NA Twenty Plus  

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By

NA Members from All Over with Twenty Year of More Clean Time

“Let our clean time tell our story…”

copyright © 2007 
Victor Hugo Sewell, Jr.

NA Foundation Group
6685 Bobby John Road
Atlanta, Georgia 30349

www.nawol.org
nawol@nawol.org

 All rights reserved. This draft may be copied by members of Narcotics Anonymous for the purpose of writing input for future drafts, enhancing the recovery of NA members and for the general welfare of the Narcotics Anonymous Fellowship as a whole. The use of an individual name is simply a registration requirement of the Library of Congress and not a departure from the spirit or letter of the Pledge, Preface or Introduction of this book. Any reproduction by individuals or organizations outside the Fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous is prohibited. Any reproduction of this document for personal or corporate monetary gain is prohibited..

Table of Contents

 Preface

Introduction

Stories: 

Chip A.
Marietta, Georgia USA  

Lester O.
Titusville, Florida USA

Angel
Papago Reservation - Tucson, Arizona USA

Marie F. 
Florida Keys USA

 Marc B.
Hagerstown, Maryland USA

 Gary Homan Story  
Houston, Texas USA

Bob B.
Los Angeles, California USA

Gene H.
Portland, Oregon USA

Kermit O.
Ruckersville, Virginia USA

David D.
Appleton, Wisconsin USA

Michael M.
Marietta, Georgia USA

Greg Pierce
NA Heaven

Jack W.
Seattle, WA

Billy A.
Allentown, Pennsylvania

Appendices

 Preface

This book came from a discussion I had with a sponsee Chip A. who is a long time counselor at a major treatment center in Smyrna, Georgia. He was telling me that with some regularity professionals were still speaking of NA from podiums as if it were a second class, small, recovery program with few members, locations and only superficial recovery. This was not the first time this had come up but for once, we talked about a solution. Let’s do a book about ongoing recovery, people with long terms of complete abstinence in NA. So brainstorming a little, I told Chip we could take speaker tapes, transcribe them and come up with a book almost overnight. By not editing the stories, we simplify the whole process—and retain the freshness and vigor of our real stories. We say we are miracles all the time but we really are miracles!  

We would not have this book, or have it so quickly, without the positive responses to a notice put up on our nawol.org website. Almost overnight, we had several members and one non-addict, offer to help with the labor of transcription. Nothing good happens fast and nobody makes it alone. We are blessed to have such a wonderful Fellowship and this writing is built on their gratitude and ours. Speaker tapes from NA conventions are already in public domain, so we don’t have to worry about that. They pass the test of NA by having shared, usually much more than once. And what they reveal is a way of life for addicts who are not using and growing spiritually.

We hope to include the stories of members all over the world with long clean time. The world wide web allows instant, almost free communication and we need to get on it!

Now, you know where this book is coming from. It is coming from you, the grateful members of NA. Thank You!

Introduction

This is a Fellowship friendly publication undertaken by members of the NA Foundation Group. I am acting as a trusted servant to help our Group bring this project to fruition. While we want the world to know that the 12 Steps of NA work for addicts and result in an awakening of the Spirit, we also know that the recovery stories in this book may serve as encouragement to those who would follow our path.

If you or someone you know has over twenty years clean in NA, please send in your/their recovery story to be included. It will be out policy to decline any story from a member who does not want to have their story told in this way. We hope to include as many as a hundred or more stories so that the reality of our recovery will be known both in our NA world and the wider world that surrounds us.

In Loving Service,

Bo S.   

Chip A.

Marietta, Georgia USA

An Only Child

I am an only child and grew up in Atlanta, GA.  When I was young I wanted to have a brother or sister and often felt that something was missing as a result.  I always had a lot of friends when I was a kid.  I’ve always wanted to fit in, to be accepted and liked, and to feel a part of.

My parents had many great qualities and passed along some good things to me.  Among those good things that my mother passed along was a belief that God is loving rather than punitive, as some believe God to be.  She also helped to demonstrate the importance of developing and maintaining relationships with other people.  She made it a point to show that enjoying your life is important.  My father was very sociable.  He taught me to play guitar, to be loyal to true friends, and to persevere even when life is difficult.  All of these things have helped me in my recovery.  Although my parents passed along these and other good things to me, my home life was unpleasant at times. 

My parents were friendly and loving towards each other some of the time but they also fought with each other often and this made me feel very uncomfortable. That uneasiness at home made a big impact on me. At one point I wanted them to divorce to end the turmoil.  At the same time I didn’t want that to happen because I knew somehow that their divorcing would disrupt how I made sense of the world.  During all of that, I felt somehow responsible to fix them and I felt like a failure because I couldn’t do it.  Ultimately they did not divorce and I’ve always been glad that they didn’t.   

My using began when I was about five or six years old when my friend and I took beer secretly at a social gathering at his house. Even though I initially didn’t particularly like the taste of beer, I liked the thrill of doing something I was not supposed to do as a child.  I eventually learned to like beer and other types of alcohol, particularly the buzz that it gave you. I drank, smoked marijuana, and took LSD throughout my early adolescence. I enjoyed sports, especially football, and I loved to draw and to play guitar when I was younger, but using drugs became more and more the focus of my life.  I discovered heroin when I was fifteen and that feeling was something I chased for the rest of my life until I finally got clean at 29 years old; I never felt that way again despite years of trying.

I had the predictable consequences of an adolescent who used some type of drug every day – good grades going to terrible grades; old close friends being exchanged for new friends who used heavily; decrease in interests like sports, art and music and increase in getting, using and finding ways and means to get more drugs. 

I left home during a big argument with my parents when I was seventeen and moved to midtown Atlanta with some friends who were pretty major drug dealers.  At the time that seemed like a good idea; a nice change from living with parents who were struggling to deal with an addicted teenager living in their home.  The fun ended pretty quickly because I kept getting arrested for drug possession.  I finally went to court for multiple drug charges when I was eighteen.  I was convicted of felony drug possession on one of the counts and was placed on probation.  I probably wasn’t sentenced to time in prison because my dad stood up with me in court and asked the judge for mercy.  I later had to go to another judge to answer for the other charges, and again my dad went with me, asked for mercy, and the judge sentenced me for another felony drug charge.  He made my not going to prison conditional upon my either working or going to school. 

I foolishly decided to work instead of going to college.  I got a job as a janitor so I could have the money to keep using and not move too far away from my connections.  Deciding to work instead of attending school, when I could have gone to college instead, turned out to be a bad decision in many ways down the road.  I did learn a lot about life and how things work as a result of that decision, so I guess things happen sometimes for reasons that we don’t understand until later on down the road.

The rest of the using part of my story simply illustrates the progression of my disease.  From age twenty to twenty-five I worked at a music hall that had well-known musicians and comedians performing nightly.  I could use freely at work and I saw this as a nice perk.  Unfortunately, being an addict on my way to hitting bottom, that turned out to not be such a great thing other than perhaps contributing to my hitting bottom sooner. 

I got hepatitis during that time from having used dirty needles previously.  During and after the hepatitis nightmare, I stopped using alcohol and all other drugs completely for several months.  I went back to work at the music hall but it was hard to stay clean in that environment; there was a lot of using going on around me.

I didn’t know one single other person with a drug problem who was trying to not use during that time.  It’s interesting that the first NA meeting in Georgia took place in August, 1974, near my home, and during that period that I had stopped using.  Unfortunately I didn’t know about the meeting.  I feel certain that I would have gone to NA meetings if I had known that there were other addicts trying to stay clean somewhere near me.

I tried to stay stopped by avoiding my heroin-using buddies, but all of my other friends drank and smoked pot. With the social skills I had to work with, I pretty much had to hang out with those friends to have any kind of social life.  At times I would just isolate because it felt uncomfortable to be the only one not using.  Eventually I gave in and started using a little, convincing myself that I could handle it by using in moderation.  Of course that didn’t last long and I was right back into active addiction again rather quickly. 

I got married later on and the music hall closed.  We moved up to Nashville to get work in the music business but returned to Atlanta after a few months of not finding good jobs in Nashville. I was using daily while in Nashville and continued to use daily upon return to Georgia.  I hurt my back during the move and was prescribed codeine for back pain; that was the spark that relit the fire of my opiate addiction, and that led to my surrender within four more years.

In my life prior to becoming addicted, I functioned pretty well, that is I made good grades in school, I had friends, I had interests and hobbies, I cared about others, I cared about myself, and even though I certainly had problems, I was pretty happy for the most part.  In active addiction my functioning deteriorated over time.  I did ok for quite awhile even though I was addicted.  I got arrested but I bounced back and kept using.  I got fired from jobs but I got other jobs.  I lost relationships but I got other relationships.  I lost more and more because of the alcohol and other drugs, but I was always able to rationalize and blame and justify continuing to use. 

Those four more years included the birth of my son, my wife leaving me over my drug problem, giving me the ultimatum of her and my son or the drugs, choosing the drugs, and feeling like a real loser – truly unable to stop using even though I desperately wanted to stop.  I got a job at a rental car agency and was dealing to support my habit.  I was using copious amounts of drugs around the clock, wanting to stop using, but I just couldn’t do it, and I tried hard to stop.  

One afternoon I came home from work and found the house completely empty; everything gone that was there when I left that morning – furniture, dishes, pictures off the walls, everything, including my wife and son.  It hit me hard, but I kept up the good addict’s persona of rationalizing my using even more, blaming her for my woes, and trudging on towards the cliff at the end of the road.  I quit my job at the rental car place, started dealing full time, and isolated from the world completely.  I walked around the house at night with a .357 magnum, feeling like a trapped animal, scared, desperate, wanting to stop using but having no way out that I could see.  I later moved out of there and was living in an apartment and in motels, paranoid all the time due to the dealing lifestyle, and in desperation I moved to my parents’ house to try to get away from that lifestyle.  As it turned out, I simply took the addiction there with me – used constantly, all day every day, only leaving the house to sell or buy more drugs.

Now that I’ve been clean for a while, I can summarize all that with saying that using was fun at first but it got bad over the years and never really got any better.  Towards the end, it quit working at all, that is, using stopped doing the positive things that I thought it used to do for me. I tried to make it work but ultimately I couldn’t do that. 

I had reached the point of hating myself, hating my life, and being unable to look in the mirror, all because of my addiction to drugs.  I was desperate for help but I was afraid to stop using; I didn’t think I could live without my drugs.  Even during the last part of my using, the drugs would give me at least brief periods of escape from the misery that my addiction was putting me through, but at the end, I got only brief moments of escape or so it seemed.  Actually I was aware deep down that the drugs didn’t work any more; they didn’t give me any pleasure any more; it was all pain.  After I entered treatment I remember thinking of myself as “a pitiful creature.”  

One night during that time my son was staying at my parents’ home, and I was up shooting heroin and cocaine “speedballs” all night.  I looked at him sleeping and it hit me like a ton of bricks that ‘he doesn’t deserve a father like this.’  I couldn’t stand to look in the mirror, I couldn’t stop using, and I didn’t know what to do.  I started writing that night and later my mom found what I had written.  She asked me what she could do to help and I asked for treatment.  My parents facilitated that and I found NA there at the treatment center.  I found some hope.

Recovery

Now in recovery, I can have good friends and be a decent human being.  That’s quite a contrast to that totally self-obsessed person I was in active addiction.  During treatment, I returned briefly to a job with a previous employer, and then was able to get a different job utilizing my skills as an artist, hand-painting cans of flavored popcorn for stores in malls. After that business closed, I had about a year and a half clean.  I went directly into an entry-level clinical job at a treatment center working with adolescents – my sponsor and my doctor when I was in treatment worked there, and the administrators agreed to let me work there on the condition that I get my GED high school graduation equivalency certificate and attend college while working there (the job required a degree).  That job has turned into a career in which I’m now into my third decade.

Even though it was difficult at times, I found early recovery to be mostly enjoyable because of the new friends I made in NA.  They really reached out to me and made me a part of their family.  They taught me how to ask for help and that asking for help was ok. I met my sponsor at a lunchtime meeting that took place at an NA clubhouse during the workweek while I was out looking for a job.  During and after the meetings I found that I could relate to him, so I got up the courage to ask him to be my sponsor.  That relationship lasted for sixteen years; he passed away in 1999, clean, from cancer.  I immediately got a new sponsor, someone I’ve known since my very earliest days in the program, and whom I have always loved and respected.  From my work as a counselor, I’ve seen many relapses because someone’s sponsor died, relapsed, moved, etc. and the person never got another sponsor.  I didn’t want that to be my fate, so I got another sponsor right away and that relationship in ongoing today. 

I learned the value of doing service work from the beginning.  My sponsor who has since passed away and the man who is now my sponsor both worked together at a sign shop across the parking lot from NA clubhouse where the lunchtime meeting took place.  They and others around back then were heavily involved in writing NA literature, including the Basic Text and IP’s, as well as doing other service work in the fellowship.  They had me plunge right in and I got to help with some of the literature work as well as becoming GSR of a Thursday night group.  I did artwork for flyers and T-shirts, became an area activities committee chair and then a regional activities chair, and helped to make coffee, set up chairs, welcome newcomers, and whatever else needed to be done.  Being of service to others has helped me immensely in all areas of my life, and has certainly contributed heavily to my staying clean for quite some time now.

