Dave A - Listening-A Balancing Action - Meeting 148

Dave A. from Antigua came into the rooms of AA with the motivation of impressing an ex-girlfriend that he had lost. He quickly realized that he needed recovery for himself and then found the rooms of CODA also. Dave actively works both AA and CODA and has found that he must do both to survive. He will be sharing on the Balancing Action that Listening has become for him in his recovery.

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Resources from this meeting: 
Co-Dependency books by Melody Beattie
Crossroads Treatment Center - Antigua
Alcoholics Anonymous
CODA
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Transcript

Dave A from Antigua whose topic will be listening a balancing action. Now, here's a little bit about Dave. 

Dave came into the rooms of AA with the motivation of impressing an ex girlfriend that he had lost. He quickly realized that he needed recovery for himself and then found the rooms of Coda. Also, dave actively works both AA and Koda and has found that he must do both to survive. Take it away, Dave. The floor is yours. 

Thank you very much, Justin. Good afternoon, everybody, wherever you are in the world. Right now in Antigua, it is three minutes past two in the PM or somewhere about. I always have most clocks around me slightly fast because I am notorious for being late and doing service for my home group here. And having keys is what keeps me trying to use, I guess, step twelve in everything, as in trying to be early. I'm not always great here, but I'm definitely a lot better. So I've been in the rooms for a little while now, and the first thing that I didn't have when I first started, in fact, I'm jumping. Let me get right back to the beginning. So I started one day back in the UK. An ex girlfriend of mine said, I want to make amends to you. 

And I'm like in the stereotypical way that I know about amends. I'm like, how do you drunk people do that? What are you talking about? And she said, yes. And as soon as she said the whole drunk thing, a light bulb went off and everything fell into place about her behavior, because what I didn't know was that she was drinking so much. Sometimes I pick her up to go out and then when we would either be walking into somewhere or leaving, she would be screaming at me for, in my opinion, no reason. And eventually when she said, oh, I have a problem with the drinking, and then I realized, oh my God, so many things now have fallen into place. And she said, by the way, I think you have a problem too. I was like, really? No, I don't think so. 

She said, well, you keep posting on Facebook, et cetera, that you are having vodka and orange juice with your breakfast. I'm like, yeah, because it might be morning in Antigua, but in the UK it's lunchtime. So depending on the time of year, it's going to be either 12:00 or midday when I meet in here. And so I'm like, you know what, I'm good. She goes, well, just look, here's a meeting, just go check it out. And I'm thinking, okay. So I went, what I didn't realize was I got the wrong meeting. So what I did was out of embarrassment. I walked into the meeting, sat down, and there were some people in the room. And I didn't know about the introducing yourself, going around the room, et cetera. 

And I said, I've heard from my brother, who is also true that I was deflecting my brother. I have a brother who's a fully blown alcoholic. Whatever his reasons are, doesn't seem to want to go down the path I've gone. And that's his choice. The person who was taking the meeting then said to me, well, you're in the wrong group. And I now know that to be I should have been in Alanon from what I was saying to him. But he said, you know what? You can stay. And when I left, I was like, I am never doing this again. Ever. Ever. In Kanye's words, ever. Ever. In the end, I got to Antigua because I was over here doing something. I had an event going on. 

So I thought, okay, I'll come out here and not really much going on, I'll go to this thing and see what's going on. So I went. Didn't understand it. It took me age. It took me six weeks just to learn the Serenity Prayer. The only thing I could remember after two weeks was God, and the rest of it was a blank. Maybe I should apply the same thing to try to learn Spanish, because I'm trying to learn Spanish. So it was being repetitive. And eventually the words stuck, but with no sinkage. In other words, I can recite, but know what they mean. And that has been always the way learning, but not necessarily understanding. Eventually, after about a month, I kind of started to understand. Hold on, these people, they're talking like how I feel. Let me flip back a second. 

Before I left the UK, I remember sitting on the bed of my ex saying, I feel like there is a hole in me and I need to go to church or something like that to feel there's something wrong with me. And after that, we never said anything else. We just left it and that was it. So come back to antigonel. After about a month, maybe six weeks, I'm starting to understand what's going on. So I'm like, you know what? I need to get a sponsor. Because what's going on here is the people who seem to be doing well seem to have a sponsor. And it's usually the people that come from outside of it were very small. All those questions I will eventually answer later on, but for now, it's just about how I got started. 

