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

The podcast episode features Justin B. and guest Julie M. discussing her personal journey through betrayal and recovery due to her husband's sexual addiction. Julie shares her initial reluctance to seek help for herself, believing she wasn't the one with the problem. However, upon realizing her life was unmanageable, she turned to the SAL 12 Step program for support. Throughout their conversation, they touch on learning to let go of control, finding strength and hope in community, and the gradual process of learning to trust in others,  one's Higher Power, and oneself after betrayal.

Check out our new Ambassador program here.

Chapters

• 2:28 Julie's Journey: From Reluctance to Recovery
• 4:34 Exploring Step One with a Betrayed Partner
• 5:37 Julie's Personal Transformation and Insights
• 22:48 The Power of Trust and Hope in Recovery
• 36:02 Advice for Newcomers and Long-term Members

Transcript

Julie M - I Didn't Think it was My Problem - Step 1

Introduction to the Pathway to Recovery Podcast

Justin B: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Pathway to Recovery Podcast. I'm Justin B. I'm a son of an all powerful, all loving God and a recovering sex addict and I'm so grateful to be here. And it's a beautiful thing to be able to be entrusted to do these types of conversations with so many amazing people.

I get to meet people for the first time and today's going to be one of those times that I get to meet someone that I'm excited to get to know a little bit [00:01:00] more and hear her experience, strength, and hope as it relates to Step One. We've got Julie M on the line with me. 

The Mission of the Podcast and SA Lifeline

Justin B: Before we get to her and have her introduce herself, just a couple of items of a business. We, with the Pathway to Recovery podcast, and SA Llifeline are still really working towards getting a better, bigger presence in the podcast world. So if you are out there listening now, if you wouldn't mind hitting pause right now, and if you're listening to Apple podcasts, go in and rate and review this podcast.

We have a goal of getting a hundred ratings and reviews over the next month or so. So let's jump in there. Please help us out by doing that. This will help share this message with others who are struggling, who are struggling in sexual addiction or from the effects of sexual addiction in loved one's lives.

One more item of business is that SA Lifeline has just started the Ambassador Program in which we are searching for people who live all over the world, who have a passion for what SAL and SA Lifeline are really trying to do in the [00:02:00] world and are willing to go out and meet with therapists and faith leaders and community leaders in their areas.

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

So jump in there getting this work done with us. It's a great work to be involved in. 

Julie's Journey: From Reluctance to Recovery

Justin B: All right, now I've got Julie here sitting with me virtually in a Zoom room and I'm grateful to be sitting down with her. Julie, why don't you introduce yourself and share just a little bit about what brought you into the rooms of S.A.L. 

Julie M: Okay. Hi, I'm Julie and I came to this program because of my husband's sexual addiction. I was very reluctant to work on myself because I didn't think it was my problem. So, I think for a long time I pushed, “Hey, [00:03:00] you should go get some help and you really need to change this and this and this,” And we were at a point of moving and it was kind of at that moment where I was at a crossroads and I said, “Okay, this would be a great opportunity for me to leave my marriage, or I need to do something differently.” 

And I went to my higher power and really felt like I should stay and stick it out for a bit longer and kind of see. And so, I made a commitment, I guess, with my higher power that I was going to try everything that was suggested by my therapist. And one of the things that was suggested was to try 12 Step and I was just so inspired by how amazing everybody was, how capable, how hopeful, [00:04:00] happy, even though at first that bothered me because I was like, “How could they be happy when all this is happening?”

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

Exploring Step One with a Betrayed Partner

Justin B: Well thank you for sharing that. I love that powerful story and experience and we'll get into that a little bit more as we go into this because I think those are some really powerful points, insights into what we will be discussing today, which is step one. And as you know, I talked with Brian F this last month about Step Zero, which was a new concept to me.

And then over the next year, basically in these conversations that I'll be having with recovering [00:05:00] addicts, with the spouses, those betrayed, I'll be going through each of the 12 steps of recovery. And today we're starting on Step One and I'm excited to do that.

