Step 7 – Life Keeps on Life-ing w/ Kahi W

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 everybody to the Pathway to Recovery Podcast.

Justin B.: I'm Justin B. I'm a grateful recovering sex addict, and I am so grateful to be living in the miracle of recovery one day at a time. Um, and today I'm excited to continue this journey that we're taking through the 12 steps of recovery. with members of SAL 12-step. As you've seen in the pattern, we have the addicted share a step, and then we have the betrayed share on a step, and we just go in that pattern back and forth.

And today we're on step 7, and in the, in our pattern, we're talking with a betrayed spouse of an— of a sexual addict. And I'm excited to have Kahi W. here with me. Kahi, why don't you just take a minute and share who you are, what brought you to the rooms of SAL 12-step, and then we'll go from there.

Kahi W.: Thanks, Justin. I'm Kahi. I started attending 12-step meetings when— back in 2012. At that time, my husband and I had been married for about 10 years. We'd been together 5 years before that, knew each other in high school, and he had disclosed that he had a pornography addiction. He used those words because of an interaction he had with, with a guy that he met at a self-improvement class that he went to. And I was, I have grown over the years very grateful that he came to me with that understanding already, that I didn't have to teach that along the way.

So he came to me with that, that he'd had an addiction. It had been there with him for, since— Yeah. high school before we met. And I was obviously heartbroken and lost, didn't know what to do. I told one friend. I had found online that you should tell one person, someone safe, so that you're not holding it all in. And I, so I told at the time, and I'm so thankful that I did. She knew a woman who was working with the Lifeline at the time.

And she gave my friend all the resources that they had to share with me. And that was how I got into SAL 12-step meetings. I've continued to go. And I've— in the meetings, we ask, why did you first come and why do you keep coming? And I first came because I literally felt like I couldn't breathe. I felt every day like the weight of what I was carrying The fact that I had no idea about anything about addiction or betrayal trauma or any of that stuff was so heavy that I came because I couldn't breathe.

And in the meetings, I felt like I could take a deep breath and rest for that hour and a half. And then I would hold my breath again for that whole week until I came back into the meeting. And I'd come back in and just, okay, I made it another week. I'm safe. I can feel here. I can say whatever I need to say. And I keep coming back because that is true for me still. I have worked the steps a number of times in different ways and still feel like there's so much to learn.

I am an ogre, and I have layers in my onion. And every year I'm like, oh, whoa, I didn't— I thought that behavior was fine, but now I'm recognizing that doesn't work for me anymore. And I can see the intention behind that. Better than I could 4 years ago. So I'm so grateful for the steps and the way that they helped me become a better person.

Justin B.: Oh, thank you for sharing that. And I've got a couple of questions based on what you shared, but I want to touch on this one, even though it's a further down the road type thing, but I want to get some hope out there for somebody who's feeling like you talked about there, or maybe some further insight on that. You said you came into the meetings to breathe, and then you held your breath for the week in between meetings.

Are you now able to breathe between meetings, or is that still— you're just surviving between meetings? What does that look like in your life today, Kahi?

Kahi W.: You know, it— I am far better at being able to breathe because I have more tools than I did in the beginning. I know how to surrender. I have support people that I can call. I have a sponsor who knows my history and has been with me on this journey for years. And can call me out on my behavior that I sometimes can't see because of the emotions that I'm feeling. And so I am better able to breathe.

And there are still moments where it feels really heavy. Trauma triggers are less frequent than they used to be for me, but when they hit so hard sometimes that I'm shocked at where I'm at. And if I'm not careful, I can go into shame around, you've been doing this for how many years and you still can't get yourself out of this hole? Or, why are your emotions so big that you can't control them? Or— and so there are moments where it does feel really heavy, but definitely less than it used to.

It's much more manageable than it used to be, which I'm so grateful for. Yeah.

Justin B.: Thank you for sharing that and for bringing some honesty and some hope To those who right now are just feeling like the world is on them and there is no hope of breathing. So thank you for that. Next question I want to ask based on what you shared there is you said you were, you saw somewhere that you need to tell one person that you can trust. What is your take on that one person thing now?

Have you found more strength and you talked about more tools? I've got more people that I can talk to now. What do you see difference between one person and a community?

Kahi W.: Oh, the community's so vital. I really feel like that one person that I was encouraged to tell, and the idea of that person who came, was really a blessing from God. It was his hand in my life, helping me get the tools that I would need to continue down this road. But the community for me is so vital. Because if I only have one person that I can call, first of all, that person's not always going to be physically available for me to talk to.

