0:02

The road to recovery. You might be cruising down it a friend or family

0:08

member lost on it, or the road is well still under construction. Relevant

0:17

Recovery Radio is about getting to that destination of normal health, mind or strength.

0:25

Now, Relevant Recovery Radio here to give you the keys. Heather and

0:30

Donnie Moser. Hello, Hi, Welcome to this week's episode of Relevant Recovery

0:36

Radio. Happy Friday slash Sunday. We're your hosts, the Heather and the

0:40

Donnie Moser. Glad I throw you off. I don't know you're just throwing

0:47

me off today completely. Yeah. The car ride here was fun. Yeah,

0:50

we'll talk about in a minute. I need to get through my staff. Okay, go ahead. Welcome to the Relevant Recovery Radio Show. This

0:54

show is sponsored by the Wonderful Matthew's Hope Foundation, or a nonprofit that aims

0:59

to educate and provide services for the Houston community for substance use, misuse disorder

1:06

and so if you or a loved one would like any information about our education

1:10

and services offered, you can visit our website at Matthewshope dot org or you

1:15

can give us a call at eight four four and Hope. That's eight four

1:19

four two six three, four six seven three. Currently we have an outpatient

1:23

clinic open that is providing iasis, which is a form of microcurrent neurofeedback,

1:29

and we also offer in person and virtual peer support and recovery support services.

1:34

Big announcements coming, huh, big announcements coming, But as usual, you're

1:38

listening to us in Houston one pm Central and KPRC nine p fifty. If

1:44

you'd like to listen to us at one pm Central Houston Live and you're not

1:49

what redo that sentence? What do you mean? It was like Houston Live

1:55

not I didn't finish my sentence. It didn't work. Whatever you're doing.

2:00

If you want to listen to a Sunday Live and you're not into Houston,

2:02

hey, yeah, you can go to the iHeartRadio app. It's a free

2:07

download, and KPRC nine to fifty has a channel on there. At the

2:12

end of the day, they do upload our radio show to a podcast called

2:15

Relevant Recovery Radio. Now. I'm not fully caught up, so I'm not

2:20

current, but I've got about forty podcasts episodes. We've got one hundred and

2:27

twenty something, but I've got about forty of them pushed out now. To

2:31

all platforms, So like what platforms? Spotify, Amazon, Apple, So

2:38

as soon as we get the rest of them pushed out, I'll let you know. But now you can hear us on iHeart, Spotify, Apple,

2:43

all the platforms, all the big ones at least, just go search relevant

2:47

recovery radio. Yeah. Yeah, so that's all I got. Hey do

2:53

we still need social media? And I asked that seriously, does anybody do

2:58

anything with it? Or is it just a followers every month? Every week?

3:02

It gives me a little thing about new followers. We don't have a

3:05

whole lot of small podcasts, but we gained new and it does. It

3:08

does different like analytics on engagement. So I had to log into it to

3:15

pull show descriptions and pictures. When I was uploading the podcast, I could

3:21

not do Facebook. Okay, I noticed that you had a picture of the

3:28

two of us and with a with a thing for one of the shows.

3:30

And somebody made a comment with a Pride flag and a clown for what,

3:37

I guess, calling me a gay clown. I don't know. I didn't even see that. Yeah, but when somebody I just couldn't do. I'm

3:44

I'm an older gentleman, and if I was a part of social media.

3:49

I just people thought they could. Yeah, people think they can do that.

3:53

I'll look you up and come to your house. So I just can't

3:55

do social media. It doesn't make sense to me. I care almost nothing

4:00

for what other people think or say in that sort of sense, I'll just

4:03

keep scrolling. I just don't get where people like there are people that pople

4:06

are vile online. People get there's enjoyment to it, and it's a weird

4:12

thing that you can be so negative and enjoy that. I think that's how

4:14

they find purpose. Maybe I don't know. Yeah, well there's a hell

4:17

wait in form I can't wait to get done. That's kind and loving.

4:20

Anyways, So we got in a fight on the car on the way here,

4:24

per usual, but I don't think we could talk about it. Oh

4:28

okay, it's about marriage expectations. Yeah, that's a broad topic. It's

4:34

about marital how's your weak expectator? Stressed? But that's why when we were

4:40

arguing or having a heated discussion in the car on the way here about marital

4:44

expectations, I wouldn't call it an argue. We had different perspectives of an

4:47

event. I would honestly call it a discussion. Nobody. We didn't curse,

4:51

raise their voices or get angry. It was just a discussion. But

4:55

I said to you, you know, maybe I am not in tune with

4:59

you or lately because I'm so stressed. You know, got a lot going

5:02

on at work. Yeah, and so that's what's going on this week.

