AllBetter

Breaking Free: Matt's Atheist Recovery Journey

• Joe Van Wie • Season 4 • Episode 88

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How does one navigate the path to sobriety without believing in a higher power? Join us for a compelling conversation with Matt, a Fellowship House alumnus, who shares his incredible journey of recovery. Matt opens up about his secular approach to the 12 steps, tackling sobriety from an atheist's perspective, and the significant role authenticity plays in his healing process. From enduring a dysfunctional household to grappling with self-esteem issues and alcohol, Matt's story offers a raw and honest look into the struggles and triumphs of addiction recovery.

The episode unfolds as Matt recounts his early encounters with alcohol, beginning at age 17, and the emotional turmoil that pushed him towards drinking. He provides a poignant narrative about feeling like a victim, marked by family dysfunction and his brother's addiction, which set a skewed benchmark for his own behavior. Matt's candid reflections highlight the severe consequences of alcohol use and the critical moments that led him to acknowledge his substance use disorder. As he shares his journey, we touch on themes of depression, anxiety, and the crucial need for meaningful life changes beyond merely removing alcohol.

In the latter chapters, we explore the complex intersections of atheism and spirituality in recovery, examining how Matt navigated the 12 steps without faith in a distinct higher power. He discusses

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Speaker 1:

Hello and thanks again for listening to another episode of All Better. I'm your host, joe Van Wee. Today's guest is another Fellowship House alumnus, matt. Today, matt and I discuss his entry into recovery, the events that led to treatment multiple times, secular thought and 12 steps, and we discuss what that journey is and how you can be there for the next agnostic, an atheist or even critical thinker that wants to enter a community desperately and feels some of the ideologies are insurmountable. Matt speaks about his own experience and I think you'll find it interesting. Let's meet Matt. Here we are with Matt.

Speaker 2:

The one and only.

Speaker 1:

Well, you were deemed and I think I gave you this nickname, atheist Matt, on your arrival. Yeah, I think so I might have been the only one calling you Atheist Matt.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't recall being called that too much, but yeah, it's what I am.

Speaker 1:

So we're going to get to that your dark, sordid past with non-belief.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, my sacrilegious self.

Speaker 1:

But I thought it would be great to catch up and I'm really glad you came on because you were. We also called you patient zero.

Speaker 2:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1:

And you're a first graduate from Resonance PHP IOP. You're a first graduate from Residence PHP IOP, and it's been a great year for me not only to get to know you but see what you wanted out of recovery Without feeling that you were doing anything that was artificial, insincere or untruthful, and I think we could talk a lot about that and how you approach the 12 steps with your sponsor, because for a lot of people they wouldn't even go further and I think that would have been a huge mistake. I definitely think so. Just maybe for a little background where did you grow up?

Speaker 2:

I grew up in Redding, pennsylvania. I say Redding even though I was more into Exeter Township. I say Redding because most people don't know about Exeter or where it is, so that's where I grew up. It was a suburb.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And did you have siblings? What was it like growing up there that you would maybe put under the lens of your childhood if there was anything that was gearing you up for a relationship with alcohol?

Speaker 2:

siblings. I have my younger sister. She's three years younger. I have an older brother. He's three years older, and then I have an older sister. She is seven years older than me. Me and my brother are the only ones with the same father. The home was kind of dysfunctional. I wouldn't say like it was like growing up I had any trauma or anything, but it's definitely like distressing a lot of time. Um, my stepfather was like very hard on us. Um, when he came into the picture like he wanted to, like you know, make sure like we thought of him as the big man you know, so like he would, especially with me and my brother. He would like nitpick at us a lot. He would talk down to us and like come up with negative nicknames and, um, it really really hurt my self-esteem really early on. But my relationship with my mom was pretty close. So I think it was pretty much 50-50 on whether I would become an addict or not. Sure, and I think it's not really anything genetic, it's just the environment that I was in.

Speaker 1:

How old were you when the stepfather arrived to set a new authority in the house?

Speaker 2:

I was one, you were one. Yeah, he's the only father figure I've ever known.

Speaker 1:

It was authoritarian kind of parenting style. We've discussed that in our psychoeducation here. We've discussed that in our psychoeducation here. And the proof is like right there, authoritarian parenting styles which come from a personality, I mean, they trend towards the receiver of that authoritarian relationship as having an insecure attachment style. And there's a great medication for that that almost works for some of us. It's called whiskey. When did you first encounter drinking and why?

Speaker 2:

I was 17 the first time that I actually got drunk. I had alcohol. Before, when I was 16, it was new years. Uh, my stepfather like put a shot and a drink and I had it. Um, but that was like the extent of the drinking that night. The first time I got drunk, I was 17. Um, I was with my best friend, um, we had his uncle, his uncle's house to ourselves and we had a bottle of pinnacle whip Um. And we had a bottle of pinnacle whip um and we basically just split it, we put it in coke, um, and we just had a good night. I ain't got like nothing really crazy happened. We were laughing over magazines and we're listening to dave massey's band. Um, we're having a good time, um, and I remember, um, I like lying on down on the couch. I was about to pass out for the night and my friend was in the bathroom like vomiting into the toilet and I remember thinking like I'm good at this, you know, like he's vomiting, he's got problems, but I'm all right. That's where I began.

