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12 Step Wisdom as a Spiritual Path
with Karl Thienes
The 12 Steps have been called the greatest American contribution to spirituality today. Today we’re going to talk about how the 12 Steps can contribute to your spiritual growth, even if you would not consider yourself an addict.
Karl Thienes is a published poet, 7 years sober, former blogger, father of 4, and amateur theologian. He is passionate about transformation, healing, and being a Christ follower.
Today he will share a bit of his story of going from a drunk catechist in the Orthodox church (drinking vodka on his way to teach about asceticism!) to a man who can find joy in the day to day.
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Contemplation. Embodiment. Mysticism. Mischief. Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life. Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.
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00;02;51;04 - 00;03;17;19
Kelly Deutsch
Welcome to Spiritual Wanderlust, where we explore our interior life in search of the sacred. Many of us will travel the whole world to find ourselves, but here will follow those longings within to our spiritual and emotional landscapes. In each episode, we'll talk with inspiring guests, contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, neuropsychologists and mystics with a blend of ancient wisdom and modern science.
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Kelly Deutsch
Along with a healthy dash of mischief, will deep dove into divine intimacy and what it means to behold. I'm your host, Kelly Deutsch.
00;03;39;22 - 00;04;05;18
Kelly Deutsch
Hi, everyone. Kelly Deutsch here, and welcome to Spiritual Wanderlust today. Joining me, 12 step aficionado Carl Phenix. And Carl is a published poet. He's seven years sober, former blogger, father of four and an amateur theologian. He's passionate about transformation, healing and being a Christ follower. Now, the 12 Steps have been called the greatest American contribution to spirituality today.
00;04;06;01 - 00;04;23;04
Kelly Deutsch
So today I wanted to talk with Carl about how the 12 Steps can contribute to your spiritual growth, even if you wouldn't necessarily consider yourself an addict. I also want to hear a bit about Carl story, how he came to the 12 Steps and why he's so passionate about them today. So, Carl, thank you so much for joining us.
00;04;23;13 - 00;04;24;27
Karl Thienes
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
00;04;25;06 - 00;04;45;20
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, absolutely. Before we dove into your story, Carl, I'm curious how you would define maybe in a sentence or two what the 12 steps are like are they, you know, a recovery technique or are they a philosophy? What words would you use to describe that?
00;04;46;15 - 00;05;13;21
Karl Thienes
That's a good question. You know, probably my answer fundamentally would be they are a mystery because most people who come into the program one degree or another well, they come in limping and broken, and usually it's the last place they ever wanted to be and the last place they tried before they got sober. And inevitably, what happens is that, you know, you look at the 12 step that are posted on the board of most rooms or in the book, in the big book.
00;05;14;08 - 00;05;34;19
Karl Thienes
And, you know, your first reaction is some sort of bewilderment, essentially, like doing these is going to get me sober. After all the other things that I've tried and all the different ways that I've either tried to evade it's been happening in my life or directly trying to confront it in my own way. And so they they just seem impenetrable.
00;05;34;19 - 00;05;55;01
Karl Thienes
They seem strange, they're daunting. For sure, especially as we get into the meat of them. And so so, yeah, they're they're really a mystery as to how many millions of people now have been helped and miraculously so, in many cases, from addictions of all kinds, not just alcohol, although alcohol obviously is the the way the program initially started.
00;05;56;00 - 00;06;20;29
Karl Thienes
But like you said, you know, it's really a program of just transformation in general. And it really does apply to the alcoholic, but to really anybody who's suffering from you know, participating in a life that's not in their best interest, who is feeling trapped. And then maybe, you know, in some ways, you know, persecuted by their own choices and by the dual nature of what happens to you when you become an addict.
00;06;21;11 - 00;06;42;21
Karl Thienes
Whereas Paul says, you know, I'm doing the things that I don't want to do and I'm not doing the things that I want to and, you know, there's a real kind of diabolical element to addiction and that sense of, you know, Diablos, the Greek word that means to tear apart or to tear asunder the human person who becomes an addict or who is an addict, maybe by definition is somebody who is, you know, double minded.
00;06;43;00 - 00;07;02;29
Karl Thienes
They're torn apart and, you know, the addict in the traditional sense of the alcoholic or the drug addict, you know, really is just somebody who is on the front lines in a very visible way, exhibiting the the the suffering that the human person in general has to endure in this world, which is, you know, do I follow a madman or a God?
00;07;02;29 - 00;07;22;03
Karl Thienes
Do I follow my own desires or my higher powers, you know, and how do I. Is there a way to integrate the things of my life in a way that is not only good for me, but good for you and then good for society? And so the 12 steps, you know, again, seem to be in many ways a miraculous way of of, you know, moving towards that end.
00;07;22;14 - 00;07;42;23
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned how most people who find the 12 steps usually find it, you know, kicking and screaming or because they fell face first into the dirt Yes. So I'm curious if you would share a little bit of your story and how you came to the 12 Steps and if you came to them willingly or how that came about.
00;07;43;05 - 00;08;16;20
Karl Thienes
Yeah. Well, so, you know, I, you know, I probably lucked out in some ways because of my my religious background, my Christian faith, even before I became a real active alcoholic. So I was I'm one of the rare people that when I finally came into the room, I sort of knew intuitively that the steps would work you know, given giving up of my own well, trusting in a higher power to bring me to sanity, making amends, asking for forgiveness, being conscious of my actions and all of those things.
00;08;16;20 - 00;08;36;08
Karl Thienes
Right. Are kind of part of the overall Christian tradition. And so they weren't foreign to me. So that was a blessing, quite frankly. And I also came into the program ready to actually do the work. And that doesn't always happen. You know, some people take their time. And I think like anything right, whether it's a church or a religion or exercise, practice, anything, right.
00;08;36;08 - 00;08;52;28
Karl Thienes
That, you know, that part of you really wants to devote yourself to. There's a part of you that wants to do it on a part of you that doesn't And the part of you that wants to do it has to win out. And it might be 51 49% in terms of that struggle, or it might be 80, 20 or 90 ten but, you know, it's.
00;08;52;29 - 00;09;12;22
Karl Thienes
So for me, I had some blessings. I had some wind behind my sails when I got into the rooms, which was nice because one of the things that you find out very quickly with anything that takes work and that's really worth doing is that there's always a honeymoon period where God seems to protect you, but maybe reward you in some ways for making a positive choice for the good.
00;09;13;02 - 00;09;32;28
Karl Thienes
Right. And so he puts those wind behind yourselves. And you you find you meet people and you make progress and things feel good at the very beginning. But, you know, inevitably. Right. The real work is after that where things aren't quite so easy. And whether it's the know monotony of going to another meeting because there's always the voice that tells you, oh, you don't need another one.
00;09;32;28 - 00;09;53;06
Karl Thienes
Why have you gone to so many? Maybe even your family is telling you putting pressure on you? You know, I thought you were done with this. Aren't you done right? So there's a lot of, like, temptations to abort the program into the work that you're supposed to be doing. So anyway, but in terms of my story, you know, I it's interesting.
00;09;53;06 - 00;10;10;13
Karl Thienes
I've always had a love kind of love hate, mostly love relationship with alcohol. I, like, you know, grew up around it, but not in a toxic way. My parents were drinkers, but not in a super heavy way. We appreciated it. And from a even a Eucharistic perspective, wine was, as the Psalms say, it makes glad the heart of man.
00;10;10;13 - 00;10;45;24
Karl Thienes
Right. And it was seen that way in our family. And so I again, in a rare sort of way, had a somewhat positive relationship with alcohol just at the macro level or the family level, which is which was nice because I didn't, you know, grow up in an abusive scenario, at least in terms of alcohol. But, you know, like anything in life, right there the sins of your, you know, that you're not dealing with and the fears that you have that you're not acknowledging and just the turmoil of life as it precedes you if you're not doing your shadow work and if you're not engaged with really appreciating and quite frankly, forgiving yourself for being who
00;10;45;25 - 00;11;10;25
Karl Thienes
you are in the present moment, you know, if you're not doing that, there's going to be the things of this world that are going to tempt you to take shortcuts. And, you know, I think taking shortcuts is the sort of one of the hallmark signs of an addict. And again, maybe a sign of the human person in general is that we are afraid of doing the work that God calls us to, and sometimes rightly so, because the work is brutally difficult and extremely excruciating.