5:06

We've just got so many I have so many irons on the fire of trying

5:10

to navigate and learn and do this and that, and most of it's going

5:14

wonderfully, and I just get kind of like, I don't know. My mind latches onto things like a pit bull, won't let it go. Oh

5:19

no, what? Oh no? You know this about me. The day

5:25

I come home and you tell me that there's a guy measuring the house to

5:28

take it, I'll know that we're in full trouble. In this similar way,

5:30

my mom latches onto ideas, but mine's work related. I'm trying to

5:34

be effective and produce results. For those of you who are new, Heather's

5:39

mom is paranoid schizophrenic. Yeah, so my mom will latch onto ideas and

5:42

really obsessed about them. But I my friend Nathan told me last night,

5:47

I've never allowed so hard of my life. He said, he was thirty

5:50

eight years old. It is dad who Elizabeth New York called him out of

5:55

the blue one day and goes, hey, I changed your name to Noel.

5:59

I went down to the court house today. I'm assuming his dad's schizophrenic

6:02

too. Yes, yeah, I just think that is like and he was

6:06

of it, he was like, you know, and then my brothers they

6:09

just think it's funny. It's like, well he didn't try and change your

6:12

name. Yeah, well I think that, you know. An example would

6:15

be like my uh, you know how like car dealerships will mail you like

6:20

just junk mail ads in the mail, you know. And so my dad

6:25

had bought my mom a new car two years prior to this event, but

6:29

they were still sending her little, you know, slips of paper of get

6:31

this or buy this or this deal the way they do, yeah, the

6:33

way they do. But in her mind it meant something completely different. And

6:39

they really didn't own the car and irs this and the court system that,

6:43

and so this is my fear that your mind sometimes may latch on the same

6:46

way, and that schizophrenia is right around the corner. Maybe we'll see roll

6:50

the dice. But I'm forty one. I think that ship is sailed.

6:54

Committing you day one, committing you day one, No, nothing like that.

7:00

But in fact, I'm going to send you to that asylum that's been

7:03

closed for forty years in Pennsylvania. It's like famous for being haunted. Yeah,

7:09

that's the one I'm there. That's what I'm committing you to. No,

7:12

but so I think that's what's going on. I have so many different

7:15

branches of things going on at work that I'm spearheading, and that I get

7:18

overwhelmed. We're both overwhelmed. We're both busy, we're both tired, which

7:23

is going to break into kind of what we're going to talk about. What

7:26

we're going to talk about too. But I'm very excited that I have one

7:29

more week of work coming up, and then I am taking off the entire

7:33

week of Thanksgiving and then you and I love that for you, and then

7:38

get to take a month off work. All right, If Heather is still

7:43

alive in a minute, we'll be right back with Relevant Recovery Radio. Welcome

8:01

back to Relevant Recovery Radio with your host Heather and Donnie Moser here on a

8:07

sunny or rainy or possibly just cloudy Sunday afternoon, knowing right now we don't

8:11

even know because we realize we record this earlier in the week. It never

8:18

snows in Houston. So how about this Welcome back to Relevant Recovery Radio on

8:22

a fill in the blank Sunday afternoon. All right, So I was talking

8:30

about being stressed, and you were talking about being stressed at work, which goes into our topic. But I wanted to say, like, so I'm

8:37

taking the week after next off for Thanksgiving, and then the following week,

8:41

that's Saturday, you and I are going to head out to a lake house

8:45

where we can just chill and go fishing for literally five days. Yeah,

8:48

which is really nice. Yeah, we need it. I love fishing.

8:52

Here's why I love the fact that you went to your girls and you're like,

8:56

give me a topic, and I love the fact that this is the

8:58

one they brought because this is a topic that has plagued you and I for

9:03

six years. Yeah. So the topic today, we're calling it the Balancing

9:05

Act. But it's about finding proper balance with communication, with life, with

9:09

work, with recovery, all of this sort of stuff. And the reason

9:13

it's kind of funny, ironic, ironic funny is because you and I are

9:18

not experts around solution on this. You and I have like a but we're

9:22

about to pontificate on it. Yeah, but it's funny because we struggle with

9:26

this and we have like inventory we write and meetings with our sponsors to try

9:31

to find balance at least two or three times a year minimum. I remember

9:37

the last time I wrote inventory on this and took it to my sponsor,

9:41

she was kind of like snickering at me, and she's like, this is

9:45

not the first time you've brought this to me. Why do you continue to

9:48

not have a solution around this? You continue to make some progress and backslide,

9:52

make some progress and backslide. And I'm like, I don't know.