Speaker 1:

For some. I always felt there was a film-like quality that the now I'm on screen when I was drinking, like I felt online awake alert, was this was this a night you planned with your brother? Was there a strategy? And was 17 older for for initially drinking in your area?

Speaker 2:

Um, I think 17 was probably around the average age. You know, I didn't, I didn't really know too much, um like about a lot of other people when they started drinking. I just know, really, when I started drinking, I was like planned, like we had planned it out. Um, my, my best friend at the time, like he was uh through a lot of emotional difficulties. He had just lost his aunt to cancer. He wasn't feeling too great and we wanted to do something to make ourselves feel better. So that's what we did.

Speaker 1:

And for these first 17 years, I want to go back and ask a pertinent question. I think that would lead us into our later discussion. Did you grow up around religious people or with any religious education?

Speaker 2:

No, not at all. My family wasn't religious at all. We didn't pray before dinner, we didn't go to church. My parents never really outspoke anything about their religious beliefs whatsoever.

Speaker 1:

When did you first encounter an idea of, say, either a creator, God, or friends that were practicing a culture or a lifestyle that was different than what you were experiencing?

Speaker 2:

The first time that I heard about Jesus like I was in first grade. I was six years old and this one girl like she drew a picture of Jesus like above her house and she was like this is Jesus, this is who he is so like. For a little while I saw he was just this random bearded dude who lived above her house.

Speaker 1:

Oh really.

Speaker 2:

But to be honest, I don't really recall too much Like when I first like encountered religion as an organization, like I think I was like 13 or 14 when, like it became apparent to me like my grandmother on my mom's side, you know, she believes in God and she's not really a regular churchgoer but she does have faith, and then my older sister got into it, I believe, and that's really all the experience I had in my teenage years.

Speaker 1:

Moving on. When you had this first experience of drinking, how soon or how long did it take for drinking to cause consequences in itself?

Speaker 2:

uh, it didn't. It didn't take long, um, when I was 18, um, I had opted to not go to college. I graduated high school, um, I was just working, um as a dishwasher. Um, and I was left to drink a lot. My brother would get me the alcohol because he was 21. And like it left like I become very argumentative when I'm under the influence and like it caused a lot of dysfunction at home from my end. You know, I would just start arguing with people and just get very riled up. So that's very early on.

Speaker 1:

I got problems from it and what did you feel like when you weren't drinking in that period? So that's a year into drinking, you're 18, you're an adult. Um, what was the state of you? How would you describe your mind or your position or well-being when you were completely sober?

Speaker 2:

Constant discontent Like it. Just nothing satisfied me. You know, I got no pleasure out of music, out of watching a movie, watching shows, hanging with people I didn't like anytime I was around anybody. I just wanted either I wanted to drink with them or just drink by myself. You know, if you're not going to drink with me, then why are you here? It became very all-consuming.

Speaker 1:

Where is music in your life at this time? Do you drink, listen to music? Is there films? Is there any place where you're checking out to a narrative entertainment?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, music like I would drink and listen to music a lot. Entertainment yeah, Music, Like I would drink and listen to music a lot and before I started drinking, like I spent a lot of time listening to music and it's a major outlet for me, you know. Allows me to process my emotions and just relax for the day.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's a. It's the first accessible therapy. I was listening to a lot of emotions by the time I was six. I wasn't going to experience till I was 15, I was listening to Brought Emotions by the time I was six. I wasn't going to experience it until I was 15, but I was getting primed. Yes, you were. Yeah, 80s rock brother Can't go wrong. So it's getting increasingly harder to maintain a stable relationship, even with a sibling Drinking. You have a constant kind of feeling of discontent, and drinking only alleviates that. And is there anything going on in your thought life, uh, that you would describe as rumination or resentment of what should have happened or could have happened, or what you want was not accessible? And then, how did that relate to your drinking? Was it still relieving that kind of torment?

Speaker 2:

I would say the drinking fed the resentful narrative. I had a lot of resentment towards my family. I felt mistreated growing up. I felt like I basically had a chip on my shoulder and I wanted to blame everyone around me, particularly my parents, for the fact that I hadn't lived up to their expectations. I hadn't lived up to my expectations. You know, I didn't go to college, I was just. You know, for a while I was working as a dishwasher. Then I wasn't working at all, I was just drinking and getting high and just wasting my life. And drinking helped to fuel that negative narrative where it wasn't my fault, it was everyone else's fault and it kind of really was making it hard for me to see that it's my responsibility to clean myself up.

Speaker 1:

It is hard, especially at 18. If it's romantic at first, I don't know if he could relate to this, this idea that you're the victim. I mean you could listen to one out of three Bruce Springsteen songs and feel like the who he's describing if you're a good drunk it. Was it romantic initially, the idea of being the victim of?