00;11;10;25 - 00;11;27;20
Karl Thienes
And like like Eustice and C.S. Lewis and the you know, when he has the dragon scales pulled off of him right at the time by Atlantis like or or even in the great divorce where the lizard is taken off of the shoulder of the man like that, the work that we have to do to give up our our passions and our ego.
00;11;27;20 - 00;11;45;08
Karl Thienes
And it's not fun. And so, no, there's no wonder that we run away from it. And we all have different ways of running away, right? In different times and places that we do that running. And so for me, you know, back what is now I'm sober seven years now and my heavy drinking started probably three years before that.
00;11;46;19 - 00;12;07;24
Karl Thienes
That was my way of, you know, of coping or have not or I'm not coping. You know, a glass of wine with dinner turned into two, which turned into three. You know, over time. Right. And it wasn't it didn't just you know, I didn't just explode into alcoholism. It was something that I gradually fell into, like a frog in the hot water, you know, the frog in the pot story right.
00;12;07;24 - 00;12;30;07
Karl Thienes
And, you know, the justifications that I came up with of defending, you know, is that, well, I'm an aficionado aficionado of wine or it's just two glasses with dinner and like that. I always had a way of just making sure that I was always okay with whatever I was doing and how clever write of the ego to always or in advance have a way of of protecting you in some ways, maybe from your bad choices.
00;12;30;20 - 00;13;05;18
Karl Thienes
But, you know, and I had people around me, friends and family that were slowly getting more and more concerned, you know, and they make a comment or two every now and then. And of course, I would brush them off. And then as these things go, you know, as you know, even just in general from a theological perspective, is that sin, one of the insidious natures of sin is that it promises so much and delivers so little and the addict is somebody who really understands that at the end, what may be used to give you some comfort or courage or a stumble across some virtue right.
00;13;05;21 - 00;13;23;21
Karl Thienes
Betrays you, it really does betray you at the end, because all it gives you usually is the misery and the hangovers and the shame and the turmoil in your family. And just, you know, the host of destruction that that path, you know, usually brings. And it doesn't usually bring any more of the good things that you thought it either could or should.
00;13;24;20 - 00;13;55;26
Karl Thienes
And I you know, I have to admit, even, you know, and not that I've been sober for very long, seven years is not very long from a, you know, addiction recovery kind of broken program perspective. And it's important always to note that it truly is just one day at a time and you're never done right. You're you're you're an alcoholic for life, even if you're sober and But anyway, so in terms of my story, I you know, the three glasses of wine and I turned into four and which turned into a bottle before I got home, which turned into, you know, a whole host of lies and manipulation.
00;13;55;26 - 00;14;14;18
Karl Thienes
And, you know, every hour, every addict has their story of how insane truly they become about, you know, what I almost like to call is like their mistress. You know, it's like this secret life that you're living, whereas the disease becomes a deeper and deeper part of your psyche and your soul and really and your body. It affects everything, every part of you.
00;14;15;21 - 00;14;35;12
Karl Thienes
It gets the lie that you're living, gets it's tendrils into actually almost everything about you. And, you know, I will, you know, it's hard almost now for me sometimes to look back, although it's important to do so and to remember who I was when I was doing those things, you know, driving, you know, my nieces and nephews around when I was drunk.
00;14;35;12 - 00;14;54;20
Karl Thienes
And, you know, there's just so many things, right, that the addict does, choices that they make that endanger themselves and the lives of others that are very shameful. And very, you know, very tragic So so anyway, so that process continued. And, you know, one of the things I learned is, you know, a truism of the spiritual life, which is that things that can't go on don't.
00;14;55;09 - 00;15;23;08
Karl Thienes
And at some point, right in every story, there's a point at which the madness ends. And quite frankly, I think it's because God just eventually has mercy, mercy on us and saves us from some of our own choices. Now, Nadia isn't always the case, right? Sometimes very, very tragic things happen, and people can resist that grace for what seems like an eternity, but something, you know, miraculous in some ways happened to me where I had had enough to drink one night in the summer of 2014 to probably kill me, at least scientifically.
00;15;24;20 - 00;15;46;19
Karl Thienes
And I had always been very careful about how I did the alcohol and the protocols that I had to make sure I wasn't it wasn't getting caught. And all of just all of that silliness, right? Trying to protect my my my addiction. And for some reason, I didn't follow any of them. I left all the doors open and the doors open and the secret cubbyholes all just available for anyone to see.
00;15;47;06 - 00;16;07;06
Karl Thienes
And that summer, I had really convinced myself that I probably was going to drink myself to death. And I sort of had a pact with God that that was what was going to happen unless he decided to step in almost like Gideon's fleece, but maybe in a right reverse or a much darker sort of way. Right. I kind of I threw the gantlet down a little bit and said, I can't stop what I'm doing.
00;16;07;07 - 00;16;27;06
Karl Thienes
I can't stop anymore. And there's nothing quite so despairing than to realize that your own choices have trapped you and that there's no way there seems to be no way out right So anyway, so I think my leaving out all the hiding places was my life. And this was I did this blackout drunk, too. So I have no real memory of this.
00;16;27;17 - 00;16;53;04
Karl Thienes
But I was told it was told to me later what the scenario was by the people who were there who witnessed my last day of drinking on July 20th. 2014. That that might, you know, what was left of my ego that was still connected to reality, was trying to save me basically by unveiling, you know, where I really was and the I love the word and apocalypse, right?
00;16;54;07 - 00;17;15;08
Karl Thienes
We tend to think of that in big, you know, catastrophic revelation level type experiences or events. But an apocalypse is really just an unveiling, right? It's an uncovering of what really is. And every addict who gets sober usually has one or maybe even several of these apocalyptic moments where they just can't hide anymore. And the running and the lying and all of that just has to come to an end.
00;17;16;08 - 00;17;31;13
Karl Thienes
And that's what happened. And so I had a real choice to make that night of, you know, I could have doubled down and run away or done something even stupider, or I could face who I had become and decide to turn to, you know, to God and to see what he could do with me. And so that's what I did.
00;17;31;28 - 00;17;38;03
Karl Thienes
And that was the beginning of my journey, at least in terms of I actually went to a meeting the very next day. Oh, yeah.
00;17;38;23 - 00;17;41;05
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. How does your family respond to friends?
00;17;42;10 - 00;18;13;09
Karl Thienes
I'm well differently, depending on the level of connection that we had and or the level of proximity they had to my destruction, you know, some people in my life have taken a very long time to forgive me or to come around to see things differently and other people very quickly, you know, and one of the interesting things and just as a tangent I'll make a comment about this, is that, you know, they say when you go through the program and you do your amends, that's step nine or step eight is where you make your list of the people who you feel like you should make amends to.
00;18;13;09 - 00;18;42;13
Karl Thienes
And step nine is where you actually go to do it. One of the things that a good sponsor will do with a sponsor is really coach them on a like in everything. This is not about you. Like when you make amends, it's not about you seeking forgiveness or getting something out of these people or feeling good even about the experience like if you're going to make amends, it has to be completely others focused where you go with the kind of abandon that you would go into a bar and drink, try to drink, yourself to death with.
00;18;42;13 - 00;19;03;17
Karl Thienes
You're going to take that energy, that desire for connection, right? That desire for the oblivion of your ego. And you're going to actually point that in a much more specific way. Towards not trying to make things better, but simply by owning what happened, being as honest as you can about it, and then giving the other person the freedom to respond to that in any way that they see fit.
00;19;03;28 - 00;19;27;21
Karl Thienes
And it was really interesting for me. I would go into a lot of different amends sessions because I would set up appointments and everything and all of that to make sure that we had space for these conversations. And, you know, some some of these conversations were very brief, 5 minutes, very quick. You know, some people I thought who would have really been mad and upset at me turned out to have already forgiven me or have already, you know, things were different than I thought they'd be.
