[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, and welcome to the fun and sobriety podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Dylan.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am an alcoholic.
[SPEAKER_01]: So today I want to spend a few minutes talking about
[SPEAKER_01]: why it's important to do a searching and fearless moral inventory, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why it's important to try and identify soberly identifies objectively determined or at least have an effort to be objectively aware of
[SPEAKER_01]: your part in a resentment, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, and I guess I need to take it back a minute because resentments I've discovered that a lot of people, you know, when people who aren't, let's say, versed in the language of AA aren't necessarily
[SPEAKER_01]: sitting there thinking about their frustrations and anxieties and struggles as resentments.
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe that's my own bias that I've come to identify and recognize that a lot of ruminations
[SPEAKER_01]: and just, you know, getting caught up in my head, you know, replaying an incident, you know, rehashing an argument, maybe, you know, I should have said this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So next time that's, that's some of a bitch comes around or I wish I had to wish I had done it this way or whatever, all of that, you know, that all of that always has a seed of resentment in it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if the resentment is towards myself for not behaving in a way that like wouldn't have, I would have felt better about, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I say resentment, that's what I'm referring to.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I'm working with anybody, anybody seeking to be sober or seeking to remove drugs and alcohol from their lives, I encourage them to be seeking recovery from those things, which is to say not simply abstinence, not simply removing this chemical that has served as a coping mechanism.
[SPEAKER_01]: and then just try to navigate life without the coping mechanism around.
[SPEAKER_01]: But to find a better, more balanced approach to living, and always that means balanced within yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And inevitably, because we're all people, inevitably, there are things about the way we have navigated the world and continue to navigate the world, the way that we interact with people, the way that we comport ourselves, the way that we present in a given situation, the way that we code switch between how we behave at work versus how we behave around a grandmother or at church or in a professional environment versus how we behave at the grocery store.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are certain aspects of our personality that we embody and don't embody, given us by one situation to the next.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fairly natural.
[SPEAKER_01]: But contained in there is also the seeds of behavior that are the potential for behaving in a way that
[SPEAKER_01]: doesn't align with who we feel we are inside, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't align with our moral values.
[SPEAKER_01]: Any one of us at some point has snapped at someone or gossiped about someone or talked about someone behind their back or said something vicious to their face or to someone that
[SPEAKER_01]: We care about or, you know, it's that vicious things about ourselves, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, all of us have done something like this at some point in our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's part of being a person.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the theory that I operate under, if you want to put it in some kind of technical term, terminology, is that when we're active in our addictions, when I'm a drunk, and I'm out there being a drunk, I'm a little less concerned about how I come across, especially when I'm intoxicated.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I have regret after the fact, and want to be like, well, I wouldn't have acted that way, whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's just a wild swing between who it is that I feel that I am and how I want to comport myself and how I actually do when I'm active in my addiction.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, the same is true.
[SPEAKER_01]: It all times.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's there's always like I just said, we're not going to be perfect all the time, but the same level of volatility.
[SPEAKER_01]: remains within us even when variability, maybe not volatility, variability between how we come across and how we approach interacting with people in approach situations, what have you?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a variation, variability in that remains, even after we get sober, even after we abstain from drugs and alcohol, because underneath it all,
[SPEAKER_01]: the drugs, the alcohol, they weren't creating that personality inside of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: They may have accentuated it in a way that made it seem like that was because of it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's plenty of us are like, yeah, I wouldn't have acted that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was drunk.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, maybe it really enhances the worst aspects of it in some way.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's still at the core us, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just an exaggerated version of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we get sober, when we become abstinant, unsurprisingly, we're still there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, my objective in working with anyone is to find recovery for them, for them to find balance and serenity and peace and calm within them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that necessarily includes or requires interrogating
[SPEAKER_01]: parts of who we are and how we've behaved in the past and how we continue to behave today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Subjectively recognizing where we're not living in alignment with our values.
[SPEAKER_01]: And where we are, but
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, those don't get us hung up as much, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Those aren't the ones that are getting in the way of our serenity because ultimately that's what happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what that's what a resentment does.