After about a year and a half clean, after realizing in my Fourth Step earlier that not completing high school and going on to college really affected my self-esteem, I thought about going back to school. However, I really didn’t think I could do it.  Fear of failure kept me from doing it for a while.  I was encouraged by some people to go get my GED and go get a college education, so when the treatment center job offer came up, I finally said, ‘why not at least try it’ and it turned out that I could do it.  It took me over eleven years, but I eventually got my Masters degree in psychology and today I am a licensed professional counselor.  I can thank NA and the people in NA for encouraging me to go back to school when I didn’t think I could do it.

I remarried when I had about five years clean, and I also thank my wife for sticking with me through those tough years of getting through undergraduate and graduate school and the sacrifices we had to make as a family to make that happen.  She is a beautiful, spiritual woman and I am a lucky man to have her in my life. We are coming up on our twentieth anniversary later this year.

My family is very important to me today.  Active addiction took me away from people, one by one, including my family, until I was totally alone with my drugs.  It’s different for me today. We have two fantastic children, both of whom I am very proud. My relationships with my wife and children are honest and filled with the normal ups and downs that relationships have, but I must say that, to me, the ups far outweigh the downs.  My relationships with other family members are pleasant ones, with no residual effects of my addiction of which I am aware.  I’m not trying to paint a rosier picture than is actually the case; if there are people who are harboring resentments about my past of over twenty years ago; they are keeping those to themselves.  As far as I know, I have made all of the amends from my time of active addiction that I need to make. 

The 12 steps have taught me a way of living that has truly improved my life.  Under times of high stress, or sometimes for reasons I can’t even recognize until later, I can still end up in that self-centered way of thinking and acting.  However, at least today I have a better ability to recognize it when I am thinking or feeling or acting in a way that is self-centered and that cause character defects to emerge and cause pain to me and to others.  Because of the Steps, the help of my Higher Power and my new associates, I can recognize when I’m living in the problem rather than the solution.  I can then stop what I’m doing and try to practice the spiritual principles that will help me and those around me.  Sometimes I have to make amends for damage that I cause now, and like anyone else, I don’t enjoy that.  Having a commitment to staying clean and working the Steps makes me live my life in such a way that I try very hard to not cause damage as I go through my day.   

I must add that there are some other things that I feel are a big part of my recovery being able to remain intact over many years.  Exercising, eating right, and getting enough rest are also part of the healing of mind, body and spirit that needs to take place for good recovery.  Our Basic Text speaks of addiction as being a disease that affects us physically, mentally and spiritually.  Recovery is all about not using and healing in all of those areas.  Regarding the ‘physically’ part, I feel that taking care of my body is equally important as taking care of my mind and spirit; it’s all part of the same human being – mind, body and spirit.

I started exercising regularly after I gained a substantial amount of weight following stopping smoking.  I stopped smoking when I had four years clean and I had about seven years clean when I started exercising regularly.  I have kept that up since then and as a result I’m in pretty good shape.  I was able to start studying karate after I started getting in better condition and have been practicing martial arts regularly for over sixteen years now.  Sometimes it’s hard to go to the dojo after a hard day’s work and I want to go on home and sit in front of the TV, but I usually go anyway.  Sometimes it’s hard to go to the gym and do strength conditioning, or go for a run or whatever, but if I’m not sick, I usually just do it.  Afterwards, I’m always glad I did. 

Eating right and getting enough rest can be challenging.  I was a fat kid and have struggled with a tendency to not eat in the right way all of my life.  Learning to eat reasonably is an ongoing process.  It’s one of those things that make a difference in how I experience getting older in recovery.  It’s the same with getting enough rest.  I do better with some structure in my life, and having a general time that I go usually go to sleep is part of that. 

Balance is something that I strive for in recovery.  I’m now in my mid-fifties.  Keeping up with old friends, making new friends, maintaining relationships with immediate and extended family, my Program friends, my karate friends, my work friends, and other people from other walks of life, is something I strive for.  I say please prayers in the morning and thank you prayers at night.  I pray and meditate daily throughout the day.  I practice Steps and principles of steps to the best of my ability each day, particularly Steps One, Two, Three, Six, Seven, Ten, Eleven and Twelve.  I do Fourth, Fifth, Eighth and Ninth Step work as needed, and I find that by practicing the other Steps to the best of my ability regularly, those Steps are getting shorter and less necessary to formally work as frequently.  Practicing the principles of the Fourth, Fifth, Eighth and Ninth, i.e. courage, integrity, love and discipline respectively, is something I strive to do in my daily life. 

I love the NA Informational Pamphlet - The Triangle of Self-Obsession. It so beautifully illustrates addiction, how it affects us using or not using, and that practicing spiritual principles gives us relief from the pain of not practicing those principles.  I love clear directions.  I once complained to my sponsor that “Recovery is so painful.”  He corrected that with, “Addiction is painful; recovery is relief from the pain.”  He also said once when I was lamenting about something “Don’t work the steps as long as you can stand it!”  I got the point.  Don’t use, go to meetings, pray, meditate, work steps, practice principles, reach out to other addicts, and things go pretty well. 

We are not perfect, and don’t need to try to be.  We need to not take life too seriously.  We need to work our programs to the best of our ability.  We need to not use no matter what and to seek help when we get stuck in that endeavor.  We do this a day at a time - a minute at a time if needed.  We need to keep our recovery our top priority.   These are the things that I’ve been taught by those who came before me and that have served me well over the years so I will pass those on here.  I love NA and hope to be attending meetings when I’ve a hundred years old and beyond.   As long as I don’t use, I have a chance to see that happen. 

Lester’s Story

I have come to believe that addiction has been with me always. As far back as I can recall I was thinking and acting like and addict. I was adopted at age 3 and my first memory is being introduced to my parents. From that day forward I was different, I was unique, I wasn’t like you because I got to choose my parents and you didn’t. Like the good addict I would become I ran with this single thought and the rules no longer applied to me. When I was eight years old my adopted family moved to a part of the country where alcoholism was rampant and my father began drinking again after 20 years of sobriety. I proceeded to spend the next nine years of my life being the sole communicator in my family. All that I seemed to hear was Lester go tell your Dad this or Lester tell your mother this or but Lester you don’t understand what it is like. Being an only child I have time for using. When I turned Seventeen, while away from home on my senior trip, I used my first drug (tobacco) and immediately fell in love. This was soon followed with alcohol, marijuana. Later that year I moved away from home when I went to college. Here I started experimenting with amphetamines. College lasted for one semester. Then I dropped out and got job selling encyclopedias. This lasted a couple of months and on May 4th 1970 I enlisted in the Navy. Here my disease rapidly progressed extending itself to include hallucinogens and anything else that might alter my state of being. Being the good addict that I was, I fell in love with every drug I ever took and would continue on this road to self-destruction for the next 17 years.

During this period of my life I lived to use and used to live. Often telling myself that I was enjoying life the end results were always the same, lost relationships, lost jobs, and lost dignity. Then in 1983 (having just turned 32), a series of miracles began to occur in my life. Miracle 1: I found myself Homeless in Portland, OR living under a bridge and eating out dumpsters, a wino at age 32. I then proceeded to explore this new way of life for the following two winters and in the spring of 1985 I came too one day and realized that I could no longer continue living this way. My life had been reduced to an animalistic level and I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. Miracle #2: I asked for help. I told a friend that I could not go on living this way and He called Detox for me. Thus began my journey to Recovery.

In April 1985 I went into treatment. At this point of my story I need to mention that about half way through treatment. I started using again and continued to keep it secret until after I left treatment. They used to let us out in the mornings to go to an AA meeting a few blocks away and while on these excursions I soon found that a certain crowd, out side the meeting place would be getting high on pot before going into the meeting and it wasn’t long before I joined them after all I still believed that pot was not a drug. I somehow managed to keep this hidden from the treatment people and in July of 1985 (having completed phase one of the treatment program I was transferred to a halfway house. After arriving at the halfway house I landed a job, the 1st I had had in over 3 years. After receiving my 1st paycheck, (thinking I was well) I moved out of the halfway house and into a house full of addicts. Upon getting my 2nd paycheck I moved into the tavern across the street and proceeded to learn a lesson on insanity (repeating the same mistakes over and over again and expecting different results).

Next Miracle:

Monday, June 31, 1986, I found myself too hung over to go to work so I called in sick. I knew I had to detox so began detoxing myself and started to check around for an out patient treatment thinking I might be able to save my job. Tuesday, July 1st—still detoxing I called in sick again; made arrangements to return to halfway house. I took my last drink at approximately 2am July 2nd 1986. I then get up at 5 am and go to work. Still detoxing, I confront my supervisor with the truth about my addiction and am placed on probation pending the out come of my attempt to find recovery. July 4th 1986 now abstinate for 2 days, though still detoxing I re-enter the halfway house. This time around I had insurance so I decide to stay for 6 months. Once again I had to get that proverbial  piece of paper signed and at 1^st I started going to AA meetings with the rest of the crowd. However I did manage to refrain from getting high outside the meeting house. By now I had pretty much convinced my self that a drug was drug and that I did not matter which drug I started using 1^st, they all eventually took me to the same place, making my life unmanageable. Then one day while on the bus going to work I met two ladies, one of which was reading the big book of AA. She was someone I had gone through treatment with a yr. earlier and was now coming up on 2 yrs clean. The other lady, the cute one, was reading the Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous. I immediately started bullshitting her, telling her How I am in recovery also, blah, blah, etc. and she invited me to an NA meeting that was just a few blocks from the halfway house I was staying in. So on the following Saturday I took my little piece of Paper and went to an NA meeting. She was not there but the person who would later become my sponsor was.  At my 1st meeting of NA I heard someone tell my story and I knew that I had found a home. I went back to that meeting a second and then a third time just to hear this person share. At my third meeting I asked him to be my sponsor. The empathy that I felt in this meeting was new to me and every time someone shared it was a though they were telling my story. These addicts had what I wanted, they had found a new way of living and were willing to share that way with me, another addict, and my recovery from addiction begins.

My Recovery:

My Clean Date is: July 2, 1986 (the day I quit using). I found my 1st home Group and Sponsor when I had about 8 or 9 days clean. I attended my 1st H&I subcommittee meeting when I had 30 days clean. I joined the H&I Committee when I had 90 days clean. At two yrs clean my sponsor relapsed and I had to find a new sponsor, which I did. Then at 3yrs clean my original sponsor came back to recovery and after he had been back for about 6 months I asked him to be my sponsor again. He still had what I wanted, Knowledge of NA, the Steps and the traditions.  He had thirty plus yrs of on again off recovery.  He always said that he was sicker than most and his past kept catching up to him. He had originally gotten clean in NA in southern ca. in the early Sixties and knew many of the founders of NA. Even though he was never able to accumulate substantial amounts of clean time he always returned to the fellowship that gave him freedom and life as he knew it. If there were no meetings in the area the happened to be in he would a start one.   He agreed to sponsor me again and I kept him as a sponsor until he died from cancer when I had 10 or 11 yrs clean. I have since gone through several sponsors. For my first 4 yrs of recovery I attended 2 to 3 meetings daily and was Secretary of a meeting for five yrs. Also, I started another meeting and did H&I and area service. I started attending Regional Service when I had 3yrs clean and also served on the Merchandising committee for the World Conv. for 1 yr in my 4th and 5th yrs of recovery. I think it was in my 3rd yr of recovery that I learned a most valuable tool. I learned that I could work the steps any time at any place over any given situation allowing me to get on with my life.

One day I got fired from my job. Then I found myself walking down the street in Portland, Oregon, jobless for the 1st time in recovery. While walking down the street my 1st thought was "Why ME?" Then it occurred to me that it was my time for this to happen. I then went to a noon meeting and talked about my getting fired. Next, I went home and started writing by that evening I was at Step 5. I picked up the phone and called my sponsor. By mid-day the following day I had gone through all 12 Steps and within 2 days out of the blue I had received two phone calls from people who had heard that I might be in the job market. Both were companies I had previously worked for and both had job offers. one of them was the job I had quit because of stress. 

I then proceed to tell both companies that I would interview with them and then I was going to take one week to make a decision as to who I would go to work for. Both companies agreed to these terms. True to my word I interviewed with both and then took a week off to decide. In the end I went back to work for the company that I had quit because of stress, and stayed with them for another nineteen years.

What was different? During the interviews I learned the art of negotiation, something that would never have occurred tome a month earlier. I was able to re-negotiate conditions and went back to work as a part time employee making the same hourly wage that I was making when I quit.

