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11 Empowering Statements : An Alternative to the 12 Steps of AA · Journey Out of the Bottle

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Journey Out of the Bottle, the podcast that's challenging outdated narratives and opening up modern conversations around alcohol and addiction.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Melissa Lira, and whether you're sober curious, alcohol-free, or somewhere in the gray area, you're in the right place.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is my hope that something you hear will inspire you, comfort you, or remind you that you are not broken and you are certainly not a woman.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: A toast to an epic voyage toward your journey out of the bottle.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Cheers.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: All right, welcome to the very, very first Journey Out of the Bottle Happier Hours.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've been contemplating and building this in my head for quite some time.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the premise of this is it's it's not your mom's AA meeting.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is a community collaborative uh collective of women who are coming together to choose a life without alcohol that can be blissful and fun and sexy and wildly outlandish, uninhibited, intuitive, authentic, with no blame, no shame, no labels, and certainly no guilt.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Today, on the uh the opening ceremony, if you will, I'm going to read, uh recite the eleven empowering statements and mantras.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um I rewrote the 12 steps.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that again, listen, many people this program works for.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's for you, amen.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can also have supplemental uh groups and and meetings and and whatnot, but I'm I've created this because this is what resonated for me, and I believe it will resonate with many other women who find this other to me.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna speak for me, and again, whoever this resonates for, great, that this is an outdated old paradigm dogmatic mentality.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'll give anecdotal um information.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And one one of the stories is uh I I went to many meetings.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've grown up with this program, it's been a part of my life in the peripheral.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we all we all know someone who's been through this program, and I did not believe, especially with the very first opening step, say stating and admitting that I am powerless.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not powerless, you're not powerless.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: None of us are powerless.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And and I believe in the placebo effect.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that words are spells, and so if I have to start my my journey into sobriety by stating that I'm powerless in order to be, you know, just living an alcohol-free life, like that, that to me, I was like, mm-mm, not doing that.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: If I have, if I'm gonna have to say I'm powerless, then I'm already like 10 steps back, right?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: 11 steps back.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're going 11 steps in the right direction.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I've rewritten the 12 steps of AA, a 12-step program, and I'm going to recite those to you today.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: The 11 empowering statements and mantras from Journey Out of the Bottle.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we will use as our infusion of empowerment, sovereignty, liberation, reclamation to living a blissful life without alcohol.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for joining me.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sit back, relax, and listen.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be good.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: All right, I have rewritten the 12 steps of AA to my own flipped narrative version of what I call the 11 empowering statements and mantras.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was familiar with these 12 steps from the time that I was 15, uh, when my mother went through rehab and began attending meetings.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: I went with her to many of them.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was on board with this.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, yes, that's the ice machine.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: I say this because I really want to make it clear that I have nearly 40 years of experience with these steps in my life through several relationships, and I just could never resonate with them.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And as with many new paradigm or what I say, evolutionary aspects in our culture, when I couldn't find what I was looking for, when it was time for me to give up alcohol, I created and curated my own.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I've been doing for the last three years.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: I call this a renaissance movement.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a completely flipped narrative.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to change the narrative of the disempowering.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a nearly a century-old institutional, punitive, uh, vibrational program that requires labels and admitting to being broken and powerlessness and defectiveness and the normalization of addiction and dependence to be the fault of the human.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: I just, this whole mission is to flip all of the outdated narratives to bring awareness to the absurdity that addiction is the fault of the human.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're not going to get into that today.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big topic, and it's a polarizing one.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: But we're not outsourcing our power and further disempowering ourselves to admitting that we have a problem because we drank a substance that is a known highly addictive poison that manipulates the neurochemistry of the brain to become dependent on the substance.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to share each statement and mantra in contrast to the 12-step that it correlates with.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just gonna go 12-step, first step.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's the 12-step program, first step, and then the statement.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: So um, and I do this again, like it's not, it's not a bash.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm not trying to bash this program.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to like, you know, pull people out of it.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's that that's that to me is cult-like.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm just giving people an option.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: But the reason I want to contrast is because the reason it didn't work for me and how I'm flipping what that says into something more empowering.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna share one quick story is that you know, I believe again in the placebo effect, and and the words we speak to ourselves have a very, very strong impact on our reality of what we are experiencing and how we are are living our lives.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, every everything that like we say a negative word or phrase, if there's a negative spin to it, it sinks in.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I used to, I used to, when I was in the working world, I I was a sales manager, national sales director.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I had a lot of people underneath me, and I was trying to get them to drink the Kool-Aid of what we were selling.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I when I would first come on board to the new company as the as the new girl, I would always have the sales reps coming to me and saying, you know, this doesn't work, and this doesn't work, and this is broken, and I can't do my job because of this.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay, what is working?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you could have a magic wand in your back pocket and you could wave it and make everything perfect, like what would that look like?