9:56

And so that the other part of that, the other piece of this,

10:00

You know what I did notice We like to listen to the podcast after they

10:03

go out, just because it helps us improve our show. And I say,

10:07

and so there's a couple of things I say all the time that I

10:11

have to stop doing when I'm in conversation with you. How about you figure that out when we're not recorded. It was a side note. The people

10:16

out there listening, they caught it. They know I was at a meeting

10:22

last night and a buddy of mine sat down next to me, and I

10:26

was like, COWERI he's like busy. And when I talked to my brother,

10:30

Hey, how are you busy? And a lot of times and I've

10:33

tried to stop this recently, but people will ask me how are you?

10:37

I'm like busy. And here's why I say that. Even though you and

10:43

I struggle with this balancing act and what we're about to talk about, life

10:50

is good. Yeah, for the ninety fifth percentile of my life, I

10:54

am happy, joyous and free. Right. There's gonna be some life ups

11:00

and downs, but for the most part we are good. We live a

11:03

blessed life. Yeah, So why do I find it necessary with somebody says

11:09

how are you? To say? That would be like and here's the way

11:13

I see it. Maybe you see it differently, Hey, Heather, how

11:16

are you? And you're like breathing and right, like we're all busy good

11:24

or most people are busy when people ask me, because it's always you know,

11:28

a perception of whether that's a genuine or dis genuine question in the first

11:31

place, like the small talk sort of idea how are you like? No one really means that half the time. But but we do. But yeah,

11:37

when people ask me how are you? I always just say better than I deserve, which is a you know Ramsey thing which everybody knows, which

11:43

is true. It is really true, and it doesn't have to go into

11:46

anything specific, because I don't know how to like, well, I'm super

11:50

blessed, here's the awesome things, or I'm super overwhelmed, and here's what

11:52

I think we should do that. Do you think if we do that people

11:54

stop asking us. If they're like, hey, how are you, Like,

11:58

well, let me just list all the good things life and you listen.

12:00

By the time he gets like number ninety or ninety one, I was

12:03

just passing you in the hallway by the water cooler. I don't actually even

12:07

know you. Would you like paper or plastic? It's just coming to the

12:15

cooler where you're standing to get a coke And I said, oh are you Wow? But okay, so there's an idea that I need, and so

12:26

I says, so do it a lot. I need to balance my life

12:31

to a certain extent because our yours in my life is very busy. We

12:37

are both busy. But when we are not busy, and we have had

12:41

periods of not busy. We are not We're not fulfilled. I don't have

12:45

purpose, I'm not happy. There's a lot going on when I'm not busy.

12:48

When you and I are not busy and we take too much chill or

12:52

self time, we get super selfish and we end up fighting and sometimes we

12:56

end up in therapy. But we're just we're not. I have you know.

13:01

I had this talk with an old manager of Gun named Ludovic in Paris

13:05

about four or five years ago. I told him that I'm coming out of

13:11

a kind of a not busy period and I'm back really like just going one

13:15

hundred percent. And he goes, it's good though, right, I said,

13:18

you know what, to be honest with you, When I'm not busy, I get into trouble and this is at work, and he's like me

13:22

too. So busy is good. Busy means that our life is good.

13:28

It's it's sort of a meter. If I'm busy, things are going well.

13:31

I think it depends on what kind of busy, because you can be

13:35

busy with a lot of things, and it depends on if it's self centered

13:37

busy or if it's altruistic busy. Okay, So our life busy for me

13:45

means that I've got a small group that I lead Monday night, my home

13:48

group, Tuesday night. Wednesday night is typically like a sponseye and maybe something

13:54

else Thursday night sponsy and possibly a meeting or men's cigar night. Friday night

14:00

is up in the air. We'll see what happens or if I need to meet with somebody. A lot of times on Saturday mornings, I have caught

14:07

up on sponsores two or three, and then you and I will do something

14:11

Saturday afternoon, and then Sunday is our church and rest day. So busy

14:16

for me is a fulfilling, purposeful busy, which when I'm busy, I

14:22

am good. Here's the other thing, too, is yesterday. I hope

14:26

Nadine doesn't listen to this podcast. Yesterday I had some free time during the

14:30

day and I went out and quickly mowed the yard. But here's the thing.

14:33

I came in. I had to rush in like I'm still sweaty and

14:37

dirty and jump into a meeting. But I felt so good yesterday, and

14:41

I really my day was crammed yesterday like so much, but it felt so

14:45

good, it felt purposeful. So I agree with you that we have to

14:50

have balance. We busy is good, but also I think what you and

14:56

I have figured out, so we're gonna try something new and we'll talk about

14:58

that in the salution some period maybe, But looking at what kind of busy

15:03

is it? To your point, is it a purposeful busy or is it

15:07

a self serving busy? I think because I think people need to be intentional

15:11

with the time that we're given. And I grow spiritually sick when I'm not

15:16

being intentional with the time I'm given. It doesn't matter what it looks like.

