Steve Speaking to the Barcelona "Easy Does It, But Do It" meeting on January 3, 2024
The Daily Reprieve
Barcelona Meeting - Steve S
[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, the 10th of January 2024, we are very happy to have with us Steve S. from Tennessee in the U.S. sober since the 5th of August 2021. He will be sharing on the topic of sobriety on sleep. You are now on Steve. You have 25 minutes to share and I can time you if you like. How would you like to be timed? That's fine. I'm also starting a timer, but yeah, it's all, we'll definitely keep it in between the lines. Thank you, Margo. And thank you everyone. I'm Steve I'm a sexaholic. I'm very grateful to be here. Before I go on, I want to cast out that my body, it's very uncomfortable when I'm the center of attention in a group of people. And this has improved a lot over my recovery. It's not completely gone. It dates back to my family of origin, and I won't go into detail about that now. But yeah, I'm just going to take a moment of silence again just for a few moments to check in with my body and ask God to help me get my ego out of the way so that I can speak with the words he wants me to speak. So if you'll allow me, I'm going to have just another moment of silence here. Steve sexaholic. I once again, grateful to be with you. And I'm aware that the title or the topic I prayed about that the topic and I told Nancy sobriety on sleepless nights. I do think, you know, perhaps there'll be some applications for the literal meaning of those words, but I think I meant them in a metaphorical sense as well. A sleepless night being a night where I cannot find a dark time when I cannot find rest or peace. So let me start with a brief kind of what I used to be like, what happened and what I'm like now. My earliest sexual memories were around age six. I had deviant thoughts and would get aroused by certain other children's feet. I quickly learned that this was not normal and not okay. And I began to keep secrets and began to control my sexual thoughts and feelings and probably for most of the next eight or nine years, I was fairly effective in not having those thoughts or feelings. But when I became a teenager and adolescents, you know, kicked in, I quickly became powerless and would have shameless shameful fantasies about that involved the same sex, foot fetish type attractions. And I was very, very much what it says in the problem felt inadequate and were the alone and afraid. I tried for about two decades from there to control and manage these thoughts and behaviors on my own unsuccessfully. But it wasn't until 2001 that I became willing to face any consequence. And by that time, I had crossed lines that I'm very sad to have crossed. And as a result of some disclosures I made in treatment back in 2001, it was necessary that I be prosecuted and convicted of felony sexual offenses. And I was a sex offender, a registered sex offender for a little over 13 years. But during that time, I also found that the, that I had been in a prison all my life, a prison of fear and shame, in secrecy, and that that prison had kept me cut off from the truth about who I am, about who others are, about who God is. So I was living in a false reality, which is described in the problem. And in that false reality, I did not have the power to stay sober, did not have the power to live according to the principles that I believed in. And I was more and more increasingly betraying everything that I cared about, everything that I believed in. And once I did become willing to come into the light and face the truth about my behavior and accept the consequences of my behavior, I'll release my grip on trying to control those consequences. All of this I could only learn from a program like SA because I had no basis in my experience for living that way, this new way. But God and the fellowship of SA have supported me in the new way of living. And not only have I been able to remain sober, I've been able to live what I call live successfully in conditions that would have almost surely resulted in my suicide or death by some other means had I not found these tools in the program. So I'm very grateful for that. And I'm still have a very clear sense that I need to keep coming back. I have not graduated from the program. And having said that, it's also very clear to me that some very significant growth has occurred. Not only has my career was devastated, I lost the marriage. I was sued by my victim in his family. And I had to declare bankruptcy. I had an enormous amount of debt and was a lost to professional license that I had borrowed much money to get the education for. And I could not get a gainful employment with my record and my revoked license. And I had a lot of fear around that. And I began learning and I'm still learning that the solution to my problems really lies in a very simple change. What I call a change of basis based on the words in the Big Book of Alcoholics, and that we are now on a different basis. And I consider this a basis for making decisions. It's how I make decisions. I was talking to someone