Pesach and the 12 Steps | Rabbis launch RECOVERY Haggadah

um oh but it's it's your platinum someone to welcome everybody and then we'll get going hi this is Rabbi Shay style broadcasting live from the soul word studios in Five Towns Long Island and I welcome all of you as well as our very special co-host not a guest but a co-host bye-bye a dear friend and a partner in a real labor of love passion project as they call it called for cups Aguada take it away all right um so thank you for having me um we're going to toggle between all the different names um and uh thanks for all those who are here both uh on the zoom and on YouTube and are part of this book launch I think this is the first uh book launch ceremony I've ever been a part of in my life quite possibly my last um Unless somehow you and I uh find some passion project to get into again so um I think the way this was marketed was is you know how did this come to be and um this book launch so I'll give a little bit of a background to some of the events that led to where we are today and that is if you told me that I would know anything or have anything to do with anything in the world of recovery um Jewish recovery or otherwise um a couple years ago I would have just looked at you with a blank face not because it's unimportant just because I just knew little to nothing about it you know I had read the book God of our understanding so I knew about it there was no good book to me everybody's read God of our understanding and anyone who hasn't really shouldn't because thank you because and no but and this is not even a plug for that book there's a plug for a different book but the reason is because God of understanding has such a wide range that is so so relevant and so pertinent even to those who are not in the classic clinical sense in recovery because on some level we all are in recovery and there's a lot of incredible spirituality um in the world of recovery that I've gotten to learn a lot more about in the last little bit but by no means what I say I'm an expert so there's a lot of lingo a lot of legal in the world of recovery so here's going to be my first lingo drop for the night and feel free to correct me because by no means an expert so in the by the way not to cut you off but when you say lingo I just I don't want to I don't want to break your Flow by the way so we like my flow we never uh what should we call it uh we never did a live thing well actually I shouldn't say we never did a live thing before we did you and I you were a guest for about five minutes on my soul words uh fundraising campaign yeah but I was that was a side note three things going on then so I'm gonna learn your style right now I don't know if it's good to cut you off or not but you say lingo I want to play some very interesting regarding lingo there's an English expression for insiders lingo and it's called ishibolith shibolith or shibboleth I'm not sure how to pronounce it actually probably shibboleth s-h-i-b-o-l-e-t-h it's actually a Biblical word the word boilers right it's from it's from Nach right that there was a civil war between the tribes of Israel and so they had different pronunciations different things apart so how would you know if you look so Jewish right how do you know if he's so they would tell them pronounce the word sheboylist and if they pronounced it like with their tribal accent then you would be able to know which tribe they were from so the in English the word is shibboleth or Shabbat I'm not again I'm not sure how to pronounce it but the word is shibboleth but this is what I want to tell you Dr Bob the co-founder of AA said there are no shibboleth is I'm not sure how to pronounce the plural I can't pronounce the singular let alone the plural but he said there are no shaboliths in a a in other words it wants there to be a barrier that if you don't know the lingo you know you can't be part of recovery so at any rate Dr Bob didn't want there to be lingo at least not in a way that makes anyone feel that they're not a part of so okay no you didn't ruin my flow though you know I because I know myself I I do drop notes just to remember my book because I forget um but we'll get to Dr Bob nastak by the way as rabbis another side point I think that we do this all the time and we have to really remind ourselves not to use Jewish inside language that makes people who maybe don't have such a robust Jewish Education feel like Outsiders so at any rate so what we'll try we'll Endeavor to spell out all the inside lingo both recovery and Jewish and and otherwise all right and on that note the first lingo drop on the night the lingo drop will be um my qualifier that's more of an hour oh that's really you sound like a real experienced recovery guy no only a teeny bit only but that's an Al-Anon that's almost how they open everyone begins their little thing so my son is my qualifier which means um for those who are not familiar you know why do I have even any right to say anything about anything and the answer is that my direct connection to the world of recovery is I have a son who is in recovery recovered I know that itself is a whole debate but we'll leave that for a larger conversation on the topic because once we once we go there we're not coming back and we are on an agenda tonight um so you know by the way if nechemy knows how to do anything it's how to keep me to a schedule um well you you can get to that part of a later time because I can't which is the only way this book exists but I can't get myself that schedule but apparently I'm good at doing it for others you know how to manage yeah that's right all right you do belong in Al-Anon all right so um you know Hashem a couple years ago I knew nothing of this I had read a little bit um and then um a little over a year ago um what had been going on for a long time prior which was uh my oldest son um who is Canada doing a lot better today um if the situation reached an epic proportion he was involved in drugs and alcohol and um the situation became unmanageable to the point that he reached out for help and uh Hashem that set a a journey in motion um for him and I'm being very conscious to not talk too much about him and his specific Journey um he's pretty open about his story so if you'd like to follow him he's his his hand on Instagram is Chester pickle um so uh he's got that little Shuster humor as well um but but he's he's the he's the reason this is all happening um but the point is is back up let's say a little over a year ago a little more than a year ago um life as my family knew it kind of turned upside down as my son went through this um incredibly strong challenge everyone knows that recovery is is a disease that affects the whole family or addiction affects the whole family um there's the attic there's the parents the siblings and all their friends and it doesn't just stay in one spot and uh you know Life As We Knew had then changed and it's interesting because you know have a little bit of perspective a little bit of rear view mirror to look at him we're all much much better people for it like it's really changed us all for the for the good but but you know there are challenges that go along with it and um at the time that all this came about let's go let's rewind back in time till let's say uh roughly last year pesach time my son was who had been in the hospital and he had gone to a recovery program which was a disaster and I know that you've spoken about that in some of your other workshops that I participated in um and then he finally was at another Recovery Center which was significantly better and um and it was now paced off time and he was finishing that Recovery Center um during pace of time and from there um the plan was for him to go to a sober living home and it was paid second because of covid we were able our house was not able to host um so we were able to go to a brother of mine in Atlanta for pesach and during that time there was so much going on and there was so much uncertainty so much unknown going on in our life um while thankfully my son was on his own Journey um in the right direction heading to good places and and uh and we were figuring things out as we went along um but he was unhappy and miserable we were unhappy and and miserable and um we had a lot of questions and very few answers now in the time leading up to that from the beginning of the crisis until that point um you know my wife and I uh my wife and I had both you know worked on something to get ourselves uh um educated um on on the on the ideas of recovery you know I had read the big book Alcoholics Anonymous um which again you know just like God of our understanding should be mandatory reading that should be mandatory reading for everybody whether or not you are directly um affected by by um any addiction of any sort um and we joined Al-Anon meetings and we read the 12 and 12 12 steps and 12 traditions and so I had like a loose knowledge of the information because again you have to be careful I'm a rabbi but there's there is something biblical about the big book of AA it's not a book of Bible it's not canonized it's not Jewish um you know I know you have a whole backstory to that you know from uh Carl Young getting his information from I think it was the Magid right yeah so so there's definitely some Jewish um influence over there but there's like the Torah in this way I'll make I think it's safe to say that there's layers and layers and layers the big book also has incredible layers and you can't just read it it's not a novel you need to study it and then study it again and again and again um and you can interrupt my flow if you want to if you want to chime in with something over there you're doing great I see the look on your face um and so the point is is that as so pay stuff was here pay stuff is uh for those who are familiar with those who are are uh um religious and observant you know you're not supposed to be doing too much work and I was out of town that had a lot of extra time to do a lot of studying and I was studying different talks of the revi from my mom some of the more mystical discourses um and then correlated pardon me oh yeah all Pace up related stuff and the one thing that just kept on popping into my mind is that everything I am studying is is stuff I've been been dealing with web in in I I saw flavorings of that in the AAA in the book or in the 12 7 Central Traditions just in general the whole idea of of Exodus from a place of of Egypt which was total you know despair to Redemption you know just the themes kept on popping up more and more and more and I said to myself you know there's got to be like a hagada that you that the hagada has instead of having the commentary of whoever you know there must be thousands and thousands of different kinds of my brothers out there but there must be that has that it's a recovery again so I Googled it and I saw that there were a couple of you know PDF copies available on online