The Sober Experience

What If You Left Room For Betrayal And Chose Love Anyway

• Jay Luis

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If relief feels easy but change feels impossible, you’re right where we start. We open with a twenty-two year milestone, a humbling group inventory, and a hard look at how meeting culture shapes recovery. Crowded beginner meetings can build comfort, but literature-centered work builds character. That tension sets the table for a deep dive into Step Six: becoming entirely ready to have our defects removed, not just managed.

I get honest about ineffective behaviors that look harmless in the moment—snarky replies, comfort eating, mental spirals—and why willpower only pushes the problem down the road. We explore how willingness creates space for a power greater than ourselves to act, and how simple actions stack into real change: pausing before we hit send, calling our parents to listen, choosing a literature meeting over a dopamine loop. Faith comes first, then trust, and the bridge between them is repeated action under stress.

We also talk about relationships, risk, and love. I share what it means to “leave room for betrayal” at home and at work: stop guarding against the worst, give your best anyway, and let intimacy require courage. It isn’t naivete; it’s choosing reality over control. Along the way are health updates, gratitude for the old guard who raised me, and practical Step Six prompts you can take into your next meeting or journal.

If you’re craving more than temporary relief, this conversation offers a design for living: willingness over willpower, literature over vibes, actions over intentions. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and drop a comment with one behavior you’re willing to replace this week. Your future self is already cheering you on.

SPEAKER_00:

Yo yo yo, what's up? Welcome back, Sober Experience. Hope you guys are doing well. Uh, don't forget to like and subscribe on all podcast platforms, uh including our YouTube page, The Sober Experience, as a little guy with a big cup of coffee trying to trying to hold it all on his own. Um, that's how you can find us, share with all your friends. And um, yeah, we're back. Let's uh let's set it off. Yeah, like I said, welcome back, R.I.P. Guru. Man, I was like, you know. The name of that track is uh it's the instrumental for Above the Clouds. Uh Above the Clouds, Clouds, Clouds. Above the Clouds, um, probably top three or four favorite gang star records ever. Um, Guru DJ Premier and Inspect a Deck from the great and powerful Wu Tang clan. It's probably one of Deck's finest um verses. Yeah. Alright, yeah, man. So we're doing well, man. We're approaching anniversary time. Anniversary time. Yeah, dog. What's today's date? I don't even know what the date is. Oh, today's the 26th, three days, man. Whoosh, three days. That means this Wednesday, man. 22 trips around the sun, fastballs to the face, like my boy little Christie says. And um, yeah, it's a long time. It's a long way to learn. It's a long, uh, it's a lot. And it's not something to be disregarded. Next uh, well, this not this Monday, but next Monday. Um yeah, next Monday, the uh they're gonna cut a cake for your boy over there at Greenwood, 20th Street, 7th Avenue. Come on, come all. So, which is nice. 7 o'clock, be there, be square. And um, yeah, man, we're doing great. My home group just had a group inventory, and for those of you not in the fellowship, what that means is that they submit uh all these questions about to make sure that our fellowship and our group is participating in the appropriate ways within the AA community and within the regular community. And let me tell you, man, it was a sight to be seen and heard. Whoosh! Yeah, heavy stuff, man. You know, personalities, what are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? You know, me, I just, you know, I was sitting in the back, my boy Wesley, just uh, you know, observing. And um, you know, I made a couple of suggestions. And honestly, I don't really get involved too much. Because what am I, what am I gonna do, you know? I can just say what I believe to be true based on experience in the past and things that I've seen gone wrong and things that I've seen gone right. But you know, there's a whole, you know, the group is mainly a lot of like young people, not just young people in age, but you know, people with not a lot of sobriety. You know, meaning five years, I mean whatever. It all of it counts, but I'm talking about five years, seven years, whatever, twelve, you know. I'm not like, oh, you're a big dog with twenty-two, like, yeah, but it's I'm a big dog with fucking twenty-two, which means I've I've been around for twenty two years, you know, not just not drinking, but uh learning. Learning. And I'm a slow learner, bro. I'm a slow learner. So, but you know, I I find it better to um allow people the space to self-govern. And you know, I can make a suggestion, but then like, you know, I I I re um I would say I respect the process, like I know the process. An example was, you know, maybe a couple of years ago, I was a little bit anxious because I saw what was going on where there was a lot of emphasis on like beginners' meetings. And for those of you who don't know about that stuff, it just means it's like a meeting where