Rina Speaking to the Barcelona "Easy Does It, But Do It" meeting on November 22, 2023
The Daily Reprieve
Barcelona Meeting - Rina
[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.thedellreprieve.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. Today, the 22nd of November 2023, we are very happy to have with us Rina Jay from New Jersey, in the US, sober since the 30th of August 2019. She will be sharing on the topic of how do I know I am sober. Rina, you are now on. You have 25 minutes to share. Would you like to tell Jared how you'd like to be timed? Thank you. Yes, I would like to know when I'm at 10 minutes, when I'm at 20 minutes, and when I have one minute left. So once I've spoken for 10 minutes, for 20 minutes, and when I have one minute left, please. Is that okay, Jared? All right, I was giving a thumbs up to a blank screen. Yes, that is great. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much, everyone, for being here. Buenastadades, Buendia. Happy to be back in the Barcelona meeting. A few weeks ago, I was not too far from Barcelona. It's the closest I've ever been when I was traveling in the UK on business. So today, I am happy to talk about how do I know I'm sober. Some of you are familiar with my story, but I'll do a quick recap to set the stage for what I'm about to say. I came into the room on July 13th of 2019, because somebody I hired as a sales consultant started asking me personal questions. And I thought, not only were they none of her business, but she's expensive, and I could barely afford her. So I thought she was just wasting time instead of focusing on the problem that I had. But thank God, she did ask me those personal questions and pretty soon, a whole lot of stuff started coming up. And she told me in no short order that you need a 12 step program, I can't help you. You're a low bottom addict. I didn't know I knew what an addict was. I don't know what a low bottom addict was. I never heard of that term, but it sounded insulting. And I was very hurt, very offended. And for some reason, it resonated also. And she said, you need, you probably need to be in slaw, you're a codependent, you're a debtor, you're an under earner. And when she said you're an under, I'm like, what? Like, do you know how much I make? And she's like, well, why don't you make more for all for everything you know how to do? And that really landed. So I first went into a DA meeting. But at the time, my business was running on fumes. So I didn't have any money to deal with my problems. And I'm thinking, okay, I'll go to some UA meetings. But again, even though I was not earning enough, that also was not my primary issue. So I started going to some slaw meetings. And that was my first, that was my next, my second meeting was that. And I, when I started hearing people, I'm not, I'm not like you people, you know, I grew up in church. I know the God thing already. But then, my first meeting was a Saturday. And by Tuesday, I was feeling I'm manageable enough that I drew another two and a half hours one way to the same meeting. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm like those people. So at that Tuesday meeting, I was scared enough to ask, because I barely lasted three days between meetings until I had to come back. And I said, well, what do I need to do? And this will keep coming back. I'm like, when's the next meeting? So well, you can come back next week. I'm like, well, what am I going to do between now and next week? Because I'm not okay. So that's what led me to looking for phone meetings. That's how I discovered SA. And I was desperate enough to join SA, SA, SLA, and to say I'm working all those programs simultaneously. What do I need to do? I threw myself into recovery. And man, my first 150 days in my first 150 days, I spent more than 800 hours in recovery. Sorry for those things that are going on in the background. So I was sufficiently scared about me and my behaviors, because I was acting out 24/7. I had set up multiple acting out groups. I was helping people act out in more than 20 countries around the world, things were going on 24/7, 365. I had people running things for me. And if I caught two hours of sleep in a 24-hour period, that was a lot. And it was not all in one shot. So the fact that I drove two and a half hours to first of all, I don't like driving in the city. So the fact that I drove myself to New York to a place where I'm anxious about driving. And then on very little sleep, I was extremely scared. But I was sufficiently scared of myself and what I was willing to do to hurt people if I did not get what I want. And I became scared enough of myself that if I don't do something, something that's going to happen to other people as well as to myself. And so I was willing to make the trip again. And that first day I drove, I did not have the energy to be honest with you. I thought I was a hazard to myself and to other people getting behind the wheel because I did not get enough sleep. And I was afraid I would fall asleep behind the wheel. And then I don't know why, but I prayed to God in that moment. And I said that if you have kept me alive through all the stupid things that I've done over the years, then you can keep me alive one more time to try and get to this meeting. And if I die on the way there, if I die on the way back, at least I'll die trying to get help. And that felt like a very desperate thing. So when people say, oh, you know, I thought you've been in the program a lot longer than that, you feel like an old timer. This is why I sound like an old timer, because I spent so much time just soaking up everything. And because I was scared and I didn't have any runway left to make any more mistakes. So I