Dave F. Steps 1-3 Manastash Men's Retreat 2026Dave F. Steps 1-3 Manastash Men's Retreat 2026
Mad Dog Recovery AA Speakers
Dave F. shares a deep dive into AA’s first three steps, focusing on craving, stress, and unmanageability, with plenty of practical exercises and stories. The talk targets men in recovery who want stronger emotional sobriety and clearer actions for daily living.
1:18:18•17 Jun 2026
Dave F. on Steps 1–3: Craving, Stress, and Finding New Arrows in Sobriety
Episode Overview
- Step 1 can be understood through the body, mind, and spirit: physical craving, mental obsession, and spiritual malady.
- Stress is described as a key driver of addiction, making it vital to replace destructive self‑soothing with healthy practices like prayer and meditation.
- Listing healthy and unhealthy self‑soothing behaviours, then asking for guidance on replacements, can gradually shift ingrained habits.
- Regular accountability with trusted people, such as “steel on steel” groups, helps reveal blind spots and maintain emotional sobriety.
- Steps 2 and 3 are presented as building a personal relationship with a Higher Power and acting as an agent of that power in daily life.
“How free do you want to be?”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? This talk from Dave F. at the Manastash Men’s Retreat 2026 focuses on Steps 1–3 in Alcoholics Anonymous, mixing solid Big Book study with honest, often funny, real-life experience. Dave sets the tone with humour (“How can you tell when I’m lying?
My lips are moving”) and then moves straight into what he calls a “set‑aside” approach: asking everyone to temporarily drop what they think they know about the Big Book, the Steps, and God so something new can happen. From there, he breaks Step 1 into body, mind, and spirit, leaning heavily on Dr Silkworth’s ideas about physical craving and mental obsession, and the difference between a true alcoholic and a heavy drinker who can stop when told to.
As the talk progresses, you’ll hear practical tools for people who’ve been sober a while and find that “powerless over alcohol” isn’t the daily issue so much as “that our lives had become unmanageable”. Dave shares concrete exercises around unhealthy and healthy self‑soothing behaviours, stress, and emotional sobriety. He explains how prayer, meditation and vision work together, and why he believes most people in AA only really use one of those three.
There’s also plenty on sponsorship, accountability, and what he calls “steel on steel” – a structured way of letting trusted men see into your blind spots each week. He ties all this back to Steps 2 and 3, describing a God of personal experience, a practical third‑step decision, and simple tools like a “God box” and fear cards to hand problems over.
If you’re sober but restless, or you sponsor others and want specific exercises to pass on, this talk might give you a few new arrows for your quiver. What one piece of unmanageability in your life are you ready to look at next?
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