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

Julie's Personal Transformation and Insights

Julie M: I think that at first it's natural to feel a little bit offended at some of the concepts and 12 steps. And I think that because of the wonderful spirit of hope and experience that other women brought to the table, it was enough to make me want to come back. [00:06:00] And slowly I kind of had to work through my own pride and get to a place of humility where I can say, “Okay, this addiction is not my fault.” It's not because, like I said, it's not because I'm deficient or bad in any way. But what can I be accountable for? I can be accountable for not liking the way I've reacted to a lot of things.

I can be accountable for some bad habits that I formed. Maybe I didn't have the words for it. A lot of it was formed from a place of trauma. But if I can learn better, then I can do better. So it became more of “I don't want to feel like this for me.” And as a mom, I think there's also a layer of “I need to get better so my kids at least have one solid parent and I don't want them to repeat patterns.” I want them to be healthy and hopefully I [00:07:00] can share those tools with them as well. 

Justin B: Yeah, thank you. So, as you shared that Julie, one of the things that came to my mind was, “Yes, it's not my fault that my loved one, my husband in this case, is a sex addict. And it's not because I'm deficient in any way, shape, or form.”

And then you said, “But I can own my reaction to different things in life.” You talked about with your children, you talked about with your husband, as you are learning this and striving to reflect on that and grow, as you talked about the hope and the growth that you see in others and that you're experiencing yourself. How are you approaching things differently so that you try to react differently in trauma or in triggering situations? 

Julie M: Yeah, so at first, I think I needed to change some of the vocabulary that was a little bit triggering for me, like the last question for Step One says, “What would [00:08:00] it mean for me to be sober?”

And so, in our group, we talked about how we can make that sound a little bit more approachable from the betrayed side. So we say, “What would it mean for me to be in serenity? Or to be emotionally regulated?” I think those feel better. And then when it says, there's another question that's kind of like wanting you to call it a relapse when you come out of serenity.

And that's a hard word for me to use as well. So, I think just to make it approachable for me in the beginning, I had to just change some of that vocabulary that felt kind of offensive and triggering. And then once I started working on it, it didn't feel the same. Like you can say, “How are you doing on your sobriety?” And I can answer that without being like, “Well, it's not my sobriety,” you know? 

Justin B: Oh, that's such an interesting point of view. I [00:09:00] appreciate that insight. Yeah. I can see how it could be offensive or triggering when somebody first asks you, “Hey, how's your sobriety come along? What does relapse look like to you?” those types of things, how that could initially just push you away. 

And I'm grateful that you're sharing that difference there. So I want to ask you one of those questions that you mentioned. What does it mean for you to be in serenity or to be emotionally regulated? What does that look like to you in your life, Julie?

Julie M: That is such a good question. I've recently started sponsoring and I really like to encourage the sponsee to take a lot of time focusing on what that looks like. And it's going to look a little bit different for everybody. One of the major ones for me, and that I think is pretty common for women in betrayal, is I notice that I start to isolate. 

And it could be simple at first, like avoiding a phone call from a family [00:10:00] member or not being social in your neighborhood or in your congregation. And then it just starts to be like, you don't want to go anywhere or do anything another way. I guess I'm answering in the opposite.

So isolation lets me know I'm not in serenity. Another one that is really big for me is to stay crazy busy. Like I will just be so productive and get so many things done and from the outside world I think that a lot of women in betrayal look like these crazy, highly resourced, not crazy in a bad way, but like extremely resourceful and capable women. Which we are, but in some ways that's coming from a trauma response.

I used to clean my house incessantly. And I remember when people would come over, I mean, part of it was fear that people would come over and see if my house was a mess, [00:11:00] then they would see that my life was a mess. So I just would keep it so clean and then when people would come over and they would just be normal or be like, “Oh, my house isn't this good,” there would be kind of a mixture.

On the one hand, I would feel, “Oh, good job.” Like I did it, I covered it. And then another part of me would feel just so dishonest because the reality was I was really messy. Just my house wasn't messy. So whenever I start to feel dysregulated, those are the two things that I do immediately. I try to reach out and then I try to do self care and self care for me may look different from self care for somebody else.

