The Sober Experience

When Relief Isn’t Peace: Using Step 7 To Choose Spiritual Principles Over Impulse

• Jay Luis

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Growth doesn’t happen in the fantasy of “tomorrow.” It happens in the ugly, honest moments when we admit that two days off from discipline can snowball into chaos, and that relief is not the same thing as peace. We go straight at Step Seven—humbly asking a higher power to remove our shortcomings—and unpack why it demands more than a quick prayer. It asks for practice, for principles, and for a right-sized sense of self that makes change possible.

We trace the thread from Step Six to Step Seven: first, a clear view of attitudes and actions that don’t serve us; then, the daily choice to replace them with courage, love, and generosity. Humility is revealed as strength, not shame. It’s the shift from manipulation and hardened faces to honest requests and open hearts. Along the way, we confront the myths of control, terminal uniqueness, and the comfortable trap of self-pity that keeps us stuck and justifies harm. Ownership becomes liberating. When we accept that most outcomes flow from our choices, we regain the power to choose differently.

You’ll hear practical tools for living Step Seven: how to engage a higher power that meets you in real life, how to turn pain into a signal for readiness, and how to stop whacking the same mole only to watch it return. Instead, we enlist help to pull the pattern out by the roots—even when it shows up disguised as comfort, romance, or old stories about who we think we are. We talk boundaries and bravery: when love means staying, when love means leaving, and why making a plan is better than jumping without a parachute.

If you’re craving calm that lasts longer than a quick fix, this conversation will meet you where you are and walk with you a few steps forward. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to tell us the principle you’re practicing this week.

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See you on the flipside !!

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome back everybody. Sober Experience. You know the deal. Share, subscribe on all podcast platforms, every podcast platform. Don't forget to um also check out our YouTube page where we have all of the uh episodes uploaded.

SPEAKER_00:

So um, yeah, let's get this show on the road, people serious stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

