After a short break The ARC is back. This week's episode is a little different. Paul interviews Nella, who does not give us the usual life story, but keeps the focus tight on Recovery. Nella discusses her first eight years clean. In this time, she built a life, got the partner, great job, went to meetings, gained social acceptability with no sponsor or step work. From the outside looking in, things were looking good. Nella relapses, keeps coming back. A beautiful little angel comes into her life motivating her to get clean. This time around, Nella is doing things differently. Getting herself a sponsor, currently working and living the changes the steps have brought her.

Nella gives us an important story, discussing clean time as opposed to Recovery.

Links for support over the net

https://virtual-na.org   - Virtual NA Meetings Online & by Phone "Bringing Narcotics Anonymous Meetings to Remote or Isolated Addicts from around the world who may, for whatever reason, be unable to attend local face to face meetings."

https://www.navic.net.au/meetings - Virtual NA meetings in Melbourne Australia

If you have any tips to share in regards to Recovery and lockdown, or just generally regarding making lockdown easier, please get on The ARC - Addiction Recovery Cast Facebook page and send us a message. 

Bruce tells us about growing up in Western Sydney in the 50s and 60s. At 17 he moves to Bondi Beach, where the party starts. Bruce talks of his joining the Royal Australian Navy, singing in the Punk Band World War 4 and producing hits like ‘Violence is Golden’. He tells is about being a young gay man in Australia, and how this was a jailable offence in the 1970s. This notion becomes more horrific, with the possible length of time in jail which Bruce reveals and the emergence of HIV in the early 1980s. He talks of the circumstances in which he receives his HIV results, which is truly incredible.

The guys discuss a reading from the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text, Chapter 4 - How It Works, Step One, pages 20-21. Bruce talks about meditation and his lifelong deepening spirituality, the responsibility of Recovery and issues that are common amongst gay men in who enter Recovery. A fascinating interview with a most beautiful man, for whom Paul has the utmost respect.

And as usual listeners, please like, share, subscribe, review and give us feedback.

Links for support over the net

https://virtual-na.org   - Virtual NA Meetings Online & by Phone "Bringing Narcotics Anonymous Meetings to Remote or Isolated Addicts from around the world who may, for whatever reason, be unable to attend local face to face meetings."

https://www.navic.net.au/meetings - Virtual NA meetings in Melbourne Australia

If you have any tips to share in regards to Recovery and lockdown, or just generally regarding making lockdown easier, please get on The ARC - Addiction Recovery Cast Facebook page and send us a message. 

Paul only had about 90 minutes' sleep last night. So, as his mate Dave P used to say about Paul's shares, "I don't know if he's being spiritual, or talking absolute shit."

I guess that applies to this episode. Paul reflects upon a using dream he had a few nights ago. He discusses his experience with using dreams, their frequency, the way they impact him, and looks at some research regarding peeps in Recovery and using dreams. He angrily rambles a bit about spiritual shops, the ones that have the word 'magic' in the shop name, but spell it majik or magik. Then his defects come out when he discusses the shit they sell. Paul rattles on a bit more, discussing Jungian dream theory, how this assists him with his 11th Step, then finally acknowledges that 'using dreams' are a pretty normal thing for addicts in Recovery.

Links for support over the net

https://virtual-na.org   - Virtual NA Meetings Online & by Phone "Bringing Narcotics Anonymous Meetings to Remote or Isolated Addicts from around the world who may, for whatever reason, be unable to attend local face to face meetings."

https://www.navic.net.au/meetings - Virtual NA meetings in Melbourne Australia

If you have any tips to share in regards to Recovery and lockdown, or just generally regarding making lockdown easier, please get on The ARC - Addiction Recovery Cast Facebook page and send us a message. 

And as usual listeners, please like, share, subscribe, review and give us feedback.

In this episode of The ARC- The Addiction Recovery Cast, Paul speaks to Kate.
 
Paul had the expectation of having a gentle conversation early in this episode about how Kate has managed through lockdown. All very ho-hum on his part...

The ARC is about the complexities, triumphs and sorrows that come with people, the show takes a huge turn from Paul's expectations, when Kate discusses the recent passing of her Oma (Grandmother) and how Covid 19 lockdown laws and interstate travel restrictions prevented Kate from attending her grandmother’s funeral. Kate also discusses a time in her early teens where, as Paul can only describe, as a betrayal from her friendship group.

Kate talks about how she has processed and responded to these issues in Recovery with a grace, clarity and compassion that comes with someone who is living the steps, and refers to her reading from Mark Manson's bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.
 
Links to support over the net

https://virtual-na.org   - Virtual NA Meetings Online & by Phone "Bringing Narcotics Anonymous Meetings to Remote or Isolated Addicts from around the world who may, for whatever reason, be unable to attend local face to face meetings."

https://www.navic.net.au/meetings - Virtual NA meetings in Melbourne Australia

If you have any tips to share in regards to Recovery and lockdown, or just generally regarding making lockdown easier, please get on The ARC - Addiction Recovery Cast Facebook page and send us a message. 

And as usual listeners, please like, share, subscribe, review and give us feedback.

Well, so much for the daily lockdown show. Paul has not been recording daily and lockdown is over here in Melbourne (for now). It has been five days since the last recording. Paul has been passing his lack of recording The ARC with, "Well, I’ve been busy," which is true, but what had been informing him in regards to his decision making in regards to his actions? In that Recovery way, it was a newcomer and an active addict that opened Paul's eyes to what was actually going on with him in the last week.