In my 6th yr of recovery I would meet that special someone who would become my wife. I met her at a Regional Conference of Narcotics Anonymous. Kristie and I got married on Jan 17th 1992. On September 20 1992 shortly after my 6 NA Anniversary our daughter Tiffany was born. Suffering from complications at birth Tiffany would live only 5 months. During this time of my recovery I did very little service work and only made it to meetings whenever I got an opportunity because for 3 of those months we had Tiffany at home and she required 24 hr. around the clock care which Kristie and I provided with the help of a nurse who would come to our home 2 to 3 times a week. Fortunately, I had good INS. At the time and my place of employment was there for me. When they found out about Tiffany they gave me two yrs sick leave with pay retroactive when combined with earned vacation came to 30 days off from work and when I returned to work I was allowed to work a min of 20 hrs Per week at a schedule that I chose. And this lasted until Tiffany’s death. When Tiffany died on February 19, 1993 my entire world seemed to collapse in front of my very eyes, but once again NA would be there for me. Through working the steps, going to meetings and doing service work and using my sponsor along with having my stepchildren come to live with us. Both my wife and I were able to stay clean through this period of our lives and return to living a life with some normality. Life having taken it’s toll on our marriage, it lasted until Dec. 97, at which time my wife broke the news to me that she was leaving and that there was no saving our marriage. Once again my world seemed to crumble and once again the fellowship of NA was there for me.

Shortly after she broke the news to me we discovered that her eldest daughter, my step daughter who was now living with her natural Father had been diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer found only in adolescents and almost always fatal. Andrea was fifteen yrs old at the time. So our Divorce was put on hold. Still being on my INS., We brought Andrea to Portland so that her mother could be near her and had her placed in a hospital near us. The Doctors here confirmed the diagnosis and began treatment, which involved a stem cell transplant followed with radiation. Andrea went into full remission only to have the cancer return a year later and this time it had spread throughout her body. Andrea died on the day before her 17th birthday on May 4th, 2000. During the time that Andrea had lived with us, we had been at odds most of the time with me being the other man in her Mothers life. However, I am pleased to say that during her last two years we were able to get know each other and have a good relationship. Also it was during this time that Andrea was able to come to terms with her disease and accept life for what it was and learn to enjoy life to its fullest (coming to terms with her own demise and finding the ways and means to make peace with the God of her understanding and those around her.  What a gift to be able to witness such a miracle, I learned a lot from her and will forever be grateful that she got to be apart of my recovery. In experiencing Andrea’s life and death I was able to come to terms with Tiffany’s demise and see that all of the pain of grieving that I had put myself through was a product of my own self-centeredness in not wanting to let go of something that I loved so dearly. With this realization I was finally able to let go and give both my daughter and step- daughter to a God of my understanding.

Following Andrea’s death I got my divorce papers in the mail and my now ex and I went our separate ways. She has since remarried. I haven’t. For along time I hoped and prayed for reconciliation. Then I finally accepted that our divorce was to be permanent and by now we are no longer in contact. Life continues to go on.

In 1998 I was permanently laid off when the place I was working at sold the branch that I was working in. I then went to school at business computer training institute to learn my way around a computer, do word processing and such, only to find that after graduating I could not find a job in that field. I was forty-eight yrs. old at the time and for every interview I went on there would seemingly be 100 twenty year olds with more qualifications than I had and guess who got the jobs,

I still continue to go to meetings at least 3 or 4 a week and still do regional Service. I became Archivist for our Region. And on a local level I have switched from H&I to PI. I have tried several Sponsors since my Sponsor died and am currently looking for a new one. I do have a large support group and my old sponsor taught me to always be able to turn to my support group in case of the absence of a sponsor, which I do and he also told me that I work the steps the 1st time around wit a sponsor and after that I work them with those I sponsor and I also do this. He also helped me come to believe a simple fact that I have had proven to me over and over again that nothing happens in Gods world by mistake and It took what it took to get me to where I am at today and that in the same respect it will take what it takes to get me to there where there is at. Today I want to go there.

So for the next 4 or 5 yrs I bounced around with several minimum wage jobs and finally in June of 2004 when the fast food place I was working at lowered my hours from 18 to 9 hrs a week. I said enough is enough and I called a sponcee of mine who had relocated to Florida a year, earlier for the same reason, (he couldn’t find work in Portland in his field). He told me that there was plenty on work here in Florida and that he had a place I could stay at and car I could use until I got on my feet again. So I borrowed money for a plane ticket, moved to Florida and have been working since. I now do shipping and receiving at a tractor dealership here.

I arrived in Florida on my clean date July 2, 2004 and immediately went to a Convention on NA. I then went to live with a sponcee of mine who had come to Fl., a yr., earlier for similar reasons. I immediately started going to meetings here and became involved in Service at an area level. I started going to casual labor seeking employment and on my 2nd or 3rd time out I went to work for the company I am currently working for. My hire date was Aug.10, 2004. I soon found a home group and became involved at the Group Level. Continued involvement in NA helps keep me clean. I have friends today old and new who care about me as a person. My life is good today and rich in recovery. It has by far exceeded my wildest expectations. I recently had the privilege of helping start a Foundation Group (for more info on this go to nawol.org). We are currently doing a Step Study using the NA Way of Life book and I am gaining a whole new perspective on the Twelve Steps of NA and how Recovery affects all areas of my life. Life is good and Higher Power is great.

The above paragraph was written on March 27th 2006. Twenty –Three months have since passed I now have a sponsor with 33yrs clean in NA. I am still with the company that hired me when I 1^st came to Fl. The foundation group that I started is still going. I still have my same NA Home group. I now have several sponsees and grandsponsees here locally, and I have since become Area P.I. Chair. I am now approaching 22 yrs of Recovery in N.A.

I am not free of misgivings about N. A. as a whole. I can see what I perceive as mistakes that we as a fellowship have made. I can also see the vast amount of good that we have done. Were it not for the fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous, I clearly believe that I would not be here today and in all probility my addiction would have taken my life yrs ago.  I believe that N. A. is a (God given fellowship) and as such cannot be destroyed. This is not to say that it will not evolve. I believe that a power much greater than myself will direct us keeping us right where we are supposed to be. I have found that my life in recovery in N. A. is constant journey that is forever providing me with new opportunities to learn from my mistakes and to grow spiritual, mentally and emotionally. Quite often I do not immediately comprehend why something is happening at the moment, but without fail I always seem to discover why it happened somewhere down the road.

A friend of mine once told me that there are three types of people in NA. There are those who want someone mainly our trusted servants to lead the way for them and there are those who believe that the Groups should dictate our actions and those who could care less as long as they have a meeting of some kind to go to.

Without going off on a political rant, I tend to go with the second opinion believing that our groups are at the top of the pyramid and that everything that occurs in the course of N.A.  Service must be motivated by the desire to more successfully carry the message of recovery to the addict who still suffers. I have seen the results of members of our fellowship when they become corrupted with Power derived from the accumulation of money , property or prestige  I have also seen the results of members trusting in the process and  one addict telling another to keep coming back, It works. All of this at times may seem confusing and contradicting, but I have found that in attempting to adhere to our principals and practicing our 12 Steps and applying our 12 traditions to all areas of my life I continue to grow as the process unfolds. With each step I get a little bit closer to becoming the person that I am capable of becoming.

Lester O.

Feb. 17^th 2008

Angel

Papago Reservation - Tucson, Arizona USA  

Beer for a baby

"I started drinking when I was 18 months old," Angel said as he sipped coffee in a secluded back corner of Cafe Mekka in Nevada City.

"I was raised on the Tohono O'odham Reservation in southern Arizona, where drinking is a social ill," he said. "My grandfather put beer in my baby bottle, and he would take me to the pool hall, where some thought it was 'cute' to see a baby drinking beer. When I got older, the taste of alcohol was soothing and familiar. I was comfortable in bars. We're all products of our environment."


Angel's family moved to San Jose, where his childhood drug and alcohol addiction escalated to heroin. At 12 years old, he was a courier for a drug cartel.

"I'd take the brown packages and put them in brand new backpacks and deliver them. And when I made my deliveries I'd get tips, like $20."

It wasn't long before Angel and a friend decided to try the mysterious drug that people seemed so happy to receive. They sat in his garage, broke open a package and dipped their fingers in and tasted it. The pure white powder was bitter, but the boys kept "tasting" it. When Angel woke up, he was in the hospital. He had overdosed on heroin. He was 13 years old.

"That was the beginning of the end. When I went to court, my older brother told the judge that I had fallen in with the wrong crowd, and I promised the judge I would never do it again. It was the first lie I ever told to a judge - but not the last one."

A teen heroin addict

A full-blown addict at 13, Angel turned to crime to make ends meet and pay his rising drug costs. He describes his drug career as a learning experience: "I learned about things like extortion and strong-armed robbery." His next "learning experience" was prison. He was sentenced to seven years for trafficking, weapons and conspiracy to sell drugs. He made the easy transition from using and dealing drugs on the outside to using and dealing drugs on the inside.

"I used drugs every day in prison," he said.

When he got out, he tried to kick his habit. Again and again. "I was in and out of detox clinics 42 times in an 18-month period. I was using alcohol, heroin, cocaine, Tuinal, sleeping pills, LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs."

At the age of 26, Angel was done. The party was over. The drugs didn't work their magic any more, and he really didn't see a reason to live. It was December 1976, and Angel was high. He had made it to yet another recovery house, but they didn't have any beds available, so he passed out in the gutter out front, his mind churning with thoughts of suicide.

A helping hand

One of the workers at the recovery house - himself a former addict - saw Angel in the gutter and decided to try to help him. He rounded up some other recovering addicts and they took Angel to the man's house. He sent his wife and daughters packing to a relative's house so the group of men could begin their work: baby-sitting Angel around the clock as he detoxed from a ferocious heroin addiction.

It wasn't a pretty task. As they talked, Angel threw up. For 10 days he was sweating, shaking, his body riddled by cramps. The men talked, and gradually, Angel listened. He really didn't want to die somewhere, face down in a gutter. These brave men understood what he was going through - because they had gone through it, too.

For the first time, Angel had hope. Someone cared about him - even if the "someone" was actually a group of grizzly ex-addicts. They took him to 12-step programs like Narcotics Anonymous, where Angel began to listen, and, a day at a time, slowly rebuild his life.

"I learned about living. I learned what my disease was like - what it did to me physically and emotionally. People told me they'd love me unconditionally and that they would be there for me. It was the first time in my life anyone had ever said that to me."

When Angel hit bottom, he said he was spiritually bankrupt. Becoming clean allowed him to find some spiritual values, including Native American wisdom. At 6 feet, 3 inches tall with a black ponytail under a black felt hat, he looks imposing until you hear his soft, clear voice asking yet another question of his interviewer.

"Why? Why do you do things? Everyone asks an addict 'why?"'

Angel turns the corner

He sits up straighter when he describes what his life is like now. His large brown eyes grow bright as he acknowledges he is a positive, responsible human being. He's a father, and a grandfather, and a loving husband. Now, he lives to help others.

"Way too many of us are lost. We're not your enemy - we're your children. People need to talk to each other. We're no different than you are; we just had it a little tougher."

The Grass Valley resident, who is retired from the state of California, is also a blues broadcaster on Nevada City's KVMR-FM (89.5). His program, Lil' Angel B's Blues Cafe, is on alternate Thursdays from midnight to 4 a.m.

What ex-addicts have to offer

Angel, who is usually positive and upbeat on all matters, says he's tired of people discussing the county's drug problems but avoiding the ex-addicts who may have some answers for them.

"Why aren't we invited to speak at service clubs? Why can't we be a part of the (Nevada County Community) Leadership Institute?"

Angel and others who have battled substance abuse addiction aren't waiting for the government to set up clinics and halfway houses. They reach out to one another, helping however they can, sharing solutions. They invite addicts to detox in their living rooms, take them to Drug Court and sit beside them at 12-step programs. They give them hope - and teach them responsibility.

Many of Nevada County's ex-addicts went through the Community Recovery Resources program, or CORR, and there is now an alumni association of former drug and alcohol addicts.

"The Recovery Community here is like one big family," Angel said.

"If somebody disappears, we know it. We take care of our own. And we have to try harder - it's too easy for them to go back out there. They're afraid of living and afraid of dying."

•                       My suicide attempt at two years clean that left me electrocuted, burned and clinging to life.

•                       My continuing struggle over the years regarding the need to take medication in recovery for my diagnosed brain disorder after my first suicide attempt and the various mental breakdowns and re-hospitalizations due to my repeated attempts to stop my prescribed medications because I felt it would somehow make me “more clean.”

•                       The two attempted suicides of my first husband when I found him and had to call 911, then having police find him dead of suicide in a motel room.

•                       The unexpected prison sentence of my second husband coming to us just three days after our honeymoon.

•                        Then for the three years he was away, the need to care for our house and dog and live alone, attend NA meetings and travel to Miami several days a week to visit him in the federal prison camp.

•                        The hard work and joy of re-establishing a relationship with my husband when he returned home.

•                       The auto accident that left a drunken pedestrian dead and me having an emotional breakdown and almost committing suicide due to the guilt of the accident even though it was not my fault.

In other words, I have been through much turmoil in recovery. The joys have far outweighed the sorrow I’ve passed through. I have a life I wouldn’t trade for anything. I have a wonderful husband, dog, family and friends that love and care about me. I[‘ve seen the ugly side of life therefore now I see its beauty. I am a miracle because of God working through the NA program, other recovering addicts and most importantly what Greg P. taught me: to try to live my life by spiritual principles found in the Steps of Narcotics Anonymous.