you know grainy copies of things not particular um rabbi turski did have but maybe you could help us understand the distinction between his and and that that you and I have put together um but but let me just finish that flow and then then maybe you can address that um and so I jotted a few notes for myself and I said you know what um you know maybe I'll do it maybe I'll be the guy who will help put that together this was before I reached out to you um and you know another influence uh another piece that was very influential in the whole conversation was I'd been at a Burma Burma in Atlanta just a few weeks before bed stuff for my nephew and he quoted that line in his bar Metro speech it's funny people don't think that Ken was listening to the bar mitzvah speech I was listening so he my my nephew quoted uh I think it's from Jonathan sacks um you know the answer to why is what um and I'm sure his speech was written by his father but you know I was sitting in in a huge bowl of why like why is this happening what why me why my family what's going on why am I what why what's going on and and had so many y's in my head and there was no answer and and turns out there really still is no answer um unless the answer maybe is what and that what is what am I going to do about it and I said you know maybe helping to put this together would be the what to the why is this happening why am I suddenly touched by addiction recovery a world that I knew virtually nothing about and so that led me to you so I was at my brothers and I said you know I said to my brother I said this we have to make this this has to happen so he says I think your first step is to call radishes tab he is the uh the foremost expert on Jewish recovery in in the certainly in the Orthodox World um I I I'd Venture more than that but but I object to that description I really have to adjust but I I don't yeah I'm very uncomfortable with that I don't think it's true but uh okay Elio your brother said to call me that's that's fine your job is to be humble and then my job is to call call bosses Rags as they see him okay in that event regardless so I called you and um um you responded very enthusiastically you were very excited you said oh I I want to do this yes yes yes I wanna I I I've been wanting to do a recovery I got it for years he said he told me in fact and and you were proven true because GoDaddy doesn't lie you said I even bought a domain because I know the title of the book that I haven't yet put together so uh and and the name of the book is is the four cups the name of this I got that that's that's okay and that's gonna be my first time doing this right here that's the name of for four cups before you are capsu cups.org and I just put it oh I put it in the private chat let me put it in the public chat um um the four cups.org is by the way and I'll add it to the uh YouTube chat as well um the forecast that's where you can buy a copy um see some sneak peek pages of the inside um buy in bulk and you save you know I feel like the infomercial already but the point is is that you told me that you're very excited about it you want to be involved in it but like every Rabbi you said I don't have time there's no way I can do this if this is a gargantral project it's gonna take a ton of time and I just don't have the time to do this and me being me said I said okay well that's that shouldn't stop us just because another time you know so he doesn't have to find a way to make it happen so I said to you how about you know we spoke some technical stuff I said what about if you just send me a lot of whatsapps like bombardment with hundreds and hundreds of whatsapps I said if I can get that transcribed um and then we can get that you know edited and printed and laid out and all that other good stuff um we can make this happen and this by the way this may be your first I don't know if there's any other book on the planet that ultimately came into reality literally via WhatsApp um so and and in fact that's what we did we made a little WhatsApp chat you know I think it's called hagada um Chase or something like that I don't remember exactly um the name of our chat and that's that's what happened so we started and and and that I said let's spread out over six months you're like if you want it ready for next PESA we need to be done in a month and so really that when you contacted me it was the day after peso two days it was it was either is it was right after peso and and I said if we want it ready for next pays up we got to do it now right so you clearly had a lot more experience because you know I I've now learned about Supply chains and China so so the truth is all right so this this might be a good time for me to take a a step aside for a second and and throw out some thank yous because not all the thank yous made it into the book um so the first edition there'll be a second edition please God as we'll talk in a moment um so the transcriber so let's so this is how the process went in the end I was able to inject a few of my little suggestions the ones that I jotted those notes in the beginning but ultimately you collected all the information and you verbally transcribed them to me or send them overject a little bit about the background before that okay glad okay because before you even got the the whatsapps there was a whole process of putting together the the information because I cannot claim authorship of of this book um what I tried to do is put it into one cohesive voice so that it should sound consistent but really all these ideas are ideas that were shared with me by various Jews in recovery from various different fellowships at various different times maybe some of it's my own Insight but this this is really a uh a we project this is really this was written by committee and yeah I admit that I'm the one who put it together so it should it should flow and it should sound like one one voice but the the ideas are from Jews in recovery from from all over and and and I want to add I know you're mentioning about second editions but I I can't hold back and I want to say that there were definitely with hashem's help be a second edition because the whole point here is we want more submissions uh I was able to put together only that which I either already had heard or I was able quickly to put together from various contacts in in recovery but we we invite uh more submissions so that we can have in the future God willing a second edition with more and more experience strength and Hope from from more people in recovery and let me tell people that same link for cups.org where you can buy the book you can also make submissions over there you can email them or there's like a there's actually a little web form on that web page you can make submissions there and they'll be held in a secure bunker until uh Rabbi style has the has a chance to look at them review them and and and if they pass A muster to be a part of part of the next Edition um so yes let me ask you was your intention that when I say your intention was your vision of what the finished product would look like um was your idea that it should mirror like the big book of of AAA where there's no formal author of the book I mean that's obviously my inspiration that's where I got it from the idea everyone knows obviously that Bill W was the one who was the final uh editor as far as the the voice of of the big book but it was written by committee and it's not his his personal wisdom and he never claimed it to be and I thought that was a pretty good way of putting together a book that might help some people yeah no it listen it's it's exciting and it's creative um and uh you know it just adds to the flavor of of what the finished product looks like in in having that kind of by committee um style to it um you know I want to say some thank yous to some of the people who didn't think properly in the book I'll do it briefly I see that the sponsor uh the name sponsor of the book Harry and David when you say sponsor in a recovery but let me let me uh sponsor sponsors I have to come up with a different word for it the the named um benefactor benefactor thank you the name benefactor whose name is on the front of the book um the Maldo Family Edition Harry and David Maldives are actually on the zoom I see their names um who who really made this um possible from a financial perspective and there's a nice dedication from them in the beginning of the Agatha um they're on the line so obviously I thank you to them but um important thing is our my sister-in-law Denise Justin who took those WhatsApp notes that you sent to me and typed them up um and in no particular Shalom Lane um people uh um he's he's a a quiet gem in the world of uh of of writing incredible incredible um editor um either an enormous amount of work yakova Weber who was a proofreader I think she found like thousands of tiny little mistakes you know tell everybody how how much Serenity I uh I think to pray for when we're finding thousands of typos well the good news is that I think it's control h you know where you can replace a lot of them were like you know uh inverted uh a posture but but I'll tell you this is um for people who don't know rabbit tau is a stickler for details he really wants things to be perfect and and uh uh inverted colon you know could be a reason for a bad day so you got to really it's a compliment but but it but it also you know lets you know the level of of perfection that was at least that that would that we we that you were striving for Perfection if I'm your progress not perfect I know I know there you go you're doing legal drops left and right over here um progress not Perfection and don't worry there will certainly be a number of mistakes to keep everyone humble in this process um we're hoping for the for someone to find a real good typo juicy one exactly and and what would be a recovery I got it without a juicy typo and and you know an extra a free copy because I want to get like a really big big boo-boo um I'm Eric Raskin who was like the uh religious researcher sourcing you know sources in Tanakh and and teachings of different uh Mystics and whatnot um and I want to just mention about Rabbi raskin's work something I'm very proud of the fact that we have footnotes because although the insights here are like folk wisdom from the rooms but the Jewish sources are are cited and these are classic traditional rabbinic sources so it is is a beautiful mix of being very contemporary and and from the people you know from the wisdom of the rooms but at the same time it's it's really rooted in in authentic tradition yes um and and yeah and now some of you insisted on and and then actually uh I think it's an incredible bonus to the book um and finally Moishy much again the spotlight team who we beat up on pretty hard but there's no way this would have been able to have happened and come up in such a beautiful way that it did without their uh participation and um real