The Recovery Puzzle: A Willing Heart w/ Irvin S

Justin B.: Hey, I'm Justin, and before we get started in this really great conversation I have with Irvine S about a willing heart, I want to let you know about the quickly approaching 2023 SA Lifeline Conference that is coming up on September 9th, 2023 in Sandy, Utah. Um, I'm going to share with the, the tagline of the conference. It's Come Heal With Us: A Community Focus on Recovery from the Effects of Pornography sexual addiction, and betrayal trauma. You, you guys know that at SA Lifeline, we understand the pain and hopelessness that can accompany habitual pornography use, sex addiction, and resulting betrayal trauma.

We look forward to sharing our experience, strength, and hope at our annual conference with those who are struggling, their loved ones, and other supporters. SA Lifeline believes that recovering individuals leads to the healing of families. Find hope, find healing, come heal with us, and come register at salifeline.org/events. Tara and I both look forward to meeting many of you there.

Narrator: This is Pathway to Recovery, an SA Lifeline Foundation podcast featuring hosts Tara McCausland, who is the SA Lifeline Executive Director, and Justin B., a sex addict living in long-term recovery. We have conversations with experts and individuals who understand the pathway to healing from sexual addiction and betrayal trauma because we believe that recovering individuals leads to the healing of families.

Justin B.: Welcome to the Pathway to Recovery podcast. A production of SA Lifeline Foundation. My name is Justin B. I am a sex addict living in long-term recovery and grateful to be one of the hosts of this podcast. Today I'm sitting down with one of my good friends in recovery, Irvin S., and he's gonna be talking to us a little bit about the willing heart and the SA Lifeline recovery puzzle model. And we'll be talking a little bit about that.

But before we get into the willing heart, I just wanna— Yeah. Welcome you, Irvin.

Irvin S.: Thank you. Thank you, Justin. My name is Irvin S. I'm a recovering sex addict and my sobriety date is October 30th, 2021. My primary forms of acting out are pornography, masturbation, and fantasy. Glad to be here, Justin.

Justin B.: So Irvin, tell us a little bit about yourself, just a little background information about you and how you eventually came into the rooms of SAL 12-step.

Irvin S.: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I guess I'll start with my profession. I'm an automation engineer, Justin. I like to make things work. I like to put my hands on things, and that had been most of my life. Everything that I liked to do had to do with feel and touch, and it was like that growing up. I spent a lot of time with Playing with toys. I was a little kid, and it was just enjoyable for me to live in that fantasy.

With the years, that didn't turn out to be the greatest thing. I think I felt I needed to connect with people from a young age, but I just felt better with things than with people. I am married at this point. I have a 3-year-old. And a 7-month-old baby. They are the fuel, the fuel of my life at this point. And yeah, so what got me into the rooms was myself. You know, I got myself rolling down into a mess of pridefulness and selfishness where I wouldn't care about myself or the people around me.

And, you know, with time, the lies that I would tell people just to keep them around, especially my wife, they eventually unfolded. And she found out about my, my addiction multiple times. And, you know, and I lied about it. I wouldn't be honest with her because I didn't want to quit. I would just— I just wanted to hide it. Yeah. I'm addicted to, to sex and pornography and fantasy. And, you know, eventually somehow she ran into an SAO link and she said, maybe you should try this at one point.

And, and I just went to the rooms and I would hide. It was with video, it was online, and this was Just when COVID was on its— like 2020. And I would just hide in the— into the background, trying to blur myself, wouldn't participate, but I would listen. I would hear what other people had to say. And I started to realize that a lot of the things that this so-called sex addict would say resonates so much with, with myself that it was like, yeah, maybe Maybe there's something here.

And I kept going back. That's, that's a little bit of my background.

Justin B.: Leads into a follow-up with me. You know, you said you came into the rooms, you, you hung out maybe off camera or didn't participate other than listening in. How long was that between the time you first came into the rooms of SAL 12-step? And I'm assuming in any 12-step group, is that, is that the first time you'd ever been into a 12-step group was into SAL?

Irvin S.: Yeah, that's right.

Justin B.: So how long were you hanging around until you went, okay, I need to start participating, or I need to take the next step? How long did that take before decision?

