Show Notes
Here are links to the things mentioned in this episode:
Questions for Reflection
Each episode we offer you a few prompts to think about how that day's conversation applies to you. You might pause the podcast and answer them right then and there, but if you keep a journal (Steph and Beth both do), you might find one of these PDFs useful. Choose the orientation that fits best in your journal.
Transcript
Beth:
Welcome to the Discovering Our Scars Podcast. Steph: Where we have honest conversations about things that make us different. I'm Steph, a Christ follower in recovery for sexual abuse. Beth: Hi Steph. I'm Beth and I'm a Christian in recovery for anger and self-sufficiency. Lori: Hi Beth. And I'm a Christian in recovery for anger and self-sufficiency. And my name is Lori. Steph & Beth: Hi Lori. Steph: So you might have noticed that we did that a little different than normal. We have a very special guest with us today. We have actually we've talked about, Beth and I were in a step-study and we have our step-study leader here with us today. Beth: Yes! Steph: And that is Lori K. Welcome Lori. Lori: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm honored. Steph: We have talked about being in recovery and that's a big topic in my book and the program that we went through was called Celebrate Recovery. And a big part of that is a nine-month intense step-study. And that's what we're going to talk a little bit about that today, but primarily we're going to talk about recovery programs in general. And what that looks like, how to get involved, whether it kind of feels like to be there. And Lori has been very involved with recovery for many years and so that's why we thought she would be the perfect person to have this conversation with. Lori: Oh, thanks. Beth: How long have you been involved in recovery programs? CR and all of it. Lori: Really it's been about 15 years. Years ago before Celebrate Recovery, I'd go to open AA meetings with my husband. He has been in recovery for a long time, many, many years. And it was to help me see what he was involved in, but I felt so out of place. I couldn't relate to anything that anybody was sharing. Alcohol wasn't an abuse issue for me, so I tagged along and just supported him. Then, when we got Celebrate Recovery started at our church at Killearn, I again, I tagged along to support him, his involvement, he helped launch it at the church and I just, I knew it wasn't for me. That's what I said. That's what I believed. And then I went through a step-study so that I could learn more about the steps [because] we were getting ready to launch the middle school high school program. But it was an academic event for me. But I honestly prayed that if there was anything that I needed to see or wasn't seeing clearly that God would show me. And boy did he! So it's been, the program has been going for almost 16 years now. But I would say that first year I was working in the children's program helping lead that because our son was 10 at the time. But since then I've gone to a variety of meetings, really jumped in with both feet because it was life changing for me. Steph: What kind of meetings have you been involved with? Lori: Primarily open AA meetings. Open, meaning that anyone who is seeking or can identify with recovery issues. Closed meetings are for people who identify as alcoholics only. And there's lots of what I call "A" meetings, you know, "NA," "OA," "SA," "AA" all the anonymous meetings. And if they're open, they're open--anyone can go. Steph: You said earlier that when you had gone with your husband before, you didn't hear anything that you really resonated with. What is it now that you're hearing that you resonate with that you didn't before? Lori: I used to listen to the problem. I couldn't relate to DUIs. Ending up in jail, losing your business, drinking your paycheck away, whatever the story was. I couldn't relate to that, but I learned to listen to the recovery and the solution. That's what I can focus on now in meetings. Not everyone's sharing about just the alcohol part of their life. They're sharing about life and I can hear the struggles, but what I listened for is the solution and the solution is always how the steps are working in someone's life, how they called their sponsor, how they've changed something, an action or reaction, not the problem part of it. That's what's changed. Steph: When we talk about AA, that is alcoholics anonymous. Lori: Correct. Steph: And any of the A's are some type of-- Lori: 12-step program. Steph: Would you say they're all very similar in what they follow? Are they all following the same 12 steps? Lori: Yes. Steph: And that's what CR is, Celebrate Recovery is based on the same 12 steps as all those programs? Lori: Yes. The founder of Celebrate Recovery had found sobriety in an AA group and wanted to bring the 12 steps into the church. That's how it got started. They started it and it just took off from there. I think it's been 28 years now that it's been going, but it's literally worldwide, but it starts with the 12 steps. So do I say the steps are the steps are