literally said to people, what do I need to do to get sober and stay sober? Because I can't be like those people who are relapsing every five minutes. I know myself, I know, you know, regardless of the sobriety definition in any program, I'm, I'm devious and I'm able to find loopholes around anything and everything, which is, I mean, it's definitely something that makes me very good at what I do for a living, because I can come up with those scenarios of what could go wrong. And I can tell my clients, hey, here's what we need to do. Or here's what I recommend that you do. To protect yourself against a particular threat or, or whatever they're concerned about. So, at one point in my recovery, I, I still had this fear of, I can't not do everything I'm doing in my recovery, because otherwise, I'm not going to be okay. And I'm going to lose my sobriety. And I was constantly in fear of losing my sobriety. There's abstinence, and then there's recovery. So on page, on page 19 of the big book, it says, none of us make a soul vocation of this work, meaning sponsoring, doing service, etc. And none of us make a soul vocation of this work, nor do we think its effectiveness would be increased if we did. We feel that elimination of our drinking in this, in this case of my sexa-holism is but a beginning. A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our respective homes, occupations, and affairs. So that means, you know, not acting out is the first step because I needed that breathing room away from the disease, away from the things, away from the drama. And I felt like I always needed the trauma and the attention to keep me going, to keep my, my emotions above, you know, the abyss. And that I needed that all the time, and I needed that drama all the time. And that's why I basically set up a world where at any time of day or night that I wanted to, to feel okay, or to be entertained, it was at my disposal, whenever I wanted to, and anywhere that I wanted to. So needless to say, that caused a big problem in my marriage. A lot of times I used to think I was hiding things that I had my game face on and people couldn't figure out what I was up to. I was disappearing on a regular basis. I kept myself extremely busy as a way to cover my tracks because I would be at one thing and then I would be at another thing. So people are seeing me popping up on social media at this event and at that event. But I was disappearing in between, and at any point that I was doing things, there were so many times that I could have disappeared and there are times that I was afraid. And I left, I used to leave a lot of goodbye notes either at home or in my car, because I wasn't sure if I was going to make it back to my car. I know I was leaving and going somewhere, but I didn't know if I was going to make it back. So I would leave this note of I'm sorry if something happened to me. I'm sorry if I made you, my family shamed. You know, don't blame yourselves, this sort of thing. And then when I would get back to my car, I would tear up the note and go on about my life until the next time that I wrote a note, a goodbye note. So they're so I'm not going to bore you too much with the past stuff because I want to get to the solution. And my recovery folder is available to anyone in any fellowship if you want to listen to old recordings. But what I want to share about is the point of turning silver and knowing that it is something that is doable and something that is maintainable. And how do I know I'm silver is because I'm involved in the activities to keep my sobriety, to keep my relationship with God, because sobriety is not something that I earn. It is a gift. However, the gift comes from me staying in contact with my power and in contact with my sponsors in contact with people in program. I'll share with you some of the questions I ask myself to know if I'm sober. Thank you 10 minutes. One thing I ask myself is, is there anything going on with me right now that at least one person doesn't know? And by one person, I mean one of my sponsors. It can be my food sponsor, it can be my money sponsor, it can be any sponsor, it doesn't matter. Are there any secrets in my life? Is there anything going on in my head that at least one person doesn't know about? Another question that used to keep me on the straight and narrow in the beginning was asking myself, if I'm back on this meeting tomorrow and I say today's day zero or today's day one, what will I say is a reason that I relapsed yesterday? So that forced me to look at myself, to be honest with myself about where I was, how I was having emotional unmanageability, how I was having anger that I did not deal with any resentment, any expectations that I had of other people that I was not dealing with and therefore those were just like little bombs waiting to explode. And other questions I would ask myself is, what gets my attention? How do I spend my time? I'm in another program where one of the things we do is track our time, like how much time do I spend in program? How much time do I spend taking care of things for myself? How much time do I spend exercising? How much time do I spend doing program, either meetings, meeting with my sponsor, my sponsors, meeting with my sponsors, doing some kind of service? How much time do I spend taking care of my body? Now it's not, it's not tracking those things for the purpose of giving myself a pat on the back. It's for the purpose of seeing, how am I spending my life? If I look over the last six months, what am I doing with my life? I only get this one shot at today. So if I'm feeling pressure that I'm not taking care of certain things, I can look and say, Oh, wait, Rina, for the last six months, you managed to find 