Irvin S.: It took about 10 months for me to realize that I needed to give in order to receive. I needed to take action, even if that was to read a paragraph over one of the meetings, to get my face out there, so maybe get people to want to talk. Because I would complain a lot about nobody's reaching out to me. I don't get any phone calls. I'm trying. I'm reaching out to people. They don't call back. And I realized I was a picture on the wall in the meetings.

I wasn't sharing anything. I was just there as a checklist. And something in me did feel that I needed to be there. But yeah, I wasn't really engaged or participating. And that reflected itself into how people treated me. So it took about 10 months and, and a pretty bad relapse for me to realize that when I needed to engage and take action.

Justin B.: And it took you about 10 months to engage. I think this kind of leads into the topic of having a willing heart. What do you think made you willing to be able to go on camera, willing to read a paragraph, willing to maybe share, willing to to, you know, reach out to more people? What do you think it was that was the straw that broke that camel's back to make you willing to do those things?

Irvin S.: Yeah, it was a combination of things. I think around that time when I started into the SAA rooms, I was sober, right? I wasn't acting out because that was the commitment I made. You know, I'm in the rooms, I'm going to prove to myself and and to my wife that I don't need, you know, I don't need this program. I'm still gonna go because I don't need it. I'm, I'm too good at life, right? And, and it took little by little, you would see my history on my, on my Explorer or on my, my YouTube start to shift a little bit and start to see things that were a little bit more explicit, you know, girls and dancing and stuff.

It's like, oh yeah, you know, that's not quite pornography. Just little by little, little by little, for months and months till I acted out. And it didn't feel right because I was trying as hard as I possibly could to stay away from lusting and masturbation and all this addiction. I was trying. I still noticed, you know, how I was drifting, but I think I was blind to myself. I was deceiving myself to the point that I wouldn't really notice, and I would continue on and just little by little till I acted out.

And really just seeing how, as hard as I tried, I couldn't be lost. It just beat me, broke my ego and my pride, because always during my entire life I was in control, right? I was the, I was the leader, the owner of my life, the king of my life. Everything that I put my, my desires and thoughts into, I would normally obtain. And, you know, with lust, it wasn't It wasn't like that. It was like, I really can't do this.

And I'm telling you this and I'm not in tears on it or anything, but that day that I realized the catastrophe of that defeat, it was not pleasant. It was not pleasant. I wept. And this was the first time that I went to my wife being honest and saying, You know, I acted out, and I really—I can't do this. I don't know how to do this. And that gave me the willing heart. Just that broken, broken spirit, I suppose.

It dented my heart pretty well that I couldn't do it on my own. And because I had been to the rooms, I. I didn't need to believe too much that some people can in fact overcome lust. Because step 2, we come to believe. I didn't even have to believe. I was seeing people. I didn't need any faith. I was seeing people that had figured this out. And that's when I reached out. I decided to go back to the room with my you know, with all my pain and, and with my defeat, to see if, if I could also, like those people, find a true answer to, to the loss and all the suffering.

Justin B.: Thank you for sharing that, Irving. There's some really good stuff. And, and what I want to do is I want to backtrack just a hair here. Your story just leads right into a couple of the pieces of the SA Lifeline recovery puzzle, and I want to kind of describe that, share with the people who will be listening. If you aren't familiar with what the SA Lifeline recovery puzzle looks like. You can find it at salifeline.org.

I'll put a direct link in the show notes to it. I'm going to kind of try and describe it a little bit. You got the willing heart as the centerpiece of this puzzle. Surrounding that are 5 puzzle pieces that connect into the willing heart. We got rigorous honesty, we've got humility, you're humble, we've got seeking spiritual connection, we've got committed, and we've got accountable. And then surrounding those 5 pieces are 4 other puzzle pieces that help complete it. We got boundaries and bottom lines for safety.

We've got qualified therapy, SAL 12-step work, which is a little bit what we're talking about here, and quality education. But I wanna jump to a couple things that you shared here, Irving. You said you got to the point where you realized you couldn't do it. It was like a humbling that happened. Yeah. It wasn't a choice to be humble. You were humbled. You know, you were brought into humility. Tell us a little bit about that humility, a little bit more about how that opened your heart and made it a little bit more willing.

Irvin S.: Yeah, absolutely. And looking back, I, I do feel that God took me— he brought me to my knees that day. I needed that. Yeah, the humility comes because I had no pride left because I was prideful to that point that I could achieve what I put my mind to, except this thing that it's annoying my wife so much and that is destroying my marriage. I couldn't beat it. I tried, I tried, but I couldn't. And just the fact that I couldn't, was really humbling.