00;19;27;21 - 00;19;52;21
Karl Thienes
And then in other cases, it was the other way around where that making space and being open enough to being willing to take like a real response and not have to be, you know, coerced, brought out all kinds of issues and, you know, those are super hard conversations to have and they're very difficult. And there's a reason why they wait until step nine to even be with them, because there's a certain level of maturity that you have to get to, to even do have them so that they are helpful.
00;19;53;23 - 00;20;06;27
Karl Thienes
But I got to say, I mean, it's amazing truly how transformative that is and not just for the other people but obviously for yourself, particularly to, you know, as you give in to that environment selflessly, you you get ten times more in return.
00;20;08;04 - 00;20;43;12
Kelly Deutsch
So, yeah, I'm curious for those who maybe aren't familiar really with the 12 Steps and what they are, would you name at least a few of the steps maybe pick some of the ones that were most powerful for you and why they were so powerful? Because, yeah, for anybody who even knows people who are addicts or notice addictive tendencies in themselves, sometimes it is hard to recognize why something that looks kind of like a spiritual or self-growth program would help with something that people think of as a disease right now.
00;20;43;16 - 00;21;04;03
Karl Thienes
A good. That's a really good question. And I will say, you know, there are different levels of opinions about, especially on the disease question right? You know, whether it's a physical, true physical allergy, let's say, or whether it's just a spiritual or mental issue. I happen to be of the camp that says that it's yeah, it's it's it's everything, right?
00;21;04;03 - 00;21;22;28
Karl Thienes
Because everything that involves a person at that level of depth is something that's hard to pass through. And quite frankly, the dualism of seeing it as one versus the other, I think is a mistake anyway. Right. Particularly with substance abuse, because it is so, you know, take eat. This is my body. I mean, anything that intimate into you is something that transcends those kinds of dualities.
00;21;22;28 - 00;21;41;10
Karl Thienes
But but to go back to your I guess to go back to your first question for a minute, you know, it's it's hard to pick. I mean, honestly, like as somebody who really loves the program, there's such beauty and depth and riches to be had. It's almost like asking somebody what their favorite Bible verses maybe you have one, right?
00;21;41;10 - 00;22;10;25
Karl Thienes
But for a lover of the Bible, the whole thing is just a love letter that you can barely you know, you just want to hug the whole thing. It's really. Yes, but but on that note, I'm just as from a practical point of view, I'm a real big fan of the fourth step, which is to, you know, making a searching if you're a small inventory, which and if you think about the 12 steps that are kind of bracketed in like the first three, the middle three or there's like a like the first three and then the the ones that come after that where there's everything follows a pattern.
00;22;11;10 - 00;22;31;21
Karl Thienes
And one of the brilliant things about the program, honestly, is that, you know, it's somebody who has been a Christian for so long, it intuitively is like Christianity, but stripped of all of its accouterments. Right. There's no liturgy, there's no dogma per se. Even the higher power concept is basically where God himself becomes anonymous in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
00;22;32;16 - 00;22;56;10
Karl Thienes
Right. He's not very interested necessarily in naming himself, and he's willing to let people find him. Right. According to their own understanding with again and is a beautiful thing. Right. Because if there's one thing an addict is he's stubborn and he doesn't want people telling him what to do or what to think. And so the program, in its wisdom, allows the addict to come and meet God, literally exactly where they are.
00;22;57;14 - 00;23;15;11
Karl Thienes
And so that's a beautiful thing. But but the fourth step is in is where the real work begins, right? Because the first three are all about admitting your powerlessness, turning to a higher power and believing that you can actually be brought out of sanity. And those are all prerequisites really for being a, you know, a spiritually alive person, quite frankly.
00;23;16;08 - 00;23;34;13
Karl Thienes
But they're not really the work, right? Those are all just prerequisites where you're so in the soil of your heart is being told. Some core truths that have to carry you for the rest of your life have to be really installed. And again, a good sponsor really works with you to make sure that you're not just rushing through the steps, that you're building something organically.
00;23;35;28 - 00;23;52;02
Karl Thienes
You know, you don't want to spend too long. You know, you know, you don't want to be in the program for ten years and still be on step three. And unless you need to be right and a good sponsor and like any good spiritual director, really discerns like how quickly or how fast we need to really go through these for you to get on the path that you need to be on.
00;23;53;11 - 00;24;16;10
Karl Thienes
But again, I keep interrupting myself. Step four is where you start to you make that searching, searching and fearless moral inventory and I love both of those word searching, right? Because you're searching in some ways for God, quite frankly. You know, one of the amazing things about the program, and I think this is true early universally is that, you know, like Jacob, the Old Testament who wrestled with God and was renamed Israel.
00;24;16;10 - 00;24;33;19
Karl Thienes
Right. He who is he who wrestles with God? The the addict comes into the program. And when they start doing the work, they find that they're that God is the adversary they've been wrestling with the whole time. You know, God's the the the person at the bottom of the bottle essentially. Right. That they've been trying to drink themselves towards.
00;24;34;22 - 00;24;54;10
Karl Thienes
But he is an adversary in a certain way. There's a certain sense of contentious almost. Well, fatherly discipline, I would almost say. Where are you? You've admitted that you're powerless and you've actually turned to me and asked for help. Now, the way in which you move forward is for you to actually take a look at yourself the way that I see you.
00;24;54;15 - 00;25;13;11
Karl Thienes
Right. And so that searching for fearless more moral imagery isn't necessarily a cataloging of all of your character defects. And although you do get to that in step seven, but it's really fundamentally a recognition that you're loved, that you're actually accepted for exactly who you are right now, right in whatever condition you're in, in the meeting or interest in your life.
00;25;14;04 - 00;25;30;02
Karl Thienes
And that, you know, before you can make amends, before you can start developing a life of conscious meditation and prayer, and quite frankly, being a servant to anyone, which is step 12, you need to have you need to figure out who you are and you need to actually love who you are. Right now before you do anything else.
00;25;31;16 - 00;25;56;22
Karl Thienes
And so anyway, so that inventory is kind of a double edged sword where it's an inventory of of sins and defects and a figuring out why is it that you're in a meeting, why is it that your life is in shambles? Right. You need to face that, but you're never going to be able to do the work. You're not going have the courage to face those kinds of calamities unless you have a real basic grounding in the love that God has for you and that you really do have for yourself.
00;25;56;22 - 00;26;18;08
Karl Thienes
You just don't know it I think the addict is and I found this to be very profound, almost as I've been in meetings over the years, is just how spiritually almost electric an addict can be. If you can scratch past the surface and get past some of the surface things, they're hungry, they're thirsty, and in a literally in a literal way.
00;26;18;08 - 00;26;40;12
Karl Thienes
Right, maybe for substances, but that's not what they're really hungry for. They're hungry for God. And so being able to channel that, I don't know if it's a natural disposition or a spiritual gift, but I found that, you know, the addicts that I've worked with and that I've been around have been yes. Some of the most broken people I've ever met and some of the most, you know, hurting, suffering people.
00;26;40;12 - 00;26;49;27
Karl Thienes
But very often they tend to be some of the people who, you know, they have a big inventory of gifts and a big inventory of sins. Right. They're just large, larger than life.
00;26;50;18 - 00;27;15;12
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. I think we talked about this before, but I wrote a book called Spiritual Wanderlust. And speaking about that kind of thirst or that longing for just something like we don't even know what it is. It's just something with a capital S, you know, and you could call it God, but that word just doesn't feel big enough.
00;27;15;12 - 00;27;40;17
Kelly Deutsch
Sometimes, you know, and I to see that inner restlessness that we all have, I mean, I think particularly you find it in, you know, the the addict's with a capital A, but I think we all have some of that to some extent, you know, for sure. The the discontent we have with kind of the normal everyday life and a longing for what.
00;27;40;26 - 00;27;41;16
Karl Thienes
Is right.
00;27;41;21 - 00;27;47;21
Kelly Deutsch
Greatness. Is it fulfillment? Is it happiness? Like none of those things really quite fit.
00;27;48;03 - 00;28;05;16
Karl Thienes
Right? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the addict in some ways is given a real gift by being an addict because that thirst or that hunger is so obvious. Right? It's and it's inescapable. It's a it's probably ruined your life, but it also then gives you an opportunity to to maybe pivot and direct it in the ways in which it should go.
