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September 24 – Staying Watchful · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:03
  Well, welcome back, everybody, to the Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:06
  Today is Thursday, September the 24th.
• 0:10
  Man, Corey, I can't believe September's already almost over.
• 0:13
  Can you?
• 0:14
  It's just wild that time flies when you're doing the Lord's work, as they say.
• 0:18
  Anyway, on that note, our daily devotional today is titled Staying Watchful, the Stone.
• 0:26
  Lasting freedom is found in daily dependence on God never in overconfidence.
• 0:31
  Ripple one is practical.
• 0:33
  Today, I will not assume I am beyond temptation or immune to old patterns.
• 0:39
  Humility reminds me that healthy habits must be practiced every day.
• 0:43
  Staying watchful is not living in fear is living with wisdom.
• 0:48
  Ripple 2 is spiritual.
• 0:50
  As I continue to follow Christ each day, the Holy Spirit keeps my heart alert to subtle compromises before they become large or failures.
• 0:57
  The father's faithfulness never fails.
• 1:00
  And as I remain close to him, he gives me the strength I need for today.
• 1:05
  So, Corey is a, as I was reading this one again, man, it, it, and it is so true.
• 1:13
  That part about the Holy Spirit keeps my heart alert to subtle compromises before they become larger failures.
• 1:22
  Man, those subtle compromises.
• 1:24
  It kind of reminds me of that language in the big book that talks about our disease, about it being cutting, baffling and powerful, right?
• 1:31
  Those are the words that kind of came to mind. In this, the cunning part, especially.
• 1:36
  Because the cunning part is the part that I can start to have my thinking be drawn back toward my vice, back toward my alcohol before I even know it.
• 1:48
  You know, I could start to see the new ads for the new, you know, whiskeys that are coming out.
• 1:53
  And I could think, you know, I never tried that one.
• 1:55
  I wonder what that one tastes like.
• 1:56
  You know?
• 1:57
  Or maybe, you know, here's an example.
• 2:00
  I had a guy, this, and this will go way back in time, so there's no chance of blowing anyone's anonymity on this.
• 2:07
  There was a guy, I was about 9 months sober in the program and a new guy came in.
• 2:12
  So this was still in like 2013.
• 2:15
  It was toward the end of that year.
• 2:16
  And, um, the new guy came in, and, you know, I, I ended up going with him to a bunch of meetings in a row kind of thing, you know, if he, if he listens to this, he'll know, I'm talking about him, but nobody else would.
• 2:29
  Um, and I remember he started working this program, and we started kind of, at the time, I wasn't really comfortable sponsoring him.
• 2:38
  He asked me to be, but I had not gone all way through the steps yet.
• 2:41
  And so I had, you know, my sponsor basically sponsored him as well, but we all kind of, you know, talked through a lot of things together, spent a lot of time with the guy.
• 2:49
  And I remembered about a couple of months in, the concept came up about near beer.
• 2:56
  You know what I mean by that?
• 2:57
  0 alcohol beer.
• 2:59
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He wanted to know, could he get away with drinking the near beer?
• 3:05
  And man, if I think about an example of a subtle compromise.
• 3:09
  Man, that would be it, right?
• 3:10
  You know, those guys who were like, well, I can get away with this.
• 3:14
  Uh, you know, anyway, that was just where my mind immediately went, but I'm sure our discussion will come back to some other avenues.
• 3:22
  But anyway, what did you 1st think of with this one today, Corey?
• 3:25
  Well, I thought when you were talking about near beer, man, it's to me, that's a, like, I've always viewed it as like a firecrack, a dud, right?
• 3:34
  You like a firecracker and it doesn't go all.
• 3:36
  Right.
• 3:37
  And, uh, Oh yeah, I was, at the time, I'm sure my response was something like, dude, what's the point on a near beer?
• 3:42
  But anyway, I mean, you know, but anyways, I've always saw them along those lines.
• 3:47
  I know, man, I met some dudes in, uh, and yeah, my, my sponsor, he is very, you know, particular about this.