the steps. They just, maybe the wording's been tweaked just a little bit for the target group. Beth: So I think that we should take time in just a minute and actually say what the 12 steps are. But I'm wondering, I want to go back to something that you touched on because you said as you were listening, you were really there to support your husband and you were really there to learn and then you decided, okay, well I'll do a step-study because I need to learn this as an academic exercise. Right? Lori: Right. Beth: But then something happened. Something changed for you along the way. Lori: Oh yeah. Beth: Yeah. Tell us more about that. Lori: The first three steps are just really getting right with God. And then the fourth step is that fearless, moral and fearless inventory, and that's going back as far as we can to find those places where hurt happened, where something got off track in our life. That was hard for me to do because I wasn't seeing what I wasn't seeing. I mean, I couldn't. I would've said that was my past and it's not affecting me now, and I was hurt at the time, but that's not my life now. My life's fine right now. And as I went through that inventory and thought through: What happened? Who was involved? How did it affect me? I began to be able to see how it was affecting me today. But it wasn't until I did the fifth step, which is where we share that inventory with God, myself and another human being that my sponsor pointed out to me there was this pattern, this happened, and here's how you, here's your part, here's how you reacted to it. Or here's another situation. And it was, Oh yeah, someone hurt me and I would shut them out of my life. I wouldn't try and make that relationship better. I would just move on. I, and I would've said, man, they're not hurting me today. But I was carrying it without realizing I was carrying it. And then it would bleed into how I was responding or how I was acting in current relationships. So that was eye opening for me that, Oh gosh, this has been going on for a long time. And I was doing fine. I would've said I'm doing fine, but I didn't have really deep friendships, especially with women. I didn't trust other women and so I would have said yes, I had a best friend. I had lots of close relationships, but they weren't nearly what I have now and what I realized I needed. So a lot changed. Everything changed. Beth: It's one of the, I would say a blessing--I was debating if I was going to say benefit or blessing, but I would say a blessing. It's one of the blessings of being at a place, at a church that has a program like this because you realize that you don't have to look at just the level that you're functioning at to know whether you're hurting and to know where your hurt resides, right? So when folks in the church come and say, you know, listen, we all should be doing this, right? We all should be looking at our hurts, habits and hang-ups, right? Not just addictions. We're not just going to, this isn't just for someone who is dealing with an addiction to alcohol or to painkillers or to other drugs or to food even, right? This is, we all have life experiences that we need to acknowledge and address so that we can really be as healthy as possible, as emotionally healthy as possible. That's a real eye opening truth to get a hold of. Lori: Exactly. Beth: So do you guys want to go step-study style and say what the steps are? Steph: I think that's a great idea, but before we do that, why don't we talk about how our step-study came to be because we started a staff ladies step-study for the ladies that were on staff at Killearn at the time. Beth: Yes. Who wanted to participate. Yes. Not every, not every lady on staff wanted to participate and that was okay. We ended up with were five of us, three of whom are now in the room together. Steph: And I told my story about how it happened in my book, but I would love to hear Lori's side of the story. So if you could tell us how--maybe it's different than mine actually. Lori: I think you remember more of the dates and details than I do. You and I had lunch together, Steph shortly after you came on staff at Killearn and at that lunch you reminded me that you were in high school when Celebrate Recovery got started at Killearn and you were part of the team that helped pull all the promotion stuff together as we were introducing it to our church. You were asking me questions about the program and I guess you had gone through sitting in the sound booth during large group, you had heard testimonies and you had heard people teaching a lesson on the steps. So you asked me questions about Celebrate Recovery and getting involved in the step-study. And I think I said something to the effect of, you know, I really wish everyone on staff would go through it because I think especially being in ministry, if we're in a good place and we're healthy as we can be, we're able to minister better to other people. But you and I talked about the possibility of have a step-study and so I put an email out to the all the female staff members and said I'd be willing to lead it. Our pastor at the