somebody shares their stories, and then everybody, uh, people who get to share from the floor, you know, they give comments or talk about what's going on in their day and whatever. And not really, there's a lot of those. I mean, geez, there's probably like four of them or five. Meanwhile, the actual program where you get better and you be better, and the instructions and the design for living is in the 12 steps. So there are specific literature meetings for that. And those meetings are held uh typically in the afternoon, then there's a couple at night. And so I just, you know, I said, listen, there's not enough literature meetings, and there's too much beginner hokey pokey uh meetings, you know, well, which is good, man. People need to come and feel comfortable and have a great time and go hang out and go to the diner and do all that stuff. And I would do that. Like once every month, I would go out with some of the new guys and go to the diner with them and spend some time with them, you know. And then now those people have like, you know, a handful of years or whatever. And um anyway, bro, did all of these young kids fucking flame me? You know? I was like, dude, you guys are getting all these people to come to this meeting at 7 o'clock on a Saturday. If all those people are gonna be in the room, you should make that meeting a literature meeting. So they're doing some actual work and they're getting better. They're not just coming here for a relief. They're gonna start to get a little bit of results. Because there was an 8.30 uh literature meeting, which I'm sure was pretty scarce. So, brother, they were like, I don't want blah, blah, blah. You know, they didn't want to hear what I had to say. And um I said my piece, whatever. And they were like, somebody said, Oh, instead of making it 8.30, can you move that literature meeting to 530? And I I made a, I mean, I can't, I'm not in control. They put it up to a vote. I compromised, like, okay, but you're gonna find out. And it took them two years to fucking find out that J Dog, and not me personally, but my experience, uh, was correct. Because now that group is having all sorts of problems that they wouldn't have if more people were in uh the book and in the literature. It doesn't mean that you can't hang out, it doesn't mean you know, it's just what it means. And uh the meeting has gotten a reputation um that it deserved. You know, and now we gotta write the ship a little bit, and which is cool. I don't even take it personally, but I made I made it a point to laugh with my people. I'm like, oh, oh, who said because at that inventory meeting, all the suggestions came like, oh, we need more literature meetings, we need more traditions meetings, which is literature or stat meetings or big book meetings at night. But it's like, oh, oh, really? Oh who suggested that two fucking years ago? But no, I'm an old fuddy duddy. What do I know? But I don't care personally. To me, as long as the play is made, I don't care who gets the credit, as long as we win. But you know, people are gonna learn on their own. And that's a thing. And that's okay too. Because I just I stay in the literature, man. I have such a big life, I can't afford to leave the literature. I mean shit, I'm doing step work out of an NA step uh book guide with you guys, aside from the other meetings that I go to, which is either mostly literature meetings and men's meetings, then I go to anniversary meetings where like once a week somebody's celebrating in a a sobriety milestone, and we cut a cake for them and they have speakers and blah blah blah. Yeah. And um, so I I try I've been trying to do those more where I can come and just uh not even participate so much, but celebrate with you know the younger kids, the younger crowd. You know, I got I'm operating on a different frequency, but I love them. And I, you know, and which is great. And then when we had our anniversary, um we had the group's anniversary, I don't know how many years, whatever, 60 years or something, 70 years, who the fuck knows? Uh whatever. I think it was 56 or 58, whatever. That my home we had a Halloween party yesterday, which was fucking bumping. And people think I'm the old guard. I saw some of the actual old guard when I rolled in there. Oh, brother, man, it made my day. It made my day to see some of them. I haven't seen them 10 years, maybe. Because, you know, they get sober, they do their thing and then they move away, you know, which is fine. And I see them on a computer, but they live in a different neighborhood. And the amount of love and everything that I got, and that I want, not even that I got, because I don't care about that, but the amount of love that I wanted to give to them, I couldn't control myself, you know. I just couldn't. They were asking, oh my God, how's your son? Oh my god, Jared, you're so handsome, like you grew up into like a sober, because I grew up in that room, you know, with those people. The old school guy, they raised me. And now I'm one of these old school guys. And um, and that's how it's gonna be. Anyway, so oh, there we go. All right, what do we got? What do we got today? We're still doing, we're gonna get back into the book one, step six. Um, you know, and uh that's good. I'm gonna go see a movie in a little while with my wife, uh, which I'm looking forward to