Marc B.
Hagerstown, MD, USA

I have been recovering in Narcotics Anonymous for over 28 years, here in the USA.  I, too, have seen the relatively low rates of long term recovery. 

A lot of them are natural causes-many of the people I got clean with, that stayed clean, at least, died of some 'natural' cause-cancer, heart disease, diabetic complications-stuff that hits you when you are getting older and haven't had very good overall health care. 

Not many of us really worried about getting old, and going to a doctor about some complaint seemed pointless.  If we could get some more dope, then it made sense, or if we ended up in the emergency room for an overdose or beating or gunshot wound or stabbing, maybe we got some sort of medical attention. 

The people with HIV/AIDS died off by the dozens-no, hundreds-no, thousands in the mid 80's to the early 90's, this was when I lived in Washington, DC.  The prognosis for them is much better today.  I didn't find out about my Hep C until 2001, doctors say I have had the virus for over 30 years, probably longer.  My treatment didn't work, and I am 'tired all the time.' 

My old using and crime partner died in prison on a long term stint- I still don't know what took him out.  The guys who have relapsed and died after many years clean, who get tired of the sometimes maddening ennui of life, the seemingly incessant problems that have to dealt with-old arrest records, health concerns (both mental and physical), family estrangement, employment issues-these all seem to be factors, in part or in combination. 

Through it all, complacency for one's own recovery-the feeling that "I've got it licked, I can relax, I can shift my focus towards (anything but recovery)... "- that's the killer, that is the pitfall, that is the arbiter of our lives, our destinies. 

Some times I do feel like it is 'last man standing' sort of scenario.  I still want to be that guy, the last guy standing.  I luckily got clean relatively young (age 26), and one guy I started a meeting with back in Ohio, over 20 years ago, just passed away, some sort of freak blood clot stroke situation.  He was 58, not much older than me.  He died clean, though.  The meeting still goes on, to this day. 

The guy that started the first meeting in Akron, OH, with me, back in 1980, started using after about 10 years and has been in and out for years - still living in that limbo world. The meeting still meets and I attend it when I get back to my old home.  Maybe that why I still am recovering, I haven't forgotten where I can from, and how I got to where I am. 

Gary Homan Story
Houston, Texas USA

My name is Gary H from Houston, Texas. I’m an addict. I was born in Cottonwood, Arizona February 26, 1951. When I was about five years old, my family moved to Houston, Texas. I have two brothers and one sister. We were place in Ingrancho home for children while my parents went through their divorce. My Dad too me to get a haircut and bought me eighteen Toosie rolls and when we got back, the other kids wanted me to share my candy with them. I said not, this is my candy clutching the candy. The old lady that ran the place put a pink dress on me and tied me to the flagpole. The cars on the freeway were beeping their horns as they passed by. I felt humiliated. I didn’t understand why my Mom and Dad left me there all alone and I cried myself to sleep. I remember laying in my bed watching the headlights from the cars passing on the freeway. My Mother got custody of us kids so she got us a place to live and worked downtown at Houston Natural Gas as a bookkeeper. I remember in 1960 it snowed in Houston. We went to Gatesville, Texas. That is where the reform school was for juveniles that got in trouble with the police and that’s where my brother Rudy was in jail.

Before that he was at the Louisiana Training Institution, LTI. Rudy was always in jail so I wasn’t close to him. We always had a place to stay and times were hard. My Mom was the only one to pay bills, buy groceries, etc. We were together as a family.

When I was about ten years old, I was mowing yards and started sniffing gas and I got a friend of mine to get high with me under his Mother’s dining room table.

Me and my brother Steve fought all the time. He was about 1 year, nine months older than me. I started staying our after the Saturday movies, hanging out at the pool hall, bowling alley. I remember that one of the older guys we hung out with had a bottle of whiskey and I had a few gulps. It burned my throat. We moved from the Northside to South Houston when I was seventeen. We were going to a teenage dance. One guy stopped and bought everyone a half pint of vodka. I drank all of is and passed out in the backseat of the old Chevy. I came to and stuck my head out the window and rolled the glass up to my neck and couldn’t figure out how to get my head back in the car. The police came up and couldn’t wake me up so my brother came and hit me two times trying to wake me up. I went to jail.

My friends had robbed the gas station next door to our house while I was in the car passed out. I remember walking up the stairs in the jail and the next morning I could hear my Mom downstairs. She paid $25.00 to get me out. My brother went and joined the Marines. He went to Vietnam and I stayed at home.

I quit school in the 9^th grade and was working to be able to have a car and a little money. I was seventeen. I started going downtown to pool halls and clubs and the hippies were gathering on commerce at Allen’s Landing - Love Street. I smoked marijuana for the first time the next night I took LSD for the first time. I was experimenting with drugs and Rock n’ Roll. Getting high was all I was doing.

My brother came home from Vietnam and we had a party. I rolled joints for about an hour and smoked some, then did some LSD. Got mad at my girlfriend and drove to Anahuac, Texas. I ran out of gas, went to get gas and returned the gas can and ended up taking the money bag. Got arrested, and went to jail. Got out and received eight years probation - 1971-1979. Had to report every month about an hour from Houston. Kept using and one day I went next door to borrow some weed and Ross had a rig with speed and offered me some, so I held out my arm and he fixes me so I started doing speed. We moved away to the other side of town.

In 1972 I was at my Mom’s when the police came and arrested me so I went to jail with no bond because I was on probation. My brother made my bond several times before I got busted because they didn’t know I was on probation. Nine months later I got out of jail. While I was locked up my brother’s wife died. They had a baby daughter Heather. So I moved in with my brother and got loaded and we just used.

A couple of months passed by. I was at my Mother’s house November 20, 1973 Sunday night. I seen my brother drive by in his car so I went to my Mom’s and then we went home. We stopped and got some beer and when we got home we smoked weed. My brother was talking and writing as we got high. He gave me some downers. We were getting pretty messed up so I took him from the kitchen table and put him on the couch. I went to the bedroom with a few more downers. After a few hours, I went to see my brother snd he was laid out on the floor in the living room. He looked grey all over. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I thought O GOD, NO please NO.

So I went next door and asked a neighbor to take a look and he just opened the door and said. “He’s gone. I’ll call an ambulance.” They came and started screaming why did you wait so long to call. I had to clean the apartment up in case the police came, too. We went to the hospital and a couple of his friends told me I’d better not tell who gave Steve the dope. My Mother unplugged the machine because the doctors told her he was brain dead.

This was November 23, 1973. A little while later we had the funeral. I stayed using and about three weeks later I was depressed so I got some methaqualudes (horse tranquilizers) from a pharmaceutical salesman I met and decided to end my life. People were knocking on the door after my mother went to work and I was just handing drugs through the door telling them I had something to do. I ate twelve - I remember one would knock out a horse.

I wanted to just die. Something told me to call someone and tell them what I did so I called my sister Charlotte and told her to get me a room at the fucking cemetery cause I was on my way. They got an ambulance there and the apartment management had to come and let them in to get to me so they could get me to the hospital. I came to a few days later. I as seeing Teresa and she wanted me to meet her friend Margaret. I started getting high with her and one day while loaded at her Father’s house, I nodded. After we smoked weed and someone gave us some pills in his easy chair. I came to and he said he didn’t appreciate us coming into his house loaded cause he has small children. I told him, “No sir, we wouldn’t do that.”  He said he would not let me see his daughter unless we went to a meeting. I said when’s the meeting. He said next Tuesday at 7:00 pm. I said I’d go and the day of the meeting we went to Palmer Drug Abuse - Palmer Church. There were a lot of people there, maybe seventy-five. My Dad had come and got me and took me around town a little before trying to find me some help. He didn’t know what or where I needed to go for help. It was good he was always there for me when I needed him. After a while I found out there was a Narcotics Anonymous meeting Wednesday at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

I started going to the meeting. “Alive and Kicking” was the name of the group and it only met once a week. This was early January.  I had a slip after 90 days. Had another slip after 90 days more and had another slip after 60 days. On September 20, a Friday night about a month of me using. Two guys Hank and Danny came by to see me so we talked. It was about 7 pm. I decided to go with them and I was just high. I didn’t have a habit cause I hadn’t been shooting any drugs, Thank God.

We went to Danny’s house - his parents house - and I went in the bedroom with Doug, His big brother came in and asked how we were doing. We told him about the meeting that night.

The next day I set my clean date: September 21, 1974 and started back going to meetings. I went to NA on Wednesdays. At 90 days clean I started chairing the NA meeting, picking someone to lead the meeting every week. I had a sponsor and at 60 days I started working with others.

My first guy was named Bobby and I took him home and took him to meetings for 18 days. I heard him talking dope talk on my Mother’s phone. I told him that he would die if he hung with them people and he was gone the next day. He called me about four times telling me he had some dope and invited me over to get high. I said, “No.” and told him I would like to see him if he wasn’t holding or loaded. I never saw him again alive.

I went to an NA meeting we started at New Directions Juvenile House and found out Bobby died. Went with my sponsor to his house and talked with his family. They were all drinking and drugging. I few nights later I went to Hyde Park Funeral Home to see Bobby and say goodbye. I walked up to the casket, looked in at a seventeen year old that went out to have a few drinks and someone had a bag of drugs and he went ho9me and got in bed and ate it all. I said goodbye but as I was standing there it occurred to me this is relapse. Powerlessness over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable. I understood Step One and the fact I had a disease called addiction. I think I accepted Step One entirely and I have been able to be honest with myself since then. I went to my sponsor about this and he said, Don’t worry, it won’t be the last addict to carry the message by dying. One time his girlfriend called the police and he went to jail. He took his shirt off and hung himself in jail. I went to the funeral home and said goodbye.

I celebrated my first year and went all over town but I took my Mom to a meeting to celebrate my first year clean. It was great. She was so proud of me staying clean. A lot of meetings, sharing and caring, sponsorship, step work and just making friends went into that first year.

The second year I got my own apartment and I remember my old girlfriend came back. She was married with a one year old and a three year old. We were seeing each other and about four months later she came and said goodbye. I was hurt and thought about using but instead I called my sponsor and shared with him what was happening. I stay clean. My third year I met my wife and I was afraid to get into a relationship. She went home and the next year we were married. She had my daughter February 13, 1981. I went and got my Mom and bought her to the hospital to see Michelle. I was thirty with seven years of clean time. I got a steady job and a few years before and was happy being married with a kid. WE went to meetings regularly, had friends, went camping, fishing, etc. In 1983, I quit my job and started selling signs. I had a few addicts some and work for me and we had fun selling signs across Texas.

In 1992, I lost my Mom and Dad and shortly after that I lost my job and was depressed for about three years. I choose not to get on medication. I started gambling every chance I could. My wife told me she was moving out with my daughter. That was tough so they left and I went my my way. I started driving Yellow Cabs for about five years and I went to the Casino every week and blew the money on gambling. I didn’t make any meetings and not one time did I want to use or drink. About 2001 I got a knot on my neck but I didn’t have it checked until a year later but I got mad at admitting and threw the paper work down and walked out. A few months went by and I started going back to meetings and found out I was a grandpa. I started coughing up blood and having nose bleeds in November 2002 and went to the hospital and found out I have cancer and it has spread in my lungs. They said I have three to six months to live. I called my nephew Jeff and he came to the hospital. My wife and daughter came to see me. I hadn’t seen them in about four years.

I got out and prayed with a friend and I haven’t had any coughing up blood and nose bleeds in a month now. I met my grandson and I’ve called about a hundred and fifty people I’ve known since my clean date of September 21, 1974. Everyone is clean and I’ve shared what’s been happening with me. My friends have been there for me. I appreciate all everyone has done. I had given my daughter my twenty-eight year chip I received in September in the birthday meeting. So I called World Service and told them I needed a chip and I received a gold twenty-eight year chip in the mail. I was surprised and I cried.

I called Bo, my sponsor, and shared this with him. Well Christmas is over now and I am just taking it one day at a time. I just talked with my daughter and I know this will be hard on everyone. God, I have been blessed with so many friends in this program. I just want to say in the end of my life that I have been touched by so many people in my cleantime. I can’t list them all. I just want to die clean and I know that me not having any treatment for this disease is the best thing for me. I just hope I am to see my sponsor next month at our regional convention and my friends before I get too sick to make meetings. I want to thank everyone that has helped me and my family through this. Yes, I am afraid. I’m human - but I feel that with NA I will be alright no matter what happens because I have people that believe in my and want to help me in my recovery. It’s great having people who care about me. I care about what happens to you. I hope that this might help someone and if I can be quoted on how I feel about NA, my family, it would be:

I’ve always said, if I could touch someone and give them the desire to be clean, I would but I couldn’t. But you all have touched me and I thank you.

Love Always,

Gary H.  9.21.74

Bob B.
Los Angeles, California – 45 years

My name is Bob and I’m an addict.

Hey Bob. (Audience)

(Bob sighs.)

Best I can say right now.