Also, they might not be emotionally available either. We all have our own struggles, and I know as I sponsor people, there are days where I'm like, I am not going to be the safest person for people to talk to because I'm struggling with my own stuff. And that takes self-awareness. But I also think strength, hope, and experience from A variety of people who have had a variety of experiences and life. Life is— all the details of our stories are different, but they all lead to the same place.

And so the difference is really helpful for me in opening my mind into thinking about things differently or being open to being wrong about a certain thing. I can remember, this is going to sound like a weird one, but there was a woman in meeting once who Surrendered that she was so embarrassed because she couldn't gain any weight because of the trauma that she was going through. She was so thin, she couldn't gain any weight. And as a woman who was struggling with my weight, I was like, what?

Like, how is she surrendering this thing that I keep hoping for? But it was so good for me to recognize that it's all relative. We all have our struggles, and they look different, and they sound different, and they hit us different. And as we surrender them, we're blessed and we can bless other people by sharing our strength, hope, and experience, whatever that looks like.

Justin B.: Thank you, Kahi. And I think that, that thing that you said, this is going to sound weird or strange, I think that is very powerful to share with people that what I'm struggling with and what I'm freezing in this trauma, in this whatever it may be, in addiction for the addict side, it's all pointing to the same place. And I love how you led there. Our path there may look a little bit different, but the direction we are hopefully heading in is in the same direction.

And I think that's what the steps of recovery are pointing us to. We— the end goal with Step 12 is 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. So our direction is pointing towards the spiritual awakening towards God and service of others. That is our direction that we're moving towards. And not just about me sitting in my own addicted isolation or in my own trauma isolation, but working that connection with God and others.

Any thoughts on that before we start talking more about the steps?

Kahi W.: Yeah, I, I was listening to some podcasts trying to hear what other people thought about Step 7. And on one of the podcasts, somebody talked about this idea that like, Mm-hmm. All of my darkest moments can be of service to other people. And as I share those things that I'm surrendering, or the things that I'm struggling with, as I share, and as I remember those things, and I'm willing to think about the process that I went through to get through them with God, they can all be a blessing to Other people.

That's not why I do it, but I have certainly found that as I have been willing to walk this road with God, willing to remember the road—I think I hear people say a lot like forgive and forget—and that phrase doesn't work for me because I feel like I need to remember. I want to remember the wins and the misses that I've had along this road because they teach me what. I do or don't want to do in the future.

And as I share those with people, it opens the door for them to recognize that their mistakes, their missteps are also great teachers and part of the journey for all of us.

Justin B.: Yeah, I love that. And that takes me to something from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that talks about that the past being our, the family's greatest asset, and sometimes the only asset that a family has. Initially. So we may get to that here in a minute, but I want to jump into the steps. And like you said, and like I said at the beginning, we're covering step 7 today. What I'm going to do is, as a refresher to anybody who may not have listened to any of the previous steps, I'm just going to read through each of the steps up through step 7, and then we'll start our conversation specifically on step 7.

So these are the 12 steps of SAL, which are based on the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous with just a couple of word changes. We admitted we were powerless over sexual addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Made a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Step 6, we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. And Step 7, humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. Now, Step 7 is the shortest of these steps in terms of words in the step, humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. But it's also in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, it's the second shortest step in the book as to what information is there. But Man, how big is this step though, Kahi? Humbly asking to remove our shortcomings.

I don't know about you, Kahi, but I have one or two shortcomings that need to be removed. How about you? What are your thoughts on that?

Kahi W.: Oh, list. Yeah. I actually, as I was rereading this step in preparation for this, it struck me how vital it is to remember that this is Step 7. You have a whole bunch of steps in the beginning. And if I do them, then I'm prepared for Step 7. And each time I work Step 7, I feel a little more prepared to work Step 7, but I have to do all of the ones in front of it. And I've always felt like 6 and 7 were these ethereal steps of, okay, how do I become willing in Step 6?

And then, okay, what do I need to do to humbly ask him to remove? Yeah. Our shortcomings. And I just, all over this step, have recognized how important it is to get to a point in my life where I really am humbly asking Him to remove my defects. It goes back to a recognition that there are things that I can do in this recovery process, and there are things that I can't do in this recovery process.

