00:00:00:04 - 00:00:19:13
Shawn
This liquid in a bottle has then beat. No matter how many, no matter how hard or how many times they try. No matter how many people try and help them, no matter how much they want to stop, no matter how hard they try to stop, no matter how much their family wants them to help, wants them to stop, no matter how much people try and help them, they just cannot beat.
00:00:19:14 - 00:00:32:06
Shawn
Whether it's a liquid in a bottle that you buy at a grocery store or a liquor store, or a pill that comes in a bottle that's this big.
00:00:32:08 - 00:00:49:16
Danny
Hello, my name is Danny, and welcome to the Beyond the Window podcast for La Ventana treatment programs. My name is Danny and I'm an addict. My role here as a case manager and group facilitator, and it is an honor to be sharing the stage with my wonderful colleague, Shawn. Shawn, would you like to introduce yourself?
00:00:49:18 - 00:01:05:22
Shawn
Sure, yeah. My name is Shawn Deffenbaugh, and I'm in personal recovery. I've been in addiction recovery. I've been clean and sober for a little over 12 years now. I've been working in the field here at La Ventana for a little over 11 years, and I've actually been working as a certified counselor for the last four years.
00:01:06:03 - 00:01:17:00
Danny
Wonderful. Thank you. Shawn. First of all, it's an honor to have you here. You've been a great source of inspiration and hope for me when I was getting clean. So thank you for your service. And it's a privilege to be here.
00:01:17:00 - 00:01:19:03
Shawn
With you. Always an honor.
00:01:19:05 - 00:01:40:11
Danny
So maybe we can begin by, you know, maybe some of our listeners might be family members or people who are contemplating about what is recovery and what is this recovery process look like. So I was wondering, maybe we can spend some time maybe introducing and walking through some of the some of the recovery process or the 12 step process with some of our viewers.
00:01:40:12 - 00:01:41:11
Danny
Are you okay with that?
00:01:41:12 - 00:01:42:09
Shawn
Absolutely.
00:01:42:10 - 00:02:03:20
Danny
Yeah, man. Okay, so I'm new in recovery and I keep hearing about this bottom talk and it's very confusing for me. What do people mean. Like when you say you have to hit bottom first. Like like what does bottom actually look like to you. And and why do you think some people don't hit their bottom?
00:02:03:21 - 00:02:35:05
Shawn
So I think everyone's bottom is different. I think it's unique to each and every individual. I like to say that the bottom is when you stop digging. I remember, you know, my my drug and alcohol use took me pretty far down the scale, as they say. I ran myself into the ground for a very long time. And I remember like one of the first times that I got into legal trouble and like having a court date and like going to court and like being afraid that I was going to get thrown into jail cell and have to do some jail time.
00:02:35:05 - 00:02:59:07
Shawn
And that being like the end of the world, like that being like, I can't even contemplate how horrible this is. I can't even imagine, like, how bad this is going to be. I'm so scared I can't. It's beyond my imagination. Just terrified, miserable. Couldn't even understand how things had gotten so bad for me. But that was actually very early on in my addiction.
00:02:59:07 - 00:03:18:22
Shawn
And little did I know that going to jail was only the very beginning and it got worse. And then after that it got worse. And then after that it got worse. And there were things that were much more horrendous than just doing a little bit of time in the county jail. So for me, there's always a worse bottom out there waiting for me.
00:03:18:23 - 00:03:44:19
Shawn
I'm certain that, you know, if I were to make one bad decision today and think that maybe I would like to experiment with one of these, you know, new substances that is out there now days, or maybe pick up a drink because I think that, you know, I'm not an alcoholic or an addict anymore, that there will eventually be an even deeper bottom out there waiting for me somewhere that is beyond, you know, anything that my imagination could ever come up with.
00:03:44:21 - 00:04:13:02
Danny
Yeah. What a story of resiliency. Thank you for opening up about what your bottom was like. I can see how how difficult it must have been, you know, experiencing homelessness or physical arrests. And, you know, it's overall crisis. Right. But it's like I remember when I was first getting in, showing up to the rooms, and I had a really hard time identifying with others because it's like, well, what if I've never been arrested?
00:04:13:04 - 00:04:26:10
Danny
What if I've never been homeless before? Have I reached my bottom yet? I don't know, and I like the emphasis you placed on like bottom is when you make a decision to put the shovel down and to stop digging.
00:04:26:12 - 00:05:04:09
Shawn
Exactly. Yeah. And it's interesting of all of the, you know, physical and mental and psychological and, you know, consequences that I had to suffer as a result of my substance use. There was no bottom that was worse than the emotional one that came. You know, how it affected my relationship with with my family. And once I experienced that, there was nothing that even had come close to it, regardless of how many times I had been, you know, arrested or thrown in jail or prison or whatever, it might have been like nothing compared to the that darkness that I felt inside my soul when I saw how it was affecting my relationship with the people that
00:05:04:09 - 00:05:06:10
Shawn
I loved most in this world.
00:05:06:11 - 00:05:33:15
Danny
Yeah, I appreciate you bringing in that emotional aspect to it. Like, because some of us may still have a career, some of us may still have a home, a vehicle, some of us may still have family support, you know? So maybe everything on the outside may look stable, but the internal, the emotional part maybe I've hit bottom there.
00:05:33:17 - 00:05:50:21
Danny
Right. And that can manifest as feelings of hopelessness, despair, fear, anxiety, suicidal ideation. Yeah. Right. And so I don't have to lose everything on the outside to hit bottom right.
00:05:50:23 - 00:06:35:19
Shawn
Yeah. No. Absolutely. You know I believe that. And again like I I'm firm believer that this is unique to the individual and their personality and their circumstances and their lived experience. Whatever brings someone to the level of willingness, usually it's desperation. So whatever it takes to get you to a point where you become willing to do something that, you know, for someone like me, for example, when I was introduced to the 12 step program, all of the all of the suggestions, if you will, that are in the 12 steps that were introduced to me, I just could not figure out or foresee or understand how those things could help me stay clean, stay sober.
00:06:35:21 - 00:06:58:18
Shawn
You know, one of the main things, you know, for me was the spiritual aspect of the program, which was something that I was very close minded to in the beginning. So I had I had to hit a very deep and dark bottom in order for me to find the level of desperation that brought me to the level of willingness to do something that I had absolutely no faith in whatsoever.
00:06:58:19 - 00:07:20:00
Shawn
I mean, you know, I know that we talk about we talk about surrender a lot, you know, and like when you're talking about hitting bottom and that level of desperation and the willingness and the surrender and like, what that actually looked like for me was like, you're fighting a war, right? And you're fighting this battle against this enemy that's trying to kill you.
00:07:20:01 - 00:07:38:13
Shawn
You know, like in my case, it was my addictions trying to kill me. And so when you surrender, like you're going to keep fighting or you're going to surrender. And like when you surrender in a battle, like you're not surrendering to your friend, you're surrendering to the enemy. You're surrendering. You're putting your life in the hands of the people that are trying to kill you.
00:07:38:13 - 00:08:00:01
Shawn
So like there's a level of desperation that's associated with that. So, like, that's what I had to do, like surrender for me. Like when I became willing to accept help, I have lots of ideas of how I thought I should be helped, how people should help me. Like I'm willing to accept help, but I think it should be this way.
00:08:00:01 - 00:08:22:09
Shawn
And so that's one level of willingness, but that there's levels of willingness that go deeper than that. And so for me, like I had to become willing to accept a different type of help, you know, because if it were up to me, I would say, okay, I'll accept your help. Give me a place to live, let me borrow your car, get me a cool job, let me save up from some money.
00:08:22:10 - 00:08:39:21
Shawn
I need to meet a nice girl. Like all these things that I need in my life. In order for me to have a chance at recovery. And, you know, to like. To my dismay, I learned that I had to first enlarge upon my spiritual life and then in time, allow everything's to kind of fall in place in their own time after that.
00:08:39:22 - 00:09:08:09
Danny
Yeah. I think you bring up a lot of important concepts like surrender, right? And my understanding of surrender was, was distorted because I used to believe that surrender was a sign of weakness. Right? To surrender meant to give up. And what I've learned was that, you know what? I had no issue surrendering, because many, many times I've always surrendered to the substances.
00:09:08:13 - 00:09:37:11
Danny
I had a level of willingness, like I was willing to do anything to get loaded, anything. If you asked me to wake up and go to the liquor store or 6 or 7 in the morning, as soon as they open up, I'd be there are. If you asked me to pick up that phone and drive a hundred miles to go pick up a substance, I'd be there if I needed to stand at a corner for two hours just to wait for my drug dealer to show up, I'd be there.
00:09:37:11 - 00:09:47:17
Danny
I'd had that level of willingness. I surrender to the drugs many, many, many times, right. Because drugs were my higher power and active addiction. Yeah, right.
00:09:47:18 - 00:09:49:03
Shawn
I relived that a lot.
00:09:49:04 - 00:10:16:07
Danny
And so coming into recovery, taking and transferring that same level of willingness and surrender away from the substances and towards recovery was difficult for me. Right? It was difficult because I wasn't ready to get honest that I've hit bottom yet. Right?
00:10:16:09 - 00:10:46:09
Danny
I feel like it requires a deep level of honesty and humility to say, yes, I'm an alcoholic. Yes, I'm an attic and I am powerless. Why do you think so many people, early in recovery struggle with that admission of saying, yes, I have a problem, but I'm not ready to verbalize it or admit it yet.
00:10:46:15 - 00:11:15:12
Shawn
Yeah, I think I on, you know, and like, let's say the recovery process for people that, you know, have been successful and of all other walks of life. There's nothing else that I know of that is like addiction on this planet. So like, you know, we meet people who have decorated, you know, military careers, people that have, you know, master's degrees, doctorates have been successful in business, in family, in society, all other walks of life.
00:11:15:12 - 00:11:51:17
Shawn
Not only have they been successful, but they've overcome adversity when faced with it every single time, like people have, you know, passed the bar and gone on to become lawyers and, you know, walked through, you know, family tragedies, deaths in their families, physical illness, all of these things that, you know, they faced and overcome in life. But yet somehow, someway, this liquid in a bottle has them be, no matter how many, no matter how hard or how many times they try, no matter how many people try and help them, no matter how much they want to stop, no matter how hard they try to stop, no matter how much their family wants them to help,
00:11:51:19 - 00:12:12:08
Shawn
wants them to stop. No matter how much people try and help them, they just cannot beat. Whether it's a liquid in a bottle that you buy at a grocery store or a liquor store, or a pill that comes in a bottle that's this big, how is it that something so small, so simple, so basic, has has me beat when I've overcome all these other things in life?
00:12:12:09 - 00:12:17:13
Shawn
I mean, it's a hard pill to swallow. To pardon, if you'll pardon the pun. Yeah.
00:12:17:17 - 00:12:25:00
Danny
Yeah, it definitely is difficult. I think about like.
00:12:25:02 - 00:12:40:20
Danny
How painful it is for my ego to make that admission. Right. Because I have been successful in many areas of my life. I do have a lot of skills. But when it comes to substances, self-will isn't just enough. Yeah.
00:12:40:22 - 00:12:44:21
Shawn
On the surface, it just doesn't make sense. Yeah.
00:12:44:23 - 00:13:13:16
Danny
It's like I can manage well on all other areas of my life. But when it comes to substances, why why can't I? And so I create all these like defense. I use all these defense mechanisms. Right. Like I rationalize, I justify, deny, I deny, I minimize, and all these defense mechanisms, I use them because I'm afraid of being honest.
00:13:13:18 - 00:13:19:07
Danny
And all these defense mechanisms keep me in denial. Right?
00:13:19:09 - 00:13:31:07
Shawn
Yeah. Which brings us to step one. Right. It the admitting to yourself and to at least one other person that you have a problem that you can't handle on your own, that you need help with. And a lot of it.
00:13:31:08 - 00:13:57:19
Danny
Yeah. And it's interesting how like, everyone around my life was trying to tell me the truth, right? My family, my partners, my coworkers, my friends. I was constantly being told the truth. I think he also problem. I think you have a problem. I think you should get some help. But it was so difficult for me to accept it because I was too prideful.
00:13:57:21 - 00:14:23:03
Danny
My ego. I want her to protect it so much and I would rely on these defense mechanisms. Kept me in denial. Right? And that kept me further away from hitting my bottom. But until I was able to get honest and say, you know what? I can't control this thing when it comes to substances, controls an illusion, and I truly am powerless.