recently about a decision that they were making a sponsor. And the point that we discussed is that the decision itself involved whether or not to do something. And what I believe what I've learned, and I'm still trying to learn to carry out, is that the decision of whether or not to do something many times, I mean, sometimes it's clear. If it's a violation of principle, do not do it. And if it's an action that's sort of urged by principle, then I should do it. But in many cases, it's not clearly either one or the other, like whether to accept a certain job or whether to not accept the job. And the decision itself, I believe in my experience is not as important as the process by which I make the decision. So I have something that I use an awful lot in sponsorship. And I joke about it, you know, and say, you know, 85% of my paycheck as a sponsor comes from this one phrase, one question, have you prayed about that? And, and you know, I enjoy that little joke, but there's a, there's, it's definitely the truth for me that the new basis is really summed up by what it says on page 68. And I'm going to read it now, about 10 minutes above, almost gone by already. 68, and a big book of alcoholics and all this. It says just to the extent that we do as we think we would have, if he would have us and humbly rely on him, does he enable us to match calamity with serenity? And so in order to fulfill that promise, I've got to the condition is that I have to do as I think he would have me do. Now it doesn't say that I have to have to get it right. It just says I have to do my best to do what he would have me do and humbly rely on him. And that's the decision making method that I think is sums up what what I've learned in the steps about how to make decisions for living. Now, how does that relate to the topic? Okay, so a little while ago in our meeting, we were reading, actually we're, you have a book study, we're going through step into action. But at the end of each step is a set of recommended readings. And so we go through those readings when we get to that point in the in the book, we're on page 36 right now, which is a recommended readings for step two. So a few weeks ago, we were in chapter four, the big book. And on page 56, there was there's the story of a man where his his kind of conversion from, you know, the old basis to the new basis happened. And so it says, you know, one night when confined in a hospital, he was approached by an alcoholic who had known a spiritual experience. Our friend's gorge rose as he bitterly cried out, if there's a God, he certainly hasn't done anything for me. But later alone in his room, he asked himself this question, is it possible that all the religious people I've known are wrong? Well, pondering the answer, he felt as though he lived in hell, then like a thunderbolt, a great thought. He crowded out all else. Who are you to say there is no God? And at that point, he became flooded with a with a consciousness of his creator. And so this this question, you know, if there is a God, he certainly hasn't done anything for me. That is an attitude that I'm familiar with. And it relates to what one of my teachers teachers called, well, he said, he put self centeredness in street terms, self centeredness in street terms goes like this. Where's mine? That can't be mine. It's not big enough. It's the wrong color. There's not enough. When's my turn? That's not fair. Why me? And you know, so this is the voice of self pity. And I think it's the ultimate consequence of life on the old basis. And what do I mean by life on the old basis? The life on the old basis is described in the big book on page 61, the actor who wants to be the director. I'm trying to run the whole show. I'm trying to get things to come out the way I think they should. Very well educated, you know, I think very highly of myself and my own ideas. And I think I'm right about most things. And therefore, if I'm right, then, you know, everything would be good. If you all all acted the way, I think you should. This is the attitude of self centeredness. And this is what leads to this kind of despair where I feel at odds with God or questioning even if he's there at all. Now, when I live on a new basis, I get a complete attitude change. The book calls this a spiritual awakening. And I see my own life through completely different eyes. And this can happen very dramatically like it talks about later on on page 56 there, or can sometimes be a little more subtle. But I've always been able to stay sober. And even at least remember what the right attitude is, even if I can't feel it deeply or experience it in a given moment. And that's what I keep coming back for is to get more of that. When I was seeking lust, I kept coming back, trying harder and harder to find the feeling that I was looking for. Please connect with me and make me whole was the prayer that that I prayed to lust. And today I am often remembering how I sought lust in trying to pray that prayer to a different higher power. God of love and a God of mercy and a God who is the power that keeps me sober. If I