And I heard a A quote the other day. It was this idea of, I let God do the impossible, and I do the possible. And for me, step 7 is a lot of know your role, know your space that you're supposed to take up in this step. And for me, that is that I can learn about humility and try to make that a part of my life. I can be aware of the defects that I wrote out in step 4, that I shared with someone in step 5.

But to be able to humbly ask him to remove them means that I worked steps 1, 2, and 3, where I recognized that I— my life was unmanageable, that there is a God that can restore my sanity, and then that he can do that as I turn my will and my life over to him. So I had to gain trust in him first in order to be able to do any of that. 7's huge. And I didn't realize that, how big it was until I got into it and really thought about how am I going to explain what 7 is to people anyways?

Justin B.: Yeah, no, I love that. And I think I've shared this before, possibly on this series of podcasts, but the first time I took the steps the way I remember taking steps 6 and 7, I had just sat down with my sponsor for a few hours at his house, in his office, and gone through my steps 4 and 5, and identified a whole bunch of things. And he said, okay, here's that list of things that you've identified. Are you willing to have God take those away from you?

And I was like, yep. He goes, step 6, check. And then he goes, okay, let's kneel down and pray to have those things removed. Check. Step 7 is done. Check. Now let's move into 8, 9, 10. Now, I could misremember this a little bit, but that's how I remember it. And that is how I sponsored people for 5 years was that same way. Step 6, 7, check, check. Let's move on and get into the meat of this stuff in 8 and 9. And then I had a sponsee say at the end of working the steps, I just, a postmortem conversation with him.

So talk to me about changes you had. And he goes, you know what, steps 6 and 7 were by far the most powerful things I've ever done in my life. And I was like, What? And it just changed my whole perspective on things and has become something that is super powerful in my life as I've analyzed that further and I've looked deeper. Okay. What character defects today are just eating my soul or just killing me? And what do I need to do to become willing to let go of avoidance and procrastination, which are my big ones?

Yeah. And what do I need to do with that? Kahi, what is an experience you had with one of your character defects, maybe one that was killing you, and you have put a lot of effort into being willing to give it up and asking God to remove it?

Kahi W.: Yeah, I wrote down a couple. So I'm currently, which I didn't realize this, but a few weeks ago in our, in my home group, we talked about Step 3. And as we talked about step 3, at the end of the meeting where it said, where we're invited to write down a commitment for the week, I wrote down that I wanted to start a surrender journal and I wanted to write in it every morning. Like every morning I was going to surrender all the things that were feeling heavy to me or that were on my mind.

And so I started that journal and have been able to keep up with it, which consistency is a defect of mine. Maybe not being consistent is a defect of mine. Right, right. And so I am, I'm really good at working really hard on something until it's not painful anymore. And then I will often drop it and move on to something else. So the Surrender Journal has been a big one for me, and I have been realizing over this last week how much The Surrender Journal for me feels like me working Step 7.

I started it because of a thought I had as we were studying Step 3, but for me, it's been really helpful in Step 7. So just the other day, my husband and I, we've been working on some new boundaries. Just, I mean, he's been in recovery working or going to recovery meetings as long as I have, but life doesn't stop lifing. Right. Mm-hmm. And so as things just keep coming up, we're— we've been working on some new boundaries.

And one of the things that I've been working on is not getting in the way of God when it comes to my husband working his recovery. So I find— so I've made a couple of boundaries with myself. I currently do not share recovery insights with him. Because I find that sometimes I'm sharing them in a hope that he, in hope that he will pick that idea or principle up, and it will become a part of his recovery, which is manipulative in my mind.

I didn't recognize that that's what I was doing as I shared sometimes. It's not all the time, but enough that I recognize that I want to distance myself from that behavior long enough that I can like— Yeah. Really see what's what. So that's been one of my boundaries that I've been working on and surrendering on a daily basis to God. So recently we were getting ready for getting the kids out the door in the morning and we had an interaction and I said something.

I don't remember what I said, but I felt his energy change and then it got negative in the kitchen as we were getting kids out the door or whatever. Hmm. He went upstairs to go get ready for, for work, and I did what I used to do. I grabbed my phone out and I started texting him. I felt the energy change in the room when I said this, and I just wanted you to know that this is what I meant, and I hope you didn't misunderstand me.

Like trying to jump in and make the situation smooth without giving him the space to do his work or do, or not do his work. And So I'm writing this text and then I remembered what I had surrendered earlier in my jour— in the journal that morning. And so I stopped and I said a little prayer and I just said, Heavenly Father, should I send this text or should I just let it, leave it alone? And the answer for me was leave it alone.

