Step 1 – I Didn't Think it was My Problem w/ Julie M

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. Welcome to the Pathway to Recovery Podcast.

Justin B.: I'm Justin B. I'm a son of an all-powerful, all-loving God and a recovering sex addict. And I'm so grateful to be here. And it's a beautiful thing to be able to be entrusted to do these types of conversations with so many amazing people. I get to meet people for the first time, and today's gonna be one of those times that I get to meet someone that I'm excited to get to know a little bit more. Hi, Justin.

And hear her experience strength and hope as it relates to step 1. We've got Julie M on the line with me. Before we get to her and have her introduce herself, just a couple of items of business. We at, with the Pathway to Recovery podcast and SA Lifeline are still really working towards getting a bigger presence in the podcast world. So if you out there are listening now, if you wouldn't mind hitting pause right now, if you're listening to Apple Podcasts, go in and rate and review this podcast.

We have a goal of getting 100 ratings and reviews over the next month or so. So let's jump in there. Please help us out by doing that. This'll help share this message with others who are struggling, who are struggling in sexual addiction or from the effects of sexual addiction in loved ones' lives. One more item of business is that SA Lifeline has just started the Ambassador Program in which we are searching for people who live all over the world who have a passion for what SAL and SALifeline are really trying to do in the world and are willing to go out and meet with therapists and faith leaders and community leaders in their areas.

If you are interested in doing that, please go to salifeline.org and look up the ambassador program. I'll put a link in the show notes so that you can find it easily, but go do that. And if you want to do that, you can apply to become an ambassador. It's a volunteer position, but it is trained and there will be guidance as to how to do that. So. jump in there and get in this, this work with us.

It's a great work to be involved in. All right. Now I've got Julie here sitting with me virtually in a Zoom room, and I'm grateful to be sitting down with her. Julie, why don't you introduce yourself and share just a little bit about what brought you into the rooms of SAL? Okay.

Julie M: Hi, I'm Julie. And I came to this program because of my husband's sexual addiction. I was very reluctant to work on myself because I didn't think it was my problem. So I think for a long time I pushed, hey, you should go get some help and you really need to change this and this and this. And we were at a point of moving and it was kind of at that moment where I was at a crossroads and I said, okay, this would be a great opportunity for me To leave my marriage or I need to do something differently.

And I went to my higher power and really felt like I should stick, stay and stick it out for a bit longer and kind of see. And so I made a, a commitment, I guess, with my higher power that I'm gonna try everything that was, that was suggested by my therapist. Mm-hmm. And one of the things that was suggested was to try 12-step. And I was just so inspired by how amazing everybody was, how capable, how hopeful, happy, even though at first that bothered me because I was like, how could they be happy when all this is happening?

But I started to see like, wow. If the same thing is happening to all of these amazing women, and I can tell that it's not because there's some sort of deficit in them, then maybe that's true for me too. And that was the first time where I actually started looking at not dwelling in the hard stuff and moving forward and trying to focus on myself.

Justin B.: Wow. Thank you for sharing that. It's, I, I love that powerful story and experience, and we'll get into that a little bit more. As we go into this, because I think those are some really powerful insights into what we will be discussing today, which is step 1. And as you know, I talked with Brian F. this last month about step 0, which was a new concept to me. And then over the next year, basically in these conversations that I'll be having with recovering addicts, with the spouses, those betrayed, I'll be going through each of the 12 steps of recovery.

And today we're starting on step 1, and I'm excited to do that. But step 1 reads. And this is the SAL step 1. We admitted we were powerless over sexual addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable. Now, Julie, one of the reasons why I'm excited to do this with the betrayed partner rather than with an addict themselves on this step 1 is what you brought up. Hey, this is your problem. It's not my problem. Talk to me a little bit about that, that shift in your own experience of I'm powerless over sexual addiction, that my life had become unmanageable.

Julie M: Yeah, I think that at first it's natural to feel a little bit offended at some of the concepts in 12-step. And I think that because of the wonderful spirit of hope and experience that other women brought to the table, it was enough to make me wanna come back. And slowly I kind of had to work through My own pride and get to a place of humility where I can say, okay, this addiction is not my fault.