real big efforts and to make it work they did an incredible job um and uh putting endless endless hours and getting it done um but what I did learn now is you know those things you hear in the news about Supply chains those things are real the books should have been on on U.S Shores months ago um the good news is is you know and also apparently from China to New York you can go through the Suez Canal you can go and there's a lot of directions and ways you can go but it's cool you can follow the ship the ship is scheduled to arrive in three days so get those orders in um the 11th yeah that's three days um so they push back two days but that's after many other delays it's Merc you can order your books and uh and that's that so that's that's a little bit of some of the background how all this happened um what I will say is um at Schuster pickle the the qualifier is doing better I'm sure he's going to see this at some point um he's doing a lot better he's doing his work um and uh and you certainly can follow him and see how that Journey has gone along but that's not the focus of today's conversation that's just a little bit how we got into all of this so someone asked a question and we kind of touched on that before so maybe let's just um um address the elephant in the room um that was one of your jokes from your your joke sessions the other night something about the elephant okay and as the point is is that um um so how does this hagada I'm not going to say different from all of it because but how does it different different from that I got it different from all others I know right there's too much of that going too easy too corny knows no no that's appropriate it's it's it's the flavor um but how is this different specifically from Dr toersky Who I know is uh um he he we can certainly say is you know posthumously but but the leader in Jewish recovery um and the goal was for the book to have already been on store shelves by his first yard site but it'll immersive for the first place after his jersey how does this differ from the that he put out first of all from bondage to Freedom which is Rabbi Dr torskill of ashalem's uh is is enormous it's fantastic without from bondage to Freedom this wouldn't exist and I would say without the body of rabbit's work none of any none of the things I've done in recovery would exist he was the one who who blazed the path and did it fearlessly and did it when it was a lot less popular and a lot less accepted than it is now so I I won't say that what I'll say is like this he opened up the whole path and he made it all possible and we're just humbly continuing in his in his uh path that's how I'll say it but uh definitely from bondage to Freedom is a is a classic okay um and I I I will you know I'll I'll I'll know my place and I'll I won't say anymore I'll say that is an incredible as you said no one can challenge anything that Dr tursky wrote said because he's truly um one of the greats um this book is you know bigger more colors and pictures but but there is something unique in the style just to lay out the setup you know the pull quotes from the beginning this is more today because it is from today and that it's it's more uh at least aesthetically like you mentioned Spotlight design it's it's gorgeous so like just from an aesthetic point of view yes it's very 2022 and uh it's like it's an it's just nice to look at it's nice to hold it's nice to likes to smell yeah like all the senses are engaged and if you open up the you you wrestle the pages you can hear it it's nice to listen to and you can touch it yeah all the five senses are engaged all right you're holding up the book maybe hold it to the camera just for one second longer um I I think the question that pops out is the name of the hagdada is the four cups yeah it's a recovery I've got that yeah and presumably you know without doing a full in-depth dive into a lot uh well maybe we'll do a little bit of diving into some um recovery conversation if you if you're okay with that um you would think that title seems to be contradictory to the mission of the which is yeah you hold back from indulging in our addiction um well for most or for many of the addiction is alcohol and if not the start is certainly a part of the problem for many so what's with that title yeah what's what's up with that as they say um so first of all like you mentioned I I had the title for the sagada long before I actually started writing it um and what according to GoDaddy when did I buy the URL for cups.org hey I don't remember but it was it was certainly you know eight nine years prior it's like eight nine years ago yeah so I wanted to call four cups for for eight or nine years I'm just gonna read from the uh introduction a few paragraphs right here um this this is a few paragraphs from the introduction to talk about the meaning of the title the title of this hagada was chosen oh this is on page eight if you want to pull it up on the piano yeah it's on page eight yeah okay introduction go so go to the next page of the introduction yeah and right there the title that's it the title of this hagoda was chosen in order to convey a subtle but powerful message the role of the four cups in the Seder is well known for those who cannot safely consume wine because of its alcoholic content the question arises as to how one should view this tradition of course on a very simple and practical level we know that it is perfectly acceptable according to Jewish law to substitute grape juice for wine at the Seder on a deeper level however we acknowledge that one who does not drink wine might wonder if it would be better to come be to be completely distanced from the entire notion of drinking four cups even if replaced with grape juice therefore we feel that there is an important message in making it clear that the four cops not only have a place at a recovery Seder but that they perhaps take on an even greater meaning in such a context the four cups are meant to be cups of blessing from which godliness Godly goodness flows although we may have replaced the physical contents of the cup with grape juice instead of wine we do not forego the spiritual contents of the cups and the blessings that they provide us to the contrary we are even more cognizant of their power for someone still struggling to escape the Egypt of active addiction the image of four cups is one that provokes dread however for one who celebrates the miracle of today's freedom from bondage the four cups have a very different meaning they are cups of spiritual Bounty of wisdom humility and gratitude we drink from these cups freely because their contents do not make false promises of Escape rather they fill us with ever increasing levels of God Consciousness and the awareness that the only reason we are no longer slaves to Pharaoh is that we are Servants of God I'm going to stop the share and before I say so say that again in your own words because those are your words um but what I'm hearing you say basically is that well I think you answered the question on two levels on one level you're saying those who are drinking grape juice instead of um something alcoholic because of their their their disease should not feel any less than the cups of bounty still right that's that's on a very simple level there's there's no less than here halachically there's no there's no question whatsoever yeah that that's on the most simple level but now on the deeper level that that I didn't want to marry I wanted you to say that right so on the deeper level the idea is that the four cups you know to someone who's still struggling in active addiction um uh that that can be terrifying before Cubs I mean you have to be at a Seder and everybody's drinking and they're gonna push it on me or even if they don't push it on me I'm gonna see it I'm gonna be exposed to it and and all this dread that's associated with it but what we have to realize is this the four cups is are are cups of blessing are cups of of of godliness and one who is in recovery doesn't miss out on what those cups offer from a spiritual uh perspective they don't have to forego it they don't have to um you know to say well you know it would have been nice to have the four cups but I can't I can't partake in it no you should know that your four cups of grape juice have all of the spiritual benefit and perhaps not to compare I won't compare one person to another person I won't say more than other people but I'll say certainly that the cups of recovery are infinitely more more full of blessing than than any of the false promises of the cups of active addiction so we should know that the four cups is not something we have to hide from we don't have to pretend it's not part of the Seder no I'll make a bold statement the real four cups are are the four cups of recovery whether there's grape juice or there's wine is not the point if you can't safely consume wine so there there's grape juice but that's not the point and by the way I should mention that there are plenty of people in recovery who are the the in different fellowships other than AAA or or or people who you know alcohol is not their issue they can safely consume the wine and so it to me it's not about the physical contents of the cup those who cannot safely consume um wine well we'll we'll drink grape juice but the point is the spiritual content of the cups that when you come to the Seder as someone who has a personal Redemption experience and you see these the these cups as an embodiment of you know a tangible uh a physical uh a symbol of of your personal Journey that can only be something to be celebrated so you know like so often people like oh four cups so I mean I'm in recovery no no recovery the four cups belongs to recovery I'm reclaiming the four cups you know would it be um incorrect to take that even a step further and say on some level what the average participant of a Seder is endeavoring to achieve via their seder and the four cups that go along with it the person who's in active recovery has already gotten there on some level they may be shooting for more or higher or deeper but on some level they've already attained a certain level of freedom from that addiction that was making their life a mess look we all have our personal Journey and you know it's interesting the the Jewish people when they left Egypt went on 42 uh jaunts in the wilderness from from captivity to to entering the promise of the 42 Johns so the balshamtov said that every one of us in our own personal life will go on 42 Journeys like every one of us in microcosm lives that story so you know I have a line in the in the introduction to a god of our understanding where I say you know they say there's an old uh an old expression the Jews are like everybody else only more so more so so I said maybe perhaps we could say you know that recovery is uh that that addiction is like an exaggeration of The Human Condition so the addicts are like everybody else only