Daily Reflection Podcast

January 12 - Accepting Our Present Circumstances - John S (Phila., PA)

January 11, 2021 Michael L. Season 2 Episode 12
Daily Reflection Podcast
January 12 - Accepting Our Present Circumstances - John S (Phila., PA)
Show Notes Transcript

John has over fifteen months of sobriety and recently experienced the loss of his job. Without a program of recovery, he would likely have used this as an excuse to drink or fall deep into self-pity. Today, he shares how he uses the program, and his support network to view this as an opportunity for growth. John has a great program and I'm grateful to help share his story today on the concept of accepting our present circumstances.

ACCEPTING OUR PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES
Our very first problem is to accept our present circumstances as they are, ourselves as we are, and the people about us as they are. This is to adopt a realistic humility without which no genuine advance can even begin. Again and again, we shall need to return to that unflattering point of departure. This is an exercise in acceptance that we can profitably practice every day of our lives. Provided we strenuously avoid turning these realistic surveys of the facts of life into unrealistic alibis for apathy or defeatism, they can be the sure foundation upon which
increased emotional health and therefore spiritual progress can be built.
AS BILL SEES IT, p. 44

When I am having a difficult time accepting people, places or events, I turn to this passage and it relieves me of many an underlying fear regarding others, or situations life presents me. The thought allows me to be human and not perfect, and to regain my peace of mind.