[SPEAKER_01]: It gets in the way of our being
[SPEAKER_01]: calm and at peace, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: He gets in the way of us just being in the present moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, anyone listening is experience that where you're just suddenly check back in and you realize, I've just spent the last like, I don't know, five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes,
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever that fucking guy who stepped on my foot at the DMV and you know, I should have said something and I didn't say something and then you just he just got to you just got to walk away.
[SPEAKER_01]: He just got to walk away being an asshole and I he didn't he didn't get to hear it hear it from me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, whatever the version of that is That is taking away from our peace and
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess part of the unexpected or perhaps not immediately obvious approach here is to identify those things that are really, really eating you up, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we all have them when we first get sober, when we come absent, and we all have any number of
[SPEAKER_01]: things that are still eaten are lunch.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it could be with our significant others.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be with our kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be with our boss.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be with our former employer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's any number of resentments, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the term for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a resentment towards this person for treating me like shit.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have resentment towards this institution, you know, for
[SPEAKER_01]: making me put all my shit in a box and walking me out the front door as though I'm some kind of criminal or whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anywhere where our feelings are hurt, where we're but hurt, where we're stuck in our minds trying to re-lit a gate or run through, ah, what could I do differently?
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I had done like this instead of all of those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: The operating thesis is
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to look at those.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like doing an inventory.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to go through our history and find as many of those as we can.
[SPEAKER_01]: in an effort to shine a light on them, not simply to re-experience the resentment, because that's the way in, like whatever you think about and you have that resentment that return of that feeling inside, that gut punch or anger or sadness, whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the way in.
[SPEAKER_01]: and find those things, but with the intention of identifying exactly or to the best of our ability, the part that we played in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And anyone listening to those who's in twelve-step recovery and familiar with it, bear with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I recognize that I'm making the sound like it's brand new information.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in a way, it is because a lot of the time we approached twelve stars with this just faith that I'm doing this because I'm being told to.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, humility is a very important aspect of recovery.
[SPEAKER_01]: And even if you go through it and then you discover after the fact what the importance was, great.
[SPEAKER_01]: The importance is this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shining light on it and being as honest and subjective about the part that you play in every one of these to the extent that you can.
[SPEAKER_01]: the extent to which you can, like, rehash old memories and old resentments and sit in the discomfort of listing, okay, this is what happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it upset my sense of pride, it is my sense of security, it upset my anxious attachment if you want to use terminology, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, working in twelve steps, it's a little more straightforward.
[SPEAKER_01]: You just say, you've got to write these down.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to write these down.
[SPEAKER_01]: You do the columns and say, OK.
[SPEAKER_01]: What did it affect?
[SPEAKER_01]: What was my part in it?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm a little bit more abstract when I'm working with people in a counseling scenario.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the objective is the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I often ask people to write them down, because I did this the clearest way for me, at least.
[SPEAKER_01]: to be sure that I'm tracking what I'm doing, I suppose.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, journaling, writing with your hands, typing to some extent, but really writing long hand, something significant occurs between the brain and the hand as it describes on the piece of paper, clarifies, you know, my thoughts on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway,
[SPEAKER_01]: identifying to the best of your ability.
[SPEAKER_01]: What about the scenario you contributed to?
[SPEAKER_01]: And as I'm saying all this, I recognize I have talked about this in the past.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm approaching it more from the, let's call it secular.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's call it a non-twelfth approach.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still talking about the importance of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: even without a twelve-step recovery as the primary model.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because even without that, this is an important thing to explore.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is an important project to undergo.
[SPEAKER_01]: because at the end of this, once you've taken the time to go through all of the shitty situations up up in your brain and, you know, list out, okay, that, whatever my wife taking the kids and going to her mom's house.
[SPEAKER_01]: really upset my pride in my sense of security and my sense of manhood okay okay what's the part that I played in that oh well you know if it's directly related to something like that like alcohol
[SPEAKER_01]: part I played was I was a volatile drunk and she couldn't rely on me and if I came home intoxicated you never knew what was going to happen I might yell at someone I might piss on the floor whatever that is right those kind of things are what was called easier to identify right when again when we're in the mode of
[SPEAKER_01]: having the least flattering, if not the worst, the least flattering aspects of our personality exaggerated by alcohol or drug use.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unless you're really incapable of being honest with yourself, it's pretty obvious what your part in that is.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then there's others, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't know, my friend stopped talking to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: After a long time of, you know, back and forth, volatile relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that affects my sense of security, that affects my sense of feeling like I have people in the world for support, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's not as straightforward with that might impact.