time was very gracious and said that people could actually do it on work time because it's a two hour, two hour class to hour group. There were four besides me, there were four that said they were interested in so we started meeting. That's how we started. Steph: Yeah, that's how it started. I remember being overly excited about it, kind of almost ignorant. I was just like, yeah, this is great, but having no idea how intense and emotional it was. I just was like, yeah, let's go recruit people. And I remember me and another girl that was across from me my office, we just went down and we just went down the hallway and just started asking every lady and we got, we got some! Actually I think you two were in the same office? Beth: Yeah, she was across the hall from me. Yeah. New Speaker:So we yeah, so we just went down and were like, come join this step-study. And then some of the other ladies were like, no, not today. Beth: Stephanie was all like, "Oh wow, this really sounds fun." And some people were like, "actually that sounds hard." Steph: We asked you guys, the two of you, we asked first and you guys were all gung ho and then we were like, so we excited. We're like, we're going to ask everybody and then everyone else was like, no. We're like, Oh okay, well we're good. Then we got a good group. It's a good small group, but that's exactly what happened. Lori: I've learned that exactly whoever needs to be in a group at that time is in the group at that time. Yeah, and I can look back at other steps studies and think, yeah, that was exactly the people that needed to be together for whatever reason. Yeah. Steph: A big part of a step-study, which is something that I really appreciated was how confidential it is. It could be really awkward because we were talking about really intense stuff in our lives in that group. And then we worked with the same ladies. And that's not typical in a step-study, it's usually other people that go to large group of CR. So it's not that you normally work with those ladies, but in our situation we did. But I love that we all understood that it was confidential and whatever we talked about in the group stayed in the group and we didn't talk about it outside and we all respected that and that felt very comforting and very different. I'd never really had that kind of confidential situation and Bible studies or anything like that before. We kind of knew, but it was never like these are the rules. And that's a big part of, I don't know if that's a big part of all recovery programs, but I really appreciated that with Celebrate Recovery it's very clear. Whoever you see at CR, you don't talk about outside of CR. If you see them outside of CR, you don't acknowledge, "Oh Hey, you know, I saw you at CR" because people probably don't want other people to know that they're going or may not want them to know. There's nothing bad about going to CR, but some people might feel like other people might judge them for being in recovery program because not everyone sees that as amazing, like I do. Beth: The confidentiality definitely gives you the comfort to be able to really do the work that you need to do and not worry about, Oh, I don't want so-and-so to know about this. Well, no, no. It was in the room of the step-study that is a sacred space and in our group really did hold to that in a way that was really beautiful. And I think most step-studies do. Steph: And that's why we are not saying the names of our other ladies in our step-study because they didn't give us--well we didn't ask--but they didn't give us permission to say their names. So we would not break that confidentiality even though it was years ago. It's still, it's confidential. I mean we can break our own anonymity. So that's why we've been saying that we are part of the step-study. And Lori gave me permission to have her name in the book. That's why that's there. Otherwise I was going to change her name. But-- Beth: What would you have changed her name to? Steph: Loro. All: [Laughing] Steph: I don't know. I hadn't come up with-- Lori: I think I like Lori better. Beth: Yeah, I'm glad you gave permission, that would've been weird. Steph: I was a big fan of Lori. Lori: Anonymity and confidentiality is vital to all recovery programs. You only have to have one of those or both of those broken to see the damage that it because it gives us a kind of freedom to let our guard down a little bit. And it takes time. We knew each other in our step-study. We all, like you said, we were already working together. We knew each other. Yeah. So we didn't have, I don't think we had that beginning awkwardness of, I don't know this person. I don't know who she is. I don't know if I can trust her. Steph: So part of the step-study is there are rules-- Lori: Guidelines. Steph: Not rules, yes, guidelines. I like that. And at the beginning of each meeting, what do we call that? At the beginning of each meeting of our step-study, we would read the guidelines to remind everybody what they were and we would also read the 12 steps together and it was just something to kind of almost center us and just something