Latest / The Daily Ripples Podcast / April 23 – Humility in the Journey

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April 23 – Humility in the Journey · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:06
  Well, welcome back to the Daily Ripples podcast.
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  We are here every day at the intersection of faith and recovery.
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  We take the wisdom of our faith along with the practical guidance and wisdom from the
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  12 steps of recovery, and we kind of synthesize and bring those together.
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  And I am Pastor Mike, and with me I have...
• 0:27
  Hey, guys, this is Corey.
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  And we're both, I know, super glad to be back with you today.
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  But let's jump right in.
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  Our daily ripple for today, for April the 23rd, is titled Humility in the Journey.
• 0:41
  The Stone.
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  No single method solves every struggle.
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  Growth requires humility.
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  The willingness to receive help wherever wisdom and healing may be found.
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  Ripple One is practical.
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  Today, I will remain open to learning.
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  I will not assume I have all the answers or that one approach fits every need.
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  Wise counsel, healthy relationships, and honest reflection all play a part in building a balanced
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  life. Ripple 2 is spiritual. As I walk in the humility of Christ, the Holy Spirit teaches me
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  to receive help without pride. The Father often works through many people and means to shape my
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  life. Over time, humility keeps me teachable and gratitude keeps me grounded. Now, Corey,
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  when I first was thinking about this one again, you know, fresh for today, what it really got me
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  thinking about was how when I first stopped drinking, you know, in my life, it takes me all
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  the way back to that. And, but I remember that, man, for so long, I just tried to white knuckle
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  the thing, you know, because I didn't want to be less of a man. I didn't want to, you know, my pride
• 1:50
  was too high for me to admit that I needed help with anything, much less, you know, admitting it
• 1:56
  to myself is one thing. But then I was supposed to go and ask somebody else for help, you know,
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  that didn't really sit right with me. And, you know, so I started thinking about that and what
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  it really took for me to even be willing to admit, you know, weakness or failure that I needed help
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  on anything was just that being broken down so much, you know, at my rock bottom that I had no
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  other choice. You know, and at first I sought help from the church and that didn't do enough,
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  you know, and then I sought help from therapy and that didn't do enough because of course,
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  you know, like most of us who are alcoholics or addicts do, I wasn't completely honest with
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  the therapist about how much, you know, substances I was taking. I see you laughing there. And so,
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  you know, I'm sitting there drinking while I'm taking antidepressants, which if you're listening
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  at home, that is a fatal mistake. Do not do that. It will just make you more depressed as I found
• 2:48
  out. But then finally, you know, I got into the 12 steps of recovery. But the thing is, and it
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  reminded me, you know, back to, you know, Proverbs, the 15th chapter, verse 22 says that, you know,
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  plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors, they succeed. And for me, the many
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  advisors was not just therapy. It was not just church. It was not just a recovery program. It was
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  not just friends, which, you know, at the time, I don't know that I even had any friends, you know,
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  I was so isolated in my drinking. But when it talks about mini-advisors, I think about all the
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  different resources that we have available to help us grow and help us be, you know, fully
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  functioning adults, help us continue to learn. And when I think about it now, you know, I'm just so
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  grateful that I had all of those resources available. And, you know, some of them, obviously,
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  you know, you go to therapy and you or your insurance company is having to pay for it. But,
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  you know, some of them, you know, recovery meetings, you know, cost you a buck a day. And
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  that's just because we're self-supporting through our own contributions, which is the same way that
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  the church is supposed to work. And, but all of these things, you know, finding people who are
• 4:03
  willing to share the wisdom that they've gained. And then I just, I had to be knocked down enough,
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  you know, to find some humility in my life anyway.
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  But where does this one take you initially, Corey?
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  Well, yeah, I mean, because you kind of went out at a different angle,
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  and I'm glad you did.
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  But, you know, because I know that we're not just talking to people in recovery.
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  So I'm going to kind of like separate this just a little bit because I do,
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  I would like to talk to, I mean, because like here's the deal, right?
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  I go to the gym a lot.
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  And, you know, when I first started working out eight, nine years ago,
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  my son was maybe three, and I weighed 150 pounds.
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  And I looked in the mirror, and I decided I don't want to be this average.
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  I was also sober.
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  I don't want to be this average dad.
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  Like, I was a skinny guy.
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  And, you know, I was tired of being like that.
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  And I, so I started working out and that, man, I'll tell you, you know, cause my ego and everything, it's funny cause I started just packing on food cause I don't, I didn't want to be the smallest guy in the room at, even at the gym. So I started just eating a bunch of food, doing pushups in the garage before I would even go to the gym. But I'll tell you, man, for me, I had to come to a breaking point with that.
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  But it also, I couldn't, you know, because, I mean, maybe normal people have this, and, you know, I don't know, because I'm the type that has to let things get to an extreme for some reason.
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  Not as much as bad.
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  I'm a little bit more disciplined, but I, you know, and I see that so hard, like, you know, it's such a hard deal to ask for help and do all this.
