Just for Today - March 16th, 2026 with Stephen H. - Inventory

0:00All right, welcome to the Anonymous Podcast, 2026, just for today's series on your host, Douglassel. If you've been rocking with us for years or listening for your very first time, you're welcome here. And you're encouraged to participate. This is not just a podcast, this is a community. If you want to read it just for today, if you want to share it on the just for today episode, join a book study, be a part of the dialogue, welcome, we'd love to have you. Reach out to us, you can chop it up on the Facebook page or the podcast number, which that'll come directly to me. But either way, if you have the desire, jump on in and we got you. Please know this, it never cost anything to listen to any of these episodes. We don't charge, we don't make any money from doing it, we don't pay our guests to come on. This is truly 100% a labor of love.

1:00Every episode is created by addicts in recovery who are eager to participate and grateful to be of service. And we won't have it any other way. As we focus on that magic six letter word, others, we collectively believe if one person benefits from our efforts, including one of us, then without a doubt it's all worth it. Alright, so here we go. This podcast is a commentary and discussion of narcotics and anonymous literature intended to enrich the recovery experience. This is not, alright, let's double us, double down on this. This is not a replacement for sponsorship, step work or participation in any other form of the fellowship. Please use this podcast as an additional resource as we continue to grow together. The anonymous podcast does not represent NA. We are not affiliated with NA as a whole. We are simply addicts seeking recovery, nothing more, and for sure nothing less. Now let's get started. Hey, y'all, I'm Reagan, I'm an addict.

2:09My clean date is November 21st, 2024, and I attend meetings in Columbia, South Carolina. This is our just for today from March 16th, inventory. The purpose of a searching and fearless moral inventory is to sort through the confusion and contradiction of our lives so that we can find out who we really are. Basic text page 27. Using addicts are confused and confusing bunch of people. It's hard to tell from one minute to the next what they're going to do or who they're going to be. Usually the addict is just as surprised as anyone else. When we used our behavior was dictated by the needs of our addiction. Many of us still identify our personalities closely with the behavior we practice while using. Keeping us to feel shame and despair. Today we don't have to be the people we once were, shaped by our addiction. Recovery has allowed us to change. We can use a four step inventory to see past the needs of the old using life and find out who we want to be today. Writing about our behavior and noticing how we feel about that behavior helps us understand who we want to be.

3:10Our inventory helps us see beyond the demands of active addiction, beyond our desire to be loved and accepted. We find out who we are at the root. We begin to understand what's appropriate for us and what we want our lives to be like. This is the beginning of becoming who we really are. Just for today, if I want to find out who I am, I'll look at who I've been and who I want to be. Thanks for letting me serve. All right, welcome back everyone. It's March 16th, inventory hanging out with Stephen H. Stephen, can you let the folks know your clean date? Were you at 10 meetings? Give your home group a shout out. Hey, everybody. I'm Stephen. I'm an addict. My clean date is August 22nd of 2020 and I attend meetings in the Lake Erie area of Narcotics Anonymous. My home group is nothing is permanent. Sunday is at 10 a.m. Well, do that's a cool home group name. Nothing's permanent. That's good. That's good. Congratulations. May you celebrate it five years not too long ago. Yeah. Yeah. Today's actually five and a half. Yeah. Go for you, man. Good. All right, let's jump into it, bro.

4:10What do you think about inventory? You know, when I think about inventory, I think about when my sponsor first told me examine your motives. I had never really, I had never really given thought to that like what my motives really are, but it was always born in some sort of defect at that point when I first got clean. And today it's it's kind of graduated into a understanding of, you know, where I want to be and where I've been. And what I want out of life, you know, I've always wanted to help people and, you know, that's truly my nature is to help others, but I was always so. I guess my thought process was always so perturbed by addiction that I never really gave myself a chance to do that, to really feel and, you know, notice others, because I was

5:10so drown in self. So in context, you're talking about like you, you, you noticed that the, the motives like regardless of the situation, the motives was was like usually centered in, you know, what am I going to gain from this? Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, same. Same. Same. That's what I seen early on to. Yeah. And you know, you know, I don't have to have other people see me do good. I just do it for the good, you know, and I found, yeah, yeah, I found like love, love has its own like money system, man, I don't know, like it's spiritual money, like, you know, no, that's cool, man, my spirit response to that, yeah, like the spiritual currency that

6:12we get and it's one of those things that you can't like a, what do I, I know this is like a very religious, you know, saying or whatever or principle, it's like you can't out give God. You know, I've heard that a lot, you know, different like, you know, preacher man talking about, usually trying to get the collection plate a little thickened up, you know what I mean? But, but here, like, like in this, in this thing that we do, it's like, bro, the more I give of myself and the more I give of myself, it's, you're, you're exactly right through that spiritual currency. It's like, I give back peace, sense of purpose and with the inventory piece where you're talking about like that, the self-serving piece, through that lesson sometimes, like there's some seasons towards like, I'm looking at my motives and it's not, you know, can this interaction benefit me and how fast and how much can it benefit me? It's fucking wow, dude. Yeah, we get a chance today to do the right thing and when we do that, I've found, you