15:20

So what are some of the problems we've had with because these are just

15:24

some things Heather listed in areas that we struggle balance. Yes, we have

15:28

to think about Yeah, we got to think about what are my areas of

15:31

life to even negotiate the balance. Right, So I have family, I

15:35

have you at home, but I also have kids in family in Oklahoma.

15:39

You know, I have work, and so for most people, you know,

15:43

week days nine to five or whatever is filled with work, and that's

15:46

a large chunk of your life. For us, also we have church life.

15:48

We have church life. I have recovery life. And for me,

15:52

it always kind of goes back to what one of my first sponsors told me,

15:56

and she said, Heather, if you can get used to being inconvenienced,

16:00

you just might stay sober. And that's always stuck with me on I

16:03

need to be willing to be inconvenience. That's why God sent me to you.

16:07

I'm so inconvenienced right now. But I'm not going to go into my

16:12

whole itinerary on because my calendar stresses you out. You went through some of

16:17

your stuff well, just because you put it on a calendar. I just kind of fly by the seat of my pants, and I hope I make

16:21

the appointments, I remember everything, and so I have to color coat my

16:25

Google calendar right right. But I just think it's important to realize, like

16:29

for me, I decided early on that for me, my God life and

16:33

my recovery life are synonymous. Recovery is God. God is recovery, and

16:38

so I don't fit the rest of my life around recovery. I have recovery

16:44

in God, and I fit the rest of my life around that. Right.

16:47

That's that's my and out of that you get your fulfilling purpose and that's

16:52

where you find contentment. But I think the problem I run into is I'll

16:57

get too busy or too committed or overly committed in certain areas, whether that's

17:03

church or with sponses or recovery commitments. Well, you just recently came out

17:07

of you had four so you had you have our AA life right. Sorry,

17:11

I'm not supposed to say that anyma. You have our twelve step life

17:15

right, our home group meeting, you have church commitments, you have all

17:18

that. And you had four girls in the book and four girls in the

17:21

book at the same time on the same step somehow, and so I finished

17:23

all four. But that was in addition to my regular commitments. That was

17:29

four evening hours each week with each girl. Yeah, minimum of an hour.

17:33

I was gonna say an hour and a half to two. I talk a lot, you know, so sometimes it's two or right, that's just

17:38

how it goes. But yeah, so how do you find balance with all

17:41

of that? Well? What is normal? Well wait, and you were

17:45

kind of right in the middle of that. So let's pick that up when we get right back. Don't go anywhere and be right back with Heather and

17:48

Donnie Moser. Relevant Recovery Radio. Welcome back to Relevant Recovery Radio with your

18:04

hosts Heather and Donnie Moser. We're here for the Matthews Hope Foundation. They

18:10

have a phone number you can call, but I don't know it by heart. The phone number is eight four to four and Hope. That's eight four

18:15

four two six three four six seven three. That's right. Big announcements coming.

18:21

But they do have an outpatient right now that is really kicking butt,

18:25

geared towards iasis, micro currentt neurofeedback for a plethora of issues, whether it's

18:32

insomnia, PTSD, mild TBI, anxiety, depression. Come come try it

18:37

and see if it works for you. Yeah, and we also offer peer

18:40

support services or recovery coaching on an outpatient setting. So go back to what

18:45

you were saying. You were talking about you didn't want to go into your

18:47

detailed work, that your your detailed week, but they just that it can

18:51

be a lot. So what about making decisions on what commitments matter? Right?

18:56

Do you ever have to peel them back? Is that a tough decision?

19:00

Yeah? I think that everybody has to find what level of obligation works

19:07

for them. Like when I'm describing what works for me, that I'm not

19:11

saying that's what it needs to look like for everybody. So I just want

19:15

to be like really clear about that, Like this is just what it looks

19:17

like for me. But I have work Monday through Friday. I'm also on

19:22

call twenty four to seven kind of for work with the recovery support clients.

19:26

Yeah, you answer an email and phone a lot of times in the evenings

19:29

and a weekend, and I wouldn't be caught dead doing that. That's weird.

19:32

In addition to that, I have two church commitments a week, and

19:37

I have girls that I sponsor, and I have a home group and all that sort of stuff in that organization that I wasn't supposed to mention youop,

19:44

But here's the deal. It's like, you know what I suck at.