more so that's more so only more maybe just a little bit more exaggerated a little bit more acute so what I'm saying is I don't want to say that oats the recovery people who uniquely have an uh an exodus experience but what I am saying is definitely if you have somebody who has that experience the recovery experience of Exodus at your seder you're going to see that this thing isn't the ritual it's not a ceremony it's real it's the celebration of something that happened to me when God took me out of Egypt like we like we tell the uh the when the when the four Sons ask or the four children ask the question we the father says God took me out of Egypt reminds me of uh that story which I think is real and is a TR you know uh attributed to Rabbi Dr toersky about you know why does he send people to meetings why not send them to a Tanya class I'm sure right I'm gonna let you finish that because you'll do it right I mean if people asked him uh you know religious Jews who uh were in recovery why didn't he send them to a uh a Torah class that would you know learn Musser said this and he said look when when they'll study with the life or death earnestness of the people in the rooms then you know I'll send people there to get their lives saved but yeah so so so the right so so the the addict you know I know I know again we know it's controversial you know some addicts don't want to be called addicts forever they want to call recovered addicts but the when the person in recovery um takes those four cups of grape juice they are living their Exodus it's not a it's not a show it's not a it's not an event it's it's it's their experience okay let's let's talk a few a few moments about some just general recovery ideas before we um read a few of the selected texts that you uh chose um hopefully in advance um so the truth is it does feel a little bit um maybe just because social media is out there um maybe because the world feels in a certain pre-messianic level of safe safety that people can share and talk about things that were really taboo Once Upon a Time you know I was listening to some recovery Workshop today you know from a bunch of Jewish people and they were saying like back in the day if a Jew you know you know felt like they had alcoholism um or addiction they would say no no just to take some anti-anxiety pills and uh and and you know and get some more sleep um which just turned them from to a drinker and a drugger so they just added to the problem um but but it wasn't something that we could talk about um now we can't talk about it which is a blessing thank god um and we get to see the beauty and learn the lessons and that's going back to what you said before about God of understanding I think people need to read that book because even if you don't know much about recovery the El the the fundamental of what is addiction is that I'm numbing something that's hurting me um and whether that thing that's hurting me is a drama that I've been through or I just have a biochemical addiction or allergy to alcohol or drugs or whatever the particular substances the point is that I'm trying to fill that hole with something so I finally found a solution which is my drugs or my alcohol and the the real the real trick is to switch that unsafe um numbing to a healthy safe solving of the problem with the the steps etc etc but it does feel like it's happening more and you know it's always crossed socioeconomic you know borders it it hit everybody you know the rich people who you know Roland Hazard could afford to go to Carl Young in in London to be treated you know that must be like you know what what the really expensive you know recovery centers are today you know most people couldn't afford to get Royal treatment for for their issues um but but it does feel like it's it's it's it it feels like it's more do you believe do you believe that that's the case why why what can we do about it you know what's going on why is the why does the world have such a big hole in its heart right well you know yeah with this question is there more addiction today than ever before I don't know I don't know if I'm asking that I don't know if I'm asked that is a more addiction why does it seem like there's so much more hurt going on people are more pain yeah there's more pain that's yeah that's what it is yeah well look the Jewish people specifically let's just talk about the Jewish Community you know we have a luxury in this generation that we hadn't had throughout history most of Jewish history was about fleeing for our lives without any type of security protection under the law uh threat of starvation was very real uh violence uh so you know we have a sort of luxury today which is to start focusing on things that you know if somebody was an addict 150 years ago in the statel with their Cossacks coming through I mean he didn't really have the luxury of of dealing with that it was it was about life and death and so we have the opportunity now to start being honest about what hurts us and about the pain that we're in and actually starting to do something about it um but there's another side of this which which is that you know I don't know if there's more addiction today or more pain today or more trauma today than there ever was I don't know but I do know something there's a lot more healing there's a lot more recovery than ever before and you know let's just talk about recovery let's just talk about the spiritual model for addiction and Recovery you know that thing is is 80 years old you know like if if you were an alcoholic 100 years ago you just roam the streets like a raving lunatic until they locked you up or or you know until you die and there was really nothing that could be done so the whole idea that there's a choice is you know this is very new so I I think it's a combination of the two things that I'm talking about here one is we're not running for our lives so we do have the opportunity now to do some of the healing that previous generations haven't gotten to do and I definitely believe that when we do our healing not only do we heal ourselves but all our ancestry I think that's very powerful and then the other thing is there's just simply more healing available in the world today than ever and you know to me it's pretty obvious that that's a foretaste of of mashiach of the Messianic era of the the perfect peace and serenity that very soon God willing will be uh available for the entire world so those in recovery are are one segment of the population who's already tasting a little bit of the serenity of the uh the complete shabbos-like era which will be a complete era of Serenity which is like I said God willing gonna be for everyone every single human being on this planet will experience it and even the animals because like the prophets say that the wolf will lie down with the lamb so the whole world will be a place of Serenity but um even before that happens it's it's starting to become widely and increasingly more available this is one of the examples I think I think I think it's such a beautiful thing what you just did you like you tripped me up on my own words unintentionally and and in the best of ways um you know I I was focusing on why does it seem like there's a bigger problem these days you know and one of the things that my wife uh she's a positive psychology practitioner is the but what else is true and yes there might be a lot of hurt more or less we don't know but you know what else is true is that there's a lot of healing and a lot of goodness going on that wasn't previously available and that's just that's a just a general life lesson of there's there's always something positive to find in every scenario look for that lining because it's there um okay should we jump into the text or should we um talk about talk a little bit about um the the Carl jungian Margaret of message sourcing of AAA or do you want to not go there whatever you want I could do the short version give the fast version of that because I think I I don't know I think it's fascinating and and I I cannot hear it enough times I think because that'll give people appreciation of the hagada a lot of the the incredible wisdom of the god that is sourced in a a mom would say well why are you sourcing an AAA is a Christian model so let's let's debunk that first of all first of all I I cannot do justice to that to the argument that I was able to make in God of our understanding right you dedicated hundreds of pages to slowly systematically methodically explain myself so I would say like this if you have any concerns about uh 12-step recovering being compatible with with Jewish spirituality I cannot do it justice off the cuff but uh you know borrow somebody's copy of God of our understanding and it's it's explained there um okay but the short version since you want to know a little bit the history when I when I wrote God of our understanding one of the things I really wanted to do was to include a facsimile of the letter from Carl Jung to uh Bill W which to me is one of the most important documents in the history of AA and was actually difficult at the time to even find it to locate it and there was a whole search uh uh that I had to do with the with the young estate in in Switzerland and then I found out that actually because the letter was written in English there was a different uh place where those letters were kept which is in Princeton University actually interestingly enough and Princeton University's Library gave me permission to reprint the ladder but it's a it's a letter where basically stories like this in in before AAA existed before AAA was even a an idea there was a guy named Roland Hazard and he was a rich kid a spoiled kid from New England and his his parents shipped him off for the best treatment money could buy they sent them to Carl Jung the psychiatrist in uh in Zurich Switzerland so he goes to Young he's treated for a year he's he's discharged and he gets drunk before he's even on the boat back across the Atlantic so it comes back to Young and he's like what's wrong with me and Jung tells him well you know uh I have theories about you know people like you alcoholics of your type you know they really uh rarely recover but I have a theory that in certain cases there are seemingly spontaneous cases of recovery and what they seem to all have in common is a vital Spiritual Awakening that was the term that Jung use the vital Spiritual Awakening so if you'll have a a rather vital spiritual experience if you'll have a vital spiritual experience then uh maybe that'll save you but I can't do it I tried to induce it in you but I can't do it so best of luck so it goes back to New York he found a group of guys called the Oxford Group who uh we're practicing uh first what they call First Century Christianity and I I I said to a friend of mine of uh uh it was a Jesuit priest so I said to him jokingly I said you know the Oxford Group they went all the way back to first century