Speaker 2:

uh, mistreatment, uh, not given enough chances, this locked in my fate now yeah, there's definitely a lot of romanticization that goes with it, like it became an identity, to be honest, and I mean nowadays I look back on it and it kind of makes me cringe. But back then, like victimhood was kind of my main identifier. I just felt like I was screwed over by the world and I was owed so much more. You know, I had a sense of entitlement that really got in my way and it definitely definitely gave me a basis on how to look at myself.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, did you know? Other people felt this way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean somewhat, but mostly I was more concerned with myself. Sure, I definitely felt alone with how I felt and with my addiction. I didn't feel like there was anyone around me who was on the level that I was, except. I mean, like my brother, he has addictive problems and he definitely deals with resentment in the same way that a lot of addicts do. Because, like, growing up like he dealt with a lot of mistreatment, like before my stepfather came into the picture, like he, my brother, was abused a lot by my biological father and then from my biological father to my stepfather and then, you know, he got into harder drugs when he was like 16, 17. And I got to watch it like eat away at him. And I got to watch it like eat away at him and it became like a good excuse for myself, like watching him go through like psychotic episodes and I would be like, well, I'm not that bad, I don't need to change. Yeah, you know so at least with him I understood like he was suffering too, but I felt a little different.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it must be strange, with all the stuff you've experienced and understand, especially in the last year. Looking back at the the, the pain he was experiencing, let's see it gets lonely, it's a, it's real disconnection. When did the consequences become apparent? That alcohol was the problem and you? You had the first consideration that you may have what we could call alcoholism, but really substance use disorder.

Speaker 2:

The first time that I really admitted alcohol itself was a problem for me was when I turned 21. Up until that point I had been going to therapy and my therapist kept trying to nudge me to look at my drinking and be like, yeah, you, you need to stay sober, you should go to go to meetings, like she gave me a list of AA meetings and I was just like no, no, I don't, I don't need that, I'm all right, I'm just, I'm depressed, I'm anxious. You know, like I, the drinking is not causing my mental illness. My mental illness is causing my alcoholism.

Speaker 1:

You know, and it's crazy, I, if I can pause you right there so you get these conditions and someone could tell you if you have depression and anxiety. I'm not saying they're untrue, but what are they describing? Like what did you think now you have? Like what would be causing the anxiety? What would be causing depression is Is it anatomical? Is it beyond volition, is it beyond will? Does it exist? It's weird Some people get this initial relief that they got. I have ADD. I have clinical depression.

Speaker 2:

Oh Jesus, I knew something was wrong.

Speaker 1:

But now what? What does that diagnosis mean? I think many people that get a really quick diagnosis, maybe not in depth psychoanalytic therapy or a psychoeducation for 30 or 40 days, five days a week, they don't know what that is. They just feel relief like, oh, I could hang my coat on this, this term, this concept, but it's not something you could scan the brain and say, oh, that's, that's, that's exactly the thought that's causing that, that's the memories, like you could see the differences of how a brain's functioning. But what, what did it mean to you then to say I, I have anxiety, I have depression.

Speaker 2:

What did you think that encompassed? I think it just encompassed my general disaffection with life. It encompassed the fear that I felt on a daily basis, just like going to the store and trying to buy things, constantly worrying about what people were thinking of me, when in those sorts of situations nobody's thinking of me. We're just trying to get what we want and go home like that. But as far as like what, what those terms were to me, like for for me, I use those terms as an excuse. To be honest, I would, I would be like I'm depressed, I'm anxious. This is why I drink. Honest, I would, I would be like I'm depressed, I'm anxious. This is why I drink.

Speaker 2:

I would look at my emotions and my experiences and feel like I am vindicated in allowing myself to drink myself into, you know, into vomiting into toilet and just being a waste of a human being, rather than like trying to make changes in my life. You know I am not a psychologist, I'm not a psychiatrist, but I know for me, like the deal was depression and anxiety. I need to make changes in my life. And I'm not saying like alcoholism is the sole cause of my depression and my anxiety, but like the life choices I've made.

Speaker 2:

You know I felt like a failure. I, you know, didn't have any direction in life and I didn't have many social connections. And when I'm just left to waste away, of course I'm going to be depressed and of course I'm going to be anxious, I'm going to worry about the future because I'm not doing anything to prepare for it. I'm just drinking my life away. And for me to deal with those things? No, I needed to make changes and you know, in the past year and a half, I have and to be honest, like day to day now, being sober and having made the changes that I needed to make, like I don't really deal with much depression anymore. I deal with anxiety, but like I can, I could walk through it. Now I can actually work on it, rather than being frozen by it.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing to hear people describe that Cause. Sometimes you could be at a support group or recovery community and it's like binary Everything was horrible, that's over everything, great Shiny. And I love listening to you speak because there's the authenticity of saying I've had anxiety the last year and I have not been drunk and I'm okay. Depression's decreased Anxiety still arrives, but you're recognizing it as a communication. An internal communication is going on. What am I ignoring, what am I misperceiving? Like these are the questions I've heard you describe it before. You kind of ask yourself I think that's a more authentic way to present to, especially a newcomer. We're not selling like Cadillacs.

