Dan Reeves- From Alcoholic to reclaiming that which was lost!

Hi, my name is Dan and I’m an alcoholic

At 45 years of age my alcoholism and addictions came crashing down on me, I was facing 6-20 years in prison, I had given away a 17 year marriage and was on the verge of losing everything.

Even with those consequences hovering, I was unable to stop consuming the very chemicals that put me in this position.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear, and mine came in the form of an Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, and the twelve steps. My sponsor guided me through the Steps and the trajectory of my life was forever altered.

Since taking this path, many miracles have occurred in my life, first and foremost, release from the grip of addiction. It has aligned my compass to my own personal “True North”, and has given purpose to an almost lost life.

Along the way, I launched a podcast, “Spiritual Underground Podcast”, where I carry this message of recovery through the age old tradition of story telling, specifically the 12 Step method of “What it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now”.

I define “Recovery” as “to reclaim that which was lost or stolen”; and what was lost and/or stolen, was my true self, my true voice, my connection to the universal power, I had lost touch of my very soul.

That is my mission today, to create a world of healing recovery by guiding others toward their true purpose through the magic of the twelve steps.

*If you were from the future and coming to help humanity what message would you leave them with in less than 3 sentences?

Clean house, trust god, help others - take care of your health. Do those things and you’ll be way ahead of most people.

Contact Dan; 

https://spiritualunderground.org/index.html#/
https://www.facebook.com/SpiritualUnderground?mibextid=wwXIfr&mibextid=wwXIfr, https://www.instagram.com/spiritualunderground/profilecard/?igsh=MTBuYzVsaDRoYWNneA==

https://open.spotify.com/show/65G5558wka27QQHnHMZGFy?si=NDVYW5TTSwSh4t4jT8B3hA

Chapters

• 0:55 Quantum Alchemist Master Podcast
• 12:28 Journey of Recovery and Service
• 24:40 Ego vs Vessel

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:55

Hi, dan. Welcome to Quantum Alchemist Master Podcast. It's a pleasure to have you here, I know I'm personally looking forward to this conversation with you and hearing more about your journey. Welcome.

Speaker 2: 1:08

Thank you. I'm honored to be asked to do anything where I get to carry this message that has been so freely given to me.

Speaker 1: 1:18

Thank you so much. Would you care to tell us about your beautiful journey?

Speaker 2: 1:24

Yeah, and it's always funny to keep it in a compact space, but I think I can do that. I grew up as just a regular old, middle-aged kid in the middle of America, midwestern America. I had, as far as I'm concerned, great parents, although they did put stuff into me that did not serve me, which I found later on by using the tools that were given to me, got married, had a 17-year marriage, had two children and drank and drugged the whole time and didn't think it was a problem. It didn't and to some extent it really wasn't. You know I see where it was today, but it really wasn't.

Speaker 2: 2:08

But when I was 41, I entered AA, thinking I had a problem, and I tried to manage my own recovery my way, which over the next four years I found out didn't work, and I crashed and burned. When I was 45, my alcoholism addiction crashed completely down on me and I was facing six to 20 years in the Indiana Department of Corrections and that marriage was over. I had given away that. I won't say I lost that 17 year marriage. I gave it away. That was me. I gave it away and I was on the verge of losing everything. I was on the verge of losing my employment, my home, everything, you know. You go to prison. This makes it awful tough to make house payments and car payments and things like that and things like that. And you know I had that moment that you hear. Well, even though, with those consequences hovering above me, I could not stop using the chemicals that were killing me, that were causing this entire problem, I still couldn't quit. And that's where we get into this concept of powerlessness. I was completely powerless and I had to get some power that I could live on, that could support me. And you know I did the typical jailhouse prayer, the hospital bed prayer, the help me somebody. If you are out there, I need your help, out there, I need your help. And that's when I entered into recovery. And we have a definition for recovery where we say and you can look it up in the dictionary, you'll find the same one it says to reclaim that which was lost or stolen. And it's like your car right when they come and get your car and take it back to their place because you haven't made your payments or you go recover something you lost on a trail someplace. And what I had lost was my very soul myself, my being, who Dan is, I'd lost my voice. I'd lost my connection to my compass needle that allows to guide me to where I'm supposed to be going, and that had all disappeared. And I love that definition of recovery coming from that angle. And then here's another famous saying when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

Speaker 2: 4:31

And that happened to me in a 12-step meeting one night where I've been listening to a gentleman for four to six to eight weeks talk and I really wanted that guy to help me and I knew it in my heart. I could feel it. You know, and I'm in touch with that a lot better now and I can act on that. But back then I couldn't really act on that and I was scared to ask him, just like so many of us. I was afraid to ask for help and I certainly was afraid to ask this other man for help. And one night in that meeting I walked in and I was really hurting. I'd been to court that day. They were still talking about how long they were going to put me in prison. I was scared to death and I walked in there and did what we call a burning desire and I poured out my bucket and told the group because I've been lying to them the whole time. You know I'm good, I'm fine, I'm okay and uh, meanwhile I'm very not okay.