It's not because, like I said, it's not because I'm deficient or bad in any way, but what can I be accountable for? I can be accountable for not liking the way I've reacted to a lot of things. I can be accountable for some bad habits that I formed. Maybe I didn't have the words for it. A lot of it was formed from a place of trauma, but if I can learn better, then I can do better.

So it became more of, I don't wanna feel like this for me. And as a mom, I think there's also a, a layer of, I need to get better so my kids at least have like one solid parent. Mm-hmm. And I don't want them to repeat patterns. I want them to be healthy and hopefully I can share those tools with them as well. Yeah.

Justin B.: Thank you. So, so as you, as you shared that, Julie, one of the things that came to my mind was, yes, it's not my fault that my loved one, my husband in this case, is a sex addict. And it's not because I'm deficient in any way, shape, or form. And then you said, but I can own my reaction to different things in life. You talked about with your children, you talked about with your husband, as you are learning this and striving to reflect on that and grow, as you talked about the hope and the growth that you see in others and that you're experiencing yourself, how are you approaching things differently so that you try to react differently in trauma or in triggering situations?

Julie M: Yeah. So at first I think I needed to change some of the vocabulary that was a little bit triggering for me. Like the last question for step 1 said, what would it mean for me to be sober? And so in, in our group, we talked about how can we make that sound a little bit more approachable from the betrayed side. So we say, what would it mean for Will to be in serenity? Or to be emotionally regulated.

I think those feel better. And then when it says, there's another question that's like, what kind of like wanting you to call it a relapse when you come out of serenity. And that's a hard word for me to use as well. So I, I think just to make it approachable for me in the beginning, I had to just change some of that vocabulary that felt kind of offensive and triggering. And then once I started working on it, it doesn't feel the same.

You can say, how are you doing on your sobriety? And I can answer that without being like, well, it's not my sobriety, you know?

Justin B.: Oh, that's such an interesting point of view. I appreciate that insight. Yeah, I can see how it could be offensive or triggering when somebody first asks you, hey, how's your sobriety coming along? What does relapse look like to you? you know, those types of things, how that could initially just push you away. And I'm grateful that you're sharing the difference there. So I want to ask you one of those questions that you put down there. What would it mean for you to be in serenity or to be emotionally regulated?

What does that look like to you in your life, Julie?

Julie M: That is such a good question. This is, I've recently started sponsoring and I really like encourage The sponsee to take a lot of time focusing on what that looks like. And it's gonna look a little bit different for everybody. One of the major ones for me, and that I think is pretty common for women in betrayal, is I'll notice that I start to isolate. And it could be like simple at first, like avoiding a phone call from a family member or not being social in your neighborhood or in your congregation.

And then it just starts to be like you don't wanna go anywhere or do anything. Another way, I guess I'm answering in the opposite. So isolation lets me know I'm not in serenity. Another one that is really big for me is to stay crazy busy. Like I will just be so productive and get so many things done, and from the outside world. Mm-hmm. I think that a lot of women in betrayal look like these crazy, highly resourced, not crazy in a bad way, but like extremely resourced and capable women, which we are.

But in some ways that's coming from a trauma response. Like I used to clean my house incessantly. And I remember when people would come over, I mean, part of it was fear that people would come over and see see if my house was a mess, they would see that my life was a mess. And, and so I would just keep it so clean. And then when people would come over and they would just be normal or be like, oh my, my house, if it was this good, there would be kind of a mixture.

Like on the one hand I would say, oh, Jill, good job. Like I did it, I covered it. And then another part of me would feel just so dishonest because the reality was I was really messy. Just my house wasn't messy. So whenever I start to feel dysregulated, those are the 2 things that I do immediately. I try to reach out and then I try to do self-care. And self-care for me maybe looks different from Self-care from somebody else.

I'm friends with a, a girl who also is very like a super cleaner, and I had her come to my house the other day, and I knew my house was clean cuz that's something I've been working on surrendering. And I had this moment where I was like, I can easily not invite her in and I can just feel comfortable with that. Or I can invite her in. And then my goal was don't apologize for the state of my house.

And I did that and I was in my head the whole time. But afterwards, when I was able to process that, I was really proud. So I think in a lot of ways it's just small goals that push your comfort zone just a little bit. We encourage the women in our group to take the phone list and just Start reaching out because women don't wanna bother other people with their problems. They don't wanna burden them with time, or there is also a lot of insecurity, like, well, how can I work this time?