that we can all do together and it helps us get out of our heads of the day and focus on the step-study. So I think as you said Beth, I think that'd be great if we read the 12 steps just briefly for people to kind of hear what they are. And we're also going to have a link to them in the show notes if you want to refer to them and kind of get a look at them. Beth: It was the first way that you had to be brave in our step-study because you had to read out loud and you know, we just had our episode on dyslexia and so people know you don't, you don't like to read out loud, but you're going to do it for us again today. Steph: Yes, I will do it. Lori: Before we read them I do want to tell you when The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous was written back in the 1930s it was really just Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob putting down on paper what they had done to get sober and stay sober. So they weren't, "here's what you need to do," but instead, here's what we did. I know that their hope was that sharing their experience with others would help others as well. So they were never written in the here's the steps you need to take. And they start and they start off by saying, "we," here's what "we" did. Step One, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Beth: So in Step One, the way that CR changes that is that it just doesn't refer to alcohol. Right? Lori: It says our addictions and compulsive behaviors. Steph: Number 2 we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity depth. Beth: Step number 3 we made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God. Lori: Step 4 we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Steph: Step 5 we admitted to God, to ourselves into another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. Beth: Step number 6 we were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Lori: Step 7 we humbly asked him to remove all our shortcomings. Steph: Step 8 we made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them. Beth: Step 9 we made direct amends to such people whenever possible except when to do so would injure them or others. Lori: Step 10 we continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Steph: Step 11 we sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God. Bring only for knowledge of his will for us and power to carry that out. Beth: Step 12 having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to others and practice these principles in all our affairs. Which sort of says step 12 go back to Step One and do it again. Right? Lori: That's part of it, but it's also share what's happened to us, what our experience has been with others when asked. That's a big part is we can share openly, certainly, but I've learned that not everyone's ready to hear. There's two people in particular I can think of that early in their program would introduce themselves as an alcoholic who is struggling with Christianity. They didn't get it. They didn't understand the whole Jesus Christ thing at all and the God of their understanding they could identify with and others who don't have any belief at all. Steph: Can you come with no belief? Lori: Absolutely! Anyone! Anyone can walk through the doors of CR and, and I would say absolutely of outside meetings. Steph: If somebody said, Oh, I don't believe in God, you know, I don't want to say that. Would they feel comfortable saying that with somebody tell them-- Lori: I don't know if they would feel comfortable or not because I don't know how other people feel. But I do know that sitting in meetings, if people express a concern or make a statement like that, all I've ever heard the response to be is we're glad you're here. Keep coming back. Everyone's accepted. Everyone. Steph: And that's the big thing I love about CR is that we're not here to fix you. We're here to talk about, you know, what worked for us and share our experiences and not, well this is what you need to do. They don't, that's not part of, in my experience, that's not part of CR. Lori: One of our guidelines is that we don't, we don't fix each other. Steph: Exactly. Lori: I and me statements. From our own experience. Beth: How many steps studies have you participated in at this point do you think? Lori: I think I've done eight or nine. I did two only as a participant. My very first one and as soon as I finished that because I didn't think I did well, you know, I didn't know what I was doing. Beth: Lori is a high achiever y'all. You could probably sense that already, but she's like, "Oh no, no, I could've done that better. Let me do it again." Lori: Well, I really, I didn't know what I was doing the first time. I mean, I was just literally following the program, you know, the participants guides that we work through. I was just answering the questions and doing exactly what I needed to do, but as soon as I finished it was like, Oh man, I need to do that again because I now see there's, there's more, there's more that I need to work on. So I did two almost back to back, I don't know, short gap between one ending and one starting. And then a