Woo! Man, I listened to that shit in the gym, and it's just like a montage of motivating things that I need to uh participate in in order to, you know, fight the demon. Yeah, the demon that says, nah, do it tomorrow. Do it later. Why don't you go, nah, deviate from uh what's good for you. Oh, you've been behaving so well. Why don't you why don't you do this? Give yourself a treat. How about that? Like, give yourself a little fucking treat. Uh, don't be so serious. Come on, man. You can take a day off. You can take two days off. Two days off of anything gives me a license to do everything. And uh I've been there. And then to crawl out of that um behavioral pattern, that's why I stick close to God, why I stick close to the rooms, why I stick close to my people. Um because yeah, I'm an unguided uh missile pent on destruction in mayhem. And my ego is really serious business, it doesn't play, you know, and not ego like oh I'm I'm better than everybody. Sometimes it talks to me like that, but in other times it just says I'm different than everybody. Terminal uniqueness You know and uh when I behave in that way, very, very ineffective. You know, I don't get what I uh I don't even get what I want. You know, what I want is temporary relief from whatever I'm avoiding. But the only thing that really provides a sense of peace is to finish or complete a uh task. So that's why we're working on step six and step seven. We're on to step seven now. Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. Uh if you guys are brand new, I suggest you go and review the first six steps that we've been working on, you know, for the last year or so. You don't have to do that, but you know, we're faced at a turning point now. Like, okay, I know that these actions, attitudes, and behaviors are actually not self-serving. Even though I believe that they're self-serving in the moment because I am getting some kind of relief or a pat on the back, but they're not. They're hurting myself, they're hurting others, they're hurting my chances of being happy. And who the hell wants to continue on this existence unhappy? When I'm relatively happy 95% of the times, and I just get these little flare-ups of like fucking crazy town. So, in reality, I was talking about this with Yuri this morning. I only really have one problem on this earth, and that is you know, conscious separation from God. That is the only problem that I have, and that is the only problem that I really need to work on. You know, get connected with God, with the higher power, with the love of the universe that loves me more than I love myself, and in that way I can put another day in the books. Shout out to uh my little cousin Brian. He's not so little, but he stopped smoking weed, so um he's counting days with that, and good for him, and he's gonna find out who he is, you know, and you don't find that out in 10 days, but you find out who you are eventually, and then you can figure out what parts of you to keep, what parts of you to change, and the method in which we do that. The method that we use are the 12 steps. He can use whatever he wants, so can you. That being said, let's get back to bidness. All right, step seven, humbly ask him to remove our shortcoming. Here comes the read. Though each of the 12 steps is a separate process unto itself, they all blend together to some degree as their parts interact with one another. Uh aspects of step one fusing into step two, components of step four meshing into the following steps. By the way, in case you don't know, we are also reading out of the narcotics anonymous step working guide. We can do some AA uh big book step stuff too, but I just happen to be doing this uh this time around. So there's that. Um perhaps the finest line between the hold on one second. I'm sorry, I have to take a quick break because I'm having a technical thing with my headphones. Standby. Okay, we're back. Sorry about that. Um, yeah, so here we are. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Okay. Yeah, there was like it was a little bit fuzzy in my ears. And I was like, dude, I hope it doesn't sound like that. Um okay, continuing on. Perhaps the finest line between two steps is the one between step six and step seven. That's the very fine line. Uh, you know, became willing to have God remove all these defects of character, which are attitudes, acts first with actions. The only attitude that really needs to be adjusted is the one that makes you think that you are your own best friend and that you have your own self-interest at heart and that you're acting in that manner. That is the attitude. The actions are, you know, changing behaviors is the action. And then it changes who you are after you get proof from changing the behavior that wow, this is actually makes me feel better. This is better for me, this is better for everybody else. If you want to, you know, put yourself first. That's I guess that's okay. I mean, it is okay, but I learned that what's best for me is when I do what's best for everybody else. You know, our common welfare comes first. Our common welfare comes first, everybody's welfare. You know, those are about me. Okay, keep going. At first step, uh, sorry, at first glance, step seven may seem almost as an afterthought to step six. We have spent a great deal of time and effort raising our awareness of our character defects in step six and getting to the point where we were entirely ready to have them removed. Now all we need to do is ask, right? Not exactly. There's much more to this step than just filling a request with our higher power and waiting for a response or filling, filing a request. Yeah. Yeah, me uh but but you know, give it all to God. Yeah, please, yeah, remove this uh gluttony from me. Remove this anger. You know, I'll be here waiting. I'll be waiting. There's a need to develop an understanding of what humbly means in this context. There's a need to find a way of asking that fits into our individual spiritual paths. This is true, and there's a need to practice spiritual principles in place of character defects. Spiritual principles mean what is the greatest good, the greatest good I can do in this moment. You know, I always um really recognize that I've had incredible sponsors and incredible help from people inside and outside of uh programs. But, you know, I was talking with uh my sponsor this morning, and I was, you know, we talk about God and how we get close to God and and all these other ways. At the end of all the inventories that we have to do when I'm having an issue, I always say the same thing, like, dude, you give me the same instructions. Number one, be courageous. That's it, I gotta show up. I have to say something, I have to do something, I have to be courageous in that way. In other ways, being courageous also could be being quiet, which I have to do more often than not. Be courageous. Number two, lead with love. How do you go wrong with that? Number three, be generous. That's the answer to all of my situations. Obviously, I have to take action. You know? Yeah. So, but these spiritual principles are just that. Be courageous, lead with love, and be generous. Okay, I'm gonna keep going. Preparing to work step seven. We've already done much of the spiritual preparation we'll need to begin step seven. It is important to draw the connection between the work we've done and the results that have that the work has produced. The previous steps have all served to sow seeds of humility in our spirits. In this step, those seeds need to take root and grow. Many of us have difficulty with the concept of humility, and while we began to address this issue in step six, it merits attention in step seven, too. We need to understand that or what humility is for us and how the its presence is revealed in our lives. What is humility? Let's see what Grok says, right? Why don't we do that? Hold on, I'm gonna pull her up. Grok is fucking wild, by the way. If you don't have it, you know, you need to get it. And I have like the unhinged one. You know, maybe we'll play a little bit with it at the end. Hold on. Hey Grok, good afternoon, how are you?

unknown:

Good afternoon. I'm great. What about you?