I'm friends with a girl who also is a very super [00:12:00] cleaner. And I had her come to my house the other day, and I knew my house wasn't clean, because that's something I've been working on surrendering. And I had this moment where I was like, “I can easily not invite her in, and I can just feel comfortable with that. Or I can invite her in and then my goal was, don't apologize for the state of my house.” And I did that and I was in my head the whole time but afterwards when I was able to process that, I was really proud. 

So I think in a lot of ways it's just small goals that push your comfort zone just a little bit. We encourage the women in our group to take the phone list and just start reaching out because women don't want to bother other people with their problems. You don't want to burden them with time or, there is also a lot of insecurity like, “Am I worth this time?”

Typically with betrayal, you're used [00:13:00] to managing other people's emotions and kind of walking on eggshells, and so it feels so difficult to reach out. Those are the two main ones. So, reaching out and then taking time for myself. And also, I would just say, with practice, you start to see other things that come up with you.

So my definition for serenity and being in recovery or being sober, it's a lot longer than it was when I first started because I'm starting to know myself more and see my patterns more. 

Justin B: I love those guideposts that you put down, the isolation, the connection with others, those types of things. In your share just now, there were a couple of concepts that jumped out at me and principles that I see as recovery principles.

Let's start with the first one though. Oftentimes Step One is called the honesty step, the [00:14:00] step where I need to get honest with myself and with others just saying, “Hey I'm a mess. My life is unmanageable. I'm powerless in lots of areas.” And, at least a lot of people I know and myself included, are all about making sure my image looks right on the outside, even if I'm a mess on the inside. And you talked about going through this process right now of trying to surrender that external image, trying to be perfect in all those areas.

Has that been hard? Has that been painful? What do you hope that looks like as you continue down this path? 

Julie M: Yeah, it's a really good question. So my therapist talks a lot about this idea of the pendulum swinging, where you go sometimes from one extreme to the other extreme, but the goal is eventually to land in the middle.

So I think that it's natural and normal that you're going to kind of do that. Because at first, I kind of felt really [00:15:00] insecure about that and had shame, for example, with cleaning my house. So I said to myself, “Okay, you're not going to clean all the time.” And then I just said, “I guess I'm not going to clean when our house is messy or cluttered or whatever.”

And then I was like, “Wait, that feels yucky. How do I do this in a more bounded way? And so I think it's okay if you have to feel the extreme to learn the lesson. And sometimes you don't know you don't like it unless you experience the other side of it. 

Justin B: What I'm going to go to here is something you just said. “I need to experience the extreme to appreciate the middle or to get to know the middle.”

And that has to do with being honest and being willing to not control my image as much in the public eye. But that line you shared about the pendulum, I think that's really powerful. So often [00:16:00] I want to break that pendulum so it swings completely in this direction where everything looks perfect and just tie it there. But there's going to be some sort of restriction at control, and that's the other thing. Talk to me about control and how you are trying to go about giving up control over others, control over everything in your life in that instance. 

Julie M: Ooh, that is a loaded question. You know, the humility of Step One is while you're reading some of the things you have to be able to say, “Oh, I did that. Oh, that's talking about me. Okay. Cool.” And there are attributes that I considered as strengths that I had to really wrestle to say that they weren't really helpful, such as, I just want to read an excerpt on page one of Step One.

It says, “We relied on our intellect, our theologies, our past experiences, [00:17:00] and on new schemes and strategies we developed. We felt sure that each new strategy would work, and even when it didn't, we just bounced back. Act with even more self sufficiency and determination to succeed the next time. We perceived ourselves to be more competent than the sexaholic and felt sure that being strong was the answer.”

So for me, there has been a really long and hard journey of admitting that even though I saw myself as being somebody who had a lot of faith in a higher power, by me constantly trying to fix and do things myself, I wasn't allowing God's help in my life. And I, it was almost like I would say, “Oh yeah, I see you God, and I totally want your help, but let me try a few more things and then, if those don't work, then I'll come back,”and “Let me finish my list of ideas and [00:18:00] then I'll come to you for help.

