Kathy Speaking to the Barcelona "Easy Does It, But Do It" meeting on October 11, 2023
The Daily Reprieve
Barcelona Meeting - Kathy
[Music] Hello and welcome to the Daily Reprieve, where we provide essays, speaker meetings, workshops, and conferences, and podcast format. We are an ad-free podcast. If you enjoy listening, please help us be self-supporting by going to Donate.WReprieve.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, 11th October, 2023, we are very happy to have with us Kathy R. from Oregon in the U.S. sober since 4th of March, 2009. She will be sharing on the topic of "Lonely but not Alone." You are now on Kathy, and you have 25 minutes to share. Daniel has volunteered to be the spiritual timekeeper. Okay, thank you. And if you can give me a five-minute warning at the end, that would be great. Can you see that, Kathy? I don't know if I can see it unless you speak up because I'm just on my phone and my car. I'll give you an audio in one five minutes. Thank you so much. I'm going to start by doing a third step prayer because I need to make sure my mind's in the right place. God, I offer myself to thee, to build with me, and to do with me as thou wilt. Believe me, the bondage of self, that I may better do thy will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help, of thy powers I love, and thy way of life. May I do thy will always, thy will not mind be done. And yeah, plan A was to be at home that I don't have internet, so I'm in a Starbucks parking lot. I'm glad to be here. Hello, I'm Kathy Sexaholics from Oregon, U.S., sober since March 4, 2009. My lust took the form of compulsive masturbation, compulsive fantasy, meaning a hundred percent out of reality, including while driving, masturbating or at least being in fantasy while driving, objectification, porn, using objects for purposes not intended for, emotional affairs, mental voyeurism, flirting, and my drug of choice as pastors and our spiritual leadership. I've been in the fellowship of S.A. since January of 2007, and again sober since March 4, 2009. And just I do live alone in a studio with my two cats. The topic is lonely, but not alone. When I asked to speak, I want to say two months ago, a while ago, within about one hour God gave me the topic. I told God I didn't want to speak on that topic. I hate the topic, as is a big struggle for me. Yeah, God kept assisting, even speaking through others, not in S.A. I have never met before. Only on September 28, did I finally make public the topic, undoubtedly God directed with me dragging my feet the entire way. And just so you know I'm speaking to myself, as well as to everyone on this meaning, I feel lonely. What do I do? It starts with my surrendering my right, preferably at least daily, to be in a relationship with a man and eventually be married. If I am not surrendering my right to be in a relationship, my recovery is guaranteed to be in a slippery slope on my way to losing my sobriety. I can name at least three women with over 10 years of sobriety that lost their sobriety due to their focusing on needing to be in a relationship. The relationship can be a real physical one, or an imaginary one, also known as one in fantasy. Either way, surrendering my right to be in any romantic relationship is critical to my recovery. I have been at peace for years now about being in a relationship. In other words, I've worked my program by quickly surrendering my right to be in a relationship. Yet there is still a deeper level. Life is meant to be lived in community. By community, I do not mean romantic relationships of any kind, but all other kinds of relationships. Even essay is not meant to be worked alone, and I am not meant to live life alone. Yeah, meanwhile, I find myself with only acquaintances and no obvious person to call if I truly need help are those who might be able to help are known to not be available even if I did reach out due to known boundaries. The boundaries of others is why I routinely tell others both in essay and out of essay. My phone is available 24/7. Go free to text or leave voicemail. I might pick up or I might not pick up. Either way, I am willing to make time by planning appointment if nothing else as you are more important, and I will make time for you. It is hard. I have been angry, frustrated, lonely, hopeless, rejected, confused, abandoned, hurt, jealous, frustrated again, resentful, sad, inferior, alone, angry at God, angry at myself. Why God? Why me? Don't you see me, God? No one knows me, let alone wants to know me. I am invisible. When someone starts to know me, they leave, and I want to take it personally, when often it has nothing to do with me. What is wrong with me? I have grown so much in recovery and life, yet still no close friends, beyond mere acquaintances. What are you doing, God? What do you want, God? Yet I often invite myself not in community. I live alone, and I am alone. More recently, in recent months, possible years, I've been surrendering my right to have a best friend, surrendering my right to have any friend, surrendering my right to be in a mentoring relationship, surrendering my definition of friendship, surrendering my right to be physically a part of a family, surrendering my right to live in a community also are just with others. Living in community has been a passion of mine most of my life. I know it would be very hard, yet