Troy Speaking to the Barcelona "Easy Does It, But Do It" meeting on July 26, 2023
The Daily Reprieve
Barcelona Meeting - Troy
[Music] Hello and welcome to the Daily Reprieve, where we provide essays, speaker meetings, workshops, and conferences in podcast format. We are an ad-free podcast. If you enjoy listening, please help us be self-supporting by going to Donate.thewreprieve.com and drop a dollar or two into the virtual basket. Please consider donating monthly by clicking the Donate monthly button. However, one-time donations are always welcome. Just click the Donate Now button. Now, without further ado, this episode of the Daily Reprieve. [Music] Today, July 26, 2023, we are very happy to have with us Troy H from San Antonio, Texas, in the US in recovery since 11th June 2014. He will be sharing on the topic of willingness. You are now on. You have 25 minutes to share and Daniel has agreed to be the spiritual timekeeper. How would you like to be time? Troy, five minutes warning? Yes, please. Okay, okay. So yeah, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you, Iris. Thank you, Nancy, for the invitation and Daniel for hosting. I thought I had five hours in 25 minutes, so I'll try to try to keep this shorter. There is no amount of time for me to be able to share how grateful I am to be a sexaholic in recovery. I've been in this program for over nine years now, and when I walked in, I was the most willful individual that you would have ever known. I did everything to serve myself, and well, a lot of that has to do with my history and my family. At the end of the day, I walked in when I was 47 years old. I had a wife that had been married to for 15 years, and we had three sons, ages 11, 9, and 4. I realized before I walked in, right before I walked in, how responsible or how irresponsible I was in my life, I created a big mess. I created a huge mess for a lot of people, including myself. It was at that breaking point in my addiction where I decided that I needed to get help. I needed to be willing to do something new and different in my life because the 47 years prior to that, we're not working anymore. I couldn't hold the secrets anymore in my life. I couldn't keep the different parts of myself straight anymore, and I found myself in a couple's counseling session with our therapist and my wife, and something just clicked in my brain. It just stopped. It said, "Tilt." The funny thing is the year before that, I had already had a backpack with me and the people in San Antonio have seen this backpack because I still carry it. It had $1,000, American dollars, and my passport in it, and it had a note to my wife saying that this was done. I couldn't live life on life's terms anymore, and so I was going to go off and live life on my terms. Fortunately, in this therapy session, I just snapped, and I went into this catatonic state. I remember laying on the floor in a fetal position just going, "I can't, I can't, I can't," and just repeating that. Then I was able to tell the truth. I mean, the gig was up with my wife and my therapist. I'd lied to both of them. Well, for many years, I'd been in therapy for a lot of years, and that didn't work. My therapist just said, "You need to get into a 12-step program." Because I had said, "I can't stop masturbating. I can't stop living in fantasy. I can't stop lusting. It's the only thing that makes me feel better." My wife was shocked. My therapist was somewhat shocked, because I seem like I had it all together, except I just couldn't connect with anybody in my life, especially my wife. I showed up into the rooms, and the first thing I learned was I needed to be willing to show up. I needed to be willing to shut up, and I needed to be willing to listen up. That's all I had to do. When I walked into the room, I got there, I sat down, and I listened, and people started sharing their stories. They were sharing these in-depth things I'd never imagined that people would ever share, bring into the light. At the end of that meeting, that first meeting, I felt loved. I felt like I belonged. It was the first time in my life I'd ever felt so part of something. I faked it really well in my whole life. It just didn't work for me, though, whenever I got into the rooms. I was able to let my guard down, and I was able to learn how to trust, and learn how to listen. That's kind of where my topic is today, because I think every one of the steps, the word willingness, is at the beginning of that for me. When I think about step one, I think I'm willing to surrender. Step one, to me, is all about surrendering and being willing to say, "Yeah, my life is unmanageable, and I'm out of control, and I don't really have control of anything." Before I got into the program, I lived a life of... My childhood was riddled with sexual abuse. I felt rejected by my family. I held a secret. My aunt was my abuser, and when I was between the ages of six and seven, she babysat my brother and me, and I was fearful that my parents would never come home. I don't know why, but I was fearful of that. If she fondled me when I was in bed, that I would fall asleep. Now, I don't know where any of that came from, but that's what happened in my life. That started my path of masturbation. It also started my path of true fear. It started my path of keeping secrets, and it resulted in 40 years of just continuing to go down these terrible paths, not just in my addiction, but in the way I just lived my life. It was such a lie. I lived my life for the people that I needed to love me. My parents, my brother, my aunt's uncles, my co-workers, my bosses. I was definitely a pleaser. I had difficulty connecting to others. I always felt alone and different, but today, after working step one, I've really removed myself from these uncomfortable situations. I take heat and stop looking listen when I walk into a room, even when I walk into the meetings, or when I walk into a