Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Welcome to Emotional, the next step in recovery with Dr. Alan Berger and Tom Rutledge.
There's this movie called the Frighteners that I liked when I was growing up with Michael J. Fox. Do you remember that one where he's. He talks to ghosts?
He's. Yeah, he talks to. Only he can see the ghosts, but he's a con man, so he like, works with the ghosts to kind of like get them to haunt houses so that he has a job so that he can basically go. Go and ghost bust them.
And so the plot becomes. Well, what about when some mean ghosts show up that aren't cooperative? And then he actually asked. Has to stop hustling and.
Yeah, it was great. It was like the last Michael J. Fox performance before he got really sick and. Yeah.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Wow, that sounds like a fun movie.
[00:00:52] Speaker C: Yeah, go check it out. I love Michael. I. I really liked everything he did.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Me too.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Like Doc Hollywood. Do you ever see Doc Hollywood? A little movie called Back to the Future. I'm sure no one's heard of it.
[00:01:05] Speaker C: Something about his energy, you know, and. And he still has it. You know, if you, if you.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: He's a great leading man in public.
[00:01:13] Speaker C: He still has it. He's like, that guy's amazing. And if you haven't read his. His book.
What's the name of the.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Is It Still Me? Is It Still Me?
[00:01:23] Speaker C: Christopher Reeves book. And that's gotta read that one. And you gotta listen to that one because. Because in both of these guys have written their own books. I mean, there's no ghostwriters in this. They may get help, but. But you can tell they wrote their books and they both read them. Including Christopher Reeve, who has to, you know, do his little thing with his breath.
But it's like. I mean, it'll make you cry. It's like.
But. But Michael J. Fox is amazing. He's. He's just a role model for anybody because he just doesn't. He. He didn't let anything stop him.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, making the most of his time. You know,
[00:02:03] Speaker C: exactly what we're talking about.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Eventually, as a switch flipped for me where, where life and time became a precious commodity that I wanted to do something useful with rather than just piss it away.
And, you know, it's different for every person. But, you know, there was a before and after.
[00:02:22] Speaker C: There's not a lot of general regret that I did that. It's like. It's like now I learn from it constantly.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: There was a guy at the meeting on Monday who he. He had a brief share that really resonated with me where he talked about how he, he, he was sad that he hadn't made it there sooner. That like there were years that he'd wasted and he just wished that he'd come to us, you know, when he was younger. And I mean, I, I was saying that my first few months and, but eventually, and it did take years, eventually, I, the gratitude came in that like, well, hey, if, if this was the road that took me to this healing that I'm on now, I must have come by it at the right time, you know, And I, at the very least, I just stopped beating myself up as much about the time that it took.
[00:03:17] Speaker C: It is what it is and it's. But I tell you what though, and you guys probably have that too, but here in Nashville, I have worked with and known many people who've been sober since their adolescence. And I mean, those people, that's ridiculous.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: I don't know how that happens.
[00:03:36] Speaker C: I mean, I just can't get it even to this day. How do you get through your 20s, you know?
You know, sober? It's like.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: Well, Alan, Alan was pretty young, right, when you got clean. Yeah. So you're one of those freaks of nature.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: That's one of those guys Tom's talking about.
[00:03:52] Speaker C: Yeah, but you, but you, but you worked hard to get enough in before.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Oh, die. I got seven years. I could get a lifetime in seven years, trust me.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Yeah, he, he had the, he had the blood composition of a 40 year old man at that time.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Probably.
Probably.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: So how you doing, Alan?
[00:04:08] Speaker B: I've got, I had a shitty night sleeping. Video night sleeping last night. And then I was gonna.
Cece started summer school. So I pick her up and I bring her to my house because the school bus comes here to pick her up, right? So I go over there. I fell asleep at 4, I had to get up at 6:30 to go at CC, right? So I got two and a half hours.
Get over there, bring Cece over. I'm, you know, I got before my ninth, I have a client I see for a half an hour at 9:30 or 9 to 9:30.