00:14:23:05 - 00:14:28:17
Danny
And then the gift of desperation that you mentioned earlier comes into fruition, right?
00:14:28:18 - 00:15:10:11
Shawn
Yeah. For 20 years, I tried to figure out how to manage recreational substance use in my life, and you'd think that after 20 days, I would have gotten the point. I'd be like, this isn't working. I can't do this. I don't stand a chance against this. But, you know, instead of 20 days, I did it for 20 years and finally, you know, got got that gift of desperation and found that willingness and was able to be in a position to capitalize on it and was able to find the ability to surrender at the same time, where there was people that not only wanted to help but were able to help.
00:15:10:12 - 00:15:12:15
Danny
Yeah. Okay.
00:15:12:16 - 00:15:13:23
Danny
So I feel like we're.
00:15:14:01 - 00:15:38:04
Danny
At a point in our discussion where it's like, okay, we've realized we're powerless, we're honest about our addiction, and we can't control this thing. Now what? What's next? And I don't know if you can relate to this, but it's like I remember when I was first getting clean. I thought abstinence was enough. I can just be dry and that's it.
00:15:38:05 - 00:15:59:04
Danny
Fine. I can get honest. I have an issue with substances and I'm just not going to use ever again. And I got this. I don't need 12 steps. I don't need a sponsor. I don't need to go to 12 step meetings. I don't need any of this. I've made a decision to stop using. And I got this.
00:15:59:06 - 00:16:05:21
Shawn
Which is a formula which would probably work well for anything else in life. Aside from addiction.
00:16:05:23 - 00:16:06:13
Danny
Yeah.
00:16:06:14 - 00:16:26:07
Shawn
But since addiction is unlike anything else in life, that doesn't work. You know why just don't use doesn't work. I mean, if you're on paper, it sounds great. Like drugs and alcohol are affecting my life in such a way that I can't function anymore. I'm completely miserable. So take the drugs and the alcohol out of the equation and that equals a good life.
00:16:26:08 - 00:16:34:05
Shawn
Simple, right? But anyone that has the disease of addiction, that suffers from it, that has tried, that knows that it's it's not that simple.
00:16:34:07 - 00:17:02:13
Danny
Yeah. And I feel like earlier you mentioned the whole spirituality component of it. Right. It's like abstinence is not enough because. All right. So you take the booze and the drugs away. But I'm still having to dress my spiritual malady. I'm still walking around life with resentments. I'm still walking around with self-centeredness, selfishness. Right. I'm still walking around with character defects.
00:17:02:13 - 00:17:11:19
Danny
And I don't have a program to address any of these underlying issues, because they say that the the bottle is just a symptom of something deeper.
00:17:11:21 - 00:17:30:06
Shawn
Yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, you've probably heard it. You take the alcohol away from an alcoholic and where you left with the IC. And I mean, I found that to be true for myself. And what I've learned over the years is that, you know, the drugs in the alcohol, they weren't my problem. They were actually my solution. My pal Don was me.
00:17:30:06 - 00:17:48:23
Shawn
And when your problem is you, what's the obvious answer? Self-Destruction. Right. So I live that way. And I existed in that for a long time and couldn't see the forest for the trees, because I was so embedded in that that I had. No, I was clueless as to, you know, who I was or what I was doing or what was happening.
00:17:48:23 - 00:18:06:19
Shawn
And it was, why is my life so terrible? Why can't I stop? Why am I so miserable? Why can't I, you know, why doesn't anything ever work out for me? And you know, I felt like I needed to put something in my body to change the way I feel. I needed it to happen quickly. I needed it to be strong.
00:18:06:19 - 00:18:26:22
Shawn
I needed it to be readily available, you know, whenever I needed it, which was multiple times a day. And I needed it to change the way that I saw the world, because the way that I saw the world was, was not healthy. You know, I'm someone that believed that the world was a really, really messed up place and that it wasn't fair that I had to find a way to exist in it.
00:18:26:22 - 00:18:46:19
Shawn
And I thought that this planet looked better through the bottom of a beer mug or through a cloud of smoke. And, you know, that was my reality for a very long time. And, you know, I know that it sounds like we're getting into the next step, which is like step two. Like we've admitted the powerless, you know, we found that level of willingness.
00:18:46:20 - 00:19:12:09
Shawn
We're at that point of desperation. We're at the jumping off point and step two, being open minded. And we have to have that open mindedness to, okay, there's something that can help me. There's a group of people. There's a higher power, if you will. There's a form of spirituality. There's another way of life that I can step into that can, you know, I can step into out of all of this.
00:19:12:11 - 00:19:35:11
Danny
Yeah, yeah. Step two came to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity, right? As I mentioned earlier, drugs were my higher power for a very, very long time. Right. And through the through that relationship, I realized that that power is a very destructive one. And so I needed to find one that was loving and caring and supportive.
00:19:35:13 - 00:20:03:06
Danny
Right. But it's like maybe some of our listeners don't believe in God. And so it's like, how do I navigate step two? But I don't believe in God. I feel stuck and right. And here's the beauty about 12 step is that we get to cultivate a higher power of our own understanding. And I'm so, so grateful for my sponsor for giving me suggestions like you mentioned as well.
00:20:03:07 - 00:20:12:23
Danny
Like making the group right. You can break down the word God into an acronym God. Like the group of drunks, the a group of drug addicts get.
00:20:12:23 - 00:20:14:11
Shawn
Orderly direction to.
00:20:14:13 - 00:20:28:01
Danny
Yeah, I can rely on this group of drunks to receive good, orderly direction so that I can experience the gift of desperation and receive grace offered daily. Right.
00:20:28:03 - 00:20:48:19
Shawn
Yeah. For me, it was open mindedness, and I had a similar experience to where my sponsor was, just like, I let him know I'm like, hey, because I'm someone who had been a black belt agnostic from the time that I was old enough to think for myself. So, you know, to my chagrin, I heard the word a lot, heard people talk about higher power and spirituality, and I was convinced that it wasn't going to work for me.
00:20:48:19 - 00:21:01:22
Shawn
And I told my sponsor that I'm like, I'm going to do everything that you guys tell me to do, exactly the way that you guys tell me to do it, so that when it doesn't work, I can be relieved of of that responsibility. I can say it's not my fault that it didn't work.
00:21:01:23 - 00:21:03:01
Danny
Yeah, it's your guys's fault.
00:21:03:02 - 00:21:37:04
Shawn
Yeah, it's not my fault. Your guys's stuff doesn't work. And it wasn't even that. I didn't believe that it didn't work because I had gotten to. I had had enough exposure to people in recovery. You know, having been living in residential treatment for 30, between 30 and 60 days, when I started becoming introduced to all this stuff that I knew that it worked for other people, I knew that it was absolutely working for other people, didn't know why, I didn't understand why, but I did not believe that it would work for me because it was too religious sounding, because I didn't understand how all the consequences that, you know, I talked about before, like the,
00:21:37:04 - 00:21:56:16
Shawn
the, the being estranged from my family, being without housing and not being able to find a job and not having money, getting arrested, getting in trouble, going to jail, all these things. Like you think that something like again, on paper like that should that should be enough to help you stop that behavior that's, you know, perpetuating all of that.
00:21:56:16 - 00:22:20:14
Shawn
But if that stuff didn't work, you know, like, I believed in jail because I had been there over a dozen times. Like I knew that jail existed, and I knew that that was waiting for me. If I should decide to, you know, go back into, become active in substance use again. But I didn't believe in God. So if something that I absolutely, 100% knew existed and believed in didn't work, how was something that I did not believe in going to work?
00:22:20:14 - 00:22:44:05
Shawn
And that's where the open mindedness came in, and that's where the gentleness of my sponsor came in and just said, do you think you could practice being open minded? Do you think that you have a chance at somebody getting better? Can you open your mind to receiving help from something that you don't understand? And thank goodness I was able to do that because I believe if I wouldn't have had been, if I hadn't been, and I probably wouldn't be sitting here talking to you.
00:22:44:07 - 00:22:44:22
Shawn
Yeah.
00:22:44:23 - 00:23:19:10
Danny
To I can relate to your story so, so much to as an agnostic, at some point I was agnostic, right. I needed evidence of this. God. I needed evidence of of this higher power. And I had to turn towards the people. Right. And there's the evidence. I'm a newcomer, and I show up to a meeting and there's hundreds, thousands of other alcoholics, addicts who are radiating hope, love, thriving at life.
00:23:19:13 - 00:23:20:22
Danny
There's my evidence.
00:23:20:22 - 00:23:21:06
Shawn
And.
00:23:21:06 - 00:23:26:18
Danny
I can see the program working for hundreds of other people. So why can't it work for me?
00:23:26:19 - 00:23:48:19
Shawn
Yeah. And we discover it's not just about I mean, that's where I discovered that it wasn't just about abstinence. It wasn't just about not getting arrested anymore. It wasn't about not just not going to jail anymore. It was about actually like, you know, being happy and being successful and, like, experiencing freedom and all these ways that, you know, my definition of freedom was not being in a jail cell, you know?
00:23:48:21 - 00:24:12:10
Shawn
And since then, like I've learned, there are many other definitions of, of freedom that you get to experience and learn and grow into along the way that are for me. I didn't have the ability to imagine what recovery was like. The best I could come up with was getting off parole, getting off probation, not getting arrested anymore, not using drugs anymore, not drinking anymore.
00:24:12:11 - 00:24:43:21
Shawn
You know, not just doing the same, you know, behaviors that would cause me these dire consequences over and over and over again. And that was the most that my imagination could come up with at the time. But being able to step into recovery and be open minded and then moving into the next part, which would be faith and stepping into that and having faith that, you know, I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm going to keep doing this anyway to see what happens, because anything that's going to happen is probably going to be better than where I came from before.
00:24:44:02 - 00:24:48:02
Danny
Yeah. It's like.
00:24:48:04 - 00:25:13:11
Danny
Looking at all the old timers was a vision of hope for me. Right? As I continue going to meetings, that hope eventually evolves into faith. You know, I see hundreds of alcoholics and addicts have this spiritual awakening as a result of working these steps, right, that can turn into faith. Even though I don't believe in it, I still do it anyway.
00:25:13:13 - 00:25:31:20
Danny
That's an act of faith, is still doing it and staying out of the results. You know what? I don't know if I 100% believe it, but I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to take an act of faith and stay out of the results and find out, like, how can my life shift as a result of working these steps, these steps?
00:25:31:21 - 00:25:48:09
Danny
Can I have a spiritual awakening? I don't know, but let's find out. Yeah, because I'm so desperate and I don't want, like you mentioned, the rest. I don't want to feel hopeless anymore. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I want something different. Yeah, yeah.
00:25:48:10 - 00:26:15:02
Shawn
And like the natural progression, like, into step three, you know, like, for me was, you know, the next thing my sponsor suggested asked me to practice doing was, you know, again, I was fully honest with him about my belief system or lack thereof, if you will. And he asked me, do you think that you could practice? When we got to step three, we read out of the book and we read the literature, and he he said, do you think that you can practice praying?
00:26:15:02 - 00:26:43:19
Shawn
And obviously I could write. Did I want to know? Did I think it would work? Absolutely not. But could I, could I practice praying? Yes, I can do that. And I found that when I did, something happened, something unexpected happened. And I believe that that actually kept me open minded long enough to receive that full on spiritual experience that you're talking about a little bit later down the road, which changed everything for me.
00:26:43:20 - 00:27:10:04
Shawn
I mean, it was not what I was looking for. It was not what I was expecting. It was the last thing I expected. But I found it to be, you know, more profound and important and relevant than any psychological experience that I had had on any mind altering substance ever in my life. And I'd held on to it, you know, to this day, and it remains a part of my recovery, and I'm sure it always will be.
00:27:10:08 - 00:27:38:19
Shawn
And I believe that that's another thing that's different for everyone. And I, I'm careful about describing my spiritual experience because I do. I did have what they call a white light experience, where it was a very profound, I mean, very really over almost overwhelming spiritual experience that I had that changed absolutely everything for me. And I know that not everyone gets that, and it's different for everyone.
00:27:38:20 - 00:27:53:11
Shawn
And I'm a firm believer that we get what we need when we when we do what we're supposed to do. And I believe that I had that profound of a spiritual experience because it's what I needed in order to have a chance at that recovery.