So not really knowing what I was doing, but I knew that there was somebody was filling in something, I just didn't know what it was. That hole that was missing, part of it started to fill, and that was because of being around the people in the rooms. So I got myself a sponsor. Didn't really know what I was doing. And as soon as we got to a place here where we go and do meetings, he said to me, do you know what, Dave? What I'm realizing after we've done quite a lot of meetings. He said to me, do you know what I'm realizing? 

You spend two minutes out of every meeting you've had telling me what's wrong, then you spend the next eight minutes trying to tell me or try to convince me of what you just said if I don't agree with you, or words to that effect. So he said, What I need you to do is go home and just observe your family. Don't speak, don't do anything. Just observe your family. And it was just the weirdest thing. Within 30 seconds, I found out what was wrong with me. I am copying behavior from somebody in my family. I said, oh, my God. And it was my mum. And just to give you context, I remember my mom saying something to me about my brother asked for some money. She said, do you think I should give it to him? 

And I went, well, no, because he's an alcoholic, and no, he only spent the money on drink. And this is after I'm in the program. My mum then followed me around trying to convince me that I should agree to what she said about giving him the money or change my mind. And that's when I started to realize listening really does have an effect. So I had to end up giving up my first sponsor because I left Antiwar again, went back to the UK. We did try to do it by phone. It just wasn't working. So I got another sponsor in the UK. He didn't work out two things. One, he was, for me, overly religious, and he didn't experience my life as I saw it. So when were talking, he didn't have a television. He didn't grow up with the television. 

There was things that we just didn't resonate. But he was a nice man, so eventually it just naturally faded because I had to come back to Antigua, and he well, I just said, Look, I found myself another sponsor here. That's when I got my first sponsor. And my third sponsor, as were talking, he wasn't overly strict, but he was reasonably strict. And I would always phone up. My thing, I'll tell you this now, is complaining. I have to watch myself put the brakes on that, because while I'm complaining, I'm not listening. And my third sponsor, I was forever complaining to him. Forever. Forever, forever. So he would always say, right, get the big book and read page four, one seven. The paragraph that starts with an acceptance is the answer to all of my problems. And I'm like, okay, cool. 

So I read it. Yeah, whatever. Call him back. And our conversations got shorter and shorter because his sentence would be page four, one seven. There would be no communication. Page four, one seven. Page four, one seven. And eventually I got it because it was like putting my hand in the fire and expecting not to get burnt when I've been told don't put my hand in the fire. Eventually I woke up to the lyrics on that page of four one seven, which is the second paragraph, and believe me, it's worth a treat. He left. So for anybody who's never been to Antigua, we have one of the best treatment centers. 

Although I've never been there or sorry, I've never been a patient there, but I have been there, Crossroads, which is run by or it's been put together by Eric Clapton and he makes sure that it's got to be one of the best, if not the best program in the world. And what happens is you go in there as treatment for your alcoholism or NA, et cetera. Anyway, he left because of the pandemic and he went back to the States because that's where he was from. So I got myself a new sponsor here and I started to complain again. So my sponsor, my AA sponsor said, you know what? You need Coda. You really need Koda. And I was like, yeah. Yeah. And I just didn't even I never thought anything of it. 

I was I kept on saying, listen, you need coder. And then one day he just said to me, listen, just get yourself a coder sponsor. I'm thinking, oh God, he's going to dump me if I don't do it. So I'm going to get myself a coder sponsor. So I went on to coda.org and I just Googled a whole bunch of meetings and started looking around and I did I can't remember if I did a 1990 with that. And by the way, I did when I started AA, I did 1990 without even realizing it because I just went to every single meeting that we had here. We are only 108 sq mi. Our population is around 100,000 people. It's very small. We are smaller than most towns, never mind cities in the world. It's winter here, but it's yet it's 27 degrees today. 

So I just thought let you know that. So coming back to my sponsor saying I've got to get a coder sponsor, I got one. And this guy has been unbelievable. Now I was doing to give you context and body to what I'm saying, my experience with Koda was going on two years before I actually got a sponsor because my sponsor who worked for Crossroads, his wife had been doing coder and she lived here and she said, let's start one. I had no idea what it was, but I went anyway. And as I'm doing this, I'm starting to learn and start to understand more and you then end up with certain books and Melanie Beatty is a big person in that coder world. So if you go look up her books, you'll see she's a big shot. She's very well respected. 