Christianity they should have gone back one more century then they would get to Judaism but at any rate um so he he was hanging out with the Oxford Group in New York and he had his vital spiritual experience now in order to keep your vital spiritual experience you got to give it away so the Oxford Group was telling you got to go find other drunks so he found a guy named uh Abby or Edwin Thatcher and he was a drunk and he sort of carried the message to Abby and then Abby got a vital spiritual experience they said you got to carry it to your friend so he's like the biggest Boozer I know is is Bill Wilson who lives in Brooklyn on Clinton Street and he went to Bill's house and he told him about he found God and Bill said I don't like that idea you know God of your understanding and we didn't use those words but he said it's your own concept of God um at any rate so then Bill uh met Bob and then they met a number three and fast forward uh like uh three decades later and now AA has taken off and uh one day at AA World services headquarters in Manhattan somebody I don't know who it was was like Hey you know how originally originally originally our whole model comes from what Carl Jung told Roland and Roland told Abby and Abby told Bill and Bill told Bob and then the bill and Bob told the world did anyone ever tell young and they were like no we should we We I think we should tell so so Bill Wilson wrote a letter to Carl Jung and this is by the way you know there's a there's a section in the big book that tells the story of Roland and you could you could debate whether or not it's accurate I mean Bill Wilson is telling Roland's story you know uh third hand so you could debate whether it's accurate but the thing is Bill wrote to Carl Jung and told him here's the story here's how we represented the story in Carl Jung verified it said yeah that's exactly what happened and not only did Carl Jung say that's exactly what happened but he added some details and that's what this letter is uh the Carl Jung letter um so basically he writes back and he says listen it's 100 True what uh what you're saying oh beautiful so somebody someone posted that in the chat so there it is that's fantastic so he says yeah it's totally true what you said um but I'm going to add some information that the patient meaning Roland didn't didn't even know about he says I basically almost didn't tell him um I did I he said I was being misunderstood at that time all the time people were like misunderstanding the whole spirituality thing and so I was hesitant to even share that concept with him but so it's you know you have to stop and you have to Marvel at the practice which means the Divine Providence here because Carl Jung almost didn't tell Roland his theory about the vital spiritual experience like he'd been harassed by people by the way you know the big break between Jung and Freud young was the the talmud the disciple of Freud and they broke over whether or not spirituality is essential to to human well-being and you know I joke that you know young had the advantage of not being Jewish but Freud being Jewish couldn't afford he couldn't afford to admit that uh you know we need we need God in order to be to be happy and well adjusted at any rate so young almost didn't tell Roland his theory about spirituality but he did and then from there you know that's how we have recovery as we know it today but in this letter that Carl Jung writes to uh Bill Wilson he says I want to tell you something more he said the patience uh craving for alcohol was a lower level manifestation of man's thirst for Union with God it's I can't read it because I'm old and I can't read uh small letters but uh that's more or less those words he says that the patient's craving for alcohol was a lower level manifestation of man's thirst for it what's called in the medieval language uh the union with God in other words Carl Jung said you know what alcoholism is it's you want Oneness with God and your Mis treating it you're misrecognizing the the real underlying need and and that's why he says also the the that great turn of phrase in Latin he says which um is is sort of a pun in Latin because spiritus means Spirit like spirituality as we call it in our ashkenazic uh accented Hebrew and spirit also means like Spirits like wine and spirits you know like the the liquor store alcohol so the appropriate antidote to the uh misuse of spirits of the alcoholic variety is to give the patient the spirituality that's actually what he's craving so in other words Carl Jung's whole concept was that addiction is not the problem it's an attempt at a solution the problem is the craving for Union would gov God which is being unsatisfied and the the alcoholics trying his best to satisfy it through the numbing out through the Escape you know Union with God and and being drunk are very similar in some ways you know you you that you definitely forget about yourself you get away from yourself that's right you get away from yourself or I once heard a really great AAA speaker um Earl H he said it's anti-me medication right I take this and I go away right so but Carl Jung had the Brilliance to understand that that's really someone wanting Union with God at any rate and then he has that great line at the bottom in the footnote where he writes you're writes in the King James English as the heart h-a-r-t Panthers after the water Brooks that means a deer is panting thirstily by the water so penteth my soul after thee o God Psalms 42 1. but we say now Melody at any rate okay so all right I I think it's brilliant just because you know in a certain sense it puts it reframes and gives perspective that that the addict is more aware of the fact that they're lacking connection with God which is why they're searching right it doesn't mean that that you have to be an addict to search but most of us just live our lives and and we just go with whatever we don't think right that's right and and the attic is maybe overthinking but that overthinking when when you put a harness harness on it takes you to the destination and that's that's the most beautiful part of all this yeah all right we're starting to run over time over all right let's get to some uh some texts okay so I couldn't choose which one of my babies over here you know each one of these was a baby so what I decided to do actually go ahead is uh just to start at the beginning and do like the first maybe three um so they said beginning yeah start from the beginning meaning let's start from bidika's comets the search for comets on page 12 which actually happens the night before the Seder happens before Passover it has to happen before Passover because you're getting rid of the the comet so you have to get rid of the Comets before uh for Passover okay so uh so on the screen we have page 12. why don't you give us a quick tour of the page well this is not the actual data center yeah okay you know that's so you see here uh on the page you have the Hebrew up at the top here show them that it's bidika's comments if if you're if you know if you're into that kind of thing and then in English the search for comets it tells you exactly where you're up to at each stage of the say there you'll see it it very clearly marks what stage you're up to okay and then it gives instructions by the way this is a I should mention this is a traditional hagada with the actual instructions it's not only recovery insights it's a real I'm gonna look forward to some pages so people see that um yeah you have actual guide over here the monsters are covered they're uncovered um all the text is there so this can 100 be used at your savior yes that's the whole point and I should also mention there was a choice a difficult choice but to uh make it ashkenaz which seem to be the most popular um the request as far as which prayer right to make it in so it's not the Chabad version of the Goddess it's slightly different which is um at least it was more requested so that's what we did and maybe there'll be further printings but it's a real functioning hagada with the actual meaning the actual traditional text we did not touch we did not dare touch the text of of the actual hagada or and the instructions are the actual instructions um we only added we did not tamper at all with the traditional uh Agoda text okay so uh let's let's read this okay so revealing our defects of character that's uh what this little section is called revealing our defects of characters on the night before Passover we are obligated to search for the Comets in our homes traditionally the search for comets is performed with a feather a wooden spoon and a candle the following day on the morning before the festival commences we make a fire and burn the Comets we have found along with the feather the spoon and the candle it is easy to understand why we burned the feather that was used to sweep the Comets that was found as well as why we burned the spoon into which the Comets were swept but why do we burn the candle after all it did not come in contact with the Comets at all you understand you're going around the night before PESA you're hunting for the the Comets for the you know bread crumbs and everything in your house so you have this candle and you have a feather and a spoon you sweep use the feather to sweep the crumbs into the spoon so the next day you when you burn the the crumbs that you found you burn the you burn all the equipment that you use for the search now I understand why you see why you burn the spoon because the hummus was swept into the spoon and why you why you burn the feather because the feather was used to sweep the Comets you were trying to get rid of it we're eradicating it the Comets represents uh puffiness ego we don't want it so but but what's with the candle the candle didn't touch the crumbs so why are we burning the candle why is that the the Min hug the the custom one explanation is that the candle was needed to help us find the Comets but after it serves its purpose we must get rid of it as well because it was involved in shedding light upon that which is undesirable we used the light of the candle in order to reveal the comics which is the problem the the character defect so to speak there's a man who sponsors many alcoholics following the tradition that was handed down to him by his sponsor he has his sponsees burned their written fourth step inventories after he takes their fifth step he explained that the purpose of the inventory is to reveal the the quote exact nature of our wrongs after it serves its purpose we don't need to go back and look at it we need to move forward and allow God to replace our Character defects with the traits that he finds useful and by the way that's just something that somebody shared with me obviously we're not telling you that this is now the official thing to burn your fourth step this is what he did and and he found it meaningful and he related it to this idea that you use the candle to find