• 3:56
  I mean, like, he, uh, you know, because that's like acting like I still want to live that life.
• 4:01
  Right, right.
• 4:03
  And so, but, you know, uh, he, you know, when he taught me this and, you know, because it aligns with the big book.
• 4:10
  The way his reaction is to alcohol is the same way the big books reaction is, it's not a probleming, right?
• 4:19
  So if it's not a problem, you know, I'm not thinking about it like that anymore either.
• 4:24
  And so like when people ask me today, or, you know, the way he explained it, it is true.
• 4:30
  When people ask me if I want to drink, I don't say no and give them a reason why.
• 4:37
  But just say no.
• 4:39
  Because, yeah, you know, there's a lot of people in this world that just don't drink.
• 4:44
  I dont know if you realize that like, yeah, more, yeah, more, more and more so these days, especially younger people. More percentage of people don't drink at all.
• 4:51
  that do drink.
• 4:52
  Who would have known, though?
• 4:54
  I had no idea because the people I were hanging around all drink and all Disney.
• 4:59
  Oh yeah.
• 4:59
  I was not around that.
• 5:01
  Well, I grew up around that, Rory, because I grew up in a very um, religious teetotaler, uh, you know, faith and tradition.
• 5:11
  And so, you know, my my parents, uh, you know, never had any alcohol in the house.
• 5:16
  They never drank.
• 5:17
  I did not know really.
• 5:20
  this is this is how extensive it was.
• 5:23
  I did not realize that my own father drank in college until I got sober and then talked to my parents about that, you know, like after I got sober.
• 5:36
  And then my dad opened up and shared that, you know, during college, he started out on this exact same pathway that I started out on.
• 5:43
  But what saved him from going full blown into alcoholism because it is a hereditary disease as well.
• 5:48
  runs in families.
• 5:49
  Um, What saved him from that was his fate.
• 5:53
  You know, his, his, he realized that he was not living according to what he was hearing over Sunday, and he, he could not reconcile those two.
• 6:01
  So he stopped, you know, all the drinking long before it could ever become a problem.
• 6:05
  Obviously, that's not what I did.
• 6:07
  But the near beer thing is almost like the trying to recapture that feeling of normalcy or feeling like we're drinking like normal people.
• 6:16
  And that's where, uh, I, you know, I think it's in the, the, it says in the book that the delusion that we're, like other people or presently maybe, has to be smashed.
• 6:26
  And I think you even mentioned that, you know.
• 6:28
  So that is, that's what I keep coming back to, is that, you know, anytime that, and especially early on, it was really drilled into my head, and I was in these rooms with these people that were at peace, they were having fun, and they all told me, you know, whether I believed it or not when I 1st came in, and they all told me that they had not had a drink of alcohol for, at that point, many of them, years and even decades at a time.
• 6:53
  And I couldn't even fathom that at the time, you know, whenever I came into the rooms.
• 6:57
  And now, I mean, that's become true in my life.
• 7:01
  But this part about, you know, in the devotion of the day, I mean, it is about staying watchful.
• 7:06
  And... I took it to the extreme whenever I was young.
• 7:10
  I think I've talked about this on here before about the 1st time in recovery that I got a cult and I got a sore throat.
• 7:16
  And I went and I got me some, you know, NyQuil because I want to be able to sleep and breathe at night.
• 7:21
  And I look on the back of the Nyquil bottle for probably the 1st time, you see the active and the inactive ingredients and all those things.
• 7:27
  It wasn't one of the primary ingredients in NyQuil?
• 7:30
  Alcohol.
• 7:31
  And dude, I kind of freaked out, man.
• 7:34
  I'm sitting in my apartment, I'm separated, and went through all this stuff.
• 7:37
  I'm trying to recover.
• 7:38
  You're not calling my sponsor, a guy named Steve Davis, who's gone on to the great meeting in the sky, and I called him up and I'm like, can I take this or not?
• 7:46
  And he talked me through, you know, like, what's your motivation for the medicine?
• 7:51
  What's this, that, and the other day.