It doesn't mean that she's always right, but it's a good thing that helps. So from doing odor, what I realize is not only am I looking for sobriety from alcohol and all the different isms that I have, but the number one thing I want is emotional sobriety. So the word sobriety is to have peace, calm, as I see it. So I started to work towards it and I still wasn't good. I'm still not good, but I'm way better because I do a lot of listening. I do a lot of listening. So I go to let me see now, AA, I have Monday, Wednesday, Friday online here in person. We do Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday and my coder I do Wednesday and Saturdays. Oh, and Sundays. 

Yeah, don't always make it because of work, because I work in the media world and I do tech stuff in there. So because we have a small staff, anything can change at any minute. So I don't always get to meetings as I would like. But my code of meetings, especially one I do on a Saturday, has been absolutely unbelievable for me because it's about the group of people. The group of people can be the reason you stay or run. And I've done things that have made newcomers upset with me because I didn't listen to what was said to me, which is I'm only here, wherever it is I'm speaking to carry the message, not my opinion. And that's a really big deal. 

And so I always am mindful that there can be newcomers and I do not wish to scare them off if they're having their first meeting. It's always about do I want to be right, do I want to be happy? I don't have to like it, but I accept it. And also something I've recently just come into is do I want to be a leader or do I want to be a controller? And the reason why I say that is a leader is somebody who can and by the way, this is my thoughts doesn't mean that I'm right, but this is how I see it. A leader is somebody like a boss who gets people in to help them with the things that they don't know. And a controller is usually led by the ego so they won't get anybody in to help them. 

So in AA Encoder, I work with sponsors and even though I don't want to hear a thing, they say that I'm the leader of my life and I need somebody to help me work my life into the best possible situation. So because I do so many meetings, what happens is I end up a lot, and I mean a lot with a lot of great quotes from people who say things that I keep a list of that help me on a daily basis. So a couple of things, some quotes only speak if it improves the silence, which is absolutely, I think is a great one. Happiness is the best currency, definitely. Feelings are not facts. Oh my God, that is such a big thing. I have to detach myself from my feelings to do things at work. 

Because where I'm from, I'm more to the point, my parents, because my parents are antique, not me. But I do have antique and password. Culturally, people here do things with their feelings. And I have to remember that is not the way that I want to operate. So I operate in a way that I hope everybody around me sees. That's how I operate, because there's a lot of things that go on at work. And they always say to me, how come you're not involved? Because it's not my business. I'm not getting involved. I've got enough problems on my own, which are getting more and more or less because I choose to stand on the outside looking in. I don't want to be in the mess. So my feelings are I do not wish to be in the mess. 

Another quote, don't wait for life to be hard to be happy. Great one. You know what? In a lot of these I don't know where I get from because I listen to lots of podcasts, including this podcast, literally, I got it on the Google podcast platform. I listen tons of podcasts every single week. So at least twice a day I listen to them and say like when I'm in the gym, I get them on and it gives me food for thought. Because the thing is, as cliched as this sounds, you are what you eat, so you are what I am, what I put into my head. So if I'm watching something that is taking up my time and renting space in my head, yes, I need Escapism. 

But there's going to the gym, putting on a podcast, whatever that is, because sometimes I watch them. So I like Steven Bartlett. I watch Drink Champs. I watch this one. I like Guy Raz, how I built this, all of these things. And I get so much because there's people who are without putting myself down, but they're more intelligent than me. They're further along in life, no matter what age they are. And I can learn from them. So I always try to take up space, dual space with the gym. So I'm working out, but I'm listening to something at the same time. That way I'm not just wasting time doing one thing. The thing that I hate most, I dislike cleaning with a passion. Absolutely dislike it. So then I have to pay somebody else to do it. 

We send lessons, my money and blood of it. But you know what? It's better because I don't like doing it. Another thing, you control your time. Don't let time control you. Which goes back to what I just said on the treadmill, doing the wait, got headphones on. I can listen to a podcast at the same time. And I said it earlier on. I accept it, but I don't have to like it. I had to do that mainly with my mum and also the fact that my mum is old school. My mum is in her 80s, so when she speaks and I was always complaining to my sponsor about her, it's like, accept the situation. The good thing is certain things that he says to me, he comes from a place of knowledge, so he understands what I'm going through, which is great. 