work meeting, or I walk into my parents' home. It's stop, look, or listen. Take assessment of what's going on, and if I need to not be in that situation, turn around. If I need to not open my mouth, then open my mouth. But I think before I act these days, when I think of step two, it's a willingness to believe. My sponsor was about ready to kill me when I could not get steps two and three. We spent weeks going through steps two and three, because I just couldn't believe in a higher power. I never did before. I was the higher power. I lived a life of fear, and so how could I believe that somebody greater than me could actually help me? Because the people that had control in my life were not safe for me, and I became a chronic manipulator. I mean, I'm manipulating people all the time to get what I needed to feel safe. The funny thing about it is I never did any of that with an intention of hurting anyone, because on the surface, I was a pretty nice guy. But behind the scenes, my brain was manipulating the heck out of everything, every situation. I was constantly figuring out, trying to figure out what was going to happen next, so I could plot my next move. At home, work, and play, I was kind of the master puppeteer. I was able to, when I became an adult, I was able to do what was done to me. But today, the only really thing I know is I control me. I control my thoughts, and I can control my actions, but I can't do any of that without my higher power. Early in recovery, I found me saying the serenity prayer all the time to keep me from wanting to masturbate, for keeping me from wanting to to go fantasize, or look at pornography, or be a voyeur. I worked really hard, and to the point where I mean, the serenity prayer was my savior. Though if I could say the serenity prayer was my savior, apparently there's something higher than me out there, because I didn't write the serenity prayer. I just recited. I just live it. And I'm grateful to know that, because it taught me that there is a power greater than myself, and that I can let my guard down. And I was able to practice that in the rooms. You know, step three is about willingness to trust. I mean, I was able to learn how to trust people. You know, I'm a firm believer that, and I've learned this in the rooms, is that it's impossible to be honest if you don't trust the person you're being honest with. It's just doesn't work. And I always thought I had to be honest first, and then I can trust. But that wasn't the case. It was never going to work. It just didn't work for me. And the great thing is that, is that I also learned in working step three that, that I understood that I wasn't, I started to believe that I wasn't good enough. You know, why would a higher power want to help me? You know, I'm a sex addict. I've done all these harmful things to my, to my family, my friends, I've lied, I've cheated, I've still done all these things. But so why would a higher power want to help me? Well, I found my higher power through the program, through the room, because every time I was able to be honest, I had someone in the room that would obey me, honesty, and then I could even be more honest. So I learned honesty and learned how to trust people in these rooms. And many times early on, for probably the last, the first couple of years, my higher power was the rooms. My higher power was walking into a room, feeling safe for at least an hour of my day, and being able to listen and be honest with people that I trusted. You know, the traditions are an amazing thing about our program that sometimes gets taken for granted, I believe. But you know, this anonymity thing, it works at so many different levels of the steps. And I'm grateful to know that. I found that in step four, I had to truly be willing to be honest with myself. So now I can be honest with all of you guys, but was I really being honest with myself? Well, step four took me through that process of learning how to be honest with myself. And my sponsor worked me to death on that one. It was tough. And what I found out is that I was a cell seeker, and I self-seaked, and I was fearful. And all of these things that I thought were wrongs that were done to me, especially when I was an adult, I had a role in that. And I took action, negative actions towards people. I was a really, I was a really spiteful individual when I didn't get my way. And especially at work, I got people fired. I fired people. If they I got people fired that I thought were going to eat me from getting to the next level, which I needed to get to to be able to prove myself to my wife, my parents to everyone else, which was just my brain talking again. In step five, I got to share all those imperfections and from stuff forward with my sponsor. And in a very kind and loving way, he was able to help me work through what it meant to be fearful, what it meant to be a self-seeker, what it meant to be manipulative. And I learned that, you know, I didn't do any of that because I wanted to hurt anyone again. I did it because it was how I survived. And so I spent my first 47 years of my life surviving, at least the first 40 40 because of the abuse. And, and I had to really spend a lot of time after I did my step five alone. And really, and he encouraged me to do this to really take time and assess what I just discovered about myself and to forgive myself. And that was a hard thing to do. And it took me a while to get through there. But I moved on to step six, and it became willing to accept my imperfections. I identified my imperfections, I accepted them. And I was more than a self-seeker and more than more than a manipulator. But, but, and I discovered that in my imperfection is where life really is. Because when I started to understand that I was imperfect, and I could be imperfect, life became a lot easier. I became a little bit more connected with people in my life. And, and you know, I could, and it