No, 9:30 to 10. So I, I have like two hours, almost two hours where I can go back to bed, right? So I'm laying down, I go to fall asleep and all of a sudden the dogs are going crazy. I go, what the is going on? The cleaning people never come in the morning. They come about 3 o', clock, right? And wouldn't you know it, they're here at 8 o'. Clock.
I just start to really get a nice sleep going. Right. And then I'm up. I mean, and then, of course, what do I have to do? I gotta clean before they clean.
[00:05:05] Speaker C: Well, I got.
Thank you. It's like I.
I'm up late.
Our clean ladies come on on every other Friday. I think it is. It's like. So Thursday night after our group. Yeah.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: You clean your ass off. Right.
[00:05:19] Speaker C: Dee Dee's in bed and I'm cleaning up.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: Me too. I just. It's crazy. I spent a half an hour. I couldn't go. Family snuck up the apartment. Patrick. Right. And I fast up there for a half an hour and then came down. But. But that's the kind of crazy morning it's been. So I got a little light. Not a real light day today, but I got a couple hours in the afternoon open, so I'll be able to lay down for an hour.
[00:05:42] Speaker C: Well, if you. If you start barking at us for some reason, we'll just let it go.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: I know Alan gets a pass today on that.
Well, at a certain point, sometimes when. When something like that happens to me, I just make myself laugh at it because of the absurdity.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: That's all I could do. That's all I could do. Today isn't. Yeah. I just wrote it. I tried to roll with it the best I could.
[00:06:07] Speaker C: The cleaning people never come in the morning, which, of course is a sentence that means the cleaning people came.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: People came in the morning.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: All right.
July 1st.
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing can never bring about reform. Susan B. Anthony, 1820-1906.
Anthony was a suffragette, and her likeness has been burned in effigy by angry, resistant mobs.
Society owes suffragettes a debt of gratitude for shattering the status quo and advancing civilization.
We hear all you have to do to get criticized in the Fellowship is to do something, anything. By the second edition of the Big Book in 1955, Bill Wilson delighted in the fact that in regions of the globe dominated by various faiths, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, AA's doctrine was being adapted to local worldviews like today's author. The change championed by General Service Office of the Day met with resistance from members who thought that unchecked adaptation was reckless.
23 million addicts are in recovery in the USA alone. The text Alcoholics Anonymous was available in over 40 languages. By the 2010 World Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous, the American Medical association was presented with the 30 millionth copy of the Big Book to commemorate, as AA General Service Board Chair Ward Ewing put it, the AMAs helped AA erase stereotypes and spread the message of sobriety.
12 and 12 culture has had success in adapting to the needs of many addicts and new fellowships. And through ever changing times, growth will always be celebrated in hindsight, while resisted during implementation. It seems to be the human way. Critics wonder if more couldn't be done to reach out to those who don't know us and to accommodate minorities who don't all feel comfortable once they are inside our rooms. We must always strive to be better.
Each of us will confront apathy, corruption, discrimination and abuse inside and outside of 12 and 12 fellowships. Will we ignore the need to adapt for fear of what change will bring? Will we be concerned about reputation and popularity or the needs of others?
Do I stand up for what I believe in, or do I stand where I gain the most attention and approval?
[00:08:27] Speaker C: Let me just say something you and Joe have in common, Alan, that I love, is that you are both, among other things, historians.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: You.
[00:08:36] Speaker C: I mean, I always, when I'm hearing either one of you talk, I learned. I learned more about, about the history of AA or whatever we're talking about, but in this case, I mean, because, you know, that just. And it always brings me back to how many, how many people I can. I can no longer count who have told me through, through the years, AA doesn't work.
It's like how many millions of people.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: Well, it's a testament, I mean, like, just to the power of the disease, you know, I mean, that's just what I, When I think about when, when people recite those low statistics of AA's efficacy, you know, it's. I just, I don't look at that as so much as a. If, if, if I'm. I'm just assuming that they're accurate. That's just a testament to, you know, how strong the poll of addiction is, rather than.
[00:09:25] Speaker C: Well, I never thought about that before just now. But it also, you know, it's, it's also a.