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

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

So that's kind of one of my questions. I say, “What am I obsessing over or what am I wanting to control?” And then if I'm being really honest, which [00:19:00] hopefully I am, I can say, “Okay, well, how much of that is in your control?” And usually the answer is like “Very little to none.” Then you work on trying to make that into a surrender.

So I find that it's just part of a process, like one of the reasons I isolate with people is indicative that I'm also isolating from God. And when you're close to God and you have your higher power at your center, you're going to feel more secure and safe. And you're naturally going to want to interact with other people. 

Justin B: Thank you for sharing that. And I'm going to share something from my experience with my wife when I first disclosed my struggles with sexual addiction a long time ago. Very quickly, she sought some counsel, some help, and then she came back and, this is a phrase that I remember from her, she said, “I wish I could just put you in my pocket and keep you there, keep you safe there and control everything [00:20:00] around you so nothing bad ever happens.” Do you identify with that?

Julie M: Oh yeah. Big time. I guess it comes from a place of trying to process why somebody would betray their wife. Because it's really confusing as the betrayed person. You love them, you've made marital vows together. How could somebody do that to you? And so it just shatters your reality of everything. And so one of the natural thoughts is, “Well, surely he doesn't understand how this is impacting me. Surely he doesn't see the way to fix this. I'm just helping, I'm helping to get this information to him.”

So in the beginning I was like blasting his Instagram with all these reels about honesty or connection or whatever. I'm sending podcasts, [00:21:00] multiple podcasts a day and thinking, “Okay, great. We didn't know what was the problem before and now we do. So let's just fix it and then let's continue on changed and better and have the marriage that we thought that we had. Let's just stop being sick. Let's stop being sad.”

It's this oversimplification and I think part of that is a coping mechanism because so many things are out of our control and we want to feel like we have something tangible to do. And those tangible things give some relief to that fear but the truth of the matter is, all I did was flood my husband and make him feel like recovery was unapproachable or overwhelming and “Holy crap, I have to do all of this stuff. I really am the worst person in the world.” And it just felt way too overwhelming. 

So [00:22:00] when I can say, “Okay, I'm starting to want to overshare,” or whatever, then I have to make a boundary with myself. Like I say, and this is actually one of my boundaries, “I'm going to share one podcast this week, or I'm going to let myself do three reels today instead of 27.” I'd never did 27, but you get the idea. 

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

The Power of Trust and Hope in Recovery

Justin B: Where does that hope come from? 

Julie M: Honestly, my hope first came from the other women, to see people who had been working through the [00:23:00] program and their lives were turning around. And you know what was really crazy is seeing hope in somebody who divorced. Where I thought, “Oh no. Clearly you failed, that's not the outcome that I want.” But they had that same hope and still strength in themselves. 

I had to take it from other people first and then I started my journey of really being honest about what my relationship with my higher power was like, and what did I want it to look like, and how did I want to change it. Once I had that relationship with God, then I started to feel like, “Okay, I can trust these other people. I can trust my higher power.”

And I think that third step is learning to trust yourself, which is really hard. Because when somebody's been gaslighting you, whether with [00:24:00] a malicious intent or not, it gets you to a place where you have taught yourself not to listen to yourself, you've ignored feelings that you've had in your body.

And that's one of the reasons to stay busy, because you don't have to feel all of that. But it can look like you're at the grocery store, and you need shampoo, for example. And you're like, “That's just shampoo.” And you stand in the shampoo aisle, and you're like, “I don't know what shampoo to buy.” And you start reading the backs of these, and all of the claims that they have, and you're just like, “Oh, this one sounds good. Oh, this one sounds good. What do you do? Which one do I buy?” And then next thing you know, it's half an hour later and you're still standing there, unable to make a choice. 

So that third step of learning to trust yourself is slow and it's painful and it's so [00:25:00] scary. But one of the really good news of going through the 12 steps with a sponsor is that you do have an opportunity to explore your past and things that you thought you didn't do, weren't actually the reality. Like I got to a place where I can look back and say, “Oh my goodness. I did feel that. I did feel that something was off. I didn't know what, but I knew something was off. So my body is not broken. I actually can trust myself.”