All of these things, they're all easier for me because of having sponsors who have gone through the same situation as me. And that situation, believe me when I tell you it would not be like this if I had not been going to AA, and if I had not been going to Koda. I remember one of my friends from AA, she's a therapist, she said. 

About. 

AA, she said, Once you get in there, do you know what AA is about? It's an attitude adjustment. I was like, Whoa, that is so profound. That was an attitude adjustment. And then you work on it. You work on all the things that is wrong that I feel are wrong with me. Another thing that I like to try to be with or try to have in my head, because a lot of this is really down to Sept 1011 and twelve, right? Try not to argue because I'm going to be committed to making my point, which hinders my listening. So most of the time my daily life is gym, work, meetings, and I don't interact too much with people outside of the rooms because those are my people. That's what makes my life work. And it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with other people. 

But as I know, I have no off switch. This is something I should have said earlier. I have no off switch for everything. So it's different if I don't like it. So I'm not going to drink low gallons of cod liver oil. I don't like it. But on the other hand, I will drink gallons and gallons of Baileys. That's not the part that's wrong. It's not just drinking Baileys. And by the way, gallons of it is wrong. But I put rum in it because it's too weak. The madness of I stopped drinking vodka because I found out that gin had less calories. And I don't like gin. So I just worked out how to mix them just right so that I can then tolerate the gin. But then I was giving myself more and more and more sugar. 

Right now I'm trying to get myself off of sugar. So that means changing my bread, changing how I eat biscuits and chocolates. Oh, my God. I didn't realize from the lots of the readings and the podcast that I've been doing, sugar is way more addictive than anything else because it's a daily thing that I've had for years. So I'm slowly, slowly trying to do with it. And I'm getting support from my son because my son is a personal trainer, and he is much better at communicating than I am. The reason why I ditch out from having lots of arguments is because I'm not good with getting my point across. Let me just try and finish up with this. 

My family had a situation where they were not taking care of something, and my son put together a WhatsApp group and then lightly but nicely told everybody, get a ship together. And I couldn't have done that because I'm either head burying or I'm in the red zone. And neither of those work. And my son's done therapy as well. And it's breaking that cycle within my family, which is so proud. And I listen, and we and him have a different relationship from me and my dad. My dad loved me, but he's old school, different relationship. So me and my son, we text probably every couple of days. We try and talk at the weekends. I got grandkids. Try and have a better relationship with them. 

I wasn't, but my son put me to task about that, and so now I'm working on that as well. So the biggest things for me is go to meetings, connect with people every day, and have a sponsor so that I can keep in check. And I think I'll leave it there. Justin, I think that's pretty much it. 

Excellent. Thank you so much, Dave. I appreciate your share, sharing your experience, strength, and hope. I wrote down several notes. I have several questions here to ask you and a reminder to our live audience. If you have a question for Dave about anything he's spoken on or his experience, strength, and hope in recovery, please type them in the Q and A link at the bottom of your zoom window and we'll get to those. Dave, before we jump into any questions that come in from the live audience, one thing that you shared that really your topic is one that just really hits me. Listening a balancing action. And you talked about you said, hey, I do a lot of listening. And then you went into, hey, I go into a lot of meetings and listen to what people say. 

I write down the quotes that really hit me. What does the action of listening look like to you? Do you try and get into a certain frame of mind as you go into those meetings? Are you always looking for some new tidbit of wisdom or knowledge? What does that action look like to you? 

Okay, that action two things. One, it literally is shutting up. So just so that everybody has some context, I'm a broadcaster for a living, so I speak for a living. I'm a broadcaster, DJ. I've been doing it for years. I have had the most unbelievable life when it was on the highs, and then I became a personal trainer along with that. And then the drinking took over here we are. My life is definitely up again. I have a show which I took the day off today, played a pre recorded show so that I could come to this because I was like, oh, my God, Justin, to actually ask me to come in. And I've listened to this so many times, I'm like, oh, my God. These people to me are rock stars when I'm listening to them. 