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  But I think, you know, the cool thing is if you just start doing it, then the discipline comes, right?
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  The discipline comes after you just start doing it.
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  Never beforehand.
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  The discipline's not there before you start doing anything.
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  In my experience, but I've not been a disciplined person.
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  But I think I want to go talk to more of the people in the recovery rooms.
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  And this is important to me.
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  And I was on the phone with somebody today about this.
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  Because it says right here, and I quit arguing with you too, if you want to know.
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  So I'm going on the agreeance thing.
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  Are you turning over a new leaf with us now, Corey?
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  I'm trying to, but it's going to sound like an argument, but it's not.
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  But when this comes to the recovery side, if you were to ask me, you would say,
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  hey, Corey, what keeps you sober?
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  And I said, well, helping others.
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  Then I go to meetings for the unity.
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  Then I'm part of the service structure.
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  And then I do this and I pray, meditate.
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  I list all these things, right?
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  Because all those are very important to my recovery.
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  And I wouldn't take off one because I know I just wouldn't do that.
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  But, you know, on the fore to the first edition, it says on the first page, it says,
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  We of Alcoholics Anonymous.
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  are more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
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  So, mind and body, to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book.
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  And just real quick, just remind everybody, when you say first edition, what you're talking about.
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  Oh, fourth to the first edition, I'm sorry.
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  First edition of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, because currently it's up to what, the fourth edition?
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  believe is the current, you know.
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  So this is on page IX.
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  Right.
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  It's in one of the first pages of any big book of Alcoholics Anonymous out there.
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  And, but I think, you know, where it says to show other alcoholics precisely how we have
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  recovered is the main purpose of this book.
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  So, if I was to say, how do I do this recovery thing?
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  Well, this book tells me this is the main purpose precisely of this book.
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  And it's not Joe over there that says he's, you know, scrambled up a couple of years together.
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  And like, he's cool.
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  I need to know exactly because, man, I think we've talked about this a lot.
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  You know, I need direction.
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  Oh, yeah.
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  And I needed direction.
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  And for a long time.
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  And so I've heard different things for years.
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  Like, you know, this is my program.
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  Well, I work the program.
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  There's no my, I, it's the program, and it tells me exactly how to do that.
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  And then I thought it was where you put in here,
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  I have all the answers or that one approach fits every need.
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  Let's talk about what you need.
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  I'm sorry.
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  Today I'll remain open to learning.
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  I will not assume I have all the answers or that one approach fits every need.
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  Wise counsel, healthy relationships, and honest reflection all play a part.
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  So there's a lot of people that, you know, they'll go,
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  hey, well, this big book doesn't tell me that I have to have a sponsor.
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  And they could be kind of right, but they were very wrong.
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  Because it doesn't say the word sponsor in any of this first 164 pages.
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  It does in the 12 and 12.
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  But on page 63, it says spiritual advisor.
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  in the big book.
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  And it goes on to say
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  a couple more different ways.
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  I'll have people,
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  and I got a guy I talk to sometimes
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  and he'll argue with me
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  and he'll say things.
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  And so I'm always like
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  in this defense thing
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  some days with the program
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  because I'm like,
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  actually, no, it says this.
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  No, it's this.
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  And it's a day-to-day thing,
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  which is great
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  because it keeps me reading.
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  Right, right.
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  But let me bring it back in.
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  I'm sorry.
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  No, you're fine.
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  I'm with you.
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  But to me, in this deal of recovery, I see Alcoholics Anonymous, and I know I shouldn't be talking for Alcoholics Anonymous, but I see Alcoholics Anonymous in a bad place today.
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  I see a room full of people, people that come in and listen to someone make it, have a paragraph, and they philosophize about it.
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  They never read the literature that's in this, about this meeting that they go to.
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  And, you know, because, I mean, my ego's through the roof and such as a lot of other people's.
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  But then you got people that sit up there, that act like therapy, like counselors, if you must, with no degree.
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  So, and, you know, it sucks to me because, you know, I've told this to a lot of guys, you know,
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  I have a 12-year-old son and he has a lot of similarities that I do.
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  and in 10, 15 years, if he turns out to be like me,
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  I want my son to go somewhere that's effective
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  and sharing the message of Alcoholics Anonymous
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  to help other people.
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  And, you know, to me, you know,
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  that's kind of why we started that book study, right?
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  That's, you know, if you were to heard me preaching
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  about it before we started and making lectures
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  to my buddy Bill, that means, like,
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  that was what I was talking about
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  because we've gotten out of learning about how to recover versus how we feel.
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  Right, right.
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  I think, you know, I've been in meetings to where a topic is presented
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  and then someone will share, and before you know it,
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  they're talking about, you know, the argument they had with their spouse
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  or how their day went at work, you know, and all this other kind of stuff.
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  And at some point, you sit there and you wonder,
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  well, what does this have to do with, you know, alcohol or alcoholism?
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  And one of the traditions is the singleness of purpose tradition, right, which is we're there to learn how not to drink, you know, how to stay sober in that particular program.