Typically with betrayal, you're used to managing other people's emotions and kind of walking on eggshells. And so it feels so difficult to, to reach out. Yeah. Um, those are the 2 main ones. So reaching out and then taking time for myself. And also I would just say, like with practice, you start to see other things that come up with you. So my definition for serenity and being in recovery or being sober, it's a lot longer than it was when I first started because I'm starting to know myself more and see my patterns more.

Yeah.

Justin B.: I love those, those guideposts that you put down, the isolation, the connection with others, those types of things. In your share just now, a couple of concepts that jumped out at me and principles that I see as recovery principles. Let's start with the first one though. Oftentimes step 1 is called the honesty step, the step where I need to get honest with myself and with others, just saying, hey, I'm a mess. My life is unmanageable. I'm powerless in lots of areas.

And at least a lot of people I know and myself included is I'm all about making sure my image looks right on the outside, even if I'm a mess on the inside. And you talked about going through this process right now of trying to surrender that external image, trying to be perfect in all those areas. Has that been hard? Has that been painful? What do you hope that looks like? As you continue down this path?

Julie M: Yeah, that's a really good question. So my therapist talks a lot about this idea of the pendulum swinging, where you go sometimes from one extreme to the other extreme, but the goal is eventually to land in the middle. So I think that it's natural and normal that you're gonna kind of do that because at first I kind of felt really insecure about that and had shame for, for example, with cleaning my house. So I said to myself, okay, you're not gonna clean all the time.

And then I just said, I guess I'm not gonna clean. I think that, you know, our house was like messy or cluttered or whatever. And then I was like, wait, that feels yucky too. How do I do this in a more boundary way? Yeah. And so, um, I think it's okay if you have to feel the extreme to learn the lesson. And sometimes you don't know you don't like it unless you experience the other side of it.

Justin B.: What I, what I'm going to go to here is something you just said. I need to experience the extreme to appreciate the middle or to experience, to, to get to know the middle. And that has to do with being honest and being willing to not control my image as much in the public eye. But that line you shared about the pendulum, I think that's really powerful. So often I want to break that pendulum so it swings completely in this direction where everything looks perfect and just tie it there.

But there's, there's, there's going to be some sort of restriction, control. And that's the other thing. Talk to me about control and how, how you are trying to go about giving up control over others, control over everything in your life in that instance.

Julie M: Ooh, that is a loaded question. You know, the humility of step 1 is while you're reading some of the things is you have to be able to say, oh, I did that. Oh, that's talking about me. And there, there are attributes that I considered as strengths that I had to really wrestle to say those weren't really helpful. Such as? I just wanna read an excerpt on page 1 of step 1. It says, we relied on our intellect, our theologies, our past experiences, and on new schemes and strategies we developed.

We felt sure that each new strategy would work, and even when it didn't, we just bounced back with even more self-sufficiency and determination to succeed the next time. We perceived ourselves to be more competent than the sexaholic and felt sure that being strong was the answer. So for me, there has been a really long and hard journey of admitting that even though I saw myself as being somebody who had a lot of faith in a higher power, by me constantly trying to fix and do things myself, I wasn't allowing God's help in my life.

And it was almost like I would say, oh yeah, I see you, God, and I totally want your help. But let me try a few more things and then if those don't work, then I'll come back and I'll like, let me finish my list of ideas and then I'll come to you for help. Yeah.

Justin B.: And now what direction are you trying to turn that in right now? Are you still saying, and maybe you are, I know I am in my life, hey, I'm going to try these things still and then I'll come to you. What is the ideal way that at least the way you see it, that it should be?

Julie M: Yeah, I think that's a really good question to ask yourself, to recognize whether you are depending on God or not. And that is like, what's at your center or who is at your center? Because often when we talk about addiction, we say, don't put your spouse at your center. But it's funny because you can also put a good chore chart at your center, or, you know, you could put A family vacation there or whatever it is that you're obsessing over.

So that's kind of one of my questions. I say, what am I obsessing over? Or what am I wanting to control? And then if I'm being really honest, which hopefully I am, I can say, okay, well, how much of that is in your control? And usually the answer is like very little to none. Then you work on trying to make that into a surrender. Mm-hmm. So I find that it's just part of a process. Like one of the reasons I isolate from people is indicative that I'm also isolating from God.