19:48

I suck it. Well, hold on, I have a list prepared. I suck at being a friend. Like I was just saying about this the

19:52

other day, like I just want to like pick up one Friday and like

19:56

go do pilates with Alsia, or I want to just gay up and like

20:00

go have dinner with gay just me and her. This is where you and

20:03

I have always struggled. But because of my rigid three weeks in advanced schedule,

20:10

everything is booked out hour by hour, that's what makes me crazy.

20:14

I do not have the opportunity to just call a friend hang out, right,

20:18

And how much time do you think because you and I look, there

20:22

is no doubt I'm not gonna there is no argument, and people, even

20:26

our friends around it is like y'all like just quit, like enough. But

20:32

how much of it is purposeful time scheduling purposeful time which we do, and

20:37

how much is squandered time that we could be doing some of those other things

20:41

with I don't know, because it's like like on I forget which night it

20:45

was this week. I think it was Wednesday night. Yeah, that was

20:49

the only night this week, this last week now that I didn't have anything

20:53

scheduled. Yeah, and yeah, because you didn't get home till a little

20:56

bit late last night because you met with somebody. I did. But Wednesday

21:00

night after whatever, I forget what I did after work, But after that

21:03

I was free, and so that was kind of cool because I could work

21:07

on other projects that I don't have time to, or you know, finish

21:10

the laundry, or sit in my white chair and doom scroll on Facebook,

21:15

like you know, doom scroll but or read news articles or whatever. But

21:21

you know, I feel lazy, and I feel myself slipping into spiritual sickness

21:27

when I do that too much. I like to feel productive. I like

21:30

to accomplish goals. I like to feel like God and I achieve things together.

21:37

Whatever it is, it can be work related or personal relate. Do

21:40

you have being more intentional with your time? Could you have hit Gay up

21:47

and said, hey, you want to go dinner? Here's where it makes me feel guilty. Yes, I can do that. But if I do

21:52

that, if I if I call Gay and I'm like, hey, I want to have dinner with you, pull up your calendar, look three weeks

21:56

ahead. No, No, you could have canceled something else. No.

22:00

See, you're not getting it. You're so rigid. This is why everybody

22:03

makes fun of you, including your employers. What did you just say about

22:08

Wednesday night? I didn't have anything. So normal people, normal people,

22:12

not us or not you, But normal people would tax Gay and say,

22:18

hey, I'm totally free tonight. You want to grab dinner or do you have plans? And then she is then free to respond to whether or not

22:22

she has plans and if she doesn't. Instead of you doom scrolling all night,

22:26

y'all could have gone to dinner. Right. It didn't cross my mind

22:29

Wednesday night to do that because I was secretly, selfishly so excited to sit

22:33

and do nothing for once. Yeah, and so what's the balance. Do

22:37

I ever get to sit and do nothing? Yeah? When? And so

22:42

like when those when those little things occur, like a sponsor cancels or whatever,

22:45

I'm like, cool, I get it Thursday night to myself or whatever.

22:48

You know. And the difference between you and I, and it's because

22:52

you are introverted and I am extroverted. On those free nights, you want

22:56

to sort of sink into your couch and do kind of what you want to

22:59

do. It's something where you get that I recharged through I want to go

23:03

to the cigar lounge. Yeah, you go, You go, buddy,

23:07

Well that's on the fence because I've been yelled at recently for being gone all

23:11

the time. So it's different then you were at home and then I changed

23:14

my mind. That's literally what happened. Every time you get mad that I've

23:18

gone too much, I just spend every moment I can with you over three

23:22

or four days, and I'm like, I'm good, Yeah, you can go see it Christmas. But here's the thing like because you and I function,

23:29

our energies are kind of different when it comes to introvert extroverted stuff like

23:33

I in the weekends, I get very task oriented to accomplish things like we

23:37

can warrior at home, but that's your time to like chill and recharge.

23:40

And so we normally go at each other, you know, because I want

23:44

to swap out toilets on a Sunday and you're like no, and so or

23:48

return an air conditioner. Hey, we got that promises unfulfilled. We got

23:53

it done, didn't we. And I'm getting the toilet done. He'll be

23:57

there at nine on Saturday. I told you when I bought that toilet,

24:02

because I went by myself to the store and got that bought and loaded into

24:07

my car. Think about that for a second. But okay, but hold

24:10

on, hold on. This is this is another point of being so busy

24:12

and then it sat in the garage for how many months? There is something

24:15

in me that says, okay, So I I mow our yard and I

24:22

do our flower beds. I do all the landscaping, and I enjoy it.