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[Music] welcome to the daily reflection podcast my name is michael today is january 12th and we have a special guest john s from philadelphia welcome to the podcast thanks mike i'm glad to be here with you today it's great to have you on the show would you read the daily reflection for today of course january 12th accepting our present circumstances our very first problem is to accept our present circumstances as they are ourselves as we are and the people about us as they are this is to adopt a realistic humility without which no genuine advance can even begin again and again we shall need to return to that unflattering point of departure this is an exercise in acceptance that we can profitably practice every day of our lives provided we strenuously avoid turning these realistic surveys of the facts of life into unrealistic alibis for apathy or defeatism they can be the sure foundation upon which increased emotional health and therefore spiritual progress can be built as bill sees it page 44. when i'm having a difficult time accepting people places or events i turn to this passage and it relieves me of many an underlying fear regarding others or situations life presents me the thought allows me to be human and not perfect and to regain my peace of mind what jumped out at you with this reflection did this resonate with you did you did you feel strongly about selecting this particular reading yes mike i felt very strongly about this particular reading for me in that top portion of it there is a lot to unpack based on my current circumstances i've recently lost my job back in the middle of october and sorry to hear that and uh and you know i could have spent a lot of time on the negative aspects of that um and as one of the uh sentences in the passage talked about is creating unrealistic alibis that could help me um wallow in defeatism to it but based on the the program that i am working for myself and working with my sponsor and attending meetings i realized that this is an opportunity for me to gain strength and grow from a situation which on the uh on the surface looks like it's a it's a a situation that's not comfortable but as i think about the opportunities that can come from this uh it allows me to gain some peace of mind and not not be overly critical of myself overly critical of the situation that has been put into my life and allows me to gain some strength from it is that something that you struggled with previously uh to getting sober you know setting unrealistic expectations or yeah so again this this passage jumped out at me because if if i look back over my entire uh life i've always struggled to be comfortable with circumstances in in terms of my career i always wanted to have the next job uh in terms of an automobile i always wanted i was never comfortable with the automobile that i had or the house that i had i always had to have something better and i could never accept that about myself even when i was actively drinking the drinking would allow me to be somebody who i wanted to be who i thought i wanted to be and and just was never comfortable with myself or the present circumstances tell me a little bit about some of the things that happened prior to getting sober you know everyone talks about this experience of hitting a bottom did you did you hit a bottom yeah mike that's that's a great question because the way i like to put it is i i spent uh many many decades uh in and out of of aaa and what what brought me to the point where i am now where i have almost 15 months of continuous sobriety was a series of many bottoms that i hit throughout my life and i i've shared with this before that i always felt like i was tethered and kind of like that anchor being dragged across the bottom of the the ocean um where i would have one situation that would put me where i thought would be the bottom and that rope would then pull me back up um and then i would get a feeling a complacent feeling dealing with my with my drinking and i'd hit another bottom and i finally got to the point in my life where i didn't want that anymore i wanted to get comfortable with who i am i wanted to stop being leading a life of of dishonest motive motives uh and and really begin to grow and become a responsible person in my adult life before i got sober i used alcohol and drugs to help me through really difficult situations and for me that was like like large social engagements or or even small ones and um as i as i got sober i picked up certain tools to help me deal with those situations do you feel like the program's helped you in that area yeah absolutely mike um i used to when when i was drinking in back at a at an early age i always loved the party before the party and that was to get myself in a mental state where i could uh be in a social situation um where i could uh pretend to be this person who i thought i needed to be and and booze and and and drugs would allow me that uh that mindset and so now as i've been able to put together some continuous sobriety you know i look at uh the program as as an opportunity to to grow spiritually as and to grow as as a person and the uh i remember somebody saying uh to me that if you're gonna do a a you might as well just jump all in and participate to the highest level that you can so when i made the decision almost 15 months ago to get a sponsor i made a commitment to call my sponsor every day i made a commitment to go through the 12 steps with my sponsor and through though that that opportunity to work with my sponsor i learned how to bring humility into my life i learned how to bring gratitude into my life and now i can rely on those tools as the the foundation for me to deal with situations that come up when i'm uncomfortable when i don't recognize social situations that could possibly get me in trouble i rely on the program and go back to the concepts that i've been working with again humility gratitude getting a network of people in the program to talk to sharing how i'm feeling and listening to other people share how they're feeling so that you can understand that you're not alone in this situation and that there is a way to help you make help make you feel better uh in those situations so it sounds like the problems haven't gone away the the challenges haven't gone away but you have a new perspective yeah that's for sure and as i mentioned to you in the beginning of this uh as i recently lost my job i um you know my initial thought when that came out was that i've never been cut from a team and here i am at the uh a long way into my career i've always identified myself by my career uh and and now to have that gone um the initial couple of hours that i was dealing with it was traumatic emotionally for me but as i uh talked to my sponsor and got onto a meeting the next day and shared it with the group i realized that i have this amazing support uh community that i can put that out there and i can get feedback from people and i can start to put together put make use of the tools that have been given to me by this program and and realize that it's there could be better opportunities i think one of the things that i think about and mike it's your your favorite passage on page 417 is acceptance is the answer uh and uh you know just if you read that verbatim its acceptance is the answer to all my problems and nothing happens in god's world by mistake and um so what i need to do is understand that bring that spiritual part into my life and unless i accept life on life's terms i'm not going to be happy uh and so really uh being part of an amazing group um you get these bits of wisdom and you're able to use those in your survival kit so that you don't have that overwhelming feeling of defeatism and negative thoughts about yourself and that's absolutely what i'm doing every day as i look for a new job there's frustrations that mount troubles haven't gone away uh there's financial aspects of this but i'm able to keep moving forward through using the tools that the program has given me wow that's inspiration right there that's inspiration i love it so you're 15 months in may i ask how far along in the steps you've gone sure i was able to complete the the steps uh started them at the end of october worked with my sponsor meeting him once a week on saturdays before our saturday men's meeting group kovit came as i was just completing step six so i completed the last half of the program while in coven we had made my sponsor and i made a commitment to meet once a week on the telephone sometimes uh step nine took more than a week uh but uh you know we were able to to go right through it and you know i know i'm not done um and i've talked to my sponsor about that because there there will be opportunity for me to revisit these steps and i look forward to that as i get more knowledge and as i learn more from the the shares that i hear in our meetings uh i know that there's more work to be done with that the great thing about my sponsor that he's not rushing me through it we both set the pace that we did the first round through but i know uh that uh you know i have more to look forward to working through the steps and and actually um looking forward to digging into um the the middle say so four through through ten a little bit more with them so you've been through the steps what does your program look like today i know that i know that you're involved in service tell me a little bit yeah so getting back to that statement i made uh that someone had brought up maybe if you're going to do aaa you might as well go all in um and and that's definitely the attitude that i'm bringing to it i want to be in service um you know i've always valued that in and out of aaa and i want to participate um in my my personal life i become complacent um and and now um what i look to do is is bring what i'm learning from a into all aspects of my life but in terms of my aaa program uh i help moderate uh online meetings so i've joined a a a group out of our uh regional office uh called cooperation for with the professional community so i help escort first-year medical students to aaa meetings to give them a better understanding of what goes on in the meetings i have not yet sponsored anybody but i'm putting my hand up and looking for sponsees and i definitely want to give back the first comment my sponsor made to me is that you're only going to get out of this what you put into it and i want to put as much into it because i want to get as as much out of my sobriety as i possibly can and i find that that's extending into my personal life i've joined a professional business organization as a volunteer mentor for small businesses i've volunteered at my local yacht club to to run the dock during the summer so it's just giving back as much as i can to get as much out of the organizations and my life as possible so before we wrap up is there anything else you want to tell folks that are listening maybe um some inspiration for the newcomer so absolutely um as i mentioned earlier i i went to my first a meeting when i was 25 and i i really wish i had gotten hold of this program at that point in my life and not spent the next three decades trying to trying to figure it out on my own um there the willpower alone won't get you to a sobriety that's meaningful and so if you are a newcomer come into the program pay attention keep coming to meetings get a sponsor and start to really work the the steps and that way you'll get a foundation that you can grow off of the other thing that i will say to newcomers is don't sit on the sidelines i did that for many years and the analogy that i love is that if you're in in a pack stay in the middle of that pack because if you do start to fall there's going to be a shoulder on your left and your right that you can lean on and you'll be pushed back up if you're on the sidelines and you start to fall you could fall right out of that pack and it's so important to to listen to the wisdom that are in the rooms and you there's a lot to identify with and a lot to grow from well john thank you so much for spending some time with us and sharing your experience strength and hope you're welcome mike glad to be here with you okay well what an amazing example of a sober man accepting his present circumstances thanks so much john for for joining us today and thanks so much for all the service that you do it's amazing i'll see you in the meetings thanks everybody else for your support if you want to reach out to me you can find me at dailyreflectionpodcast gmail.com there's always a link in the show notes we've got some exciting things happening in the website we've we've got a blog launched so it'll be at blog.dailyreflectionpodcast.com and we've started a facebook group so some exciting things happening really appreciate all the support thanks everyone have a great day