It's like, this keeps beating me up. But I had to be honest. I had to be honest that it was my own— it was my own doing.

Justin B.: Yeah. So we just hit on 2 of those: humble, bringing you to your knees, and then being willing to be honest. There's rigorous honesty right there. I remember the first time that I, in a 12-step group, said, I'm Justin, I think I'm an addict. And I am definitely a big fat liar. And as I said those things, this like weight came off my shoulders. It was almost tangible. I could almost feel it happening at the moment. When you told your wife, said, hey, I can't beat this thing, I don't know what to do, how did that make you feel initially?

And how did things change from that moment?

Irvin S.: Yeah, that's a good question. When that moment It came. It was like you describe it. I imagined weights, like I was carrying weights, just like you're describing, on my shoulders. And finally, I'm able to really just let go and admit and take in that I need help. I need help. I don't know how to figure this out. It felt— I don't want to say a relief. It wasn't really, really a relief, but it felt like an open door.

Like when you're working to solve, you know, an equation or something like this and you give up, and then you have tried everything you know to try, that means you're one thing away from, from finding the right answer. That's how it felt, like maybe— Yeah. maybe I need to ask some other people about this. It felt like a door opened and it felt hopeful because I was already in the rooms, like I was telling you, and I had seen people do this.

I needed to know. And that gave me the push that I needed in that regard.

Justin B.: Thank you. So we got humility, we've got rigorous honesty. I want to talk about one of the other pieces here. Accountable, you know. So, so you've been broken, you've admitted that you're powerless. How do you, or how did you initially achieve accountability? How did you have an accountable situation, and how did that help you in this process?

Irvin S.: Yeah, the accountability part for me took, took a while. It didn't come right away. Because after that, I got a sponsor and he gave me structure and he gave me things to do that would get me closer to being more honest, being more open, to connect more with people. It was up to me to do those things to get me closer to my higher power in the end and have that spiritual experience. But it was up to me to continue to take action while I waited for the spiritual experience.

And it didn't happen right away. I'd failed many times on the assignments and on my journaling and noticing that when I wasn't moving forward and taking action, what's the word I'm looking for? Something like set me back, or I guess remind me of where I come from. helped me take more responsibility. It's like, yeah, if I stop journaling just one day of this week, you know, I won't get to process those thoughts, and it's just gonna be back to not journaling maybe for a couple of days till I get back on track.

I need to be more, more responsible about this. So that, that took a long time. I want to say it took at least 6 months, maybe even more than that, just continuously Realizing that not doing certain things would affect me negatively.

Justin B.: Yeah, man. And I think that goes along with this next piece. I actually wanna sit on accountability here for just a minute. You mentioned journaling. How does journaling keep you accountable to yourself? I think you touched on a little bit, but I wanna drill down a little bit more because while journaling in and of itself is not like a requirement of SAL, 12-step or whatever, some sponsors say, hey, keep a journal and here's why. So tell us why that works for you to stay accountable.

Irvin S.: You know, the journaling helps me with Step 10. It helps me review my day and it helps me see the highlights of my day and honestly looking at them and then writing them down. Sometimes I write them down and it's like, no, that doesn't feel right. That's not the right thing. This was it. You know, it allows me to, to go through my day and— and just review it. Let me see how I can be a little bit better tomorrow.

That's the one part. And then the other part is that I have a person on the other side of this journal, and that's my sponsor, where I write these things and present to him. And that keeps me also accountable because sometimes he would see whatever it is I'm writing and say, maybe there's a blind spot here, or, you know, good luck with this thing. it all comes together to, to keep me reviewing myself.

Justin B.: Yeah, you know, one of my mentors in recovery taught me this concept of more light comes through 2 windows than through one. And I think that's kind of where you're talking here. If I'm writing in my journal, I'm seeing the light that's coming through my window, and I'm seeing it on the paper as I write it or on the screen as I type it. But if, if I'm sharing it with somebody else and they're on my side, they're able to see it from a different angle, and you got more light coming in through, through those 2 windows, and, and more can be seen.

You know, I've got blind spots like crazy all over in my life, and as I journal and as I share my journal with those that I do, oftentimes I'll get a, a response saying, hey Justin, there's this going on here, what's happening? What do we need to talk about? And I think that's something really Helpful for me in that accountability part. And you also mentioned that you— it took 6 months or even more of striving to do the daily things, the daily accountability.