I want to thank Cathy for introducing me in such a magnificent manner.  She didn’t pick over what she had learned from me from the years of saying, “I don’t know what year it was!” I have a problem with memory now. (Laughter) You talk about getting old and having the grace to get old, is another thing it seems we have to over come in a since of speaking. Hope we get some living in the process of being here. Because we have come a long way from where we started, so to speak.

I have the privilege probably to been involved in most of the things have happened in Narcotics Anonymous, almost since the inception of Narcotics Anonymous. Fortune in many ways; because for a few years there was nothing happening other than that one meeting my wife found and told me I’ve gotta go. (Laughter) Of course as sharp as I was, I sent her to the meeting. (Laughter) She didn’t have a problem. I was her problem, and I remained that for a lot of years too.

But as a blessing in disguise of our journey.  Our begins and what happens in between. Once we actually do take time to look at what our lives have become. From where we came from and to where we are today, is a far piece.

And sometimes we gotta do our own inventory as to where we came from. I hope that you have had enough of what you had in your practice of a thing called addiction as we know, talking about active addiction, the addict is not going to disappear from you.

We gotta a problem with language in the beginning. We still have a problem with a language. Sometimes we don’t like being noted as addicts, we want to be something else. I don’t know what. What ever you want to be, you can be that too.

Don’t lose the sight of where you have to come from in the terms of this disease called addiction. We have to review from where came on many occasions to get some perspective of as the journey we are on. It is a worthwhile journey. Let me put it that way. Sometimes we don’t know when we walk in the doors of Narcotics Anonymous as to where we came from, where we’re going and what’s happening in between.  We very often we have to do a survey in terms of our own progress, as to where we came from and we’ve come a far piece.

I guess I have to kind of identify in some way because, as they say I don’t look like the addict that came in the doors of Narcotics Anonymous; and I don’ t look like the addict that was out there on the street.  So very often times we are misjudged; and in some crowds, as to say; “You don’t look like no addict. I don’t know what you look like, but I mean you don’t look like an addict.” But they haven’t been on my journey, like I have not been on your journey.  And sometimes I see you come through the doors and I say, “You’re either too young, you’re to this, you’re to that and I just don’t know what you’re doing here, you know.” Cause you know, this is no place for a self-respecting individual to be hanging out at.  But if you look at your track record, you’re probably is in the right place.

I told you that I got to Narcotics Anonymous by the insistence of others. Not because I got tired initially. Before I started practicing what Narcotics Anonymous is, I had to get to that place of desperation.  As to what do I need this for? Or maybe I do need some help! Or things were getting so chaotic, that I better get some help before I die! You know, because we get here sometimes in death throws, and sometimes that is not a wake up call even there. Many of us have faced death straight in the face and said, “ Give me some more of that death killing whatever.”

I was born in Cleveland, Ohio.  Which might be a mark against me, because it is the brunt of many expressions of jokes and so forth. That sewer on the lake you know. During the time I came up there was a lot things that said in some sense, “Just glad to be alive.”  I grew up in the wrong time, in the wrong place, with the wrong parents, with all the wrong conditions going on.   I’ve researched that very thoroughly, you know.  I refuse to be what they wanted me to be. It is my objections to everything that seem to be around me that got me in so much trouble. Cause I was one of these here, that always asked questions. “Why? Why? Why? Why?”

I got a million a—whippin’s because of what I ask. Why?   So I stopped asking why.  I just went and done what I thought I was suppose to do and how I was suppose to do it; and took whatever consequences were. I didn’t grow up in a family where there were addicts. Fact is I didn’t know addiction was what it was about. Nobody talked about it. Drug addiction was not talked about, not in my household. I had no drug addicts I knew of in my household.

I had a lot of I’ll say “bad feelings”; because I developed these feelings, but I had no place to express how I felt.  In my family we didn’t talk about feelings.  Someone was talking about love, last night I think it was.  One of the speakers was talking about love not being spoken. Love not spoken in my house. I can’t remember my mother telling me that she loved me all the time that I was in her house growing up.   That’s a hell of a thing to put upon a child, that she don’t love me. She didn’t tell me she did love me because she done all the necessary things I think that mothers’ try to do.  She tries to feed ‘em, clothe ‘em, house ‘em; you know. And give ‘em a good a—whippin’ when they needed it.

I seemed to needed it every day.   That was means of getting attention. So I’d call, “Mom I’m over here” If that didn’t do, I would break something, throw something, get burnt, run out in front of a car; and get bandaged up, taped up, washed up and that was means of showing that she cared.

And I been thinking there was a program that was on last night talking about getting hit in the head. I got hit in the head all the time. It seemed if my head was always in the wrong place at the wrong time.  A stick, a bottle, a bar or whatever the case may be. And now all I think of, maybe that was dependent on why I turned out the way I did. I had to try to find reasons for my dilemma where I came from.

It was five of us. All of us didn’t have the same father. Back then there was no father at all in the house.  So I didn’t have that to contend with. Anybody that Mom had, I didn’t like him anyhow. He was taking up my space. Cause I was lookin’ for Mom. “Mom, I’m over here.”

She was unable to or unwilling to talk about feelings, talk about where she came from.  And I didn’t know her pains, because I’m so involved in my own that I did not conceivably think about nobody else’s pain, but my own.

I use to get hurt a lot. When I was talk about getting hit in the head a lot. Before I was five-years-old, I was in the hospital three or four times. Now I didn’t go out and seek these here incidents. It just seemed that everything was happening, get in front of something and get hit. Get blood poisoning, get burnt, get. You name it Bob could get into it. 

I’m gonna tell you about this is a little kid, you know. He would pour hot water off on himself. Step in front of somebody swinging sticks with nails in it. Bob had to go the hospital. So I know by getting hurt or getting attention. Get hurt, need attention or you get bandaged up. That was a method of getting attention. It’s not that I understood that. I seemed to me kind of getting some idea as to what is suppose to be going on, what’s suppose to be happening, how you’re suppose to feel.  I ‘m getting a lot of mixed messages.

Mom had to work because that is what was going on. So I had a lot of babysitters. My bother and I we was babysat by high school girls and people in our neighborhood. But I wasn’t learning a whole lot. I seemed to, somewhat I would say, life of a kid, but not no feelings. There was no talking about what you feel.  What do you talk about, about by what you feel? Mom didn’t want to hear what I felt. You know I’d go back and talk about feel this or I don’t feel that. She’d tell, ”You’re not suppose to feel that or this is what you’re suppose to feel.” She always told me what I was supposed to feel.

So I grew up around Cleveland. I done the regular things most kids do get into. And as I say, I just seem to get, always getting’ a patch puttin’ on something. Or some salve here or a patch on here, a wrap there. A burn taken care of and get on outta here.

But I didn’t have no great difficulty about getting along with the kids in the neighborhood when I was at that stuff.  Mom wasn’t home often, so I kind of adjusted to what ever was goin’ on. And I don’t know why I’m on this here track here, you know. Cleveland was just growing up in a rough place. It was during rough times along with it.

So to kinda give you kinda fix, somebody talk about getting’ older, I was born before the depression. If that will give you an age fix for those that know when that was.

 That was a long time ago. (Bob laughs) During prohibition, know when that was?  Okay.

I did a lot of that too. Not that a kid growing up know would anything be 4 or 5 years old would know anything about depression and prohibition and that type of thing.  You see the activities that goes with it. The reason I bring that up is there was a lot of activity, negative activity that goes with these incidents. But it doesn’t bother me. I gets some beans and some tortilla or loaf of bread. I’m gonna go. So I didn’t have problem in that area, because I didn’t know what was going on. I wasn’t getting the attention I wanted.  I know that.  

I know that now, I didn’t know it whenever it was happening. It’s kinda looking back to see what happen. And I got stumped trying to figure out why something happen.  I just acted out as I thought I was supposed to act out as a kid growing up.

Went to school, didn’t have great problems at school in particular. Fact is was a pretty good student up to a point. I learned how to play the little games.  I learned how to lie early, because I had some good teachers.

Mom was a good teacher tellin’ about lyin’. Tell ‘em moms not home; tell ‘em you don’t know where mom is. What ever the case may be. She started out early by the lies to tell.  So, you know, so you put them away as to reason why you are supposed to lie. That was one of the things.  Then you learn how to manipulate.  How to play little games. I don’t know where kids learn to play them little games they play.  And when they’re 3 or 4 years old they’re already into the games and stuff…hum.

And I still haven’t figured that one out. The psychiatrics are still working on it, you know, as to why kids 3 and 4 years old learn to manipulate things. Learn how to play games.  I learned how to play games early and I just love played to play games.

So this is part of that growing up process, this growing up who is going to develop to become an addict at some point and not knowing anything about what addiction is all about. And not a clue and no reference to go by.

I just know that Bob wasn’t getting what he thought he was suppose to have and it was just kind of a miserable existence. He didn’t like that kind of existence, in which he had to live in. So growing up in Cleveland was not a great joy in my life. It was kind of like being deprived of wanting things and getting things. The mike just went out. (Laughter) But hey that is how some things work. You want to know, am I the one that made this thing go off? It is possible. I don’t know.   I’m not going to argue with the point. I know I haven’t done anything. I don’t think!    But I’d like to think I have the power of. This is a power mike. You see we got all these experts in here.

Well usually I can talk loud enough. (Laughter and applause)  You see, I spent a lot of time in the military and I use to yell at a whole bunch of mother’s with no mike.  I haven’t had to do that in a long time. But it’s kind of like when you’re growing up. All of the sudden, you see, it is kind of like growing up. All the things you were use to get taken away from you.

And I was always looking for mom to come and rescue me or come and put a bandage on or to address whatever my difficulties were going on. And usually to no avail, because mom seems to have no answers she could use and a long with it she had no answers I could use.

The microphone comes back on. Bob says, “Hey.” (Bob and audience laugh) Bob says, “See how that works?”  Sometimes life is like that. If you’re going along just smoothly and then you get a flat tire. And we’re pissed off because we don’t want no flat tire. Know what I mean? 

I understand that. You see most of the things we come to understand today is not the things we grew up understanding. We couldn’t understand for a lot of years. Until we got to Narcotics Anonymous and they explain to you life happens and you are not in control. You don’t control sh--.  What a disappointment! Because I thought I controlled something for a lot of years. 

I learned how to manipulate in school. I played the teacher. I played this. I played that. I played all kinds of little games. I called it polishing, the apples, and a period going through school. You go down there be nice to the teacher. Yes ma’am. No ma’am. What can I do ma’am? All that good stuff so you could get a little merit when you get your grades. It works. I did the same thing when I left school. Any situation I got in, I seen if I could butter it up a little bit or make it look good. I would butter it up and make it look good. I learned how to dress up stuff. My penmanship got good. I use to write and it looked good. To make some points. Point maker.  Bob was a point maker. Bob would accelerate beyond his capabilities.  I don’t know if any of you understand and they pull it off for long, until they reach that level, where they know they should be asking questions. And then try to fake it. Bob done it for a long time. You can say my growing up stage, was accelerating beyond my potential. Get all the necessary ingredients together in order to get to a certain place, but you didn’t know what the acceleration is. And you get to that place where you are dumb founded about what is going on around you. Because you have not prepared for it. Somebody ask you a question how you doing?  What to do? You don’t know. You take long enough to get up to a certain place where you kind of feel good about yourself in the terms of your accomplishments. 

I done it as a boy scout. I was probably one of the youngest assistant scoutmasters in Cleveland for a long time. I was one of these 15  - 16 year old whiz, up to a point. I didn’t know anything. I knew some of the things necessary to kind of like make it. I could fake it well. Sometimes I could follow by the example seeing others fake it and fake it they did. And to what they did. We were faking it.  But it always kind of felt like measuring up to place as far as I can go. I have nothing else not to prepare do anything about it.

Went in the military the same way. I volunteered to go into the military. The only reason I volunteered is it was a way to away from home. And there seem to be things that were happening over there, that wasn’t happening over here. And I liked the idea of being a man.

I arrived at certain places thinking I know what a man is supposed to be like. I had no examples, I don’t know about you.  In my neighborhood there was one or none. And I don’t know what your neighborhood looked like. My neighborhood didn’t have a whole lot of role models.

Street hustlers off the corner. Look good; stand out underneath that bright light, with the light flashing on and off. A couple of girls at the curb. A car sitting over on the curb looking good polished up real sharp.

My uniform of the day was Stacey Adams and an Adams hat on, cock it to the side and stand out on the corner with ‘em. And talk about success. (Laughter) And how sharp we were. There seem to be a different attitude about what you made. There was jokes and laughing loud and talking long dukie.  Seem to be the one to follow. He seemed to be the one who had this. I found out he was faking. You know? The Cadillac sitting at the curb didn’t even run. (Laughter) And the joker standing beside it, slept in it at night. See I didn’t stand out there checking what his script for the day was. This was a constant. You look for that Cadillac sitting on the corner. Him standing out there laughing loud and talking long sh--. He seemed to be happy.  That is all I wanted to be, was happy. You know?

So far my military thing was where you go join the military where you become a man. Or be like the role model that I knew on the corner. He seemed like one of them fellas seemed to be having a good time. That I could relate too, in terms of what, that’s I wanted to be like. We had a fellow on our corner that said we would all work together. 