7:16know, it comes back tenfold at a later date or, you know, in a clarity moment or who knows? But it always comes back at some point and that's the beauty of it is with me. Do that internal work and look at that inventory and do the right thing instead of what my brain wants me to do, you know, when I'm guided by that higher power, those things are returned tenfold for sure. Do you have anything going on like, if you did a spot inventory, you know, like this most recent season of your life, is there some contradictions that you've identified or some things that maybe, you know, you're focusing on being intentional about improving? Yes. Recently, I've been working on like, not being a victim of my own like, I'm like a victim of, I can't think of the term, but spiritual bypassing, I guess, like, everything's great,

8:19everything's wonderful, but internally I'm thinking like the worst things could happen, you know, in postures and room kind of things, right? Like, I'm doing these things, but I don't feel like I'm worthy of doing those things, right? So I'm either trying to step on somebody or lean on somebody to help me excel to the next place, you know, and it's not always the most conducive to a healthy environment. So I'm trying to step out of that victim mentality of trying to impersonate someone else, but just do my own thing and be my own person. You're sharing about it at meetings? Oh, yeah. You find? Yeah, there's like, there's like a couple of different camps and I've, so over to like, I guess the past five and a half years talking to different people kind of on this platform, you know, and stuff, I really see like two camps, like one, especially when it comes

9:21to inventory material, you know, maybe like motives is a part of that, you know, things. And it's like, it's like one is like, I'll take this only to my sponsor or my close friends and then the other camp, which is the camp that I, you know, I found myself in is like, yeah, I'm kicking this shit out at meeting level, man, I'm talking about what you're going on with me. And that's it, you know, and, you know, so that's cool. That's cool. What I found with that, Eric is, or Douglas, I'm sorry, is, I look like Eric a lot. Yeah, you do. Yeah. We're both the very handsome for those who are listening. So thank you for that. You are. I mean, what I found is when I'm ready to talk about something, I've already been so sick of that shit in my own mind that I'm willing to do something and bring it out to the light in the open so that people can give me their feedback and I can work on fixing it. Whether or not I'm actually willing to do what they're asking me to do, but that's a whole other story.

10:23Dude, that's, yeah, that's part two of, but that's such a good point, man, of, of, when I, when I, when I put it down in the inventory and I put pen and paper, whether it's like a formal four step or I'm just putting pen and paper and, you know, a different season or whatever, when I can, when I can look at that and then I'm, I'm, I'm thinking about it and I can see it like right there in front of me. You're damn right, dude, I'm already sick of the behavior that's causing me, you know, it's causing us to, like these negative experiences, I feel like shit about it, I don't want to continue doing it. And I'm, that's exactly, you're exactly right, but yeah, I'm, I'm already sick of it. So why not, why not share about it and try to get some relief from it? Mm-hmm. Doing that, and though, you know, part, that's what's our process look like for you. Do you usually take, do you usually take like the suggestions and experience that you hear, hear meetings and kind of start trying it right away? I try to, but I'm kind of lazy.

11:23That's one of my biggest character defects is like, I try to find the easiest solution. But you know, when I, when I do put the work in is when I get the most out of it, I guess, you know. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think there's something I've noted, like in this season of my life, too, man, I, I've been, the past year, I've been sharing a lot about, like going through identity crisis, you know, it was like as my sons become older and maybe like less dependent, and really man, like the God of Understanding just gave me this big hug recently, it was like this past wrestling season. I got to spend just about, just about every weekend with my son, you know, a different wrestling tournament or something, and then one evening during the week, I got to go spend with him. So, dude, almost like I was like at critical mass, dude, with this identity crisis of like, who am I? You know, the boys don't need me, who am I? It was like God was like, hold on, I'm just, you, you, I'm going to give you a couple

12:23of months to where you can really lean into it, and then, you know, so, so, but dude, that's one thing like that I'm looking at now, you know, and in my life and I'm sharing about it and talking, it's like, it's almost like a rediscovering process, man, you know, like yeah. Like, who, who, who, like, when am I going to do on a random Wednesday night right now? Like, what does that look like for me? What does this Saturday look like for me? Yeah, I think that's the beautiful part of what this program gives us is like the ability to redefine ourselves and, and for me, it's when the pain gets great enough, right? I'm just that kind of guy, like I will put myself into some emotional turmoil for as long as possible and then finally come out the other side when I'm ready, you know, and, and share it and, and take those suggestions finally, after somebody's been trying to tell me for months, but that's the, but that's the, but that's the imitation for today. Like for the folks listening and for you and me, like, like, we can be intentional today of saying, hey, look, whether it's a formal inventory, you know, as part of our four step

13:28or if we're putting pen to paper on an area in our life that we need to inventory, we're in an inventory of this with the hope of like that's way in the foundation for us to be able to redefine ourselves. Dude, that's, see, if we look at it like that, like that's exciting, you know, that's exciting. It's not like, oh, shit, you know, it's going to be a very painful process. Like, oh, hold on, man, like I get to put on like a new outfit. It's really cool. Yeah. And I think that's like the fearless part of it, you know, that fearless moral inventory. Because a lot of people love to put fear on the fourth step, but it's a fearless moral inventory. And if we can get excited about those things, man, like how powerful that is for sure. All right, thank you for spending your time with us today on the anonymous podcast. So whether you're enjoying listening quietly or, you know, maybe, maybe you're having this desire to participate, just know that you're welcome, 100% you're welcome here.

14:30This is a safe space because addicts show up, willing to share, serve, and looking for ways to focus on that magic six letter word, others. Until next time, I'm your host Douglas L. Namaste and God bless.