And that starts to build a lot of hope in yourself too. “Okay, well if my body was telling me that then, it probably means that I can trust what I'm feeling now.” And so just little by little you start to build that trust. I think it's a combination of those three trusts, in the women in your group, in your higher power and finally in [00:26:00] yourself. And, I guess you have that hope too, of having trust in your spouse, but some women don't ever get to that phase. And so if you just can have that hope in your higher power and in yourself, you can still be okay and have a good life. 

Justin B: And that's powerful. I love the three:  trust others, the women in the group, trust higher power and trust self and that process of doing that. One of the first things you shared as we started this conversation was that when you went into the rooms of recovery in these SAL rooms, you were surprised at the general joy that was being experienced and shared by these women who were in very similar situations to you.

Some may, from the outside, appear like it was a higher bottom that their husband's hit, and some may have been a disastrously low bottom, but that you were seeing the joy in there. How do you now strive to be that person to newcomers or others in the rooms, that are coming [00:27:00] in?

Julie M: That's a good question. I mean, I think the greatest gift  I can give to them is what was given to me, which is a relationship of trust. And so that means that I need to be vulnerable. I need to share stuff. I need to reach out. I try to make it so that when I'm in a meeting, I do share from a place of experience, strength, and hope.

And, you know, I've seen women come in who have felt very threatened in general just by women. It's like the symbol of women feels scary because in many cases, husbands have acted out physically with those people or virtually with other people. And so whether or not it's logical, you look at these other women and you're like, “Well, you guys are women. How can I trust you? I don't feel like I can trust [00:28:00] any women. I can't be friends with anybody.”

And so that's kind of what I try to help to foster is a group where we really feel safe and trust each other. And it has been so rewarding for me to see women who come in scared and closed, as I once was, to talking and connecting outside of the meeting and just repairing that relationship with other women.

And sometimes that doesn't translate outside of the meeting and that's okay. I think that we provide the first place where you can feel like, “Okay, maybe I can have a friend, maybe I can share myself.” It's kind of like a workshop, we can practice the skills that we're learning in therapy.

I've had times where I probably would never have stood up for myself in a [00:29:00]  “real life” scenario, but I have reached out to somebody in my group and I've said, “Ah, I really did not handle this situation well,” or “I wish I didn't say this.” Or even to say, “I don't feel comfortable with how that conversation went the other day. I should have said something, but I was scared to,” and not having them get mad at you, but to say thank you, gives us an opportunity to practice all of those things, in a safe place. And then hopefully, as we develop those skills, we'll be brave enough to use them in other situations like with our families of origin or with our extended families. Those tend to be the most scary places to use those skills. But I just think of it as practice and try to do as much to exemplify the steps in my interactions with people and then hopefully they will get to that place themselves [00:30:00] and share it with others.

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

Julie M: Yeah, so a lot of feelings came up that I thought I had grown past. A lot of insecurity, a lot of like, “Who do I think I am? My life is so imperfect and my life is messy and I still struggle sometimes being in serenity,” you know, all of those reasons to not do it. And I was surprised because I was like, “Hey, I thought we were okay.” You seem like you're in a good place. And so I think initially it helps you to review some of those insecurities that you have. But it's just so humbling. It forces me to have a closer relationship with my higher [00:31:00] power because I literally don't know what to say and that has helped my relationship with my higher power.

It has also helped my own recovery because I want to make sure that I review things and I'm working recovery into my daily study time, because if I'm not doing that, then it doesn't feel like I can come from a genuine place of helping somebody else. I don't ever want to feel hypocritical in any way. So it's just motivated me to try to be the best that I can, knowing that the best that I can is still going to be imperfect.

But I don't know, sometimes where all my good advice comes because different people in groups say different things. But a girl in my group said, “You know, if you feel like your recovery kind of needs a boost, then sponsoring can give you that.” 

Justin B: Yeah, I love that. And there is a quote from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and it says, “When all [00:32:00] other measures failed, one alcoholic working with another saved the day.”

And I know that's a universal concept, at least for me as a sex addict, for me, for my wife as a betrayed. To work with another fellow saves the day. When everything else fails that will save the day.