growth happens to community in ways that doesn't happen outside it, in ways that doesn't outside a community. I have known the importance of face-to-face relationships, most vividly learning that importance in recovery in 2011. I enjoyed a different fellowship in 2010, only doing meetings and connections over the phone. Then about nine months later, I had the opportunity to be in a face-to-face meeting in person. And at one hour, one hour only, I didn't spend much time more time at all, I grew more than the entire previous nine months combined. I was shocked and was not to believe that huge of a difference had I not experienced it. In my experience, Zoom is at much better and extremely easy to hide. I realize face-to-face meetings aren't always possible, yet whenever the opportunity comes, for example, while traveling for a face-to-face meeting, I do not turn it down. Face-to-face is important enough to me, generally speaking, not just as say. I will nearly always do the face-to-face option over the phone or Zoom to practice not hiding, which I so easily do. It is much more likely to grow relationally face-to-face and growth is never comfortable. Once sponsor had me write about my commitment to being uncomfortable, followed by welcome to recovery, learning to grow in healthy ways is part of learning to grow relationally in healthy ways as part of that say recovery. Meanwhile, what do you want from me, God? And from God, I want you, daughter. I want you to tell me how you're feeling. Are hard. Yeah, so important to walk through them, allowing myself to feel each one. I know it's raining. I don't know if that's loud, but I'll keep going. I was holding it in because my life wasn't or isn't how I think it should be, refusing to admit my anger, frustration, etc. Meanwhile, I have also not noticed what I do have. I have not been practicing gratitude with community I do have. I haven't been recognizing God's provision of community, not my way, not my preferred plan, that God's way and God's plan. God has reminded me the following community is in place in no particular order, like CrossFit community. And yes, it is possible to exercise in community and remain sober while practicing my program. I know not everybody's in that place. CrossFit has often been the one community who reaches out when I am not there, even better than my spiritual community. And it just so happens, I'm getting ready. I've done CrossFit for over two years now, and I'm getting ready to do a competition at the novice level with a team of three women, which is shocking to me because I hate exercise my entire life. Also, I'm like spiritual community, which happens to be a newer community of just over a year. I have relationships at work, even though my job is hard. In fact, I'm starting to actively look for another job that's that hard. My counselor is begging me to find another job. It's that hard. God undoubtedly worked in my relationships at work, and I am grateful to have them. Also, there's a neighbor that lives above me. It's not the ideal relationship in my opinion. In fact, we disagree a lot. Yes, she has also been there for me in ways others have not been, and she has two handsome boy cats, friendships within my new spiritual community. Not the ones I wanted. They're ones I want to have, but these are the ones I need, and I tend to focus on what I want and not what I need. The God clearly directs my relationship in ways I cannot imagine. And as part of a woman's event in my spiritual community, we had a craft where we made signs you are something. We could choose if you are, and I made a sign that you are known, and that is a word from God to me. So God has provided community, when my essay community isn't working for me generally. I used to go to face-to-face meetings a lot. My area used to have a lot more face-to-face meetings. They primarily do Zoom now, but also my home essay area is now in a half away from me. Excuse me. So we're talking gas money, inconvenience, and not nearly what they had to offer before. I do make it a point to be an essay community. Yeah, it doesn't look like what it used to look like. I also have my physical family, which they're not perfect. They don't live close. They live about an hour away. Yet they are a beautiful part of my community when I choose to acknowledge it. And prior to recovery, I hated my family. I did not want to spend time with them. And our relationship hasn't changed a whole lot. Yet as I'm a recovery, I appreciate them, and I accept them. And I want to spend time with them. I have changed not them. And also I'm in a newer recovery community because I can go face-to-face to this community. It's not my way, yet obviously God's way. And my essay community does include my sponsor, my home area, Portland Vancouver, and the woman's WhatsApp group in particular. I cannot believe how when I started, I literally could name every woman in essay, and I'm glad I don't have a clue how many women there are today. Truly. It is important to fill the loneliness along with other feelings, including telling God about how I feel. Recovery is about learning to face feelings, not ignore them. Ignoring my feelings puts me down a slippery slope to losing my sobriety, as acting on my left had been a way of dealing with my feelings. Loneliness is a feeling, a very hard feeling to feel, get very important