00:27:53:12 - 00:28:26:21
Danny
Yeah. Same here. Shawn. I'll never forget the day that I made contact with something greater than myself. And interestingly, interestingly enough, it came as a direct result of praying, right? And it's a long story, too. But I did have my white light experience and I'll just quickly go through it. What started it was I was so deep in my addiction that being agnostic and confused about this higher power, I said, you know what?
00:28:26:22 - 00:28:43:17
Danny
Let's give it a shot. I got on my knees and I said, God, if you really exists, please help me. I am scared for my life and I don't know what to do.
00:28:43:19 - 00:29:03:03
Danny
If you're real, please show me. And he did. A miracle happened. Long story short, he put me in a position of having this experience with this precious little animal. And I saved that little animals life.
00:29:03:05 - 00:29:11:18
Danny
And I felt a presence flow through my body. This energy that I haven't felt in a very, very long time. And I.
00:29:11:18 - 00:29:12:05
Danny
Would love.
00:29:12:05 - 00:29:22:09
Danny
To describe that presence as compassion.
00:29:22:11 - 00:29:26:16
Danny
Love, unity.
00:29:26:18 - 00:29:53:12
Danny
As I was rescuing this precious little animals life, I felt love flowing through all parts of my body and I have not felt love or compassion for anything in a very long time, especially when I was using. But for some reason, the moment that I opened my heart and my mind to something greater than myself, he put me in a position of rescuing this precious animals life.
00:29:53:14 - 00:30:25:01
Danny
And I carry that memory with me. I carry it with me and I had to give it meaning. Like, what did it mean? Why did that happen to me? And now I understand. I believe that through that experience, not only was I rescuing that animal, but so was my higher power rescuing me, right? I had no idea that the rooms existed of recovery.
00:30:25:03 - 00:30:53:06
Danny
No idea. But what are the odds that as a result of me praying and opening my heart and mind to something, a miracle happens and I'm introduced to the rooms, and now I had a little bit of open mindedness towards that power. And now I'm in a room with hundreds and thousands of other believers that believe in something bigger.
00:30:53:08 - 00:30:59:18
Danny
And I said, oh my God, I have arrived. I'm not alone.
00:30:59:21 - 00:31:18:03
Shawn
Yeah, that and the parallels of my story and yours. I don't think you've ever shared that. We've we've known each other for a long time. And, you know, we've been a part of each other's recovery journey for years. And I don't know if I've ever shared my spiritual experience with you. I don't think you've ever shared that with me before.
00:31:18:03 - 00:31:39:01
Shawn
But the parallels are so incredible, because what you described was what happened in my step three experience. Like, I practiced praying just like my sponsor suggested that I did. And, you know, for a second kind of half expected, you know, Jesus to come walking down the stairs or the lights to flicker or, you know, like something to happen.
00:31:39:01 - 00:31:55:00
Shawn
Because at the time, I was the center of my own universe, and I was so important in my own mind that if there was a God, he was going to show himself to me because I had demanded it of him. And so when nothing happened, I went back to reading the book that I was reading, and the book that I was reading was Robinson Crusoe.
00:31:55:00 - 00:32:11:05
Shawn
And the very next line in the book, you know, Robinson Crusoe was marooned on a desert island. He's been there by himself for years. And a chest walks up, washes up on the shore. And the very next line in the book is he the chest washes up. He opens it inside the chest. If anyone knows the story, there's there's a Bible.
00:32:11:05 - 00:32:29:17
Shawn
And he picks up the Bible. And the line that he reads out of the the Bible is, call on me in your time of trouble, and I will be there and you will glorify me. And that was what I got. And that was enough for me to believe that something happened. I didn't know what it was, you know, was God talking to me?
00:32:29:18 - 00:32:51:16
Shawn
Was the universe talking to me? Was it a coincidence? I didn't know, but it kept me open long enough for me to have my own very profound spiritual experience. You know, a few weeks later, after doing my fourth in my fifth step, which, again, is probably not a coincidence, because we hear so many stories of people having these profound spiritual experiences after they complete their fifth step, their fourth and their fifth step.
00:32:51:16 - 00:33:12:01
Shawn
And, you know, for me, it was just being so ever since I was an adolescent. I was just so obsessed. You know, I suffered from that obsession of constantly feeling like I had to have something to alter my perception of reality. There's no way I could exist in this world without putting something in my body to change. The way I saw it.
00:33:12:02 - 00:33:29:18
Shawn
Like that was unthinkable. So the best that I could come up with was like, today, let me just get through today without relapsing, and then we'll fight this whole battle all over again tomorrow, you know? And every day I laid my head down on the pillow at night and I hadn't relapsed. It was just like, you know, I had won this major battle, you know, in the war of life.
00:33:29:18 - 00:33:51:22
Shawn
And what happened was I was, you know, I was walking home from a meeting by myself when I was still in rehab, and I had passed this a this car accident where this family was trapped inside a minivan. And the the ambulance was there and the fire department was there, and they're using the jaws of life to try and extract this family that was stuck in this minivan that had gotten into this car accident.
00:33:51:22 - 00:34:07:03
Shawn
And on the way to the meeting, I walked right past that. And on the way back, the whole scene was was gone. There was nothing left. But like a news van interviewing a neighbor, complaining about how he thought that there should be a stoplight there or something like that. And I remember thinking, I hope that family is okay.
00:34:07:04 - 00:34:30:19
Shawn
And it had been a very long time, you know, similar to what you shared that I had thought of, anyone has suffered myself and, you know, thought about anyone else's well-being, you know, another creature on this planet as well, being aside from my own. And when I had that thought, the next thought that flooded into my mind was I have the ability to try and help someone else that wants to get better.
00:34:30:19 - 00:34:48:21
Shawn
And I'm convinced that thought did not come from me. That thought came from somewhere else. And when I received that thought, that obsession that I had been a slave to since I was old enough, you know, since I first became addicted all those years ago, I mean, it was gone just like that. And I knew at that moment that the war was over.
00:34:48:21 - 00:35:09:10
Shawn
And, you know, I basically floated home, you know, the rest of that, that walk, I felt like I was levitating for the first time in my life since I became addicted. I could imagine what life would be like without being a slave to substances, without constantly feeling like I have to put something in my body to change the way I feel, to change the way I think, to change the way I interact with other people.
00:35:09:11 - 00:35:29:18
Shawn
To change the way I view the world around me. And yeah, I mean, I knew when that happened that the process was working and I had to keep going forward, and I haven't let go of that. And I'm so grateful that I had that experience and that had been able to hold on to it, because it continues to be one of the touchstones in my recovery journey to this day.
00:35:29:20 - 00:35:47:04
Danny
Yeah. Thank you. Shawn, for sharing your spiritual experience. It was lovely, and I loved how you continued to feed it by being more altruistic and, like you said, thinking less about myself and thinking more about others. How can I serve? How can I give back?
00:35:47:05 - 00:36:13:11
Shawn
Yeah. And at that moment, just like, just like you described feeling connected. But the first time in my life to I felt a connection with every single other living being on this planet at the same time. And like, that's the best that the those words are the closest I can come to describing how not alone I felt walking home alone from that meeting that night, and I felt that way ever since.
00:36:13:11 - 00:36:34:16
Shawn
I was concerned that I might have been having some sort of brief epiphany or acid flashback. But when I woke up the next day and that obsession was still gone, and I still felt that connection with everyone and everything, you know, on this planet, I knew that I had to keep going forward and that there was there was more to learn and more growing to do and more to discover and more work to be done.
00:36:34:16 - 00:36:49:06
Shawn
So for me, being free of that obsession that I was plagued by for so many years, and being at least willing to try and and be a useful person on this planet, they're inseparable.
00:36:49:12 - 00:37:09:05
Danny
Yeah. I feel like what we're describing, the step three. Right, like we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood them. All right? So we've made it. We're powerless and our lives are unmanageable. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore sanity. Now we're at step three.
00:37:09:08 - 00:37:19:08
Danny
You had your spiritual experience. I had my spiritual experience. Then what do we do with it? What is turning my will over mean to you?
00:37:19:10 - 00:37:34:19
Shawn
So, and again, I love how you brought up like you asked the question, like what about people that don't believe in God? Like all this stuff that sounds, you know, it sounds religious, right? We use the G word, you know, we we say God, we say higher power. To me, it doesn't really matter. What you call it is.
00:37:34:20 - 00:37:51:16
Shawn
As long as I have it, that's that's all that matters to me. But I feel like it's easy for people to kind of get hung up on the nomenclature. And I do. Step three. Every day there's a prayer involved. With step three. I say the Serenity Prayer. I say step three, the third step prayer, and I say the seven step prayer every day.
00:37:51:16 - 00:38:14:17
Shawn
And in all honesty, I haven't found it necessary to believe that there's someone or something on the other end of that prayer. Listening to me every single time I say it. For me, step three is the act of when I say the Serenity prayer, right? God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
00:38:14:22 - 00:38:36:10
Shawn
That is an act, right? I know one of the things that we kind of talked about a little bit about before was like making a decision and then action, like you make a decision to do something and then you follow it with the action. So like, I can I made a decision to not not relapse many, many times over the years before I actually got into recovery.
00:38:36:10 - 00:38:54:11
Shawn
So there's making the decision, but I didn't take the action that was necessary to actually make that a reality for me. So like I can say step three, I can, you know, write something down. But when I take that out, when I say that prayer by myself, when no one else is looking every single day, I'm I'm taking an action.
00:38:54:14 - 00:39:20:08
Shawn
And through that action, I'm acknowledging that I'm not in control of 99% of the things that happen on this planet, in this world, in my life. The only thing I'm really responsible for is how I react to what happens, which is the most important thing for me, being an individual in recovery. So by saying these prayers every single day, me taking that action, it doesn't really matter where that's going or what's happening somewhere else in the universe.
00:39:20:09 - 00:39:32:05
Shawn
The most important thing that I can do is continue to take that action. And so doing a knowledge that I'm not in charge of this universe, something else is something greater than me, is in charge of what happens on this planet and in this world and in this universe.
00:39:32:08 - 00:40:03:18
Danny
I appreciate you talking about the action component when it comes to step three, because I used to think that step three was just about praying, praying for specific things and just sitting on the couch and hit my vape and do nothing about it. It's like, oh God, I want this. I want this job, or oh God, please give me this girl hot girlfriend or whatever, or oh God, I really want to like, move out into my own place and have my own spot and yada, yada yada.
00:40:03:19 - 00:40:26:18
Danny
You know, I was like this list of unrealistic things and just like, treating God, like, if you Santa Claus and oh, I've been a good boy this year, I haven't relapsed, I haven't used. So please give me all these things and I'm just gonna sit back and watch the miracles happen, right? Like making a decision is implying action, right?
00:40:26:19 - 00:40:54:16
Danny
I have to put an effort towards rebuilding my life. Right. And so putting in the effort, doing the action and staying out of the results. Because sometimes life changes. Sometimes life throws curveballs at us. And I need to adjust my plans. Right. And I may not always get the things that I'm striving for. And so I also have to learn how to adjust and to learn to live life on life's terms.
00:40:54:18 - 00:41:21:06
Shawn
Yeah, prioritizing. Finding a way to be okay with what happens regardless of what it is and when it is, allows me to live a life that doesn't necessitate putting something in my body to change the way I perceive the world around me on a constant basis. It allows me to be at peace as much as possible for a person like me, with myself, the world around me, and everything that happens in it.
00:41:21:07 - 00:41:34:06
Danny
Yeah. So surrender is something that I have to practice daily, right? It's not just a I work step three and I'm done. I've surrendered and.
00:41:34:06 - 00:41:34:19
Shawn
We're done.
00:41:34:21 - 00:41:42:14
Danny
Yeah. Like, life will throw many opportunities and challenges where we have to revisit that surrender.
00:41:42:15 - 00:41:45:20
Shawn
Oh, yeah. I tell people all the time. Step three A way of life.
00:41:45:23 - 00:41:46:08
Danny
Yeah.
00:41:46:08 - 00:41:47:14
Shawn
For me.
00:41:47:16 - 00:42:12:19
Danny
My coworker just really pissed me off and disrespected me. Am I going to relapse on anger and aggression and disrespect, or will I choose to surrender and choose the principles of the program? I just found out my partner relapsed and I'm really upset and I want to confront her with aggression or whatever it is. Am I going to relapse on destructive behaviors?