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: What would that look like for you?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And let's not focus on what we can't do, let's focus on what we can do.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's just what I'm doing here.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: All right, the 12 steps.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: First step is we admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: I say, I am powerful, I claim my agency, and my life is more than manageable without alcohol.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the mantra is my power belongs to me.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: How much better does that feel?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think it feels really good.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: I admit that I'm powerless over alcohol and that my life has become unmanageable.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, I mean, life is difficult to manage.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you don't drink a drop of alcohol in your entire existence, life can be a challenge in any given moment.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, even when you're on a roll, you're like, ah, things are good.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're dealing with billions of other energies on this planet.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's it's inevitable.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: The weather can be unmanageable.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we we've got to learn to pivot.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And how do we pivot in in this life?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: If we are like, I'm powerless to weather, I'm powerless to eight other billion people.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you are.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: You are.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: So is that is that how you want to be, or do you want to say, I claim my agency?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: My life is more than manageable without this substance in it.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: I just get rid of that thing, and then it's like, woo, here we go.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: My power belongs to me.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: The 12-step, second step is came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Journey out of the bottle.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Statement number two.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: I am my own highest power.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I trust my clarity, my knowing, and my connection with myself and my mantra is I am my own authority.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't, I believe that we have been conditioned and programmed to outsource our agency to God, to the boss, to the teacher, to the man, to the medical professional, to the insurance company, to pharma, to like anyone else but ourselves.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I started realizing this with my second child when, you know, I'm I'm a I'm a I'm a new mother again, six and a half years later, and I was like, you know, like, oh, I was gonna start following down the same path that I did with my first child, where I was like, I should just call the doctor about this.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know, like what if I do this wrong?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it was kind of this age where all the new like uh you know mothering books were coming out and like moms were evolutionarying.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like my mom didn't have a fucking book, she was doing it on her own, you know, and not to say that didn't have its implications, but I'm I'm just saying, like, we have this innate wisdom inside of us.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: We are intelligent, we have like we're intelligent beings.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start acting like it.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: We have a higher power within us.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: I trust my own clarity, my knowing, and my connection with myself.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: I am my own authority.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't like I have to have a power that's greater than me out there, and I'm gonna outsource my my sanity to that in order to restore me back to sanity.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Then I have to say, hey, you take over.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there there is this adage of like, let go and let goddess, right?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let go and let goddess like guide me.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: But that's listening to our intuition, listening to ourselves.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Self-trust is the highest power.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Twelve step, third step is made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm not gonna throw a bunch of like shade, like right, like why can't it be goddess?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like her.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, but again, we're turning our our our will and our lives over to this outside agency.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I believe step number three, sorry, statement number three, is sovereignty.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: I honor my choices, I direct my life through conscious choice, intuition, and innate wisdom.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can see where these all start to blend together, right?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the mantra is I do not outsource my sovereignty.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've made a decision to take my agency, my sovereignty into my own hands.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I can do this.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: I can do this.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: I choose to take my life back into my own hands.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: All right, twelfth step, fourth step is made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, again, let's say you've never drank a drop in your life.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Does that does that make you does that make your inventory list clean?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh our our we're constantly judging ourselves for everything that we do.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're being judged.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I believe that judgment is the bane of the human existence.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when we start talking about the diagnosis of being an alcoholic, it's like, what's too much?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because in some uh circumstances, scenarios, uh, environments and cultures and whatever, like two or three drinks a day is totally fine.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then in others, people are like, oh, did you see how many drinks she had?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I mean, what's too much?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: I that we'll talk about that a lot later, but okay, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, talk about exhausting and depleting.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: I see myself fearlessly.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so statement number four is self-love.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: I love myself, I see myself fearlessly, I stand in the fullness of who I am and I accept myself.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: The mantra.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I claim all of me.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I claim all of me.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm just I'm constantly working on how do I be a better woman, better mother, a better friend, a better human, right?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: But if I'm constantly checking myself, like, oh, I did that shitty, I did that shitty, I did that shitty, I did that shitty, like you can catch yourself.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, gosh.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Next time I'm gonna do that better.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not gonna add it to my fucking backpack and be like, oh now I gotta add that to my moral inventory of myself.