close friend of mine and I who's also involved in CR and I decided that we wanted to, to lead one together and we wanted to do it on a weekday morning so that women who can't come out in the evening, they've got kids or jobs or whatever could do it. So we did that for, I think it was four years, four-step-studies, I mean, not four years but four step-studies on, you know, a weekday morning. Steph: So what keeps, keeps motivating you to keep doing step-studies? Lori: I get so much out of each one that I do. I'm never sure when I go into it. There might be an old habit or something that's crept back into my life or I just want to get deeper with God. Remember step 12, having had a spiritual experience as the result of THE steps. It doesn't say anything about having stopped drinking or having stopped, whatever my issue is, it doesn't say that. It says the purpose of this program is really to have an intimate relationship with God by the time you're through. Honestly, the step-studies helped just build an incredible relationship that I would have said was maybe more surface with God before I started. So I do it for a variety of reasons. I also like passing what I've learned on. It's that 12-step sharing my experience with others. When I sit in a a group for the first time, our first lesson, and we share a little bit about what brought us to the group and I can just see the pain, but I tell them to stick it out because they will not be the same women when they get through. And you know, there's one of those, you know, recovery slogans, you know, don't quit before your miracle happens. And it does every single time if they stick around, if they do the work and it is work, it's not, we just read the book. Beth: It is work. Lori: Yes it is work. Beth: When we started the show, we both said that we are in recovery for anger and self-sufficiency. I got that from you. Not because I was taking your issues, but because you helped me put words to what I was dealing with. I almost could probably not even say anger now because my toolbox is so, so full that I don't have that as much as an issue as when my kids were toddlers. The idea of self-sufficiency continues to be something that I, it comes up for me in Bible study, you know, I'm like, Oh, here again is Jesus saying don't be self-sufficient. Here again is an Old Testament prophet saying, don't be self-sufficient. You know like, Oh, I needed to hear that again and again and again. And so the idea of a step-study being a tool that releases you from self-sufficiency, but at the same time helping you acknowledge and work on your own problems. It might sound like a paradox, but it's true. Lori: It is true. And I would agree. I anger, I mean I still get angry, but I don't lash out or do the destructive, the rage part. I listened to that episode also. Man, I told you every one of your episodes I can. Yep. I can relate to that. Yeah. January 14th, 2014 was my last real rage. Beth: Wow. Lori: I know the day. But self-sufficiency still pops up. Steph: And based on what you were saying Beth, I don't know if it's human nature, but I don't know a lot of people that like being told what to do. I feel like I don't like being told what to do a lot of people. Yeah, exactly. Beth: You know what you "should" do. Oh wait, I think we did an episode on that. Steph: We'll refer you to that. So I think that's something that was so refreshing for me with CR is no one's telling you what to do. They are just simply allowing you to get your stuff out. There is so much power. I've been in therapy for years and that's part of when I was dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder that was therapy is to say the things out loud. So simple, so simple. So terrifying. But that's part of what you get to do in a Christ-centered program, like Celebrate Recovery is to share those things, get them out, but also know that people aren't going to then pile stuff back on you and tell you what to do. You can just let it out and it can be there. You're just freer when you leave those those sessions. Beth: Yeah, you're freer even though you have heard other people sharing their own problems because of what we were just saying, that you're not having to pick it up for them. And so one of the things that I think might intimidate people about a step-study is "oh, I'm going to go in and I'm going to absorb other people's stuff," no, you're not. You're not. You're going to be released from the need to do that. You're going to be told not to do that, not to pick it up. You mentioned just now Step Four and if I had to say what step was my least favorite, it would be a tie between four and five because number four, we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Searching and fearless. It means you're really going to be honest about yourself and that that kind of self-awareness can be scary. It takes, it takes courage and then you have to take what you have found in your fearless search and you're going to admit to God and to another human being. What you found when you looked there, that also is really scary. Oh gosh. When you get to the other