keep close to him and perform his work well, what does that mean? Well, that's the question I have to ask today. And I can use the experience of yesterday. I can listen to your experiences. I can find guidance in the literature. And and I can, you know, might even be a good idea for me to call my sponsor every so often. And my heart more and more can give me a guide in that context. The more I live this way, it's just like anything that the longer I stayed in pursuit of lust, the more I learned about how my body and my mind worked and in regards to finding lust. If I find, if I do the same thing in pursuit of the new basis, learning how to live, how to find God's will and do it, then I get better over time. And I think what I need to do today is keep moving in that direction. So again, with regards to this idea of sleeplessness, what is sleeplessness to me? It's related to something I call loss of agency. I didn't make that perm up, but it relates a lot to powerlessness for me. And it also connects to other things. I have agency if I reach over and decide to pick up this glass and take a drink. I have agency in that I can decide how to hold the glass and control different aspects of that behavior. And it feels like I myself am doing that behavior. Now, when it comes to something like sleeplessness, or even the feeling I felt in my body at the beginning of this talk, consider a stomachache. I can have a stomachache. And that's not occurring out of agency. I'm not choosing to have a stomachache. I can't practice some mental exercise to make it go away. It simply occurs in my body. And sleeplessness is another thing where I have some agency over things that I can do. I can say, I'm going to go to bed now, when I can do certain things, get into bed, turn the lights out, get comfortable. But sometimes my body does not cooperate. And then I cannot reach that place that I'm hoping to reach. And when it comes to spirituality, I had a long stretch of years, about three years, I would say, between 2017 and 2020, where I had a lot of, I would call it darkness in my body. I could call it a long sleepless night for several years. I mean, I did sleep during that time, but I did not find the rest and the connection that I had found in recovery previously. And I had a lot of folks I was talking to to find out, is this happening? Because I'm doing something wrong with my spiritual program? Is there something I stopped doing that I need to start doing again? Something that I'm doing that I need to stop doing? And I did what I could to find out that. And I really didn't find anything messed up about my program. And rather, what happened was I encountered the need to learn how to be in this dark place, and still act as if I believed that the light was there, even though I couldn't see it or feel it. I remember, you know, for many days in a row, I would not all the time, but I would just, you know, not want to be alive, you know, and not, I would not have anything in my mind that I looked forward to is saying, well, if this were to happen, I would feel better. And with amazement, one time I realized that even lust didn't have any attraction for me during that time. And yet I didn't feel joyful about it because I felt almost dead inside spiritually. And it was a difficult time. But I got a lot of comfort from the memory of the love in the rooms of essay and the encouragement that I got from people. And during that time, also I remained in touch with sponsors, somehow when a sponsor called God put it in me. I mean, because of the pattern of living that you all taught me, that also it was in my nervous system. I think there's a darkness that I had to face that's the product of my living in my disease. That those old circuits are still in my body. And I can't just, you know, shed them off in a day or a year or a decade. But there's something powerful in the fact that, you know, when I was in the disease, I was going through a cycle where I would have these good times where I felt like it was doing okay and I was feeling good. But then I all the time, you know, it would always come back to this place of like despair, inadequate, unworthy, alone and afraid. You know, I was crying out, please connect with me and make me whole without stretched arms to the God of lust. And that God was delivering only death, spiritual death slowly. And so more and more on the best days that I had in my disease, that darkness was still there, that dread, that moment of despair was going to return. And so it poisoned all the good times that I had, you know, in my old way of life. And now on the new basis, I see the opposite happening. You know, I still go around the bend, you know, I've got the good moods and the bad moods. Sometimes things go, you know, in a very good way, and sometimes they don't. But more and more, as I have stopped planting the old seeds, lust and self-will in planting new seeds, you know, they are growing. And during that time of darkness, I still had a little bit of light inside of me. And that made all the difference in the world. There's a saying I heard, you know, in