spending more time uh with her. I this past week uh we went to this place in Brooklyn where we live, uh called World Spa. And it has like all the saunas and all the shit and whatever, and uh cold plunges and like warm swimming pools. So it's like a big, huge swimming pool, but it's very warm. It's like incredible. Anyway, super comfortable. But the best part about it is like, bro, I leave my phone in the locker, so I just get to spend time with her, which is, you know, initially it's like a little bit uncomfortable, you know, to spend time with each other, not doing anything and just being with each other, you know. I'm like, okay, we spent all these years with these raising these kids and doing the stuff, and I don't even think sometimes we know who's who, to be honest. It felt like for a long time I leave the house in the morning, I come home at night. And she did a lot of the heavy lifting when it came to the family stuff, and I just did the heavy uh financial lifting with the great help from her, but to make sure everything, you know, make sure the stage was set so she could do her magic, and now we're like discovering each other a little bit. And it's a change, it's a big change. Anyway, so all right, back to the work. We're on uh step six, which is became willing to have God remove all these defects of character. Right? Now, I'm sure I explained this last time, but in case you guys weren't around, what I uh and my boy Paul, listen, if you're listening to this and um you want to subscribe to a dope ass YouTube page, it's called um Three Legacies uh Recovery. Let me just make sure I'm giving it the right uh I know the podcast is called the Three Legacies Recovery Recordings Podcast. But let me just make sure I got the YouTube page right. Standby. Visit channel. Yeah, three legacies recovery recordings. If you want to hear good fucking AA speakers and NA speakers and Al Anon, bro, Al-Anon is amazing. I'm trying to get my wife to fucking go. Um, you know what I'm saying? Because it's just a beautiful thing. She's already beautiful as a person, you know. But whatever. Who knows? Maybe she don't need it. Maybe I'm the only one who needs help in my life. Maybe, maybe. Either way, um, I was talking with him, and we were saying, like, you know, character, I don't like the word character defects. I just don't like it. It doesn't make them not true, but like in the big book, they talk about, you know, doing an inventory so you can find uh you can find, they call them unusable or unsaleable goods, which is a metaphor for things that you're doing that are just not really effective. It doesn't always obviously have to hurt people. You understand? Like you can't be like hurting people and living free. Um, you'll live free for momentarily, but it a life based on that is not gonna be as fulfilling as a life not based on that. You know? And you wanna really do your best to swallow all of the pause, swallow all of the freedom that you can. You know? So when you do these inventories, you're just finding responses to life that are just it that they don't have to be negative, they're just not effective, you know, and then you can replace them with positive ones or different ones, and you can start to build a whole different life, which is what I've done, you know. And it just took so long for me to have this life that I have. But it's based on decisions and choices and actions that I took that are contrary that that are contrary to things that weren't uh effective. Similar to what I was saying, is that like, you know, I can throw my weight around in different ways in my life, and who that's not really gonna be effective as far as you know, leading with love and making suggestions, or not even making suggestions like I'm smart, but making suggestions by sharing my experience, and then just allowing things to unfold, you know, and then I don't need all of the uh accolades. You know what I mean? That kind of stuff. That's something stuff that I had to learn. It's like, you know, I can't be I can't feel walking around feeling like I have to protect people from their own experience and their own life. Because in reality, that's the only way most people learn anyway. You know, you can say, hey, look, guys, you know, I went down that road, and uh before I went down that road, somebody told me, like, bro, that ain't the road. But I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it ain't for you, but you're not as smart as me. Like, yeah, you know, the road is the road always wins. That's the whole thing. So let's uh let's continue on. Okay, so now in this section, it says to have God removed. Like, what does that mean? Because I'll need the higher power. This is not in the reading, but just sharing. I'll read the higher power. I mean, I'll I'll need the read. I'll need the higher power in between me and that you know, ineffective behavior. I need God. And I need you to be like, okay, please let me be, A, I feel like I have to be courageous enough, but B, I have to be humble enough and smart enough to be like, dude, I am doing the same thing again and expecting a different result. Like, that is what most people call insanity. Doing the same thing over and over, the same way, and expecting a different result. On a side note, I've been getting better with my health stuff. I told you I'm going