Speaker 2:

No, we're not selling sunshine and rainbows. Yeah, cadillacs. No, we're not selling sunshine and rainbows, yeah so when did you first?

Speaker 1:

uh, you sought therapy. We kind of what? What produced that? How did you end up in therapy?

Speaker 2:

Um, I went to therapy because, um, when I was 19, my best buddy was, uh, getting ready to go to the Marines. He was going to go to boot camp. We had a going away party for him and I got drunk at that party, like very drunk, like blackout drunk, and I got physical at the party, like me and him got in a fight and to this day, like I really don't, I don't remember why, I don't know what happened. We're playing cards against humanity, that's all I know. I love that game, but I don't remember why. I don't know what happened. We were playing cards against humanity, that's all I know. I love that game, but I don't love that time.

Speaker 2:

And I was, like you know, so horrified by what I had done the morning after. I was like, you know, there's something wrong with me. But even then, like I didn't think I had alcoholism, I didn't think I was an addict, I just saw it. You know, I need you to go to therapy now. You know just what people do. Um, so that's that's why I started doing oh, and you're not looking at alcohol.

Speaker 1:

When did you begin to look at? Maybe, if I was going to proceed in any meaningful therapy, can I do it while drinking in the way you were drinking when? When did that converge, that conflict kind of crash?

Speaker 2:

um, well, when I first started going to therapy, um, like, I did stay sober for about four or five months, um, and then after a little while, like that was me just doing the therapy like it wasn't. You know. It know it's not, it's not enough, it's not fixing the quote unquote spiritual malady that I felt in my life. It's just like the way I treated it. I was just going there, whining about my life and then not doing anything to change it. Um, I, I used it as an emotional dump. So after four or five months I did start drinking again and then I remember like I would, I would go to therapy. I'll be like, I'll bring like a little list. Now I'd be like these are the pros of drinking and these are the cons of drinking. Do you notice that there are more pros and they're like you're insane.

Speaker 1:

Like, well, they're, probably, they, probably. It makes sense to me because it's it's. It's a profound medication for a condition that precedes drinking. Now you know I think you can't state it enough for people that are are family members being tormented by this? Why won't he be fine if he just doesn't drink? He was sober for a year. That rehab didn't work. These are common statements. I could find myself making them someday, because it was just this. The answer is really counterintuitive that drinking rises up to be a solution to something else. That's wrong, and you have already been describing it. That's what I describe in my story. So you get to experience five months of not drinking, and it tells us one thing Alcohol is not the problem. Someone took away your solution.

Speaker 2:

Yep, pretty much. I was just the same person, just not drinking, and my therapist did point that out. She was like you know, you're basically just going about your day the same way you would when you're drunk you go to work, you go home, you stay there and you don't do anything, and that's the condition that precedes drinking.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, when did you learn that? How did you end up in treatment? Was there events or an event?

Speaker 2:

My first time in treatment. I turned 21. My birthday is in August and I was in there by. I was in treatment by the end of September because I got drunk at home and then I got into an argument with my parents. Like I like basically like berated them for like two hours because, like you know, I can't look at myself, so let's look at you. And then I got into a fight with my stepfather in the morning, you know, just just like when I was 19,. Like I was again horrified by what I had done and I felt like, well, you know, I got to, got to do something different now. You know, I got to go to treatment or something like that. So that's what I did.

Speaker 2:

I went to Pyramid in um and I was there for like three weeks and then they brought me home Um and I started drinking again like three to six weeks or so after, after I left because, uh, to be honest, like I did it mostly for posterity, Like you know, I I had hurt my family a lot and they needed to see me do something as a consequence for the actions that I had taken against them and something to show like actual remorse, which I did feel, but like, did I actually want to address the issue that it caused it? No, no, I didn't want to get sober, I just wanted to make it look like I wanted to change.

Speaker 1:

So that was my first and did you think you could ever return to successful drinking or you needed enough space, like because you there's no long game in that kind of position like or at least being described so you'd get space. And I've done this, you get space. There's a sincerity. I know I've affected people or consequences are going to be so self-preservation kind of takes over in some scenarios, like you'd be without a home, you could be without employment, so this fear could sober you up for a bit.

Speaker 2:

Yep. But then it runs out yeah, it does, and after a while I did think I could. Yeah, it does. And I, after a while you know I do I did think like I could go back to it successfully. You know, like it's, it's very much a bait and switch, it's it's a catch 22. It's like I, I would get sober, like after my first time. I got sober for a few weeks and then you know, I would just, I'll be like you know what the crisis is averted. We're good, you know I would just. I'll be like you know what the crisis is averted. We're good.