the depths of winter, I discovered within me an invincible summer. And, you know, there's something I believe that God's DNA is inside of all of us, no matter how dark it gets. The man named Victor Fronkel said, you know, if the sun is behind the clouds, I can't see it anymore. But it's still there. And so on a sleepless night, that's the truth I need to hang on to is that there are times in my life where it can have what some folks have called a dark night of the soul, where I cannot feel God. I cannot have any sense of connection with God. I don't have conscious contact with God in my experience, my, you know, psychological experience. But I can still find, seek and find the power to continue making decisions the way you all have taught me in here. And if I do, then my faith will deepen in those times of darkness and God will turn that season of my life for the better. You know, the roots of the tree grow when the ground is dry. Someone said, and I love that image. So I'm, you know, getting to the point of, you know, we're running out of time here. So let me just say, you know, this is the time that I can say, please connect with me and make me whole to the, to the new higher power. And that's the higher power that can deliver, that will deliver. If I will wait for it, he delivers on the promise with life, happiness, and joy. And so I am grateful to be able to be with you all today, and to share this with you, to be on this journey with you. And, and I think that's, that's where I'm supposed to stop. Thank you. Thanks for. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Steve. Steve, thank you so much for sharing. We appreciate your willingness to serve and share, share your experience, strength, and hope with us. Thanks, Margo. I've said to myself, don't jump in first, but I have to, I'm sorry, I have to. Thank you so much for sharing. I could really relate to this dark time. And for me, it's been since, from 2006, continuing into the present. Yes, I saw that, that little glimmer of light, I especially see it. I don't, I don't have trouble with lust, or when I'm involved with program and sponsors, I just, that spark comes. How you talked about, I think it was planting seeds of self-will in relationship to helping to change that. I'm not sure if that's how you put it anyway. I'm wondering if you could speak some more about that, because it's just been really hard. Thank you for the question, Nancy. Yeah, so for me, the image of planting seeds relates back to that thing about how I make decisions, the old basis and the new basis. And I guess the most important question, when I'm working with a sponsor, it's much more explicit. I do try and hope to bring it into my own decision making. And the idea is that I need to ask myself, you know, when I have desired, or I'm feeling like I'm leaning towards a certain decision, to ask myself, is that coming from God or is it coming from self or from ego? And it's not always clear cut, but the question itself, also, it's kind of a tricky thing, because, you know, if I ask the question, and then I answer the question, well, then it's coming from self. And if self is the problem, then it's not the source of the solution. So it's a strange kind of surrender that I'm still trying to learn of asking that question, and then staying open for guidance. And sometimes I still have to make a decision without a clear idea of what the answer is. But but if I'm doing that second part of the condition for the promise on page 68, and humbly rely on him, you know, then I think I'm going to hear the answer eventually. And so what, you know, the man who took me through the big book the first time he told me, he said, you know, it says just to the extent that we do as we think he would have us do, it's just like, I'm not going to get it right all the time, but if I humbly rely on him, well, either I'm going to get it right, in which case I'm doing God's will, planting the seeds of, you know, of that new basis, or I'm getting it wrong, but I'm going to get the lesson because I'm humbly relying on him. And so that I make a mistake, but it turns out to grow me along the spiritual path. And in this, I kind of mean everything that I experience, even if it's coming from a self will like my feelings of anger or resentment or judgment or shame, self pity, that is energy. And it can propel me if I've got that attitude of, you know, what has God done for me? Where's mine? If I've got that self-centeredness, and that's dominating, then I will make decisions and that energy that in my nervous system in my body will carry me through those decisions towards, you know, I'll be planting the old seeds of bitterness and despair. Whereas if that same energy, if I pray for God's help, he will send it. You all will help me with it. My sponsor, God, and even my own memories will help me. And that just like a sale can, you know, I can't control the wind, but if I know how to sail, then I can decide which direction the wind is going to blow me. And so that's what I'm seeking with this is for the energy that's in my body when I react to