held true with, with my wife and my kids, because they started talking to me again. My kids weren't as scared of me. Why isn't dad getting angry when we're making all this noise? Why, you know, my wife would be like, she'd be on pens and needles, but she learned not to be on pens and needles as much with me around. And, and that was because I learned that I didn't have to be perfect. And I still made mistakes, but that imperfection was, was liberating. It was life-giving for me. Because I spent all of those years, those four decades of my life trying to be perfect for other people. And I gave up a lot in the process. And I learned that as well. I gave up a lot of who I could have been. But the good news is that I learned that that imperfection means that I can be something different than I was yesterday, or the day before, or 10 years before. And that imperfection was, was truly liberating. When I got to step seven, you know, I kind of look at this as step seven, eight, nine, or kind of the turning a corner in my life. So now I did all the self-reflection, now I've done all these things. Now I've got to really turn that corner and, and, you know, put the, you know, put the, put the rubber to the road on this. And so step seven for me was all about this willingness to change. And willingness to change for me is total humility. I had to be humble to do that. I didn't, it was scary to change. I was changing who I was, how I thought. And, and again, the program came true because I could come into the rooms and I could practice. My sponsor constantly helped me get through this whole process of becoming, of, of, of doing things just because it was the next right thing to do. And he told me many times, just go out in your day and do something nice for someone and don't tell him you did it. I mean, it was such, what, what an easy thing to do. I mean, today I'm like, well, doesn't everybody do that? Well, not as an addict. I didn't do that. I was doing everything for myself for, for, for perseverance, for survival. And so then here's the hard step. You know, step eight is, was all about being willing to atone for the harms that I caused. You know, I, I had a pretty substantial step eight. There were a lot of people on it. And I was willing to actually, and, and here, here I was splitting words again with my sponsor. But what is willing to actually make an amends to someone? Does that mean I have to or do I don't have to? And, and again, he told me, just shut up Troy and just follow what the big book says, follow, do what step in action tells you to do. And we'll get through it. I'm not saying you have to do anything at this point. You just need to be willing to. I was like, oh, willing, that word comes up again. So I became willing to. I'd gotten through the, you know, the first seven steps that I was being pretty honest with myself. And so step eight came around and I became willing. And I said, I wrote these people's names down. And I started to, to figure out what was the amends I needed to make? And how far was I willing to go? I had to atone for the sins that I created in my, and that I caused in my life. Funny enough, when I got to nine, I had worked myself up into this tizzy about now, how am I going to do this? What do I need to do? I don't want to go call that person. I don't want to write that letter. I don't want to, I don't want to want to want to. And, and, and the funny thing is he is, let's take the person at the bottom of the list and just go make a call. And I did. And it was my brother, my brother, who is just a little bit younger than me, was the varsity football player. He, you know, dated the high school chair leader, he went to college, he runs a huge company here in the United States. And my parents just love him, just absolutely love him. And everything that is, everything in between the two of us, there's the comparison of my brother. And, and there was some insight there. But the most important thing is that I talked to my brother, I called my brother and he and I met up and I shared, I did my immense to him and he had no clue what I was talking about. It was like, what? It was the craziest thing. It was so liberating. But, but here was the thing as I didn't, I was doing this to help me, help me recover. That's why I was making the amends. And it worked. It was amazing because he didn't ask for anything from me. If anything, it brought us closer together. Now, not all of my amends were so great, but the first one was good, right? So I was brave enough to go out there and do that. And that's where, you know, step, step nine to me is about willing to be brave. Because now I got to go talk to somebody about this that's not in the program. But I did a lot of practicing in the program because I did a lot of talking. And then, you know, the last three, the last three steps really for me have always been about caring for myself and so that I can be of service to others. You know, that doing steps eight and nine were amazing because it taught me that I don't have to care. I don't have to focus on myself all the time that, you know, if I'm going to make a mistake because I'm imperfect and I can be brave enough, I can actually apologize for the mistake right then. Thanks, Daniel. I can, I can apologize for that mistake right then. Oh, I didn't mean what I said or let me, can I say that a different way? You know, I didn't mean to raise my voice. I'm just having a bad day. I'm sorry. I mean, these are things that step 10. I mean, I wish I would have known step 10 when I was, you know, 13 years old, I probably wouldn't have had as many temper tantrums. Or when I was 43 years old, I wouldn't have had as many temper tantrums. And so that was super important to me. Step 10 is all about the willingness to stay present so I can be present when I make the mistake and I can, I can take care of that mistake immediately. So I don't have to deal with