And when you're close to God and you have your higher power at your center, you're gonna feel more secure and safe, and you're naturally gonna wanna interact with other people. Hmm.

Justin B.: Thank you for sharing that. And I'm gonna share something from My experience with my wife, when I first disclosed my struggles with sexual addiction a long time ago, very quickly she sought some counsel, some help, and then she came back and this is a phrase that I remember from her. She said, I wish I could just put you in my pocket and keep you there, keep you safe there and control everything around you. So nothing bad ever happens.

Do you identify with that?

Julie M: Oh yeah, big time. I guess it comes from a place of like trying to process why somebody would betray their wife, because it's really confusing as the betrayed person. Like, you love them, you've, you've made marital vows together. How could somebody do that to you? And so it just shatters your reality of everything. And so One of the natural thoughts is like, well, surely he doesn't understand how this is impacting me. Surely he doesn't see the way to fix this.

Like, I'm just helping. I'm helping to get this information to him. So in the beginning, I was like blasting his Instagram with all these reels about honesty or connection or whatever. I'm sending podcasts, like. You know, multiple podcasts a day and thinking, okay, great. We didn't know what was the problem before, and now we do. So let's just fix it and then let's continue on changed and better and have the marriage that we thought that we had.

And now let's, let's just stop being sick. Let's stop being sad. It's like this oversimplification. And I think part of that is a coping mechanism. Because so many things are out of our control and we want to feel like we have something tangible to do. And those tangible things give some relief to that fear. But the truth of the matter is all I did was flood my husband and make him feel like, like recovery was unapproachable or overwhelming and Holy crap, I have to do all of this stuff.

Like, I really am the worst person in the world and it just felt way too overwhelming. Hmm. So when I can say, okay, I'm starting to wanna, or whatever, then I have to make a boundary with myself. Like I say, this is actually one of my boundaries. I'm going to share one podcast this week, or I'm gonna let myself do 3 reels. Today instead of 27. No, I'd never do 27, but you get the idea.

Justin B.: So Julie, there's a lot of powerful things in there. And I think that what you've shared is a very common emotion for most people who come into these rooms as a betrayed partner who have their world shattered. As you said, hey, the world that I thought existed is different than I ever thought it would be or could be. And you are sitting here sharing them from a place of vulnerability, but a place of hope. Where does that hope come from?

Julie M: Honestly, my hope first came from the other women, seeing people who had been working through the program and their lives were turning around. And you know what was really crazy is seeing hope in somebody who divorced, where I thought, oh no. Clearly failed, you know, like that's not the, the outcome that I want. But when they have that same hope and still strengthen themselves, I had to take it from other people first. And then I started my journey of really being honest about what my relationship with my higher power was like and what did I want it to look like.

And how did I wanna change it? Um, once I had that relationship with that, then I started to feel like, okay, I can trust these other people. I can trust my higher power. And I think that third step is learning to trust yourself, which is really hard because when somebody's been gaslighting you, whether with a malicious intent or not, It gets you to a place where you have taught yourself not to listen to yourself. You've ignored feelings that you've had in your body.

And that's one of the reasons to stay busy because you don't have to feel all of that. But it can look like you're at the grocery store and you need shampoo, for example. And you're like, oh, this is shampoo. And you stand in the shampoo aisle and you're like, I don't know what shampoo to buy. And you start reading the backs of these and all of the claims that they have, and you're just like, girl, this one sounds good.

Oh, this one sounds good. What do you do? What, which one do I buy? And then next thing you know, it's half an hour later and you're still standing there unable to make a choice. So that third step of learning to trust yourself. It's slow and it's painful and it's so scary. But one of the really good news of going through the 12 steps with a sponsor is that you do have an opportunity to explore your past and things that you thought maybe weren't actually the reality.

Like I got to a place where I can look back and say, oh my goodness, I did feel that. I did feel that something was off. I didn't know what. Yeah. But I knew something was off. So my body's not broken. I actually am like, I can trust myself. And that starts to build a lot of hope in yourself too. Okay, well, if my body was telling me that, then it probably means that I can trust what I'm feeling now.

And so just little by little, you start to build that trust. And I think it's a combination of like, Yeah. those 3 trusts in the women in your group, in your higher power, and finally in yourself. And, and I guess you have that hope too of having trust in your spouse, but some women don't ever get to that phase. And so if you just can have that hope in your higher power and in yourself, you can still be okay and have a good life.