to feel in faith, and to continue feeling and facing. Facing feeling loneliness is an ongoing process, not a one-time event. Emotions, including loneliness, won't last forever, but they will wait forever. Does sooner I face any emotion, the quicker I will grow? As far as community, my first reaction is to ignore the community I do have, because it isn't my definition of community. Instead I need to learn to accept, I continue learning to accept the community God has put in front of me, even though it has nothing to do with my definition. I find this set aside for our helpful. My version that I've made for me is God please help me set aside everything I think I know often I don't have a clue about myself, my disease, these steps, recovery, my job and career, finances, my family, my community, and especially you. But open mind and a new experience with myself, my disease, these steps, recovery, my job and career, my finances, my family, my community, and especially you. Emphasis on put aside what I think I know for an open mind and new experience, which is part of the how, honesty, open-minded, and willingness. Pranks aren't open mind works. That's often when I have variety of things coming up, I ask for God's power for an open mind because it's never in my power that happens. I need to acknowledge my community and thank God for the many opportunities to grow that are already on my doorstep. I need to open the door, acknowledge there's a package on my doorstep. Thank God for the package, open the package, and enjoy the gift of community. And those are all action steps. Just like the spiritual program, the spiritual program of action working the 12 steps in the essay is action as well. Yeah, open the package and enjoy the gift of community. I've been good and given, including being in community with God and building my spiritual life. Being a community with God and building my spiritual life is probably the hardest part for me. Yet that is the most important part. We need others, we need others, we need others in the fellowship. We need to work the physical part of the program doing the steps. The God is a part of that. And if I'm not building my relationship with God, I'm also not growing. It isn't easy. Yet the program truly does work for, if you work it. And thanks for letting me share. That's actually all I have prepared. I did not know how long it would be or not. So thank you for letting me share. Thank you so much, Kathy. Happy, thank you for your time. I knew it's a new morning. Why I'm on this cold. I was leaving me and after that. After preparing, I think, getting married in Friday or today. I did so to nearly lost the marriage when I was separated. With me, I'd be around. I was going to go, wow, that's good. And I kind of had a family time out. I was going to be around. By the end of the year, four hours, my wife was really, well, I didn't get back to the car. She was getting exhausted. But I didn't get back to her issues. I was listening to children and children I didn't get to carry on. And I was breathing with the kids. And she said this before, but she didn't say it. I had to push the bodies to go in and hold it, believe it. And I really don't mind. I genuinely don't mind if those decide to, you know, actually make it a clean break. But it's like that place of like getting alone again. And I don't win recovery. I don't. Thank you. I don't feel like paralyzing one by one. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Kathy, I don't know if you had a response or if that was just a comment. You muted, Kathy. I'm sorry about that. I did not hear a question and I had a hard time understanding that. But if there was, please let me know. Did you have a question, Michael? It's a little hard to understand your internet. Without no question, no question. I'm continuing. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. Thanks, Michael. Dov. Okay. Have I unmuted? Yes. Okay. Fantastic. I don't know how to take my hand down. Oh, there you go. Thank you for help. This is such a nice meeting and thanks, Kathy, for sharing your experience. I heard the topic. I came on because somebody suggested, hey, there's this great meeting. And I saw the topic about loneliness. And first of all, I just want to thank you so much. The thing that made the greatest impression on me is that it was really clear from what you were saying that you've been getting the most out of the program based on how much you put into it. Whether it's for yourself or service for other people, it's putting it. What I put into my recovery is it's pretty much reflects what I'm going to get from it. And that's such a wonderful thing. And I can do service and gain so much. It makes it easier to do service. So just the topic of the loneliness really struck me as a valuable thing. And I was just thinking how a lot of times when I feel alone or lonely, it's because of relationships that aren't working to my expectation. Not because of a lack of relationship so much, but because I come into relationships with specific expectations and that creates an experience. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't hear that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Sure. Sure. Thank you. Kathy, there was no question, but I think you could comment if you want to. Yeah, what comes to mind is the reading acceptance chapter in the big book. One of my sponsors at one point, she had a habit of doing this with more than one reading, but one of them was the entire acceptance chapter. I had to read it for 30 days in a row. And if I chance I missed a day, I had what to start that 30 days over. And as much as I hated assignments like that, and which I routinely hated every assignment my sponsors gave me, by the way, my sponsors knows what I need. I do not, including the sponsor, including which sponsor, by the way, but what there's so much to learn reading that acceptance chapter and accepting what I have versus focusing on what I don't have is a huge part of recovery. Thanks. Thank you, Dov and Kathy. Nancy. Yeah, hi. Thank you so much for sharing, Kathy. Your title hasn't rigged me ever since you. You share it to me because I can relate to being alone and not lonely, but lonely and not alone is kind of backwards. You talked about it wasn't your idea what you envisioned as community and then what you have in community. And I wonder if you could go into more detail, like really a lot more detail anyway. What that envisioned would be, is that a fantasy type community? And then how you see community in the acting out of your real life. Thanks. Yeah, this whole topic has been, I guess that on, it's been a, on my mind, definitely since, since I have, since I got a particular master's degree back in '05, I actually wanted to write on a, write on a topic of loneliness and community. The only reason I didn't is because I couldn't narrow down the topic and there was a book that I, that was a base of that I'm not going to mention it's not, it's an outside issue. But all my life, I've seen the community out there and I've wanted it and I've not been a part of it in the way I would launch. That's like, it's kind of like rejection of the theme while lack of community is a similar theme. But ideally, and I know this would be extremely hard because I know, I don't even have a roommate. I have not ever had a healthy relationship of any kinds I've lived with. In fact, I'm not even sure I'm just barely getting healthy relationships now. And that's learning how to have a healthy relationship is a huge part of recovery. And the fact that I live alone now and I've lived alone since the middle of 2002 prior to, prior I was married for near 14 years that was absolutely not a healthy relationship. I'll leave it at that. But living alone is, I know, I know there's problems not living alone too. I'm not dismissing that. But one thing about living alone is when you do have somebody you're living with, whether it's a roommate or a spouse or whoever, that person or those people get the brunt of your really bad days. They know you at your worst because it's going to come out at home. When I don't have somebody I'm living with, those bad days, they come out at work, they come out at my spiritual community, they might come out even in this, they retreat. But they're not going to come out at home with my cap. I'm pretty sure about that. That's just different. And so when I'm having my bad days, it looks, you know, it's just harder to cope with. But because other people are having their bad days at home and I'm having my bad days in front of them and they're not at home. And I recognize that. And I know I'm growing. I know I've grown relationally. And I've grown more than I want to accept sometimes. And I did do an internship with an agency at one point where part of it was preferably living in community, which we didn't do physically, but we spent a lot of time together. Boy did myself come out then. And as hard as that was, I missed it. But ideally, I would like to live in a community where there's... I'm not sure if I care about having a roommate, but I've always loved the idea of living in a house with several people, living a community and sharing life together. I know that's really, really hard and I know I would probably hate it when I'm there, but it's the way to grow. And without facing people face to face, I don't get to grow relationally. And with the right setup, in fact, my spiritual community has a house where several men live in and they're talking about doing a woman's house. Well, that would be ideal for me. If something like that ever happened, because that way, there'll be times I can be alone, that there's also other times that I'm forced to do my part. And if you're putting a place to practice community, not just talk about it. And that's why I routinely choose to do face to face as a variety of events, because I want to practice healthy relationships face to face. It's not like living with them, but I can practice them. And it means falling. It means getting back up again. It means falling. It means getting back up again. It means continuing to fall and getting back up again. And it means realizing that at least some of the people around me have grace to realize that I don't know about as much as relationships as maybe they do, because I haven't had the opportunity to grow in a healthy way that way. And that's really hard. Yet again, like I said before, I know growth is uncomfortable. And if I'm comfortable in a relationship, I guarantee I'm not growing. So I do whatever it takes to put myself in a place where I'm facing relationships on a routine basis, even if I don't want to go there sometimes. You know, and even with Sponties, I mean, I've