it tomorrow or the next day and then it ends up being an eight and nine, four, eight, nine again. And then 11 for me is the willingness to connect with my higher power. So it took me a long time. I mean, honestly, I it was probably up until last year and the summer of last year, my wife and I went to a intensive for intimacy and alexia that I have. And it was at that point in some pretty tough moments where I finally felt my higher power inside of me. I was always willing to say my higher power was next to me behind me in front of me around me, but I never felt my higher power inside of me and I did it. And it was an amazing feeling, an amazing feeling that I never thought I never even thought I would have. And that connection is super important to me today because sometimes people don't pick up the phone when I call or sometimes I don't even want to call. But I've got a higher power and I remember that today. And then 12 for me, willingness to be authentically and unconditionally and unconditionally give of myself. I mean, where you know, all of the service stuff that we do is just preparation is just dress rehearsal for us to be able to go out there and do that in the real world. You know, I feel safe here. I feel okay being of service. I feel okay making mistakes. But when I go out there, it's tougher because I feel judged. And I have to say that that when I am doing something for another person, because it feels like the right things to do. And it's unkind. I'm not expecting anything in return. That's when it doesn't matter what the outcome is. The outcome doesn't matter. It's what I did because I felt it was the right thing to do. Now I might have to make a make an immense for that too. But I've learned boundaries. I've learned I've learned how to to not be impulsive. I've learned how to assess the situation. Again, you know, it goes back to step step 10, you know, willing to be present and willing to, you know, take my own personal inventory before I take any of any of the additional actions. And I'm grateful to know that. You know, I think one of the things that kind of sum up with this is I think one of the things that I will never forget was the moment I walked into the to my second meeting. And Don G, in our San Antonio Fellowship, he wasn't at my first meeting. And he walked in. And he he was like the laser line, beeline to me. He sat right next to me. He was a pretty gruffy guy. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, who is this guy? And, and you know, everybody said hello. And it was it was it was interesting. And he came and said by me. And, and he goes, now, who are you? I said, my name's my name's Troy. And he said, why are you here? And I was like, kind of like going, uh, because I guess I'm a sexaholic. He's the first person to to kind of coerce that out of me. He goes, well, then you're in the right place. You better come back. We got another meeting tomorrow across the hall. And, and I have to say that, you know, I had a lot of people in my life try to do that. And, you know, try to be that kind to me, but I didn't understand that they were being kind. He was being kind. And he was wanting me to, he was wanting me to experience what he was experiencing his life. And I'm grateful to know that. And, and that's where this program really gives back to me, you know, my life is imperfect. And I still have a lot of, a lot of things to work through in my life. But what I can tell you is that this is the place that provides me the energy, the strength, the bravery to, to be able to live my life out there. And it's all because of this whole darn word called willing. I'm no longer willful. I have some willpower sometimes. I wish I had more willpower, but, but I am always willing to just do the next right thing. And if I don't know what it is, I don't have to do anything. And I love that I don't have to do anything. I don't have to control anything anymore. So with that, I really appreciate y'all listening to me. And I'm grateful for all of you for being here. Y'all are, y'all are who keep me so. Thanks. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Troy. Thank you. Yeah, this is probably before I fall asleep from Adjut. Like, thank you so much, Troy. I appreciate your sharing. I appreciate your shares in the San Antonio meeting. I really can relate to a background of abuse, which also includes the physical stuff. And I have a couple questions that you have some specifics. One is trust. I mean, it is. It's really, it's really hard to trust. And yesterday, especially day before, I noticed some of my issues around food and security coming up. You know, I was wanting to get all this food together. So I have food on the airplane and food in the airport. And, you know, nobody else didn't meet my needs. And I got to take care of them. And I don't know yet what that's all about. But when I noticed that, if you would have suggestions about how to deal, so it's the trust how to practically, practically, how can you grow that in your life? Thanks. Thanks, Nancy. The food thing really hits home to me because that is one of the battles that I still have is food. I use food to feel good. And I've totally been in the last probably three or four months where I've really tried to do something different. You know, what it's like, again, what do I have to be willing to do? The abuse really, the crazy thing about my childhood abuse was I did not come to terms with the sexual abuse until I'd actually been in the program for about four or five years. And I go to therapy. Therapy is something I have to do for myself. And it wasn't until we were doing some pretty intense therapy that that I really came to terms with with the abuse. And but what was so great about it is that I could let it go because because of the program, because I believe my aunt was sexually abused when she was a child and she's no longer with us. The thing is, is that I