• 7:52
  At the end of the day, I couldn't say with 100% certainty that I was safe on it.
• 7:56
  So I set it aside and went and got something else.
• 7:59
  But that's just what I had to decide at that time.
• 8:02
  But that's part of that vigilance, you know, that I still have to be as vigilant today about those subtle compromises that are going to take me away from either my recovery or from my faith as I was when I 1st walked in the door.
• 8:15
  See, you know to me.
• 8:18
  I, uh, I don't want to, like, sound cocky, but, you know, it says, oh, we're not cocky, nor we're afraid.
• 8:25
  See, and see, this is kind of like where I align with is, so I have my daily thing.
• 8:30
  Wake up every morning, get on my knees, do my prayers, all that, right?
• 8:34
  And throughout my day, I think about the well-being of others and I try to help dudes.
• 8:39
  I'll text them. I'll call them and go to work and provide for my family.
• 8:43
  I get home or try to be of service or if I got some time, I'm able to work with another dude.
• 8:48
  Go to sleep and do it over again.
• 8:50
  Oh, yeah, I don't deviate.
• 8:52
  And I think that's very important to me.
• 8:54
  And well, it is, well, I don't think, I know, because I quit, there's a time I deviated just from the luxuries of whirling in around, you know, AA, helping a dude here, doing this, and doing this with no structure.
• 9:11
  And it's very easy to deviate.
• 9:13
  And so, like, kind of like, uh, In the 12 and 12.
• 9:18
  It says on page 98, there's a direct linkage, linkage among self-examination, meditation and prayer.
• 9:28
  Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit.
• 9:32
  So I think about that like, well, if I'm just doing one or the other of maybe our going to some meetings and this and this.
• 9:37
  You know, taken separately, they can have some relief and benefit.
• 9:40
  But when they are logically related and interwoven.
• 9:44
  The result is an unshakable foundation for a lot.
• 9:47
  So I have experience what it looks like to be, you know, very shaky and no, well, not even shaky because it was so.
• 9:58
  It was baffling.
• 9:59
  It was cunning.
• 10:00
  It was all that cunning part again, man, and it just snuck up.
• 10:04
  But man, was I doing anything?
• 10:05
  No, wasn't like, you know, man, I was barely doing anything.
• 10:09
  You know, we were talking about the other day.
• 10:11
  This dude listens to this meeting and you know, he had said something along the effect of, you know, just do 20% and you get tenfold, right?
• 10:19
  And, you know, who cares?
• 10:21
  We're, you know, but half measures availed mean nothing.
• 10:24
  Because I say that's exactly what I pointed out.
• 10:26
  And, you know, so like when I'm sitting in that, right?
• 10:29
  And the half measures thing, either I'm going to do this fully or I'm not.
• 10:33
  And if I'm not, I get the half measures avail me nothing.
• 10:36
  Because man, this is a serious thing.
• 10:38
  This is life and death.
• 10:39
  And when I'll read on the spiritual ripple, right, it says, today I will not assume I am beyond temptation or immune to old patterns.
• 10:46
  Well, man, I'll tell you what, if I'm practicing this stuff on awakening, when I go to bed with my family and everything else, I'm a lot, it's a lot better for me to do that, than it is to just go run my life, self will run right, because I'm not even going to know I'm doing it.
• 11:00
  But at the end of the day, are we all there to heal and grow together?
• 11:06
  And the people that are there to heal and grow, you can usually tell and see.
• 11:13
  And those are the people that I will more likely associate myself with because they are just as passionate about the program and about helping people avoid the pitfalls of their alcoholism and relapse and all that stuff as you and I are.
• 11:28
  You know, we're sitting here talking about this, right?
• 11:30
  And, and there are still, and the hope in the, that I have is that those people who are passionate about it, that they keep that passion, right?
• 11:39
  that they don't let, you know, the, the, the, the, the half timers, the half measures crowd, you might say, that they don't let them, uh, discourage them from keeping pushing forward, you know, with the same amount of, of energy, you know, and excitement about the program and helping other of God's kids as, as what you exhibit a lot of times.