learned a lot of my sponsors have not been local to me, so I've definitely, well, I mean, I make do with what I have, too. Because ideally, it's best to meet with Sponties face-to-face if at all possible. And oftentimes, even when I've had sponsors that are across the country or in another country in some cases, we've often been able to meet and that they've met together and have that face-to-face time. Or I might drive to her house if she's within driving distance. But minimally, I've had people ask me to also know about Texas. Like, texting is not relational. It's possibly for logistics, but not relational. And I've learned to even text a little bit more because that's where people are at. That hearing somebody's voice and seeing them, even over Zoom, is better than not. But I also, like I said, I hide behind Zoom really well myself. I don't, you know, most meetings that require you to shove your face up at all. And even then, you know, it's just, you can't, they can't see your whole self anyways. You're always hiding something, let alone it. But like when I went to that one face-to-face meeting after being in a fellowship for nine months, only on the phone, my whole self was in front of them. They saw me from head to toe. I couldn't hide. And I faced myself in a way I've never faced myself before with them. It's not comfortable, but it's beautiful in your growing community. Thanks. Wow. Thank you, Kathy and Nancy. So I'll just call on myself. Kathy, I identified so much with your feelings as another single person and also with how, yeah, my rough parts come out when I'm in with people because they don't come out at home. So I'm constantly doing 10 steps when I come home from whatever event. Anyway, I wanted to ask you, I love your humor. I love your honesty. I really appreciate it. And I wondered, you know, you said a lot of things about this isn't what I wanted, but what God wanted. And even the sponsor, I'm not sure I wanted. What is it? Could you say, what is it that caused you to complete, to keep surrendering to this program and to what was put in front of you? Wow, that's, yeah. Yeah, I know you have more experience and hope than I do, Margo. But hey, you've been around longer. Those two things are not the same. But what I want and what I don't want, it's partially, I've known, I even before my sponsor told me about the commitment to being uncomfortable. I've always been willing, no, I don't know, I don't know about always, but I've been serious about facing life and serious about doing what it takes to help myself move forward, whatever way I can. And with that say in particular, I mean, when I came into the fellowship, I had to be serious. I lived three hours one way away from a closest essay meeting. And so once a week, I would drive three hours one way to go to an essay meeting, possibly spend a weekend in Portland, Vancouver area. And then I would drive three hours one way going home. And so at one point, I was answering the hotline in the Portland area for women that called up. And they would start complaining to me about coming from across Portland. And I would warn them, you're talking to the wrong person now. Just so you know, I come, you know, this is what I do. I'm willing to meet you in a meeting. But if you want recovery, you will find it. You will get there. Portland has a lot of public transportation. Occasionally, I would even offer them a ride. Very few, probably a few results from that, but I was desperate enough when I came in a counselor helped me find, well, she even told me essay. She gave me a list of excerpts. Here you go, pick one. And there's no doubt essay was the right one, even though it was three hours away. And so from day one, I was doing whatever it took to get recovery. And when it comes to finding a sponsor, in my experience, every single sponsor I have. Well, no, the one I have now, and the first one I have, that's a little bit different story, but again, well, yeah, my present sponsor, she was the first person, one of the first women I met in essay. And the first day I came to Portland, I went to two different meetings. Two different women met me. They don't even have all those meetings anymore. But the second meeting, I was going to pick up the woman because she goes, "Well, I'm having card problems. I can't tell unless you pick me up. Where do you live?" I had to drive at least a half an hour out of my way further to go get her, but I did that. And the second I saw her, I knew that she would be a good sponsor for me. I just knew that. And then two weeks later, she was. With other sponsors, let's just say I see women that work the program hard, and I don't know if they would be a hard sponsor for me in one way or another. I need a program and it actually has terrified me what they might want me to do. But on the other hand, I wanted their recovery. And so I went and asked for it. In one case, looking for a sponsor, I was in an essay at the non-convention. And I told God I was going to ask anybody, there was further and longer steps to me to be my sponsor. And I asked people that I didn't want to be my sponsor. I asked people I never met before, but I did that. And along with it, I prayed for the open-mindedist, even see what I thought there to begin with, because I don't want to see it. It turned out the person became my sponsor actually came up to me