 That's right. We're talking about the God thing. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and welcome back to another video where we focus on a specific subject and kind of unpack it and dive deep and try to explain it a little bit better to help you out with your mental health. And again, I will be talking about 12 step programs. Please, please, please do me a favor because today I'm talking about the God thing and 12 step programs and I'm going to give some very, very valuable suggestions on how to work around this and make the program work for you. So please share this with somebody you know who's struggling with this or isn't going to a free 12 step program just because of this specific aspect of it. Okay? Okay. All right. So one of the reasons I've done so many videos this week on the spirituality aspects is because this is the number one reason why people don't go to 12 step programs or people are against 12 step programs. And I was telling my group this today at my rehab center is like there are so many people who have so many opinions on things like 12 step programs yet they have zero education about it. All right? Like let me read to you a quote real quick. Page 47 from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. When therefore we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God. Now let's talk real quick. If there were a religion, how many religions do you know of where you go into their church, right? And they say, hey, by the way, when we mean God, we mean whatever you think God might be. No, they impress upon you a specific type of God. 12 step programs do not do that. At least the ones that are working this program properly. So something I've mentioned quite a bit before is this was my number one reason for not wanting to embrace these programs. I struggled with being an atheist, being an agnostic. This is something that I couldn't overcome. So the first little hack I want to teach you is something that my sponsor taught me. So when we were getting to about step three or so, I was telling him like, dude, I don't think I can do this. I don't think I can believe in a higher power. I don't think I could do this whole God thing. He's like, Chris, how long is the longest you've ever stayed sober? Okay? He asked me this when I was about six months sober. And I told him, I was like, you know, I was able to stay sober for about three months and I would relapse three months and I relapse. And he say this to me, he'd say, Chris, you've been sober longer than you've ever been in your entire life. What's been keeping you sober? And I'm sitting there because I'm very analytical and scientific. And I'm like, well, you're helping to keep me sober. The meetings are helping to keep me sober. My support group is helping to keep me sober. And he's like, why don't you just believe in that? And I'm like, what? What do you what? I could make sense. Like, this is something that I couldn't grasp. I couldn't touch it. I couldn't see it. I couldn't smell it. I couldn't taste it. I could nothing I could do was to hold on to this thing. But I knew that something was keeping me sober. So what was it? What was this higher power that was keeping me sober? Was it my sponsor? Was it the meetings? Was it my support group? Was it all these things? Yeah, it was all of those things. So whatever it was that was keeping me sober, I just had to believe in that. I just had to have a little bit of faith that maybe if I kept working with a sponsor, maybe if I kept going to meetings, maybe if I kept using my support group to help me, maybe that thing could keep me sober. That was a higher power. This is a higher power. You see what I'm saying? Like so many people struggle with this thing, but we over complicate things. It doesn't have to be some guy in the sky in the clouds with a big white beard. It doesn't have to be that. It can be whatever is keeping you clean. All right? Here's the thing that just makes me chuckle. It makes me laugh about people who struggle with the spirituality aspect of this. Like here's hack number two that I'm going to teach you. How many times do we use these words in our vocabulary? Luck, coincidence, karma. These are things. These are words that we throw around all willy nilly. These are things that just happen that we can't explain, right? Why don't you believe in those things? I've been really on this kick lately where I've been telling my clients who I'm working with, who I'm trying to encourage to go to 12 set programs. If you make your higher power karma, you are going to be in great shape. Think about that for just one second. If you simply believe that doing good things will allow good things to happen to you and doing bad things will make bad things happen to you, great, perfect. If that's as spiritual as you get, do it. Just believe in karma and karma is practical. Karma is logical. Think about it for a second. If I went around lying, cheating, stealing, screwing people over, bad things are going to help happen to me. People aren't going to trust me. People aren't going to offer me jobs. People won't offer me a place to say, right? But if I believe that doing right by others is going to help me in life, then I can do that. So if you have to make karma, your higher power, I remember listening to this podcast and here's hack number three. I was listening to this podcast and this guy was, uh, he wasn't even in a 12 step program. He was just talking about spirituality in general. And he says this, he's like, people struggle with spirituality, but how many times have you been trying to lose weight and you stand on a scale and you just think to yourself, please let me have lost some weight. And he says, who are you talking to? And I just started laughing. I'm like, yeah, who are you talking to? How many times have you been running late for work, right? Or late to an appointment? And you're just like, please let me hit a green light. Please let me hit green lights. Right? How many times have you done that? Who are you talking to? How many times have you been walking into a nerve wrecking situation, maybe like meeting with a boss, maybe meeting your boyfriend or girlfriend's parents or something like, please let this turn out. Okay. How many times have you walked to an event to say, please let this work out. Who are you talking to? Use that. Quit over complicating things. All right. Spirituality is whatever works for you. And the thing I love about 12 step programs is nobody is trying to force their specific God onto me. My sponsor didn't do this. People in the rooms didn't do this. Like you may run into more religious leading people in 12 step meetings, but those are people who are not working this program properly. You do not need to take up any sort of religion to develop spirituality. And here's the thing. People don't like this because we're telling you that you're thinking is screwed up. And I don't know why people get so offended by that, especially drug addicts and alcoholics. Think about it for just one second until the moment that you decided to get clean the months and years before that you have not made one good decision. So is it really that bad telling you that you need to adopt a new way of life and get a new way of thinking because what you're doing doesn't work? Is that really that bad? I hear people say, oh, a brain washes you. Like if people who are drug addicts and alcoholics don't need their brains washed, who the heck does? Okay. So I really hope this helps. Like the spirituality aspect of this is something that you don't need to over complicate. Last thing I'll say, I had somebody reach out to me and they're in the program and they were talking about how like, but they say a prayer. They say a prayer. They say a prayer at the end of it. Who cares, right? Like I mentioned this in another video, like just go just bow your head, do what you want to do. Say it. Don't say it. Do whatever you want. I know people who leave when they start doing the prayer. Do whatever you got to do. The program, these 12 step programs are moldable to fit whatever you want it to be for yourself. Basically, they are giving you a frame and then you get to paint the picture inside of it. All right. All right. But anyways, I would love to hear your feedback down below. If you have any questions, comments, anything like that, what your experience is, please leave a comment down below. Okay. But again, like I said, go ahead and share this video with someone you know who is struggling with addiction and they need some type of program to help them turn their life around. Share this video with them. All right. But anyways, that's all I got for you today. If you'd like this video, please give it a thumbs up. And if you are new here, I'm always making videos not only about addiction, but mental health. So make sure you click that little round subscribe button. And if you want to check out my entire addiction recovery playlist, boom, it's right there. All right. Thank you so, so much for watching. Quit being so stubborn. And I'll see you next time.