things is to bleed me into that right way of making decisions. And I think if I do that, then I'm planting the new seeds, the new seeds on the new basis that bring up the wonderful fruits that are called promises in the big book. I like that. And I do continue to have that. It's just this darkness in terms of my feeling, my connection with my hair power. Can you talk a bit more about that? Well, I can. Let me say very briefly, since we're in an essay meeting, I don't want to go too much into it. But therapy has been very helpful for me in that regard. And I've got some specific experience that if you maybe want to connect offline, we could share more about that. But that has been, for me and my story, that has been a tremendously important part of my recovery. Thank you. Thank you, Nancy. And thank you, Steve. So we have a question in the chat or a comment. Thank you for your share and honesty. Can you speak a bit about shame, your process in dealing with it and how things have changed over time? Yeah, thank you. Yes, shame was very powerful in my body and my heart when I came to the program. And I think it began when I was six years old and I began keeping secrets. I learned from the people that God put in my life that some of the shame was inherited. It wasn't mine. My parents had what we call toxic shame that they dumped. They didn't really know how to do different. I think they were trying very hard to give me love and support. And there were some things they didn't know how to do. And so I inherited some of that shame and carried it. And maybe still, I think still carry some of it in my body. Then there was another kind of shame that I created with my choices and my behaviors by betraying who God wanted me to be by doing things. And it was very helpful for me to hear early in recovery that I am not my actions in that the horrible things that I did, that is not who I am. If it were who I am, then it wouldn't have been killing me inside to do it. Nothing is destroyed by acting in accordance with its own nature. A monster who acts monstrously that's just fulfilling its own nature. I was acting horrible actions. But the reason that was damaging to me is because it was a betrayal of who I really am and who God created me to be. And that truth has been very important in helping anchor me to something that's stronger than the shame. Now, I have still felt and experienced a lot of that shame in my body. And part of my process has been surrendering to people, sponsors, therapists, pastors, others who are able to guide me and balance me. Because some of the time I have to confront the reality and the truth about my own actions. And I will feel the shame that I've carried around for so long. I will have to feel it. But other times I need someone to stop me. Because I will go, once I start to feel it, I'll go into a shame spiral. And then I will become just self-hatred and despair. And then I will just, well, I might as well act out. And it gets to a place that the opposite extreme to where I'm, you know, so that balance point I need God and others to help me stay in it. And so I guess that's, I guess I could probably talk a lot longer about it, but I'm going to hush. Thank you. Thank you for the question. And thank you, Steve. Buddy. Hey, I'm Buddy. I'm recovering sex. Oh, thank you, Steve. Buddy. You've kind of already answered the question I have when I put my hand up. So, but I am currently going through this. I call it the dark night of the soul, except it's been going on nearly a year now. And in my case, I found the causes which go back to my childhood, my own near deaths, the death of my brother, and then my abandonment by my parents and neglect that followed that. It was just good to hear you share. I know Bill Wilson himself spent years trying to undercover the causes and conditions way below the character defects. And he did eventually my middle also went back to his childhood. So no question, just say thank you. Thank you, Buddy. Thank you, Buddy. We do have a question in the chat, Margot. If you want me to read that, I've got one. Great. It comes from Ahmed in Egypt. And he is asking, I would like to ask Steve about his experience with conscious contact with God. What does it mean to you? How do you experience it during your day? Thanks. No, that's a great question. And I love the literature. And I'm going to go right back. Buddy just mentioned Bill Wilson. I'm going to go back to back to page one of Bill's story in the big book, where he talks about an experience he had in Winchester Cathedral. At that time, he was still drinking. He was a young man. He was just beginning his career as a soldier. And he had a spiritual experience in Winchester Cathedral. And he quickly forgot about it. But some years later, you know, if you go over to page 10, I think it's page 10, he mentions that that old, that wartime day in old Winchester Cathedral came back again. And this is at the beginning of a description where he talks about his spiritual experience. For me, Bill Wilson's time in Winchester Cathedral was a moment of conscious contact. And if