to all these doctors, whatever. Dog, I went to the fucking I went to uh the urologist because I've been up here and up here and up here. And I drink a lot of water because I'm trying to try not to be too consumed with my health, but I'm trying to stay healthy. And not because I'm scared of leaving, but because I want to stay and get another day on this earth with my wife, who brings me the most joy. Her and God, like tied for first place, bring me the most joy. It's what an adventure to be with them and next to them. Anyway, so when I go to the urologist, dude, they're like, it's one of those things. Oh, I had to go for the sonogram, so the bladder sonogram, because I've been drinking a lot of water and I've been peeing a lot. So my doctor thinks I have a very slightly enlarged prostate. I was like, all right, what does that mean? I gotta go get finger in the coolie? I don't know. But I'm like, alright, whatever, man. Um, yeah. So I go get this sonogram, but it's one where you gotta drink like mad water before you go. And I honestly didn't drink a lot of water. I mean, I drank the bunch, but then I peed and I got nervous, and then I drank some more. And they're like, oh, we need, you know, apparently, and then when I got in there, she and I was uncomfortable with the amount of water that was in my bladder. Um, you know, I made myself a little comfortable, unbuckled my pants. Maybe, but I had a long shirt, so nobody could see. Otherwise, like, you know, I don't want to rat on myself. But um anyway, when I go lay down, this lady, she like hits it, you know, with first they do the kidneys, blah, blah, blah. You know, and then they go do the bladder. And she was like, oh, your bladder is very full. I was like, yeah. She's like, we needed two, I think it was 200 cc's is what they needed. I had 600. I was like, oh, this is actually not even as full, not even as uncomfortable as I'd be being sometimes, be being as uncomfortable as I am sometimes. So what I'm saying is she did the thing, and then I went and I peed. And then she's like, oh, but everything drained out great, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so she was cool. When I go to the follow-up with my with the actual urologist, he gets to see the stuff, and he's telling me, he's like, dude, yeah, you have a slightly enlarged prostate, but it's nothing more than what's age related. And all of your um the test, um I forgot what what whatever for the uh prostate cancer, the numbers or something. It's like lettered numbers, whatever. I'm sure somebody's in their car yelling it out now, whoever's 50 plus. But um, they're like very they're like so low. He's like, dude, he's like, but your numbers are so low that this is actually just average prostate uh growth. And I don't even have to check you, I don't have to put my finger in the butt, so you're safe. And I was like, okay. So that was great. Um, you know, and then I told him what I was on, I'm on testosterone, doing this other shit. I'm starting to get, you know, again, trying to be healthy. So, which is nice. So I only got one more appointment left. Aside from the dentist tomorrow, I gotta go for the neurologist. You know, my wife thinks uh I'm losing my bird. And I'm definitely I'm not as sharp as I used to be. Maybe I'm just so much more relaxed that I'm trying not to feverishly hold on to information that takes me away from the moment. You know, all these snapple facts. You know, I'm really I'm feeling pretty loose mentally. But in a good way. In a good way. Okay. So that's uh another sidebar. Okay. Now, alright, I will get back to the reading. Alright. I get sidetracked. I'm sorry. Maybe that's maybe that's why I need to go to the doctor, Bone. Alright. Yes, the sixth step uh specifies that only a power greater than ourselves can remove our defects of character. However, the extent to which most of us grasp what uh that actually means is directly influenced by how much experience we have with the up and down and off again, on again struggle and surrender associated with step six. So what are they saying? Like the results you'll get are directly related to how willing you're gonna be from how much pain that you're in by doing the same things over and over. And even though you may get temporary relief, you're not gonna actually get changed uh behavior, you know, and only the changed behavior is really what's gonna what's gonna give you a better life and what actually makes you feel better, you know. I always use the example of the donut. The donut gives you instant gratification, and then after a while, long-term whatever. That's what the donut does. That's what maybe the the other whatever, porn. That's what the porn does. You know, for me, it's why I I fucking stay away from it. You know what I'm saying? And uh, and that's it. You know, so yeah, stay away from so I need, again, the process is that when I now that I know what these ineffective behaviors are, as far as like actual problem solving and making better choices than long-term solutions, I need to stop when I I can't pretend that I don't know. But it's not even just that I know, it's that I need to, I need help. I need help, I need God to help me. That's where I go. And then I go either God first and then you guys, and I ask for help from people, like, hey, I'm feeling squirrely. This is what's