don't act out sexually anymore. And I tried really hard not to act out emotionally, but that's a tough one. But when it comes to food and things like that, it is, you know, you want to feel better. I want to I want to you know, it's something I want to hold on to to to feel safer. Food makes me feel safe. You know, there's nothing better than going to the grocery store and, you know, for the family and picking up the candy bar, the Snickers bar and the Dr. Pepper and downing him before I get home. I don't have to tell anybody. I do it. I haven't done it in three weeks in three months. But but you know, I think it's it's dealing with what am I willing to do to overcome that fear or that or that or that pain? Because it's a pain. I just want to feel better, right? And so the the want to feel better is so subtle for me. And I just have to recognize, and you know, I keep keep thinking that, you know, I feel like I'm one of the youngsters in the fellowship I've been coming for nine years, but there are people in this room that have been here way longer than I will ever be probably. But you know, it's it's the subtleties that are going to save me to when if I'm willing to to willing to look into it. So thanks. Hope I answered your question. There are things true. Thanks, Nancy. Thanks, Troy. Daniel, you're next. Hey, brother, that was beautiful. Thank you so much. We're talking about intimacy and I'm blessed finally to be married to a wonderful woman for nine years almost. But we both come from abusive background and we're both incredibly defensive. The only thing that saves me is I do the 10th step a lot and and I just do my best to focus on myself. Just take care of my side of the street and be forgiving of her. But it's very tough because we're both really ready to jump back in each other's face. And so any insight you can give I'll take. Well, I can tell you that that as is as frequently as three weeks ago, my wife was not she wasn't engaging in my behavior. And I think that a lot of that has to do with the fact my wife got into us and on very quickly after I got into essay. And she learned how to take care of herself and not engage with my crap. I don't dish it out. I don't dish it out all the time. But what I've learned is that I don't have the luxury to get angry. I don't have the luxury to get mad anymore because that just incites my crazy thinking. And I'm grateful because I have a wife that has been has learned her own boundaries. I mean, she played as much of a role in my addiction for me as as I did. I mean, she fell into that trap and and she quickly got out of it. And she's been my biggest supporter. She has taught me how to to to be okay with not being okay. And that when we do get into these discussions, these these arguments, which they're really not even it's really funny. It's not even we're not like yelling at each other anymore. We're you know, we're having these serious conversations and the boys will walk in. I will have one son still at home, but he'll walk and he'll go, okay, I'm out of here. You know, he walks the other way. He's like, this is I know what's going on. And it's not that we're yelling. It's just that we're having a heating discussion. And the problem is is that I am still an addict and I will become defensive. But she doesn't she doesn't let she doesn't she doesn't react. She's like, okay, well, it sounds like you probably need to take a break and we can talk about this later. And I'm like, okay. And she doesn't do it in a condescending way. I used to think it was condescending, but it's not condescending. It's a clue. I have a person in front of me that has loved me through all this stuff. And now she's helping me to figure out what I need to do next. She's giving me clues if I can pick up on it. If I don't go inside my head and get all freaked out and defensive, I can listen for the clue. And then I can calm down. I can take a breath. I can say, give me five minutes. I can do whatever it is. And then we can come back and have the hard discussion. And it always works out. It's just unfortunate that the last time it happened, it took three weeks to get there. And that was, you know, that was that was in the last two months. And that was because of me, one because of her. And so, you know, I think that, and, you know, I like it this time, you know, because I do have this issue with intimacy. You know, these arguments that we get into, these discussions we get into, they're intimate moments whenever I can be, I can play whatever I can kind of act appropriately in those moments. They're moments of intimacy. They're moments of connection. You know, it's okay. Connection can be about a disagreement. And you know, because if we're both being honest, we now know where each other stands. And I don't have to fear that she's going to go, well, I want to divorce them because you, I thought you always liked folding the clothes. And now I know after 25 years, you don't like folding the clothes. We're not going to get a divorce for that. But we're going to have an understanding that maybe I wanted to fold the clothes too. So it's just, you know, again, it's the subtleties and the willingness to understand that. And I can't do it if I'm acting out, and I can't do it if I'm in an emotional train wreck. I can only do it if I can be present, take some deep breaths and learn self-care. Thanks, brother. Hi, Steve. Thanks, Troy. Ilona, next. Thank you so much, Troy, for your share. I am married. My husband's not in a recovery program, but, yay, we're still together. But I was wondering, you kind of answered the question, how is your relationship with your wife, with your children, and with your extended family, your parents that they're still living, any siblings, that kind of thing? Thank you. Thanks, Ilona. Well, I can say that it's kind of in turmoil. And it's not if there's nothing dangerous. I think my relationship with my kids, my