00;28;05;26 - 00;28;38;28
Karl Thienes
But if there's no there's no reason to assume that that doesn't apply to everyone. Right. I mean, I've been a big proponent for a long time that that the model of AA in some ways has put the church to shame, quite frankly, that AA is doing the work that the church should be doing, and in some cases does but you know, the track record of AA in terms of the amount of money, a little money they need and little resources that they demand, and then, you know, the amount of transformation and healing that happens is just it's nothing short of remarkable.
00;28;38;28 - 00;28;50;25
Karl Thienes
And I think the church has a lot to learn from the simplicity, I think maybe of the model yeah. The purpose of AA is really no different than the purpose of the church. The church, I think it's just gotten distracted.
00;28;51;12 - 00;29;12;17
Kelly Deutsch
Hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. That's interesting. I have a priest friend who's been sober for, I don't know what, 12, maybe 15 years, but who has said the same thing? It's like 12 step wisdom, man. Like, our churches need to be a lot more like that and more of a support group where we really do the inner work of transformation.
00;29;12;26 - 00;29;19;24
Kelly Deutsch
Rather than just, you know, a little activity we do on Sundays and. Right. Because, like, I did my Christian duty.
00;29;20;11 - 00;29;40;03
Karl Thienes
Yeah, exactly. Because really, I mean, we're all addicts, right? To something. And maybe it's visible and obvious and whether it's shopping or TV watching or whatever. Right? And everybody can pick of one at one or two things in their life that they are overindulging in. But even more profoundly, I think we're all I mean, from a Christian point of view, we're all addicted to sin.
00;29;40;12 - 00;30;05;04
Karl Thienes
And even from an interesting point of view, we're addicted to our own way of thinking, addicted to the patterns of our life or addicted to our ego and the story that it tells us about who we are and what and what the world is and those are all things that in kind of models of living that would do well to be that through the ringer of the 12 steps, as it were, to have some of those assumptions challenged and those patterns reworked.
00;30;05;04 - 00;30;28;06
Karl Thienes
And again, to do it in a community type setting where people are together talking about, you know, who they are and where they'd like to go and what's holding them back and what they're excited about. And those are all the things that are talked about in an AA meeting. You know, you're we talk about you bring your or you talk about your experience, strength and hope where we say, and so you're basically just telling stories.
00;30;28;06 - 00;30;47;28
Karl Thienes
You're telling a story of who you used to be and what you've been doing. And where you'd hope to go. And, you know, that's really for me, no different than, you know, any religious gathering, right? Is that whether it's through liturgy or just in general, right? We're telling a story of, you know, who we are as a people and where we're at currently and where we'd like to go.
00;30;49;08 - 00;31;09;13
Karl Thienes
And I think that's the way we not only hold on it and adhere to the traditions of, you know, of the past, that it's still serve us. And it's a way also for us to bond together over a common story right. Because that story of that Exodus story, let's say, like, you know, tyranny and then exile and wandering and then eventual promised land.
00;31;09;13 - 00;31;27;00
Karl Thienes
And that's the story of humanity. I mean, that's, again, not something that's the purview of the addict, right? It's it's a common sort of what's the word? Well, it's an inheritance, I guess, of what all what we all share, you know, as being human beings.
00;31;27;11 - 00;31;58;13
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think we all so long for just raw, authentic conversations. It's so hard to find that in I mean, especially like white, middle class American society where we're just polite. You know, I grew up in the Midwest. We all just have nice kind of polite conversations and nobody really airs dirty laundry. You know, we might politely gossip by, you know, saying like, would you pray for Jane?
00;31;58;13 - 00;32;03;22
Kelly Deutsch
She's you know, like I tell you, all her dirt. So I but end it with, like, pray for her.
00;32;03;23 - 00;32;04;17
Karl Thienes
But bless her heart.
00;32;04;18 - 00;32;06;03
Kelly Deutsch
Right, right. Bless her heart.
00;32;08;04 - 00;32;33;04
Kelly Deutsch
But yeah, to actually do that real inner work, like, I had a friend who went to a men's retreat and he was like surgery. This sounds like the stupidest thing in the world. And he was like, this was the most amazing, like, raw, authentic that I have ever seen men be together, you know, normally it was so hard to find again, you know, kind of a Midwestern society.
00;32;33;04 - 00;32;54;14
Kelly Deutsch
Like, men don't have emotions, you know, or that kind of stereotype. And for him to go and have this place where he's like, we just, like, threw it all on the table and, you know, talked about what we struggled with and I don't I feel closer to these men after one weekend than I do too many of my longtime friends.
00;32;54;21 - 00;32;57;21
Karl Thienes
Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.
00;32;58;15 - 00;33;25;12
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. The other thing that stuck out to me when you were talking was how how we're all addicts, but also this concept of sin, because I think sin in so many ways is just the spiritual, religious term for coping mechanism. You know, like we got pain. We all have hurts wounds. Whether or not we want to admit it, or even just things that make us feel uncomfortable.
00;33;25;12 - 00;33;48;28
Kelly Deutsch
Like I feel slightly anxious. I'm going to go like just zone out with Netflix for hours, you know, and that's that's a coping mechanism. And sometimes those things are okay. But yeah, just like a glass of wine with dinner is okay. But when it starts to rule your life, that's when it really starts to like we have to look and say, am I in control here?
00;33;48;28 - 00;34;38;09
Kelly Deutsch
Or like, is this really or is this in control? Is my Netflix tendency is my tendency to gossip, my tendency to, like, need to be in control and to know what's going on in everybody's lives or to tell people what I think or, you know, I think that was the big thing for me when I first got introduced to the 12 step kind of process through codependency and leaving the convent and fortunately having, well, at least one friend who is really I mean, she was into Kota Codependence Anonymous and recognizing how much Christianity, at least the culture that we have around it, often promotes codependency and yes, it's, it was so EYE-OPENING for me like the
00;34;38;09 - 00;34;57;10
Kelly Deutsch
first time this friend shared I was complaining about some sister in the convent. I was still over in Rome at the time and you know, like sister so-and-so, when can you believe and me, you know, I was just kind of foaming at the mouth and she turned and looked at me and she's like, What is it in you that gets so upset about Sister So-and-so?
00;34;57;22 - 00;35;21;13
Kelly Deutsch
You know? And I was like, Me, I I was just really taken aback. Like, I mean, obviously what she did is objectively obnoxious, you know, but to recognize, like, oh, maybe there's something that's getting hooked in me, and why can't I just kind of brush it off? Like, Okay, well, that was kind of obnoxious of her. Right. Right.
00;35;21;22 - 00;35;36;10
Kelly Deutsch
And to move on yeah. And so learning how to work those 12 steps, I think are really that process of releasing our clenched fists on reality. That grip grasp trying to control.
00;35;36;23 - 00;35;37;06
Karl Thienes
Mm.
00;35;37;19 - 00;35;39;19
Kelly Deutsch
That's, that's how I think of it.
00;35;39;24 - 00;36;08;07
Karl Thienes
That's a great, great story too, because. Yeah. Learning to really listen to the people around you, non-judgmental, but with an open heart is something that we just really aren't taught early in this culture and life in general, and especially in this, I think in this country, you know, we're just, we're so individualistic, even in our spiritual lives that, you know, when we talk about even working in a program like AA, there's this sort of idea that you just hunker down in a room and read all the books and go to meetings alone, and somehow it just won't work out.
00;36;08;07 - 00;36;24;05
Karl Thienes
And that's not the way it works at all. You know, you get a sponsor and you join a community and you start listening to the stories of the people in the group. And, you know, a lot of times groups will say, you know, if you're first of all, if you're, you know, if you're if you're still high or on a substance, we love that you're here, but you can't talk today.
00;36;24;21 - 00;36;42;01
Karl Thienes
Right. And then over time, there's this invitation to start speaking, but mostly to listen. And I think it's in the hearing of the stories. And and I know for me, you know, sitting and, you know, with my ego telling me that I was better than these people are smarter than them or that I wasn't as broken and why am I here and right.