And so I deleted said text and I put my phone down and I walked away and just went about my morning. And later that day, he Shared with me that he had negative feelings, had processed through them, had talked to his sponsor, and that this was the insight that he had. And had I sent the text, I would've gotten in the way of that. Now, of course, he has his choice to not call his sponsor, right?

He could let that feeling fester and whatever. And, and I've done that before too. But I, but that is a defect that I know that I have. I have enough education about addiction and enough education about betrayal trauma that I can be a little bit dangerous in my desire to help. It turns into control really quickly without meaning to. And so that is something I'm actively asking God to remove. And again, I'm asking him to do what I can't do.

I can't remove that. myself, but I can pray it out. I can write it out. I can be aware and actively working to let that go. And then he can take it from me.

Justin B.: No, I really like that. Thank you for sharing that experience and how you walked through that. And I think I love calling these things miracles. When I've already thumbed out something, a response that I think, hey, this is kind, this is helpful. And then before hitting send, a little thought of, oh wait, is it? Yeah. And then pausing and saying, God, is this helpful? Is this what needs to happen? And if you get the answer no, being willing to go, okay, I'm going to delete this whole thing that I've already thumbed out.

And that's a miracle.

Kahi W.: It feels like a miracle because I'm not only willing to delete it, but then I have to also do the work to get it out of my head, to surrender all the things that I wanted to say that I think are right. Like, if everyone in the world would just listen to me, everything would be fine. Of course. This is the thing that I tell myself frequently, and so I need to put some— a stopper in there.

I often say that's a red flag for me. When I see a red flag, that means stop and ask for guidance and for help. But there just are so many things that that I do day to day that I don't recognize as an issue until I'm willing to see them. And I think that also, it takes a willing heart to say, okay, show me, show me what I need to do, what I need to be working on now.

Yeah.

Justin B.: And I think that's part of that humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. Show me, God, what I'm missing here. Show me what I, what blind spot is lurking there that with a little bit of light shown on it can really make a big difference, not only in my life, but in those lives that I have stewardship with, those lives that I interact with, or whatever it may be. Any other thoughts on that?

Kahi W.: So on page 82, for anybody who's listening that wants to flip to it, this is where I, the first time I really, maybe not heard, the first time that I understood the concept of humility in a way that I could actually hold it in my hand and look at it and say, okay, that's what humility is. It says, we came to see that the foundation of Step 7 is humility, that is, a willingness to accept ourselves as we are, to ex— and to accept God's help.

So just this humility is this willingness and ability to see ourselves as we really are, the good and the bad, all of it together, and be okay with all of that together. That until I can see it and hold it, And not, I don't know, run away from it, I can't really work on it because I need to be able to be okay with myself as I really am. For me, that's— that was a really big ask because for so long I had been taught any emotion, bad emotions, you don't want to feel bad emotions.

So you can't be angry, you can't be sad, you can't be— Yeah. Whatever. And so until I was able to accept that is a part of me, that I do tend to control people, as I did step 4, I was surprised to see that all of my assets were also my defects, just with a little twist in them. Like, I'm a very helpful person. I like to help people. And that turns into control in 2 seconds. Yeah. Because if I'm not really careful about it, so, but being able to acknowledge all of those things really for me has been huge.

Justin B.: So, Kahi, I love how you took that approach of some, a lot of my assets are also my defects with a little twist. So often when I'm working with sponsees and myself, we're just beating ourselves up in that step 4 process. We're saying, oh yeah, I'm a piece of junk. Here's my character defects like crazy. I had somebody point this out to me, and I've tried to do this a few times, but it's so easy for me to forget how powerful that is, is that, hey, this character defect of controlling, what character strength, what talent or gift that you have, you tweaked that just a little bit to make it a bad defect.

And I love how you said, I want to be helpful. I want people to be happy. I want to be able to serve people and help point them in a direction that's helpful. But no, I'm— I tweak it and it becomes controlling rather than that. So yeah, I love how you took that perspective.

Kahi W.: I feel like it was helpful for me to look at it that way as I did step 4, because it's the same on the betrayal trauma side. Like doing step— I think so many people that are working the 12 steps get stuck on 4. Because it's terrifying to think about what you will uncover. What am I gonna see that I don't know what to do with? I look at step 4. And so it helped me to go, okay, what can I, what kind of assets do I have?