[SPEAKER_01]: and it's even less straightforward and can be less straightforward as to like exactly what my role in that is like did I talk shit about them behind their back was I less than gracious with them about you know who they've chosen for their partners have I you know been mean to them
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, didn't did my friend stop talking to me because I kept being too one-sided in our dynamic and I was always taking and never giving, you know, emotionally.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm trying to think of like generic ideas here, but the point is is whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: whatever the dynamic, whatever the situation, I play a part in it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And even when they're righteous and justified resentments, even when there's, you know, especially when we're resentful towards like parental figures or people who abused us, people who traumatized us.
[SPEAKER_01]: The aspect of what is my part in being caught up in justifiably pissed off at the guy who molested me when I was a child.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's easy to frame that as like, no, I didn't play a part in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a little kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: So being angry about that is justified.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I suppose that's important to distinguish here.
[SPEAKER_01]: The idea of doing this
[SPEAKER_01]: searching and fearless moral inventory, you know doing this inventory of these things inside of me inside of you to shine a light on it to gain clarity so that we can eventually seek serenity and peace isn't to downplay our emotional response to it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Something like that, it'd be fucking angry.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you have an abusive person in your life, and you have resentment towards them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then someone says, well, what's your part in that?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, fuck you.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: My part is, you know, especially things from childhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: The only thing that typically stands out is my part, is that I keep letting that situation that occurred dominate my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's, you know, that's not the same as letting that person off the hook.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not the same as blaming myself for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's simply identifying, I'm playing part in this because it's happening inside of my psyche.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know, like it can be as, I don't know, pedantic is like, well, the my part, I guess was marrying that motherfucker.
[SPEAKER_01]: right my part was ignoring red flags for however long along the way right like my part was convincing myself that things would be different in the future right and then you know yeah down the line you have a righteous indignation over being cheated on or over being discarded by somebody being betrayed
[SPEAKER_01]: But somewhere in there, that betrayal came after something that I've done.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if that's not the case, I mean, it's a searching and fearless inventory of yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you somberly and soberly review what's happened as far as you can recall, as far as your brain is capable.
[SPEAKER_01]: and it is just like, no, this is entirely this narcissistic piece of shit who just steam rolled my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then yeah, the part is, I'm still letting that person have control over me because I still sit in it, because I can still be a powerful, powerful
[SPEAKER_01]: Revelation, I suppose.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I don't know how revolutionary that concept is, but framing it as something that I'm going to look at and figure out how to let go of moving forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, depending on the severity of the specific interaction of the specific resentment that will be easier said than done.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the end, the objective is to identify what are the commonalities here?
[SPEAKER_01]: In my pattern of behaviors, what is a pattern?
[SPEAKER_01]: I can see within all of these different resentments, these different but hurts frustrations, angers, betrayals, sadnesses, whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I put down and do my best to identify my behavior in there, my responsibility, what I've done to contribute to this and somewhere another.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the idea is fairly quickly, I'll see a pattern of behavior for me, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, you'll see a pattern, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, the pattern was like, I'm afraid, so I have a weight.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because I'm avoiding, I'm trying to take their emotional response so that I stay safe, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a people pleaser, so I will stay safe by predicting what they want, and then by predicting what they want, I'm not getting my own sense of
[SPEAKER_01]: Who I am and then I'm resentful over time right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a big broad strokes many steps ahead But seeing oh shit I was afraid I was afraid I was afraid I was afraid I was afraid of the future I was afraid that I would lose control as afraid I was afraid whatever
[SPEAKER_01]: and then talking about this openly and honestly with someone you trust.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's another part of this, you know, and obviously in a counseling dynamic, I assume I'm that person because I'm the one trying to help, or at least I'm the one going, hey, this is what I'd like you to try and I want to talk about it, so, but I do offer that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, you don't have to talk about it with me, but kind of the idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: But whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: because there's also, you know, that's, that's to help with the next phase of, like, rooting out, you know, in perfect, in an ideal situation, be rooting out any lingering aspects of pride, of ego getting in the way of truly acknowledging, you know, my part and something, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever it is, I've gone through this thorough list and like, yeah, this is what happened and here's my part and this is what happened and this is what I think is my part and, you know, it's easy to low.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's easy to find yourself lolling yourself into thinking you're being as thorough as possible, but having someone else there going, well, did you think about this way?