Speaker 2: 5:24

But that night I came in there and I poured out my soul to that group of men and, uh, the very guy who I so much wanted to work with me made a beeline to me after the meeting and said I want to work with you, I think I can help you. And when I walked out of the building that night, the stars were brighter. I knew something had shifted. And you know I say this over and over again too that I really didn't. I did recognize it that night, but most of the things I recognize are in their rearview mirror, you know. And I, when I turn around, look back at it, I go, hey, that was pretty cool.

Speaker 2: 6:03

And uh, and this guy took me under his wings, man, and and he had standards and he had, uh, uh, suggestions he expected me to follow. And I just jumped into his hip pocket and and because, frankly, there was nobody else offering to help me, nobody. I feel like I was inside of a cardboard box that was painted black and there was a little pinhole in the corner and it was these men offering to help me. And when I got into that immediately and I see this over and over again I've had the opportunity to help a lot of guys under this program. Immediately, when I see a guy move his heart because he's got to move his heart that direction you know he has to mean it. He can't just kind of halfway want to. Immediately, when I see a guy turn his heart into accepting this help, we have to offer good things start happening to them. Some stuff starts falling off, some legal problems fall off, the wife isn't so mad, the kids are starting to be more loving towards them and just things like that. Work gets better. And that's exactly what happened to me.

Speaker 2: 7:15

My sentence went from 6 to 20 to a year of home incarceration, which was dropped down to nine months. That gave, that, protected me, that put me in a safe and protected window. Now you know I could have screwed it up easy. Right, we can mess it up, but I was. I was devoted and I had that six to nine months where I didn't go to the bachelor parties or the Super Bowl parties or the different things that would have possibly led me astray, and I walked the path and I will credit the corrections community here with giving me the leeway to do the things I needed to do to achieve this state of recovery state of recovery and so many, I like to say, as I started walking this path. You know I was doubtful at first, you know, and I thought some things were fluke. And you know and maybe I was just lucky this evidence started piling up behind me that at some point I could no longer deny that something was happening to me, for me, as a result of turning my compass needle in this direction. And it continues to do that here to this day.

Speaker 2: 8:29

I call them miracles. I have a list in my phone. I started out on paper. A mentor told me when these cool things were happening, like these great things were happening in my life, to start taking note of them because later on you will forget. And he's right, because I go back and look in that list, man, and there's stuff that you know something will prompt me to remember it. But just a general. It's kind of like a long-term gratitude list and the stuff like not having to go to prison and then let me off early.

Speaker 2: 8:59

My mom had a fatal, what turned into being a terminal disease while I was on home incarceration and they didn't give me any grief to do my best to help them. You know, mom would fall in the middle of the night and and I would leave the house and call them and leave the house and go do what I need to do, come back, call them back at them back home again and I never received any. You know grief over that and that's. I don't know that. That's common in the corrections community, that they, that they give you that much leeway. An angel walked into my life down there, a social worker who really was on my side. You know again, when your student's ready teachers appear and Janelle really did a lot for me to help me get where I am today I can follow my compass needle today and know what I'm supposed to be doing and what I'm not supposed to be doing and be pretty confident of that. And it's all a result of this thing called the 12 steps. I launched a podcast called the Spiritual Underground Podcast where people tell the same stories as I'm talking.

Speaker 2: 10:11

But, more importantly, my mentor, my sponsor and I are convinced that the 12 steps are a way of life that people need. It's an avenue, you know, and it's a lot of different modalities for healing, and we're all. I love that. We're all a bunch of people doing good for the world, a force for good in the world, and have their things. But we've started up a deal where we are offering the 12 steps to anybody that wants it.

Speaker 2: 10:40

And then we questioned that back a while back, like, would this help people who don't have addiction, gambling, overeating? Would this help just like our normal people? I don't know if anybody's really normal, but would this help them too? So we actually took it upon ourselves to start some groups here in Louisville, kentucky, and start offering these 12 steps to people who, just, you know, life wasn't what they thought it should be. There's got to be more to this than what I'm receiving, got to be more to this than what I'm receiving, and we found out that these 12 steps that saved millions of other alcoholics, addicts, gamblers there's like a hundred other 12 steps, fellowships, but to my knowledge nobody has ever said everybody, you're welcome, let's, let's here. Let me offer this to you. I don't know anybody, any program out there, that's anybody anonymous, just everybody. And so we started having people come. They were drawn to it and we saw that this work does the same thing for them as what it did for us. And over my shoulder there is the. I Am One Too, and we have started a podcast to start a.