you read, pass it on where it's a biography of Bill Wilson, it goes into more detail about just what he felt when he was there. So this taught me that to look throughout my entire life for moments that I've felt close to God. I've never been in Winchester Cathedral. But I have moments from very, very young when I was saying prayers as a three or four year old boy, or I was sitting in the church with my mother in a feeling of safety. Now, many people will not have those memories, just like I've never been in Winchester Cathedral. But I think looking in my memory for a feeling of safety is a big part of seeking conscious contact today. Now, what conscious contact means to me today could be different on any given day. But I think the feeling is less important than the results. If I have sufficient conscious contact today, then I will have the power to stay sober. And I will have the power to at least have a good idea of what he wants me to do and to do it. And then the results are better conscious contact, the more I do that. And the same thing, I think maybe another way to look at this, conscious contact, to think about conscious contact with lust. I was seeking an answer to that, please connect with me and make me whole. And there were moments where I felt something that seemed to answer that prayer. Of course, with lust, it was very short lived and it was a lie. But with God, I'm seeking that same thing. So I had a lot of memories of lust feelings. I try to I try now to have a stash of spiritual memories that I can call on is when it's dark, when I'm not feeling conscious contact, I can I can still call on those memories. And that helps me a lot. Thank you. Amen. And thank you, Steve. I'll jump in with the question if you don't have anything. Great. Yeah. Thank you very much for your for your share much. Appreciate it. I'm Daniel J. Sexaholic. I'm starting to to sponsor a little bit. And I guess my question is with your experience, what's how do you work with sponsors that tend to have a relapse issues? Thanks. Okay, that's a great, a great question. Yeah. So my, my early sponsorship model was what you would call a strong sponsorship. And it was very, you know, much based on the instructions in the big book, you know, I think a lot of folks in SA don't don't always use the big book the way I learned to use it. I like to look at the history and see how Roy, you know, didn't have any essay literature, and he had a sponsor, you know, in AA in, but, but, you know, I think over time, I've seen the, you know, a lot of people, I met a lot of people with recoveries who have come learn to apply the principles in the steps in different ways. So today I am a little bit different in terms of, I think, you know, you know, 15 years ago, if you were not doing certain things, if you didn't call me every day, or if you didn't go to the meetings you said you were going to go to, then, you know, when we talk about whether you need to find another sponsor, whether you're sponsoring yourself and so forth. And I, and I still, you know, I still see that the choices people make do produce results and kind of reveal. It's not always clear to me that if someone said, you know, oh, well, they're start, they want to start dating a woman, and they're only three months sober and, you know, they're only in step three. And I don't think that's a good idea. Well, they decide to do it anyway. What should I do? And, and to me, it's no longer, you know, I don't react with as much kind of, I'm not as rigid, because what I find is that I don't always know what the right decision is. And so what I do try to keep it simple, and encourage people to, to, you know, with this question, you know, do you think that is coming from God or do you think it's coming from self or from lust? And, and, and to encourage them whenever they're available for that, you know, suggestion to offer that. And, and, and if, and if, if the, if the sponsor and I each grow, whatever might be a rocky path towards learning how to do that, then I will, I think that's the best that I can do, you know. And I'm not quite sure. It may be being a little too vague. Is there anything specific that you would ask me to kind of direct towards it in answering your question? No, it's just sometimes, you know, I'm not an old timer, it means I'm fairly new in the program. So sometimes, and new at sponsoring. So I'm kind of a, at a loss of, of tools, you know, of, of where I can help out sponsors with this. Well, that question, have you prayed about that? That's a good stall tactic. If you don't know what to say, just, just ask him that. And then, and then listen to him squirm for a few seconds while you're thinking of what to say next. No, seriously, that is really, I think that is a huge part of what I'm supposed to do as a sponsor is just encouraged. Well, number one was love, love the people that I sponsor. And, and that, that is, you know, I think the number one job. And then after that, you know, guide them through the steps. But as far as how to apply the steps to my living problems, you know, it's just like, have you prayed about that? You know, do you think that's coming from God or from self? Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Steve. And Margot, I do have one in the chat. And I see Udo's hand up. Not sure how you want to handle that. Oh, let's do the chat. And then Udo, we have lots of time. Okay. So David is asking, I have a question. I'm having difficulties with the fourth step. I noticed that when confronting the reality of my resentments, I'm tempted to seek solutions through a relapse instead of facing them directly. What suggestions do you have to move forward and avoid or relapse? Oh, good segue way. Well, that is a great question. So I would say that for me, the urge to relapse is coming from self. And so I think it's important to find out what God wants me to do here. In the literature, in the big book on page 66 and 67, it talks about realizing that the persons who harmed us were perhaps spiritually sick. And like ourselves, they were sick too. And so I was taught, and this is also in step into action, which was not available when I worked the fourth step. But the way I learned was very similar to what's in step into action today, to pray for myself, to have tolerance, pity and patience, and to pray for myself to realize in that word, had a special emphasis from my old sponsor, that it will become real to me that they are spiritually sick. It's not an intellectual idea, but it's like I am really looking at someone who is broken, who is dying from being cut off from the sunlight of the spirit, just like I have been, who needs God's love and forgiveness, just like I do. And when I can have that realization, then the resentment can go away, because now I am seeing myself in them, and I am becoming a channel for the way God sees them. I'm seeing them through God's eyes. I'm seeing them through real eyes, realized. And so this is a very powerful that if I really find there's a spiritual awakening in that part of the fourth step for me. And someone asked about conscious contact earlier, when I said the prayers as that I was taught to say them in the fourth step resentment, I definitely had a new experience of conscious contact that changed me permanently in a good way, and created a memory, a new pathway in my nervous system, just like lust did, but in a good way. And so I'll stop there. I'm glad to talk about that more, that may not have addressed exactly what you were asking, but I'll stop there for now. Thank you, David and thank you, Steve. Thanks, Daniel. So we just have less than four minutes left. So Udo, please ask. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you, Steve. We are sharing, prior to see you. And my question is, could you share a little bit about the difference between character defects and trauma reactions? Okay, thank you. That's a great question. Yeah, so that goes back to what I was mentioning about agency. For me, there is a level, my early recovery, and I'll say a little bit about therapy here, there was that I learned to think of the problems in terms of the mind and the emotions. So the mind is my thoughts and the emotions are my feelings, and I got a lot of emphasis there and attention there. And I would say that character defects are very susceptible to mental kind of, or cognitive, they call them, techniques of, like for instance, an inventory. So I can look and I can then see and understand, and I have agency to some extent, I can decide that I'm going to take certain actions. And then with regards to those character defects, I can kind of put boundaries to where my behavior, they don't, they don't, they might still have the defect, but they don't run the show, they don't determine my decision. And that's part of what the new basis for living means. Now that being said, there's also the body and the nervous system in the same way I don't have agency over stomach ache. I don't have agency over feeling trauma in my body. So I can have anxiety that's kind of mental, and it's, you know, because I'm focusing too much on something, you know, and I have some kind of that sort of a character defect level for me. And then I can also have anxiety in my body, which is more related to trauma. And that is something that's more like, I compare it to having my finger in an electrical socket. I cannot make any decisions about how I'm going to feel or, you know, my attitude, mental attitude won't really affect what's happening in my body. It's very far from that. So that that's been helpful for me because many times I've felt things in my body that I couldn't control. And then I've felt responsible for it. Can you imagine feeling ashamed or guilty because you have a stomach ache, feeling like you're a defective person because you have a stomach ache? And so that's for me where the difference lies. Now that's entirely my opinion and my experience. So if you have a different idea that works for you, please, you know, go with that. But that's what works for me currently. 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.thedailyreprieve.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. (upbeat music)