side of it, you know the weight of it goes and you can begin to really heal. It's very powerful. Lori: It was definitely in, especially in my first step-study, the worst step ever. Some of it I couldn't see. As I said, I wouldn't have even thought that something that happened when I was, you know, 13 or 14 or 15 years old was affecting me today. And I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to put that stuff down on paper. I made sure I did it on a computer so I could password lock it and I didn't want anyone, because stuff was coming up. I was thinking about stuff that I had not talked about to anyone ever. I didn't want to do it, but I'm a rule follower. So I kept writing it down or putting it in the computer. And then the fifth step I had a sponsor. I got a sponsor because we're told don't do this alone. You need somebody who's further down the road than you. And I don't want to sit down with another woman and tell her all these things from my life. I still, you know, wasn't trusting other women at that point in time. But honestly, yeah, I think about it now and just the way that she accepted everything I said and looked at me and still loved me. And, and it was life changing. I mean she really modeled grace and acceptance. Nothing shocked her, you know, she didn't gasp and that was wow, somebody will actually listen to all this stuff. But then she, you know, she was able to point out for me this pattern that was going on in relationships. Beth: It sounds because of the way she was able to listen, you were able to hear her identify the patterns and understand that that was not offered with any judgment. Lori: Oh, absolutely. No judgment whatsoever. Beth: And I think, I think we do our inventory and even if you've never done a step-study, you have, you have some awareness hopefully of what your moral inventory would reveal, right? And so you, you know, I don't want to look at that because it's going to change my idea of who I am and now I'm going to tell someone else and it's going to change their idea of who I am. And you had the experience that I had when I did my Step Five with you, because I brought my moral inventory to you. And then I think Steph had with her sponsor when she took, took her inventory to her that, that, Oh no, it's not going to change how someone else sees me. And that means that I'm okay on some level. I am just okay being who I am. Even with these hurts habits and hang-ups that I'm going to work on, I'm going to allow God to work on and then I'm going to let go of the need to, for me, the need to contro and to set goals about and to know that, you know, I can go, I can let go of some of that. Lori: I think one of the biggest fears I know it was for me, I knew how I felt on the inside. And I often say that I think most of us compare our insides to other people's outsides. We know what they look like. We know this life that they present to the world. But I know what I feel like inside. I know what's going on in my head. I know what's going on in my heart most of the time. I don't want to be less than someone else. And if I admit my, as you said at my hurts, habits and hang-ups, then I'm going to be judged. But so often I've learned that when I'm honest with somebody, they'll say, "Oh gosh, me too." I didn't know anyone else felt that way. I didn't know anyone else had been through that as well. How did you do it? And I've asked people that when I've heard their stories, it's like, man, how have you done this? You know, in recovery it's like, well I dunno, I worked the steps. Yeah. I don't know what happened. Beth: The things that we are so afraid to admit to ourselves and to others when we can actually get them out it does create freedom. So what are some of the biases that you guys have encountered about the idea of recovery or the idea of the 12 steps? What do you think some of the biases are that people have? Steph: I feel like people look at "those" people. "Those people" are in recovery or that's for "those people." And I hear a lot of times, Oh, I don't have all those, those issues. People seem to think, well I don't, I don't have a problem with alcohol or these narcotics or these things, so I don't, I don't need to be involved with that. And that's what I really liked about CR is the wording is: Celebrate Recovery is for anyone with hurts, habits and hang-ups. Now I don't really know anybody that can't say they haven't had something within that broad terminology, it's not like you have to be an alcoholic to be here. Like, no, I don't struggle with alcohol. That is not a prerequisite for going. And it sounds like even for going to AA, an open share you said is for any kind of-- Lori: Open group. Steph: Yeah, an open group, I will admit, AA I always thought was for, you know, those people with "those" problems. But I would be totally willing to go to an open share meeting because having been part of recovery, just like you said, you can hear something that you can relate to. Even if they're talking about alcohol, you can hear that recovery in their story. Lori: Before CR I would have, I told you I would go to