00:42:12:20 - 00:42:25:07
Danny
Or I have the option to surrender and use principles, right? All these challenges that life throws at us are opportunities to surrender.
00:42:25:08 - 00:42:46:04
Shawn
Yeah. And for me, it's gotten easier with practice over the years. I've gotten better at it. It started to come more naturally, and I don't have to think about it or force it in any way. You know, some things are are easier to to walk through than others. Obviously, you know, you know, in 12 years, you know, in one year, like we walked through a lot of stuff, right?
00:42:46:05 - 00:43:01:03
Shawn
I walked through a lot of stuff sober, and I felt a lot of emotions. And there's been a lot of things that have been very difficult. But I've noticed, generally speaking, over the years, it gets easier the more that I practice it, and it almost just becomes like second nature. I hardly even have to think about it anymore.
00:43:01:05 - 00:43:06:06
Danny
Do you feel comfortable opening up about?
00:43:06:08 - 00:43:15:09
Danny
That, opening up about something that was triggering or difficult for you and surrender was the best option?
00:43:15:11 - 00:43:40:15
Shawn
Yeah, I mean, honestly, like on a day to day basis, it's almost like almost like a way of life. Like I said, you know, there's little things that happen to where, like step three is a way of life. Like, I can be say, I'm driving on the freeway to work and, you know, like, I need to be at work at 4:00, and I left with plenty of time to get there.
00:43:40:16 - 00:43:57:00
Shawn
You know, I planned ahead. No fault of my own. There's really, really bad traffic today. And, you know, I might end up being a little bit late if I don't maybe step on the gas, zip around some people, be a little reckless, whatever it might be. And there's people that are honking at each other. There's people that are cutting each other off.
00:43:57:00 - 00:44:27:23
Shawn
Maybe someone cut me off and, you know, like, I can make a decision to, like, get caught up in that and try and force my way to work on time. Or I can make a phone call like, hey, there's a lot of traffic right now. Like, I'm probably going to be a little bit late. But I mean, again, I mean, I kind of I'll repeat the biggest example for me was like when I was much earlier in recovery, just the whole idea of I need help, which was as far as I could really take myself at the time.
00:44:28:04 - 00:44:55:01
Shawn
And I'm going to let you help me in any way. I need help so bad, and I'm so willing and desperate to get help that I'm going to trust that whatever you're going to be able to do for me is going to be better than what my previous way of life was able to do for me. So surrendering and being willing to accept not just my idea of help, of the help that I think I need, but the help that you think I need.
00:44:55:04 - 00:45:19:11
Danny
Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Shawn, maybe we can transition to step four and five, right. Making a moral inventory and then being honest with ourselves. Another human being in God about the exact natures of our wrongs. What was your experience like walking through those steps, especially after working that fifth step?
00:45:19:13 - 00:45:41:19
Shawn
Yeah. And this is this is a point where I want to just kind of like give a shout out to residential treatment, you know, as it exists, because it's just so helpful because I am not someone, again, even after, you know, even after having that, that step three experience that that made me much more open minded than I had previously been writing all this stuff down, doing all this work.
00:45:41:20 - 00:46:11:02
Shawn
You know, I harmed a lot of people. I caused harm in my community. Just the idea of like making a list of like, say, for example, the the inventory of people that we've harmed was really overwhelming for me. I mean, resentments, I mean, I can I even count that high if all the resentments that I have towards other people and institutions, you know, in this world, like really, really overwhelming that I believe that there's not a chance that I would have done it on my own accord.
00:46:11:02 - 00:46:31:05
Shawn
So the fact that I was in an institution that told me that this is what you have to do if you want to stay here and continue receiving our help was exactly what I needed. If I didn't have that boundary set for me, I would have never done it because I didn't want to. Because of the fear and because of the disbelief that something like that could help me.
00:46:31:05 - 00:47:04:18
Shawn
Because I didn't understand how that had anything to do with my drug and alcohol use. So being kind of mandated to do that, faced with the choice of doing that, or going back to where I came from, was the only thing that saved me from backing out. And so just like all of the other steps that we talked about, like actually taking the action and then the rewards come and you learn like, wow, this, this is working like this is actually really helping me way more than I could have ever even imagined, even not even understanding how at the time.
00:47:04:19 - 00:47:15:02
Shawn
Like, I don't understand how this is affecting me, the way that it's affecting me, but I'm going to keep doing it because it's this is helping a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:47:15:02 - 00:47:23:07
Danny
I remember when I was working my fourth step, there was a lot of fear coming up, right?
00:47:23:09 - 00:47:42:20
Danny
There was a lot of fear about looking at myself, and there was a lot of fear about getting honest about all the things that I've done. Right. Because it's like I didn't have anybody to turn towards. Like, I've done a lot of messed up things that I that I am ashamed about. And I felt very guilty and I had a lot of remorse.
00:47:42:20 - 00:48:16:10
Danny
Yeah. And I'm so grateful for meeting my sponsor. Through that relationship, I was able to cultivate the courage to get honest about all of it. Because every time I try to get honest with people, there was always like negative consequences. I couldn't get vulnerable with my family the same way that I've been with my sponsor, because the the response were different, right?
00:48:16:11 - 00:48:40:18
Danny
Like, if I'm honest about all the things that I've done in my past to my family, they might judge me or get hurt by it. If I am honest about all the things that I've done with my employers, there might be negative consequences of it, right? If I'm honest about everything that I've done to my girlfriend, she might get hurt from that truth or that truth.
00:48:40:20 - 00:49:01:19
Danny
And so this is where a sponsor came was very useful. Right. Because when I was finally able to be vulnerable and honest about everything, and I shared that with my sponsor, his response was one of.
00:49:01:21 - 00:49:13:18
Danny
Acceptance, no judgment, unconditional support and love and empathy. And that's what I needed at that time in my life.
00:49:13:20 - 00:49:35:23
Shawn
I had a very similar, you know, experience and response from my sponsor as well, which is, you know, the same exactly what I needed. You know, my sponsor was a wee guy. So like whenever I put something out there that I felt like was, you know, particularly abhorrent, you know, like he would present, you know, he would counter with, well, we as alcoholics, this is what we do when we're in these types of situations.
00:49:36:02 - 00:49:51:22
Shawn
Like and I didn't feel alone. I felt very supported. And it really, really helped me to walk through that fear. And it was one of those things that once I started, I kind of felt the momentum that I was able to kind of carry me through the process, which which took a while because there was a lot.
00:49:51:23 - 00:50:05:17
Danny
Yeah, yeah. And it's like I've realized that, you know, like because I was withholding so much out of fear. I had all these secrets, all these secrets, and they were keeping me sick.
00:50:05:19 - 00:50:31:00
Shawn
Yeah, I mean, it they it removed the ability for me to be in denial about who I was, you know, at the time, which was, you know, a very eye opening experience for me. And there was wasn't really anything that I could I feel like I could ever turn back from, like once my eyes were opened to what kind of person I was, there's there was just no going back from that, you know?
00:50:31:01 - 00:50:47:19
Shawn
And I knew I had to keep moving forward because once that was laid out, she's like, oh, this isn't good. We we have a situation here. We gotta do something about this. Which obviously leads us into the next few steps. Right? We're immediately into this is what you do about what we're looking at here.
00:50:47:20 - 00:51:16:20
Danny
You know, what's really rad about secrets is that once I was able to get honest about all of them, they've turned into my greatest asset. Because now when I'm at meetings, I can openly disclose my secrets are not my greatest assets. Because guess what? There's probably somebody else in the room who's still holding on to those secrets, and they're not ready to be honest about it.
00:51:17:01 - 00:51:31:15
Danny
But then they see us opening up about it at a meeting level, and how we've addressed these secrets and healed from these secrets. All of a sudden, we're carrying the message to that person who's still suffering with theirs. And it's so beautiful.
00:51:31:16 - 00:51:40:17
Shawn
Yeah. Who would have thought that the worst thing that I've ever been through would be the one thing that gives a hopeless person hope. Hope in this world. It's a beautiful thing.
00:51:40:18 - 00:51:46:18
Danny
Yeah, man. Yeah. So what does a spiritual awakening mean to you?
00:51:46:20 - 00:52:19:21
Shawn
Yeah. For me, it was definitely, you know, not being alone. I touched on this a little bit, but I never could have imagined feeling not alone ever again for the rest of my life, regardless of whether I was by myself or whether I was in a room full of people. You know, there's a lot of talk about anyone who knows anything about addiction recovery has heard the, you know, the talk of connection and how important it is, the sense of community, whether it's a connection, feeling connected with yourself.
00:52:19:22 - 00:52:44:14
Shawn
Right. Having been in touch with yourself, knowing who you are, being okay with who you are, having a healthy relationship with yourself, coming healthy relationship with your coworkers, with your friends, with other people in recovery and having that connection. You know, like survivors of the same sinking ship as they say, being connected with people in your community, whether it's through church or through meetings or other types of support groups or, you know, your work or whatever it might be.
00:52:44:14 - 00:53:08:05
Shawn
But that, for me, is like it's the ultimate example of connection because, as I said, like feeling as if you have, you know, a direct connection to every other form of life on this planet at the same time. I mean, you know, I don't like I said, I, you know, our friend Tai says they don't make dope this kid.
00:53:08:07 - 00:53:12:20
Shawn
And like, I feel like that's applicable. Yeah, that hits the nail on the head.
00:53:12:21 - 00:53:31:00
Danny
Yeah. There's just such a deep level of freedom. Yeah. Right through these awakenings. Right. Maybe a sense of purpose, a connection with something greater, having a meaningful and purposeful life and carrying the message to the attic who still suffers, right?
00:53:31:05 - 00:54:02:05
Shawn
Yeah. Today, to this day, I can go for a walk by myself and keep myself incredibly entertained by listening to the sounds of the forest or the meadow, looking at the clouds, watching the birds chirp around and interact with each other, watching a lizard, you know, scurry through the leaves on the ground, listening to the sound like going, sitting next to a creek for a little while and listen to the water flow over the rocks and just be in heaven, heaven on earth.
00:54:02:07 - 00:54:05:02
Shawn
I'm such a wonderful gift. You're in the now, right?
00:54:05:03 - 00:54:12:06
Danny
That deep level of interconnectedness with all of life's manifestations. What a blessing.
00:54:12:07 - 00:54:16:13
Shawn
Who would have thought was not what I was looking for when I went to rehab, right?
00:54:16:14 - 00:54:18:22
Danny
I just wanted to stop using. And that's it, man.
00:54:18:23 - 00:54:20:07
Shawn
Yeah.
00:54:20:09 - 00:54:23:03
Danny
And recovery. Something much more meaningful.
00:54:23:04 - 00:54:30:13
Shawn
Yeah. They say you get what you put into it. I've gotten probably about 100,000 times what I put into it.
00:54:30:14 - 00:54:46:03
Danny
Absolutely. And I'll never forget that question my sponsor always asked me when I was white knuckling it, or half asking the steps like, Danny, how free do you want to be? How free do you want to be? I want to be free. Yeah.
00:54:46:07 - 00:54:47:14
Shawn
And we get to be.
00:54:47:16 - 00:55:13:00
Danny
Yeah. Thank you. Shawn, why don't we close out with one final question, if that's okay with you? Of course. So, Shawn, maybe for someone who's listening and they feel stuck or resistant towards this whole 12 step process, what's one message that you hope they can take from this conversation?
00:55:13:02 - 00:55:55:19
Shawn
I would say that if you are 100% against developing greater honesty and humility, accountability, serenity, connection, joy and peace in your life, do not do the steps, because I cannot think of a single person that I know of that's gone through this process and come out the other side without, you know, gaining that into their life, like gaining those qualities greater honesty, greater humility, greater accountability, greater peace and serenity and connection with the world around them.
00:55:55:20 - 00:56:09:00
Shawn
Like we've been talking about in their lives. So if for whatever reason, that's something that you are dead set against having in your life, don't do it because I'm sure it'll happen with you if it's happening just as it's happened with everyone else.
00:56:09:02 - 00:56:13:06
Danny
Yeah. What a beautiful message, Shawn. It's been an honor having you here. Thank you for coming out.
00:56:13:10 - 00:56:16:14
Shawn
Thank you. Yeah, it was a pleasure.
00:56:16:15 - 00:56:26:10
Danny
Thanks for watching Beyond the Window podcast at La Ventana Treatment Programs. You can check us out on YouTube and Spotify, and we'll see you in the next episode.