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  And, you know, for me, I think where humility plays a part in that is I have to actively take a step back and say, you know what, what I think worked for me and what I think should work for other people, whether it's based on my experience, whether it's based on reading the book, you know, because even reading the book, you can read the book ten times, Corey, and you can interpret it nine different ways, you know, by reading it ten times.
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  And so you do need the experience and the shares of the other people.
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  Like the book alone is not going to get somebody sober.
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  You know, somebody can read that book.
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  And if they never talk to another person, I don't think that they have a good shot of getting sober, at least not somebody like me.
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  Because I can intellectualize things all day, but I need to look another man in the face and be able to actually talk about it for it to really sink in.
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  And that's where, you know, I think the power of that program comes in.
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  But the other part of it is that there are people who don't drink or don't use drugs that used to, and then they stopped using other methods besides, you know, a 12-step program, using other methods besides a, you know, a program.
• 13:28
  I know I may have talked about it briefly before, but one of those, you know, is my own father, you know, and, you know, he's talked to me before about how, you know, he did quite some, you know, heavy drinking, you know, especially early on in his life.
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  But for him, it was his religious convictions that caused him to stop.
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  He never worked a single step of the 12 steps, but in many ways, he's been, quote unquote,
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  sober for 55 years or however long it's been.
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  So I think this is, what I'm getting out of this is it's more about, and again, it's based
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  on the daily reflection.
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  and the daily reflection itself says, you know, AA is not a cure-all. You know, it said it would
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  be a product of false pride to claim that AA is a cure-all even for alcoholism. So I take that,
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  and that's taken from the book as Bill sees it, you know, Bill W. being one of the founders
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  in some of his writings and things that he did. So if the founder of AA says that AA is not a cure-all
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  even for alcoholism, then that tells me that the humility requires me to have a whole repertoire
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  of tools in the toolkit to combat this alcoholism that I have. And my repertoire includes scripture,
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  it includes my faith, it includes AA recovery language, you know, taking it all the way back
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  to where I started, you know. And so that's kind of, you know, my reaction to that.
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  Well, you know, and I do agree, but I do, but I think, you know, this is cool too,
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  because it says that was the main purpose, right?
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  And then on page 45 in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous,
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  it says, well, that's exactly what this book is about.
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  Its main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself,
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  which will solve your problem.
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  And so I got this problem, right?
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  And then we're going to flip it over to Proverbs 11 to,
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  When pride comes, then comes disgrace.
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  But wisdom is with the humble.
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  So when I come into this thing, just like you were talking about in the beginning, right, I was broken.
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  I do not think I can sit here without anybody talking to me.
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  Something's got to happen, but I can't sit in my room or sit in a room or sit in my car and humble myself without anything happening in the world.
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  I don't think physically, mentally I'm capable of doing that because for some reason my ego likes to do this thing where I'm going to win.
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  Like, I'm the top dog because I'm the first person in the show, right?
• 16:15
  Yeah.
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  So it's really hard for me to just humiliate myself.
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  So when I come in, I don't know we're jumping around, but if anybody wants to look at this, and it's on page 70 in the 12 and 12, it says,
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  For without some degree of humility, no alcoholic can stay sober at all.
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  So I come in broken, and if I didn't come in broken, I'm not going to quit drinking.
• 16:47
  Right, right.
• 16:48
  Yeah, because it's that pride. And so many people, you know, it seems like for some reason it tends to be a thing that in the rooms of recovery anyway, when people stick it out for about three or four months, you know, and they've maybe started to see some improvements in their life.
• 17:04
  You know, that's one of the reasons why recovery rooms a lot of times have a little red poker chip they give people for 90 days is because the red for danger.
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  You know, they call it the danger chip because people start to be on what they call the pink cloud, which means they start to feel like they're figuring some things out.
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  And for some people, they think that that's enough for them to stay sober.
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  So they stop talking to other alcoholics.
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  They stop coming to some of the meetings.
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  And that is when the trouble comes in because they get just well enough that their pride comes back.
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  And, you know, with that pride, as that proverb you read says, when pride comes, then comes disgrace.
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  You know, for us, the disgrace usually means a relapse.
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  Because then if we want to get better again, we've got to come back into these rooms, pick up another white ship, and go from there.
• 17:55
  Well, I think we can continue on the next one.
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  Absolutely. So let us end today with our prayer for today.
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  Father, keep my heart humble and open.
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  Through your Spirit, guide me to the wisdom and help I need,
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  and form in me the teachable Spirit of your Son. Amen.
• 18:14
  Amen.
• 18:22
  Did you call me Brian, by the way?
• 18:24
  No, I repeated my words twice, and I think I...
• 18:29
  I got a lot of coffee in me right now, buddy.
• 18:33
  Oh, hey, I can understand.
• 18:34
  For some reason, through the headphones here,
• 18:36
  it sounded like you called me Brian,
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  but we'll let that slide.
• 18:39
  But anyway.
• 19:07
  Bye.