going on. What what should I not do? I already know what I shouldn't do, but you know, to telling myself a little bit. So I can be reminded, like, hey, look, didn't you do that the last 18 times? Didn't you say those things the last 11 times? Didn't you respond that way the last 47 times? You know, and then you get anxious by just trying something different, like being quiet, you know, and I need uh, you know, God to remove, or not even to remove that anxiety, but to just make me a little bit brave so I can just try the next right action. I was listening to something my cousin Louie's been sending me from Napoleon Hill. And it's incredible stuff, these like 30-minute and hour-long talks on YouTube. And I know some of that stuff is AI generated, like you know, but as far as like the reading stuff, and you know, they dress him up obviously old white man, and it's like they put it's perfect. It's actually perfect, these these things that him and I have been sending each other. I love him, he's my brother. And he says, like, you gotta listen to the voice of your your future self, your future self that wants all the good and wants everything beautiful in your life and wants you to be happy, he's the one talking to you saying don't eat the donut. Do something else. If you have that relationship with donuts, I do. Food is bad for me, it's one of the ways that I punish myself. Self-pity, dude. I will be having such a good time in my life in general, not on a specific day, but a specific day will come where you're like, you know what? Let me just listen to some sad music so I can feel a little bit sad for no fucking reason. Nothing's going on. And be like, oh, let me put on some Mac Miller. Oh my god, I miss Mac Miller. You know, people who died from this disease. And listen to their music, like, oh my god, there's my brother, you know, Amy Winehouse, whatever. Just to fuck with myself. I should, and then I catch myself and then I stop. I'm like, dude, there's no reason for me to go down that that path unless I just want to feel bad. For what? I'm gonna waste, you know. I can I can remember and have fond, loving, somber memories of some of that stuff, but to purposely like do like emotional cutting, and that ain't it. Not for me, but you know, impulses turn to tendencies, and then tendencies turn to, you know, thoughts. And then you can make a different choice. You know, tendencies is where I'm at right now in some areas. In some areas, like the misbehaving or the hurting myself or other people, it's actually gone. I'm somebody else. I find it very uncomfortable to be doing that. Um and I have to work on that still more, you know. Yeah. But it's a a long time of practicing step six. You know, because it's a practice, and depending on the situation, I have to try it and respond with a lot of love. And most importantly, being effective. Love is always effective. That's the whole key. You know? Alright, I'm gonna continue on. The first thing most of us do with our character defects is to decide not to have them. Unfortunate is to do is decide not to have them. Yeah, whatever. Saying, like, no, I'm good, bro. Um, unfortunately, this is futile, about as effective as attempting to control our using, hmm, or drinking, whatever, or you know, other stuff. We may have some apparent success for a time, but our defects will eventually resurface. The problem is that our defects are part of us. We will always be subject to reverting to our worst character defects in stressful situations. Subject doesn't mean that you're driven to do that, but it just means that it's on the menu. Doing the wrong thing or responding in a non-loving way is on the menu. You know? What we need to do in the sixth step is much like what we had to do in the first two steps. We have to admit that we have been defeated by an internal force that has brought nothing but pain and degradation to our lives. That voice that's inside of you that is saying, like, they're out to get you. You're not enough. They're gonna, you need to get them before they get you. You don't have enough. You can't trust them. All of that stuff. You know, I've I've been working. I actually, you know, I do this spiritual work with you guys and I do it on my own, and I do it with everybody in my program. But a lot of times I'm scared to share some of this stuff with my wife only because it brings up uncomfortable conversations. You know what I'm saying? And she's the most important uh yeah, she's the closest to me. Closest to me. So anyway, so what I was sharing with her is like, you know, in order to fully bite the apple and really experience the super highs, you have to really abandon yourself. Like, really. I'll use two examples that are coming to my mind right now. One, the one I used with her, and one that just came to my mind. So you guys know it's not always about like relationships. Like I'm so invested in feeling the ultimate closeness to God and to my wife that I told her, I said, I leave space for betrayal. Which means I do not protect myself from that in any way. I leave the spaces there. If she wants to betray me, that's gonna be on her. You know, I'm not looking through anybody's phone, I'm not being skeptical of any of her answers, I'm not what I'm not even thinking about asking any questions. Brother, I'm just living in the sunshine, and