kids, I think, respect me now. I have a 20-year-old 2019 and 15. And my 15-year-old is still at home, and I don't know that he really respects anyone, but he's 15. And he seems to be normal. I mean, it's great. I've got a kid that, you know, he loves life, and he's self-assured and stuff like that. But with my kids, they respect me now, and they respect me because I have changed, but they respect me also because I've been honest with them. They know that I'm a sexaholic. They know that I'm an addict. My wife and I, we have a great friendship. We've known each other for almost 30 years. We will take care of each other. Are we intimate? No, not as much as neither one of us want to be, but it has a lot to do with the past, my own past, and my own trust issues. It's gotten much better. I am continuing to do a lot of hard trauma work with a therapist and getting ready to move into a whole new, not easy sort of cognitive behavior thing. And it has a lot to do with, you know, the last piece was my parents, because they are alive. And they don't know anything about the sexual abuse as far as I know. They have some culpability because it happened on their watch. And my aunt wasn't a safe person, and I think they know that. I don't think they'll be surprised if I do share it with them, which is something I've still got to decide how to do. But what I can say is that because I have that secret, it's a barrier to our connectedness. And I know that, and I admit that these days, and the past, I wouldn't really give it much credit, you know, but it is. And my parents are getting older, but they're still pretty, they're pretty, they're in their 70s, so they're not that old. And so there may be a point where I do sit down with them, and I'll have to figure that out. You know, it's almost like that I got to be put myself in a safe situation to be able to do that and not try to control the outcome. And it really isn't about spite, and it's not about anger anymore. It's just about, I do want to have a closer relationship with my family. I'm just scared that they're going to turn away from my biggest fears that they're going to reject me. And I have to work through that for myself first, because if they do, then they do. And I got to be okay with that. If they don't, which I don't think they will, and my rational thinking mind, that'll be different. So, you know, this is, this is not, you know, that I've learned, I get it. It's been drilled in my head. I'm always going to be a sex holic, but I prefer to be a sex, a holic and recovery. And I am going to always be a work in process. So keep, keep trudging the road. Thank you so much, Troy. You so much, Troy, and a lot of lovely questions coming up. I also have one. Thank you so much, Troy, for being here. And you work very strong program. And I also try to do the same, because I have no option. And I also love to be a sex holic and recovery. I really relate. And I'm also a work in progress. I really struggle with the willingness to be consistent. I want to hear from you about this self care. If you do any kind of daily workout or any exercise regime. And how, how you, you know, you are willing to be consistent. I do that, but you know, just two days and I'll feel, wow, I'm doing so much for myself. And I'll show, I did this, I did this, but third day, oh, it's gone. I feel so sleepy. So this is really big struggle for me. I'm very much wanting to do but I think it's a lack of willingness. But I want to hear from you. Thank you. Yeah, that's a really hard question for me. Iris, thank you. It is consistency is not something I like. You know, I spent 40 years trying to create chaos and nobody can figure out anything I was doing. I mean, I was, I was a master at chaos. I was a master just throwing more balls into the air, more balls into the air. And you know, the people that else wanted me were the ones that, you know, in my job got promoted faster because they took all of my chaos and used it to their advantage, which, you know, shame on me. But for me, consistency is not something that comes easy. And actually, it's not something I even really like. I like things to change all the time. And I do believe that it has a lot to do with with how I dealt with my addiction. What I have learned in the last probably year that and I try to be consistent about it is, you know, one is a 6am meeting, right? Our 6am San Antonio meeting, you know, we had to move it all to zoom and now we have it six days a week. And it's this big thing that is really amassed. And it was just started in this little bitty chapel and there were like three of us come into a meeting at six o'clock in the morning. And, you know, maybe the chapel will be unlocked if it wasn't we'd go behind the chapel and we'd have our meeting. And and that was consistency for me. And that consistency really helped me because I know, and I don't get to the 6am meeting all the time, but I know if I start my day with the 6am San Antonio meeting, I'm going to be in a much better fit spiritual condition that day. I mean, I could probably plot it on a on a graph. If I don't, then I'm going to wake up later and I'm going to probably be a little bit more self or unsure unsure of myself because I didn't do what is starting to come natural. As far as other things that I do, I've really gotten into meditation. I've really started to and I want to be more consistent with this. I will if I when I have a chance in the morning, whether I go to a meeting or not, I take, you know, 10 15 minutes to do a guided meditation and I don't fall asleep, which is amazing because I didn't try to I pretended to do meditation back in my, you know, my addiction days with my wife and I'm just fall asleep and then she got tired of me trying to do it. So we stopped. But now I do it by myself and I stay awake and I'm like, Whoa, you know, I can sit there in a chair and go 20 minutes later. Has it already