related to my fair. And I asked her where she was at my steps. Okay, you're it. And then she agreed. And so I don't know what I need, but God knows. And when I ask her direction, I get it. Well, go ahead. And even some of the guys in Portland, I mean, they routinely through the years, even somewhat recently when I haven't been up there a lot at all. But it's like they find out I drive that far. It's like, oh, I could never do that. Well, if you want recovery, you could. And so I think I came in with the mindset of I need essay to begin with. And I wasn't being, I did play around some of my first two years, but it wasn't intentional playing around. For whatever reason, I just didn't get it. But I certainly came in with I need to work the program. Great. Thank you so much. Nora, you're up. Nora, are you there? Yes, I'm having some connection. It's just, can you hear me okay now? Yes, it's good. Thank you. Thanks, Morgan. Thank you so much for sharing, Kathy. First of all, I just want, I merely just want to say that it's so good to see you. And I just felt like speaking up and thanking you so much for your share. And I saved the date. I saw the announcement last week and I saved it. And I just got the message that you were going to talk today. And I'm so glad I could make it. And I've always appreciated your experience, strength, and hope. And I'm so glad I could make it to the meeting today. So that's it. Thank you so much for sharing. Thanks, Nora. And I will be right back again. Thank you, Nora. So we have plenty of time. We have another little over 10 minutes, if people would like to share. I'm Nancy Texaholic. I wanted to mention that Kathy has spoken for us previously. If you have the announcement and click the link for previous speakers, she spoke on sponsorship, both being a sponsor and being a sponsor. And it was an excellent share. Thanks. Daniel, thanks, Nancy. Daniel, did you want to say something? I just wanted to second that. I believe I have in file Kathy's notes on sponsorship from that talk. I'm wondering if Kathy or Dan, I mean, if Iris or Daniel could put the link to the previous speakers in the chat. See, maybe Iris can. She's way better at that than look at that, like in three seconds. Thank you, Iris. Thank you, Daniel. Mike, if you can wait just a minute until Kathy comes back, we'd love to hear from you. That's it. I am back now. Thank you. We were just advertising your previous talk on sponsorship. So we just put the link into previous talks into the chat. So thank you so much for coming back. So Mike, go ahead. Thank you. Yeah, so Mike, I'm a sexaholic. Really good to hear the topic of loneliness being discussed. I'm a loner and I'm comfortable in my own company, but I've learned in recovery that I do need relationships and I do need people and I do need to connect. I've also discovered that I'm self-centered and selfish. And of course, I've had a tendency to want relationships on my own terms rather than thinking of being a friend, I'm a taker rather than a giver. So these things I've been learning about in recovery. And it was really helpful to hear you talk about expectations of relationships. That's been dawning on me recently that I have too many expectations and it's one of the reasons why I struggle in relationships. But to hear you share it so clearly has been really, really helpful for me. I've been trying to frame a question in my mind. I always want to hear a bit more from you. I don't quite know what to ask you. And it's somehow trying to frame a question and if it makes no sense, then that's fine. But I've often struggled between there's something wrong with me and there's something wrong with other people. What do I need to change? Do they need to change as I've been so confused in relationships over the years? So I'm gradually moving towards a more peaceful place that, you know, I'm okay, they're okay and I've just got to learn to relate better. But I wanted if you've experienced that conflict and if you could speak to that at all. Um, yes. Yeah, and first of all, we're all human. So we need to learn more from the people who don't want to do things like that. But they're going to have their own problems regarding. So I can change this myself. And the biggest thing I find is when I press over something for one reason. The common thing is the common thing is the common thing because it's something we've seen before. It's something that brings up enough people to choose. You're for some reason the connection's a little bit garbled right now. I don't know. Is that better? That's better. That's better. I'm really quickly, exactly weird a second. I'm a little bit ago. I think the advice with big records says to friends with people for two weeks. With their feelings a little bit more. It's not because they're not being meant. That's a common commitment. It's important to those people until I have peace about it. And what happens is as a part of that prayer is I also start accepting them for who they are. And I have compassion for them in a way I did not before. And as I said, people was having that great compassion. I'm a piece too. And I got myself straight. If I was meant to make, I made it. And if not, I'd let them be with a lot of it. Because I can't deal with their problems. I can be their form, but I can't deal with their problems. Well, so there was a lot of it's