Shawn
This liquid in a bottle has then beat. No matter how many, no matter how hard or how many times they try. No matter how many people try and help them, no matter how much they want to stop, no matter how hard they try to stop, no matter how much their family wants them to help, wants them to stop, no matter how much people try and help them, they just cannot beat.
00:00:19:14 - 00:00:32:06
Shawn
Whether it's a liquid in a bottle that you buy at a grocery store or a liquor store, or a pill that comes in a bottle that's this big.
00:00:32:08 - 00:00:49:16
Danny
Hello, my name is Danny, and welcome to the Beyond the Window podcast for La Ventana treatment programs. My name is Danny and I'm an addict. My role here as a case manager and group facilitator, and it is an honor to be sharing the stage with my wonderful colleague, Shawn. Shawn, would you like to introduce yourself?
00:00:49:18 - 00:01:05:22
Shawn
Sure, yeah. My name is Shawn Deffenbaugh, and I'm in personal recovery. I've been in addiction recovery. I've been clean and sober for a little over 12 years now. I've been working in the field here at La Ventana for a little over 11 years, and I've actually been working as a certified counselor for the last four years.
00:01:06:03 - 00:01:17:00
Danny
Wonderful. Thank you. Shawn. First of all, it's an honor to have you here. You've been a great source of inspiration and hope for me when I was getting clean. So thank you for your service. And it's a privilege to be here.
00:01:17:00 - 00:01:19:03
Shawn
With you. Always an honor.
00:01:19:05 - 00:01:40:11
Danny
So maybe we can begin by, you know, maybe some of our listeners might be family members or people who are contemplating about what is recovery and what is this recovery process look like. So I was wondering, maybe we can spend some time maybe introducing and walking through some of the some of the recovery process or the 12 step process with some of our viewers.
00:01:40:12 - 00:01:41:11
Danny
Are you okay with that?
00:01:41:12 - 00:01:42:09
Shawn
Absolutely.
00:01:42:10 - 00:02:03:20
Danny
Yeah, man. Okay, so I'm new in recovery and I keep hearing about this bottom talk and it's very confusing for me. What do people mean. Like when you say you have to hit bottom first. Like like what does bottom actually look like to you. And and why do you think some people don't hit their bottom?
00:02:03:21 - 00:02:35:05
Shawn
So I think everyone's bottom is different. I think it's unique to each and every individual. I like to say that the bottom is when you stop digging. I remember, you know, my my drug and alcohol use took me pretty far down the scale, as they say. I ran myself into the ground for a very long time. And I remember like one of the first times that I got into legal trouble and like having a court date and like going to court and like being afraid that I was going to get thrown into jail cell and have to do some jail time.
00:02:35:05 - 00:02:59:07
Shawn
And that being like the end of the world, like that being like, I can't even contemplate how horrible this is. I can't even imagine, like, how bad this is going to be. I'm so scared I can't. It's beyond my imagination. Just terrified, miserable. Couldn't even understand how things had gotten so bad for me. But that was actually very early on in my addiction.
00:02:59:07 - 00:03:18:22
Shawn
And little did I know that going to jail was only the very beginning and it got worse. And then after that it got worse. And then after that it got worse. And there were things that were much more horrendous than just doing a little bit of time in the county jail. So for me, there's always a worse bottom out there waiting for me.
00:03:18:23 - 00:03:44:19
Shawn
I'm certain that, you know, if I were to make one bad decision today and think that maybe I would like to experiment with one of these, you know, new substances that is out there now days, or maybe pick up a drink because I think that, you know, I'm not an alcoholic or an addict anymore, that there will eventually be an even deeper bottom out there waiting for me somewhere that is beyond, you know, anything that my imagination could ever come up with.
00:03:44:21 - 00:04:13:02
Danny
Yeah. What a story of resiliency. Thank you for opening up about what your bottom was like. I can see how how difficult it must have been, you know, experiencing homelessness or physical arrests. And, you know, it's overall crisis. Right. But it's like I remember when I was first getting in, showing up to the rooms, and I had a really hard time identifying with others because it's like, well, what if I've never been arrested?
00:04:13:04 - 00:04:26:10
Danny
What if I've never been homeless before? Have I reached my bottom yet? I don't know, and I like the emphasis you placed on like bottom is when you make a decision to put the shovel down and to stop digging.
00:04:26:12 - 00:05:04:09
Shawn
Exactly. Yeah. And it's interesting of all of the, you know, physical and mental and psychological and, you know, consequences that I had to suffer as a result of my substance use. There was no bottom that was worse than the emotional one that came. You know, how it affected my relationship with with my family. And once I experienced that, there was nothing that even had come close to it, regardless of how many times I had been, you know, arrested or thrown in jail or prison or whatever, it might have been like nothing compared to the that darkness that I felt inside my soul when I saw how it was affecting my relationship with the people that
00:05:04:09 - 00:05:06:10
Shawn
I loved most in this world.
00:05:06:11 - 00:05:33:15
Danny
Yeah, I appreciate you bringing in that emotional aspect to it. Like, because some of us may still have a career, some of us may still have a home, a vehicle, some of us may still have family support, you know? So maybe everything on the outside may look stable, but the internal, the emotional part maybe I've hit bottom there.
00:05:33:17 - 00:05:50:21
Danny
Right. And that can manifest as feelings of hopelessness, despair, fear, anxiety, suicidal ideation. Yeah. Right. And so I don't have to lose everything on the outside to hit bottom right.
00:05:50:23 - 00:06:35:19
Shawn
Yeah. No. Absolutely. You know I believe that. And again like I I'm firm believer that this is unique to the individual and their personality and their circumstances and their lived experience. Whatever brings someone to the level of willingness, usually it's desperation. So whatever it takes to get you to a point where you become willing to do something that, you know, for someone like me, for example, when I was introduced to the 12 step program, all of the all of the suggestions, if you will, that are in the 12 steps that were introduced to me, I just could not figure out or foresee or understand how those things could help me stay clean, stay sober.
00:06:35:21 - 00:06:58:18
Shawn
You know, one of the main things, you know, for me was the spiritual aspect of the program, which was something that I was very close minded to in the beginning. So I had I had to hit a very deep and dark bottom in order for me to find the level of desperation that brought me to the level of willingness to do something that I had absolutely no faith in whatsoever.
00:06:58:19 - 00:07:20:00
Shawn
I mean, you know, I know that we talk about we talk about surrender a lot, you know, and like when you're talking about hitting bottom and that level of desperation and the willingness and the surrender and like, what that actually looked like for me was like, you're fighting a war, right? And you're fighting this battle against this enemy that's trying to kill you.
00:07:20:01 - 00:07:38:13
Shawn
You know, like in my case, it was my addictions trying to kill me. And so when you surrender, like you're going to keep fighting or you're going to surrender. And like when you surrender in a battle, like you're not surrendering to your friend, you're surrendering to the enemy. You're surrendering. You're putting your life in the hands of the people that are trying to kill you.
00:07:38:13 - 00:08:00:01
Shawn
So like there's a level of desperation that's associated with that. So, like, that's what I had to do, like surrender for me. Like when I became willing to accept help, I have lots of ideas of how I thought I should be helped, how people should help me. Like I'm willing to accept help, but I think it should be this way.
00:08:00:01 - 00:08:22:09
Shawn
And so that's one level of willingness, but that there's levels of willingness that go deeper than that. And so for me, like I had to become willing to accept a different type of help, you know, because if it were up to me, I would say, okay, I'll accept your help. Give me a place to live, let me borrow your car, get me a cool job, let me save up from some money.
00:08:22:10 - 00:08:39:21
Shawn
I need to meet a nice girl. Like all these things that I need in my life. In order for me to have a chance at recovery. And, you know, to like. To my dismay, I learned that I had to first enlarge upon my spiritual life and then in time, allow everything's to kind of fall in place in their own time after that.
00:08:39:22 - 00:09:08:09
Danny
Yeah. I think you bring up a lot of important concepts like surrender, right? And my understanding of surrender was, was distorted because I used to believe that surrender was a sign of weakness. Right? To surrender meant to give up. And what I've learned was that, you know what? I had no issue surrendering, because many, many times I've always surrendered to the substances.
00:09:08:13 - 00:09:37:11
Danny
I had a level of willingness, like I was willing to do anything to get loaded, anything. If you asked me to wake up and go to the liquor store or 6 or 7 in the morning, as soon as they open up, I'd be there are. If you asked me to pick up that phone and drive a hundred miles to go pick up a substance, I'd be there if I needed to stand at a corner for two hours just to wait for my drug dealer to show up, I'd be there.
00:09:37:11 - 00:09:47:17
Danny
I'd had that level of willingness. I surrender to the drugs many, many, many times, right. Because drugs were my higher power and active addiction. Yeah, right.
00:09:47:18 - 00:09:49:03
Shawn
I relived that a lot.
00:09:49:04 - 00:10:16:07
Danny
And so coming into recovery, taking and transferring that same level of willingness and surrender away from the substances and towards recovery was difficult for me. Right? It was difficult because I wasn't ready to get honest that I've hit bottom yet. Right?
00:10:16:09 - 00:10:46:09
Danny
I feel like it requires a deep level of honesty and humility to say, yes, I'm an alcoholic. Yes, I'm an attic and I am powerless. Why do you think so many people, early in recovery struggle with that admission of saying, yes, I have a problem, but I'm not ready to verbalize it or admit it yet.
00:10:46:15 - 00:11:15:12
Shawn
Yeah, I think I on, you know, and like, let's say the recovery process for people that, you know, have been successful and of all other walks of life. There's nothing else that I know of that is like addiction on this planet. So like, you know, we meet people who have decorated, you know, military careers, people that have, you know, master's degrees, doctorates have been successful in business, in family, in society, all other walks of life.
00:11:15:12 - 00:11:51:17
Shawn
Not only have they been successful, but they've overcome adversity when faced with it every single time, like people have, you know, passed the bar and gone on to become lawyers and, you know, walked through, you know, family tragedies, deaths in their families, physical illness, all of these things that, you know, they faced and overcome in life. But yet somehow, someway, this liquid in a bottle has them be, no matter how many, no matter how hard or how many times they try, no matter how many people try and help them, no matter how much they want to stop, no matter how hard they try to stop, no matter how much their family wants them to help,
00:11:51:19 - 00:12:12:08
Shawn
wants them to stop. No matter how much people try and help them, they just cannot beat. Whether it's a liquid in a bottle that you buy at a grocery store or a liquor store, or a pill that comes in a bottle that's this big, how is it that something so small, so simple, so basic, has has me beat when I've overcome all these other things in life?
00:12:12:09 - 00:12:17:13
Shawn
I mean, it's a hard pill to swallow. To pardon, if you'll pardon the pun. Yeah.
00:12:17:17 - 00:12:25:00
Danny
Yeah, it definitely is difficult. I think about like.
00:12:25:02 - 00:12:40:20
Danny
How painful it is for my ego to make that admission. Right. Because I have been successful in many areas of my life. I do have a lot of skills. But when it comes to substances, self-will isn't just enough. Yeah.
00:12:40:22 - 00:12:44:21
Shawn
On the surface, it just doesn't make sense. Yeah.
00:12:44:23 - 00:13:13:16
Danny
It's like I can manage well on all other areas of my life. But when it comes to substances, why why can't I? And so I create all these like defense. I use all these defense mechanisms. Right. Like I rationalize, I justify, deny, I deny, I minimize, and all these defense mechanisms, I use them because I'm afraid of being honest.
00:13:13:18 - 00:13:19:07
Danny
And all these defense mechanisms keep me in denial. Right?
00:13:19:09 - 00:13:31:07
Shawn
Yeah. Which brings us to step one. Right. It the admitting to yourself and to at least one other person that you have a problem that you can't handle on your own, that you need help with. And a lot of it.
00:13:31:08 - 00:13:57:19
Danny
Yeah. And it's interesting how like, everyone around my life was trying to tell me the truth, right? My family, my partners, my coworkers, my friends. I was constantly being told the truth. I think he also problem. I think you have a problem. I think you should get some help. But it was so difficult for me to accept it because I was too prideful.
00:13:57:21 - 00:14:23:03
Danny
My ego. I want her to protect it so much and I would rely on these defense mechanisms. Kept me in denial. Right? And that kept me further away from hitting my bottom. But until I was able to get honest and say, you know what? I can't control this thing when it comes to substances, controls an illusion, and I truly am powerless.