Justin B.: And that's powerful. I love the 3 Trust others, the women in the group, trust higher power and trust self in that process of doing that. And one of the first things you shared as we, as we started this conversation was that when you went into the rooms of recovery in these SAL rooms, you were surprised at the general joy that was being experienced and shared by these women who were in very similar situations to you. Some may from the outside appear like it was a higher bottom that their husbands hit, and some may have been a disastrously low bottom, but that you were seeing the joy in there.

How do you now strive to be that person to newcomers or others in the rooms that are coming in?

Julie M: That's a good question. I mean, I think the greatest gift that I can give to them is what was given to me, which is a relationship of trust. And so That means that I need to be vulnerable. I need to share stuff. I need to reach out. I try to make it so that when I'm in a meeting, I do share from a, a place of experience, strength, and hope. And, you know, I've seen women come in who have felt very threatened in general just by women.

It's like the the symbol of women, it feels scary because in many cases husbands have acted out physically with those people or virtually with other people. And so whether or not it's logical, you look at these other women and you're like, well, you guys are women. How can I trust you? I don't feel like I can trust any women. I can't be friends with anybody. And so that's kind of what I try to help foster is a group where We really feel safe and, and trust each other.

And it has been so rewarding for me to see women who come in here and closed, as I once was, to talking and connecting outside of the meeting and just repairing that relationship with other women. And, and sometimes that doesn't translate outside of the meeting, and that's okay. I think that we provide the first place where you can feel like, okay, maybe I can have a friend. Maybe I can share myself. It's kind of like a, like a workshop.

Like, you know, we can practice the skills that we're learning in therapy. I've had times where I probably would never have stood up for myself in a quote unquote real life scenario, but I have reached out to somebody in my group and I've said, ah, I really did not handle this situation well, or I wish I didn't say this. Or even to say, I don't feel comfortable with how that conversation went the other day. I should have said something, but I was scared to.

And, and not having them get mad at you, but to say thank you, like, gives us an opportunity. Yeah. Practice all of those things in a safe place. And then hopefully as we develop those skills, we'll be brave enough to use them in other situations, like with our families of origin or with our extended families. Those are, tend to be like the most scary places to use those skills. But I just think of it as practice and try to do as much of exemplifying the steps in my interactions with people.

Yeah. And then hopefully they, they will get to that place themselves and share it with others.

Justin B.: You mentioned earlier that you are now sponsoring others. What has that done for you in your own recovery, in your own serenity, in your own life, in giving back to others?

Julie M: Yeah. So a lot of feelings came up that I thought I had grown past. A lot of insecurity, a lot of like Who do I think I am? Like, my life is so imperfect and my life is messy and I still struggle sometimes being in Serenity, you know, all of those reasons to not do it. And I was surprised cuz I was like, hey, I thought, I thought we were okay. Like, you seem like you're in a good place.

And so I think initially it helps you to Kind of review some of those insecurities that you have, but it's just so humbling. It forces me to have a closer relationship with my higher power because I literally don't know what to say sometimes. And that has helped my relationship with my higher power. It has also helped my own recovery because I wanna make sure that I review things And I'm working recovery into my daily study time because if I'm not doing that, then it doesn't feel like I can come from a genuine place of helping somebody else.

Like, I don't ever wanna feel, um, hypocritical in any way. So it's just motivated me to try to be the best that I can, knowing that the best that I can is still going to be imperfect. But I, I don't know sometimes where all my good advice comes from cuz different people in groups say different things, but A girl in my group said, you know, if you feel like your recovery kind of needs a boost, then sponsoring can give you that.

Justin B.: Yeah, I love that. And there is a quote from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and it says, when all other measures failed, work one alcoholic with another saved the day. And I, and I know that's, that's a universal concept, at least for me as a sex addict, for me. For my wife as a betrayed, as you know, work with another fellow saves the day when everything else fails, that will save the day. What a beautiful share.

Thank you so much. So I'm going to read step 1 one more time, and then I'm going to ask you if there's anything else that we haven't covered that maybe your higher power is putting in your head, hey, I want to share this about this topic of step 1. It's we admitted we were powerless over sexual addiction. that our lives had become unmanageable. So Julie, is there anything in relation to that that you feel like, hey, I still want to get out here and discuss?