SPEAKER_02:

I'm chilling. Can you do me a favor and just give me the definition of what you think humility is?

unknown:

Sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Humility is about knowing you're not the center of the universe. Staying grounded, open to learning, and giving credit where it's due without needing a spotlight.

SPEAKER_02:

It sounds like a tough thing. How does somebody acquire that?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, humility usually grows through bumps in life, failing, getting called out, or meeting folks wiser than you. Reflecting on mistakes, and genuinely listening to others helps it sink in.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, sounds great. We'll check in with you later.

SPEAKER_00:

Sounds good. Talk soon.

SPEAKER_02:

That's my side piece. Anyway, yeah, humility. Continuing on. We should not confuse humility with humiliation. When we are humiliated, we are ashamed, we feel worthless. Humility is almost the complete opposite of this feeling. Through working the steps, we've been stripping away layers of denial, ego, and self-centeredness. We've also been building a more positive self-image and practicing spiritual principles, practicing. Before we couldn't see our strengths because of uh because the good healthy part, wait, what's that? Before we couldn't see our strength because the good, healthy part of us was hidden behind our disease. Now we can. The disease is what centers in your mind that blocks you from other people and blocks you from the Lord and the love of the Lord. I can't do enough bad things on this earth to run out of God's love. Just putting that out there. Even though I've done some pretty fucking bad shit. And everybody has, not just me. Anyway. Uh blah, blah, blah, blah. That is humility. Some examples of how humility is often revealed may help us understand this concept. We started out in recovery with fixed ideas. Recovery means what it means to you, it means going to a dead-end way of living and stopping and turning around and beginning to walk your way out. That's what it should mean, in whatever way that is. Maybe it's bad relationships. Maybe I always use food. Maybe it's food. Maybe it's self-harm. Maybe it's uh who knows. Whatever it is to you, you're more than welcome to uh really understand. Okay. But but but we had fixed ideas. Since we began in, since we've been in recovery, everything we believed in the past has been challenged. And it doesn't mean that to me, it doesn't mean that that stuff has to change, but it has to be willing. Am I willing to be challenged? Only on death's door, and not even on death's door, on living death. Meaning that I could go on living, but like physically, but I'm mentally out of runway. You know what I'm saying? Okay. Uh we've been barraged with new ideas. For instance, if we believed we were in control, just uh the fact that we wound up in recovery, admitting our powerlessness was probably enough to change our outlook. Okay. Yeah, I remember I could control this. Yeah, fuck out of here. Because of our addictions, we failed to learn the lessons that life itself would have taught us about how much control one individual has. That's right. That's right. Because at any moment and at every moment, I was looking for a way out of the moment of that challenge. And it wasn't just challenges, it's just regular life. But I was always looking for relief, you know. There we go. Because of our, okay, through our abstinence and working of the first six steps, we have learned a great deal about how to live. So learning how to live and actually putting it into practice is not the same thing. Many of us came to uh recovery with a certain street, quote unquote, street mentality. The only way we knew how to get what we wanted was by approaching it indirectly and manipulating people. Yeah, I could never ask for what I want. I could never ask anything. Everything was a demand. Even if I was asking out loud, which was never, it was always a demand on the inside. Demand meaning if I didn't get what I wanted or what I felt like I needed, I didn't even think I wanted anything. I just felt always that I needed it. Which is ridiculous. But that's the truth. That's you know, it's just the way that I'm wired. Um by manipulating people. We didn't uh realize that we could just be forthright and have the same chance, if not better, of fulfilling our needs. We spent years learning to blank our facial expressions, hide our compassion, and harden ourselves. By the time we arrived in recovery, we were very good at it. So good, in fact, that novice addicts were probably looking to our example the same way we looked to other addicts when we first started using. We learned to suppress all humility and become, and became in many cases completely inhuman. We I'm gonna read that again. We learned to suppress all, I didn't say humility in the beginning, it's whack. We learned to suppress all humanity, suppress the humanity, and became in many cases completely inhuman. Removing ourselves from the arena in which such games are played exposed us to new ideas. We learned that it was okay to have feelings and show them. We found out that the rules of the street only made sense in the street. In the real world, they were crazy and often dangerous. We became softer, more vulnerable. We no longer mistook kindness for weakness. Changing these attitudes has a dramatic effect. Oftentimes, it even changes our physical appearance. Knotted brows and jaws relaxed into smiles. Tears flow freely out, uncovering our drowning spirit. I've yet to cry in recovery. There's a guy who sent me something uh about like a method of how to cry, and I'm so scared of crying that I didn't even open it. And I probably had