And I don't really, I didn't like listing them out like that. That felt prideful to me. And so I asked some of my close friends, like my sisters, what are some assets that I have? And don't laugh at me when I ask you this. I just, I'm doing an experiment. I just need you to tell me. And then I was able to just, third person almost, just look at it and, okay, what's the opposite of that?

And check myself. Is that a defect I have? And oh yes, it is a defect that I have. But to be able to find the good and the bad kind of at the same time was helpful for me to stay in balance as I looked at my inventory. Because often it can feel just like this You know, I don't know if you've seen the movie Runaway Bride where she's got the doll and she's like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

It feels like you're just being hammered over the head with all of your weaknesses and what a terrible person I am and all these things. And anyway, so I found that to be helpful.

Justin B.: Yeah. And this next question always brings me a little bit of fear to ask, but I think it's really powerful here. A lot of people, no matter whether we're on the anon side, the betrayed side, or the addict side, Doing step 4 is scary and many, most people get hung up there. Most people get hung up there because we don't want to see what's really there. Yeah. For you, Kahi, when you came into the rooms, I'm assuming, and you correct me if I'm wrong on this, that you came in to try and fix your husband, to try and figure out what needed to happen there.

That's right. And so taking a step 4 may have been like, I don't want to look at myself. I want to look at him. Talk to me about the importance of that shift of perspective there to look inward for character defects rather than to look outward at our spouse or whoever it may be that we're in these rooms for.

Kahi W.: Yeah, no, I for sure fell into that category of, oh good, I'll come to these 12-step meetings and I'll learn what I need to do to fix my husband or to save our marriage or whatever. It certainly wasn't— the thought wasn't I'm gonna go to 12-step meetings so that I can figure out my defects and work on my relationship with God, 'cause I thought that my relationship with God was perfect. So looking back, one of the things that was really helpful for me in Step 4, I actually, my first meeting that I attended was Step 4.

And I remember just, what are they talking about? But the women in the meeting were joyful. Yeah. And they were laughing about some of their defects. Oh yeah, I do this, and laughing about it. And for me, in that time, nothing was funny. I had— there was no funny in my life at all. And so to see these women who had similar experiences, similar pain, be able to laugh with each other as they talked about their struggles— I, I don't know that there was mention of They're addicts at all in that meeting was interesting to me.

I don't know what else to say except interesting. I was just like, this is, I don't understand what, what's happening here. But I knew in my heart, even with everything else going on, I knew that whatever they had, I wanted. And because I needed, I knew that they were thriving, some of them, that they were at least surviving. Yeah. And I wanted and needed that. I think the example of the women in my group really opened me up to this idea that, okay, maybe there's something in here that I can learn.

Over the years, that has certainly— it's all about my stuff at this point. My boundaries are about me and what I need more so now than they were. A few years ago. In our Blue Book, in Step 4, it says something in there. I was one of those that was stuck and didn't know how to do Step 4, didn't want to do Step 4. And something about the pain that we resisted, we only made it worse by not doing Step 4.

And I remember reading that and going, okay, if I want to get rid of this pain that I'm feeling, I want— I need to work Step 4. And that was what motivated me through. I can remember at that time, the thing that was really painful for me was looking back at old family pictures from years before when I didn't know what was happening for my husband. I couldn't look at old photos because it was too painful. The holes in my story were too painful.

Hmm. for me to go back and look at the pictures. And it made me sad because my kids would want to go back and look at those pictures, and I couldn't sit with them and go through with them and tell them about them because it was just— it was too painful for me. And I wanted to be able to get past that, not necessarily for myself, but for my kids, so that I didn't have— I wasn't constantly shooing them away from those memories.

And I remember going to meeting and reading that in Step 4 and thinking, Okay, there's a promise in here that if I work step 4, I can get past that pain. And that has worked for me. I've been really grateful for that. But yeah, step 4 is scary. Yeah. But without it, I don't— I used this phrase a few weeks ago, like, until you work step 4, you're a baby in recovery. You're in kindergarten, preschool. And that's okay, but the real work and growth comes in 4 through 9, and oftentimes people don't make it past that spot.

So maybe just a plug for, it's hard, it's painful, but it's so worth it. The gifts on the other side of that, I don't know if I would have if I didn't work so hard. I'm sure I wouldn't actually.

Justin B.: Yeah. And for me, my character defects would be in a darkened corner. I wouldn't know what they were. I wouldn't be able to identify them. Now, my wife may tell me, hey, you're so selfish. And I'll be like, whatever. Look at me. I'm working. You know, I'm doing all these things. I'm not selfish. But until I put it down on paper and see, holy cow, my selfishness really does affect so many areas of my life. And then I can go, okay, God, here's my selfishness.