• 12:02
  Well, man, like, you know, I don't make friends, right?
• 12:05
  And that's okay.
• 12:06
  I do make friends.
• 12:07
  I have friends.
• 12:07
  Hold on a minute, Corey.
• 12:09
  I consider you to be a really good for real.
• 12:11
  Well, I'm saying like, you know, if I wanted to go around these rooms.
• 12:15
  You know, you watch it, man.
• 12:17
  Like, and it's it's cool.
• 12:19
  I have good friends today that are very passionate about helping people and doing this work.
• 12:23
  But man, if I went into some meetings for about 6 months, and I went and talked about my problems.
• 12:30
  I went and talked about my relationship.
• 12:32
  Oh, she's not acting right.
• 12:34
  This job, they're making me mad.
• 12:37
  All these things that are real, like, none of that's really happening anyways.
• 12:41
  Yeah, but it sucks.
• 12:43
  you know, I mean, I'm sorry.
• 12:44
  I'm not really complaining about that stuff because I don't have it because I'm just being of service in those areas.
• 12:49
  And when you put when, and maybe I'm talking out of turn to say for the general public, but what I found is when I put myself in service, in everything I do, I put myself in a place of love, in a place it with God's kids, on together.
• 13:05
  And when I'm not in that and I'm always complaining about this isn't right, oh, this is going on, man, I'm always indifferent to the world, right?
• 13:13
  So, you know, and I'm cool with being very passionate and rigid and all that stuff, and I'm really happy, you know, I'm really, you know, it's, you know, God deal, because like, my old sponsor that's passed away, Doug, he was rigid.
• 13:26
  My sponsor today is very rigid.
• 13:29
  Man, like my rigidness doesn't compare to him.
• 13:32
  And that, man, and like, you know, but I wouldn't want it any other way because I wouldn't be where I wouldn't be here if God had not aligned everything just like it is.
• 13:42
  You know, so at the same time, man, like if there's if there's a book that has a way of life, clear cut directions and people want to go veer off of that and do their own thing and whatever happens happens, that's cool too, man.
• 13:59
  But like, I'm only here for one purpose, one primary purpose, is to carry this message and this message out of the book of Alcohol Anonymous to those who still suffer.
• 14:09
  there's nothing else.
• 14:10
  And but like when we get started getting out of, you know, that's where the fun and fellowship come in.
• 14:17
  But when you start veering too far off that literature and structure, that's when you see things start getting weird.
• 14:23
  I mean, the looser you get, the less it becomes like AA and and, you know, and is it should it not be professional?
• 14:30
  Like, are we not like in this business of like people dying?
• 14:33
  Like, so when I come into somewhere, and I've noticed this out in the different, not in anywhere we hang out at, uh, but in some other meetings, it's become very, very uh, non-structural.
• 14:46
  And so, man, it's almost like, man, it's nobody serious up in here.
• 14:52
  And so like, that's interesting because like, you know, people are coming in there fighting for their life.
• 14:58
  And people are willy-nilly not serious about this, man.
• 15:01
  And that's where I get come into conflict with because I'm very serious.
• 15:04
  This is a life and death matter for someone like me.
• 15:07
  You had told me probably months ago about something that one of your sponsors have told you at some point about that all you need for a new meeting is resentment in a room.
• 15:18
  Well, and what I'll what I'll close on for me, you know, for today is, is just this, you know, scriptural, you know, uh, basis behind what we're talking about, about staying watchful, you know, 1st Peter 5 and 8, be alert and of sober mind.
• 15:34
  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour, and that's why we pray in the Lord's Prayer lead us not into temptation.
• 15:44
  Amen to that.
• 15:45
  Well, let's close with our prayer for today.
• 15:47
  Father God, keep me watchful and humble today through your Holy Spirit.
• 15:52
  Help me stay close to you.
• 15:53
  I'm faithful in each step I take.
• 15:55
  Shape me through the example of Jesus.
• 15:58
  Amen.
• 15:58
  Amen.