the Comets so even though the candle didn't touch the Comets but it was used to help you find it to help you see it so so too the fourth step inventory what's it for it's for finding comets it's refining Character defects but once it did its job and it revealed those Character defects so that we can surrender those Character defects in the sixth step um at least according to that sponsor he said that's it and and and actually I I asked him about about that and he said look we always have daily inventory you know we don't stop with the inventory we continually have a 10-step inventory but the fourth step he said yeah that's that that was done that Unearthed all the garbage we went back through our lives nothing counted but but to be thorough and and then we're done it did its job it's like the candle that was used for this finding the comets you know we move it on I I know a person in recovery who had also their sponsors you know told them to burn it and and I know how hard they worked on their WhatsApp they spent weeks and weeks but maybe even months and and sometimes some spend years my wrists are killing me and I'm like so why are you pretty like like frame it you know like you know put it in the museum you know go but I guess that's the whole point is that we're done with it don't dwell on this and move on and if you have to review again then you'll go you'll come back and review the next time but the new inventory will be a brand new one yeah I guess we'll always make new mistakes not every page has uh recovery Insight on it oh you skip skip go back up especially in the beginning it's it's it's just the lead up to the yeah okay so here's the steps and then right underneath so show them the steps where it has the the steps of the hagada and uh just just since I've never done a book before and this might be the last time I ever do for people to appreciate how Nuance to have that little design on each one you know this is painstaking work that an artist has to sit and do and figure it out and um Spotlight gets a lot of credit for doing a wonderful job on that yeah they did a gorgeous job yeah yeah and if anyone sees behind me the whole time the Tanya map which is behind me which is a project I did 20 years ago that was the first project I did with Spotlight design that's when I fell in love with their work okay so let's look at the little recovery Insight beneath the uh the steps of the Seder good orderly Direction We Begin the Seder by enumerating the precise steps that we will be taking in our journey to Freedom right like you just showed us those steps okay we realized that in the past many of us have resisted being confined by lists or by giving or by being given orders to follow however in sobriety many of us have come to cherish the freedom that we gain through taking Direction indeed the word seder itself literally means order in Hebrew is it ironic that a night that celebrates freedom is observed by following an order we think not many of us have heard in the rooms that God g.o.d can be thought of as an acronym for good orderly Direction therefore we are very happy to know that the system has been laid out for us and that the 15 Steps of our Liberation are set up clearly in advance that was an Insight somebody shared with me you know somebody who told me that he used to get really restless at the Seder you get really restless he's like this long instruction book and you got to go through come on let's fast forward let's jump to the end and then after he came to recovery he was like he loved it he loved how it structures it and it seder means order literally good orderly Direction God yeah and it's the antidote to the chaos that led to it yeah that's right it's the opposite of the chaos of active addiction absolutely that's right and that's freedom that's Freedom you know it's a paradox Freedom doesn't mean uh want and abandon Freedom actually means there's a structure and it's safe and things are reliable obviously when we're relying on God and we're God conscious then we relax because we know reality is is a solid place to be it's a safe place to be and that's all part of that you know Direction and and Order right I mean not to mix our our conversations over but that something you speak a lot about on the parenting workshops is you know kids want structure they want they they don't want you to to to order them around but they want order in their life they don't want to be told you can go to bed whenever you want they want structure no one functions in chaos that's right that's right and I should say again then you did an incredible job of creating good orderly direction for this project and channeling some of my uh my frenetic energy into orderly vessels okay let's do the next one the very next one page 17. you see their Kadesh which is the kiddish and it has the instructions there to make kiddish in the actual words of the kiddish but on the bottom there let's look at humbly letting go okay Kadesh is the first step of our journey the first of the of the Seder steps this step is the recitation of the kiddish blessings kiddish literally means sanctification with these blessings we Proclaim this day the anniversary of our Liberation as a holy day in Jewish tradition a holy day is observed as a day of Shabbos like rest during which we refrain from mundane activities and labors of course this allows us more time to focus on spiritual affairs but there's another message to be found here as well meaning the fact that a holy day on in in Jewish tradition a holy day is a non-work day it's a rest day why is a holy day a rest day when we refrain from labor on a special day we remind ourselves that our ability to accomplish things is limited many of us have heard the expression don't just do something sit there sometimes we have to humbly accept the limitations of our actions and realize that there's a difference between being busy and being productive a festival is a day when the less busy we are the more productive we actually become it's just a simple idea about in general about a Jewish holiday not necessarily specific to uh pesach you could take that meditation every Friday night with you when you recite kiddish or listen to kiddish you can think about when the day of rest comes in it's like the most productive thing I can do right now is just let things be right but I think it's I think it's even deeper you know so many people have a real issue that they need to address and rather than actually talk about their problem or explore it go to therapy for you know address the problem it's let me just take on another project let me numb it not with the substance but with the net with that with an action let me let me take on a new activity let me take on new responsibility just so that I don't have to think yeah and that's not rest that's actually that's that's exhausting that's exhausting exactly the opposite of it and just spare people that need to buy it I don't mind to go through the hallway I was just thinking by the way we were talking before about the perfectionism because this little purple line that I see over here oh no is that in the hard copy no it's not I don't see it the hard copy where's that page uh what page is that 18 18 let's see no page 18 I don't see any uh okay so this is just on my screen okay that's better yeah all right let's do one more okay any specific one or just go in order no just go in order let's go in order because uh go to orderly Direction let's just go in order allow it okay and uh maybe we'll do a part two sometime another lingo drop there yeah weightless exactly 21 at the bottom okay um 21 at the bottom washing the washing their hands right the first washing of the hands we mentioned that we wash our hands twice okay um so page 21. under the washing of the hands we know only a little and people who are big book Thumpers will uh instantly recognize those words generally interrupt a second are each one of the the Bolder black words direct poll codes no no no some are some aren't yeah some of them are uh phrases from the big book others are commonly heard recovery slogans some of them are are neither just whatever fit whatever was the right title whatever seemed to be this the descriptive title okay okay generally on Shabbos and festivals kiddish is followed with washing our hands and then beginning our meal tonight however we wash our hands but we do not begin our meal this is specifically intended to provoke the Curiosity of the children so that they will ask why this night is different from all others yeah I'm sure you know if you would ask most people have been to a sailor tell me one thing that you remember from the Seder you know you remember the why is this night different from from all others that the children have to ask and very often it's the the we make a big to do about it the youngest child asking the Manish Tano and asking why is this night different okay one of the lessons we learned in sobriety is we realize we know only a little and you see there's a footnote there and that'll that'll indicate page 164 of of the big book and in the back of the the footnotes right I guess they're not footnotes they're endnotes yeah that itself was the whole conversation yeah yeah uh we we labored over that one okay so at any rate we're saying that uh we instead normally we wash our hands and then we we make the blessing on the bread and we eat the bread so why don't we do that on the night of of pesach we wash our hands but then we don't uh eat matzah so what's up with that so the answer is we do it to provoke the Curiosity of the children so that the children will ask why is this night different from all other nights all right so what's the recovery tie-in one of the lessons we learned in sobriety is we realize we know only a little it is okay for us not to understand things it is okay for us to be confused and it is okay for us to ask questions this is not only for the literal child present at our seder but also for the child in each of us like what what's what's the message here it's not just the children who are asking questions I know the whole say there's about getting the children to ask but it's the inner child who's asking and we have to be ready to ask ing is scary because when you ask for help when you ask for information you're admitting that you don't know you're admitting that you can't do it on your own and asking is a big deal you know it it can be very very uh vulnerable to ask but the night of our Liberation is all about asking and saying you know I don't know what's going on I'm scared I'm confused am I in the right place what are we doing here you know it's it's uh is that along the lines of in a bison obviously ethics says that somebody who's uh timid can't learn that's right so uh it takes courage what's the opposite of being timid it means being courage you're courageous takes courage to say I don't know what's going on here I didn't get life's missing instruction