8/28/21 Saturday 7:30pm, waiting on dinner to be ready at Seabrook. Everyone is on their own right now as we have been sharing and going around the room doing the Steel-on-Steel AA program. I learned several things from hearing everyone give me feedback. Here are a few thoughts and things that I learned. I heard, “I don’t say I’m sorry today, I say “I was wrong…”. That is a lot more powerful and takes a lot more humility. The difference in the two are big.
I also heard “Don’t just trust the process, mimic it.” Become a puppet of the program.” That was powerful. A lot of times people will fall out of recovery and ‘go back out’, AKA relapse. They will sometimes blame the recovery program, but they might have trusted the process, but they didn’t follow it. I must try to mimic the program to the best of my ability.
Some of the feedback that I heard when it was my turn on the hotseat was that I need to watch out for balance. I must make sure that I don’t get too much recovery in these programs but steal or debt time from my wife and daughter. I need to make sure that I don’t over do it. I was told that I have a lot going on and I should delegate more. I was told that I might be having anxiety of losing it all again…and to easy does it. find the line about ego around page 75 in the big book. I am doing a lot, busy and have a crazy schedule.
The story about output vs outcome. Scottie shared a story about the 4-part process that can be followed to bake a cake. When you mix the 4 ingredients, egg, batter, butter, and whatever into a bowl and follow the steps. You put it in the oven set at 350 for 45 mins…or whatever. You are following a process and out comes output. You put in data and get out a cake. The output of the process is cake if you follow the ingredients. What is the “outcome”? The outcome is that the cake taste great! The outcome of our program in recovery is spiritual growth and connection with a Higher Power.