00;36;42;06 - 00;37;09;09
Karl Thienes
All of the excuses would just start pouring in and over and over again. And the admonition through the literature and with my sponsor and just and just even my own heart was you need to learn to just sit and listen to the judgments, the opinions, the stories, the just the existence of other people. Right. And to just dwell in the fact that you are not the center of the universe and that other people's stories not only matter, they might matter maybe even more than yours, at least today.
00;37;09;09 - 00;37;31;11
Karl Thienes
Right. When it's their turn to speak. And so it's a humbling nature of that kind of where you're sitting in these meetings and learning organically that, yeah, you might get your 3 minutes to share your story and hopefully it helps someone else. But you know, you're going to get such an amazing gift by just being present to other people that that's going to be part of what heals you of the addiction.
00;37;31;23 - 00;37;47;11
Karl Thienes
Because one of the things that you do when you're drinking is you actually don't want other people. That's why you drink, you know, that's why you use is that you'd rather just be, you know, protected in many ways. And at least that's what you think in this sort of self isolated bubble where it's just you and the drug and that doesn't work.
00;37;47;11 - 00;38;06;23
Karl Thienes
You need other people and you need their stories and you need to hear them because, well, for a lot of reasons. But the other reason, too, is that other stories, other people's stories are also your own. They may differ in the very specific details and all of that. But again, going back to the Exodus analogy, you know, we're all we're all here on a journey and none of us are going to make it out of here alive.
00;38;07;29 - 00;38;25;03
Karl Thienes
And it would be better for all of us if we just stop for a minute and face that and decided that how do we want to live in the event that, you know, the inevitability of the fact that this world is not our home and we have work to do. And if we did it together and really listen to one another, we might make a lot more progress yeah.
00;38;25;10 - 00;38;52;27
Kelly Deutsch
Which is scary, though. I mean, it's scary to like be vulnerable and to open yourself to others. Or even if you're not sharing of your own story just to make space for others and to make space interiority, to say like maybe what they have to say is even more valuable. We have that I could possibly learn from every human person on this planet, no matter how enlightened I think I am.
00;38;55;13 - 00;39;15;15
Karl Thienes
Yeah, well, that the things that you need to learn are the things you don't know. And so, you know, even me sitting behind, it's like I know all the stuff in these books that you know? I mean, one of the stories I like to tell now, although it was it super embarrassing at the time, was the fact that, you know, at the height of my drinking, I was teaching a catechism class at the local church on early church history and asceticism.
00;39;15;15 - 00;39;37;26
Karl Thienes
And so the incredible irony, right, is that here I am presenting myself as someone who knows something about the spiritual life or about the church and, you know, I'm drinking a I'm drinking out of a out of a can on my way to teach the class. Right. So that disconnect in my own heart of my the public persona, let's say or the knowledge that I thought I knew and who I really was in my actions was profound.
00;39;39;10 - 00;39;59;25
Karl Thienes
And, you know, that's that's hard, right? When you when you face those kinds of things where. Yes, it isn't just the things that I know or whatever, it's I have to actually embody this in a way that might be painful. Right? I might have to sit in a meeting and listen to someone else. And and maybe what they're saying doesn't help me or isn't, you know, but even then, it still is helpful, right?
00;39;59;25 - 00;40;23;27
Karl Thienes
Because you got to still be present to someone else and their pain and their confusion or their joy, whatever it happens to be. And so, yeah, for me that the active I think that was that was the best part of the meetings. And still it's quite frankly, is the realization that I'm not the center of the universe and the burden that's lifted from me in being able to, you know, weep with those who we and exalt and and be joyful with those who are joyful.
00;40;23;27 - 00;40;42;16
Karl Thienes
And whether it's somebody getting their first, you know, 60 day coin or whether it's somebody who is back in the rooms after their fourth relapse, you know, like it doesn't the details, of course matter with for that particular person and the way we minister to them. But again, it's this is all of our story, right? We we we fall down and we get up and we fall down and we get up.
00;40;42;16 - 00;40;58;13
Karl Thienes
And that's the life that's the spiritual life. And again like you were saying like being able to just be with one another as we do that where we're going to fall and it's inevitable and in fact, it's necessary, quite frankly. But then we have to rise and we have to do that, first of all, because we choose to do that.
00;40;58;19 - 00;41;11;26
Karl Thienes
Nobody can make nobody can force you into a room and they can send you there for a quarter or whatever. Right. But if you're really there to do the work, you have to choose to go. But then as soon as you go, you're surrounded by people who are going to love you and support you and accept you all the way.
00;41;12;18 - 00;41;17;06
Karl Thienes
And again, you know, to me, that feels like the church or at least a church of some kind.
00;41;17;15 - 00;41;47;17
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that's what really and gender's compassion is being able to be present. First of all, acknowledge your own stuff. Your pains, your flaws, your weaknesses, and how beloved you are. I love how you pointed that out in step four, because I don't think necessarily taking a searching moral inventory is what people think of as like, you know, oh, obviously that leads to me feeling deeply.
00;41;47;17 - 00;42;17;29
Kelly Deutsch
But, you know, that feels very contradict to me. Like it feels much more like, okay, judgmental. God, here we go again. You know, like the man in the sky ready to just condemn me for all the ways that I've messed up and I'm curious, like well, whatever, I'll just loop back to that. I'm just going it's like how you would connect those to like, okay, so you've made this, like, fearless inventory of, like, all your stuff.
00;42;18;10 - 00;42;27;11
Kelly Deutsch
Hmm. How does that lead to it? Look, I am deeply loved and I love myself. How does that come about? Because that feels like opposite ends of the spectrum.
00;42;27;25 - 00;42;44;21
Karl Thienes
Yeah, that's a great question. And, you know, you know, to be honest, I mean, there are people who in the program who do struggle with step four and have to be on it for quite some time. Because you're right, it does take an enormous amount of courage to do that at the level to which you need to do it if you're somebody who is in the program because inevitably.
00;42;44;21 - 00;42;59;17
Karl Thienes
Right. You have a multitude of, you know, you cause mayhem. And usually in your life, if you're in the rooms of AA. And so you have a lot you have a lot to look at. And that's hard. That's a really, really hard. But the one thing I would say and it kind of going back to beginning is that there's a reason why that's not the first step.
00;43;00;19 - 00;43;17;01
Karl Thienes
It's not the first thing where you walk through the doors and you immediately have to catalog everything or you know, proclaim that it's you know, you start fundamentally from a position of powerlessness. So that even so that no matter what you do, the rest of the program is always grounded in step one, which is and that sounds hard and it is really difficult.
00;43;17;01 - 00;43;33;26
Karl Thienes
Right. But it's the it's absolutely the spiritual foundation of the entire thing, which is that in some ways, right? This isn't actually your responsibility. It's not your job to do all the work. And one of the things, too, that I found with addicts and I personally feel this way, is that, like, we just take so much responsibility for everything.
00;43;33;26 - 00;43;50;28
Karl Thienes
Right. And that's partly maybe why we use this, because we just need a break, right? From our own ego telling us that somehow everything is our fault or that that inner critic that demands justice for everyone and everything all the time. And so to give that up to start the program was saying, nope, I am powerless over the substance.
00;43;50;28 - 00;44;13;15
Karl Thienes
I am powerless over my life. My life's unmanageable and I'm done trying to do anything more about this the way I've been doing it. And so the freedom that powers over you when you can really do that, it just like I said, it just carries you almost through the rest of the program because whether it's making a moral inventory, whether it's making amends with your spouse who wants to divorce you, or whether it's whatever right.
00;44;13;16 - 00;44;38;10
Karl Thienes
You have a lot of hard work ahead of you, but you'll be able to face it because you've given up control. You fundamentally have decided to let God in. And that's steps two and three, right where you you've admitted that you're powerless and you've really decided to make it very conscious and very, you know, wholehearted attempt to give your life over to to a higher power and, you know, again, to me, that's like a microcosm of the entire spiritual life.
00;44;38;10 - 00;45;01;02
Karl Thienes
Right. Is that powerlessness is just the admitting of reality. It's really not even I mean, it's scary, but it's not anything different than what's true is just truth, which is that you're powerless over most things, maybe almost over everything to some extent. And then so again, so when you go into the meat of step four, you're carrying with you that the love and the freedom right to do that.