So the other part of the listening is the new experiences that I discover via podcast, via YouTube, just other people's actions. So I listen to those that give me almost a renewed sense of energy every time I hear something new, which is why I write down these quotes. I have hundreds of them, but I just gave you a few of them. And so listening gives me a renewed energy. Everybody has their higher power situation. Mine changes a lot because I don't like to listen, so it changes a lot. So right now, most of the time, it's the groups I go to. They give me that spiritual energy that keeps me coming back because I'm like, not only what do they give me, but what can I bring to the meeting? That's another thing. Sharing. Sometimes I don't want to share. 

I'm listening to see what is it going to be something that's going to spark off. Sometimes I don't say anything because we have big meetings on a Thursday here. There's over 40 people in person, and a lot of them are brand new from Crossroads. So it's best not for me to say something unless one of the old times say, well, actually, you know what? You should say something because these people are new and they just you've been where they've been. You've all been there, so you say something. But listening to newcomers as well is great because the other part of listening to newcomers is you do not want to be back where they are. At least for me, I don't want to be back where they came from. 

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. And I don't want to go back to where I came from either. It is amazing to work and listening to newcomers and go, okay, I've been there. 

I'm good. 

I don't want to go back again. So you mentioned early in your share that you were complaining a lot to your sponsors. You fell into the role of complaining, and I totally understand that. And I love the advice that your sponsor said, hey, go to 417. Acceptance is the answer to all our questions. And I'm also kind of like you. And when I hear a good quote, I've got sticky notes all over the walls here that I go to. One of them has to do with this complaining thing. And it's front and center. I mean, it's right there. And it says when things go bad, the common denominator is me and my thinking when I get others. And God's. Thinking to be in charge, things seem to go better. 

Any thoughts on that process of complaining and listening and recognizing that it's me when there's something wrong there? 

Yeah. I have got into my head that it is me and I'm the one who's making me unhappy. There are things that I can't control, like if somebody dies. But most of the time if I disconnect from other people, because this is one of the worst problems I have, making up a story in my head about how things did or didn't go with somebody else. And so I make myself unhappy. So if I disconnect myself from that, whatever the situation is, I don't have to apologize, I don't have to do a step ten, all that. It's just much easier to keep myself to myself. So if I don't start telling myself some crazy art story, I have no reason. Start reading page four, one seven and going, Dave, it's your fault again. Because it's always my fault. Because nobody is in my head. 

You can see stuff in front of you and know that I shouldn't step in the road because I will get knocked down. Oh, I can stay on the pavement and be calm, cool, collected. So easier to just disconnect and not disconnect in a way that I don't listen to anybody. It just minds my own business. A lot of times, the things I have been told by the elders, they are absolutely right. I don't like necessarily one of the biggest ones. The two biggest things that I've been told over and over again. One, these both come from the elders. One, right. There's only one thing you got to change about yourself. Everything that's one and the other one, unfortunately, is. And once again, I had to hear it. 

If you do not want to tell your sponsor to do one, and in the UK, do one means get lost. So if you don't want your sponsor to do one, then they're not doing it right, because at least once you want them to do one. So in other words, you want them to get lost. And I'm being nice about this because I don't want to offend anybody, but that's not the words that they've used. Just get lost. And so what I do is, when I feel like that, sit in the uncomfortableness and try and soak up what they said. Do not do anything until the following day. And then journaling, however uncomfortable that is, gives me a chance to keep that and then come back the day after and have a look at what I've written. Sometimes I don't read it at all. 

And sometimes I'm like, this is how I felt. Let me go back and read this and see how I feel about that situation right now. 

I love that. Pausing, writing, not acting immediately. I've heard it. Urgency is the opposite of, or is the opposite of recovery. Urgency is the opposite of progress. One thing that you mentioned earlier that really hit me also was the concept of being a leader, not a controller. Now, as you work your twelve step, whether you're sponsoring or however you choose to work your 12th step, how does that concept of leader versus controller kind of guide your actions in that process? 

Okay, so to do what I'm doing, I must take control of my life, but with somebody else's guidance. Before, I was trying to control everything around me, including myself. So there was no asking, there was no guidance, there was no just do everything that I want. And because I had a successful career, that was right now I'm doing the same thing, but in a kind way, kind to myself, kind to other people before, whether I realize it or not, at times I could be stepping on other people to get what I want. And because I kind of came from that situation in a job where picking up the phone will get you something and if you don't get it, you can be rude to people. Usually for most of the time I never was. 