And that takes some real commitment, especially from addicts, at least like me. I'll speak for myself, to be committed to something like that for 6 months. And well, for me, it's one day at a time. And I say for the rest of my life, at least for today. What obstacles do you have to get over to remain committed to that process of recovery?

Irvin S.: I had to get myself out of the way. I had to sacrifice sleep in order to journal because that's when I have the most peace around the house is waking up early or before I go to bed. That's when it's peaceful. And I had to sacrifice whatever else it is that I was doing in those times whether it was sleeping or watching a show, that had to be sacrificed. It had to go. And, you know, that took, took some serious commitment.

Sometimes you're, you're watching and you're binging and you don't want to let it go. Well, I had to because if I stopped journaling, things revolved back down into the darkness, right? Into, into the lust.

Justin B.: Had you ever journaled before Working recovery, had you ever kept a journal at any time in your life?

Irvin S.: No, that was girly. That's all I knew about journaling.

Justin B.: That's what the girls did, huh?

Irvin S.: Yes. Not anymore.

Justin B.: So that took a willing heart to try that out too, huh?

Irvin S.: Yeah, yeah, I was very willing at that point.

Justin B.: Thank you for sharing that. And one more piece on the inner part of the puzzle here that I really want to touch on is seeking spiritual connection. Irving, what has your spiritual connection looked like throughout your life, and how has that changed in the last last while since you've been working actively recovery?

Irvin S.: Yeah, I was, I was raised Catholic, so I used to go to like Saturday church lessons throughout my youth. Then, you know, I would learn the stories about— some stories about the Bible. I was very young, nothing very serious there, but I had some familiarity with religion. In my teenage years, I didn't want anything to do with religion. I didn't believe it. There's no proof. I was a rebel against religion with no reason at all, really, just being a teenager, I guess, and not having found anyone who would give me answers or find my rock bottom back then.

Yeah, and then that was me from my early teenage years till maybe 4 years ago. Well, maybe a little longer than that, but yes. Then I started going to church again, and when I was in church, I would feel like I belonged. I would feel the connection. I liked the spirituality. But it wasn't really— I didn't know God anyway, you know. It wasn't really till I got to know him really well, because I needed, I needed to know him after realizing that that's what other people did in these steps to come to, to find a spiritual connection, is to get to know God better.

And after cleaning my perspectives with him and my preconceived negative things about him. After I cleaned all that up, then I was able to continue to read scripture, read what other people had to say about God, you know, educated people like Tony Evans, maybe talk directly to my pastors and some other members in the, in the group. And getting to know more about Jesus and more about God has been Absolutely amazing, because is is having light, right?

Having answers for human nature, and also having been cleansed of all your all of your sins. You still sin, and then he still forgives you, and just that. that cycle of your, your own surrendering and resurrecting into a better you on a daily basis, maybe multiple times a day, has just been amazing. I wouldn't change it for, for anything. I think that answered your question.

Justin B.: Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you. You know, one of the taglines, the tagline of the SAL book and of SA Lifeline Foundation is recovering individuals, healing families. Now, Irving, you've talked a little bit about your personal individual recovery here in this process of the willing heart. What has your willing heart brought about in the healing of your family? How has that looked?

Irvin S.: Yeah, really good question. Well, because I was very controlling when I was going after lust, and I realized, you know, with SAL and the steps, I realized that that was a character defect of mine, trying to control things. Well, I was Controlling and maybe sometimes even manipulating other people, including my wife. And a lot of times I would just get in her way because I'm just trying to control. I want my outcome. I wouldn't let her be her and do the things that she needed to do to live her own full life.

I would get in her way. And nowadays that I'm able to, most times, right, if I'm in, in serenity and not control and let her go through her own emotions and not try to suppress, suppress her, then she can develop herself in her own way, which is exactly what she needs. It's just to to continue to develop herself forever. Nowadays, I won't, or at least I will try not to place burdens, unnecessary suffering and unnecessary burdens onto her that are my responsibility, like missing an appointment for whatever, and then having her have to To remake that appointment.

And I know it sounds like a mundane example, but that's a lot of my life. I let things drop and then she's got to pick up the pieces. That's a lot of my life. And that took a lot from her because I wouldn't take responsibility for anything. Well, nowadays I take responsibility. She doesn't have to deal with the messes I make. I go ahead and clean them up before she even has to do anything with it.