24:25

This is not a martyr thing. I love it like I really enjoy it. I do our pool. I don't need you to list all the

24:32

things, just get to your point. My point is that there's something inside

24:34

me that when you brought that toilet home, Like number one, it was

24:38

a task that I had to do number two, I felt like the need.

24:41

And so here's what happened. Yesterday. I was mowing the yard.

24:45

There's a plumber across the street who replaced in a toilet and he comes out.

24:48

I was like, hey, you want to do another one, just kidding with him, and he goes, well, I just kind of ran

24:52

over here to do this one real quick. I've known them for a long

24:56

time. I'm like, oh, okay, now, wait a minute, relationship established, we trust our neighbor. Yeah, And I said, oh

25:00

okay, he goes, but I could do it. Saturday nine thirty,

25:03

I was like, how much he goes? One fifty. I was like, done, Yeah, this toilet's gonna finally get replaced. But it's a

25:08

balancing act for me because as the man of the house, I feel like

25:11

I should be replacing the toilet. It's not a difficult task, but it

25:15

is a time consuming task, and because of what we do in our normal

25:21

every day week, it's really difficult for me, and I don't want to

25:23

spend my little bit of downtime replacing a toilet, and it is an upstairs

25:26

toilet that doesn't get used that often. And so in my mind I was

25:30

going to let it sit there till about Christmas. I think we bought it

25:33

in the summertime July or so is whenever the New York guys came and stay

25:37

with us. And in my mind, I was going to let it sit

25:40

there for six months, and if you hadn't found time, I was going to hire someone to come do it, you know, because we're just busy.

25:45

Yeah, it's okay, We're just get it done. I don't care

25:48

as long as it gets done. I don't care who does it. Yeah.

25:52

But I digress because my friend Haley, miss Haley Smith and Mississippi,

25:56

was talking about Trunk. She has a new baby, she's in recovery,

26:00

she has that, she has a family and other kids, and she has

26:02

a cookie business and she was really talking to us this morning about trying to

26:07

scale that back, this side hustle of making money because she's got so much

26:10

going on. She's like, what's the priority. Well, and she's got a bunch of kids, she's got one name Josh her husband. Oh wow,

26:19

if they do have a bunch of kids, but she takes care of

26:22

him. Though having a family and having small children quadruples the difficulty of prioritizing

26:29

your time because the children control everything. And here's the other thing too,

26:33

is that I like, I have so many commibments during the week, and

26:36

I'm not even hitting the ones I want to hit. M hm. Right. So I have small group on Monday night, which I enjoy, right,

26:42

not as much as I enjoy some of our twelve step meetings, but

26:45

I enjoy it. It's fulfilling my home group Tuesday. But there's another meeting

26:49

Thursday that I really like to hit, but it's a forty minute drive.

26:53

And then I also miss Early in our relationship when we'd hit Do you remember

26:59

that we'd hit three to five five meetings a week. Yeah, that drove

27:02

me correct and we would do fellowship. Not in the end, not in

27:04

the end. It because I got to know people, but I don't need

27:08

that much going and doing. We were fellowshipping. We were fellowshipping two or

27:12

three nights a week, which means going out to dinner with our friends,

27:17

just be honest, we got real fluffy, but we enjoyed it, right, And so sometimes I want to replace and I don't know. It's just

27:22

such a balancing act to figure out what to do. Where do I feel

27:27

purpose? What do I need to do? Am I allowed to stop and

27:30

just have some fun? And you and I do intentionally do that? And

27:33

I think one thing we agreed, Well, we're going to talk about that

27:37

in the next segment. Yeah, but that's a question for you. Am

27:41

I allowed to just not do something on a Tuesday night, my home group

27:45

night? That's a real question for you. I can answer for you,

27:51

what about for you? For me, it's probably not okay not to make

27:55

a habit of it. I have an obligation and a commitment to that group

27:57

and those People's good for me spiritually to not let up on that commitment.

28:02

It's good for me spiritually to stay disciplined when it comes to that sort of

28:06

stuff, right, Because if I slip there and I give myself a mental excuse there to only go over once in a while, where else in my

28:11

life, I'm not going to have excuses in slip. But what's the difference

28:15

between that commitment and your Sunday church commitment. There really isn't one. But

28:21

you'll skip church sometimes but not the Tuesday night. So that no, no,

28:26

no, no, no, it's not I'm not dissing you. What

28:29

I'm saying is that's what I'm talking about is it's a difficult decision. The

28:32

only time, let's be honest, You're only time I skip church is be

28:34

careful. You know what? You know what. We're just not going to

28:41

say it. I'm filtering Heather idea. We'll come back with some solution.