And I'm not talking about diagnosable personality disorder, but it certainly is a reflection of the narcissism involved. Because when we say AA doesn't work, what we're meaning is either it, I didn't work, and they don't know that, say that, but it didn't work for me or I don't think it will work for me. And I, you know, because most of the people who say AA doesn't work have never been to an AA meeting because they're the same people that say, oh, no, I'm not going to I don't believe in that. Because the AA does nothing but let you off the hook.
Then you know, that person's never been to an AA meeting. I've seen people receive much gratitude, much compassion in meetings, but I've never seen anybody let somebody else off the hook.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: I felt, I felt very self conscious the other day. I cried at the meeting. And I don't like being vulnerable like that in front of people. I don't. I was apropos of nothing. Yeah, I, I was. But the, the fellowship, you know, I got some texts from people afterwards and they were checking in on me.
[00:10:36] Speaker C: Just in the spirit of the fact that we're just in one, the three of us are just in one long ass conversation divided into these little segments is like it. What just occurred to me is when you said that, I thought, I wonder, wait, why is crying immediately considered vulnerable? You know, I never met that until just now. I'm going like, because if I saw, you know, I understand that and I understand how we think about that, and I might even be somebody. If you showed emotion like that, they would say, you know, I really respect you being vulnerable, but it's like, you know, it's. It's really just being human. Yeah.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I, I somehow I got the message. I don't know how I got it early on, and I know it's just
[00:11:19] Speaker C: most of us got that message.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That it's okay to do that.
But.
But definitely, even as I was resisting in the meeting, I'm like, this is an environment. This is a safe environment. I mean, I've been, I've been there eight years by now, and nobody's, Nobody stepped on me for, you know, for being vulnerable in that space yet.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: So, Patrick, what was so sad that you cried?
[00:11:44] Speaker A: Well, I went to a service of our family friend who passed away on Sunday. I might have mentioned it last episode. Yeah.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: And I wasn't able to, even during the service. I think I was trying to squash that impulse to really, like, express my grief. And then, you know, what happens in those when we do that, and then it just pops out.
[00:12:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: And even less opportune times. So. Yeah. But just to speak to the passage from the beyond Belief book, Careful, careful, cautious, careful. People always casting about to preserve the reputation and social standing can never bring about reform.
Yeah. I mean, you have to lead with your values and your beliefs, and that's a rare thing. I mean, people.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Well, you know, he's talking about society, but I think it, it parallels in terms of our personal life.
Right. If I am, you know, like what. What he was reading is, this is a person, and I've been there. You've been there. I'm sure Tom's been there. Is that when you identify with your false self, then it becomes very important to maintain a certain image. And that's what Tom was saying a minute ago. If you identify with, no, I'm a human being. I'm not this false self. I'm not this self. I think I should be.
I am much more than that.
And I'm a human being. And crying isn't vulnerable. It's an expression of your humanity.
It's just an expression of the experience you're having around grief and loss and seeing someone that meant a lot to you growing up is gone.
And that's a very appropriate response.
The false self's response to life, to events in life, is typically inappropriate.
We either overreact or underreact to things.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: And that's the false self.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Yeah, the false self. Right. If. When. If I identify with my idealized self, then I'm always thinking, how should I be behaving? I'm trying to play a role instead of being a person.
Seeing that.
[00:14:03] Speaker C: All armor. No.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a stereotype. I try to live up to a stereotype. And my God, I can see that. I was.
I was very concerned about that. If I would act in a way that was other than manly, let's say, I would be ashamed of who I was if I cried. You know, real men don't cry. That would be one of those things. Yeah. And when you're in the Marine Corps, that ethos in there, forget it, man. You're. You don't cry, man. You bleed. I mean, you don't say anything about your bleeding.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: I mean, you know what just occurred to me, Tom?
I think you killed your false self, and he's buried somewhere.
I haven't seen any emergence of, you know, like, fake. I mean, you just.
You seem one to one. Just always, you know, like, very smart.
[00:14:54] Speaker C: Now I'm feeling guilty. Accused me of homicide. It's like.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: But see, that's true because you're. One thing that describes you is. Is you're just an incredibly spontaneous person. You're very spontaneous all the time. Whether it's appropriate or not, you're spontaneous, and it's always appropriate. I mean, because it's. You.