• 16:49
  unknown: Okay.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Number five.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Number five.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: The 12th step, number five.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that could that's gonna take a long time.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: I do shit wrong all the time.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a gazillion things that I could just be sitting here all day talking about the nature of my wrongs, and now I gotta admit it to God and to someone else.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm gonna call someone every day and be like, uh, here's a list of my inventory moral failures, and now I have to admit it to you in order to be a good human being.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Number five, the journey out of the bottle.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Five, number five statement is forgiveness.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: I forgive all.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: I honor my humanness and release guilt and shame.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the mantra is forgiveness is the foundation for my growth.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm gonna say this one again because I love this one.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I forgive myself.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I honor my humanness and I release the guilt and the shame.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I got some heads shaking in here, and like it's right, we forgive ourselves.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness is the foundation for my growth.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's take a sip.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Cheers.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're almost halfway through.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's no halfway.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Number six.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Twelve step, sixth step.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're entirely ready to have God remove all of these defects of character.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is a big one for journey out of the bottle.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, again, I'm not admitting that I have a defected character because I drank a substance that is neurochemically and biologically impacting my brain.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: It is doing exactly what it is meant to do.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: It is manufactured for the specific purpose to uninhibit us and change the way we are behaving, experiencing life.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: So now I have to admit that uh I need God to remove the defects of character.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Again, if you've never drank a drop, are are you a perfect charactered human being?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Number six, journey out of the bottle.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Statement of mantra.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: I am a whole being.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is about wholeness.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: I am whole.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I accept myself for all my parts and all of my imperfections.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: I accept myself for all of my parts and all of my imperfections.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a whole being.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need anything to be removed about my defects.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: I am constantly being aware of how I can show up differently.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not defected.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm defected.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly not gonna say that.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, number seven, the twelfth step, seventh step.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: I humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: This one's very similar.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Number seven, I I request revelation.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Reveal to me what needs to be healed, and I listened.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so number seven is is all around awareness.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: I request revelation.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I seek to reveal what needs to be healed, and I listen.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the mantra is I vow to love myself unconditionally, shortcomings and all, right?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: I vow to love myself unconditionally because I gotta tell you, no one else on this planet is going to love you unconditionally.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if your mother is a saint, or your father is a saint, they might a hundred percent have loved you unconditionally your whole life, but conditioning is part of the human existence.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to be loved unconditionally, we we gotta take that on ourselves.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to really be devoted to loving ourselves unconditionally.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Shortcomings and all.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Got that out there.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, number eight.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: The twelfth step.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Eight step is made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna keep repeating myself because I um yeah, I don't need to repeat that.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh made a list of all the persons that we had harmed and become willing to make amends to them all.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Number eight, journey out of the bottle statement is here now, presence, here and now.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: I live in the present moment and I show up with integrity.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the mantra is my past does not own my future.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've made a mistake five minutes ago, two years ago, three years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've made a lot of mistakes.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I made a lot of poor parenting choices, relationship choices under the influence of alcohol.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the best possible way for all of us to show up and make amends to those that we love is by showing up differently.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Loving ourselves to the fullest, to the most unconditional loving way infuses us, and the energy then starts to go out.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: We show up differently in life, and that's how you make amends.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: You show up differently in the present moment, and that's by by loving ourselves unconditionally, is by speaking well to ourselves, not outsourcing our agency, not giving away our power.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: I live in this present moment and I show up with integrity.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And my past does not own my future.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like if that were the case, we'd all be fucked.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: So listen, presence here and now.