33 minutes a day to play solitaire. Do you think maybe you can borrow 15 minutes from solitaire to do something, to educate yourself, to work on your health, to work on other things? So that's to me, the tools of the program are not there to beat us up over the head to say, are you doing this? Are you making your three calls? Are you doing service? It's not for the purpose of like trying to control me. It's for the purpose of freeing up my life to make myself available to God, available to my sponsors and my sponsors, and to be useful in the world. On page 15 of the big book, it talks about what we just read, talked about how, you know, our abstinence and recovery, that's just the start. But the real goal is to be able to demonstrate these principles in all our affairs, to demonstrate it in our homes, in our occupations, and in all our affairs. So at home, how that gets manifested is my husband is not a social person at all. So I have stopped trying to drag him to parties that my Zumba friends are having. I stopped dragging him. Hey, let's go out, let's do this. Oh, let's put this on social media. He's not like that. He's never been like that. And I finally stopped asking him to do things he doesn't want to do because those are things that other people do for their wives and their wives are bragging about things like that on social media. And I want to be able to do the same thing. I want to feel that same validation. I took the responsibility away from him to validate me and make me feel good about myself. And I do things to feel good about to take that responsibility upon myself. While I was in the UK for speaking engagement a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to hop over to Paris. I did that. I did that. I went to another business event in Paris, but I also took the time to do something for myself. Now, I was traveling alone. I had plenty of opportunity to do things and to act out, but I did not because that's not where my head was. But by taking the time to do something that I want to fill up my life with what I want, then I'm not looking for an unhealthy way. If I'm doing something to contribute to life, I'm doing something to contribute to the life of my sponsors. I'm contributing to the 12 step programs that I'm in. It's attention, but it's healthy attention. It's attention that encourages me to stay sober, that encourages me to feel like I'm not getting dragged down by the disease. There's a piece of literature that says, I'm no longer at the mercy of a disease that tells me that my only choice is to drink, is to act out, is to overspend, is to overeat, is to do whatever. I have choices now by working the steps. Willingness is not a feeling. Willingness is an action. I may not feel like picking up the phone to call someone, but the feeling cannot stop me. The way one of my sponsors put it was really great. He said, it's like a musical track. There's a music track and there's the voice track. They're both independent of each other. One can happen without the other. So me taking action and my willingness to take action is an action track. It has nothing to do with my feeling. So even though I may not feel like I want to take an action of recovery, even if I do it reluctantly, but I've done the work and therefore I will get the benefit of it and my feelings will catch up later. One thing that I struggled with in my recovery was giving up inappropriate, I'll put it this way, inappropriate pictures of myself, not because the lust about them was still there, not because the things that I had done around the time that I took those pictures were activated in me, but it's because I regret or I miss looking the way I used to look and therefore those pictures are the only things that I have still connecting me to looking the way I used to look. So it was hard for me on that basis to get rid of certain things. But then I'm like, is this something that's keeping me from God? Is this a good reflection in my higher power? But regardless of whether or not it was a reflection in my higher power, I cared more about the fact that I could not be that person anymore. So how do I know I'm staying sober? Because I took an action to deal with my health and as a result, that has changed or that has improved the way I looked, that has improved my energy. So now I'm not just depending on old pictures of myself or old things that were in my life to make me feel good about myself. So I found a more positive way to think of myself because as soon as I start feeling bad about myself for whatever reason, then that's an invitation for the disease to manifest itself either with sex or food or something or some kind of codependency. And there I go being emotionally unmanageable and needing a fix. So those are some of the things that I do. In terms of occupations, that's the other part that that piece mentioned, there are times, you know, I used to brag about the fact that, you know, my clients hire me because they want somebody who knows how to run things and who can be good at the controlling thing. And there came a point where because of my health issues, I was struggling and I happened to have a client who was very controlling themselves and not liking to delegate things and like you're a consultant, that's kind of the job to help you to guide you. But that person was not really leveraging me as much as they could and should, according to me, right? So that's the part where I have to release control. And it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The fact that I did not get what I want protected my health because at the time my health was so fragile, I was very afraid for my life. I felt I was pretty sure I was dying because of all the things that