Speaker 2:

You know, it was just a fluke Like and a lot of people can relate to that where it's like we, we suffer these consequences, as in, somehow we forget how much we had hurt ourselves and the people around us, and we're like you know what. It's OK, all right, it was just a mistake. I've learned my lesson, I can control it now. I've learned my lesson, I can control it now. And, yeah, that that is not not what happened at all. I'll go back to it and then, slowly but surely, we'll just progress and get worse and balloon and blow and just you know you get what it's like.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and how desperate did this become before you surrendered to the idea that there is no way forward without sobriety? Or was that that took a little while? Right, that was a slow event. It wasn't immediate. How would you describe it?

Speaker 2:

Oh, it was horrifying. I didn't go to treatment again for another four years. This last time around, I didn't go until I was 25. Years this last time around, I didn't go till I was 25. So I spent four years on and off with alcohol, on my own and constantly failing to stay sober, and in the end it's just like my worst nightmare came true. You know like in the end I was living at home with my mom, just my mom. My stepfather left, my younger sister had left, my brother was out living in a shelter and our house is basically falling apart. It's like a literal metaphor for the state of our family. We got mold in the ceiling, it's leaking, our heater isn't working. The place is just an absolute mess. And then we got an eviction notice because the owner of the place wanted to sell it off. The guy was retiring, he wanted something to live off of and we pretty soon I wouldn't have anywhere to go and I was basically at a dead end. I was literally broken physically, mentally and spiritually. I had hurt my back at work. I was limping around, I wasn't sleeping. Spiritually, I had hurt my back at work, I was limping around, I wasn't sleeping. Um and I.

Speaker 2:

I had no choice but to admit yeah, I gotta, I gotta go to treatment again and I gotta actually like do this, like I gotta stay sober. Like before I went to treatment, like I basically like cried for two weeks, just I called out of work and just drank myself into passing out every day and crying and going around my house by myself just thinking about the good times, the bad times, and it was a very desperate time. But even when I went to rehab, like I was still like dead set. I'm like I was dead set on getting sober, but I was dead set on getting sober without AA, you know. And that was like a big reason why I didn't want to go to treatment after my first experience with rehab, because I was like they're just going to shove aa down my throat how would you like if you had to describe a from the mindset you had then?

Speaker 1:

what did you think?

Speaker 2:

a was that you were resisting like a lot like a cult man. That's pretty much how I thought about it. I saw it. It was um ignorance, um, you know bliss and ignorance and we're like, yeah, we're exposed because people aren't acknowledging the reality super crazy now, yeah, just better exactly have some of our kool-aid, um.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, and it's a very narrow-minded view, um, that I had because all I could focus on was the God problem and like I would look down on people who believed in that when, really honestly, like I might be the one who's lacking something here, not not people who actually believe in their higher power.

Speaker 1:

It's hard. Sometimes you can feel outnumbered by people who are, well that you know, don't want to have a debate, don't want to have some intellectual approach, and that may not happen or a meeting doesn't seem currently the venue for this discussion. But, man, some of them should be, because this is the discussion, steps one and two for a guy especially of non-belief, and maybe we could begin to. I'll table it for now. Well, let's go to a literature and the founders.

Speaker 1:

This was the discussion they are having for five chapters in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, and many of them were not only atheists, predominantly agnostic. A collapsed faith, a cynicism, the rise of evolution. You're talking about a world and a culture that didn't have women. We're only voting for eight years. That's the other half of our species. A puritanical, calvinistic approach to not only law but culture by prohibition, the way we approached charity and social services, which is create human dignity. We're driven by Calvinistic ideas that you know they were cruel. They were cruel and many of them did more harm, disempowered and cruelly made to subscribe or be coerced into religious narratives that had no value to them, just wanting lunch. So we I knew you were thirsty for that, but I have that discussion of you still were. But let's, we'll come to it. How do, how do we? Let's just build up to where we met. We got to talk about this all right, um.

Speaker 2:

So I went to treatment uh, march 2023, um, or more like the like, yet right at the end of february 2023, but like march 1st is my sobriety date, um, and I went to clearbrook and from clearbrook I went to Mountain's Edge while Joe Cain was still clinical director, and then from there I came here to Oliphant House, which is where I met you, and I remember, before I was leaving Mountain's Edge, I was calling you like every other day, being like you still got room right, like we're good, right of room right, like we're good, right, um, and even like, as I was, uh, uh, coming here and moving in, like I still was really like up in arms about uh, doing aa, um, but like you're the one who convinced me I could do it, because you know you're, um, you're an atheist as well, um, and I was like, well, at this point I really don't have an argument. You like my higher power doesn't have to be God. You know it really doesn't. It could be the program itself, the group itself, concepts like hope and face, curiosity, curiosity.

Speaker 1:

Novelty, transcendence, self-actualization Exactly this could be a question mark and I think even a question mark could put you on a really vigorous path for adventure and sincerity. But I like how you note it Mountain's Edge and you note it. Joe Cain Yep, and he's been on the show. He's a dear friend. I consider him a mentor beyond a friend, and I don't mind flattering him any chance I get because he's special and the mountain's edge was very special. And if Joe was at a place, you know some basic stuff.