Speaker 2: 11:56

I don't like the word, you know, 12-step principles are attraction rather than promotion, but I'm going to use the word promote anyway because I'm ready to get up on the hill and say, hey, you want help. Maybe our way is the way you need. And we started. We're going to rename it, but right now there's currently a number of meetings here in the Louisville area and some of them are Zoom, so you could join them from any place in the world called 12-Step Spiritual Recovery, and that gets back to that spirit.

Speaker 2: 12:29

Like I said earlier, I had lost my very soul, the spirit, and then that recovery to reclaim that which was lost or stolen, and it's doing great. People are getting help and golly, there's just nothing that's helped me. There's nothing more fulfilling to my heart than when I get the opportunity to help somebody else, whether if it's carry their garbage cans in or, frankly, resurrect their entire life. I'll take either. That whole life thing is something else.

Speaker 2: 13:08

After 28 years of corporate in America, I am now self-employed and kind of have a handle on my own destiny. It's just another thing that came out of recovery that I would have had no idea I would have been. I thought I was stuck in that job for the rest of my life and I'm not. I'm out, having time to do things like this and running around. It's interesting that I run around handyman a lot and I see how.

Speaker 2: 13:33

That is another service opportunity. Even though some energy gets exchanged for my service, it's still when I walk out the door these people are happy because the things that were broken in their house a little bit ago are past and I get to help them do that. And this higher power, the universe, whatever keeps on putting me in a position to help people as long as I land myself there to be able to do that. It's my mission today. It is my mission. I joined a program for a little bit. It's offered me so many things to break free of that that was holding me back. I'm a registered yoga teacher today. I never thought that would have been the case.

Speaker 1: 14:23

Very cool.

Speaker 2: 14:24

Yeah, I get to do so many cool things. We made a mission statement in a group of men's group Basically it's called the Mankind Project, but ultimately it's just men helping men be better men and it was really good and I would still be in it today, except for I had a wonderful mentor in that department that sat down and talked to me about where I was sharing my energy and maybe I was splitting it and really wasn't. I could get more of it here instead of splitting it apart. You know, if I have 100% energy and I split it apart, probably each half is getting 30% and the rest of the 40 is getting wasted. And he said I think you need to continue to focus your time in recovery and maybe back out of here. But the one thing I still carry with me today is that mission statement. They helped us create, encouraged us to create, and that's to create a world of healing, recovery by guiding others towards their true purpose through the magic of the 12 steps. And it really is.

Speaker 2: 15:34

I don't know how it works. That's why I call it magic. I didn't see it work. You know it's the scientific approach, right? Do it Give that result? Do it Give that result? Do it, give that result, and after a while you just go yeah, hey, that's what this thing is doing.

Speaker 2: 15:49

It's giving me, I got a prop, it's given me a crystal ball, and that is a real lead crystal ball. I love it too. What it? You know, it's symbolic to me that I see my path. Today I'm no longer wandering around wondering what Dan is supposed to be doing. I have purpose. And you know, at the the same time, the men I work with I can see them today too, and I can prompt them to pick up their, their, uh commitment, what we're doing here, because I've done the half measures thing in the past and half measures didn't get me anything. And when I poured myself into this, then I get to live this life that I have today. And they see that in me and hear me say that last night. There's another little thing. I don't know how well it can be seen, but I make wooden tokens for all the guys in my group for their years of recovery, and I gave away seven of those last night, and I made me one too. Let's see, I think I had it backwards. I made me one too because I'm worth it too. For a while I would make it from them and not make me one, and there's power in making those for me too. You know, I just we say the I Am One Too.

Speaker 2: 17:18

Movement is recovery for all, for everybody. And again, nobody has a monopoly on how to do this. You know you have your tools. I've met other people that have their tools and I really think that's what the world's supposed to be, because some people will resonate with your tools, some people will resonate with mine, some will resonate with theirs. No-transcript in recovery, we call it happy, joyous and free, and I can honestly testify that that's what it's done for me and there's nothing I will not withdraw. I'm going to be standing up on that mountaintop beating this drum for as long as I'm able, and I believe higher power wants me around for a while, so I probably just keep on doing it. So we have that.

Speaker 2: 18:17

My podcast is called the spiritual underground podcast. You can find it everywhere. It's on youtube, but most of it's audio only out on the podcast channels. Uh, this one, we've been started up earlier this year and you can see it. It's the letter I, kind of like ipad. There's I, the letter m, one, the number one, two, and it goes for I am one, two, I am one of you also, I am connected with you. It brings the group together and uh, say I am one, two podcast, and it's on, it's on youtube and uh and it's on YouTube and all the other audio-only platforms and we're having a blast doing both of them. I get high. This is how.