One of was named Nate. He had a whole bunch of brothers and things. Families were large then. I don’t know why. The families had 8, 9 10 kids in the family. You know. We had big families. Nate was on of them fellas that seemed to be cool, would disappear for 6 to 7 months at a time. I didn’t know where he went. But he would come back and tell long stories and talk long sh--. You know. He’d be smoking some of that good weed and tellin’ them long stories and telling you about the ways of life.  It looked good to me. All about wantin’ to be a man.

I wasn’t satisfied where I was and I couldn’t impress nobody in my household. (Laughter) So, I had to go out on the street to see if I can impress somebody. Get me some role models or what I thought were role models. They seem to be the ones with a smile on their face and seem to be enjoying life. Not that there was anything happening, but they seem to be enjoying life.

So I went off to the military to become a man or to be a man or represent man. I hadn’t started using yet, I am just building charter to become. I don’t know if you know about that. Building character to become something that I was not.

So with the case of wanting to be like or looking over there and saying, “that is what I want to be like.”  And let me follow his lead or follow him to see how he does that. One of the ways you do that was, at the end of the day you go get yourself this little jug and get you a little taste and talk about the fun we are going to have. It was always prefaced by, “Let’s go have some fun.”  And having fun was constituted to getting something to have fun with. We always started out having fun and usually end up having problems with the fun.  (Laughter) But it always started out with having fun. And each substance I started off with to have fun in the beginning, usually turned on me somewhere in the fun pages. It was coming to, waking up or recognizing the fun was over. And what mess have I got me in now, because usually there was some mess it got me in.

But it use to fix me and that was part of the key. It was the substance you put inside of ya and saying, “Something magical would happen, it made whatever life had been throwing at me, I could take. It was okay.” 

My problem or dilemma was very often the coming to or waking up and finding out the fun we started out to have didn’t end up that way. So I got into trouble on a number of occasions by having fun. And this was to go on for a long time, because nobody talked about addiction for one thing. There was not a language in school that we could talk about addiction. It was as if there was no problem with drugs or with the drug use. Because it was not the item of the day was not about, the headline of was not the headline of the day about addiction or drug addicts. Not that they didn’t have a problem with drug addiction and drug addicts.  It was called, “We’ll not talking about that.” And I found there was a whole lot of stuff they didn’t talk about.  One of the things they couldn’t talk about it is because they didn’t know anything about it. Hey if you drink too much you get drunk. You use too much weed you can go out and eat up loaf of bread or something. (Laughter) If you was high on morphine, you’re gonna nod.  Those are just actions that go along with your reactions.

I spent a lot of time in the military, running around the world using drugs wherever I went. Using what ever was available because I would want to have some fun. It always started out I was gonna have some fun. Each time you would think I would of learned my lesson of don’t mess with that, because the fun was short lived. We don’t learn lesson very well, addicts forget very quickly.

It gets to what happen along the way, the journey.  The problems that I created, that I wanted to blame you for. I was always blaming people for my dilemma. I got thrown out of the military because of my drug use.  It was kind of one of these things I thought I didn’t have a problem, but they did. (Laughter) They took actions and my action was all I had to take the consequences of my actions.  They didn’t tell me you might have to start doing time. If you use drugs long enough you will have to start doing time. They didn’t tell me that. They didn’t run that by me. (Laughter) They didn’t know, as I said you didn’t talk about addiction. So I had to start learning how to do time, cause I was played cops and robbers. I was takin’ your sh--. (Laughter)

I was addicted to stealing long before I was addicted to drugs. I use to love to steal, use to love to steal. You had something I wanted some of yours. Not work for it, but I needed some of yours. Let me get some of yours. The best way know to get something of yours is to steal it.  So I had a habit of stealing long before I had a habit of using. I was hooked on stealing long before that. I was hooked on a lot of things. I took a lot of things that had no relationship as to the drug I was using. 

You really don’t come to that recognition of things that happen along the way until much later when we come to places like Narcotics Anonymous. Where things have been covered up for so long, sick and so diverted in terms of where it came and when it happened or how it happen or why it happened or what happened. It takes a long time to sort that out. It takes time to sort that out.

As I said this is kind of a difficult place because very often the biggest thing that I have to offer is the journey that we took in terms of where we are today. And how I got to Narcotics Anonymous was because I went to enough places and told enough lies and got enough people to listen to my dilemma that were going to help me.

And that is how I got to Narcotics Anonymous, was by a great lie is what it amounted to. Cause the lady came up the county jail and she pleaded to me. She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. And most of us in this room here had offers that you couldn’t refuse and you had to check it out. “Let me help you.”  And of course if you are like me you say, “I don’t need no help. Just leave me alone I’ll be ok” And you steal them blind and you disappoint them. And you go out and try to die on them and all this other good stuff that we do

And she plead to me about relationships, which we seem to get by some magic, we get into relationships. What we are looking for is somebody to take care of us. That’s one thing. If you’re a good dope fiend you need to have a good racehorse. (Laughter and clapping) Gotta have a runner. Gotta have a stable to go to when you get out. (Laughter)

We start thing we got the game down so good, that says we have no problems with that. Cause time and time again we get out of one of these places, first thing we want to do is go get a little taste for old times sake.  Just one little taste.  And never set out at any given time said, “I’m going out to get hooked anything.” Every time I used something I was hooked on it. I was off and running and I was headed back to jail.

Along the way we get into many peoples lives. Mother, sweethearts, wives, husbands, children. Not only do we take them hostage, we put great demands upon them. You must do this or you must do that. And the promise she made me was, I’m gonna stay here and I’m helping you. What ya gotta do is you gotta get some help. No problem WHERE!

During the ‘50’s there was no place to go folks. Help was very distant. Even the ones who wanted help you couldn’t help them. Because it was against the law to help an addict. “AGAINST THE LAW!!!!” We could not even congregate with one another you know.  We would meet each other going down the street we have to stay the distance. “Hey Baby.” We had to fake it all and keep walking, until you get to an alley, where you could take care of business.

So what happens is we burn a lot of people in the process. We burn a lot of our bridges as we go by. Maybe with the good intensions of want to do the right thing.  By the time I stick that spike off in my arm or light one of those things or what ever. Everything changes. Good intensions don’t mean sh--. And very often I think I had the good intensions about doing the right thing for the right reasons. But very often didn’t have any help as to where and how to get some help. How to ask for help even. But what happen was this lady came up there and we have a very loose relationship.

I had moved into her house, because I needed a place to hide out.  A place to live and I needed place for somebody to run for me. To write me them letters that make them great promises that we write when we go to jail. When we go to one of them places, we write some mean sh--. (Laughter) We good.  I wish you all could put all that literature and stuff on paper. We put it all on paper when we’re beggin’ back in one of these places. “Mamma, I’m gonna get my stuff together. Get me a good job. I’m gonna get me the kids a yellin’. I’m gonna dress ‘em up and dress ‘em down.  And I’m gonna be the best whatever, whatever, whatever.”  (Laughter) That’s right. Yea that’s right. (Laughter) About the third or forth time that’s when we say that to ‘em.  Yea, right! But let me see you do it and don’t tell me about you gonna do it.

But you know I had all good intensions. It wasn’t the case I didn’t have a trade I could go to. I just could go to the job, because I couldn’t hold a job. Because once I started using the job was shot. Once I have done stole the half the jobs materials and things, like (laughter) there isn’t no need in going back there.

And I think about in those terms and you know I could go out and get a job and I could plead it into my abilities and all this type of stuff. And work just longs enough to ruin it.  Because that is usually what happened I would ruin it.

So what happen is she took up my little promise of I’m gonna do it right, I’m gonna do it good. Please, please, please. And part of the process what that the promise was in order for me to do this thing, we had to get married. I don’t know where that came from  (Laughter) Married to what? (Laughter)

I didn’t have a job. Didn’t have no place to stay. Had no bank account. And I’m looking forward to having a place to go. It’s I’m just trying to make this here pact, that we’re going to do this here thing together. I do. (Laughter) I do. Go pay the bail, go get the lawyer, or what ever you have to do. (Laughter)

The problem was I didn’t have no help. The problem was I like to run the lady crazy. She was about to go insane. She had never seen this thing called drug addiction in its full bloom. Wake up 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning taking about, “I’m sick.”  You know I go out get a loaf of bread and be gone for six months. (Laughter) Call from distant places with sad tales of woe. (Laughter)

“There’re messin’ with me again.”  During the ‘50’s as I said, there was no place to go. They had a couple of places to go. They had Lexington, Fort Worth, but you had to petition to go there. They gave you no help going to jail. The way they get you withdrawn during those days was some aspirin and Pepto-Bismol. That was it. And do it the best way you can. 

And always the case of you leaving them places. Tellin’ all the fellas, “This is it baby. I’m finished with this one.”  The only problem is between your destination and where you are leaving from you had to have a taste for old times sake.  And you always ended up back in the same place. Talkin’ about I don’t what happen. I just had a little taste. There was no place to go.

And to show you how long this has been talking about since Narcotics Anonymous. 1953 in the inception of the first Narcotics Anonymous meetings on the west coast, they had little fragments of places where they tried to start Narcotics Anonymous in other places. It was a copy of the other program. We call it now today the other program. (Laughter) See they didn’t like us up there, gracing their little meeting places with our tales of woe of being a dope fiend.

We were the scourges of the earth.  We had no redeeming value. We were a dope fiend. Addicts were recognized as a disease, aliment, sickness or illness or anything.  You just a dog. And they use to treat you as such.  Even in jail they treated you bad. You say you go to jail for a crime because you have some time to do. Then treat you bad after you get there.

So, there was not much respect in terms of your illness. Do the best you can. I use to carry a petition to go to Lexington in my back pocket. So when I went to jail I could tell the judge I am trying to get some help. Just as soon as I get this petition back to the court, they’re going to let me go to Lexington and get my stuff together. Only to come to find out Lexington was in a dilemma too. They had been studying dope fiends for 20 years. The only conclusion they came to was, “Dope fiends lie and they like candy bars.” (Laughter) Great conclusion.

They learned more from monkeys, than they did from dope fiends. Very strange. They had a laboratory setting that they were studying reactions of different type animals to stimulants, heroin and morphine.  And they had not learned much about the human and their reaction to kicking the habit, long-term drug use. The monkeys were having better response from them than were humans.

But they did have happen in there, this fella called Houston out of Texas, came through and he thought here idea that the 12-Step Of Recovery might work for addicts. They had tried that one, but they tired it with alcoholics. And they had studied what addiction was about to some degree, but they had very little proof as by their own devices could they carry it out.  Addicts got short memory. An addict has short memory. You could forget they was out there dying and all of the sudden the reason why you was dying is because you were doing certain things. You can forget all about that.

How can one bit of anything cause you to have so much chaos in your life? They know nothing about progression of this disease; know nothing about where the destination of this disease and the killer that it is.

So in the process here they are tying to study what the disease of addiction is about. And the few people that left Lexington, went out on the street and they had this great enthusiasm that they could do this thing. They went to different places and started what they thought were meetings. And in the process of starting meetings or think they thought were meeting, they would have a marginal success, but they had short memories.

They had short memory that the substance they were using and the behavior that went with it is what was killing them. But they took it on the road anyhow. And when people ended out in California and they wanted to start these meetings, they wanted to call it something else.  Addicts Anonymous, this kind of anonymous, and that kind of anonymous. And we’re going to do it our way.

For a lot of years they no such thing as traditions. Traditions didn’t come until much later. They had to find continuity and ties that works for us.  So some of the people did ask the Service Office in New York, could they use the steps and traditions in order to start something called Narcotics Anonymous?

So starting this journey of, I think it was thirteen or  fourteen people getting together saying we can do this thing. Let’s start this thing called Narcotics Anonymous and see where it goes. We got a problem with language. Knowing they have a problem with language, the other part of the equation is everybody wants to change something. We don’t like the steps as they’re written. We want to change them. (Laughter)

Our first attempt at changing something, we did. Out of permission we wanted to change the first word in each one of the steps that says “we”.  Didn’t understand why it was so essential that we became a “we” program rather than an “I or me” program. One of our big savers is “we can’t, we can’t. Maybe together we can.”  You as individuals are not a “we”; I can’t not do it by myself.  We have to do a unifying sort of thing.

But addicts don’t like the way things work, they want to change sh--.  That was the first thing they changed was the “we”.  They didn’t know how essential that was. But part of the struggle was the opposition of society not wanting addicts congregate or to be together with one another. We had great problems about trying to have meeting or coming together as a group, because most of us were antisocial.  We was “X” something. (Laughter) And the police didn’t believe sh—we said anyhow. (Laughter) And they voiced it all the time. “I don’t believe you mothers.” Even in jail we even had great disrespect for everybody. So how can you figure they are going to have respect for us?

So we did cause them problems, we cooked up something to give them some problems. And just because we were on the street didn’t mean we became respectable. We wanted to continue our behavior and still want someone to respect our actions. It didn’t work quite that way.

