a weapon.
• 6:12
  It made me think about, oh, you know, when I had a girlfriend at the time, I was like, well, I told you the truth.
• 6:18
  So, you know, you could be happy now.
• 6:21
  Right. But no, that's not how it works.
• 6:24
  Just because I told the truth don't mean everything is cool.
• 6:28
  Because how many times that we can go and tell somebody, oh, I'm sorry, I did that.
• 6:33
  But how many times have I had to tell somebody I'm sorry?
• 6:36
  And I had to look at that.
• 6:39
  And it says, growth requires honesty.
• 6:41
  That reminds me.
• 6:42
  And I started looking at what is it on page.
• 6:46
  I was just looking at it.
• 6:47
  First of all, I'm going to tell the people what is step 5.
• 6:51
  I've admitted to God, you know, to ourselves and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.
• 6:57
  And, you know, I had to really, you know, admit it to God.
• 7:03
  That's the spiritual part of there.
• 7:05
  You know, to ourselves, that's the mental.
• 7:08
  You know, and then to another person, that's physically.
• 7:11
  You know, so I had to realize what am I doing with step five.
• 7:17
  You know, the truth for me, when I release those things, because we're still talking about the truth, you know, and let things go.
• 7:26
  On page 75 of the big book, it says this.
• 7:30
  It says, we thank God from the bottom of our heart that we know him better.
• 7:37
  And this is a fifth step promise.
• 7:41
  And why would I know God better after I do a fifth step?
• 7:47
  So I think of maybe God's truth.
• 7:50
  You know, if he's everything, he's this as well.
• 7:56
  On page 58, it talks about honesty, right?
• 8:01
  They're naturally incapable in grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty.
• 8:06
  Their chances are less than average.
• 8:09
  There are those two who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.
• 8:17
  So honest is this word, and you're talking about it's the first step, whatever I could argue otherwise.
• 8:22
  What is honesty in this program, really?
• 8:25
  And maybe honesty doesn't start, maybe it's still step five.
• 8:30
  And you can actually go back to the spiritual experience appendixes.
• 8:35
  And, you know, what's interesting is the order they have those in, right?
• 8:39
  Because you hear it every day in the rooms of this program, they say, how?
• 8:44
  Because it's a cool catchphrase in treatment centers and things like that.
• 8:47
  And they say, how?
• 8:48
  Honesty, open-minded, and willingness.
• 8:50
  But I found it didn't happen in that order.
• 8:52
  First, it was willingness because the willingness came from me broken down where nobody else in the outside of the world would look at me.
• 8:58
  And everybody thought I was just a piece of crap.
• 9:01
  And so it was that the brokenness and the desperation of a drowning man, right?
• 9:07
  So that's where the willingness came from.
• 9:09
  Honesty probably started around somewhere in step four, step five.
• 9:13
  Maybe I could argue step three.
• 9:15
  I don't know.
• 9:16
  But somewhere in between there.
• 9:18
  But then the open-mindedness came of what God was to me in my life.
• 9:23
  And it happened in that order.
• 9:26
  But when I think about what honesty is in that manner,
• 9:30
  I'm going to come bring it to a head right there.
• 9:32
  I know I'm forever here rambling.
• 9:36
  honesty, I think about my amends process, right?
• 9:40
  What do I do on my amends, man?
• 9:42
  Because when I go making amends, that's where I get honest.
• 9:48
  Man, we can play this honesty game out here and keep it secluded in the program,
• 9:53
  but when I go tell another person just a bunch of different things,
• 9:59
  man, I stole this from you.
• 10:03
  What can I do to repay that?
• 10:05
  Yeah, because, like, you know, you have to be careful also, as it says in the book.
• 10:10
  Careful for what?
• 10:11
  Because on page 77, under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue.
• 10:17
  When I go be honest with them, because I'm not hurting them when I tell them I stole something
• 10:22
  and I got to go pay them the money.
• 10:24
  That's helping, not hurting, buddy.
• 10:26
  That was never anything that I, that was not mine to begin with.
• 10:31
  And if I'm going to go give somebody some money, they're going to be willing to take it.
• 10:36
  So don't think that that's hurting at all.
• 10:38
  That's hurting your ego, dog.
• 10:40
  If you're trying to weasel that one, I'll tell you.
• 10:44
  Yeah.
• 10:47
  I'm just saying, just in case somebody listened there and been like, oh, okay.
• 10:51
  Well, maybe I should do something.
• 10:52
  Don't go break up a marriage.
• 10:55
  Or don't go hurt your loved ones.