were going on. I was up and I was down. I was running to the ER. My health just was not stable. And were it not for the fact that my client is so extremely controlling? And basically, I just did, I created my own work during that time because my client wasn't giving me enough or they were paying me, but they were not like directing what I'm doing, not that they need to. So I ended up doing a lot of what I thought and and queuing things up for my client needed. And the fact that I was not in control, I felt like I was not in control of my body. I was not in control of my client. I was not in control of anything. That rearranged a lot of my thoughts. And the big book talks a lot about the rearrangement. And the rearrangement is not a one time deal. It's a process, just like step 10 says, we need to continue in what we're doing. We're not fixed and everything is a done deal, but it's a process. So that's how I know I'm sober because I'm taking care of the things that tend to make me want to blow up emotionally and sabotage myself and sabotage my recovery. So I tell on myself, instead of letting maybe a past action app partner who knows me in real life, so does me. Thank you 20 minutes. Instead of letting somebody like that talk in my ear, I cut off the access. I can't tell them what not to do. I can't tell them not to give me special treatment if I run into them somewhere. And there was one person in particular, you know, that person knows me in real life. And I interacted with their business and everything. And but he would give me special treatment. And I said, no, I would say, please stop doing that. And he insisted. So I'm like, you know what, I need to stop doing business with his establishment. Full stop. That's it. Because I can't tell him don't treat me this way. And I mean, he's a nice person. He knows nothing's going to happen. And I'm not interested. But still, I don't like the special treatment, especially in front of other people. So it's not something I was willing to do anymore and depend on other people. So I took the responsibility to remove myself. And I have the right, and I actually had the responsibility to remove myself from situations from people inside and outside the rooms, by the way, who somehow diminish my the quality of my sobriety. I don't owe everybody my time. I and nobody owes me anything either. My sponsor, my sponsors are not responsible for my recovery. My husband's not responsible for my recovery. I'm not responsible for my sponsor's recovery. The big book says are only when it comes to sponsorship, the big book says our only aim is to help. So if I do anything to help one person into the rooms as a sponsor, it doesn't matter. I don't need to see myself with this title as a sponsor or sponsor or recovery partner to somebody. It doesn't matter. As long as I've done something to help another sexaholic, to help another addict in the rooms, that's my job, full stop. I don't need to keep overdoing it. And then I overdo it to the point where I resent that person, I resent that service, but I don't do it with all the integrity that I would otherwise do it. So then it's more about the quality now. And it's also about now that I'm at this point in my recovery, I can't say that the sobriety I had a year ago today is the same level of sobriety that I should have today. There needs to be quality there. The essay sobriety definition, it's not just about, oh, don't have to mess this up. I don't have to do this and don't do that. It's about progressive victory over loss. What am I lusting over? What do I want? What keeps my attention when I'm on social media? What keeps me scrolling? What keeps me rewinding? What is holding my attention? So I need to have a deliberate approach to how I'm living my life in order to know that I'm doing this. That said, it's not perfect. I'm not going to be perfect. And I have to give up on the idea of perfection, because I'm not a higher power. There are plenty of things that happen that scare me, that intimidate me, that I have family and friends and relatives in various hot spots around the world. And I am fearful of their safety. And I don't know what's going to happen. And it doesn't matter how much money I send them to take care of things. It's not enough. I could give away every single send that I have. It's not enough to get them out of the situation they have. So I have to pray, I have to depend on God. Just like when I was extremely sick earlier this year, and all I could do was pray and depend on God, because I felt like I could not depend on my body. It's the same thing. I literally have zero power over that. But the good thing is in recovery, I don't need my own power. I feel very weak about a lot of things to this day, both in essay, as well as my other programs. But my sense of weakness or my sense of strength is completely immaterial. My willingness to take action is the only thing that really matters in terms of the quality of my sobriety. So when I think about how do I know I'm sober today, as we drink this? Thank you one minute. It's because I'm willing to call my sponsors. I'm willing to talk to people. I'm willing to take feedback when I talk to others. And I always say I'm always open to feedback. Even if I don't like it, even if it makes me uncomfortable, I humble myself and do it. And I accept help. Now, when I was going through a tough time with grief and with other things happening, my inclination was to go to my sponsors. But when my sponsors heard about what was going on, they said, "Can I do anything for you? Do you want to talk about it?" And I usually, I used to see it as, "Hey, I'm supposed to give to my sponsors." And then when they would want to call, I wouldn't say, "No, I don't want to be available right now." But by me allowing them to be there for me, it helped them because they're like, "Wow, I can do something for my sponsor." And that reinforced the fact that it's not a hierarchy. I'm helping them. Thank you, Time. I'll wrap up. It's not a hierarchy. What I do when I share, when I sponsor someone, is I'm investing in them because one day they can invest back in my recovery and they can invest in other people's recovery. So I truly appreciate the opportunity to be of service to the Barcelona meeting today. Gracias. Thank you. And I pass. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Rina. Thank you. Thank you, Rina. Thank you, Rina. Thank you, Rina. Yeah, thank you, Rina. Martina, oh no, you were clappy. That's okay. But no, no, I didn't. I didn't find the other sign. Next day, I wanted to raise my hand, but I couldn't find the hand sign. So I took just another kind of hand, but you got me right. I'd like to... To raise my hand. Yeah, thanks, Martina. Thank you very much, Rina, for your share. It was really amazing and really inspiring for me. I love to listen to you. I could relate in a lot of different issues. And what I felt, especially fascinating in your story, is that you are so committed and you drive two and a half hours to a meeting and you join any as fellowship you can find. And you ask everybody everything, "What can I do to become sober?" And I could really feel that it was like your highest goal and the necessity to survive, to become and to stay sober, and to be in a relationship to God. And you have... You were sharing about this tracking on how much time to spend on work and recovery, on body exercise, on self-care, whatever. And I found it... Thanks for the time. I found it really interesting and my question is like, is there special program or special tool like you? You track your 24 hours just to see how much time you put to whatever it is? How does it work? Thanks. Thanks, Martina. And yes, I was quite desperate and I used to be ashamed. The reason why I started sharing how much time I spent in my first 150 days is because I used to be so ashamed of the fact that I needed this much help. And it was becoming something that made me feel extremely embarrassed and ashamed that, "Oh, some people, they can go to just one meeting a week and you're spending six hours a day." And I was so ashamed of that and I wanted to stop being ashamed of that. So I started seeing it out loud to try to overcome that shame. In terms of tracking my time, some people do it pen and paper. Some people track only the things that's important to them or the habit they're trying to break. Like, solitaire is one thing specifically, I am likely to wait too much solitaire. So it was more important for me to track that. I knew I was spending a decent amount of time working and working on my business. Although I track all that, I have a tool that I use. It's called a tracker. There's a free version. I use the $4.99 one-time tool. It's a letter A and then tracker. And I keep track of my time that way. There are people who use other tools. Some people use toggles. Some people use pen and paper, as I said. Whatever you use, it doesn't matter. Just use whatever tool is helping you that you can sustainably go to. So if it's pen and paper that you know you're going to do every day, do the pen and paper, you don't have to track everything perfectly. Just track one thing. Like, it could be like, "When do I have downtime? What do I do in my downtime?" You know? So something like that is important. Or if I'm trying to do something like when I started wanting to walk every day, like, today's 214 days straight, then I'm walking every day. I wanted to track that because it encouraged me to do something for my health and to get over the fear that you're going to die. You're going to die. You're going to die. You're going to die. So re-changing my attention away from the, "You're going to die. Look at this. Oh, look at your numbers. Oh, look at your vitals. Look at this." I occupied my mind with something else. It gave me something better and more empowering to focus on. And I also track, "Oh, I'm spending three hours a day in program. How much time am I spending one-on-one with God?" So that's the purpose of that. And however you track it is fine. But for me, that's what I use because it's something that's quick and easy. I just tap, tap, tap, and it's there. And I don't have to do any extra work because I'm... You could say I'm lazy, but you could also say I'm efficient. So I try to use something that's fun for me to use. One of my sponsors, she's an artist, so she draws it and she puts her own colors and things like that. So whatever floats your boat, as long as it gets done and as long as it's something that's meaningful for you and that you're going to use to encourage yourself and not beat yourself up over it. Because if you start beating yourself up over it, then you're going to feel bad and you're going to want to act out in some way. That's what I would say. Thank you. Thank you, Martina. Thank you, Rina. Thanks, Rina. Nancy. Yes. Thanks, Rina. And thank you so much for agreeing to serve and sharing. It's really special. One thing that really jumped out at me was to take response balls upon myself to value myself. Don't depend on someone else. Now, one thing in the last couple of weeks, people have given me some affirmations that have been really encouragement because it's proving to me that I am changing one other people notice, really big changes. But today, my reaction was, I mean, we're talking several really big things. I have a hard time receiving from others as well as from myself. And I found myself wanting to go into those attitudes