booklet it seems everybody else did I don't know how to live life I don't know what's happening I admit it and it's okay to say that yeah wouldn't it be great if life came with a manual let's see this only because all right folks there's so much more there it just I'm just I'm gonna scroll up it just gets better and better and better there's so much incredible wisdom you know those who are familiar with recovery there's such greatness in there and those are not familiar um you'll like God of understand you'll learn a lot and as I don't think zagata is exclusive for those who know recovery I think it'll be good for everybody um I'm gonna stop the readings for now how about that are you good no problem okay well you know the goal here um scroll back in the uh scroll back in the in the in the comments section if um people get your copied you know they're they're as soon as they arrive at the distributor they'll be sent to you Mr Shaman time for pesos um fourcups.org www.forcups.org in your chat over there um I'm gonna you have time for one more like kind of big well easy for you but but a bigger question a little it's on the the general con it you know it combined I know these questions totally annoy you but um but but but the regular people out there like me worked with me for uh six months on this project and he found out all the things that annoy me but but what I did learn is the things that annoy you are probably are some of the best stuff that are most fascinating to everybody else um maybe that's why they annoy you on some soul level they're touching something deep um your your screen is not pinned pin your screen so that people can look at something more than just me um oh I'm not spotlighted anymore not spotlighted yeah that's what I meant um okay so so you know this this next question that I have kind of maybe this will be the closing question unless you want to take some questions from the chat um you know this kind of puts a lot of the different conversations that you're having these days whether it's parenting workshops to to you know just uh education conversations recovery conversations a lot of different things that are you know there's a lot of uh common denominators and a lot of the threads of things that you're teaching these days and and I guess the question that struck me is that I think you know one of the big themes that you've gotten into these days is you know something that uh I think kind of it's evolved it went from unconditional acceptance to unconditional love and now it's unconditional Pride it's like like you know to recognize that you know this is a little bit of a parenting kind of question that that because they are a child of God how could I have anything other than absolute Pride for my child that's you know that's that's they're God's handiworks so how could I have anything other than absolutely forget about accepting accepting them flaws who isn't flawed and being being loving them because they're they're my child an extension of God but I'm proud of them that being said you know I've spent quite a bit of time in the Al-Anon rooms and and a big element of that is boundaries and uh creative I know that boundaries are not for the addict they're for the family for the person themselves to stay sane and the idea of having mountains so that I could keep my life my brain my home um you know orderly so that my life can stay manageable so how do I have unconditional Pride but have boundaries in place so that I don't go crazy and I don't want to make it personal about me just you know any person who has a that's you let's we're talking about the state let's say I have a child who's an act of addiction and I want to have a Seder in that looks somewhat orderly and this child is an active addiction I don't want them at my seder I don't it's horrible to even say this word because the whole state is about bringing everybody to this hater even the child who you know the rebel would always talk about bring someone who who doesn't even know about this they don't bring them to the Seder but let's say I I'm so concerned that you know it's easy to be unconditionally prideful when things are under control when the the person's in recovery but when they're still an active addiction and I want my sailor to be orderly so I'm creating a boundary that you don't get to make this house crazy how do I have unconditional pride and boundaries and how they work together well was that how is that for the longest question you ever got yeah and it's not the longest question I ever got you're uh sorry you don't win that that title you're asking uh about an apparent contradiction which is if I can phrase it in my own words um on one hand we learn in recovery and you mentioned the fellowship of Al-Anon um that we need to have boundaries and we don't want to be an enabler or a codependent and at the same time at least maybe uh nowadays we hear a lot about dealing with children in crisis and being totally open to them and totally loving and accepting which sounds like the opposite of the Al-Anon approach it sounds like the opposite of of boundaries so that's that's the apparent contradiction and I will admit to you that I grappled with that for a long time I'm a slow thinker I take a long time to process things and precisely because of my background in recovery I needed to really slowly process and figure out the whole uh acceptance thing like no maybe maybe we need to just tell people like you said you can't be here no there's no place for you here the other on the other hand you know like you said the Deb is mandate to us to bring in every Jew to the Seder and and should my child be any less than the stranger's child I mean you and I are both I mean we know what that means that the stranger's child is the most most honored guest at a Seder somebody who wanders in and says I didn't even know it was Passover until five minutes ago right we're thrilled to have them so as my own child any less any less welcome at a Seder but but you're right there's there's a lot to sort out there so here's uh now we're starting the next hour of of the zoom over here um I know your style you say a joke you say a story and suddenly poof there's an answer so just do your magic again okay let me back up a little bit and explain something that uh you know what I'm going to tell you something do you know what part of God of our understanding I would take out if I had to go to a second printing or it's actually gone to like 20 printings but a second edition I would take out the entire section about the bensera I made about the stubborn and rebellious son and I would take it out because it has hurt people people have told me that it hurt them and I am so glad it's there because I would take it out and it shouldn't be taken out it should be there and I'm glad it's there but if I came out with a second edition I wouldn't have the guts to keep it there in that chapter it speaks and I'm not going to reiterate the whole thing over there you're gonna have to borrow somebody's copy of God of our understanding but uh it talks about the insanity of the parents specifically of parents not just friends and family but specifically the insanity of the parents of the addict and how their Insanity actually exacerbates the whole drama and makes it the the chaos that it is and like I said a lot of people have told me that it it they they're deeply offended by it and and because of that I I don't have the I don't have a heart to offend people I would I would take it out but every time I've gone back to it to look at it I say to myself you know what what I wrote God of our understanding 10 years ago I maybe knew a hundred stories like that 10 years later I know a thousand stories like that so if it was true then to me it's only more truth to me now having seen it just play out over and over and over again so there's no question like you mentioned at the beginning to tell me about the family disease right it's not just that there's the qualifier and that's it you know and he's the sick one he's got to get better no we realize we all have to to heal and and and ideally we realize that we all need spirituality for that healing so let's talk a little bit about the insanity of codependence what is that insanity and also why is spirituality the antidote to that insanity so the disease of addiction is really easy well I shouldn't say really easy but it's easier than codependence to to describe we described it a half an hour ago we said you know with the young ladder that somebody's really looking for God and instead they numb themselves and seek Escape through uh through their drug of choice which may be a misnomer drug of choice but at any rate so that that's rather easy to describe but what's a codependent drug of choice the addict they're addicted to the addict so just like the alcoholic gets drunk in order to feel that he's in control which is a big misunderstanding because regular people drink to lose control alcoholics drink to gain control or a feeling of control a feeling that the world is safe and okay right regular people you have a few drinks and you feel buzzed and you let loose and you get uninhibited but uh you know those are amateurs the professionals you know why why the professionals drinking because it's the only time I feel this world is a safe predictable place so you know the the alcoholic is drinking in order to feel a false sense of safety and control the codependent is trying to control the addict or alcoholic because that's the way the codependent gains that momentary feeling of control and safety even if it's totally false even you know by by begging and pleading and making ultimatums and making you sign contracts and all the the the the the the scheming and the the bargaining the codependents engage in have been trying to be sweet and trying to be tough and trying to uh win the debate and and begging and all the different stuff that the the codependents will try but what's the real fixation what's the obsession the obsession is that if I can get this to work then then I'm safe I can relax things are okay things are not chaotic they're not spinning out of control and and what the codependent in recovery learns is that you know my security and safety doesn't come from the behaviors of my qualifier my Safety and Security comes from the fact that a loving God is orchestrating every moment of my life and every moment of my qualifier's life and that God is not making mistakes so that's why you know uh spirituality is the antidote to the insanity of codependence because the insanity of codependence is basically a false god of using the codependent behaviors as a way to fool myself into feeling like there's some control which I don't really have okay so we established that let's take it a little bit further a lot of the attempts to feel the situation is under control um are people-pleasing behaviors you see this very very commonly that codependents are people