00:14:23:05 - 00:14:28:17
Danny
And then the gift of desperation that you mentioned earlier comes into fruition, right?
00:14:28:18 - 00:15:10:11
Shawn
Yeah. For 20 years, I tried to figure out how to manage recreational substance use in my life, and you'd think that after 20 days, I would have gotten the point. I'd be like, this isn't working. I can't do this. I don't stand a chance against this. But, you know, instead of 20 days, I did it for 20 years and finally, you know, got got that gift of desperation and found that willingness and was able to be in a position to capitalize on it and was able to find the ability to surrender at the same time, where there was people that not only wanted to help but were able to help.
00:15:10:12 - 00:15:12:15
Danny
Yeah. Okay.
00:15:12:16 - 00:15:13:23
Danny
So I feel like we're.
00:15:14:01 - 00:15:38:04
Danny
At a point in our discussion where it's like, okay, we've realized we're powerless, we're honest about our addiction, and we can't control this thing. Now what? What's next? And I don't know if you can relate to this, but it's like I remember when I was first getting clean. I thought abstinence was enough. I can just be dry and that's it.
00:15:38:05 - 00:15:59:04
Danny
Fine. I can get honest. I have an issue with substances and I'm just not going to use ever again. And I got this. I don't need 12 steps. I don't need a sponsor. I don't need to go to 12 step meetings. I don't need any of this. I've made a decision to stop using. And I got this.
00:15:59:06 - 00:16:05:21
Shawn
Which is a formula which would probably work well for anything else in life. Aside from addiction.
00:16:05:23 - 00:16:06:13
Danny
Yeah.
00:16:06:14 - 00:16:26:07
Shawn
But since addiction is unlike anything else in life, that doesn't work. You know why just don't use doesn't work. I mean, if you're on paper, it sounds great. Like drugs and alcohol are affecting my life in such a way that I can't function anymore. I'm completely miserable. So take the drugs and the alcohol out of the equation and that equals a good life.
00:16:26:08 - 00:16:34:05
Shawn
Simple, right? But anyone that has the disease of addiction, that suffers from it, that has tried, that knows that it's it's not that simple.
00:16:34:07 - 00:17:02:13
Danny
Yeah. And I feel like earlier you mentioned the whole spirituality component of it. Right. It's like abstinence is not enough because. All right. So you take the booze and the drugs away. But I'm still having to dress my spiritual malady. I'm still walking around life with resentments. I'm still walking around with self-centeredness, selfishness. Right. I'm still walking around with character defects.
00:17:02:13 - 00:17:11:19
Danny
And I don't have a program to address any of these underlying issues, because they say that the the bottle is just a symptom of something deeper.
00:17:11:21 - 00:17:30:06
Shawn
Yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, you've probably heard it. You take the alcohol away from an alcoholic and where you left with the IC. And I mean, I found that to be true for myself. And what I've learned over the years is that, you know, the drugs in the alcohol, they weren't my problem. They were actually my solution. My pal Don was me.
00:17:30:06 - 00:17:48:23
Shawn
And when your problem is you, what's the obvious answer? Self-Destruction. Right. So I live that way. And I existed in that for a long time and couldn't see the forest for the trees, because I was so embedded in that that I had. No, I was clueless as to, you know, who I was or what I was doing or what was happening.
00:17:48:23 - 00:18:06:19
Shawn
And it was, why is my life so terrible? Why can't I stop? Why am I so miserable? Why can't I, you know, why doesn't anything ever work out for me? And you know, I felt like I needed to put something in my body to change the way I feel. I needed it to happen quickly. I needed it to be strong.
00:18:06:19 - 00:18:26:22
Shawn
I needed it to be readily available, you know, whenever I needed it, which was multiple times a day. And I needed it to change the way that I saw the world, because the way that I saw the world was, was not healthy. You know, I'm someone that believed that the world was a really, really messed up place and that it wasn't fair that I had to find a way to exist in it.
00:18:26:22 - 00:18:46:19
Shawn
And I thought that this planet looked better through the bottom of a beer mug or through a cloud of smoke. And, you know, that was my reality for a very long time. And, you know, I know that it sounds like we're getting into the next step, which is like step two. Like we've admitted the powerless, you know, we found that level of willingness.
00:18:46:20 - 00:19:12:09
Shawn
We're at that point of desperation. We're at the jumping off point and step two, being open minded. And we have to have that open mindedness to, okay, there's something that can help me. There's a group of people. There's a higher power, if you will. There's a form of spirituality. There's another way of life that I can step into that can, you know, I can step into out of all of this.
00:19:12:11 - 00:19:35:11
Danny
Yeah, yeah. Step two came to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity, right? As I mentioned earlier, drugs were my higher power for a very, very long time. Right. And through the through that relationship, I realized that that power is a very destructive one. And so I needed to find one that was loving and caring and supportive.
00:19:35:13 - 00:20:03:06
Danny
Right. But it's like maybe some of our listeners don't believe in God. And so it's like, how do I navigate step two? But I don't believe in God. I feel stuck and right. And here's the beauty about 12 step is that we get to cultivate a higher power of our own understanding. And I'm so, so grateful for my sponsor for giving me suggestions like you mentioned as well.
00:20:03:07 - 00:20:12:23
Danny
Like making the group right. You can break down the word God into an acronym God. Like the group of drunks, the a group of drug addicts get.
00:20:12:23 - 00:20:14:11
Shawn
Orderly direction to.
00:20:14:13 - 00:20:28:01
Danny
Yeah, I can rely on this group of drunks to receive good, orderly direction so that I can experience the gift of desperation and receive grace offered daily. Right.
00:20:28:03 - 00:20:48:19
Shawn
Yeah. For me, it was open mindedness, and I had a similar experience to where my sponsor was, just like, I let him know I'm like, hey, because I'm someone who had been a black belt agnostic from the time that I was old enough to think for myself. So, you know, to my chagrin, I heard the word a lot, heard people talk about higher power and spirituality, and I was convinced that it wasn't going to work for me.
00:20:48:19 - 00:21:01:22
Shawn
And I told my sponsor that I'm like, I'm going to do everything that you guys tell me to do, exactly the way that you guys tell me to do it, so that when it doesn't work, I can be relieved of of that responsibility. I can say it's not my fault that it didn't work.
00:21:01:23 - 00:21:03:01
Danny
Yeah, it's your guys's fault.
00:21:03:02 - 00:21:37:04
Shawn
Yeah, it's not my fault. Your guys's stuff doesn't work. And it wasn't even that. I didn't believe that it didn't work because I had gotten to. I had had enough exposure to people in recovery. You know, having been living in residential treatment for 30, between 30 and 60 days, when I started becoming introduced to all this stuff that I knew that it worked for other people, I knew that it was absolutely working for other people, didn't know why, I didn't understand why, but I did not believe that it would work for me because it was too religious sounding, because I didn't understand how all the consequences that, you know, I talked about before, like the,
00:21:37:04 - 00:21:56:16
Shawn
the, the being estranged from my family, being without housing and not being able to find a job and not having money, getting arrested, getting in trouble, going to jail, all these things. Like you think that something like again, on paper like that should that should be enough to help you stop that behavior that's, you know, perpetuating all of that.
00:21:56:16 - 00:22:20:14
Shawn
But if that stuff didn't work, you know, like, I believed in jail because I had been there over a dozen times. Like I knew that jail existed, and I knew that that was waiting for me. If I should decide to, you know, go back into, become active in substance use again. But I didn't believe in God. So if something that I absolutely, 100% knew existed and believed in didn't work, how was something that I did not believe in going to work?
00:22:20:14 - 00:22:44:05
Shawn
And that's where the open mindedness came in, and that's where the gentleness of my sponsor came in and just said, do you think you could practice being open minded? Do you think that you have a chance at somebody getting better? Can you open your mind to receiving help from something that you don't understand? And thank goodness I was able to do that because I believe if I wouldn't have had been, if I hadn't been, and I probably wouldn't be sitting here talking to you.
00:22:44:07 - 00:22:44:22
Shawn
Yeah.
00:22:44:23 - 00:23:19:10
Danny
To I can relate to your story so, so much to as an agnostic, at some point I was agnostic, right. I needed evidence of this. God. I needed evidence of of this higher power. And I had to turn towards the people. Right. And there's the evidence. I'm a newcomer, and I show up to a meeting and there's hundreds, thousands of other alcoholics, addicts who are radiating hope, love, thriving at life.
00:23:19:13 - 00:23:20:22
Danny
There's my evidence.
00:23:20:22 - 00:23:21:06
Shawn
And.
00:23:21:06 - 00:23:26:18
Danny
I can see the program working for hundreds of other people. So why can't it work for me?
00:23:26:19 - 00:23:48:19
Shawn
Yeah. And we discover it's not just about I mean, that's where I discovered that it wasn't just about abstinence. It wasn't just about not getting arrested anymore. It wasn't about not just not going to jail anymore. It was about actually like, you know, being happy and being successful and, like, experiencing freedom and all these ways that, you know, my definition of freedom was not being in a jail cell, you know?
00:23:48:21 - 00:24:12:10
Shawn
And since then, like I've learned, there are many other definitions of, of freedom that you get to experience and learn and grow into along the way that are for me. I didn't have the ability to imagine what recovery was like. The best I could come up with was getting off parole, getting off probation, not getting arrested anymore, not using drugs anymore, not drinking anymore.
00:24:12:11 - 00:24:43:21
Shawn
You know, not just doing the same, you know, behaviors that would cause me these dire consequences over and over and over again. And that was the most that my imagination could come up with at the time. But being able to step into recovery and be open minded and then moving into the next part, which would be faith and stepping into that and having faith that, you know, I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm going to keep doing this anyway to see what happens, because anything that's going to happen is probably going to be better than where I came from before.
00:24:44:02 - 00:24:48:02
Danny
Yeah. It's like.
00:24:48:04 - 00:25:13:11
Danny
Looking at all the old timers was a vision of hope for me. Right? As I continue going to meetings, that hope eventually evolves into faith. You know, I see hundreds of alcoholics and addicts have this spiritual awakening as a result of working these steps, right, that can turn into faith. Even though I don't believe in it, I still do it anyway.
00:25:13:13 - 00:25:31:20
Danny
That's an act of faith, is still doing it and staying out of the results. You know what? I don't know if I 100% believe it, but I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to take an act of faith and stay out of the results and find out, like, how can my life shift as a result of working these steps, these steps?
00:25:31:21 - 00:25:48:09
Danny
Can I have a spiritual awakening? I don't know, but let's find out. Yeah, because I'm so desperate and I don't want, like you mentioned, the rest. I don't want to feel hopeless anymore. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I want something different. Yeah, yeah.
00:25:48:10 - 00:26:15:02
Shawn
And like the natural progression, like, into step three, you know, like, for me was, you know, the next thing my sponsor suggested asked me to practice doing was, you know, again, I was fully honest with him about my belief system or lack thereof, if you will. And he asked me, do you think that you could practice? When we got to step three, we read out of the book and we read the literature, and he he said, do you think that you can practice praying?
00:26:15:02 - 00:26:43:19
Shawn
And obviously I could write. Did I want to know? Did I think it would work? Absolutely not. But could I, could I practice praying? Yes, I can do that. And I found that when I did, something happened, something unexpected happened. And I believe that that actually kept me open minded long enough to receive that full on spiritual experience that you're talking about a little bit later down the road, which changed everything for me.
00:26:43:20 - 00:27:10:04
Shawn
I mean, it was not what I was looking for. It was not what I was expecting. It was the last thing I expected. But I found it to be, you know, more profound and important and relevant than any psychological experience that I had had on any mind altering substance ever in my life. And I'd held on to it, you know, to this day, and it remains a part of my recovery, and I'm sure it always will be.
00:27:10:08 - 00:27:38:19
Shawn
And I believe that that's another thing that's different for everyone. And I, I'm careful about describing my spiritual experience because I do. I did have what they call a white light experience, where it was a very profound, I mean, very really over almost overwhelming spiritual experience that I had that changed absolutely everything for me. And I know that not everyone gets that, and it's different for everyone.
00:27:38:20 - 00:27:53:11
Shawn
And I'm a firm believer that we get what we need when we when we do what we're supposed to do. And I believe that I had that profound of a spiritual experience because it's what I needed in order to have a chance at that recovery.