Speaker 1:

Clinically, non AA things are going to happen. If someone completes that program they're going to have an understanding of a disorder, a concept of the disorder, are they committing to an idea of sobriety and what the maintenance of that sobriety would have to entail. Everyone who ever arrived from there after you had that basic foundation. So they're really really starting a level of care that we started. It's called PHP, partial hospitalization. It's hard to have a mixed population where some people are where you were at when you arrived and other people are still in their first week of treatment, even after 30, 40 days in inpatient. I'm still teaching them what a disorder is and I know you've clearly understood that that could prove to be challenging until we're split in groups. I was so happy you called because first we got into a discussion.

Speaker 1:

You're an atheist. I'm like, yes, I'm going to tell you why and you might share the sentiment. Now, I don't know, I work the steps, atheist, I get to step three. I don't know, I work the steps Atheist, I get to step three. I don't want to be insincere, I just take this position.

Speaker 1:

I could be wrong. I wasn't presuming what could be right, I'm just saying I could be wrong. And what being wrong is there is an entity that's a prime mover, involved in human affairs or not. I didn't sign up for all that. I don't know what's happening. I know I'm probably not the source of reality.

Speaker 1:

I was very materialistic in this sense. I couldn't see anything beyond matter. There's concepts humans could hold that don't seem materialized. But it just seemed dreadful. The way I saw life evolution. It looks cynical, cruel, like a mistake. We're applying meaning like in an ad hoc way. It's not there to be found. Yeah, that's frightening when you're dying of alcoholism and I was so fucking lonely, like internally, and I could not connect with people I loved, like I just felt like a freak and when you called it was. It's why I'm doing this, because coming back to A was was a really.

Speaker 1:

I was walking, walking a tight wire, and I met a great guy that didn't give a shit what I believed in. He was going to get me through the steps because I'm not here to I don't care what you can you say this, I said, and sincerely I said, yeah, he didn't browbeat me, it was fine, let's move on. He goes. Are you willing to believe? You don't understand reality? I said, yeah, that was my spirit. That started my spiritual, spiritual awakening. We had that discussion the night. You called and we talked every day. Did you not think that was that? That was the bars, that low in AA Was your.

Speaker 2:

No, I didn't think it was. I thought like he absolutely had to believe. Like you know, everybody has their own understanding of God, but it has to be an understanding of a God you know that's pretty arrogant.

Speaker 1:

You're going to understand it. An infinite strike, whatever you're describing as this infinite designer. I always chuckle because God doesn't even have to be complex, it could be just. You know, you could see. The big bang doesn't seem complex, it's the spreading of something. Who says God's even the design. They don't have any things we've designed abandoned and they grew into their own kind of things. Ai's doing that. We don't even know how to fix it. We don't even know how it works. We created it.

Speaker 2:

Yep, yeah, sometimes I do think it's like just like a little audacious to be like what's the creator of the universe? It's like how can I, as like I, as a temporal mortal, understand something like that? You know what I'm saying. It's something that's supposed to be beyond me. But sometimes I do view that view as short-sighted and at this rate in time, like you said, I just have to have the understanding that, with my belief that there is no God, I could be wrong. You know, I could very much be wrong. I don't know that. I don't know a lot of things. There is much more that I don't know than I do know. I can tell you that and honestly, that is a very beautiful thing, because there's always something to learn each and every day. I don't know everything, and that helps give a purpose to life.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think consciousness is special and I think connection is special. I believe in things through faith, even though it wasn't God, and I really like how we agnostics. When I was reading it, I saw it in a new light, because now I'm 40, getting sober again, 39, and they make this argument about the wright brothers. And the wright brothers end up taking flight, and you could go through this list. Did all flights have failed before that did all this? Why a journalist wouldn't write it? Did professor langley's flying machine fall into the Potomac? Yes, you could say yes, so you could take a critical mind. Answer, in all probability, these questions Don't print that the Wright Brothers flew this. We weren't there, no one was there. This is really improbable that it happened and you would be following the laws of science or at least some kind of method of review, and you're wrong. And so their childlike faith to have a machine fly. I don't know it caught me this time.

Speaker 1:

The words I always resist is when it got heavy, when it was like God either is or isn't. What's your choice to be? And so to take this loaded word God, I don't tell people what God is or what he isn't. I let them have their experience and when I've just followed the procedures of the book in this really mysterious way, now we can read a 90 year old book together it doesn't seem relevant what I believe or that person believes. If we're taking the action sincerely, with an open mind open minds, not subscribing us to any ideology and the book's telling you, all you have to have is a willingness to begin, the same results happen for a lot of us. We don't drink. We reconnect, make amends, we explore spiritual ideas. Spiritual to me is evolution. Spiritual is the unknown of history. It's the speculation of an interesting future social exchange to protect other people's dignity. That's spiritual. I thought spirituality to me. You know I grew up Catholic. It had to be some kind of strange Da Vinci riddle.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, something you can't decipher. You got to, like, put all these puzzle pieces together.