Pleasers and being a people pleaser is a survival uh tactic for for a codependent because I can't rest I can have no Serenity until everybody is doing what they need to be doing and maybe if I'll be sweet enough to them and I'll make them indebted enough to me and I'll please them enough finally they'll just stop being insane finally they'll just stop endangering their life maybe they'll finally just be normal so we learn to be people Pleasers as like a desperate attempt to just get people to behave already to get people to be normal and if I and that's why if you ask me to do something that violates my principles and my and my and my morals I'm gonna violate it if I'm a codependent in an active codependent addiction because I can't afford to say no if I say no then you're going to go off and do something crazy and then the world will explode and and um it's my fault and it's my fault right I caused it now the truth is I compromise my morals and have no self-respect or dignity and you owed it to me now in in turn in return for me compromising my basic dignity you're supposed to behave and I compromised my basic dignity and you went off and you misbehaved and the insanity of of the codependent is but I but I do it again and I think well maybe if I'll I'll compromise my my morals and my principles again maybe finally the the addict will will realize that they owe it to me to behave so really that people-pleasing is so poisonous because what is it it's a it's a a perverse attempt to control others and by the way that's why it's so hard to hit rock bottom in codependence or much more than an addiction because with addiction eventually it's very hard to justify what you're doing codependence you can you can justify it to The Bitter End because it's Noble it's like it's it's it would be immoral for me not to bend over backwards to save this person who is dying right in front of me I'm a hero I'm a hero that's right I'm a hero that's right and there's all that what do they call it the sunk cost fallacy that if I'm already down ten thousand dollars at the blackjack table I can't walk away until I sell my house right so the people-pleasing behavior is really one of the the favorite drinks of the codependent to get drunk on not for the sake of the people pleasing but what it gets me as a codependent my people pleasing gets me at least for a second that false promise of ah now he's gonna behave now things are going to be common normal because I just compromised my values and did what he wanted me to do or pretended what he wanted me to pretend yeah so you could see why for a codependent that's really really toxic foreign you know I have to learn how to say no I'm I'm not going to pretend that by compromising my values that somehow the people I love will be protected there's no such promise there's no contract design that says that okay let's go to the next step so when when I realized that the people pleasing behavior is really really perverse um one thing I might do is to say I gotta stop being a people pleaser from now on no more No More Mr Nice Guy No More Mr Nice Guy in fact I'm gonna be mean I'm gonna be tough tough as Nails rigid rigid and I've actually seen many people you know say things like you know I'm a recovering codependent and I'm allergic to people pleasing you know that's my that's my downfall that's my weakness so no I have to be rigid and unyielding and unflexible because I'm a people please this is my recovery my recovery is to no longer be a people pleaser and I think that's the great misunderstanding your recovery from being a codependent is not to no longer do nice things for people or be flexible or be accepting or be tolerant God forbid to say that a someone in recovery for codependence has to become unyielding and judgmental and rigid and and Stern and strict and the answer to everything is no and the answer to everything is no that's right I'll get back to you right maybe I'll say yes maybe talk to my sponsor Maybe but the reality is it's not the people pleasing or being nice or being flexible that was toxic it was using that as a drug in other words the codependent actually can never truly be kind because whenever I'm being kind to you there's a there's a purpose there's a there's an agenda there's always no carrier motive I have to be kind to you it's not real kindness It's not real kindness and I'll tell you something else it's not real giving it's taking because when I'm a codependent when I give to you I'm not giving to you it's not for fun and for free to use Chuck C's lingo from a new pair of glasses when I when I'm up when I'm in active codependency and and I'm and I'm a people-pleasing and I give to you you think that's for fun and for free that comes with an invoice and I'll bill you for it it's an invisible invoice that comes in the mail that says I was nice and sweet and kind to you and I let you walk all over me you owe me you owe me my sanity which is absolute idolatry because I'm trying to get something from you that I can only get from God I'm trying to get my sanity and serenity from you I can't get myself into Serenity even from sober people I can't get it from any people human beings cannot give me my sanity and serenity I need to get it from God so the codependent what what what's the real the the the real problem the real uh first drink so to speak that the codepen has to stay away from it is the misappropriation of human kindness as a cynical attempt to manipulate others I'm not a codependent I'm not addicted to kindness I'm addicted to manipulation but I call it kindness don't call it kindness if it were kindness you know what it would look like if it were real kindness would have no expectations it would truly be free it would be free and this is this is how I guide people I tell them you can make any concession you can make any compromise provided it's not manipulative in other words if I'm saying I'm going to do something I'm uncomfortable doing in the hopes that you will now owe me some behavior that will give me serenity insanity so first of all like I said that's idolatry because you can't give me my sanity and serenity but but it's it's just so it's it's it's so cynical it's so it's so it's being such a user I'm using you but I'm the Martyr I'm the codependent I'm the Martyr I'm the hero I have to be real with myself I'm a user I'm not really being kind so really being kind and really being accepting and really being tolerant means that I do it to make you more comfortable and I realize that even making you more comfortable may not mean you get sober tonight for this year or ever and I'm not happy about that I'm sad about that but I don't think that I'm the one who can force you to do what you've got to do so I I think this is what the the clarity comes in you know from this this supposed contradiction that you're posing which I know a lot of people grapple with it's not about do I have foundries or or radical acceptance that's that's not a helpful way to phrase it because it I think it's confusing say it like this am I ready am I ready to start being selfless in my interactions or do I still want to use my interactions as a as a totally futile attempt to get Serenity from other human beings so I say any compromise that you're ready to make any concession you're ready to make without any expectation that that will get you anything that is totally sober Behavior totally sober and I don't think it's any contradiction whatsoever to the uh to the the dignity that one finds in Al-Anon or any of the other 12-step programs that are for the friends and family of addicts you know the main thing that I think people find in recovery is is dignity it's dignity and and and and that's with addicts as well as codependents but I think in some ways even more so codependent because with with the addict it's almost like well the the side effect of my using cause me humiliation you know like because of the stuff I was doing the consequences let's call it the consequences of my using brought me into degrading experiences caused me humiliation and Recovery brings me restores my dignity that's with an addict but with a codependent I think it's even more severe because like it's almost like part and parcel of the addiction is what's what's the drink it's it's trading my dignity for this false hope so any concession or compromise any allowance you can make and retain your dignity not only is that okay I think that that's marvelously spiritual all right so let me see if I got that I'm not going to repeat 30 minutes of that but I'm going to ask a punchline question so as long as I recognize that my dignity comes from my own actions and my serenity comes from my relationship with God how I treat the addict is almost immaterial yeah welcome to this later um you're using you're not using that's almost that's that's a sideshow which isn't relevant to the conversation I'm proud of you because you're Gods you're you're God's kid who's hurting right now and is doing things that you shouldn't be doing but that doesn't my love for you my pride about you is unchanged and my interactions you are just technical does it practically um make chaos at my table if you're there I may have to not allow you to be there or or maybe I could find it with myself to look at you like I would be kind to someone else and not make it personal you are not going to make or break my mood or my day I will and my relationship with God will and that's it that's right so lots of lots of process we need to that's why it's good this is being recorded so we can review this and study this and more in depth all right we're out of time right and we're out of time this was supposed to be an hour yeah um I don't know who on your side is going to shoot me for for keeping you long um any parting shots besides www.4cups.org go buy your hagada today um yeah Parting Shot is that thank you really really thank you for getting me to do this this was a dream for so many years and people always say in in you know acceptance speeches they win an award it was it would have it would have never been possible without so and so but like literally it would not it would not have happened it would not have happened and I'm deeply grateful to you and uh I'm sure this pays up many hundreds many thousands of people will also be grateful to you with God's help saying Hashem should bless you with all revealed good you shouldn't have to figure out how it's going to be readily apparent for you and your family I mean and thank you for for uh doing this journey this was in in a very odd way a lot of fun this is there was a incredible learning experience and it was a great kind of fun all right that's it thanks a million and again folks four cups.org um go go buy your hagada thanks a million do you want to look at the do you want to look at the um chat or or without it's too late I've been glancing at it it's beautiful stuff and I think we gotta have mercy on people yeah all right