28:47

Don't go anywhere, Heather and Donnie Mosa Relevant Recovery Radio. I just have

29:11

to let that one hang a minute, all right, my favorite intro, it's my favorite too. Welcome back to Relevant Recovery Radio with your host Heather

29:18

and Donnie Moser. So we don't have any solution, but pontificate about solution

29:22

in this segment to idiots that were mistakenly given microphones and nobody's gotten wise to

29:29

it. So I actually think, despite how much we are together and separately

29:34

busy doing I think it on one hand, it's all purposeful work for the

29:37

most part, whether it's intentional relationships or recovery obligations or spiritual and growth obligations

29:45

of discipling other people, whatever it is. Yeah, despite that, I

29:48

think that we navigate it well. So what we've talked about is how to

29:55

choose the right amount of commitments? Which ones do I choose? Can I

30:00

say something about that idea specifically? Yeah, I was gonna say pacifically,

30:03

but I fixed it. Listen. So one assignment that exercise that a sponsor

30:11

had taught me is to take a list of all your top priorities in life,

30:15

like maybe going to church on Sunday, or my Tuesday home group commitment,

30:18

or you know, work, income, you know things like that. Well, I don't know if that's that's like one that you really can't choose.

30:22

Oh, I don't know. There's a lot of people that choose not

30:25

to. They are called millennials or gen Z, which one is the twenty

30:30

year olds. I'm just saying that there are people who navigate life without a

30:33

full time job. So anyways, so for whatever reason, my point is

30:37

is, I made a list. You told me, make a list of the top twenty things that are facets of my life that are important to me,

30:41

my top twenty priorities. And then to take that into parent meditation and

30:45

cut that list in half to ten, and then to cut that list into

30:48

five where I have my top five non negotiable life priorities. And so for

30:55

me, like the recovery one is the top one. When was the last

30:59

time you did that? It's been a while. We were in Spring Branch

31:02

when you did that last. Oh no, I've done it at this house. It's probably twenty twenty two, there was. It may be earlier this

31:08

year, because there was a recent time. I took this to Casey,

31:11

my sponsor, and she was like this again. You know, okay,

31:17

I thought that was earlier, but okay, I've done it a few different times. That's my point of this is like it's a reoccurring issue. But

31:22

my point is, so you're saying, list out, but all of the

31:26

commitments you think you should have, all of the things you want to do,

31:30

your top priorities in life, whatever, And then for someone it might

31:34

not even be a commitment. For someone's top priority, it might be you

31:37

know, Netflix binging is really important to them, right, So then no,

31:42

and that twenty you take, but we don't have twenty commitments. So

31:45

that's why you have twenty facets of your life for sure, All right,

31:49

So I have my relationship my relationship, right, So then you cut it

31:53

in half of the top ten of that, and then you cut that top

31:56

ten with the top Okay, so I have my five most important non negotiables.

32:01

That for me, fine, my non negotiables, like I was saying

32:05

Tuesday night, is non negotiable. I'm there, right, And so I

32:09

have to once I have this sort of truth and that's particular to me,

32:15

then I need to pray and ask God to help me navigate this appropriately and

32:20

not change the priorities to something they shouldn't be. Like we were, you

32:24

know, arguing talking about on the car on the way here. Obviously I've

32:28

not made you and your needs a bigger priority lately. I've been letting other

32:32

things take a bigger priority than you, and our relationship you know, is

32:37

affected by that. Yeah, And so that's what I mean. It's it's

32:40

actually a good thing you're asking wins them last time I did this assignment,

32:44

it's actually a good thing to redo the twenty ten to five once every six

32:47

months or so, because your life is constantly changing and you may need to

32:51

adjust your priorities. They don't stay the same year after year after year.

32:53

So we have one thing that is to make a list and decide however that

32:59

is for you. You what are the commitments in your life that you either

33:05

need prefer like. And I can tell you that all of our commitments,

33:08

I believe are selfless. Now that Thursday night meeting that I'll go to is

33:14

not so much selfless. It's a little selfish because it's a bunch of dudes that I just love hanging out. But I think that those relationships are intentionally

33:20

important for your growth, for you to be around very important. Anyways,

33:23

my point is that that's where I heard about Nathan slash Noel. I needed

33:28

to know that to know that you have a good time with those people.

33:30

And a point like because I have Steel on Steel once a month, so

33:32

it's a monthly accountability group with two other women. I have weekly Cadre,

33:37

which is a Christian discipleship growth twelve week course thing. I have the recovery

33:44

meeting on Tuesday. Yeah, I have, so we figure out Thursday,

33:46

we figure out which ones are important to us. Okay, so now we

33:50

figure out which ones are important to us. How important is purposeful downtime because

33:54

that's one of the solutions that you and I found so first, how this

34:00

really came up in our life recently is You're like, hey, we got

34:04

a little bit of a problem here in our relationship, and the problem is

34:08

that we're not spending any intentional time together. So our lives are so busy

34:15

that were Monday through Friday, sometimes Saturday high fiving as we pass each other,

34:22

and I see you whenever you come to bed, right, And so

34:25

the only time we were really getting together be like Saturday afternoon. Saturday.