00;45;01;02 - 00;45;17;29
Karl Thienes
Because even as you do it, you know that you're powerless over making a good first step. You know, we tell people in the program all the time, you know, nothing has to be perfect thinking. Things have to be perfect as part of the addict mindset. And it's much, much better to just start like just do something, make it make an attempt, right?
00;45;17;29 - 00;45;31;20
Karl Thienes
And then you give it over and you say that you're powerless and then you come back to it. And again, if you have a good sponsor or if you have a good community, right, that's the way you tool that soil so that you have the balance of I'm powerless and I can't do anything. But I also I'm accountable right?
00;45;31;21 - 00;45;54;15
Karl Thienes
I have someone to which I'm working with and I'm going and they're going to push me. And I again, I see the parallels in the church in terms of whether that's a father confessor or a spiritual director or somebody that you're working with very closely where you're unveiling like in a fusion, you know, you're you're confessing your sins one to another, writing or really sharing your heart so that you have someone who can walk alongside you and can point out you did a good job there.
00;45;54;22 - 00;46;11;24
Karl Thienes
And you should like you should let yourself go. Like, don't push yourself, too. Or maybe on this one now you're still hiding something. You're still afraid we need to dig into this. Right. And being able to discern which of those it is that you need. Do you need a little grace or do you need a little, you know, a little person or not judgment, but a little.
00;46;12;04 - 00;46;12;15
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah.
00;46;13;05 - 00;46;13;23
Karl Thienes
A little coaching.
00;46;13;23 - 00;46;14;24
Kelly Deutsch
Kick in the rear. Yeah.
00;46;15;22 - 00;46;38;20
Karl Thienes
I'm so. Yeah. So to me on this side of things, I mean, it's always hard to do that work. I mean, don't get me wrong. And there's always things about the force, stuff that you always come back to and one thing I guess I would like to say too, is that, you know, there's a sense in which the 12 steps are almost like a spiral dynamic because you go, each one of those things is you can just live in one step for the rest of your life and just let it flower, right?
00;46;39;02 - 00;47;01;15
Karl Thienes
Or you could march through them linearly or you can cycle through them over and over and over again. Right. And I think anybody who's been in the program long enough will you know, they've done they've done every step at least once, and they've done all of them maybe several times, but they're always working on one. And so the work that you did prior as you went through all of them now starts to inform the way maybe you come back to a four step.
00;47;02;12 - 00;47;25;17
Karl Thienes
Right? So again and again, in the spirit of not having to be we seek progress, not perfection. There's no reason why you can't come back and do a step forward and do it at a new level of consciousness, maybe with new inputs, maybe with a better grounding in who you really are, and then glad that God has for you so that maybe you can see something this time that you didn't before or maybe couldn't face before because it was just too deep or too much All right.
00;47;25;17 - 00;47;58;16
Karl Thienes
We're never done. But, you know, as far as that sounds, right, it's further up and further end. I mean, there's there's no end to the work. And so that's exciting in a certain kind of way. Right. And again, I think for the addict, there's something that's deeply, profoundly healing about that idea that the infinity to which we constantly we're looking in substances really can be found in the work, that that's really what we have been maybe hoping for was that the communion that we can have with God and the connection that we can have with other people and that our life might be directed in a way that's truly of value and of service.
00;47;58;16 - 00;48;06;17
Karl Thienes
Right. Can be found. And it doesn't have to be it can't be found in substances Mm hmm.
00;48;15;08 - 00;48;36;05
Kelly Deutsch
I I'm struck by I mean, I've heard before the line progress, not perfection. But I think that's something that, uh, we always need to be reminded of. And I'm sure, like, you know, basically all the steps are always things that we need to be reminded of. As you are mentioning here, you know, that spiral model, which I really appreciate.
00;48;36;05 - 00;48;55;29
Kelly Deutsch
You know, I think earlier on in my spiritual growth, I'm like, oh, yeah, I've learned how to trust my right. Write this down. You know, right? And it's like you spiral around to that same place, and it's like, oh, okay. Now, this is a totally new scenario. I have never had to trust, like, this before. Like, why are you making me do this?
00;48;56;01 - 00;49;27;14
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, yeah. And so similarly, that progress, not perfection, it's I remember trying to essentially kill my perfectionistic part in in college. Good luck with that. Yeah, right. I mean, it's, you know, essentially trying to use your ego to defeat your ego to squash that and shove it down or. And, I mean, on the one hand, I think I did receive a lot of freedom from at least the ways that it used to be expressed.
00;49;27;14 - 00;49;54;25
Kelly Deutsch
Right. So in high school, I remember my perfectionism was mostly in academics, and I have a poor myself into, you know, and I received a lot of enjoyment from the whole process. I enjoyed my studies, but there certainly was like a, yeah, perfectionism that would pop out there. And I remember in college, I would intentionally like when we get tests back from the professor, you know, we pass the exams back out and everybody's like, oh, what you get?
00;49;54;25 - 00;50;13;28
Kelly Deutsch
What you get? And I wouldn't even look at mine. I would just shove mine in my bag because I knew that I was often the smartest person in the class. And I didn't want to have my ego. And I was just like, nope, not even going to touch it. Not going to go there. And so that helped, you know, that I wasn't like, you look at me like that.
00;50;13;29 - 00;50;48;09
Kelly Deutsch
So that was a good thing. But it was funny how that, like, seeped out in other areas. Like, Well, I'm going to be the best gosh darn person in ministry. Just watch, like, I'm going to go talk to all the homeless people. I'm going to remember everybody's name, you know? And those are good things. It's not like those desires were bad in and of themselves, but it's just interesting how in those areas, how those tendencies of ourselves that want to achieve or perform or whatever it is that underneath were probably coping for something like, why do you need to try so hard, Cal?
00;50;48;14 - 00;50;48;19
Kelly Deutsch
Right.
00;50;49;00 - 00;50;49;09
Karl Thienes
Right.
00;50;49;29 - 00;51;21;06
Kelly Deutsch
What's driving that like? Why why do you need to go, like, love every person on campus? And honestly, it wasn't until my illness where I was, like, bedridden for all those 18 months that when all that was stripped away that suddenly it was like, yeah, well, I if I can't do those things right. Right. I think that's usually for many of us where that happens is when some big crisis strips away, you know, the possibility of even fulfilling all of those for sure tendencies or coping mechanisms or addictions or whatever they are.
00;51;21;07 - 00;51;21;19
Karl Thienes
Right.
00;51;21;28 - 00;51;23;02
Kelly Deutsch
Life comes crumbling.
00;51;23;21 - 00;51;42;04
Karl Thienes
Yeah. We have to hit our rock bottom right. Whatever that ends up being, you know, and different for every person that's and it's fascinating almost the way that that is, you know, why is it that some people like from an addiction perspective, why is it that some people have to lose their house and their spouse and their life or they have to go to prison or, you know, whatever the story is?
00;51;42;04 - 00;52;04;03
Karl Thienes
Right. And then there are other people who don't. Right. It doesn't get that bad. It's truly a mystery. And for all of us, right. It's well, at what point does our ego finally put up against God's love, right. And finally gives way? And you can't plan for it. Right. Which I think is why I really love the progress, not perfection, because the perfection model is the one that says, well, I'm just going to orchestrate this.
00;52;04;03 - 00;52;22;22
Karl Thienes
I'm going to love all the people and write whatever that story is that you tell yourself, but you never get around to asking yourself, what's the end? When, when am I done? Or whenever I went about actually done God's will, you know, on Earth as it is in heaven, like at what point am I going to be free of the compulsion I need to do something more and better and all of that?
00;52;23;15 - 00;52;46;21
Karl Thienes
When do I get to rest? Right. And you know, when you're in the middle of that you never ask those questions because there's there's just too much whatever enjoyment or pressure to just keep performing. And we live in such a performance space culture. I think it's gotten worse actually over time. The compulsions that we all have, the stories that we tell ourselves about how good we good we have to be, whatever that definition is.