And then she can do her own things. That's one example with my wife. And then the same thing happens with my kids. I just get out of the way.

Justin B.: That's beautiful. Beautiful. Now, I, I want to invite you to share a little bit about, you know, you said that you've got a 3-year-old and like a 7-month-old child. I know that your 3-year-old has observed you getting into serenity as you do your morning routine, connecting with God. Tell me a little bit about what that means to you and what that means to your 3-year-old child.

Irvin S.: Ah, you're touching a nerve. Yeah, I, I usually, I wake up, you know, before everybody's up and I do my, my morning prayers. And now in the summer, the sun is out earlier than usual and Amaya is waking up earlier than usual. She's up you know, 5:30 AM, 5:45, she is already up. And a lot of times she would come downstairs and she would find me, you know, it's, it's prayer time. And it's a great thing that she finds me doing this because I invite her in.

I invite her in. I don't stop and quit what it is that I'm doing. I invite her in and She gets to pray with me, and sometimes she participates. Sometimes if I say her name, she'll correct me during a prayer, and she'll say like, no, I'm Cinderella. Like, okay, Cinderella. And it's, it's just a great time. It's a great time that we have, get to be together. And I say that, that you're touching a nerve because now my schedule at work has changed, and I have to wake up even earlier, so she's no longer there.

And now I miss her. I miss, I miss having her in my morning routine and coming downstairs and interrupting and joining in. It's great. It's just great to have her around.

Justin B.: It's a beautiful, beautiful story. I'm almost jealous that I don't have little ones like that. My kids, my youngest is 16, and during the summer she sleeps way later than I'm up. You know, I, I, I don't even see her half the day, you know, but to have those opportunities to share with such a young child the connection that you are seeking with, with God and have inviting them into that process is, it's miraculous. It's something that I think will pay dividends for generations and not just for Amaya's childhood.

What a beautiful thing. Mm-hmm. So with the willing heart topic here, I want to read a couple of things from the SA Lifeline website and then have you comment on those a little bit. And this also comes out of page 83 of the SAL book, but I'm going to read this paragraph and you tell me a little bit about your experience with it. Willing heart. Recovery revolves around a willing heart. When we choose to have a willing heart, we finally let go of all of the facades and justifications.

Counterintuitively, this letting go does not bring feelings of despair. Instead, we begin to see it as the golden doorway to hope. It is our experience that no matter how bleak our circumstances may be, with a willing heart, living in recovery is possible.

Irvin S.: Yeah, that's really how it is. The willingness to continue to strive for your own recovery and for your connection with your higher power is what keeps me going. There are other pieces to it, like the, you know, having boundaries and having, having a support network. But without your willingness— and if I take a step back, the way I look at it is now that I went through the experience we talked about earlier with where my ego broke and, and I was willing, I was finally willing.

Now I can look back and say, when I'm struggling, think and feel and say, I don't want to go back there again. I'm willing to do what it takes to go up, to go this way, to continue to aim for, for improvement. And that's, that's the door that remains open, that I have to keep reopening every day, just Being willing. I, I resonate with that a lot.

Justin B.: Yeah, I love that imagery of the golden doorway to hope that is listed there too. You know, sometimes for me to find that golden doorway that I would think should be shining bright, you know, so that I can see it right there, means I gotta walk down a dark hallway towards it with faith and hope that when I get down the end of that dark hallway that there is a door at the end, and that when I open that door, there will be some light that comes out and, and invites me in.

And I think for me, this goes back to my early days in the, the humbling of my person, you know, of myself. Jordan Peterson says this, he says, the thing that you want the most, you have to go to the place that you least want to go to. in order to find that thing. And what I eventually wanted the most was a connection with my wife, a connection with my children, a connection with my God, as opposed to a connection with an object, with, with something that was unattainable, with something that really wasn't mine at all or wasn't connected with me at all.

But when I went down that dark hallway and Knocked on that door and it opened up, the light came through, and it was a beautiful experience. What are your thoughts on what I just shared?

Irvin S.: Yeah, no, I agree. That's, that's a great quote from Jordan there. Really, at least to me, I didn't know this at the time going through the Step 4 inventory. You know, it's— you go to really dark places from your past, from your present. and really dig into that. It's not pleasant. It's not pleasant. But once you do, once you go through that and then you see the pattern, it's like, yes, that is you. Change direction. Do this instead.