Speaker 1:

So are you listening for people like that in the recovery community so you can connect with them now?

Speaker 2:

I do. When I listen to people's shares I'm like, did I believe what I believe? But, to be honest, it isn't all that common in the rooms so so far I haven't really made any meaningful connections with people who are also atheists. So far, connections with people who are also atheists so far, most of the people like. One thing that I've gotten through giving AA a shot is, like you know, practicing tolerance and understanding that, like, people are going to have different beliefs than me and that's absolutely okay. You know, like a lot of my like good AA buddies, like they, you know they have a belief in, uh, in a God, um, and that's, that's okay, that's awesome. Like you know, I still get along with them and they still have many insights that I myself don't get. Yeah, um, how do you?

Speaker 1:

practice or explore or feed what you could deem the word. If you want to take a secular approach to spirituality, um, sam Harris wrote a. You want to take a secular approach to spirituality? Sam Harris wrote an unbelievable book called Spirituality, and it's for nonbelievers or secular people. How do you practice step 11? How do you explore that side to keep your curiosity growing on moral or spiritual practices that give you a different perspective on life, that almost fights off the discontent that lies in wait for us? If we're not connected to people with these principles, how do you practice that?

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm not much in the way of prayer and meditation, but it's mostly just through action and trying like. Spirituality to me is mostly just connection to other people, knowing what my place in the universe is and acting on a sort of purpose. And right now my main real purpose is kind of just helping other alcoholics, um, being a sort of example for them to follow. Um, I'm not really much of a like, I'm not really good at telling my own story, but like you know, I can. You know, it's just I can.

Speaker 1:

I disagree.

Speaker 2:

Um, I can show people, uh, what, what, what life can be like, and that's pretty much what it is for me. That's how I practice. That stuff is going to the same meetings every week. Being a part of that meeting, like I go, one of my favorite meetings is take it to the fourth dimension. You know, I'll go early, I'll help set up, I'll do coffee, I'll chair, I'll help clean up at the end. Um, and you know, while I'm not like sitting down and meditating, you know I'm not thinking about my problems when I'm doing that stuff. I'm literally just in the moment and enjoying my time with the other people there. Um, I'm experiencing connection and I'm experiencing a purpose, and that is what matters to me.

Speaker 1:

What was it like for you? Because we do approaches to meditation here, it's been past and secular. What was that experience like for you? Because we did it for months. We did formal practices on Sundays with our retreats, you know, in all my groups. After my process group I like to do a 10-minute kind of grounding. Where are you? Where's the contents of your mind? Can you just look at them in a way that precedes the emotion of them? What was that experience like for you?

Speaker 2:

I did like our retreats, doing our meditation, especially like going up to Peter Amato's place I forget the name of it Inner Harmony. Yes, that place I did like it. It was a good experience. But, like, as far as like actual meditation goes, like I I struggle with sitting, still man, and I, I I guess my mind is just very unruly and I haven't practiced a lot, but like I just go off and daydream a lot.

Speaker 2:

When I do it, like I'm just, uh, I used to want to be a writer and like sometimes I still like, uh, when I'm just like left to be up in my brain, I'm like, oh, that'd be a cool story, oh, that'd be funny to write, or something like that.

Speaker 2:

But like I'm not actually like clearing my mind to to find an inner harmony. You know, I'm just off in la la land and I I guess it's it's a way where, like I'm lacking in my program, you know, like I am not a saint and it, you know it's something that I slack on. It's not something that I've taken very seriously, although I do. I did appreciate the opportunities that you gave us to go to inner harmony and do and practice our meditation Like it's, you know, not not every day that you get to go up to this beautiful mountain and, and you know, stare at this big Buddha statue and, just you know, also get like a lecture about the steps and things like that from a Buddhist perspective. Yeah, like it's definitely a novel experience, but that's pretty much my take on meditation. It's just I'm undisciplined.

Speaker 1:

There's been a lot of changes at Fellowship House. We were building the plane while we were flying it. We were here and we were doing it in a really measured and scaled way. We knew what was going to be arriving next. Um, what do you think the most memorable aspects of being here is, and what do you think we could improve of what we were doing here?

Speaker 2:

My most memorable experience is my transition from Oliphant into Green Ridge and being one of the first people in that house me and Tim Kalpin, the first two people in that house and like watching it grow and people like populate the rooms and like essentially like being helping to be an example for all our people, being like well, this is how we do things here. These are the meetings here. You know you need to go to the store, I'll take you to that store and just being able to live with a community of people that like I relate to, like there's not any like one specific instance that like stands out as the most memorable thing. But those early days where we were just getting things off the ground were great, were memorable, and I am very happy. I was very nervous when we had that news and the news.

Speaker 2:

People ask us questions and things. Oh, that's right. Yeah, I remember for the grand opening, but as far as improving things goes, to be honest, the way things are, you're really spot on. You got a tech there to help people, you got a van to help those without transportation get to where they need to go and you have a house captain, sergeant in arms yeah, sergeant in arms. I'm not sure who the house captain is now that Mike left but it's Dylan, dylan, yeah, d-dog.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow, all right, she's, she's, she's coming up the ladder, yeah, but yeah, I mean, and now, like the, the tours are like definitely segregating, Like people know what they need to do and you have all sorts of meeting opportunities. So, to be honest, like I, I don't really know what else you could do.