So we had great difficulty from 1953 to 1959 trying to formulate this thing called Narcotics Anonymous. To put it together, get it to work and have a meeting place. You go into a place, attempting to find a meeting place and they say, “You’re from where?”

“We’re Narcotics Anonymous, like that other program. We need to try to find a meeting place, that we can come together and try to recover.”  “WE WILL CALL YOU, DON’T CALL US.”

Once again you say “narcotics” and the first thing they want to think of is jail. Police. There was no respectability that went along with it.  “Did you know grandma has a problem with narcotics? She’s an addict too. No, the doctor prescribed this, so it is ok.”  It was killing them too then. They got more and more stuff they are putting on the market to kill you.

So what occurred here was, Jimmy and a few others tried to keep the meeting open where they could find a space or place to have a meeting. An old coffee pot and tin coffee cups type of  existence. Lasted up to a point, but it was only usually 2 or 3 people that showed up at a meeting. The ones trying to stay clean, tying to do this thing by some kind of magic.

We were more into with Tradition then we were the Steps. Because Traditions were the most important thing in our recovery. We will get to the Steps when we can get to the Steps. We didn’t know it worked in kind of reverse of that. The Steps should of come first.  Get your game together and then we will worry about the game of getting everybody else together.

We had a lot of learning process’ that went along the way. We had a lot of trail and error.  A lot of attempts of doing something we knew nothing about. We had no real guidance.

Jimmy tried the best he could. He didn’t speak the language of the street addict so to speak. He was a very wise person. He had know how and how to do things, but can you image him trying to get 20 to 30 addicts together and trying them to agree on anything. (Laughter) And then his health got bad, and in the process of his health getting bad, he had to leave the business of Narcotics Anonymous to those who have no information on how to do anything.

You would talk about follow the steps, follow the Traditions. We would read the steps or traditions. We had no literature other than this little white book, it wasn’t white it was buff colored and it had 20 pages in it with 20 questions and answers, the tradition, Just For Today and what Narcotics Anonymous was about. And that was it. That was Narcotics Anonymous in a nut shell.

And there were people trying to get something together or hold something together going to be long living. We had no idea. We had no leadership for a lot of years. And those that were willing to do something just seemed to not have enough time to really dedicate themselves to this thing called recovery.

I don’t care if it was called your recovery or my recovery. Recovery was just a word. We didn’t know the work that was involved or needed to be done in order to recover. The thing and the work needed to be done. There was great work that was to be done. Togetherness had to be created. We had to have oneness of purpose, of wanting to recover from this thing called addiction.

It was the case of just wanting to get clean, it was a case of how do you change your whole life? Something you have been doing all your life and all of the sudden you are going to stop doing one thing and go the opposite direction. It was very difficult. And those that were around didn’t understand what we were doing most of the time. 

That woman who encouraged me or insisted I go to that Narcotics Anonymous meeting that I sent her off to check it out. She became a proponent of finding a place that she could go. She started a thing called Nar-Anon. That was pretty slick, she had to do a lot of roadwork. I gave her some tasks to do. (Laughter) You gotta understand what an addict is about. And she went out and found some other sisters that was having the same problem she was having. “What do you do when they off after six months and get a little red and don’t come back for six months?” (Laughter) Or some of them long tales you have to listen when you come home.  Two of three days gone or two or three days of trying to save somebody.  (Laughter)

What do you when you have bills that need to be paid? The light bill has to be paid. The gas bill has got to be paid. Or the telephone bill has to be paid. If you are like me you paid none of those. (Laughter) I had the money. 

I had money often given to me to go to the grocery store. It just usually didn’t get there. I had more important things to do. I had great stories to tell about the fight that I had. I got stuck up at the corner or something. You know. Well this little b----- on the corner and took the money. (Laughter) No it didn’t do that. That’s not what happened.  I sent him off for a package and he didn’t get back, that’s what happened.  You stand there at the laundromat a day and half waiting for him to come back. (Laughter) Your tales just didn’t measure up, it didn’t hold water. It was seen right through. Once that got to understand what an addict was about there was a whole lot of changes that took place.

There was a trust that had to be developed. There had to be behavior modification as to what you had to do. There was such a thing as getting a job and going to work. Bringing the paycheck home. There was a lot of things we hadn’t done for a lot of years or maybe have never done and found out we have to do.  We find out we are not a slick as we thought we were. That is the process the thing called the process of recovery.

It is a very slow process. We have to start remembering what is going on, how it is going on, what’s going on and sharing that view with another human being. We have to stop lying and crying and start growing up.

One of our biggest obstacles is communication.  We have to learn to start trusting.  We have to learn how to do a lot of things we never done before. If we did, it is so far in the past that we forgot how to do them. This is a growing up process. Just because your grown doesn’t mean you are grown up. It is a process all long. And so we started growing by little bits and pieces.

We become more trusting, we are starting to be trusted to some degree. There is a period of cautionary there, sometimes we have to watch you to see if you are really doing it or are you still lying. Cause we didn’t get well just because we got clean. It takes long time to do this thing of getting better in our handling, growing up and maturing. Maturity is one of the things we have to learn it is not something we know.

We have role models in this room. In this room we have a lot of information, we got a lot of answers in this room. We must learn how to share this information with each other. The thing that we learn here, we have to pass it on to those who are coming along. The last person in that door, my be the person that brings the message I need today. There is certain amount of trust we learn about.

We learn something about this power called Higher Power. Learn that you are not it. (Laughter) We have to be very adamant about that. You are not it. As much as we would like to thing we got our game together and we know what is going on, remember you are not it.

That don’t mean you stop trying to do the things that necessary to find out what the results are going to be. The proof is in the doing. The proof is in the happing or seeing what is happening. This event here today is an event that is happening. You stay around here and you start living this thing called a new way of life.

As you can imagine that one meeting in 1959, I didn’t stay clean, I was out to run this woman crazy. I had to go out there and get kicked the head some more. I had to play cops and robbers for a couple of more years.

But one of the things that did happen is, it gave the tools for recovery, in that little book. The 12 and 12 things to do and it said, “WE”.  It got on the “WE”.  Get on the “WE” wagon baby. Give up your power wagon or the power position, which you think that you got; only to find out you ani’t got no power.

But the power does exist that is necessary for you to recover. And learn how to enjoy your living. I thought I was having fun for a lot of years.  I thought I was having fun and I was the destroyer of many things in the process. I destroyed a family. I had destroyed relationships. I destroyed I destroyed. I destroyed.

And I stayed around long enough to learn how to enjoy my living. I have great respect for living today. If you look around you, you say we diminish at a fast rate because we have to learn to take care of ourselves. You must learn how to care of physical problems that we have, that we didn’t take care of when we were out there using.

But you get the chance to enjoy some living.  Some daily living by the practice of doing the things that you perhaps you think won’t work or haven’t worked or uses the case of you haven’t done anything. That is what my revelation has been because I have become willing to do the things necessary.

I’m still in the process of growing up folks. I know I am getting a little old for that. But as long as I stay on the road of recovery by the process of doing the things that are necessary for me to stay here. We have reached that place where life is going to show up. And we have to face life on lives terms. But we don’t have to do it alone, we don’t have to do it alone.

I have become reliant on that power that I had no voice, no recognition of. There is something that is power greater than I. I had to come to grips with that if I wanted some help I had to rely on this here power.

We are gathered here, in order to try to get some information in terms of how do we live a better life. How can we get more comfort in our lives? We have to do some sharing, we must do some caring, we must come in touch with this power in some recognition there is some power that runs it all and you are not it. So if you’re not it, you better reach up and get you a hand full of it baby and get a hand full of it. Cause sometime we are going to need it.  Sometime we are going to need it.

So my day usually starts with help, prayer very short. Not the prayers I use have. Yesterday’s prayers I to beg for sh—you know?  I was digging in my own sh--. I found out prayer works. I get carried away, but I found out what I prayed for I usually got. Isn’t that amazing? Many of us are going to try it tonight. Pray works, go pray upon something. You will find out if you are suppose to have it or not.  (Laughter)

We know what you’re going to do. Being the addicts, we know what each other is going to do.Cause we have done it over and over again. Just as proof as to, “I don’t believe that.” Try it out. Just don’t use in the mean time. Cause once you use, you are going to block out the lesson you need to learn.  See I tried all the little tricks, I’ve tried all the little shot cuts.  I one of these here that thought out and  see what the he—they got in here.

It’s been a long time and I still want to try out something on my own. Huh? Sometime you are supposed to try out on your own, but I have to find out the things are. And sometimes I have to find somebody in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous and ask them, “What was your experience? What was your experience? Will you share with me if you go down that road or not go down that road.” Cause you see Bob still wants to go down on of those roads. Not to use.

Cause using is not part of it.  Cause I know it counts the awful experience of what is about to happen.  Sometime I have to have the experience cause that is the way I am. It becomes on of these here incidents that says, “Let me check this one out. I just want to experiment. I just want to see if my Higher Power wants me to go this way. To do this thing or carry out this deed.” Sometimes it is yes and sometimes it is no. And sometimes no is just to show you not suppose to have it. That’s not for you baby. You’re not prepared for that. Not getting to far ahead of me. 

Bob still gets ahead of me. You see I am still an addict in recovery in the process of happening of this thing called recovery. It is quite essential that you must experience it happening for you. How can you tell me about a cake you have never baked? Until you have baked on and then you can tell me what success you have had.

This works the same way. The formula, they give you the formula. Apply the formula and see what results you get. If you like the results, use the formula again. You will find out it very consistent. The formula has been tried over and over again by many people in this room.

Maybe not everyone, cause some days I don’t want to try the formula. Bob wants to be in charge. I don’t know why? I don’t have nothing to offer to be in charge. Sh—(Laughter)  I’d rather give it to you and let you be in charge. But sometimes I must do the work. And that is what I have got to find out. Am I willing to do the work that goes with it? 

So stay around until you learn to enjoy the things that you are given so freely. The formula is the 12-Steps. The power that helps you along the way you must get in touch with because it becomes very personalized on how it works for you.

It is a very taxing program that works well and most people try to carry it out to the best of their ability. There are some of us having difficulties, because we have brain damage. (Laughter) You might laugh but it is the truth. They got some people out there on some sick sh--. There is some sick sh--, they try to make it ok. You can walk around mummified and you don’t have to be responsible. What do they do now? Go get some help. Go get some help.

I want to thank the committee for asking me to share. If I seem a little sideways in the process, I know I have some brains.  I also have some feeling things happening.  Not only the thing about getting old and saying I can’t remember anything. You might be surprised. We all have to get to that place perhaps some day. I have found out that goes along with aging. That goes along with aging sh--. Doesn’t mean you are go crazy. That just means you are not as sharp as you use to be. (Laughter) I am disappointed with me. I use to be pretty sharp. I use to remember things in a minute and now it takes me a little while now to put it together now. It is the same thing about getting from here to there, I move a lot slower. Fact is I am moving too slow, but I have some physical problems that manifest themselves, that shows up. It is like the last ten years every time I go to the doctor, he says I got another thing. “Well you got another thing here. Just take a pill.” (Laughter) “Come back and see me next week.”  I’m getting tired of going and seeing the doctor, but I can’t stop going.

I am enjoying life today, to the best of my ability. I still have expectations as to what life has to offer. I am trying to live it the best I can. Doing the best I can. I will still try and continue to carry the message of Narcotics Anonymous where ever I go. I am going to try to be an example that this here program Narcotics Anonymous works. It will work a long time as well as it does short time.

I have been clean over 45 years. (Loud yelling and clapping)  But that means I am getting 45 years older too. (Laughter) I am moving a lot slower, I don’t think as fast. I have to compensate for a lot of things. I can’t run as fast as I use to.  I was fast. (Bob chuckles) I move slow now. So have patience with me. You see me needing help along the way, give me a hand.

Let’s do this thing together. If I have anything that you can use I will gladly share it with you. I’ll share with you what I have and we will enjoy life together. 

Thank you.  (Loud clapping)

Speaker Bob B. - Celebration Of Unity 25
Orlando, FL -  May 25, 2007

Gene H.
Portland, Oregon

Tarnished Recovery

The Road Most Traveled

How come ain't nobody don't like me? Funny words from a song of the 40's or 50's. I wasn't that different and people sometimes said they did like me, but I've seen liars before, lots of 'em. The truth is, they did like what they saw: the blue eyes, blonde hair, long eyelashes, blue suede shoes, peg-leg pants, sweat shirt and leather jacket. I looked cool and powerful in my '32 Ford, 5-window coup with a Saturday Night Special under the seat. They did like what they saw, but if they looked any deeper they would see a heart filled with fear and plenty of it, loaded with jealousy, resentment, loneliness and down-right panic and a feeling that some day soon they would somehow discover that scared and abandoned little boy clothed in a young man's body.