00:27:53:12 - 00:28:26:21
Danny
Yeah. Same here. Shawn. I'll never forget the day that I made contact with something greater than myself. And interestingly, interestingly enough, it came as a direct result of praying, right? And it's a long story, too. But I did have my white light experience and I'll just quickly go through it. What started it was I was so deep in my addiction that being agnostic and confused about this higher power, I said, you know what?
00:28:26:22 - 00:28:43:17
Danny
Let's give it a shot. I got on my knees and I said, God, if you really exists, please help me. I am scared for my life and I don't know what to do.
00:28:43:19 - 00:29:03:03
Danny
If you're real, please show me. And he did. A miracle happened. Long story short, he put me in a position of having this experience with this precious little animal. And I saved that little animals life.
00:29:03:05 - 00:29:11:18
Danny
And I felt a presence flow through my body. This energy that I haven't felt in a very, very long time. And I.
00:29:11:18 - 00:29:12:05
Danny
Would love.
00:29:12:05 - 00:29:22:09
Danny
To describe that presence as compassion.
00:29:22:11 - 00:29:26:16
Danny
Love, unity.
00:29:26:18 - 00:29:53:12
Danny
As I was rescuing this precious little animals life, I felt love flowing through all parts of my body and I have not felt love or compassion for anything in a very long time, especially when I was using. But for some reason, the moment that I opened my heart and my mind to something greater than myself, he put me in a position of rescuing this precious animals life.
00:29:53:14 - 00:30:25:01
Danny
And I carry that memory with me. I carry it with me and I had to give it meaning. Like, what did it mean? Why did that happen to me? And now I understand. I believe that through that experience, not only was I rescuing that animal, but so was my higher power rescuing me, right? I had no idea that the rooms existed of recovery.
00:30:25:03 - 00:30:53:06
Danny
No idea. But what are the odds that as a result of me praying and opening my heart and mind to something, a miracle happens and I'm introduced to the rooms, and now I had a little bit of open mindedness towards that power. And now I'm in a room with hundreds and thousands of other believers that believe in something bigger.
00:30:53:08 - 00:30:59:18
Danny
And I said, oh my God, I have arrived. I'm not alone.
00:30:59:21 - 00:31:18:03
Shawn
Yeah, that and the parallels of my story and yours. I don't think you've ever shared that. We've we've known each other for a long time. And, you know, we've been a part of each other's recovery journey for years. And I don't know if I've ever shared my spiritual experience with you. I don't think you've ever shared that with me before.
00:31:18:03 - 00:31:39:01
Shawn
But the parallels are so incredible, because what you described was what happened in my step three experience. Like, I practiced praying just like my sponsor suggested that I did. And, you know, for a second kind of half expected, you know, Jesus to come walking down the stairs or the lights to flicker or, you know, like something to happen.
00:31:39:01 - 00:31:55:00
Shawn
Because at the time, I was the center of my own universe, and I was so important in my own mind that if there was a God, he was going to show himself to me because I had demanded it of him. And so when nothing happened, I went back to reading the book that I was reading, and the book that I was reading was Robinson Crusoe.
00:31:55:00 - 00:32:11:05
Shawn
And the very next line in the book, you know, Robinson Crusoe was marooned on a desert island. He's been there by himself for years. And a chest walks up, washes up on the shore. And the very next line in the book is he the chest washes up. He opens it inside the chest. If anyone knows the story, there's there's a Bible.
00:32:11:05 - 00:32:29:17
Shawn
And he picks up the Bible. And the line that he reads out of the the Bible is, call on me in your time of trouble, and I will be there and you will glorify me. And that was what I got. And that was enough for me to believe that something happened. I didn't know what it was, you know, was God talking to me?
00:32:29:18 - 00:32:51:16
Shawn
Was the universe talking to me? Was it a coincidence? I didn't know, but it kept me open long enough for me to have my own very profound spiritual experience. You know, a few weeks later, after doing my fourth in my fifth step, which, again, is probably not a coincidence, because we hear so many stories of people having these profound spiritual experiences after they complete their fifth step, their fourth and their fifth step.
00:32:51:16 - 00:33:12:01
Shawn
And, you know, for me, it was just being so ever since I was an adolescent. I was just so obsessed. You know, I suffered from that obsession of constantly feeling like I had to have something to alter my perception of reality. There's no way I could exist in this world without putting something in my body to change. The way I saw it.
00:33:12:02 - 00:33:29:18
Shawn
Like that was unthinkable. So the best that I could come up with was like, today, let me just get through today without relapsing, and then we'll fight this whole battle all over again tomorrow, you know? And every day I laid my head down on the pillow at night and I hadn't relapsed. It was just like, you know, I had won this major battle, you know, in the war of life.
00:33:29:18 - 00:33:51:22
Shawn
And what happened was I was, you know, I was walking home from a meeting by myself when I was still in rehab, and I had passed this a this car accident where this family was trapped inside a minivan. And the the ambulance was there and the fire department was there, and they're using the jaws of life to try and extract this family that was stuck in this minivan that had gotten into this car accident.
00:33:51:22 - 00:34:07:03
Shawn
And on the way to the meeting, I walked right past that. And on the way back, the whole scene was was gone. There was nothing left. But like a news van interviewing a neighbor, complaining about how he thought that there should be a stoplight there or something like that. And I remember thinking, I hope that family is okay.
00:34:07:04 - 00:34:30:19
Shawn
And it had been a very long time, you know, similar to what you shared that I had thought of, anyone has suffered myself and, you know, thought about anyone else's well-being, you know, another creature on this planet as well, being aside from my own. And when I had that thought, the next thought that flooded into my mind was I have the ability to try and help someone else that wants to get better.
00:34:30:19 - 00:34:48:21
Shawn
And I'm convinced that thought did not come from me. That thought came from somewhere else. And when I received that thought, that obsession that I had been a slave to since I was old enough, you know, since I first became addicted all those years ago, I mean, it was gone just like that. And I knew at that moment that the war was over.
00:34:48:21 - 00:35:09:10
Shawn
And, you know, I basically floated home, you know, the rest of that, that walk, I felt like I was levitating for the first time in my life since I became addicted. I could imagine what life would be like without being a slave to substances, without constantly feeling like I have to put something in my body to change the way I feel, to change the way I think, to change the way I interact with other people.
00:35:09:11 - 00:35:29:18
Shawn
To change the way I view the world around me. And yeah, I mean, I knew when that happened that the process was working and I had to keep going forward, and I haven't let go of that. And I'm so grateful that I had that experience and that had been able to hold on to it, because it continues to be one of the touchstones in my recovery journey to this day.
00:35:29:20 - 00:35:47:04
Danny
Yeah. Thank you. Shawn, for sharing your spiritual experience. It was lovely, and I loved how you continued to feed it by being more altruistic and, like you said, thinking less about myself and thinking more about others. How can I serve? How can I give back?
00:35:47:05 - 00:36:13:11
Shawn
Yeah. And at that moment, just like, just like you described feeling connected. But the first time in my life to I felt a connection with every single other living being on this planet at the same time. And like, that's the best that the those words are the closest I can come to describing how not alone I felt walking home alone from that meeting that night, and I felt that way ever since.
00:36:13:11 - 00:36:34:16
Shawn
I was concerned that I might have been having some sort of brief epiphany or acid flashback. But when I woke up the next day and that obsession was still gone, and I still felt that connection with everyone and everything, you know, on this planet, I knew that I had to keep going forward and that there was there was more to learn and more growing to do and more to discover and more work to be done.
00:36:34:16 - 00:36:49:06
Shawn
So for me, being free of that obsession that I was plagued by for so many years, and being at least willing to try and and be a useful person on this planet, they're inseparable.
00:36:49:12 - 00:37:09:05
Danny
Yeah. I feel like what we're describing, the step three. Right, like we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood them. All right? So we've made it. We're powerless and our lives are unmanageable. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore sanity. Now we're at step three.
00:37:09:08 - 00:37:19:08
Danny
You had your spiritual experience. I had my spiritual experience. Then what do we do with it? What is turning my will over mean to you?
00:37:19:10 - 00:37:34:19
Shawn
So, and again, I love how you brought up like you asked the question, like what about people that don't believe in God? Like all this stuff that sounds, you know, it sounds religious, right? We use the G word, you know, we we say God, we say higher power. To me, it doesn't really matter. What you call it is.
00:37:34:20 - 00:37:51:16
Shawn
As long as I have it, that's that's all that matters to me. But I feel like it's easy for people to kind of get hung up on the nomenclature. And I do. Step three. Every day there's a prayer involved. With step three. I say the Serenity Prayer. I say step three, the third step prayer, and I say the seven step prayer every day.
00:37:51:16 - 00:38:14:17
Shawn
And in all honesty, I haven't found it necessary to believe that there's someone or something on the other end of that prayer. Listening to me every single time I say it. For me, step three is the act of when I say the Serenity prayer, right? God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
00:38:14:22 - 00:38:36:10
Shawn
That is an act, right? I know one of the things that we kind of talked about a little bit about before was like making a decision and then action, like you make a decision to do something and then you follow it with the action. So like, I can I made a decision to not not relapse many, many times over the years before I actually got into recovery.
00:38:36:10 - 00:38:54:11
Shawn
So there's making the decision, but I didn't take the action that was necessary to actually make that a reality for me. So like I can say step three, I can, you know, write something down. But when I take that out, when I say that prayer by myself, when no one else is looking every single day, I'm I'm taking an action.
00:38:54:14 - 00:39:20:08
Shawn
And through that action, I'm acknowledging that I'm not in control of 99% of the things that happen on this planet, in this world, in my life. The only thing I'm really responsible for is how I react to what happens, which is the most important thing for me, being an individual in recovery. So by saying these prayers every single day, me taking that action, it doesn't really matter where that's going or what's happening somewhere else in the universe.
00:39:20:09 - 00:39:32:05
Shawn
The most important thing that I can do is continue to take that action. And so doing a knowledge that I'm not in charge of this universe, something else is something greater than me, is in charge of what happens on this planet and in this world and in this universe.
00:39:32:08 - 00:40:03:18
Danny
I appreciate you talking about the action component when it comes to step three, because I used to think that step three was just about praying, praying for specific things and just sitting on the couch and hit my vape and do nothing about it. It's like, oh God, I want this. I want this job, or oh God, please give me this girl hot girlfriend or whatever, or oh God, I really want to like, move out into my own place and have my own spot and yada, yada yada.
00:40:03:19 - 00:40:26:18
Danny
You know, I was like this list of unrealistic things and just like, treating God, like, if you Santa Claus and oh, I've been a good boy this year, I haven't relapsed, I haven't used. So please give me all these things and I'm just gonna sit back and watch the miracles happen, right? Like making a decision is implying action, right?
00:40:26:19 - 00:40:54:16
Danny
I have to put an effort towards rebuilding my life. Right. And so putting in the effort, doing the action and staying out of the results. Because sometimes life changes. Sometimes life throws curveballs at us. And I need to adjust my plans. Right. And I may not always get the things that I'm striving for. And so I also have to learn how to adjust and to learn to live life on life's terms.
00:40:54:18 - 00:41:21:06
Shawn
Yeah, prioritizing. Finding a way to be okay with what happens regardless of what it is and when it is, allows me to live a life that doesn't necessitate putting something in my body to change the way I perceive the world around me on a constant basis. It allows me to be at peace as much as possible for a person like me, with myself, the world around me, and everything that happens in it.
00:41:21:07 - 00:41:34:06
Danny
Yeah. So surrender is something that I have to practice daily, right? It's not just a I work step three and I'm done. I've surrendered and.
00:41:34:06 - 00:41:34:19
Shawn
We're done.
00:41:34:21 - 00:41:42:14
Danny
Yeah. Like, life will throw many opportunities and challenges where we have to revisit that surrender.
00:41:42:15 - 00:41:45:20
Shawn
Oh, yeah. I tell people all the time. Step three A way of life.
00:41:45:23 - 00:41:46:08
Danny
Yeah.
00:41:46:08 - 00:41:47:14
Shawn
For me.
00:41:47:16 - 00:42:12:19
Danny
My coworker just really pissed me off and disrespected me. Am I going to relapse on anger and aggression and disrespect, or will I choose to surrender and choose the principles of the program? I just found out my partner relapsed and I'm really upset and I want to confront her with aggression or whatever it is. Am I going to relapse on destructive behaviors?