What a beautiful share. Thank you so much. So I'm going to read Step One one more time and then I'm going to ask you if there's anything else that we haven't covered, maybe your higher powers putting in your head. “Hey, I want to share this about this topic of step one.” It's, “We admitted we were powerless over sexual addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.”

So Julie, is there anything in relation to that, that you feel like, “Hey, I still want to get out here and discuss this.”

Julie M: I want to give a plug for answering the questions at the end of the steps. They have required a lot of self reflection for me. And the second question says, “What have been the consequences [00:33:00] in my life of my attempts to control or deny sexaholism?” And it has been really helpful for me to have the witness from myself of the reality of my situation.

So to be able to sit down, and maybe you can't be honest with other people right now, but if you can start by just being honest to yourself, “What have been the consequences?” And however you want to do that, if you want to divide it into different aspects of your life, like, “How have I done that emotionally, physically, sexually, spiritually, financially?” whatever.

Or if you just want to recognize some of the ways that you kind of continue to go back to  stress, or, I call it the mom volcano. As the mom, you take so much, so much, so much, and then all of a sudden you explode. And you turn into witch mother, and you're like, [00:34:00]”Holy crap, where did this all come from?” And then you feel intense shame and regret about it. Those are some patterns that you can start to go through. So, yeah, I guess I want to give a plug for the questions that are part of the step work. It's really been helpful for me. 

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

Julie M: Yeah, so that's in the small blue book. At the end of each step, there are some questions there. And when I ordered my materials, it was in a cool time where they had a notebook available on the website that had the questions written out like in a notebook form. But I just encourage people to get like a recovery notebook and answer those questions there.

And then as you go, you know, the 12 steps are always in a circle. So as soon as you finish, you start over again. And it has been amazing for me to do the questions every time I go through, and it's [00:35:00] just a cool way to kind of gauge your own growth. Because we often can't see our growth in ourselves, that were tangible.

If you're going to get rid of control, which we have to do in so many ways, then I try to look for tangible things in healthy ways. Because there still is that need to feel something or see something or do something. And this fulfills that in a way that is really healthy. 

Justin B: Yeah, thank you. So, that book is available on the SAL 12 step website under the “Women's Recovery Bundle.” There's a men's recovery bundle, there's a women's recovery bundle. And if you out there are like, That book sounds like something I need to get,” go ahead and look that up on the SAL 12 step website and get those because they are fantastic resources. My wife also refers to that little book, the blue book that SANON has that we use in SAL quite often. [00:36:00] So I'm grateful for those resources. 

Advice for Newcomers and Long-term Members

Justin B: So before we wrap things up here, Julie, I've got a couple of questions that we ask at the end of each of these episodes. First is what bit of advice do you have to the person who is new to the rooms or debating, “Should I come into the rooms of recovery?” What is your advice to them? 

And then the second question is, what is your experience, strength, and hope to somebody who's been around in the rooms for a long time, and what would you have to say to them?

Julie M: I think it's real. Who gave the advice of “attend at least six meetings and before you decide that it's not for you.” And I love that wisdom because the first meeting, you're kind of like, “What the heck just happened?” And it might take a few more for you to really see that people are being genuine because I think the first meeting I was kind of like, “Are these people crazy? Why are they happy?” Or, “Is this real?”

So give yourself some time. [00:37:00] And I guess the experience that I've had in my life is when I go back to that experience that I had with my higher power, where I was like, “What I'm doing isn't working, so I'm willing to try whatever else I need to.” And the tagline of recovery is that it works when you work it. So I guess I would just encourage you to try to work it. 

And I just texted this to our group today, and it's on page three in the small blue book. And it says, “We accept the help of the group and the help of a higher power.” So I guess that would be my invitation to accept help in your recovery. 

And for somebody who's been here a while, I think it would be different. I would say your experience matters and people need it. So if you fill the [00:38:00] requirements for being a sponsor and you feel like your higher power is calling you, to do that. I have had so much personal growth, helping other people way more than I would have if I just kept on my own.

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

Julie M: You're welcome. Thanks for having me. 

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