In this episode, Paul refers to the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text, literature from Recovery Dharma, reflects upon his extremist behaviour and how that fits with the teachings of Buddha (it doesn't) and, of course, he always considers the teachings of Marcus Aurelius.

More information regarding Recovery Dharma can be found here: https://recoverydharma.org/

Links to support over the net

https://virtual-na.org   - Virtual NA Meetings Online & by Phone "Bringing Narcotics Anonymous Meetings to Remote or Isolated Addicts from around the world who may, for whatever reason, be unable to attend local face to face meetings."

https://www.navic.net.au/meetings - Virtual NA meetings in Melbourne Australia

If you have any tips to share in regards to Recovery and lockdown, or just generally regarding making lockdown easier, please get on The ARC - Addiction Recovery Cast Facebook page and send us a message. 

And as usual listeners, please like, share, subscribe, review and give us feedback.

Paul was procrastinating this morning, feeling sorry for himself as he had a heap of admin for work that needed to be done by last Friday that he had to do today. This situation was made even more galling by the fact that if he had done this admin on the day that it needed to be done, it would have been a 20-minute job per day over 7 or 8 days.

But no...

Again he makes something simple into a freaking task. Did he get into it and smash it out this morning? No. He sits in his good chair (by the bay window), stares into space and lets his head give his self esteem a good old kicking ...

"I'm useless. I can't get anything done. I'm totally useless, unemployable and unlikeable."

Total lies. Paul has said before, "No one talks as badly to me as I do." This is where procrastination takes Paul, to a self-loathing, self-pitying place, which I am sure a lot of you know can be a dangerous place for someone in addiction Recovery.

So, Paul takes action, starting small, recognising the benefits of taking action ... just starting. From the sludge of inaction, something stirs ... Paul shares a quote from French artist Henri Matisse, about taking action. He then pulls scripture from the Bible and marries it up with the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius and Chinese Philosopher, writer and founder of Taoism, Lao Tzu, allowing Paul to break the bonds of self.

The Tao Te Ching is seen as one of the great philosophical works. The name translates to "the way of integrity". A PDF version of the book can be found here: https://www.unl.edu/prodmgr/NRT/Tao%20Te%20Ching%20-%20trans.%20by%20J.H..%20McDonald.pdf

Links to support over the net

https://virtual-na.org   - Virtual NA Meetings Online & by Phone "Bringing Narcotics Anonymous Meetings to Remote or Isolated Addicts from around the world who may, for whatever reason, be unable to attend local face to face meetings."

https://www.navic.net.au/meetings - Virtual NA meetings in Melbourne Australia

If you have any tips to share in regards to Recovery and lockdown, or just generally regarding making lockdown easier, please get on The ARC - Addiction Recovery Cast Facebook page and send us a message. 

And as usual listeners, please like, share, subscribe, review and give us feedback.

Paul starts this episode with lame and self-congratulatory excuses for not dropping this 'daily' podcast on a daily basis. He then bangs on about someone living in his area putting anonymous passive aggressive notes on the windshields of the cars in his street. Needless to say, this has filled Paul with obsessive, self-centred, violent thoughts about someone whose identity he does not even know, creating a whole mythos where the anonymous note writer is in front of him in tears profusely apologising, having received Paul's justice, Paul being right and everyone around him showering him with roses and adulation. 

It ain't going to happen. 

Hence this podcast is about acceptance, the present moment, how wanting to control and not accepting our powerlessness only leads to pain. Step 1 stuff, the stuff that Paul's sponsors have been banging on about to him for years (if you want to listen to an interview with Paul's sponsor, check the interview episode with Jack). Paul waffles about this through the writings and teachings of the Stoic Philosophers, whose concepts and ideas about acceptance, powerlessness and control were being tossed around and written about two thousand years ago. Good stuff for Paul, who needs all the help he can get. 

PDFs of the reading Paul discusses in the podcast: 

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2680/2680-h/2680-h.htm

"Discard your misperceptions. Stop being jerked like a puppet. Limit yourself to the present."

The Enchiridion (The Handbook or The Manual) by Epictetus: https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/files/Enchiridion.pdf

"Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions."

Links to support over the net

https://virtual-na.org   - Virtual NA Meetings Online & by Phone "Bringing Narcotics Anonymous Meetings to Remote or Isolated Addicts from around the world who may, for whatever reason, be unable to attend local face to face meetings."

https://www.navic.net.au/meetings - Virtual NA meetings in Melbourne Australia

If you have any tips to share in regards to Recovery and lockdown, or just generally regarding making lockdown easier, please get on The ARC - Addiction Recovery Cast Facebook page and send us a message. 

And as usual listeners, please like, share, subscribe, review and give us feedback.

Prior to the recording of this episode, Paul has again had another late night, and it is starting to show. So, let's hear from someone healthier than him and listen to a recording made a few weeks ago where Steph talks to Paul about reaching her 18 months, what she had to do get there and and how it feels.
 
https://virtual-na.org   - Virtual NA Meetings Online & by Phone "Bringing Narcotics Anonymous Meetings to Remote or Isolated Addicts from around the world who may, for whatever reason, be unable to attend local face to face meetings."

https://www.navic.net.au/meetings - Virtual NA meetings in Melbourne Australia

If you have any tips to share in regards to Recovery and lockdown, or just generally regarding making lockdown easier, please get on The ARC - Addiction Recovery Cast Facebook page and send us a message. 

And as usual listeners, please like, share, subscribe, review and give us feedback.