that were spiraling me down. And I wonder if you have any suggestions in terms of getting out of that down world spiral and putting my focus back up and to encouraging myself. Thanks. Yep. I do fun things. I love the color pink. A lot of my dresses are blues and pinks. And I'm wearing one of my favorite blue dresses. I got a pink cover for my big book in 12 and 12, right? That's fun for myself. I have this little journal, which is my prayer formation journal. So I write things 10 times in there. So you can see this has this spread has four pages in there. I write things like, I am safe and protected. God is guiding me to do his will. I am loyal to God. I enjoy the goodness of God every day. I am relaxed. God is taking care of me 100%. I work with excellence. All my bills are paid. Thank you, God, for insight. I am considerate. I forgive easily. Not exactly, but it's an aspiration. So those are things that I do. I love without expectations. That's another one that I have in there. I am purposeful. You know, thank you, God, for safety. I accept myself. And I write, I love Eurena. I work hard to distinguish myself. Thank you, God, for a good day. You know, I value nutrition every day. Self-care is God's care. You know, so I do things like that to encourage myself. Now, in terms of accepting help, how can I not accept help? Because if I'm not willing to accept help, how am I going to help another sponsor accept my help? And I'm not willing to accept the help. If I don't think I need help, I don't have any need to be here. There are plenty of people who can act out and they can do things that are major or minor, but they'll get up the next day and they can go to work. Me, I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm going to need more. So I do need help. And humility, step seven, I think like, there's one time in my recovery, I felt like for most of an entire year, God had me in step seven and kept coming, kept me going back to step seven in all my programs. Because at the time, my financial recovery was not underway. And I had to become willing to take a job that was willing to give me money. I can't say, Oh, this is an under earning job. I should be earning XYZ because I have a business that does blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, I didn't have a client offering to pay me that kind of money. So I had to take the job that was going to provide. And that B job is something that turned out to be extremely useful for my recovery, extremely useful for humility and also extremely useful for the growth of my business. Because there are things that I learned as a result of that, there are things that happened on that job as a result of me taking that job that I would have never gotten anywhere else. No amount of talking to a sponsor could have replaced that experience. And I would not have known I was going to get all those things out of that job, out of accepting that job, if I had not actually done it. My sponsor could not have predicted it. No matter of praying could have predicted it. I had to go through and have the humility to accept that, accept something that was being given to me and let God make it what it could. And I have to say, I'm strong enough to be humble. I'm willing to be humble. I'm willing to demonstrate to God that I'm humble to take this. And if somebody sees me doing this job after seeing me on TV, seeing me in the newspaper, and I'm doing this door to door job, okay, but I'm doing something honest with my time. And I'm doing something to be responsible for my bills. So if somebody looks down on me for that, that's okay. I have other people who don't look down on me, and I can spend more time with the people who don't look down on me than with the people who are judging me. Pass. Thank you very much. Thank you, Nancy and Rina. Now we have Bob. Hello, my name is Bob, and I'm Edict. Thanks for your share and thanks for your information. Really helpful. I got a question. I have a big financial challenge, and you talked about solving your financial problems and do things you normally wouldn't do. Besides getting a job, did you do other things to change your money mindset, your to change your financial problems? I'm really curious because I have, I have depth. I created because of my addictions. I want to take responsibility, but I really need guidance. So I'm really open for your advice. Thank you. Yeah, that's something I needed to have help with. It's not something that I could pray away. I needed to have the humility to do that. And that's another way that I accepted help because I knew that I could apply for a hardship and say, here's what was going on, and I didn't want to do it. I'm like, I would rather pay through the nose and pay every cent, every penalty, every piece of interest instead of reducing myself and be like a beggar and say, oh, please, you know, whatever. And then one of my sponsors said, Rina, put your ego on a shelf and request that hardship consideration. And I did it. I created the letter. I read it to a few people in program. And then I said, hey, there were things going on with me. Here's the things that I tried to do to fix it. I didn't go into a great deal of death, but I said, I tried to do certain things to fix it. It didn't work. I was not responsible, but now here are the things that I started to do in order to make sure that I am financially stable and solvent going forward. And I respectfully request that you please reduce my interests and penalties for this debt. And I am willing to work with you to resolve this debt, but I have other debt that I'm trying to take care of. And I also need to make sure I provide for myself to make sure that if something happens to my health or whatever