meetings and I couldn't relate to anything. I would have said that I didn't need recovery. You know, I had a good job and happy marriage and life was good. But I learned that there were things that were affecting me. How I responded to certain things. My need for doing it myself. Not wanting to relinquish control pretty much in anything to someone else. My marriage, hit a real rocky point years back and if it weren't for the fact that I think both my husband and I are in recovery fall back onto what we know works, I don't think we'd be married today. I know we wouldn't be married today. It was a really tough, tough point. But we both did the hard work and it, and it was hard work. If I hadn't tagged along and eventually did a step-study and learned and then experienced recovery, I would've walked away because that's what I've always done in the past. Steph: You talked about alcohol being not the problem. That there's some reason that you know, an alcoholic struggles with alcohol. And that was something I learned early on was it could be pretty obvious that my issue was self-injury, that I, that's what I need to deal with this self-injury, but I quickly learned that that was just my solution to something deeper, so my visible scar, my scars from self-injury actually were there because of invisible scars of abuse that happened to me as a child that I didn't know about and some of that I knew about. Some of that I learned about before I entered CR, but actually during my second step-study because me and you actually did two steps that he's together. I learned about some more abuse that happened to me when I was a child during my inventory and so I don't know that I would have been in the right place to learn about that and to be okay with that if I hadn't been in Celebrate Recovery. I don't know how that would have come out before. I had tried, actually. Really what it stems from is, I have, it's strange, but I have an issue with sticky things, things that are sticky. I don't like them. I still don't. But I tried for years to try to figure out where that came from in, during my step-study, I, I was able to learn that it was from some abuse that happened to me when I was five years old. Beth: One of the things that you've said a couple times is about how we compare our insides to other people's outsides. And so I used to say when I had the privilege to speak to mommy groups, I would say, you know, if you looked at the outside of my minivan, wow, it would seem so clean. But when you open those sliding doors, Oh, the stench is going to hit you. Like the three day old French fries are going to tumble out and oh there's a sippy cup in the back that's, you know, been there for too long. And because because you don't know when you just look at the outside, you don't know. And we all have--I stay away from generalizations but this is one I'm comfortable with--I really think 100% of people have some something on the inside that they think is not okay to put on the outside. Lori: Your your episode on the healthy selfie. Boy, it sure addressed that. Boy I listened to all that and I thought man, how guilty am I sometimes of putting just all the fun stuff in our life? So I just, I don't post much anymore at all. Beth: So interesting because I've posted less since that episode also. Yeah. because I'm more aware of it. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, that's true. Lori, thank you so much for being here with us today. Thank you for being our step-study leader back in the day. Thank you for being a treasured friend to both of us and thank you for being a guest on this episode. We really appreciate you. Lori: Oh thank you for having me. Steph: Yes, thank you so much. We do have a question for one last question. It's just a fun question. So we have a question for you. What book TV show or podcast are you excited about right now? Beth: We normally would say book, but that was too limiting for Steph. So we've expanded it to include TV show or podcast. Steph: I contributed the TV show one. Lori: Well the new season of Blacklist has just started, so I'm kind of hooked on that one. Oh, oh, oh. I do want to say the most recent book I read that I got super excited about was Breathing Underwater by Richard Rohr. It's Spirituality and the 12-Steps. I'm not plugging it because this is a recovery episode, but honestly it really, he's a priest-- Beth: I love Father Rohr. Lori: Isn't he amazing? Great writer, great speaker. But he really pulled spirituality, the Bible, what he knows about God into the 12 steps. He's not a stepper, but he saw the effect, the life changing effect of the 12 steps. Great book Breathing Underwater. Steph: Well, we talked a lot about Celebrate Recovery today. So if someone wanted to get involved with Celebrate Recovery or any kind of recovery program, how do they find out about them in their areas? Lori: So Celebrate Recovery has a national website, CelebrateRecovery.com. There are CR programs all over really all over the world. It's an international program now. Then if you're looking for an "A" group--an anonymous group--AA or NA or