Yeah. Now, what do I need to— what direction do I need to go from here? Exactly. Here it is. Now what? And I love that. I'm going to read the Step 7 prayer out of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is found on page 76 in there. And Step 6 is the paragraph before that. And Step 7 is this paragraph. In fact, I'm going to read all of the information we have on Step 7 in the Big Book. When ready, And ready means, are we willing to ask God to help us be willing to let go of those things?

When ready, we say something like this. My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding. Amen. We have then completed step 7. There's step 7. Done. Done. Check. So as we go through that prayer, Kahi, what are some of the things that jump out at you that make it more than maybe just that, what, 6 lines of print in the book?

Kahi W.: Yeah, willingness is huge. I can remember in high school, I had a moment where an incident happened that had just made me so sad, and I was really struggling with letting go. My, I had gone down outside and hid in my car, in my parents' car to get away from everybody. And I was crying and my mom came down and found me and she scooped me up and took me upstairs to her room and we're sitting on the bed and she's trying to get me to talk.

And I just, I couldn't verbalize what was happening for me at the time. And she didn't, to her credit, she didn't force me. Yeah. She just let me be. And then she said to me, I learned a few years ago that when I have a problem or something that I'm worried about, it's like I have it in my hand and my fist is closed, and I'm just hanging onto it for dear life because I'm so upset or I'm so angry, whatever it might be.

Hmm. I'm so scared. And she said, and I'm learning that I need to pry my fingers open and hold my hand out in order for God to be able to take it, because he won't pry my fingers for me. He's not going to do that. So I need to open up my hand and give it, give it over to him. And that is the visual that I use when I think about being willing. In the SNL book, it talks about giving up.

And instead of this, okay, I quit, I give up, idea, I often think of open hand, put— giving it up to God and passing it up that way and saying, I can't, but here. And that takes willingness. It takes an awareness that you can't after you've tried for years to do it by yourself and to know who you're giving it to and why matters. But willingness is huge. In the recovery puzzle, that's the middle is the willing heart.

And until we have that, the other pieces don't really— the idea of all of me, again, the good and the bad, that we have to know what that is in order to give it to him.

Justin B.: So can I pause you right there on that? Because, because this is something that has really opened my eyes here recently. When I'm saying this 7th step prayer, when I'm identifying maybe a specific part of my life to give to God, I'm saying, I'm willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I don't get to decide what is good and what is bad. I'm giving it all to God. And because, and I think this is where the insight hit me, is because my desire to help other people is good.

Yeah. But when I'm doing it without God leading me in doing it, it becomes controlling. It becomes bad every time. So I need to say, God, I even give my helpfulness to you. Yes. Because that can stand in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Direct me how you want me to be. Any other thoughts on that good and bad thing?

Kahi W.: Yeah, I mean, I found in my surrender journal as I've been doing it, I'm sometimes surrendering the things that I'm excited about. Like something's going well. Like, My husband and I had a disagreement, and we were able to work through it without making a sponsor call. This is— This is good. This is— we're headed in the right direction. But I find that I need to surrender that too, because then I can get into pride around, look at how good we're doing.

And now we don't need to work. We don't need the help, and we don't need to ask God anymore. So yes, all the good and the bad. Because I twist it. It's my human nature is to twist it to my benefit. I think it's to my benefit. Right. So quickly without even realizing what I'm doing. Yeah. The good and the bad for sure.

Justin B.: All right. Anything else in that prayer that jumps out at you?

Kahi W.: I, as you were reading this prayer, I was thinking about the quote, that Brené Brown says about stepping into the arena, and I should probably look it up because I don't remember what it is exactly, but she talks about it takes a real courage to step into the arena unarmed. And I feel like that's what the— my good and bad characteristics are. It's my armor that I have used to keep safe over the years. And but as I give that all to God, give all my armor and just say, okay, whatever, however you think is best, that's what I'll do.

Um, in The Lego Movie— have you seen The Lego Movie? I have. I— it's actually one of my least favorite movies. I really don't— That's funny. But there's that— this part where Emmet goes into— they go into his brain and he's like the master or whatever, he's supposed to be the master builder, and they go into his brain and he has no plans in his head. He has no instructions for how to build something incredible with Legos.