else happens again, that I'm not going to be back in this position. So, and I told them, and I didn't say it was through 12-step programs. And I said, and I have people that I meet with every single month to review my finances to make sure that I'm staying responsible. So, I have accountability for the way I spend money and to make sure that this debt is retired. And you know something, 25% of that was eliminated. That's a lot of money. I can take that money by having that humility. I can now take that money and take care of another debt. I can save that money towards my future. I can donate some of it in the rooms. I can do something that money is now available to do something else simply because I had the humility to say, you know what, I screwed up and put it in a writing. Yes, I screwed up and signed my name, my legal name to say, yes, I screwed up, but I'm also doing something about it. And, you know, God opened that door. And now because of the fact that I was willing to do that, you know, I shared my hardship letter with different people in the room to say, here, this is what I said. And if they want to use some portion of that to talk to their creditors, to get either a debt moratorium or to work out a payment plan or something, you know, I share that with people. So now it becomes, just like page 124 in the big book says, we grow by our willingness to face, to face, and we grow by our willingness to face and correct our actions and convert them into assets. And then on the bottom of page 124, it says, cling to the thought that in God's hand, the dark past is the greatest possession you have with it. You have the key to life and happiness for others. So the same thing that was kicking my butt that embarrassed me to no end, that I did not want anybody in the room to know that I did not want to own up to, to the people that I owed the money to. Now that same thing, which was a source of humiliation for me, I thought is now an asset that I can use to help other people get past their own problems. So that's why it's okay to have humility because God can use that same source of shame, like my sex addiction or whatever else God can now transform that problem that I have. And that becomes a tool in someone else's recovery, as well as my own recovery past. Thank you, Bob. And thank you, Reena. And we have some hands raised, but I got a chat prior to that from someone who wasn't able to raise his hand. So I'm going to call on Ed. Thank you very much, Reena. I want to have to say that your question, your answers and your question should be spent over three or four or five hours instead of just 25 minutes. I have just overwhelmed with the things you said. I've been a sexaholic for over 70 years, and I didn't find essay until about five years ago. And I thought that was my bottom. But I was my wife and I separated on July 3rd of this year, and this to me has been a bottom that I had never thought I would reach. One of the things that you said being in control, you can't do that, you've got to depend on God. And for me personally, what I had tried to do control, what I was doing, my recovery for wasn't for me. It was to be a better man for my wife. And as much as that is important, it really didn't work for me. The day that I left the house, I realized that I was not in control, that I had no power over what I was doing. My life was unmanageable, even in essay. But over the last four and a half months, I think I've done more recovery in that time period that I've done in the past five years. And one of the things that I found for me personally is I had to take the word control and break it into two things. For me, control isn't control. It has to be acceptance in my part of what's going on and surrender of my life to God. And since then, I've had a great thing. But I really appreciate your comments about not being in control, depend on God. I also love your 24/7 step 10 inventory that you day, day in and day out. Thank you. Thank you, Ed. And, you know, did you want to make a comment at all? Thank you, brother. And I hope things improve for you. I've learned that I need to keep the focus on myself and my own recovery. And at one point, I did tell my husband that because he was like, you're going out again, you're going to another meeting, I said, yeah, I need help. So I was going to open AA meetings, even though I've never been drunk a single day in my life. I was going to any any fellowship that had open meetings, I was willing to go to whether or not I had that addiction. Because I had given up hope that my marriage was going to be fixed. And I thought my marriage was a goner. So I was not even in the rooms hoping for that at all. But I knew that as bad as I was in my addiction, whether or not my husband leaves me, I need sobriety because I was just a bomb waiting to go off and it needed to be deactivated. So that's why I just kept the focus on myself. I want to feel that I want to look good. I wear pretty dress. I wear it for me. He doesn't have to give me a compliment. I can go to Wawa and go pick up, you know, something for breakfast or for something for lunch dressed like this. I work from home. I'm not traveling to any client. I work from home. I can dress like this for myself and appreciate myself. So the same thing for my recovery. I can get into the book. I can get into the step into action book. I can get into the daily reader. I can get into all this stuff and work on myself and do things for myself. And it's okay to work the program just for myself. I'm worth the recovery. God made this available for me. And I'm here to soak up all of it and take all of it and implement all of it as much as I can. I pass. Thank you, Ed. And thank you, Nina. Now we