• 10:57
  But other than that, no, everything in there, in the amends process, I'll tell you, it says, you know, there's very specific words in this literature.
• 11:11
  Whatever the situation, we usually have to do something about it.
• 11:14
  I think about it like wires, right?
• 11:17
  So when I start getting honest, it starts untangling those wires.
• 11:21
  So if I'm trying to grow a conscious contact with my higher power, and I got lie, lie, lies, and I don't go calling my significant other saying this, I don't have a side person.
• 11:34
  But if I had a side girl over here, a side girl over here, I got a lie over here, a lot about this over here.
• 11:42
  So I got all these things, man.
• 11:43
  That's a complicated life.
• 11:45
  Yeah, it is.
• 11:46
  So when I'm coming back to truth and knocking those things down and getting more honest in my life and living, and you could probably, you know, because you're pretty well-read in the Bible, there's probably something in the Bible that talks about honesty.
• 12:00
  I mean, yeah.
• 12:01
  I mean, I was reading in some Matthew, you know, Matthew 7.
• 12:05
  It says, why do you see to speak that is in your brother's eye,
• 12:11
  but do not notice the law that is in your own eye?
• 12:14
  You know what I mean?
• 12:15
  That's a part.
• 12:16
  I know when I read that, it almost made me think of, like,
• 12:20
  how are we looking at another person and not looking at yourself when you're not,
• 12:25
  you know what I mean?
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  Like, we can judge another person about not being honest.
• 12:28
  Right.
• 12:29
  But what is your part about that?
• 12:31
  You know what I mean?
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  Like, what are you looking at to, you know, help that person?
• 12:36
  Because like you said, you're spiritually sick.
• 12:38
  Another person might just be spiritually sick.
• 12:40
  I had a thing that happened this weekend.
• 12:42
  You know, I was supposed to, I kind of lied.
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  I wasn't honest with myself.
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  And I wasn't honest with another person.
• 12:50
  Really?
• 12:50
  Yes, man.
• 12:51
  And, you know, this is what made me realize this, you know, talking about it.
• 12:56
  You know, it was supposed to be a date night or whatever.
• 12:59
  You know, and, you know, I kind of tried to switch it up,
• 13:02
  be like, oh, well, you counsel, so I'm a counselor too.
• 13:04
  Right.
• 13:04
  You know, but I really had, I just went to do something else.
• 13:09
  Yeah.
• 13:09
  You know what I mean?
• 13:10
  But I had to make it, switch it up to make it sound real.
• 13:13
  Now I got to do it in the midst, you know.
• 13:14
  Right.
• 13:15
  I really do.
• 13:16
  I know.
• 13:17
  But, I mean, that's the thing about this, you know, doing these steps, man.
• 13:22
  You realize that you got to.
• 13:24
  It's the little lies.
• 13:25
  It ain't going to, the thing is, it's hard to lie nowadays.
• 13:30
  Why would you want to lie?
• 13:32
  Hold on.
• 13:33
  You say it's hard, but that was the easy, that was the easy task for you to do, right?
• 13:37
  It came out smooth, too.
• 13:39
  Man, if you're hanging around me and living a life with me in the past, you better be smooth with them.
• 13:46
  You know what I mean?
• 13:46
  Because that was what my life was about.
• 13:48
  Yeah, man.
• 13:49
  Right?
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  And it comes out so easy.
• 13:51
  But, you know, I think here, this is the deal.
• 13:53
  You made me think about something, and it's on page 70 of the big book.
• 13:59
  They're talking about the sex inventory in this part, but it says,
• 14:04
  if we are sorry for what we have done and have the honest desire to let God take us to better things,
• 14:10
  we believe we will be forgiven.
• 14:12
  We have learned our lessons.
• 14:13
  If we are not sorry and our conduct continues to harm others, we are quite sure to drink.
• 14:20
  You know what that looks like, and I'll tell you what this looks like to my life.
• 14:23
  man paris i was sober around four or five years whatever that was i don't however long i was had
• 14:29
  been sober at that time but man what i was doing i was dating this girl i you know we've been together
• 14:35
  for a little while and i was cheating on her and um i could have i gave i could give you every
• 14:43
  explanation not today but at that time why i was living that way right yeah but i'll tell you when
• 14:50
  you start living that way and it starts little, right?
• 14:52
  Starts little lies.
• 14:54
  When we're talking about lying, I don't think, you know,
• 14:57
  it can be little passes at women.
• 14:59
  It can be little things.
• 15:00
  Because what's a lie, right?