best way of my job right now, which is I can't make up how interesting it is. Because I actually started to evolve the union and freedom of the kind of thing. But it's not a good job. So now women get to be here for a while, and that's okay. Because I'm happy with every day. Know how to face each individual for two weeks. My job now is pretty good place to go into my first battle of the country. But I follow the guard's direction as a little bit. And the government doesn't live that way. If I don't have to do that. Kathy, it's still it's kind of breaking up a little bit. I don't know what happened last break. It could be the location of her microphone. I'm not sure. Okay. So can you hear me now? Yeah, that's good. Okay, I took my blue chase off. But we did hear you say that you follow God's direction. Yeah. And so following God's direction, relationally, especially at work right now, is a huge part of my program. Because otherwise I would literally be an emotional wreck. It's that it's just really, really hard. Yeah, so I get to practice my program. I get to work on my side of the street only. And as a result of involving God in my relationships with other people, I accept them and I'm more compassionate and gracious. I think that's probably the best summary there. Great. Thank you so much, Kathy. Thank you, Kathy. That's really helpful. Yeah. Thank you, Mike. Akiba, we have about five minutes left for the meeting. Hi. Thank you very much, Kathy. Alonliness is definitely one of these important pieces that you've touched upon. I've worked on my grieving of my father and not being emotionally present there in my essay and other programs and my mother being overly present, which is a typical, I don't know, in my mind, it's a typical European upbringing. When the father claims that he's working or and mother claims that she's a housewife or that's also working through jobs. So, and then go figure out which one is more reliable. My question to you is what hobbies or pools of happiness, if I may, do you do daily to make yourself part of instead of apart from? Okay, that's a good question. Well, definitely talking to God and having prayer and spiritual growth. It's a part of my prayer. Is it just a huge thing? I am praying a lot asking for God's direction or saying the third step prayer, the Serenity prayer or just some kind of prayer, asking for open mind and just even see what's next because I often don't see what's next. Without God's power, I'm not capable of a lot of things. But one huge thing for me too is the exercise and the crossfit and which is crossfit for me. And one thing I really like about crossfit, it's less about exercise and more about community and encouragement. In fact, I had to sign a contract that said I would encourage other people. Because those that are in within the crossfit community, which is worldwide, I know that. Sometimes they say, "anyways, I'm not doing an ad for crossfit, but it is community-oriented if they're really in a crossfit community." So it's like a family there. And so not only do I have this family that cares about me, to the point of finding out where I'm at, if I'm not there, my spiritual community doesn't even do that very well. But I have a place to exercise and vent my feelings, which believe me is really, really needed right now, especially because of work. If I'm not venting those feelings in some healthy way and in crossfit, they have a set work out that they've got to do not hurting yourself perfect. And so I crossfit a lot more now. Doing it in community is extra helpful for me because I get to my feelings as well as exercise, which is a good healthy benefit to begin with and I haven't really done well most of my life. And I also feel my schedule, I'm working on not overfeeling it in some ways, but it's also very important to have community scheduled in, partially with my spiritual family, but also just little social events that come up. I put myself out there because if I'm not being relational, if I'm not trying to be relational, it doesn't happen. I could stay home, talk to my cats. I love my cats and they're probably great for me. I don't offer community with humans. I try to show up, usually I go with me at this point, but getting phone numbers and trying to meet with people and be with people because part of recovery and having healthy relationships is learning how to help healthy relationships with people that are addicts, that is normal life. And if I'm only hanging around addicts, that's not going to happen. And so I put myself out there in all of life as much as possible, whether it's community, work-wise, because work has some events too. My spiritual community or just any other community, well, actually right now I'm singing in a, practicing with a, it's called a sweet home community singing Christmas tree. It's just a couple months of practice, but I'm practicing two nights a week with them right now to get ready for this, the first part of December. So getting out there, getting to know a whole new group of people and talking to them and relating to them, putting myself out there in ways I wouldn't otherwise. Thank you, Kathy. That's about all the time we have, but thank you so much and thank you, Okiba. Ok, thank you so much, Kathy. 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. 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