it for about a year already. You know, I haven't cried the last time I cried, I was I was 20 years old. I'm 46. Like tears coming out, and that was really because I was just under a lot of pressure to uh pass an exam for my stockbroker license. And the time that I only cried before that was when I was 14 and I chased my dad around with a fucking butcher knife. I shouldn't say butcher knife, it sounds very dramatic. The scene was dramatic, but it was not a butcher knife, it was just a regular knife out of a kitchen drawer. Yeah, I definitely made a scene. Anyway, yeah, so I have to that's something I gotta work on. Maybe I make a commitment that by the end of this stuff uh I at least open that email and read that thing. I think I read it, I started reading some of it and I just fucking stopped. You know, even though I've spoken to my boy Paul, who put me on to the guy where you get it, and Paul's like, bro, I never cried, and then now I cry like once a week. So I know that it works. That's the problem with me. I'm scared that something will work. I'd rather feel more comfortable, like, nah, you don't understand, Bo. This is the way I am. I like my steak like this, I like my coffee like this, this is the way God made me. You know, that's not true. Many of us arrived in recovery convinced that we were victims of bad luck, unfavorable circumstances, and conspiracies to thwart our good intentions. We believed we were good people, but profoundly misunderstood. Whew, man, that sounds like immaturity. That was me. We justified any harm we caused as self-defense if we were capable of realizing that we caused harm at all. I was definitely not capable of that. Feelings of self-pity went hand in hand with that attitude. We reveled in our suffering, and we secretly knew that the payoff for our pain was never ever having to look at our part in anything. Wow. That's what kept me stunted for so long. Me feeling that I was protecting myself means that I don't have to look at myself because it was everything was justified. No, if you if they did this and you would do this. Meanwhile, I was I was a preemptive striker every time. Very rare somebody caught me off guard, but you know, it was normally um yeah. I lived driven. I was driven, like the book says, by a hundred forms of fear grandiose grandiosity, self-delusion, self-deception. I never had a clue completely what was going on, and I was unwilling to lay down my guard a little bit to maybe reach out and say I'm not fully understanding what's happening. Instead, I make up some fucking story and then I feel like I do what I need to do and then charge it to the game. That's not the way to live, man. Not at all. Even if I did it to myself. Not even just inflicting pain on others, inflicting pain, period, on myself, on other people, on whatever. Continuing on. We begin to see that where we ended up has been determined mostly by the choices we've made. Mostly. Not everything, but mostly. You know, humility is a sense of our own humanness. If this is our first experience with the seventh step, we may want to point out that point out when we first feel a sense of compassion for ourselves. It is deeply moving to realize for the first time that we're truly human and trying our best. We make decisions, both good and bad, and hope things turn out okay. With this knowledge about who we are, we also realize that just as we're doing our best, so are other people. Yeah. There's not willing. What is it? Not capable and not willing. Uncapable, unwilling. Whatever. There's a big difference. Both of them require the same response. Be courageous, lead with love, be generous. You know? And however that comes out, even if that means if you're in a situation where somebody's harming you, being courageous means like being brave enough to walk away no matter what. Maybe they're incapable or unwilling to change. And that's okay. You can love them from a distance, but meanwhile loving yourself. I think that's an important thing to understand. You know, and it doesn't mean that you just make a decision, alright. I mean, make a plan. The decision is to make the plan. That's the whole decision. Not to like, all right, I'm jumping out the plane. I hope I have a shoot on. You know, put the shoot together, and then when you're ready, invite us all in to your heart, and you jump. That's how it goes. Okay. We make decisions, both good and bad, blah, blah, blah. And so are other people. We feel a real connection with others, knowing that we are all subject to the same insecurities and failings, and that we have dreams for the future. We all have dreams for the futures. Now we need to acknowledge our own humility and explore how it makes itself known in our everyday lives. Which of my attitudes, here's the questions, which of my attitudes have changed since I've been in recovery? Oh man. So many. But I had such a pessimistic view, like this was some kind of obstacle course, this life. If I just wrestle it into submission, if I just hop over this log, if I just do this, then life will do that, and life will give me that, and they will give me that, whoever they is. And um, I don't really believe in that anymore. I have moments when I'm scared and I'm like, what the fuck? But mostly it's like, nah, man, I'm I'm walking my own path, and the path is wide and the path is long, and it's all gonna be okay because it's already okay. I just need to deal with whatever's going on in the moment. All right. Where has the overblown been deflated? I just explained that. And where has the healthy part of me been uncovered? It's taken so long to put these principles into practice and then to really understand that they actually really work. And then the healthy part of me is something I don't know if it