been 20 minutes? And I feel refreshed. So that helps as well. As far as exercise like physical exercise, I watch a lot of workout videos of men that that are teaching me how to stretch and do things like this and and and but I never get around to doing it. So I think that I get stuck in my head and I had to be willing to put in the pain because it hurts. I don't like to stretch it hurts. And and I'm admitting that to y'all. So, you know, for those of you that live in San Antonio, you probably just need to grab me by each arm and make me stretch the next time you see me. And I'll start to get the hand. But I'm pretty thick headed. I mean, I'm, you know, I went to do a, it's called a calcium test on my heart. My, my primary care physician asked me to do it last June. And I got around to it about three weeks ago. And I was like, you know, I don't want to do that. They're going to make me eat differently. And I'm going to probably have to start exercising. Long before they came back. And it was like zero. It was like, I actually first thought that they just misfired the test or something. But it was zero. My heart's in good shape. And I think, you know, why my heart's in good shape is because I'm now using my heart for the right reasons. I stopped using my head. And I'm using my heart. My heart pumps a lot more blood these days. And I think it did 10 years ago. And and I just feel mentally healthier. And I believe that because of that, I physically healthier now. I'm not making an excuse for me. I still need to start working out. So thank you. Beautiful. I so much relate. So I'm in a good place. Thank you. We still have a few more minutes. Next time you would like to comment or ask something is good. Yeah. Hey, I think I know I'm sorry for the noise out here, but thank you for your share. Yeah, there's a lot on there that I can make it. But I wanted to ask you, so with your experiences as a child and what you went through with your aunt, how did that affect the relationship with the rest of your family? Not even now. I know that you've talked a little bit about your relationship with your parents now, but at the time, did it, did it play you with mistrust for your whole family as a unit? Was it easy to isolate this incident towards your aunt? I'm just I'm curious about that. Yeah, you know, that's a lot to unpack there. But here's what I can tell you. I I learned quickly how to disassociate because it took me almost 40 years, well, 40 years to to truly believe that I had been sexually abused. I kept telling myself it didn't happen. It wasn't happening. But but it happened because I have I have learned that prior to before I was before this these incidents occurred, I was a pretty exuberant kid. I love life. You know, it was in my my my I remember my parents and my grandparents always going. He's always so happy and you know, I can just I have these pictures in my head of these memories of just being happy all the time and never understanding why people want to get angry or anything, you know, I never played sports. I never played organized sports because you know, I was a little kid and we were playing kickball or baseball, you know, with everybody on the, you know, the street we live done. Everybody get mad because somebody lost and I thought we were just there to have fun. But, you know, after my something changed after my my aunt abused me and it happened over a course of probably one or two years. We never really pointed it. But I did become fearful because I had to keep a secret, right? I couldn't, you know, I wanted my parents to know but I didn't want them to know because I didn't want anybody to get in trouble. And then I now realized that that what I really struggled with is I didn't think anybody would believe me and and it did impact it impacted my relationship with my parents because I didn't trust them. And there were things that happened later on and there was some there was some emotional abuse with my with my parents because because I was I was more my younger brother was very active and sports oriented and I was more artsy and I come from from the first generation not to farm or ranch in my family. So and we're German and so you know, there's this the oldest son should be the big macho guy and why isn't he playing football and I'm a big guy and but it never it was never something I was interested in and and so I struggled with that and I felt shamed for that now I now know that but and I became a pleaser. I did everything I possibly could to make my parents happy with me. I mean I I took I was intuitive and I figured out what I needed to do to make them happy with me and I did that for years and it became a very codependent relationship with my parents just to keep them happy at my expense and and I now know that that's what I did and I think that that's you know, that was part of of the situation with with my family. My brother he and I are not as close as we used to be. The one thing that I do know about being abused is that my brother was in the bedroom with me when that was happening to me and and I have vivid images of making sure that my aunt never touched my younger brother and so he doesn't know any of this either but there's a you know, I've got to I've got to get to a better place because I will never have that authentic relationship with my parents or my brother until I am able to to share that that that information and you know, we have lots of conversations in my household with my wife about, you know, they deserve to know they need to understand why you're not close to them they need to you know, they want to be close with you and if they knew this, maybe they would you know, they would now understand so yeah, it's a complicated situation but you know, the good news is that I'm willing to work through it. I don't know what the outcome is going to be. I don't have any control of that. I've got a higher power that will take