Julie M: I want to give a plug for answering the questions at the end of the steps. They have required a lot of self-reflection for me. And the second question says, what have been the consequences in my life of my attempts to control or deny sexaholism? And it has been really helpful for me to kind of like have the witness from myself of the reality of my situation. So to be able to sit down, and maybe you can't be honest with other people right now, but if you can start by just being honest to yourself, what have been the consequences?

And however you want to do that, if you want to divide it into Different aspects of your life, like how have I done that emotionally, physically, sexually, spiritually, financial, whatever. Or if you just wanna recognize some of the ways that you kind of continue to go back to like stress, or I call it the mom volcano where the mom just like, you take so much, so much, so much, and then all of a sudden you explode.

Yeah. explode and you turn into witch mother and you're like, holy crap, where did this all come from? And then you feel like intense shame and regret about it. Those are some patterns that you can start to go through. So yeah, I just, I guess, give a plug for the questions that are part of the stepwork. It's really been helpful for me.

Justin B.: Yeah. And Julie, one question for you on that. Is that coming out of the Essanon book, the blue book, or the— what book is that coming out of?

Julie M: Yeah, so that's in the, the small blue book at the end of each step. There are some questions there. Mm-hmm. And when I ordered my materials, it was in a cool time where they had a notebook available on the website that had the questions written out like in a notebook form. Mm-hmm. But I just encourage people to get like a recovery notebook and answer those questions there. And then as you go, you know, the 12 steps are always in a circle, so as soon as you finish You start over again.

And it has been amazing for me to do the questions every time I go through. And it's just a cool way to kind of gauge your own growth because we often can't see our growth in ourselves. And this is like, again, that word tangible. If you're gonna get rid of control, which we have to in so many ways, then I try to look for tangible things in like healthy ways. Yeah. Because there still is that need to feel something or see something or do something.

And this fulfills that in a way that is really helpful.

Justin B.: Yeah. Thank you. So, so that book is available on the SAL 12-step website under the Women's Recovery Bundle. There's a Men's Recovery Bundle, there's a Women's Recovery Bundle. And if you out there are like, that book sounds like something I need to get, go ahead and look that up on the SAL 12-step website and get those because Fantastic resources. My wife also refers to that little blue book that Estenon has that we use in SAL quite often.

So I'm grateful for those resources. So before we wrap things up, Julie, here, I've got a couple of questions that we ask at the end of each of these episodes. First is, what bit of advice do you have to the person who is new to the rooms or debating, should I come into the rooms of recovery? What is your advice to them? And then the second question is, What is your experience, strength, and hope to somebody who's been around in the rooms for a long time?

And what would you have to say to them?

Julie M: I think it's Braille who gave the advice of attend at least 6 meetings and before you decide that it's not for you. And I love that wisdom because the first meeting you're kind of like, what the heck just happened? And it might take a few more for you to really see that like People are being genuine. 'Cause I think the first meeting I was kind of like, are these people crazy? Like, why are they happy? Or is this real?

So give yourself some time. And I guess the experience that I've had in my life is when I go back to that experience that I, I had with my higher power where I'm, what I'm doing isn't working. So I'm willing to try. Whatever else I can do. And the, the tagline of recovery is that it works when you work it. So I guess I would just encourage you to try to work it. And I just texted this to, uh, our group today, and it's, it's on page 3 in the small blue book.

And it says, we accept the help of the group and the help of a higher power. Yeah. So I guess that would be my invitation is to accept help in your recovery. And for somebody who's been here a while, I think it would be different. I would say your experience matters and people need it. So if you feel, if you feel the requirement for being, being a sponsor and you feel like your higher power is calling you to do that, Then take that step.

I have had so much personal growth helping other people, way more than I would have if I just kept on my own.

Justin B.: Thank you so much, Julie. I'm just so grateful that Julie sat down today with me to go over step 1 with us and share her experience, strength, and hope. What a beautiful share. And although she, just like me, just like all of us, We're not perfect. You can tell how her light, how her experience, strength, and hope shines through and how her higher power has really brought some hope into her life where darkness likely was before. Thank you once again, Julie, for joining us on the Pathway to Recovery podcast.

Julie M: You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

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