• 24:09
  unknown: Okay.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is this resonating?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is it resonating?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Number nine.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: The 12th step, ninth step is made a direct made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Journey out of the bottle, number nine step is integrity, devotion.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: I am devoted to being a kind, honest, and loving person.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's that is my statement.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm devoted to being a kind, honest, and loving person.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And my mantra is my actions reflect my highest self.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Actions speak louder than words.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you can make amends and say you're sorry over and over and over again, but my actions reflect my highest self.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's my mantra.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm devoted to being a kind and honest and loving person.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Got some like head bobbing and ha.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Number 10.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Continue to take personal inventory.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when we were wrong, I promptly admit it.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Number 10 is about liberation.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Liberation.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: I take responsibility.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: I challenge inherited conditioning and choose how I live my life.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: And my mantra is I break free from the prescribed life.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: I break free from that prescribed life, the prescribed life of having to take a personal inventory and admit when I'm wrong.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like when or if we purposefully or indirectly hurt someone, there's a proper way to take accountability for that.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like I pushed you off the swing this morning and I saw that you were hurt, and I didn't really do anything about it, and I just I left for work and and I didn't even come back and check on you.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is an analogy.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sorry, right?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can promptly take accountability for my actions.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um I take I take challenge in following this old paradigm, punitive, like I'm in trouble, I did something bad.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're we're we're showing up differently, and it takes practice.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I challenge these inherited conditioning and and ways of being, and I choose how to live my life in the best possible way right now.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: I break free from the prescribed life.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm liberated.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, number 11.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: The 12 step, 11th step is sought through prayer and meditation to improve our consciousness contact with God as we understood Him.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: I could just keep this one as is and just say, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with Goddess as we understand her.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: That would make me happy.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the rest of it, I'm like praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: I just divine connection.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want divine connection.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I want.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Meditation and mindfulness connect me to humanity and my higher self.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the mantra is I embody my connection with the divine.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: I embody my connection with the divine.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't outsource the power.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't wait for instruction.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like, oh, I don't know what to do.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I to tell me your will and I will carry that out.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like there is some part of that because I I have really um I've been downloaded this information.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: This just started coming to me.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like, I'm like, okay, I will now share this, what I've what I've learned, but I didn't pray for it.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, give me what I need so that I might go out and spread your word.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: The 12th step, 12th step is having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: We tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I call the ripple out effect.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: The ripple out effect is when you are awakened from the fever dream and the twilight slumber that alcohol maybe has kept you in, and your synapses are firing, and they are, we've got our wits about us, we are showing up differently, we are loving ourselves unconditionally, we are empowered and sovereign and liberated badasses, an inevitable awakening to a higher consciousness which ripples out to others seeking freedom from alcohol and societal conditioning.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like we show up differently, and we don't have to do anything.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're just and other people are like, whoa, what's going on over there?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: And other people who might be drinking will be like, What?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, you don't oh, you're people are like, What's going on?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: What have you done?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because you look different, you act different, you are you are just different.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's inevitable.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: That is a ripple effect.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm open to questions.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you'll be able to hear.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: I have my microphone set up here, so I'll just translate that.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, go ahead.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: So the the the statement is just that, you know, there's a a very dogmatic um step-by-step by step process that that we're asked to follow in these other programs that are um, you know, you have to you have to go step by step.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: So um, no, we're not doing that here.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like these are here for you as you need them.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um I will be going through them step by step, just uh from a chronological uh way, and I and I will you know pick and choose.