care of that and a therapist and a wife and a pastor and all of you that I talked to you about it my sponsor, you know, ad nauseam at times but but I feel comfortable and so that's the cool thing is that I feel strong in where I am today and I'm willing to conquer the fear because it is at the bottom at the end of the day. It's still fear. So thanks. Thanks. Thank you, Troy, and I can identify and there's a lot of contact there for me. Thank you for your answer. Absolutely, Ty. I'm fine. We have few minutes more. We can take up one question or comment. Anyone? Hey, there Eduardo, sexaholic. Hey, Eduardo. I'm very grateful that I didn't have work today so that I could attend this meeting and yeah, just a comment you had mentioned something about you do a sort of a check-in or some people would call it body scan or something before you enter a new environment, you know, work or home and and I remember it was pretty early on when it got into at least probably after my first step back in in March or sometime around that time that I was struggling and I remember you pulled me aside after the Saturday morning meeting and had a pretty long conversation with me afterward and I remember that's what you suggested that before I get home that before I enter and turn the knob that I should check in with myself. How am I feeling? You know, are there any thoughts going through my head and and that really helped and you know, I was not consistent. That's been a word that's been said quite a lot and I have not been consistent with that practice but thank you for the for the reminder and I will definitely be be doing that because earlier today I you know walked into a Walmart to get something and I didn't do that and I'm like, whoa, okay, all right. Got to, you know, check that in. So yeah, so it's just a good reminder and it doesn't take very long. It just take a deep breath. How am I feeling? Is there anything going on and then just step inside? Hardly noticeable even if I'm with other people. So yeah, with auto-pass. Thanks, Troy. Thanks, Eduardo. Thanks, Eduardo. That's like a door prayer. We can have one more quick comment or question. We still have two, three minutes. Can I thank thanks, Troy, for your for your talk there and yeah, just can you give some advice for those who are constantly like relapsing and you know, what what what should be done to have like good recovery long term? Yeah, absolutely. I think I said it at the beginning. I'll say it again. I have to be willing to show up to the meeting. I have to be willing to shut up and listen. And that is so key for me and you know, I used to have to get in my car and drive to the meetings all the time and I still do that. But you know, getting to a meeting has been so key for me because I get there and I and if I feel safe, I'm able to really focus on what's happening in the meeting. And I'm not going to act out. So, you know, I told myself early on, well, if I go to a meeting, if I go to two meetings a day, that's two of the 24 hours. So I'm not going to act out in the meeting. So there's two hours I've taken care of. So now what am I going to do for the next 22? And so structure consistency and structure is super important. I think early in recovery early in sobriety is super important and and structuring my day is was was really paramount. I could remember as a kid, I would take a notebook a sheet of notebook paper and I would I would every every between every line was 15 minutes and I'd plot out my day, you know, make my bed or you know, go to school and I would line out all my day because I because here's the thing. I now know that I did that because I didn't ever want to be at home. I figured out how this is how to I was trying to be safe. I was trying to protect myself. So what I what I've done now and I do this sometimes still is is is is I will I will chart out what's happening in my day. And the cool thing is that in the program, I got a lot of things to do, right? I can make three calls a day and you know, I can have a sponsor that says that doesn't count just leaving a message. You got to make more, you know, since I sometimes have to make 10 calls a day. I put that on the list. Here's what I got to do. I'm going to do that between 10 and 10 and 12. But I got, you know, I got things to do also. I got to work, right? Or I've got to have meetings or whatever. But charting that out and especially early in sobriety, it really does kind of it really does kind of fit into that one day at a time thing. I just got to do it for a day. And then, you know, where are the places where I'm at most risk? Because when I wake up in the morning, is it before I go to bed, is when I'm in the shower, whatever it is, I make allowances for that. And I go, okay, now, what can I do to prevent me from acting out? But it's that it's that for me, it was it was getting to meetings, showing up, shutting up, listening up, and doing whatever my sponsors told me to do because there were times early on in the first 90 days where I was, I thought it was going to lose my mind. And and I stayed after meetings and went to lunches and dinners and people bought me lunch and dinner because I don't have any money. And I was just being honest with people. And but the consistency that that structure in my 24 hours one day at a time is key. I identify the places where I'm at most risk. And I get away from the situations I plan something different. I would like to thank you for listening to this episode of the daily reprieve. The best source for experience, strength, and hope for essay members. Please subscribe to this podcast to be alerted of new episodes. Please show your support by donating to the daily reprieve by going to donate dot the daily reprieve dot com and choosing either monthly donations or a one-time donation by clicking donate now. Thank you for listening and stay tuned for the next episode of the daily reprieve. [Music]