[00:15:15] Speaker C: What? I mean, I think we've talked about this before, but it is.
I'm much more inappropriate inside my head
[00:15:24] Speaker B: than I am externally. Yeah. Than over.
[00:15:27] Speaker C: You got the.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: Oh, God. Thank God.
[00:15:32] Speaker C: I can only imagine it's like my compulsion that every time somebody talks, if they talk about a death and they use the phrase, and under all circumstances, they say, we lost, you know, we lost our grandfather. It's everything I can do to hold back the guy who wants to go, did you look everywhere?
I mean, I'm not kidding. Right in the middle of a session, I'm just sitting there going, like, don't say that. It's like if you look the straight
[00:15:57] Speaker A: jacket just pulling against you.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: I know that's right.
[00:16:00] Speaker C: Yeah. It's about knowing your. Your value system, knowing what matters to you, and then living as congruently with it as you possibly can as a human being. But a lot of people, I'm amazed that a lot of people have been amazed, don't even really know what their values.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: I mean, they, I would say most people don't know. Yeah, they don't know yet.
[00:16:19] Speaker C: Understand, we. The values we share in common, don't kill anybody for no good reason. You know, that kind of, that kind of stuff. Try, you know, stop at red lights. But you know what, what we value throughout our developmental life, it differs. I was talking to somebody about it yesterday. It differs at different times. I mean, you know what I. What mattered to me most? I mean, hopefully the deeper things matter to me most. But you know, when I was, when I was a young person putting together my business and coming up, it's like, you know, that's where my energy was and that's where a lot of my self esteem was, was how was I handling myself and that was I creating things. It's like, you know, and I was talking to another old guy in a session and we were going like, it's amazing how that stuff, that stuff didn't just change drastically at one time, but it's just, you look around town, it's different.
It's like, no, no. What do you value today? I love, you know, I like having this conversation, you know, and it's not even, it's not like, oh, we did a podcast today. It's like, that's nice, but I'm going. What I look forward to when we get together is our conversation.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
You know, Patrick, I was going back to what you were talking about, reading Joe's thing. See, I had this awareness that when I was dedicating my life to actualized in this concept of who I should be, I was actually dependent on that concept to be. Okay.
[00:17:54] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: You see, that's where the emotional sobriety is, not just our dependence on People right or place. It's also dependent on certain kind of internal constructs that I create thinking that I need these constructs and to live up to these constructs to be okay.
So it's still back to the I'm okay if I'm okay if I live up to the should demands of my false self. And then that becomes an impossible thing because they're impossible standards.
They're based on perfectionism, they're based on. They're unreasonable. And then I measure my self worth based on this incredible standards that I can never live up to.
Bill called it an impossible way of life.
[00:18:46] Speaker C: They're standards, they keep moving, you know,
[00:18:49] Speaker B: it does, it does.
And then when I don't live up to it, I'm ashamed of myself. I don't want anybody to see that. So myself, my self esteem because it keeps moving, keeps detained.
There's no ability to build self esteem with that model. If anything I just, it's kind of like don't lose much of it. I try to maintain as much that as you can which is, it's like holding sand in your hand. I mean, how do you do that?
So it's an incredible dilemma that we create for our lives.
And Bill called it an impossible way of life. It's put in a cart before the horse. I mean his insight into that to me is still remarkable.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: Do you still have a natural tendency to build the construct and so does the daily work become deconstructing that as you're unconsciously building it?
[00:19:39] Speaker B: As much as I did before?
I think I have actually.
As he said, you know, in his letter, I've surrendered some of those hobbling expectations. Thank God.
Do some still show up? Of course they do.
Of course they do.
But they're very, they're a lot less than they used to be. I mean a lot less.
So I don't experience that as much. It's, it's, it's, it's more, you know, it's kind of like being able to flow with my experience. More is really now my focus on things is allowing, you know, like what I see Tom doing, he's, you know, now we know how much he censors in terms of his thoughts.
So he's very actively about. I can't believe you still have hair on the top of your head with all the activity that goes on in that mining.