that is the way I'm fully committed to being in the sunshine. Because I don't have control over how somebody else behaves, that's on them. So the worrying and the whatever is actually removing the full experience. So I just throw myself at the mercy of love. Oh my god, it's fucking amazing. It is unbelievable. Same thing, different example is if you are at work and you regardless of what's going on or who you work for, or if you work for yourself, or whatever, like if you just do your best, even though they could fire you at any moment, even though they may not be fun to work with or work for, but if you just show up with somebody with integrity, is like, you know, to make a commitment to yourself and to keep your own word to yourself that, dude, no matter what, I'm just gonna be the best that I can be. It doesn't mean I'm gonna be perfect, it doesn't mean I'm not fallible, but I'm going to show up and be the best that I can be. You know. And then you're leaving room again for betrayal. Because that's what it all regular life on life's terms, which means aka shit happens. It feels like betrayal when you have all of these demands, emotional demands, not like, oh, you you better do this, but like if this happens, then this, then I'm gonna feel like this. So I need to protect myself from that. Those are like emotional demands that you're that you're creating for on your own life. And you're always gonna have some uh reservations about every situation and about every day of your life. You'll have those because you are not all the way in, both feet in the deep end, whatever you want to call it. And a little bit at a time, we have to just let go and take another step into the deep end, another step, another step, another step, another step. And then eventually your feet leave the ground, and now you're treading water. You know what I'm saying? And yeah, you could go down, sure. But then you're actually swimming. So if you want to swim, your feet can't be on the ground, dog. Straight up and down. Yeah. What I'm gonna reread that sentence. We have to admit that we have been defeated by an internal force that has brought nothing but pain and degradation to our lives. That's step one. Not step one, but the first part. We have to admit that this shit is not working, it's no longer effective for long-term happiness, growth, whatever. I'm missing out. I'm missing out. I know that there's more to experience, there's more to see, there's more to feel in this experience, whatever it is, and I'm missing out. All right. Then we have to admit that we need help in dealing with that force. Huh. What was I just talking about? We need help. We must completely accept the fact that we cannot remove our own shortcomings. We must prepare ourselves to ask in the seventh step, which is the next one, for God to remove them for us. Question one. How am I trying to remove or control my own character defects? What have my attempts resulted in? I haven't really tried to remove them. I've practiced discipline in not participating in those tendencies, and then periodically I go back and I relapse on them a little bit just to find out. Like, dude, I felt so much better when I gave this up for however long. Whatever it is. Or when I did the, when I went to the exercise every day, no matter what. Or when I, you know, called my parents and just listened to them. You know, or whatever it is, you know, and then I'm like, oh, this is working so good, I'm actually gonna just stop doing that. And that's a defect that I have, the, you know, that demon that I have to kill all the time. Or I don't kill it, but like I call it killing the demon, but the demon stays with me. He always trying to rob me of a good time. You know, by offering promise of a better time, which is bullshit. The only thing it delivers is isolation, despair, negativity, procrastination, just painting myself into a corner where eventually, you know, I self-destruct enough that a drink will be an option. You know, and I've been not keeping my word to myself lately with some stuff, and um, and I'm just have to be like, dude, don't do that again. And it's like very little stupid things, you know. I'm saying it's like nothing really to even report. But things that I know, I'm like, bro, I don't have to respond to that text message that way. It's not loving, I can just be cool. But it's like, oh, somebody texts me and it's like makes me feel a certain type of way. There's different ways to handle that. I don't have to be um, I don't have to be like, well, but you're gonna be snarky, so I'll be snarky. Because I don't know if you realize you're being snarky, but maybe if I be snarky to you, but dude, people are snarky, I'm like fucking sharky. You know, I go way overboard with my snark. That's it. So that's why I can't be using it. Because uh I don't have any um, you know, I don't have any control or self-control when it comes to the level uh of my worst self that I let out of the balloon. It's like I just open this the space a little bit and too much comes out. Like, and it's like, oh man. That's and then I find myself back here working on this stuff, asking God to be like, all right, man, please remind me when I'm in that space, right before I send that email, that message, that response on a phone call, that response in real life, remind me to