But every now and again, if I can remember one particular incident where we had somebody on working with us who only wanted to turn up when there was high profile people around and I was like, this is a job all the time, good or bad guess. And I was rooted. And this woman is probably one of the biggest people on the planet now. She still speaks to me, but I shouldn't have spoken to her like that at all. I was about achieving what I wanted to achieve. So now working this program, I e the twelve and twelve, the instructions for life. It's like if I use a program called Serato to DJ with, right? And I didn't know what I was doing, so I asked other people who use it, a lot of my friends. 

And then I read all the instructions and it's the same with the twelve and twelve. Those are the instructions. One is fix yourself, the other is carry on. That's how I see it. So one here is fixed self, the other one is carry on. And those two together, those 24 pieces of information are what can fix my life. If I stick with it. Nothing's going to be perfect, but I do it in what I believe to be for me, is an unmistakable, mystical, magical way. Because that can make people run away. It's simple. I did these things, it didn't work. Try these things with the help of other people who've done it before me and keep going. And so far it seems to be working. So any program that I would go into, I would have to at the moment, I'm good with Koda. 

I don't think I'm going to need anything else, no matter what. I've looked at loads of programs. Everything still all comes from the original Bill book, the original AA book, everything is adjusted here and there. But it's the original Big book. And then I got a twelve and twelve. Those instructions are the instructions that work my life. Doesn't mean it's going to work for you, but it can do if you give it a go. When I was doing it, first of all, one of the first things I realized, I haven't got a clue what this means when I'm reading. Because when you're reading some of these, we bolt. What the h*** does bolt mean? And depending on who you're talking to, it's a different accent as well. Is it barked balt, bullocked, blah, blah blah. 

So a lot of this is read, get a dictionary, read, Google, whatever to make it fit so that I can understand. And then once you once it's demystified for me, it made it easier. Believe me, I am no means perfect. I am just better. What I realized why I'm better is because I'm listening to other people, even if I'm not listening at the time. And I'm annoyed. Give myself a little bit of time to soak up what that person has said. And it's usually the elders, not necessarily people who haven't had the same amount of time. I mean, there's one person who's really good that I know, but that person seems to be angry. And I remember when she said about a group member who did something, and I said, Why are you doing so? 

I said to, why are you arguing with this person? Because you know that this person is like this. And she said, well, you're better than me. I can't accept it. And I was like, well, that's progress for me. And I don't want to be like that because we know what this person is like. So just always be loving, kind, et cetera, but don't engage. I only mess with winners. Stick with the winners. If whoever it is around me is not doing what I perceive to be something that's going to be a winning way for me, I don't mess with them. The only first time that I might mess with somebody who's not in that situation is if I go to pick up somebody's on the island, don't know where they are, and they need a lift. 

And then you realize I don't want to be around that person because of their behavior. That doesn't mean that I should be horrible to them. It just means I need to find a winning way to keep my life winning. And that's just like even having if you're doing something and you're an entrepreneur and nobody's coming to buy your product, it's usually or not messing with your product. People who are winning only want to be with winners. So they need you to express in whatever way that is that your product is already going. And then they will get on your bus, your train, your car, whatever. So I try to do that all the time. 

So when people come to me, I'm hoping that I'm expressing winning ways, and if not, let me try harder to be a better winner, to be a better sponsor, to be a better person, et cetera. 

And I love that concept of if I want what somebody has, I need to be willing to do what that person does to get what they have. And I also am grateful for those who may come to me or come to others who have what they want and say, hey, man, I want what you have. What are you doing? I'm more than happy to share those situations or share in those situations with somebody who may not be a winner at that time, but somebody who wants to be a winner. And what a great thing that recovery is that we get the opportunity to do that kind of thing. Do you have any examples that you can think of where either you went to somebody and said, I want what you have, or where somebody came to you and said, I want what you have. 

And you had that growing experience in that. 

I've never said to let me talk about sponsors. I've never said directly, I want what you have. But that's how I found a sponsor. I looked at that person and go, I want what you've got, because of that person's behavior, because of how they speak. So it's always about if anybody's here for the first time, what people always ask is, how do I find a sponsor? And for me, it was looking at people and seeing their behavior and they're listening their responses. And this is after, because during the meeting, you don't do that. You don't do Cost talk and stuff like that. So I'm looking at their behavior at all times for a period of anywhere from a month to two months before I make a choice. 