[00:20:37] Speaker C: But tell me if this is right Alan, because when you said that I thought, yeah, first of all, don't trust me or I don't trust anybody. If they say oh no that never happens anymore. You know, I go, like, okay, well, we can rule this guy out as credible. It's like, like. But. But it also. False humility is not. Is not anything. So the truth is we've come a long way, and I do this with clients a lot where I say, you know, I just call it time travel, you know, assessment where we're going. Somebody. Somebody is having a really hard time, rough time and talk. Somebody yesterday with doing that. And. And you know, what we did, and we worked together for. Off and on for years. And it's like, you know, and we just. And I. So we have that. Those memories together. And I go, okay, well, let's just go back a couple of years or three years or let's think about this. Where. Where were you? How you would. How would you have responded then? And it's like, once you get that contrast and see, to me, I mean, to me, that's what's amazing is. And I think. I think I'm better. I'm much better at, As I move forward, moving, not. Not paranoid, but. But carefully. And I'm better at spotting the traps. You guys know that I've been. I've been through this, this. This thing, battling the bureaucracy of the Social Security Department. And for the last seven months, it's like I lost count of how many times I talked to people. It's like I've done this or that kind of stuff. It's like I told Dee Dee, I didn't realize it. I said.
Because dede was saying GD shows.
And I realized what she was telling me to do was to be less patient and less.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: Less patient.
[00:22:21] Speaker C: Yeah, because I was patient through this whole thing, I was able to distinguish individual people from bureaucracy because every single individual person I worked with, talked to was kind, helpful, and smart.
And it's like. And. And. And well, well meaning.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: And I would not. I would not have expected that, by the way.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:22:45] Speaker C: Oh, God. It's like. I think. And if. If they're not that way, if they don't seem that way at first, you can. Most people, you can get them that way.
I've talked about that here.
Just by complimenting them about something, even if it's. I call it complimenting people for something they're not doing.
But I only had one of those people out of all of these people I talked to who just. She wasn't bad, but she just was really done. She didn't. Went in a good mood and wasn't happy to have me on the phone.
And so one of the things I said and you guys can from me if I'm just being dishonest. But one of the things I said is. I said, you know, I've been talking to a lot of people through this thing and you're the first person to. I really feel like is listening to me.
I didn't make her do that. She has that in it. Because that, that's the thing is because what do we learn about those people who haven't. Are having a hard time with.
No, don't take it personally. She's not, she's not grumpy because of me, you know, so what. What can I do? I'll make. I'll help her feel better if I can. Our job is to always find our responsibility, you know, because it doesn't mean that other person couldn't do a better job on what they're doing or that other person isn't fucking.
It just means that's not my business. It's like my job is.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: Even the word manipulation gets a bad rap. You were manipulative, but not in a way of impinging on the right of someone else. See, it's. It's. See, that's what we're all manipulative. It depends on are you using it?
[00:24:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: Are we using it in a constructive way? That or in a destructive way? When I'm manipulative and I'm impinging on the rights of others and being selfish, it's harmful. But what you did is you brought the best out of her. That was not a negative thing. Yes, it was manipulative. You did a great mind trick. Yeah, he did a lot.
[00:24:40] Speaker C: What you're saying is we manipulate for a living.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: Yes, that's right. Listen, we do and that's okay. See, manipulation gets a bad rap. It's not absolutely bad. It's not good or bad.
It depends on the context.
[00:24:56] Speaker C: Yes. Yes. Thank you.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Well, this is actually. This is actually a perfect segue to our wrap up, which is your nutshell, Tom, which has to do with positive opportunism.
Look, for the benefit in all situations, practice positive opportunism. And can we do a crash course for how positive opportunism intersects with emotional sobriety?
[00:25:19] Speaker C: Well, first of all, I would just.
Alan may have some things to add to that, but what I would say is it's one more really wonderful way of bringing the focus back to us where it, where it, where it belongs. It's like, you know, we all know how to selfishly focus on ourselves. It's a little like the. But. But the idea of, okay, what?
And I learned this in all kinds of things, but I learned it ultimately coming up in a.
From a. It's just, you know, my side of the street, you know, operate from my side of the street. It's like, it doesn't matter, because when you're that far away across the street, I can see really clearly where you guys are. And I probably could see accurately some things that you can't see.