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you think about that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe this is part of it?
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, with the intention of being as honest and vulnerable and open and objective as possible and humble, like accepting, well, I didn't think of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it's accurate, but let me, let me sit on that, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't want to be specific here, but if I, if I,
[SPEAKER_01]: identify, you know, it was my pride that was hurt and then person might be like, you know, my counselor, my sponsor might be like, well, was it your pride or is it, you know, or was your part in it that you didn't feel like paying for the hamburger or was it that you were being selfish and you were hurt, your feelings were hurt because of something else and you were lashing out, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: reframing, re-contextualizing, digging a little deeper.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the whole point of trying to share this all of it with the intent of exploring any and all of these mucky things that are holding us back from being, from finding serenity, from finding peace and calm.
[SPEAKER_01]: like on a general scale, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like when I can be peaceful and calm at all times, but we can shift.
[SPEAKER_01]: In recovery, you can shift from feeling perpetually agitated and uncomfortable to feeling a more baseline level of just simply okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if you're not seeking that, I don't know what you're seeking.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're trying to get sober and trying to like improve your life, but you don't want to feel like at peace and more comfortable in your skin.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm not clear what you're trying to do, but that seems weird to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that through that process.
[SPEAKER_01]: what I referred to as character defects are illuminated, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just spoke a lot about character defects and the importance of identifying them and how that ties into a spiritual connection.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of that, it was aimed again towards this finding a more consistent ability to be peaceful and at ease and calm in the moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: So all of these things play into each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm bringing this up today because I've found myself a handful of times interacting with people outside of recovery rooms, outside of twelve separate rooms, who are trying to get sober, trying to improve their lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: expressing to them the importance of, hey, I think it's important for you to go through and do a searching and fearless moral inventory, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I don't necessarily frame it exactly that way because I don't want them to go like, hey, this motherfucker's just doing the four step on me, but that is what I'm doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, because for me, the purpose of this is just like I just detailed.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not to be some like higher power thing necessarily.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's to find the calm and serenity, or presently there's agitation and discomfort.
[SPEAKER_01]: And okay, maybe I am just perpetually biased by my experiences in twelfth separate covering that brought me to where I am today and now I'm trying to be more general with how they apply.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, assuming it works.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if ultimately your goal is to find peace and serenity, doing this kind of self-interception, being honest and vulnerable with yourself and with me or with a counselor, with the objective of
[SPEAKER_01]: seeing these things and then committing to the idea that I don't want to engage in this anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what does that take?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, what does it take for me to no longer be resentful about situation A?
[SPEAKER_01]: The answer to that is identify your part in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: No matter how difficult that might be, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you feel, identify your part in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: See what that underlying emotion is because it's almost always sadness or fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then make some attempt to forgive yourself for that sadness and fear to find a space for yourself to exist in a new relationship to that sadness and fear, which is to say no longer being caught up and taken over by it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because that's ultimately the goal.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not going to stop having those feelings.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not going to stop having sadness and fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we can stop being ruled by them.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can stop having those thoughts and triggering emotions, take us over and catch us up in our heads and get caught up in the thoughts, caught up in the memories, caught up in the resentments.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can through this specific process, identifying, making peace with it, finding a new relationship to it, and living with the intention of finding serenity where presently we find agitation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Over time, it starts to change how we comport ourselves and exist in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I think that's all I'm going to say about that for today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like I'm just going to start repeating myself even more than I already have been.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you have any thoughts on that or comments or you want to ask questions or I don't clarify something that I didn't make clear for me or ask me to clarify, you can reach out to me, Dylan.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you want L.A.N.
[SPEAKER_01]: at almostarecouncing.com or just through my website almostarecouncing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I have a loving compassion for everyone out there, especially those of you trying to find recovery, you know, aren't asleep seeking this man.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not easy, but you can do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, if no one's told you this, I love you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I really appreciate you listening and have a wonderful rest of your day.
[SPEAKER_00]: So good, let's be drunk forever.