And it's this empty room and they're like, what? How can he be the master builder if he doesn't have anything in his head? But then the creator puts the idea into his head and then that's what he does. And in my mind, that's what I think about sometimes when I'm trying to just let go of all of my ideas, all of my suggestions, whatever. I think of that empty white room, like nothing in my head, just empty it out.

And then let God put back into me what he wants me to do and be willing to do whatever that is.

Justin B.: Yeah, that last phrase, grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding. Now I've asked what your bidding is. Now, am I willing to do that? Or do I have enough strength to do it? If you've told me to do it, I trust that you will provide a way of the things that you've given me to do. Yes. Get out there and do it. Do you have any, uh, experiences that come to mind where you've cleared your head, it's a white room, and something's come in, you've been like, oh, that's bigger or different than what I thought, but okay, I'll go do it?

Kahi W.: Oh, I feel like there's so many little things. The text message that I decided not to send. That's one of those where I'm like, okay, I have a perfect, I have the perfect solution to this issue right here. And I'm going to just go ahead and do it. And then The pause and not that way.

Justin B.: All right. So before we go into some wrap-up questions here, Kahi, is there anything that you were like, man, I really think this is something important we need to talk about step seven or your experience that we want to get to before we start wrapping up?

Kahi W.: In the Essanon book on page eighty-one, it's a quote from the Al-Anon from an Al-Anon book, and it says. We have little choice but to accept ourselves as we are, with all our limitations. And chief among those limitations is the fact that we cannot cure ourselves. By accepting that God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, we begin to achieve the humility that is necessary for change to take place. In Step 7, we put that acceptance to work.

We take action. I love that I'm learning that Step 7 is an action step. In my head, it was like 6 and 7 are kind of these, like, you just do it in your brain. And, but Step 7 is, is an action step. There are active things you can do, even if it's just reciting the Step 7 prayer every morning, or a surrender journal, or reaching out to your sponsor every day for 30 days to just— Yeah. Get— surrender the things that you can't control.

Whatever it is, whatever idea that comes to me as I think about being willing to do these things, I believe is what I need at the time. And if I do those things, I know that God will do his part in taking those defects from me. It doesn't happen overnight. Sadly. It takes time. I'm learning that, like I said earlier, sometimes what I think is not a defect, a few years down the road, I realize is a defect.

And I have started working steps 4 through 9 just around one specific behavior. I did this a few years ago with my kids. Like, I was a yeller for a long time. And I remember a specific incident where I saw what it was doing to my daughter and recognized I never want to see that face again on her. I never want to know that I caused that kind of pain for her. And, and so I did a 4 through 9 on just that yelling and knowing that it was a defect, saying it out loud, asking God to remove it, being willing to have it removed.

Wow. and making amends made all the difference in my relationship with her and solidified in me this real willingness to work on it and to find other tools besides yelling at my kids to get what our family needed at the time. The ideas will come, and sometimes they might feel a little bit weird, but I've found that Those are the best ones because I know they didn't come from me. I know that if the idea is, wait, what?

Then it didn't come from me. It came from a higher power who has my best interests and the best interests of everyone around me in his heart at the same time, which I can't do.

Justin B.: That's beautiful. I'll take that back to that 7th step prayer. The purpose for this Is, um, the reason why I'm asking God to remove all of this, the good and the bad, remove every single defective character. The reason why is because it stands in the way of my usefulness to you, God, and my fellows, those around me, my family, my friends, my fellowship, my work, my whatever it may be. I need that removed so that I can be of best service to those around me.

And just a powerful concept. Thank you for sharing that about the yelling and your process through that. And I'll just speak for myself on this. Once I go through a process like what you did, 4 through 9 on the yelling for a character defect of mine, for example, for me, avoiding some procrastination, I still have to give it up every day, one day at a time, forever, because it'll come back. I just, because a weak thing has become a strength today doesn't mean it's not going to become weak again tomorrow.

Kahi W.: And that's what staying, I think that's what staying humble means. Is like just a willingness to say, yeah, I did good today. Because that's seeing things as they really are, right? Like the good and the bad. I did a good job today on not avoiding and not procrastinating. And that doesn't mean that I'm going to do a good job tomorrow, because I continue to need his guidance, his help to let go of those things that come naturally to me.

Yeah, it's a— it is a daily process. I can remember, A couple of years ago, we were sitting in church and the teacher asked, we were talking about defects of character, and the teacher asked jokingly, I didn't realize he was joking until after I said what I said, but he said, does anybody here wanna share a defect? And my hand shot up and I was like, oh, I got one. And what do you do to overcome it?