Try this. And then you actually try it. Then I think that's when you actually go through that tunnel, like you're saying, and then find recovery. I find safety, find peace.

Justin B.: So, Irving, as you are currently living in this promised, generally happy, joyous, and free way of living in recovery, what meaning do you find as you try to give back in recovery to others who are groping their way down this dark hall right now?

Irvin S.: Hmm. Yeah. Sponsoring is a big deal because it keeps me somewhat accountable. Because if I want to be able to help my sponsees, I have to myself be healthy and be in recovery. Otherwise, you can't share what you don't have. And it gives me purpose. It gives me purpose in life just to know that I will be useful. My story would be useful to other guys that are still suffering, the people who are still lost in that part of, you know, sin.

It gives me hope. It keeps me going, really. And it takes me away from thinking about myself all the time. You know, I start to worry about them a little bit. It's no longer about me all day. And and my problems and my things. You know, I think about other people, and that's a good exercise for my brain to not just focus on myself. It's great. Sponsoring is great.

Justin B.: Thanks for sharing about getting out of yourself and, and not trying to keep everything to yourself. Oftentimes I see, or I've been tempted to do this, hey, I've quote unquote figured this out. Now I'm just gonna go and live my life and, and think that everything's good. I never have to think about it again. And for me, there's no quicker way to having to think about it again because I've messed up. You know, that giving back really makes a huge difference.

So Irving, is there anything else you feel like you want to share about the willing heart and those puzzle pieces around it before we start closing up this conversation?

Irvin S.: We, we've said a lot. It's a good thing to decide, if you're still suffering, to decide that now is the moment you change things for yourself. It's, it's a great thing to be defeated in that way because it opens doors that you have no idea how much your life And the life of the people around you can change for the better. For those who still suffer, if, if you feel like you may be at your rock bottom or close to, to the rock bottom, decide it.

Decide it. Reach out to somebody. Get a temporary sponsor. Talk to them. Tell them what's going on. Get to action. Work the steps. That's the last piece I would put on there.

Justin B.: Yeah, thank you so much for that. And my final wrap-up questions will touch a little bit on what you just shared there. What advice would you give to somebody who is just now starting this path? This is their first time ever entering a 12-step room, first time ever saying, man, I've got a problem and I'm willing to at least go into a room of recovery and see what this is about. What advice would you give that person?

Irvin S.: Do it. You know, go, go into the room. Go in and don't be afraid. The people in the room are going to be very welcoming because it's part of our, of our steps to help you feel like you belong and understand the things that we understood at some point. So reach out. If you go to a room, don't be afraid to reach out. You know, talk to the people next to you. Tell them, hey, it's my first day.

Let them know. Put yourself out there. I think that's priceless. That first connection that you make will make the second one a little bit easier, and then the third one will be a little bit easier, and then the fourth one, till you feel comfortable sharing with people. And that's what's going to keep you away from isolation, just And isolation will keep you lusting, so we don't want to be there. We want to be in connection with others.

That's just one of the important pieces that will keep us healthy. So yeah, do it, jump on it.

Justin B.: Thank you so much, Irving. The, the final question I have for you, at least I think it's the final one, we'll see, is what about somebody who's been in the rooms for a long time and just kind of hanging out? Now, you said you hung out for about 10 months before really jumping in. What would you tell the old timer that's just hanging out and then the old timer who may be feeling like the program's getting stale?

What would you share with those type of people?

Irvin S.: You know, if it's, if it's getting stale, you're not working it right. This stuff is an adventure. Once you're honest enough and you start applying this stuff to everything in your life, It's just an adventure. You're letting go of things that you can't control and letting go of the outcome. Like, who does that? We do in faith. In faith that it's for the best. That's what God wants. That's what my higher power wants. So I'm going to do that.

It's always an adventure. So I would say if it doesn't feel that way, reach out to the people who still have the spark and ask them directly, how are you doing it? You know, start— if you're not sponsoring, start sponsoring. That would be a big deal too.

Justin B.: Beautiful. I love that. And our Step 12 reads, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all aspects of our lives. It's not just in recovery, it's in everything. Just like what you were sharing there, Irving. Thank you so much for sharing that. I really appreciate it. Keep coming back, everybody. It works when I work it. So work it. You are worth it.

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