But that doesn't mean it's my business.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: Just.
[00:26:07] Speaker C: It means, you know, and maybe you'll ask and I can share something with you. But mainly, if I want to change something, if I want to be like Joe says and say if you want. If I want to be effective in having an impact in the world, I need. I need to work from the inside out, and that's emotional sobriety.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: I watched a brilliant film last night, a Japanese film by this filmmaker named Maseo Adachi. And it. It was about, like, a leftist revolutionary who did it, did some, like, you know, kind of militarized, like, direct action in Japan and, like, you know, the earliest part or earlier part of the 20th century, and then kind of went into hiding. But, like, you know, rebels and revolutionaries, you know, they're so good at identifying problems with systems and, you know, criticizing, you know, to be in political action. You know, you're criticizing something. But then there's a big. There's a great part of the movie where he's criticizing himself, and they do, like, this optical effect where, you know, they've got the same actor and he's kind of printed on both sides of the screen and he's having this, like, internal dialog, essentially. And basically, it's. He's putting the bright light on himself. And it's like, where. Where did I fall short? You know, did I acquiesce? Did I fight for long enough for the cause? And.
And it's. It was. It's a. It's a beautiful moment because it's like he's just savagely looking at his part and his side of the street and, you know, in a. In a context where, you know, where you're just. We're so used to seeing people look outward and, you know, I don't know, it's. You can't control. You know, you have influence, right? As Herb K. Always says, you have influence, but not control. But what we do control is, you know, our behavior. And Tom likes to say, right, you get what's in your mind or your thoughts, right? We do have domain over that.
[00:28:07] Speaker C: Say that again. I lost you on that one.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: Your thoughts. We control. The only. You say the only thing we control is our mind control.
[00:28:13] Speaker C: We can. Yeah, we control our thoughts and not all of our thoughts because, you know, doing that. We could do a whole podcast on that, on how we deal with automatic thoughts. Because, you know, most of the thoughts that come through our head in the day are not coming from some kind of cognitive process we're in. They just come in. They're the reflexes. And it's like. And a lot of times talk about defining yourself. If we define ourselves by those thoughts, it's.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: It's.
[00:28:41] Speaker C: It's not only not particularly an accurate way of defining ourselves, but it's kind of arbitrary, you know, as far as what shows up there. It's like there's. There's. You know, and we. And we'll spend. Well, you know, I would. I spend a lot of time feeling really guilty about thoughts that. That I didn't. That.
That I don't actually. Thoughts that I actually don't agree with or I disagree with more than agree and. But I had the thought, so I feel horrible.
It's like, I love to tell people ethics apply to behavior, not to thinking or feelings. You know, it's. It's. It's like what you said, Alan, it's a reminder that you gave me today, which is. It's. It's not a bad thing or a good thing. It's a thing.
It's what you do with it now.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: Positive opportunism. That's different, though, than not allowing yourself to feel, you know, when a storm cloud comes. Right? It's not like positive opportunism.
It's not like being happy. Go lucky.
[00:29:41] Speaker C: Yeah, I think Joe's. Yeah, I think Joe. Joe's reading there was. Was positive opportunism. It's like, you know, what's. What's the. What's the principle there? I want to. I want to be. I want to be. I want to be of value. I want to be. I want to be of use in. In my life and in my. In the world around me. And it can be something in the small world or the big world, but I want to. I want to be helpful. And.
And that's something we all have in common. And a lot of times people don't have that necessarily in their conscious mind, but when they come into this program with any kind of version of 12 steps, I mean, that. That runs through. You guys know that. You know that better than I do because you know the program so well. It's like, like.
But that idea of. Of giving, serving is. Is at the very heart of all of this.
[00:30:34] Speaker B: You know, I was thinking about this the other day, Tom. It's, It's. It's cool that we're talking about this today, because I was. I had this flash that what you've captured with that phrase positive opportunism is the same spirit that Dr. Martin Seligman has put his hands around when he developed positive psychology.
And positive psychology is very much based on the research he did around optimism.