have Lois. Yeah, yes. Thank you so much, Rina. I really appreciated your share. But yeah, like your hard work and determination really is very inspiring to me. All the different groups that you threw yourself in. It's like, oh my goodness, I didn't even realize there are all of these different groups. But can you, are you allowed to share like the ones that you, like the, is there a financial one? Like you mentioned financial and other ones. Can you, can you go ahead and let us know what all of the ones are that you were involved in? Is it okay, Margot, to say that at this meeting? Or I don't want to bring the roles of the group. As long as it's a 12 step program, I think it's okay. Yes. If it's not a people being mad at me later. I've been seven fellowships. I can finally admit to number seven now because I've been pounding away at those meetings. SSA, SSA, SLAA. Once I got 60 days sobriety in the three S programs and I got on step four, I started working UA. Then I worked UA for a year simultaneously with SA. At seven months of sobriety, I started sponsoring an essay. And I was still working my UA program. And then after a year, I started BDA, which is a part of DA, debtors anonymous, business debtors anonymous. By that time, I had enough recovery in these other programs. And I was solid enough that I was doing only one step per month in BDA because I wanted to take it slow. There have been a lot of gaps in my business since the 10 years that it's been operating. So I felt like I wanted to take my time with my step study group in BDA to learn how to be a proper business person instead of doing it by the seat of my pants. That was a lot of humility too because there were a lot of really super basic things that I had never done. And I'm finally getting around to it and you're in line of my business at that time. And then 4th of July last year, I started OA because my weight had gotten to a new high in 12 step programs. And because of a health scare that I rebranded as a my wake up call this year, I took my OA program seriously. I started reading labels. I started learning to cook at 49 years old. I started to learn to cook to save my life because I had to avoid super salty things. So I learned how to, I learned how to cook and I experimented. And there's a lot of things I threw away. No matter how hard I tried to eat it, it was just so horrible. It was not edible. But I'm like, you know what, it doesn't matter how many times I have to throw this away. I'm going to keep learning how to make this one thing until I figure out how to make it. And it's the same thing with recovery. Almost every day this year, I feel like I have been failing in my OA program. I'm like, but you got you got sobering an essay and an essay after 60 days. Like, why can't you get abstinent and stay abstinent in OA the same way? And I'm beating myself up a lot. But in spite of me beating myself up a lot, in spite of me failing at being abstinent all the time, I keep coming back. Overcoming the shame of relapsing all the time in my food program is my number one job. I fail a lot. I fail every single week, but I come back every single week. And that's the number one thing I have going for me that I keep trying. I started going to a lot of Alan on meetings since September to give me that emotional sobriety so that I don't go to food or I don't go to solitaire or I don't go to wasting my time and energy some other way to give me that emotional sobriety to stay with a difficult feeling. Like when now that I'm getting closer to the way that I used to do to be when I was doing a lot of acting out, a lot of those feelings are coming up. And I'm like, oh no, I don't want these feelings when I started shutting down, when I didn't know how to deal with problems and I ran to sex and to other addictions for feeling better. And now I have to sit with those feelings instead of running away. The insecurities that I felt, I can't run away from the insecurity. I have to sit with it. And I have to learn how to let even though, you know, like for just this week, for two days, I was battling onion rings in my mind. I have never had a problem with onion rings my whole life. But for some reason, if you could, you know, earlier this week, all of a sudden it was this bright, flapping thing that I had to have. And for two days, it was a battle. But I had the tools now to do the battle in my mind and hold out for two days. I was brown knuckling it, but I survived. I survived. That's awesome. So, you know, the ability to, the ability to fight through a problem is something that I never had. It's a skill that I never had. I just wanted to cave in. I just want to say, I just want to do what I want to do. Is it really what I want to do? Or is it just, I don't know how to, I don't know how to go through difficulty. You know, the 12 and 12 talks about two about that too. We have a total inability to form a true human partnership. So, instead of going to food, I have to learn to make a true human partnership with other people in OA, with other people in SA, with other people in Alana, with other people in whatever program, learn how to go to those people and say, I'm really not okay today. Here's the thing. Okay, yeah. Okay, so point me. And Akiba, I'm sorry. That's all the time we have. I hope you can stay in the parking lot. I believe Reena has blocked out time to be at the parking lot. Thank you. So, thank you so much, Reena. This has been a fantastic meeting. I would like to thank you for listening to this episode of The Daily Reprieve, the best source for experience, strength, and hope for SA 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.thedayrepreieve.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.