00;52;48;05 - 00;53;11;18
Karl Thienes
And again, it goes back to to that authenticity of those all might be beautiful good things and maybe your call to some or even all of them, but it won't be in the way you think first of all, and be it's it's an open question as to whether that's really who you are or is that the story that, you know, your parents or your church or your culture or whatever have told you about what, being a good person or a good Christian or whatever.
00;53;13;07 - 00;53;33;03
Karl Thienes
And, you know, so again, that sense of power, our life has become unmanageable. Right? As we say in the first step that applies to so many things, not just substance abuse that applies to, you know, most of us, I think, if we were honest, would say most or all of my life is unmanageable. At that level. I'm running around doing so much like Mary and Martha.
00;53;33;03 - 00;53;46;07
Karl Thienes
I'm not really sitting at Jesus's feet. I'm not content to just be who I am for even just 10 minutes, you know, where it's just incredible how much we are running from ourselves because we're afraid, right? Because we're afraid of what we'll find.
00;53;46;19 - 00;54;16;10
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. And I feel like that's probably a good test if it's just like, are you okay stopping everything right now? Because for most of us, it doesn't happen until we are forced to. You know, I find it's a lot of the you know, it's either some sort of, like, crisis of health or I'm retiring or empty nesting, and suddenly I don't have my 35 40 year long career to rest my vestiges upon, or I don't have my kids to focus on or whatever it is.
00;54;16;10 - 00;54;25;26
Kelly Deutsch
And when your roles are suddenly stripped away and you're kind of compulsion to do or help or serve or whatever the compulsion is, well now what?
00;54;25;26 - 00;54;26;12
Karl Thienes
And now.
00;54;26;25 - 00;54;35;00
Kelly Deutsch
Am I? What does that even mean about me or. Right. Meaning my life has and all of those questions that bubble up inevitably.
00;54;35;12 - 00;54;59;04
Karl Thienes
Yes. There's in the program, there's a reason that step 12, you know, where we take this message out on other alcoholics and it's much more of a service oriented sort of step. It's the last step. And I think for some people, and particularly the doers, right? The people who are to's on the ground, for example, are just people you know, people have that personality type where they like to be active and they like to be productive.
00;55;00;03 - 00;55;15;02
Karl Thienes
That's a real shock. Right. So that they're not just placed in another program that tells them that they have to do a bunch of things to be to be different or whatever and that no, you need you have a lot of inner work to do and a lot of silence to keep and a lot of inventory to take.
00;55;15;05 - 00;55;38;02
Karl Thienes
Right. And some amends to make. Right. You have some work. And then once you've done that, then maybe you'll be of use to the world in a way that where you actually get to be yourself and other people get to actually see you and actually benefit from the gifts of you being yourself. Because if you're not yourself and your tornado through people's lives and you know serve them but and maybe do some good almost inadvertently.
00;55;38;02 - 00;55;42;03
Karl Thienes
But it's amazing how. Yeah, that tends not to be the case.
00;55;43;00 - 00;56;08;13
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. Yeah. How we always bring our stuff, whatever we're doing, even if we have great intentions of helping others. I mean, I'm sure almost everyone listening has been on the receiving end of people who mean well but, you know, are like pathological helpful, you know, like they're just trying to give you advice that you didn't ask for and you're like, whoa, wait, you know?
00;56;08;13 - 00;56;22;07
Kelly Deutsch
And then they might get offended when, you know, and that's often a sign of co-dependence. Like, I want you take my help. Dang it. You know, and then I'm resentful that, you know, you won't receive my help. It's like, who this for in the first place.
00;56;22;07 - 00;56;22;24
Karl Thienes
That, you know.
00;56;24;13 - 00;56;33;26
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, but it's funny. Those those circles that we get stuck in, you know, those patterns. And I guess that's probably a good shorthand for addiction.
00;56;34;03 - 00;56;57;25
Karl Thienes
Yes. Well, and you mentioned resentment and that, like, bar none is absolutely at least from then from an A perspective. And I think a spiritual perspective is the best bellwether to take in terms of an internal temperature of where your resentments are as where the your work is. Right. And if you can maintain peace in some scenario, or with some relationship or whatever the case might be, then that's that resentment is poison.
00;56;58;00 - 00;57;18;21
Karl Thienes
It really is spiritual poison because the resentment is is is your ego's way of essentially not having you face the fact that you have work to do and that you aren't willing to accept things actually as they are and people as they are. That's another big part of the program is the addict is very bad at accepting reality.
00;57;19;10 - 00;57;37;29
Karl Thienes
We don't like things the way they are. And part of that is, again, I think comes from that spiritual sort of desire or intuition that that things are terrible and they could be way better. Right. And there's some truth in that. But it but the paradox is that the only way things ever get better, the way the only way that they're resurrected is through the cross, right?
00;57;37;29 - 00;57;55;28
Karl Thienes
Things have to die and they have to be what they are in that death, where, again, you're powerless. And there is a sense that what God is the one that's God is the one that's allowing things through to die. So that then what's good and true and beautiful can be resurrected. And again, it's not your job to do that, right?
00;57;55;28 - 00;58;16;20
Karl Thienes
But your job is to be a witness to it is to be present to it. And maybe if you know you're lucky, God will ask you to participate in some way in it. And I think that would be the design, right? So we want we all want to participate in the resurrection of the world and in the transformation of everything and the I think the attic feels that calling in a really profound way.
00;58;16;20 - 00;58;34;27
Karl Thienes
And unfortunately. Right. Or maybe fortunately, it's hard to know in the long term sense finds all kinds of substitutes instead of being willing to just be present to reality and be willing to say, I don't like that this is happening, but I'm going to say that what is is perfectly exactly in accordance with what God wants right now.
00;58;35;10 - 00;58;50;18
Karl Thienes
And maybe that's for reasons I'll never understand. And that's okay. Like, do you live in the mystery or the darkness of saying I am powerless over my life, including this reality that maybe that I don't like very much? And then you just take that to God, right? And take that to the to the people that you work with.
00;58;50;18 - 00;59;15;15
Karl Thienes
And and maybe it becomes, again, part of the program of the inventory that you take is that I'm super resentful about this. Right. And then there's that's just it showing you another part of your life. Let go of there's an analogy from golf, which I've always loved, which is that when you hold a golf club, you're you're supposed to hold it tight enough that it doesn't fly at your hands but loosen up to where you're you are flexible and that you can adjust as you're swinging.
00;59;15;15 - 00;59;41;24
Karl Thienes
Right. And I think that that's a perfect analogy for the work that we do. Right? We don't want to let go, right? It's not an ego disillusion disillusionment. It's not a letting go into chaos or nihilism. Right. But it's also being willing to hold things lightly and letting God do the work because the swing you may start as you swing, right, to go in one direction, but if you're going to hit the ball, if the goal is to hit the ball, then you might have to adjust and you might have to be willing to do that.
00;59;41;24 - 00;59;49;20
Karl Thienes
And you can't if you're holding on to tight in the attic, this is somebody who's always holding on to tight to the wrong things usually. And that's why you're right.
00;59;49;29 - 01;00;09;28
Kelly Deutsch
I know. I know. And once I think we get accustomed to that cinematic sensation of that clenching, grasping beam, when you realize when you're there, like, oh, he like, I need to loosen my grip a little bit, like, right. And little intense.
01;00;10;02 - 01;00;35;03
Karl Thienes
Resentment. Resentment has great payoffs in the short term. It feels powerful, right? It feels like you are reacting to something with the right level of vengeance or whatever the case might be. Right. It's very but it's Turkish delight it from C.S. Lewis was like, right. It's it's toxic because it goes in and it's very sweet, but it's absolutely you know, it has no calories and just makes you stick and it makes you a monster fundamentally because every bite just makes you angry.
01;00;35;19 - 01;01;04;01
Karl Thienes
And that anger, you know, I've loved the fact that kind of thinking about anger as just repressed shame. It's right. It's being a shame that you're in your ego state or not doing something more about this particular thing and letting go of that anger is means facing the shame. It means entering into it. There's a saying in the Eastern Orthodox Church that we have to bear a little shame to be able to to walk with Christ and, you know, a little shame.