And what he found was, is that those people. That what he called it was kind of what we might refer to as a. As a grounded or realistic optimism, meaning, not Pollyanna, oh, everything's just going to work out. It's not that. Right. That's different.
What he was talking about is being able to have an appropriate and honest relationship with reality and having a sense that regardless of how difficult, challenging, painful the situation may be, if you stay engaged in the right way, you will grow from that experience.
[00:31:51] Speaker C: Right. And say about the outcome of what you're doing, it just says you. That's. That's.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: You have a faith. You have this faith that I'm growing.
[00:31:59] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. It's a positive.
[00:32:01] Speaker B: I'm gonna. I'm. I may not see where it's at. I mean, it's kind of like when I was going through what I went through and you said, you know, you're in a dark hall, just keep walking towards my voice. It's that faith that if I keep walking in a certain direction, even though I may not know it, that's. That I'm going to experience something that eventually can be of value to my life, while in the middle of it, I may not feel it, but I have faith that if I keep going that what he found is those people that cultivated that were much healthier in life, that they function better, they had less problems, physical problems, mental problems, they had less medical diseases. I mean, it's amazing the impact that that perspective and attitude has. And that's what Bill is talking about in steps six and seven, pivot towards the best possible attitude.
You know, that's the gift that we're given with this program, is really. You can look at it as really developing an attitude of positive opportunism.
Is. We're going to take. We're going to take all these experiences we have, we're going to throw them in a blender, turn it on high speed. We're going to make something out of it that's going to be nutritious it's
[00:33:17] Speaker C: about growing or growing and learning. So that's, that's the process goal.
[00:33:22] Speaker B: That's right. And having faith that we got.
[00:33:24] Speaker C: When I said that to you about the, the dark hallway, it's like, you know, you. We've talked about that since then. And so like, that particular imagery for us has become a teaching tool for us and with other people. It's like part of that is that was good. Tom did that as good. It's like, what did Alan get out of that? Well, it helped Alan get through that thing. The other thing is he, he learned. He learned it. He was. I don't know if he learned it for the first time. He was, but he took a chance and trusted somebody else. I can't see. I'm going to trust that Rutledge can. Which, which is dangerous, but it's.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Which is dangerous.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: Well, it's been a good show, you guys.
[00:34:12] Speaker C: Love you guys very much. I love these conversations.
[00:34:15] Speaker A: I always love these conversations. And so Alan is going to be doing a bit of travel.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: I will be on an airplane to Chicago. I'm heading to the international doctors in AA and on Saturday at 3 o', clock, I'll be giving a presentation on emotional sobriety to about somewhere between 500 and 1,000 medical doctors and psychologists and dentists and whoever else is in happens to be getting continuing education.
[00:34:41] Speaker C: I love those mixed up groups. Yeah, it's really.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: IBAA is a great organization and its membership is growing.
They do a phenomenal, phenomenal work with, with doctors that are struggling because so many doctors have so much shame about what's going on. And they have trouble. Eventually they don't, but they have trouble going to regular meetings and talking about, you know, hey, I had to drink a pint of whiskey before I could go calm my hands down so I could go do surgery. I don't think the general public necessarily wants to hear that, that your surgeon may be having.
Having a half pint or a pint in his locker before he.
His hands are shaking so bad. He's got to take, you know, that, that whiskey before he does your surgery.
There's a reason that there's some specialized groups, you know, and that initially AA was very much against those. Tom. Which was interesting. But they saw the wisdom that certain groups needed a place to go and talk about their unique experience where they can have anonymity.
And that's the, that is the tradition that allowed those special groups like that to develop. Same with airline pilots. I don't necessarily want to know that the pilot that was landing my 747 was seeing polo Ground in front of them as they were landing their airplane because they were in bts.
So thank God for that.
[00:36:10] Speaker C: I mean, I was doing a workshop and bad mouth and perfectionism one time, and there's no such thing as perfection. Don't be a perfectionist. It's like, guy at the back says, raises his hand. He goes. He goes. He goes, I'm a. I'm a pilot for American Airlines. I go, that's all he said. And I go, all right, well, I changed my mind. It's like, you know, sometimes we're going to shoot for perfection.
[00:36:42] Speaker B: Sam.