I have to say, though, Koda was debt very different because within a very short space of time, I just thought, this guy is it. He looks like one of the Sopranos, but behaves like a Buddhist. I think that's the best way to describe him. He's just such a good guy. And that meeting when we go so that's Wednesdays and Sundays. There's over 60 people on the meeting every single time. It's a huge meeting. That's my code of meeting. And if there's anybody here I think there's one person here I know from my Saturday morning meeting that's a big meeting as well. We usually have a minimum of 20 people on that one. 

I can't remember all the links and everything, but if anybody is here from any of my groups and if it's okay to put the meeting links in the chat because those ones are online as well as the ones that I do in person here in Mtiga. 

Absolutely. If you can get me links to any of those meetings, I can post them in the show notes of the podcast. So if anybody wants to jump in, they can do that. All right, perfect. Thank you, Dave. Are there any other words of wisdom that you'd like to share with us before we start shutting down this meeting? 

The only thing I will say is for me it was getting a sponsor and going to meetings and then journaling seems to help. I don't really have to do step ten because I've gone through the steps and I don't interact with a lot of people. So at the moment, apart from when I'm driving, there's no losing my call or wherever. And so the way for me is going to meetings, interacting with my people, having a sponsor, those things make my life super simple. So it is about keeping it simple, keep it simple. And that means the difficulties. Sometimes you might have to cut off people in your family for a little bit for good in order to keep you sane. And if that's the case, then it might have to be that. So simplicity is the answer for me. 

Get a sponsor, go to meetings, help others, always. Is it kind? Is it loving? Is it necessary? And I say that from do I need to answer somebody when they say something to me? Do I need to say anything at all? Do I need to take a day, hit the pause button immediately when I have the red mist? Do not answer, do not say anything, not a word. Walk away, move away, drive away, whatever. Because if it's driving, I'm never going to see that person again. That's usually the fact. If it's at work, sit quiet and say nothing, say absolutely nothing. Because whatever I say is going to lead to escalation. I want to de escalate. And that is all of my life. Not just that. I want to deescalate, have a nice, simple, serene life. 

So emotional sobriety is what I want to live by. We'll always get it right, but most of the time it works. 

Thank you so much. I really appreciate your willingness to share, dave, I'm grateful and humbled that you would take the day off from work and put a rebroadcast on to join with us. Really appreciate that. We'll now go into the closing down of this meeting. Thank you again, Dave. That was a great Rico Twelve weekly speaker meeting for all addicts and those wanting to learn more about addiction and the recovery therefrom. If you and the live audience have any other questions that you may like to ask, you can join in our WhatsApp community by saying sending an email with your WhatsApp number to Rico Twelve pod@gmail.com. Jump in there, ask questions, answer others questions, be part of the community there that has input into what we do in this show and in projects coming up. 

I invite the audience to come back next week if you've not yet rated or reviewed the podcast and Apple podcast, please go do so now. It's a great way to help to work your 12th step in sharing this message with others. And next week, we will be hearing from Dr. Analemki, who is the author of a couple of books, drug Dealer, MD and Dopamine Nation. And she'll be speaking to us on the role of dopamine in addiction, but also sharing some of her own experience, strength and hope in relationship to addiction in her own life. And I'm honored and looking forward to her share next week. I'm sure it'll be fantastic, just like this week's was. Now let's launch off into the rest of our day with the acceptance as the answer. 

Prayer from page 417 of the Big Book that Dave will be saying for us. 

Before I say that, thank you so much for inviting me. This has been incredible. Absolutely. Because I've listened to this like so many people doing this once I discovered it on the Google platform. So thank you so much for inviting me. 

It's my honor. 

Okay. All right. So here we go. And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation or some fact of my life unacceptable to me. And I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly as it's supposed to be. At this moment, nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake until I accept my alcoholism or whatever it is I have. I could not stay sober unless I accept life completely on life terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as what needs to be changed sorry. What needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes. Thank you very much. 

Thank you so much, Dave. Keep coming back, everybody. Let's trudge this road of happy destiny together. Work it. You are worth it.