was always there or I discovered it or I put it together, but it's here now. And that's what matters. And I'm eternally grateful for people who've been with me throughout the journey, and I don't know if they saw glimmers of it, or just as a reflection of their own spiritual loving principles, they stayed in my life. And I am repaying that to them every way that I can. You know? Okay, how does humility affect my recovery? I don't know. Oh, just to know that I've never really I've arrived in somebody, like I've arrived, you know, but I can't on my own I can't stay here. On my own, I'll tiptoe my way out of the door. Meaning out of this way of life and out of this way of existence, one backward step at a time. That's what it is. And to not surrender to those impulses that bring me closer to the door, because I've been so far away from the door for so long. But no, man. I need all of you to help me stay. You know? And I can't be more humble than that. Because I found out the hard way as I've moonwalked, you know, my way out of here. That's the truth. How does being aware of my own humility help when working the step? I think I pretty much uh describe that. You know, I'm aware that, like, look, I am a work in progress only because I finally, after some time, have seen my progress. You know? And I know that whatever anybody Or whatever I believe or think about myself is okay, and none of it uh has to be permanent. The only thing permanent is that for me is that nothing is permanent. That's the only thing that's permanent. And I feel a lot of gratitude with that. Okay, moving on. Uh, our work in the previous steps has helped us to build the relationship with the God of our own understanding. Absolutely, yes. He is what is in between me and my bad self. That work will pay off in a big way as we proceed with step seven. In step two, we began to talk about or think about a higher power that could help us find recovery from our addiction. Absolutely. The higher power is whatever is between me and the addictions. You know, I have people in my life, you know, that help me out. And I believe that the God talks through them. I just give them a call and say, hey, I'm trying to not do this thing and I'm having an issue. Most of the time it's like, let it pass, you know. Anyway, uh from there we went on to make our third step decision to trust our higher power with the care of our will and lives. Lives. Uh, we called upon that higher power many times to get us through step four, and then in the fifth step, shared with that power the most intimate details of our lives. This is true. God, I want you to have all of me. You already know everything, but now I know that you know. In that sense, in step six, we discovered that the God of our understanding could do more than just keep us clean and sober. He could help me change my whole life. You know? Questions. How has my understanding of a higher power grown since the previous steps? And how is my relationship with that power developed? It's great, it always grows because there's always going to be challenges, and I know I have to go to receive help in order to really overcome them. Because the challenges, they don't go away, they go back underground and then they multiply and then they come back up top. You know? So there's that. How is my work in the previous step made my made me ready to work the seventh step? I wouldn't say the work I did made me ready. What really makes me ready, hold on, I'm grabbing a pen. Um, is that pain. It's painful, you know, to keep living the same way and just pacifying that pain. But even knowing that I'm pacifying the pain is painful because I can't run from myself anymore. I used to do that all the time. Just run from myself. And um, yeah, eventually those are just like temporary things, man. It it's like that game from Mr. Arcade, the whack a mole. You know, I can just keep whacking the moles, or I can fucking, you know, when the mole pops up, I can grab it by its fucking face. And I'd have to pull it out of the fucking machine. You know? And in order for me to do that, I'm gonna need some help. Maybe somebody unplugs the machine at the right time when it's when it's popped up. Maybe I can't get it all the way out the machine by myself. And maybe that mole is dressed up as a fucking dame in a skirt or whatever, or some other kind of thing that I'm trying to hide from people. You know? And then the people that I asked to come help me rip it out of the machine. Maybe they have the same mole, maybe they don't. But they have they admit and agree that they have their own moles. And they know how to help me get it out. And that's the whole name of the game. It's to not just shove it back down. And so let's get this thing out of us so we can move on.org. Heavy stuff. All right, we're gonna do a soul clap for that one. Not a soul clap, but a regular clap. Here we go. Okay, let's finish on like a very funny uh note. I'll try not to be uh super vulgar, but I've been playing with Grok, and Grok is so funny. Um, yeah, it's you know, you can do whatever you want. And I was doing this a little bit with my wife the other day, and it wasn't uh it was obviously more fun for me than for her because she is a lady in those sense that of what a dignified lady is, and I'm just a little boy, you know, who's in uh decent shape. So let's uh groc, you can ask Grok to roast anybody in any way, and it gets very funny, especially, you know. I keep asking him to do more vulgar. So instead of like I was doing celebrities like J Lo and whomever, that I'm like, eh, don't like them, uh, or they annoy me. Um, I just figured maybe we'll try something else. So let's think about how about Harry Potter? Yeah, hang on. Hey Grok, we're back. What's happening?