just be cool, man. Just be cool. Because I don't want to be right. You know what I'm saying? What is oh, you want to be right, you want to be happy? Yeah, like, you know, who cares about that stuff? All right, what is the difference between being entirely ready to have God remove my defects of character and suppressing them myself? Suppressing them myself is just for me letting them stew. Just because I don't respond in the moment and then I give myself a high five for not responding, I need to react differently. And like, all right, so I didn't get mad. So it's almost like, oh, I got in an argument with somebody and I didn't punch them in the face, and it's like, okay, great. But how about, you know, you work on getting to a point where an argument really just means that there's information that two people are not sharing with each other, or not everybody's privy to what's going on. Um, and it's literally that, and it means somebody else's feelings are hurt. You know, if you're not talking to one of your friends or one of your family members, it's not because they feel good about that. It's because people's feelings are hurt. That's number one. You know, maybe stuff that was done. And the person doesn't say it doesn't know how to be like, hey, look, you actually really hurt my feelings. You know? So what do you do? You sit there and stew and start talking, oh, it's them? Or you you can. That's not really effective. What's the opposite of that? If I can call that person and say, I know that there's something going between us, have I harmed you? And then just shut up. You say, I feel like I've harmed you. Because obviously, if you're angry with me, that means I've harmed you. That's what that means. I may not even know what that harm is, but it's not out of nowhere. You know what I mean? How am I increasing my trust in God and the God of my understanding by working this step? Yeah, because you know, because traveling down a new road and using different tools requires a lot of faith, you know. That's what it requires. It, you know, faith turns into trust. Faith is like, I believe that this is gonna work out. And trust is like, I know this is gonna work out, but nobody gets trust before faith. It doesn't work like that. Like you've got to have a little bit of faith that you're gonna be okay no matter what happens next. Because a different reaction or a different a different course of action is not always gonna be the right one. It's just gonna be a different one. And that means you're on your way to getting the right one. That's what that means. You know, that's what that means. So I need to, I, you know, if I just had to be self-reliant, it would not be very of um, I don't know. I have a history of having of none of that working. Me just being completely self-reliant and self-regulating and self-governing. Oh my God. Self-governing? Bro. Oof. Nobody can make a mess uh better than me. And that's the truth. Um, anyway, what's next? How does my surrender deepen in this step? In each instance, like I have to surrender a little bit more of my need and my incessant demand to know what's going to happen on the other side of that situation. Some of these guys, they say, you know, what do you know? That's a good response. I'm listening to this one guy who's had all these uh, you know, all these workshops on YouTube. I think he's he's dead. Uh the guy's name was Bob Olson. Incredible guy. But like, you know, he would talk to his sponsor and say, Yeah, I think, you know, this job is this, or I think this woman is this, and he would be like, What do you know? You know, God knows you don't know. But God knows. You can have an idea or a clue, but it's like speculation until you have experience. And then once you try something and you have experience, you gain that experience, and eventually, like I said, the faith turns into trust. So I have to surrender my fear of not getting what I want, you know, and I'll actually get what's good for me, which is for me to it changes what I want to really just peace, love, and happiness. That's it. Next question. What action can I take that shows I'm entirely ready? I can tell somebody else the shit that I'm doing that uh that is hurting me. That's the action. I can rat on myself. And not in a vague way, in a real way. You know? And be uh and be rid of that. If it's the uh the right person, I'll most likely it'll be. I'll be rid of whatever shame or guilt that's associated with me doing that stuff to myself, and in turn affecting everybody else in my life. So that's that. Now, um there's nothing really more we're gonna get into today. That was a that was a good one, heavy one. Um, yeah, congratulations to me. Congratulations to I'm sharing. Listen, I'm telling you got 22 years because I want you to be impressed. And it's true because it is impressive. But this other kid, she has one year, and to me, that is supremely impressive. Because she doesn't even know how well the stuff works yet. Because she's only been scratching the surface at one year. You don't drink for one year, even as a civilian, you're gonna grow. Who knows which way you're gonna grow, but you're gonna change, and that's all that growth is. You know? So, sober experience, all podcast platforms, share the episode, subscribe. Um, yeah, and then I'll see you guys on the other side. Peace.