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, I'm gonna go a little bit more in-depth um, you know, in some of these happier hours about like today, we might be talking about like I am, I am not powerless.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we'll spend a whole session on that.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not like you have to complete a step, work with other people, like you know, pass in order to like succeed to to the next level.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, no, like this is a like anything that you think that you know about becoming alcohol free, we're flipping that bitch on his head.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's yeah, so no, no, you don't have to follow um a regimented program uh to in order to graduate to the next level.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um really all I ask of people is that you be you be ready, right?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: You be devoted to yourself first and foremost.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: You put your air mask on first, that you are like, all right, like you, you've you've you've heard the call.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Your soul has spoken, your spirit is like, no more outside spirits.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Come inward, let's let's be done with this.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I ask of people to be to be ready and to be devoted to yourself.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully devoted to yourself.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: I always love that with Living Newton John.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hopelessly devoted to you, you know.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that's an outsourcing of agency.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm hopelessly devoted to you.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, all right, I am hopefully devoted to me, right?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: So talking about um this this concept of like having to make amends, having to, you know, like go back and apologize for things.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and there is this, you know, what I I'll just generalize and make an assumption here that every single person who has drank to any level on the spectrum has done something that they regret the next day.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like it, I I I would venture to guess that that is also an inevitable aspect of this um something, right?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, like even just the fact of like maybe like I don't remember that conversation as well as I wish I could have, or shit, I had a shitty night's sleep last night, and now I I don't feel so great today.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like maybe it doesn't even involve another person, right?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you might want to like make amends with yourself, and but does that have to come from a place of shame or guilt or like beating yourself up and judging yourself?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: It can just be like, huh, I'm I kind of I just kind of want to not do that again.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like I want to be aware that I can show up differently.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so again, this is just about a a flipping of being positive with ourselves, using positive language.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, like this, this um making amends can be an act of love.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we we can go back and say, hey, I mean, I have done that.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, and oftentimes, like, here's the other thing is oftentimes I've done that, and people are like, I don't, I don't even know what you're talking about.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like and there were times that I, you know, there's still things with my children, like many, many times where like I don't, they weren't like big, massive blow ups, like I never knocked over the Christmas tree or forgot Christmas or whatever, but they're you know, there's just little things, but like even when I wasn't drinking, did shitty things as a parent.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like I bring up stuff all the time.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, when you were little, I wish I would have just let you play at the park for another 15 minutes.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: That one time, like you were so upset and I carried you out of there crying and screaming.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what was I doing that was so fucking important that you couldn't keep playing for another 15 minutes?
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and so I I just, you know, and I've gone back and apologized to my children for things like that that had nothing to do with shrinking.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Oh, it's okay, mom.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, is it like are you scarred from that?
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Are you like, like, did did that did that like are you carrying around trauma from that?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm sorry, I'm aware that I did it now and I want to apologize for it.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Yeah, I'm good, I'm fine.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I bring up to them, like, hey, what were some times that actually caused you pain that maybe I'm just completely unaware of?
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you want to get that off your chest?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: I can take it.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, give it to me.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's talk about it.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you don't have to beat me up about it, but like, would it be helpful for you if you shared with me a time that that I caused pain for you?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: And like, let me let me like acknowledge that, let me witness it.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's that is how we're we're we can heal in these in these new paradigm ways.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: Showing up, taking accountability, witnessing the people that we love, being being our highest self.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it is 4 53 p.m.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: I said this was going to go for an hour, and um I would like to usher my my in-person guests, and I just really uh thank you for joining.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll be doing this a lot.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing it every day this week, um, or mostly every day.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: I have it on the meetup, I'll have it on the Facebook group, I will, you know, have it on YouTube, and um uh who the hell knows what I'll be talking about tomorrow.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I just know that I'm I'm grateful for the ability to be able to do this, to have the space to do it, and I will try to figure out my technology and be able to get this uh better and better.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Journey Out of the Bottle podcast.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed this episode.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: And for more information or to connect with me, please visit my website at www.journeyout of the bottle.com for coaching programs and tons of resources.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, you are not broken and you are not alone.