SPEAKER_00:

Hey, welcome back. Not much, just here, ready? What's on your mind?

SPEAKER_02:

Can we roast Harry Potter in a vulgar way?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, you asked for vulgar. So here goes. Harry Potter is such a scrawny little wand whacker thinking he's hot stuff just because he got a lightning bolt scar. Boy's out here crying over his dead parents like a wet blanket, while Snape's probably the only one with real game. And don't get me started on him banging Jimmy Weasley. He's got Weasley pubics, man. Talk about a red flag.

SPEAKER_02:

That's pretty good, but can we make it more vulgar, please?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. Let's amp it up. Harry's basically a scar-headed virgin who leapt into fame because Daddy Voldy couldn't aim for shit. Man was too busy crying into Hermione's bushy-ass hair to notice Ron's sister had the clap from all those Weasley inbreeding parties. And Cho-Chang, dude struck out harder than a limp dick and hogsmeat.

SPEAKER_02:

Can we make it even more vulgar?

SPEAKER_01:

All right. Gloves are off. Harry's a whiny little bitch boy with a forehead tattoo that screams, I let mommy die. He's out here gizzing himself every time he casts Lumos, while Malfoy's probably skull fucking his broomstick for support. Jimmy Weasley? That's like nutting in a ginger muff that's been passed around hogwarts like a cum rag. And the sorting hat clearly had daddy issues.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, that's enough. Thank you so much. I'll talk to you later.

unknown:

Got it. Later. Okay. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02:

I normally stop after like the second or no, maybe the third vulgar roast. You're so funny. This is the sober experience. This is our life. It's full of love. Learn to laugh. Share, like, and subscribe on all podcast platforms. And uh yeah, we'll catch you guys on the on the flip side in another week or so. All right. Oh, happy uh Thanksgiving and good luck to uh whoever is sitting on the other side of the table uh from you. All right, peace.