Speaker 1: 19:00

I get high today. That's beautiful. Thank you so much, dan, and I know you've tried to pack as much as possible, and we're trying to. If you guys haven't noticed yet, we're trying to change a little bit of the format that we use for our podcast. So if you do start to see shorter episodes, that is why we will be sending out kind of a more in-depth part two of this conversation in our newsletter. So, if you get a chance, sign up to our newsletter and you'll receive the second part of this conversation, dan. Um, for those that are listening, how can they reach you? Is there anything else that you want to share before we move to that part too? You?

Speaker 2: 19:42

know, I don't know how I ended up with so many email addresses. I have a bunch of ways to get a hold of me, but, uh, probably the one that's more closely involved with this is that I am one too also. I am one too, also at gmailcom, and if you this sounds a little arrogant, but if you would Google Dan Reeves, I got a feeling you'd find me.

Speaker 1: 20:08

All right, that's pretty good.

Speaker 2: 20:10

I've got a little bit of a presence around, but that would be probably the low-hanging fruit on how to get a hold of me. All right, that's pretty good.

Speaker 1: 20:17

I've got a little bit of a presence around, so, but that'd be the probably the low hanging fruit on how to get ahold of me. Perfect, and if you guys are not sure, we're still going to put everything on the description below so that you can actually go to all his links anyways. Okay, dan, it has been an absolute pleasure. I am definitely looking forward to part two of this conversation. Before we move to part two, I want to end up with something and I'm going to look it up real quick which I found super interesting out to my guests to fill out in the questionnaire, and because this serves for me as guidance, as advice, as mirrors, and I hope that it can serve as well for other people. And the question that I send them here is if you were from the future and coming to help humanity, what message would you leave them with in less than three sentences? And I have here clean house, trust God, help others, take care of your health, do those things and you'll be way ahead of most people, ahead of most people. So that, to me, has been extremely powerful too. That's heavy, I mean. It encompasses quite a lot in such short, and it's so interesting to see that, to see those powerful messages, because we are all connected.

Speaker 1: 21:53

In my opinion, we're all one ecosystem. You know the veil or the illusion of separation. It's one thing we get to experience here. But once we're able to transcend that and see a little bit beyond that and just look at the one unified field, how we're all learning and growing and serving as those mirrors, okay, oh, dan did this and he was able to. Man, look at all the, you're the example, right, maybe I'm in your shoes where you were 10 years ago and now I'm looking forward to seeing you as like okay, if he did it, there's got to be a way. There's that little light at the end of the tunnel. You're like okay, dan did it, there's a way out. Let me follow Dan, let me talk to Dan, let me reach out to Dan, let me see how he did it, let me see how maybe he could help or how he could direct me so that we're walking this path back home to ourselves together.

Speaker 2: 22:57

We're doing it together Because I can't do this alone. No way that illusion of separateness gives me this idea that somehow, if I just manage things well, I can somehow get there. I've not found that to be true.

Speaker 1: 23:12

Yeah, the power of community.

Speaker 2: 23:14

I need you.

Speaker 1: 23:15

The power of community. In my personal opinion and I respect everyone's personal path, but putting that faith on a higher power to me it has shifted everything for me. I do witness miracles every single day. It's almost like God's source. Universe does not have to give me any proof, yet I see it in front of me without a doubt, proof, over and over and over, every single day. Like you, I have another job I guess you could call right Aside from my private practice, and just today I called my wife and I told her I just witnessed two beautiful miracles with my last two patients and I could see why God has me where he has me at the moment and why I have not moved to maybe my timeline or what I consider to be right, my own dreams or goals and my own wanting to do it my way right, without trusting this divine higher purpose, higher plan kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 24:40

So just seeing myself as an instrument and getting my ego enough out of the way where I can be the vessel for that miracle to happen right. It's very interesting how now I have a conversation and I bring a lot of awareness Like, okay, let me see what word, what suggestion, what thing I see, how these synchronicities are flowing through me when before, of course, I was just engulfed in myself. I couldn't see any of that stuff.

Speaker 2: 25:10

Bondage to self.

Speaker 1: 25:12

Absolutely, absolutely, and I am ready to dive into part two. I hope you guys have enjoyed part one. I don't know about you, but I'm intrigued about what's going to come up in part two. So, if you are, sign up.

Speaker 2: 25:26

Yeah, me too.

Speaker 1: 25:27

Yeah, sign up to the newsletter and then you guys will get part two. Thank you, dan, for being here. I appreciate you very much.

Speaker 2: 25:34

Appreciate you too. Thank you for allowing me to be here. I always say thank you for allowing me to participate in my laboratory, amen.