whatever, just Google it if you put in "where and when AA," it'll pop up. And what I love about the outside groups is they meet all times of the day, all different places. There's all kinds of groups for all kinds of issues. So really just Google it. Steph: Okay. And how much does it cost to go to a recovery program? Lori: Zero. Um we do have dinner at the beginning of ours and we do ask that if you're able to pay its $5, we don't, we don't want money to ever prevent someone from coming. Beth: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Discovering Our Scars. The fact that you're listening means you might be subscribed, but guess what? You might not be and you need to subscribe so that you always get notified as soon as a new episode releases. So if you're listening in Apple podcasts, just look and if the button still says subscribe, then it means you haven't yet subscribed. So go ahead and tap on that. If you're listening in Spotify, you want to make sure that you're following us so that it pops up in your feed. Google play, however you're listening, make sure that you have subscribed so that you never miss an episode. Steph: And I want to remind you that my book Discovering My Scars, the audio book and the ebook versions are now available so wherever you listen to audio books or read your eBooks, it will be there. Beth: So you guys know every episode we put out a question for you. We want you to call into our voicemail line. We'll give you the number in just a second and you can answer this question or you can answer any of the questions that we've asked in other episodes. It's really just a way to invite and encourage you to connect with us so that we can hear from you; we're really interested in that. And to be honest, usually these questions are something that Steph comes up with and usually it's because there's something she weren't really wants to share with you. And that's true today. So Steph today, what is this episode's caller question? Steph: Yes. I'm so excited. I've been sharing about this with people in my life and they didn't know about it, so I was like I have to educate the world on this because it's my favorite thing. So today's question is: What is your favorite fast food item? And if it's an unusual thing, that's even better because my item is not a #1 or #2. It's a number appetizer. Actually it's an appetizer, that's the name of it. Beth: It's a Zappetizer, actually. Steph: It's a Zappetizer. So my favorite item is from Zaxby's and if you're not in this area of the world, it's actually used as a chicken place. Some really good chicken. But my favorite thing is the tater chips. They are made, they are freshly made potato chips and they are so good. I pair it with a salad and that's what I get as my meal. But then I have my chips on the side and it's so good. So I highly recommend it. I don't even eat it with the sauce. I'm not a saucy girl, but I do like my chips. Beth: How about you Beth? What is your favorite? Well actually it's something that I order is what people might think as unusual or they might not think of is also from Zaxby's. And that's that when I go there, I like to get the kids' meal because you can get a grilled cheese sandwich on the kids' meal and they never give me a hard time that I'm not a kid. So you get the grilled cheese and I really like salty food and their grilled cheese sandwich is so good and salty because they do the bread on the grill and it's really, really delicious. And then instead of getting a toy, you get these really delicious big, they're really big Goldfish graham cracker cookies. And so it's like that's a treat for later. It's the kids' meal that just keeps on going. So yeah, that would be my pro tip. Steph: So if you have something unusual that you would like to share with us that's fast food related, please do. Our number is (850) 270-3308. That's a voicemail number. So just call it. No one will answer, but you can leave whatever message you like. At the end of each episode, we end with Questions For Reflection. These are questions we've written based on today's episode and you're welcome to answer these in your head on paper, out loud to yourself, however works for you. We also have a downloadable PDF of them on our website. Beth: #1: Do you have any personal bias against people who participate in recovery programs? #2: Did any of the 12-steps jump out to you as very challenging? #3: Does the fact that recovery programs refer to God or a higher power discourage you from being involved? Why? #4: Are there things in your life that have become unmanageable? #5: Based on what you've heard today, do you think a recovery program could be beneficial for you? Steph: This has been the Discovering Our Scars podcast. Thanks for joining us. Quotable
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Meet StephMental Health Advocate. Author. Podcast Host. DIYer. Greyhound Mom. 
Meet BethI'm a mom who laughs a lot, mainly at myself. #UMC Pastor, recent Seminary grad, public speaker, blogger, and sometimes lawyer. Learning to #LiveLoved. 
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