01;01;04;01 - 01;01;21;29
Karl Thienes
Right. You know, you can't take it all on. Right. But you have to be willing to be in the present moment to be in the shame that is there. Right? The shame that my body doesn't work the way I like it to or I don't look the way, you know, or I'm not in this station of life or, you know, all of the catalog of hundreds of ways in which we can be resentful about the reality in which we live.
01;01;23;10 - 01;01;44;03
Karl Thienes
But that's the shame that if we faced it and accepted it, right, you just that's where that's where the weaknesses right. Of our life. That's as Saint Paul writes, you know, the grace is sufficient in that weakness. And that, again, like so many things, the paradoxes of that by accepting the weaknesses and the reality of your life is actually where all the power is.
01;01;44;17 - 01;02;07;06
Kelly Deutsch
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I find one of the threads through all of this, through 12 step work or spiritual practice is just the willingness to feel your feelings, which you feel. I mean, if you had told me that like 15 years ago, I probably would have thought that was just like Fluffy. Yes. I would have to do whatever, like go take your self-help stuff somewhere else.
01;02;07;06 - 01;02;25;21
Kelly Deutsch
But like, now, like, oh my gosh, that is one of the deepest realities. And like, be younger. Kelly, like, what was it that you weren't able to sit with in that? Like, what? What made you uncomfortable and can you just be present to the fact that this sounds a little fluffy? And why do you not like fluffy stuff?
01;02;25;21 - 01;03;06;16
Kelly Deutsch
You know, just anything to be a starting point, a trailhead to that inner inquiry of like or what's what's going on in there, right? Why am I feeling so uncomfortable and why do I have to go, like grab my phone and start scrolling or why do I have to go grab my substance or phone a friend? Right. Whatever it is, there's so much happening anteriorly in the more that we become self-aware and expand our capacity to hold all of these things and sometimes it's particularly important to be able to hold them with others that can expand our our window of tolerance, you know, because sometimes it is really hard, like life is hard yeah.
01;03;06;19 - 01;03;18;15
Kelly Deutsch
Reality can be really difficult and painful, you know, I mean, I think over these past two years in particular, we've all got our noses shoved into it. And so in that together.
01;03;19;16 - 01;03;30;14
Karl Thienes
Yeah, we need each other now more than ever. Probably. Yeah. Or maybe we're just now realizing that we've always needed each other this much but we've been we've been told stories that make us think that that's not true, but.
01;03;30;25 - 01;03;48;28
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, absolutely. So I think we have time for one more question for people who are curious about how 12 Step wisdom might help them, what would be one or two resources that you would point them toward?
01;03;50;08 - 01;03;57;29
Karl Thienes
That is a good question. Well, caveat this by saying it depends. Right. Because it really is person specific.
01;03;59;10 - 01;04;11;24
Kelly Deutsch
Let's say folks who don't necessarily have like kind of the capital, a addictions of like alcohol drugs, whatever. But, you know, the the casual viewer who's like, maybe there's something in this for me I can be kind of controlling sometimes.
01;04;12;03 - 01;04;42;24
Karl Thienes
Right? Well, I mean, I probably would point them probably to Richard Gore's book, Breathing Underwater, partly because it's short and it's easily digestible. And it's not overly academic by any stretch. It's very tightly focused on the steps and on on how they actually practically work. So that would be one for sure that I probably recommend. Leslie Jamison also wrote a memoir that I found particularly profound.
01;04;44;00 - 01;05;10;01
Karl Thienes
And that's more, you know, if you like memoirs that's definitely one that's really good. That goes through her story of addiction, essentially. You know, really honestly, even dabbling a little bit in the big book. You know, the book that Alcoholics Anonymous, there's almost something in it for everyone a little bit and so that's worth looking at. There's a book by an Eastern Orthodox priest called Steps of Transformation, which is quite good.
01;05;10;01 - 01;05;23;02
Karl Thienes
And that's a little bit more you know, focused and focused on kind of the biblical tie and the kind of Christian tie-In to the 12 steps. So those are just some I mean, there really are an amazing number of resources, honestly.
01;05;23;09 - 01;05;32;22
Kelly Deutsch
Mm hmm. And can someone who doesn't have, you know, an addiction to a particular substance go to any kind of 12 step groups or how does that work?
01;05;33;19 - 01;05;51;14
Karl Thienes
Every group is a little different. Some are open, and they'll even say this if you look them up, that means they literally are open to the public. And anybody can come Some are closed, which means that you they only want people there who are kind of actively trying to be in recovery from an actual addiction. Some are men's only, some are women's only.
01;05;51;15 - 01;06;17;04
Karl Thienes
So some of them there are some groups that are structured in certain ways. But quite frankly, even the closed meetings are fairly. Nobody's policing any of that. Nobody's asking right and quite. And for the most part, anybody who's there is seen as a fellow traveler. And again, because the focus is so much on listening it's not like a meeting where you be asked to do something or that you would, you know, and you can even get a meeting where it's everyone shares.
01;06;17;04 - 01;06;33;00
Karl Thienes
You can just ask it's not seen as a negative thing at all. And so I've actually brought friends of mine with me to meetings or invited family and who are just curious, right? They may not have an addiction or an actual substance issue, but they're just curious. So, yeah, it's a fairly welcoming environment for the most part. Hmm.
01;06;35;16 - 01;06;45;22
Kelly Deutsch
If you had to leave one piece of wisdom advice or even like one of your favorite slogans from 12 Steps, what would you like to leave with our minds?
01;06;46;01 - 01;07;12;20
Karl Thienes
You know, it's funny. I hate slogans and I don't like cliches, and I've learned to love them in AA and partly I feel like it for me personally. It's a way of it's a way of me of getting away from the addiction to words and ideas and abstract concepts. Which in many ways for me were another addiction, like another, you know, there I am drinking on my way to teach classes about abstract ideas that I wasn't putting into practice.
01;07;12;20 - 01;07;32;19
Karl Thienes
Right. And so it has helped kind of like shatter that and has brought it back down. And so I've really fallen in love with the slogans because they they really are ways for me to remember the basics, which I feel like is important when you're in a program like this, to not get lost in the details and in something bigger and bigger than yourself.
01;07;32;23 - 01;07;48;18
Karl Thienes
And so for me, I would probably say one day at a time is probably my favorite because, you know, like you said before, I mean, life is hard. There's a lot of suffering and a lot of us maybe haven't even faced the bulk of our suffering that we're here to suffer on this like, you know, in this life.
01;07;49;25 - 01;08;09;28
Karl Thienes
And so we need courage and we need and the only way to do that is to remind ourselves that we are not here to solve tomorrow's problems or the problems from ten years from now. We're here to be present to today. And, you know, that is not only a bulwark against despair, but it's also an invitation to the joy of the present moment that, you know, that I'm asleep, too, most of the time.
01;08;10;09 - 01;08;25;23
Karl Thienes
The fact that I'm sitting here talking to you Kelly, that I you know, whatever the case might be, right? If I just sat here for 5 minutes and looked around this room and if I really was present to it, I'd be so glad that I have today. Right. There's nothing about this that isn't filled with joy if I'm willing to see it.
01;08;26;12 - 01;08;45;15
Karl Thienes
And so that admonition to take one day at a time is so multipurpose or multipurpose that, like, I said, like the slogan almost in some ways contains the whole program if you're willing to stick with it. And so they're like little. They're like keys in the door. They help kind of, again, like connect you to the whole thing without having to reread a whole book or go to 20 meetings or whatever.
01;08;45;15 - 01;08;50;22
Karl Thienes
So they give you a like a foothold basically into the reality of the life that we're supposed to be living.
01;08;51;03 - 01;09;10;29
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, I like that. Well, thank you. I, I enjoyed our own progress and not perfection that we had today for sure. And being present. So thank you so much for sharing your story and just your experiences of weaving that together with, with spirituality and our own path and growth.
01;09;11;20 - 01;09;13;11
Karl Thienes
Thanks for having me as a moment. My pleasure.
01;09;13;14 - 01;09;16;21
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, absolutely. And thank you everyone for listening in and joining us.