• 15:01
  And so when I'm living my life in a lie,
• 15:05
  and I'm lying about how I'm living, you know,
• 15:07
  and it's cool because it's going to all round out to this prayer.
• 15:11
  But, man, I'll tell you, today I have to live somewhat of an honest life.
• 15:17
  And the cool thing is I have men like you in my life as well.
• 15:20
  that I'm able to call and be like,
• 15:22
  hey, man, this is what I did.
• 15:25
  And, you know, I don't expect phone calls
• 15:27
  from people that I care that I put in my life today.
• 15:31
  I would like them to say,
• 15:33
  hey, this is what you need to go do.
• 15:35
  Because what I want them to say is,
• 15:37
  oh, man, that's all right.
• 15:38
  We all do things like that.
• 15:40
  But what I want, like, you know,
• 15:42
  I need someone to be hard on me.
• 15:44
  Yeah.
• 15:44
  You know what I mean?
• 15:45
  And I like men to be in my life that are,
• 15:48
  Because if not, man, and I got a bunch of people that disagree with me, that's crazy.
• 15:53
  Because I will go run riot on this world.
• 15:57
  And I've already done that before.
• 15:58
  It doesn't work out.
• 15:58
  What else you got?
• 15:59
  Man, you know, it made me think about, you know, because, you know, going back to the big book again,
• 16:05
  Page 82 would say sometimes we hear alcoholics say that the only thing he needs to do is to keep sober.
• 16:11
  And it's a lie.
• 16:12
  You know, because just staying sober ain't going to fix me spiritually.
• 16:19
  Oh, that's not just enough, Paris?
• 16:20
  That's not enough.
• 16:21
  I can't just stay sober.
• 16:23
  Because if I stay sober, I'm still going to have a lot of stuff in my mental right.
• 16:27
  Capacity that's going to hold me up.
• 16:29
  You know, so that's when I was like, man, I got to get this stuff out.
• 16:33
  And that's why I just said, I just confessed it again about me lying to the girl.
• 16:38
  We can't know it or whatever.
• 16:40
  But that's the part of this program that people have to understand.
• 16:43
  When you're working on yourself and changing, you're not going to be able to sit there and continue to let it bother you.
• 16:53
  You're going to have to let it go and let it out.
• 16:56
  You're going to have to tell somebody that's, you know, closed mouth friend, or you're going to have to tell that person to make amends to him.
• 17:02
  Or you're not hurting them.
• 17:03
  He didn't just tell Bill this thing, right?
• 17:05
  Oh, yeah, I didn't tell you.
• 17:06
  I told Bill.
• 17:07
  He just made accountability.
• 17:08
  I love you, baby.
• 17:11
  That's the price, Mom.
• 17:13
  But, you know, we'll finish it on this right here.
• 17:16
  It's interesting in this prayer.
• 17:18
  It says, Father guide my words and actions today.
• 17:23
  So we're going to say the prayer after I finish.
• 17:26
  So it says, Father guide my words and my actions today.
• 17:30
  Well, if I'm asking God to do that on a daily basis right when I wake up,
• 17:34
  and we could have a whole meeting, we'll add it into the next one on this.
• 17:38
  but that's what I need to do right when I wake up.
• 17:41
  Because anything after I do, before I do that prayer,
• 17:46
  whose life am I living at that point?
• 17:47
  Because I don't want to live my life anymore.
• 17:50
  My life got me into some rough places.
• 17:52
  I remember when I went to treatment, and you still had my GPS,
• 17:57
  and you saw me in this field.
• 18:01
  Man, so the story is, y'all, I'm going to tell you real quick, man.
• 18:05
  I thought my guy was gone.
• 18:07
  I didn't know Corey was going to treatment.
• 18:12
  And, you know, I had his location on my phone.
• 18:15
  I was calling him, a phone call, and then it just went.
• 18:20
  The location was showing, but, you know, it was somehow said unknown.
• 18:25
  You know, it just went like it was dead.
• 18:26
  I said, man, I thought my guy had died or something.
• 18:28
  I thought somebody got him, you know.
• 18:30
  But that's the part about this program that we still came back together.
• 18:36
  And even though we've been through a lot in our past,
• 18:38
  today we're here reading books and talking with each other.
• 18:41
  Reading books, though.
• 18:42
  Father guide my words and my actions today,
• 18:44
  through Your Spirit, help me live honestly
• 18:47
  while honoring others and shape me in the truth and love of Your Son.
• 18:50
  Amen.
• 18:51
  Amen.
• 18:51
  ...