I Get Too!

Buddha teaches that one of the hell realms is the animal realm. In sharing my AA story I relate my early growing addiction to being lost in the behavior of that realm. Revisiting these past stories is a good meditation for me now cause I view them with gratitude and an appreciation for my precious life.

Step One states our willingness to recognize we have a problem and that it's hurting our life. I look at that in my story and how I am still using it to find and exchange non-supporting habits for healthy supporting ones.

In Buddha Dharma I learned about rebirth and the six realms. In today's episode I share my understanding of the six realms of rebirth and how I can relate my story to their meaning.

In AA I've learned to listen to others stories cause I'll be able to see that my situation really isn't all that bad. Or I can at least get out of my head and out of my problems if I take the time to care about someone else with problems.

I do this podcast "from Booze to Buddha," as a way for myself to think about others and try to offer help in the tradition of the 12 steps of AA.

AA teaches us that when we are able to gain a period of relief from our addictions that this doesn't reset our behavior. If we go back to using our mind-altering substance we will enter into the period of our addiction where we had left off and then continue on that spiral to new lows.

Step 1 of AA reads "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol (read as all mind-altering substances) - that our lives had become unmanageable. As I grew into a teenager I had a lot of hurt that I needed to protect myself from. I used mind-altering substances to fool myself into believing I was happy and would now start growing up and proceed into a downward spiral into the hell of Step 1.

In my AA story today I continue to share my thoughts on my time in the children's shelter and a foster home.

Well after being away from the microphone and allowing one little event to become another and another I am back. I am grateful to a listener Matthew who e-mailed me. It acted as a reminder of why I began this project and why it's important to me... and that's cause as it turns out it's important to others.

Thank you

Today I talk about how the influences worked to lead me down a bad path. I also show how I understand the importance of influences and how I use them now to follow a healthy path.