00:42:12:20 - 00:42:25:07
Danny
Or I have the option to surrender and use principles, right? All these challenges that life throws at us are opportunities to surrender.
00:42:25:08 - 00:42:46:04
Shawn
Yeah. And for me, it's gotten easier with practice over the years. I've gotten better at it. It started to come more naturally, and I don't have to think about it or force it in any way. You know, some things are are easier to to walk through than others. Obviously, you know, you know, in 12 years, you know, in one year, like we walked through a lot of stuff, right?
00:42:46:05 - 00:43:01:03
Shawn
I walked through a lot of stuff sober, and I felt a lot of emotions. And there's been a lot of things that have been very difficult. But I've noticed, generally speaking, over the years, it gets easier the more that I practice it, and it almost just becomes like second nature. I hardly even have to think about it anymore.
00:43:01:05 - 00:43:06:06
Danny
Do you feel comfortable opening up about?
00:43:06:08 - 00:43:15:09
Danny
That, opening up about something that was triggering or difficult for you and surrender was the best option?
00:43:15:11 - 00:43:40:15
Shawn
Yeah, I mean, honestly, like on a day to day basis, it's almost like almost like a way of life. Like I said, you know, there's little things that happen to where, like step three is a way of life. Like, I can be say, I'm driving on the freeway to work and, you know, like, I need to be at work at 4:00, and I left with plenty of time to get there.
00:43:40:16 - 00:43:57:00
Shawn
You know, I planned ahead. No fault of my own. There's really, really bad traffic today. And, you know, I might end up being a little bit late if I don't maybe step on the gas, zip around some people, be a little reckless, whatever it might be. And there's people that are honking at each other. There's people that are cutting each other off.
00:43:57:00 - 00:44:27:23
Shawn
Maybe someone cut me off and, you know, like, I can make a decision to, like, get caught up in that and try and force my way to work on time. Or I can make a phone call like, hey, there's a lot of traffic right now. Like, I'm probably going to be a little bit late. But I mean, again, I mean, I kind of I'll repeat the biggest example for me was like when I was much earlier in recovery, just the whole idea of I need help, which was as far as I could really take myself at the time.
00:44:28:04 - 00:44:55:01
Shawn
And I'm going to let you help me in any way. I need help so bad, and I'm so willing and desperate to get help that I'm going to trust that whatever you're going to be able to do for me is going to be better than what my previous way of life was able to do for me. So surrendering and being willing to accept not just my idea of help, of the help that I think I need, but the help that you think I need.
00:44:55:04 - 00:45:19:11
Danny
Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Shawn, maybe we can transition to step four and five, right. Making a moral inventory and then being honest with ourselves. Another human being in God about the exact natures of our wrongs. What was your experience like walking through those steps, especially after working that fifth step?
00:45:19:13 - 00:45:41:19
Shawn
Yeah. And this is this is a point where I want to just kind of like give a shout out to residential treatment, you know, as it exists, because it's just so helpful because I am not someone, again, even after, you know, even after having that, that step three experience that that made me much more open minded than I had previously been writing all this stuff down, doing all this work.
00:45:41:20 - 00:46:11:02
Shawn
You know, I harmed a lot of people. I caused harm in my community. Just the idea of like making a list of like, say, for example, the the inventory of people that we've harmed was really overwhelming for me. I mean, resentments, I mean, I can I even count that high if all the resentments that I have towards other people and institutions, you know, in this world, like really, really overwhelming that I believe that there's not a chance that I would have done it on my own accord.
00:46:11:02 - 00:46:31:05
Shawn
So the fact that I was in an institution that told me that this is what you have to do if you want to stay here and continue receiving our help was exactly what I needed. If I didn't have that boundary set for me, I would have never done it because I didn't want to. Because of the fear and because of the disbelief that something like that could help me.
00:46:31:05 - 00:47:04:18
Shawn
Because I didn't understand how that had anything to do with my drug and alcohol use. So being kind of mandated to do that, faced with the choice of doing that, or going back to where I came from, was the only thing that saved me from backing out. And so just like all of the other steps that we talked about, like actually taking the action and then the rewards come and you learn like, wow, this, this is working like this is actually really helping me way more than I could have ever even imagined, even not even understanding how at the time.
00:47:04:19 - 00:47:15:02
Shawn
Like, I don't understand how this is affecting me, the way that it's affecting me, but I'm going to keep doing it because it's this is helping a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:47:15:02 - 00:47:23:07
Danny
I remember when I was working my fourth step, there was a lot of fear coming up, right?
00:47:23:09 - 00:47:42:20
Danny
There was a lot of fear about looking at myself, and there was a lot of fear about getting honest about all the things that I've done. Right. Because it's like I didn't have anybody to turn towards. Like, I've done a lot of messed up things that I that I am ashamed about. And I felt very guilty and I had a lot of remorse.
00:47:42:20 - 00:48:16:10
Danny
Yeah. And I'm so grateful for meeting my sponsor. Through that relationship, I was able to cultivate the courage to get honest about all of it. Because every time I try to get honest with people, there was always like negative consequences. I couldn't get vulnerable with my family the same way that I've been with my sponsor, because the the response were different, right?
00:48:16:11 - 00:48:40:18
Danny
Like, if I'm honest about all the things that I've done in my past to my family, they might judge me or get hurt by it. If I am honest about all the things that I've done with my employers, there might be negative consequences of it, right? If I'm honest about everything that I've done to my girlfriend, she might get hurt from that truth or that truth.
00:48:40:20 - 00:49:01:19
Danny
And so this is where a sponsor came was very useful. Right. Because when I was finally able to be vulnerable and honest about everything, and I shared that with my sponsor, his response was one of.
00:49:01:21 - 00:49:13:18
Danny
Acceptance, no judgment, unconditional support and love and empathy. And that's what I needed at that time in my life.
00:49:13:20 - 00:49:35:23
Shawn
I had a very similar, you know, experience and response from my sponsor as well, which is, you know, the same exactly what I needed. You know, my sponsor was a wee guy. So like whenever I put something out there that I felt like was, you know, particularly abhorrent, you know, like he would present, you know, he would counter with, well, we as alcoholics, this is what we do when we're in these types of situations.
00:49:36:02 - 00:49:51:22
Shawn
Like and I didn't feel alone. I felt very supported. And it really, really helped me to walk through that fear. And it was one of those things that once I started, I kind of felt the momentum that I was able to kind of carry me through the process, which which took a while because there was a lot.
00:49:51:23 - 00:50:05:17
Danny
Yeah, yeah. And it's like I've realized that, you know, like because I was withholding so much out of fear. I had all these secrets, all these secrets, and they were keeping me sick.
00:50:05:19 - 00:50:31:00
Shawn
Yeah, I mean, it they it removed the ability for me to be in denial about who I was, you know, at the time, which was, you know, a very eye opening experience for me. And there was wasn't really anything that I could I feel like I could ever turn back from, like once my eyes were opened to what kind of person I was, there's there was just no going back from that, you know?
00:50:31:01 - 00:50:47:19
Shawn
And I knew I had to keep moving forward because once that was laid out, she's like, oh, this isn't good. We we have a situation here. We gotta do something about this. Which obviously leads us into the next few steps. Right? We're immediately into this is what you do about what we're looking at here.
00:50:47:20 - 00:51:16:20
Danny
You know, what's really rad about secrets is that once I was able to get honest about all of them, they've turned into my greatest asset. Because now when I'm at meetings, I can openly disclose my secrets are not my greatest assets. Because guess what? There's probably somebody else in the room who's still holding on to those secrets, and they're not ready to be honest about it.
00:51:17:01 - 00:51:31:15
Danny
But then they see us opening up about it at a meeting level, and how we've addressed these secrets and healed from these secrets. All of a sudden, we're carrying the message to that person who's still suffering with theirs. And it's so beautiful.
00:51:31:16 - 00:51:40:17
Shawn
Yeah. Who would have thought that the worst thing that I've ever been through would be the one thing that gives a hopeless person hope. Hope in this world. It's a beautiful thing.
00:51:40:18 - 00:51:46:18
Danny
Yeah, man. Yeah. So what does a spiritual awakening mean to you?
00:51:46:20 - 00:52:19:21
Shawn
Yeah. For me, it was definitely, you know, not being alone. I touched on this a little bit, but I never could have imagined feeling not alone ever again for the rest of my life, regardless of whether I was by myself or whether I was in a room full of people. You know, there's a lot of talk about anyone who knows anything about addiction recovery has heard the, you know, the talk of connection and how important it is, the sense of community, whether it's a connection, feeling connected with yourself.
00:52:19:22 - 00:52:44:14
Shawn
Right. Having been in touch with yourself, knowing who you are, being okay with who you are, having a healthy relationship with yourself, coming healthy relationship with your coworkers, with your friends, with other people in recovery and having that connection. You know, like survivors of the same sinking ship as they say, being connected with people in your community, whether it's through church or through meetings or other types of support groups or, you know, your work or whatever it might be.
00:52:44:14 - 00:53:08:05
Shawn
But that, for me, is like it's the ultimate example of connection because, as I said, like feeling as if you have, you know, a direct connection to every other form of life on this planet at the same time. I mean, you know, I don't like I said, I, you know, our friend Tai says they don't make dope this kid.
00:53:08:07 - 00:53:12:20
Shawn
And like, I feel like that's applicable. Yeah, that hits the nail on the head.
00:53:12:21 - 00:53:31:00
Danny
Yeah. There's just such a deep level of freedom. Yeah. Right through these awakenings. Right. Maybe a sense of purpose, a connection with something greater, having a meaningful and purposeful life and carrying the message to the attic who still suffers, right?
00:53:31:05 - 00:54:02:05
Shawn
Yeah. Today, to this day, I can go for a walk by myself and keep myself incredibly entertained by listening to the sounds of the forest or the meadow, looking at the clouds, watching the birds chirp around and interact with each other, watching a lizard, you know, scurry through the leaves on the ground, listening to the sound like going, sitting next to a creek for a little while and listen to the water flow over the rocks and just be in heaven, heaven on earth.
00:54:02:07 - 00:54:05:02
Shawn
I'm such a wonderful gift. You're in the now, right?
00:54:05:03 - 00:54:12:06
Danny
That deep level of interconnectedness with all of life's manifestations. What a blessing.
00:54:12:07 - 00:54:16:13
Shawn
Who would have thought was not what I was looking for when I went to rehab, right?
00:54:16:14 - 00:54:18:22
Danny
I just wanted to stop using. And that's it, man.
00:54:18:23 - 00:54:20:07
Shawn
Yeah.
00:54:20:09 - 00:54:23:03
Danny
And recovery. Something much more meaningful.
00:54:23:04 - 00:54:30:13
Shawn
Yeah. They say you get what you put into it. I've gotten probably about 100,000 times what I put into it.
00:54:30:14 - 00:54:46:03
Danny
Absolutely. And I'll never forget that question my sponsor always asked me when I was white knuckling it, or half asking the steps like, Danny, how free do you want to be? How free do you want to be? I want to be free. Yeah.
00:54:46:07 - 00:54:47:14
Shawn
And we get to be.
00:54:47:16 - 00:55:13:00
Danny
Yeah. Thank you. Shawn, why don't we close out with one final question, if that's okay with you? Of course. So, Shawn, maybe for someone who's listening and they feel stuck or resistant towards this whole 12 step process, what's one message that you hope they can take from this conversation?
00:55:13:02 - 00:55:55:19
Shawn
I would say that if you are 100% against developing greater honesty and humility, accountability, serenity, connection, joy and peace in your life, do not do the steps, because I cannot think of a single person that I know of that's gone through this process and come out the other side without, you know, gaining that into their life, like gaining those qualities greater honesty, greater humility, greater accountability, greater peace and serenity and connection with the world around them.
00:55:55:20 - 00:56:09:00
Shawn
Like we've been talking about in their lives. So if for whatever reason, that's something that you are dead set against having in your life, don't do it because I'm sure it'll happen with you if it's happening just as it's happened with everyone else.
00:56:09:02 - 00:56:13:06
Danny
Yeah. What a beautiful message, Shawn. It's been an honor having you here. Thank you for coming out.
00:56:13:10 - 00:56:16:14
Shawn
Thank you. Yeah, it was a pleasure.
00:56:16:15 - 00:56:26:10
Danny
Thanks for watching Beyond the Window podcast at La Ventana Treatment Programs. You can check us out on YouTube and Spotify, and we'll see you in the next episode.