Speaker 1:

Like to be honest, it's a very we'll find out, cause I listen. I I ask you guys cause, like you, I can forget, like what am I missing? Cause I'll just look at what's working. So I always try to ask the same ones, not the guy that just came in. Yeah the sane ones, not the guy that just came in the veterans.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I need everything, but yeah, we had a really I hate using the word luck, but the first year was really gelled and I think it was because we all sat down the team and the promise I made to you guys was that we were going to have high willingness here and that's what I was screening for for the first entry of the year and for our lot of treatment, especially inpatient. But for us to make that work in the first year it was the bar had to be set there and being around all every floor was a guy who wanted to get sober At every different level of severity with an addiction. They're now in the PHP experience and you guys got each other well on the off hours it wasn't. People were doing things to produce and keep and build rituals for recovery. Um, I was exciting to watch man.

Speaker 2:

Yeah that was exciting to be a part of it. You know, it's just, I felt like it was like a grassroots movement blossoming um, and that that is one thing I was very grateful for was being in the community of full people who wanted to stay sober. You know, we didn't have many quote-unquote bad eggs. You know, like we, a lot of us, were like this is this is our way of life. You know, we we helped get each other to meetings. We helped each other with our steps, as in if any one of us had a question about a step we hadn't done and one of us had already done it, we could suggest what we should do, and also just having people to talk to.

Speaker 1:

It could be alarming at first, when, on the second week, when we shave your head um and then brand you yeah, we address your uniform, number six.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we were very fortunate. I I'm really glad, uh, you number one man, because that was my position. I struggled. Step four wasn't hard for me. I was ready to start cleaning up the past and some of it was hard, but it wasn't as hard for me as step two and I forgot a lot about AA's history and we got to talk about that. Those last two years.

Speaker 1:

Hank P, atheist, helped get the book published, brought it out to San Francisco Bill's own words, you know, and his admiration for his grandfather, you know. On his dying bed was bitching about the church and who the hell are they to tell me what to do? And who the hell are they to tell me what to do? He later goes on to say, you know, by the time he's ready to get sober and where his addiction left him, he's now a World War I vet, without question. He has PTSD.

Speaker 1:

How long this is active, aggravated by his drinking. He has an insecure attachment style, no bonding, feels abandonment. He's raised by his grandparents as unbridled anxiety he first tries to treat with his ambition, as you see in his own descriptions, and you're telling him God, he's coming to. You know, it was his friend, so that's the softer blow's abby thatcher. He's like why don't you choose a god of your own conception? Because when people would talk about god that was loving and personal to him, what would bill do? He would, he would bristle with antagonism, and I think that's what you. You were like. I saw your eyes open. You're like who did?

Speaker 2:

I'm like the writer of this book I definitely, definitely, bristled with antagonism many times I was like God's the solution, but over time I've grown to tolerate it and it's a good principle to practice and I had to have openness. There's a reason why honesty, openness and willingness is how we do it. I needed to be willing to admit that the way I'm thinking, the way I'm doing things, is not helping me and I need to try something different. I need to try something that's completely radical to me and you helped me see that that was AA. It was, honestly, one of the best decisions I made and I truly feel lucky that, like not only that I came here, but, like you, you were the one running this place and I got to meet you.

Speaker 1:

you know like it's an opportunity of a lifetime I always heard a guy say uh, once, anytime you see the word God on a literature and recovery communities and you have a problem with it, cross it out, put love. If you have a problem with love, I can't help it. There's something something deeper.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So, man, I'm glad you stopped by, um, and I look forward to seeing you at the house. Thanks for stopping in there and saying hi to the guys. Let them know that life I mean, that was a blink of an eye Life's waiting for all of us. The rituals we're building in that house in that year give you the resilience to have the life you want.

Speaker 2:

Exactly and I definitely think like if I had like skipped the sober house somehow and like gone and lived elsewhere, like reintegrated immediately back into society without any sort of support network, I would have drank very easily, like I'm definitely sober today because of the habits and coping mechanisms I picked up at a fellowship house. You know I learned to live a different way of life and it definitely prepared me for the long, long, hopefully enjoyable road ahead.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I see that. Well, brother, you still smoking cigs? Oh yeah, all right, let's hit the porch. Oh yes, I'd like to thank you for listening to another episode of All Better. You can find us on allbetterfm or listen to us on Apple Podcasts, spotify, google Podcasts, stitcher, iheartradio and Alexa. Special thanks to our producer, john Edwards, and engineering company 570 Drone. Please like or subscribe to us on YouTube, facebook, instagram or Twitter, and, if you're not, on social media, you're awesome. Looking forward to seeing you again. And remember, just because you're sober doesn't mean you're right.