And I raised my hand and I shared, I have a defect of controlling. That's something that I do. I like wanna help, but it, I twist it. Pretty quickly. And so my defect is controlling. And one of the phrases that I use to remind myself to, to show up different is let go and let God. And, and he was so uncomfortable with my listing my defect that he started to, well, I don't really think, I don't really know if that's a defect.

He tried to step it back a little bit and my husband raises a hand and he said, just so you know, she's totally fine. She doesn't need anybody to fix or make her feel better. She's fine with her defects because she's working on them. And I feel like that is, that's important for all of us to be able to say, there's something I struggle with. I know that about myself. And this is what I'm doing to overcome it.

Justin B.: I love that, that we who are really working our recovery can go into a place like church and say something that just blows the whole thing up, but it brings other people to go, oh wait, she struggles with that too. Oh wait, yeah. And then it opens up conversation. I love that. All right. So the way we wrap up these episodes each time is I ask the guest a couple of questions. Okay. What words of advice, what words of experience do you have for the newcomer who is just now being willing to come into the rooms or just maybe had the bomb dropped on them and they don't know where to go.

What words of experience and advice do you have for that person? And then the next part of that is what words of experience and advice do you have to somebody who's been here since 2013 who may be going, you know what, I think I've got everything I need here. What are your thoughts on both of those?

Kahi W.: Such a good thing to think about. To the person who might've just had a disclosure, Or might have even just had their third disclosure, or whatever that looks like. I would want to tell her or him, you're not alone. There are people who understand the thing that you might not even understand at this point. And there is so much hope and help and healing to be had. But it takes time. And so be gentle with yourself and recognize that this is a journey.

It's not going to be over in a week, but the tools will come as you put yourself out there to find them. And I hope that 12-step meetings are one of the tools that you find helpful. But there are a lot of tools out there. So keep looking and find your people, find your circle where you can share whatever it is you need to share and know that it's okay. I'm going to share one story about knowing that SAL 12-step meetings were my— those were my people.

Justin B.: Yeah, please do.

Kahi W.: Early on in recovery, again, like I said, I just was like, okay, I can breathe in meetings. And I don't remember what step we were studying, but we were sitting in the group, we were talking about grief and mourning. And, um, I said this phrase that I, I would've never said anywhere else. It just came out of me. I said, sometimes I wish that instead of this trial, I wish that my husband had died because— Because if he died, then people would be coming to my house, and they would be giving me meals and letting me cry, and even understanding why I'm crying.

They would be helping me. But with this, I feel like I am mourning and grieving all the loss, but looking like I'm fine on the outside. And I said it thinking, that's a terrible thing to say. you wish your husband died. And the women in the room all nodded their heads, and they were like, yep, I understand that. And I thought, okay, I'm not crazy. It's a real feeling. I'm not a bad person. And it's not that I really wanted my husband to die, but what I was saying was, I'm hurting here, and nobody knows because of the nature of the addiction and the nature of Betrayal trauma.

And so anyways, find your people that help you bring— feel peace and serenity instead of fear and anger, because there's plenty of that out there as well.

Justin B.: How about to the old timer?

Kahi W.: To the old timer. In SAL meetings, I would say that I'm one of the older timers out there. And I would say that keep coming. I keep coming because I recognize what we talked about earlier, that I can be doing really well and then I'm not, and I find myself flat on my back. What the heck just happened here? Life keeps lifing. Boundaries need to be changed and reworked. Yeah. Every day is a surrender day is what I like to say to my kids.

And it's just, life just keeps happening. These steps remind me that I'm not the greatest power in the universe, that there is someone out there that, that is the greatest power in the universe. And the weight that takes off my shoulders is huge when I'm in a good place. So I keep going back because I want to stay there.

Justin B.: Thank you so much, Kahi. And I love that phrase. Life keeps lifing. Life doesn't stop lifing. This is good stuff.

Kahi W.: It does not.

Justin B.: When I have a good day, I always think the rest of my life is going to be like this, but yeah, it keeps lifing. Life keeps lifing. Love that. Thank you so much, Kahi. This was such a meaningful conversation for me and opened my eyes to a lot of things. I hope it was meaningful for you also. It was. Thank you. Awesome. All right, let's close this out with what we do often in the SAL meetings.

Keep coming back, everybody. It works when I work it. So work it. You are worth it.

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