34:30

Most Saturday afternoons we have commitments or something going on, so Saturday night at some point and then Sunday and we would spend that time watching TV mm hmm.

34:37

And You're like, yeah, that's not intentional us time. And so

34:40

then we were like, well, let's do a date. So we went

34:43

in bowling and we had fun. It was fun. But then I have

34:46

friends that have done this date night thing, and it sounds gross and Monday,

34:51

and to me, you got to think of something to do every week you got it just sounds like another ridiculous thing. But what we decided,

34:57

well, because of sponsore of mine, her and her husband do a little

35:00

weekend getaway once a month with each other. And I thought, you know

35:02

what, we can do that. So we decided, Now November, we're

35:07

taking a five day trip anyway, Yeah, we're going that fishing cat.

35:10

December, we're going to a retreat. Here's what I love. We're going

35:15

to a sober retreat in Las Vegas, a twelve Step, a twelve Step

35:19

convention or in Vegas a Zebra. So that's our get a one thousand sober

35:22

people. So that's our getaway then, and we've already decided we'll find this.

35:27

It doesn't have to be expensive, but we are going to find an

35:30

airbnb for January and we are gonna go there, and we're just gonna get

35:35

out of our house and out of our routines. It's for you and I.

35:37

And I'm not speaking truth for any other family, but for you and

35:40

I. We travel well together, we do We get along better and recharged

35:45

together, and we see more intentionally connected, we fish well together. And

35:50

yeah, whenever we go do something, and it can be like we live

35:53

in Houston, but even if we went and got an airbnb in the Woodlands

35:58

or in Galveston a forty five minute, it wouldn't matter because I'm getting away

36:01

intentionally with you. It's out of our house, out of our routine,

36:05

out of the norm, phones off, you know, sitting on a porch

36:08

with you, just talking and reconnecting. It's important. I think the other

36:12

thing that we have found because this has been an issue our entire relationship,

36:15

entire relationship, and this has been an issue my entire life. I've never

36:19

found balance anywhere. But the other thing is that recalibration. I think early

36:27

on in our relationship we would be out of balance for a long time until

36:30

it started to hurt and be painful and we just like blah. And then

36:35

at some point recently we've gotten to a point where like every few months we're

36:38

like, Okay, I need like a down weekend. Mark your calendar that

36:43

this Friday to this Sunday, Do not put a thing on there. Yeah,

36:46

we do that every once in a while, and just because one of

36:51

the things that we found early in our relationship is you and I were doing

36:53

so much twelve step work. At one time, I had six to nine

36:57

people in the book at a time. What that means is that if a

37:00

meeting is an hour and a half to two hours, I'm scheduling six to

37:05

nine of those a week between Sunday and Saturday after tween Monday and all the

37:09

weekends. And so what's going on there is that I had no time to

37:15

do anything any maintenance around our house. I had no time to do anything

37:19

that needed to be done, my chores or whatever. So we have gotten

37:22

to where we will step back and recalibrate. Like I said, I'm still

37:29

not doing everything I want to do and would love to do, even like

37:32

it's in my heart. So like I really do want to go to Oklahoma

37:35

at Christmas time to see my kids and my parents and stuff. Why kidding,

37:43

but you know that's something that should be on my priorty list a few

37:45

times of years, make sure I connect with them and physically in person see

37:50

them. Ye yeah, I was gonna ask if you wanted to go up

37:52

there the Christmas. You don't want to go to Thanksgiving? Okay? And

37:59

so we have figuring out what your priorities are. We have finding purposeful,

38:07

intentional downtime, making sure that you are getting the downtime that you need and

38:12

are the things on your list selfish or selfless? Because you've got to have

38:16

a good mix of more selfless things than selfish things. And when you have

38:21

openings and you get a break and you have some downtime, what are you

38:24

doing with it? Are you going to doom scroll or you're going to go

38:27

to dinner with your friend? Right, because these are the things that matter.

38:30

But when you have a clear conscience with it, you can feel good

38:32

about it despite being busy. It's not a bad thing. Well, thank

38:37

you for listening to relevant recovery radio where your host's Heather and Donnie. And

38:39

don't forget those who stand for nothing will fall for anything. Hashtag God though

39:00

all the scare in the Dan