They didn't find out, because when the going got tough I went into hiding. Hiding from them, but most of all hiding from my self. My hiding place was like a covering just waiting for my call and so I called and called and called for the only thing that I knew of to bring instant comfort, and that was alcohol, pills, heroin, Benzedrine, legal prescriptions and combinations of all those items. Still, the most comforting was the insane asylum in 1961-62. Yet fear followed me wherever I went. The drugs stopped working, the asylum stopped working, even the freedom in my ½  escapes from the asylum didn't work. I was afraid to be locked up and afraid to be free; I was afraid to live and afraid to die. There seemed to be no where to turn. So as a last resort I began to pray. I prayed to St. Jude, the Catholic's patron saint of hopeless and desperate cases. To my surprise it worked. Within a short time of my release from the asylum I found some well-meaning, compassionate people who said if I would follow their way I could find peace and a meaningful life. I tried it and it worked. The promises they gave me came true by following the 12 Steps of Narcotics Anonymous. I found God, my higher power who, as a result of my spiritual experience, freed me from my over-powering addiction to drugs and lust for sex, power, money and pride.

What a relief. Now, I could get on with my life, get an education, a better job, have more money, better sexual relations with my wife. It worked and I prospered in all these areas. Yet, the more I prospered the less time I had for my Higher Power, no time any more for morning prayer, meditation and daily inventory, no time for helping those less fortunate than myself and I became obsessed with the matter of prosperity. Beginning to feel an emptiness over-powering me, I tried to fill this void with more sex, power, money and pride. These very things brought me to my knees again after 23 years of participation in Narcotics Anonymous. My body was clean and sober for these years, yet my mind was deteriorating and again addicted to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. I began to brag about my accomplishments, steal from my employer, tried to find sexual satisfaction outside of marriage. I was feeling afraid and powerless again, so I started carrying a gun, transferring my Higher Power in the heavens above to the power in my hand, like I had thirty-three years earlier in high school. It felt really good to be in control again. Being different now seemed ok because I was different, in a superior sort of way. I acquired a pilot's license, joined the Civil Air Patrol. The life of inferiority was gone. There was no resemblance of that scared little boy before Narcotics Anonymous or that so-called spiritual giant after N.A. I was now in a dimension far beyond the simplicity and boredom of everyday life. I had arrived and had been transformed from a wimp into a powerful and self-made giant in control of myself and those around me. It felt good until, in moments of contemplation, I began to think. Think about how lonely I had become, having alienated myself from my family and the people who truly loved me. During these moments I would get twinges of desperation, realizing the foundations of my life were quickly crumbling and that my life could, in an instance, come to an unexpected end, especially after taking a shot with my Saturday Night Special at a man stealing a piece of junk carpet worth about $15.00 out of my cabin in the woods. At this point the progression of my insanity said that murder was an option. Yes, I had arrived for sure, but arrived at a place that was more confusing than at any time in my life, full of empty accomplishments.

Life had let me down again. Why go on? Every direction I go in seems to be wrong. Where is truth? Where is meaning? What is my end to be? How come every direction I go in detours me to a dead end? I tried really hard to stop thinking this way. In my final analysis I saw this scared and abandoned little boy, this time clothed in an old man's body, with all the fineries of life, yet completely devoid of anything spiritually worthwhile. I thought at times to turn that Saturday Night Special on myself and end the confusion that had overpowered my life. But, in a moment of clarity, I  reflected on the death of my own mother, who hanged herself in a county jail at the age of thirty-nine, when I was fourteen years old. My father, also an alcoholic, died in a head-on collision with a semi-truck when I was twenty-eight and in the program for just four months. I still had enough compassion left not to want my offspring to live with this feeling of rejection and abandonment.

I was now ready to give up, but to whom? How? What do I do next? Many questions, yet no answers I could hear. I became a deaf man walking. And still, the emptiness began to magnify itself until I was swallowed up in a life of sin that was impossible for me to flee from. Yet I could not flee from my Higher Power who still had love and compassion for this degraded Human Being while I was yet a sinner.

Because He loved me so much He began to strip me of the very things that were killing me. He took my job with its mid-management position after twenty-nine years of faithful service. He took my pride. He had me arrested and put my name in the news paper for a crime that could put me in prison for twenty years. He took my money and my retirement. But, most importantly, He took away the lust for the things of this world and changed my heart of stone into a heart of flesh. He said those who steal, steal no more, but work with your hands to provide for those less fortunate. I listened and started my own landscaping company and now have the right power in my hands: a hoe, a shovel, and a rake. These give me power to change lives, especially mine, by providing work, a home, and a family for the brokenhearted, the homeless and the abandoned and those transitioning out of prison. I have three homes for this purpose and have become a chaplain with the Oregon Department of Corrections. I am no longer lonely and unloved and the only excess in my life now is love for the brokenhearted.

Through the surrendered life my hearing and my life have been restored to what I was meant to be, not a giant but a servant.

It's all about power: power to choose, power to forgive, power to go on through the power of surrender.

My Higher Power said He would restore my good name and He has. And now He has buried my sins in the depth of the sea and put up a sign that says 'No Fishing Allowed'. His name is Jesus!

The road best traveled is the one that selects a Higher Power who has the power to change lives, is personal, compassionate, convicting when we go astray, who will help us endure our hardships but, most of all, be with us to celebrate our victories. Narcotics Anonymous has given us all the right and ability to choose, but for enduring victory we must choose. The choice is ours. It is personal and unique to each one of us. The right choice has given me a balanced life, a hope and a future that is meaningful, productive and, like our book says, we can become acceptable, responsible and productive members of society. I have. It works. At the time of this writing, January 1, 2007 I am seventy-two years young with forty-four years of being clean and sober, dating back to my first encounter with Narcotics Anonymous on March 21, 1962. I have been married for fifty-one years, have seven children, seven-teen grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. It's been a rough and scary ride. So my advice to the newcomer is to stay on the saddle of self-control, hang on to the horn of hope, work the steps, and let your Higher Power take the reigns, for your salvation draws near.

Thank you Jimmy Kinnon, my mentor and friend. Thank you Narcotics Anonymous, my life. And I thank Jesus the Christ, my lighthouse. WE DO RECOVER!

Your Special Friend Always,

Gene H. - Portland, Oregon

Kermit O.
Ruckersville, Virginia USA

A SPIRITUAL NOT RELIGIOUS PROGRAM
KNOWN AS NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS!  

I have never been a praying man. Okay, when the dope ran out and I was really sick 1 remember crying out; "Oh God, please help me!" It wasn't until I had been on my road to recovery that I would come to know a Higher Power of my own understanding and learn to rely on this power every day of my life. A Higher Power that would do for me what had been impossible for me to do for myself, stay clean and live a normal life.

Someone told me a long time ago that when you pray for something, never let that prayer go, just add each new one on to the old. I have been doing this for a long time now and my prayers, as my recovery, have grown and matured. At first I was told to ask God to keep me clean and thank him at night. Don't worry about who God is, just take the actions and your mind will align itself with your new way of doing things. Bring your ass and your brains will follow. By the time I hit my 3^rt treatment center in 1981,1 was willing to try anything. My way obviously did not work.  

I have come to believe that Narcotics Anonymous is a simple program designed to take us from being totally self-centered to totally God-centered, whatever that means to you. For me, it means a God-centered person is; "Someone who is healing inside and is being of service to others.  

My first prayers where about staying clean just for today. Once I started asking my Higher-Power for help in this simple manner, amazing things started happening. In 1981, It was a miracle just to find NA as there where only 8 meetings in the entire State. God delivered a meeting to me the night I was allowed out of detox!

My sponsor told me the simple truth that got me into the rooms of NA and it was the one thing that had to change in order for me to recover. That is; "when you know that you know, you will never know, but when you begin to understand that you don't understand, then you'll have understanding.... and when you stop trying to understand, then you'll enjoy yourself." Huh? I didn't understand a word he was saying but today I sure do. "I know" is a closed mind, while "I don't understand" is an open one.

I had a lot of fear growing up. It had always run my life. I was afraid of what you thought of me. I was afraid of woman, afraid of authority, afraid of rejection, abandonment, you name it. I never let it show. I put up a front of being better than. I was a flamboyant New Wave Rock Singer who got kicked out of the band for getting loaded and missing practice.

One of the guys in our recovery group, the old timer who had six months clean, shared a prayer with us that he had learned; "repeat as often as possible; "If God is for me, who can be against me." This prayer became a life-saver for me. I repeated it over and over again for years. It was a simple way for me to build courage. I learned I could face rejection, abandonment and all the other fears in my life, knowing that my Higher Power had my back door covered. After years of repeating this simple prayer, it finally dawned on me one day.... “If God is for me, why am I against me?”

My favorite prayer is; "Whatever's going on in my life, God has it already taken care of" This for me is how I work my Third Step. I can turn things over today just by saying that little prayer. I have learned not to put a question mark where My Higher Power has put a period.

When I found the woman of my dreams and "I became "We", so did my prayers. This simple change has helped build unity in our family. "God, help guide our actions, help us deal with our powerlessness over our addiction and help us in our search for serenity." Today, serenity is one of my highest ideals. I learned, over time, that I could let go of my side of an argument without having to stand up for none-existent virtues. My sponsor once asked me, when I was complaining about my wife doing something I didn't agree with, "well you have a choice my friend, you can be serene or you can be right, which is it going to be?"

One of the spiritual principles that guides me today is generosity. This is not so much about being generous with my money but generousness of spirit. If it isn't a big deal, let her have it. This is different from being a people pleaser. I don't need to get anything out of my self-sacrifice other than learning to be self-less and not selfish. Try being generous in a situation you usually don t want to surrender. Could it hurt that much to let someone else be right?

My prayers began to include my family. I have learned that my Higher Power's Mill grinds really slow but it grinds real fine. When I had three years clean, my ex-wife called me in crisis. She needed to go to treatment, could I take our son back? When God had brought another woman in my life and I had all I needed to raise my son, five days latter my ex-wife gave him to me and went to get help for her addiction. The timing was perfect, what a coincidence. We say in N.A.; "Coincidences are God's way of working anonymously."

My sponsor shared a relationship prayer with me when I was having troubles with my wife. "God, thy will be done for her as well as for us, take our relationship and let it become what you want it to be. God let the truth be known to us." After several years of praying this, the truth was revealed to me. The marriage was not meant to be. It was so painful trying to make something work that wasn't meant to be. We were Mr. and Mrs. N. A., this had to be right! With too much baggage on the inside, I was incapable of setting boundaries. Today, I know in my heart that I have all the tools I need to live with any woman I choose to.

As our marriage collapsed in my eleventh year clean, I prayed a tot for courage and strength to make it through each day. My business was falling down around me, my marriage was in a shambles and the government was after me for back taxes. More Step work was  needed. That was my year of depression and the very best I could do was swim laps and pray; "If God is for me, who can be against me, if God is for me, who can be against me... lap after lap after lap.

I learn my biggest lesson about God and finances during that period. A fellow addict pointed something out to me that has since changed my life. "You know what youi problem is?" He said to me. "Your problem is that you are running your business on the wrong spiritual principle." What's that? I asked. "You're running your life and youi business on the belief that there isn't enough. The truth is that in God's world there's enough. There's enough for you, enough for the competition, in fact in God's world there's abundance."

I began to pray, in God's world there's abundance, in God's world there's abundance. My finances had been messed up for so long that all I could see was mountains of debt. 1 would do Shows to sell my wares. I would watch everyone around me panic when things where dead slow. They were selling cheap. I too felt the fear but instead of dumping product, I would repeat the prayers this addict had told me. When the fear subsided, miracles always happened. Someone would come in and spend a lot of money at my table, or someone would sell me something very expensive at a great price and make the whole trip worthwhile. Today I tell sponsees; "I know you don't feel that there is someone special out there but, if there is an abundance of money in God's world, then there is probably an abundance of woman, of jobs, of places to live. In God's world there is more man enough for everyone, including you."

I took a prayer from the introduction of our Basic Text and made it my own; "God relieve us of the bondage of self. Help us live according to your divine precepts, grant us a bond of self-lessness and instill in us a knowledge of your will for us and the power to carry that out so that no addict seeking recovery need ever die from the horrors of addiction without having had a chance to find a new way of life." I then added; "that we may bear witness to the miracle (The miracle for me is when one heart touches another in acts oi empathy) and so that we may have a happy, healthy, loving relationship. "God help us be of service not control."

I pray these service words; when I start my day, when I sit down in a Narcotics Anonymous meeting during the moment of silence and right before I speak at a Narcotics Anonymous Meeting or Function. By saying this simple prayer for several years, I have been transformed from someone who was totally self-centered to someone who is God-centered. Today I am well aware of someone's pain or their need to be comforted. My radar is connected to my higher power and I can sense a hurt person from across the room.

Today my life is about service to others. I have found that I get so much more from giving than I ever got from taking. Love is the only thing that you can give away, thai you get much more of in return. When I got here, I was officially labeled a sociopath, a person who is incapable of feeling his feelings. Today, I have been granted the gift of being able to feel the feelings of others. This gift is a direct result of working the 12 steps of Narcotics Anonymous.

Today my prayers are less about things or people but about the spiritual principles I want to live by. God help us live abundantly, joyously, prosperously, artistically and gratefully. Today I truly live and enjoy life without the use of drugs. I jump right into the fun. I don’t stand on the sidelines wondering if it might be cool to try that. I don’t wait for someone to invite me, or until I get the courage. I just grab a conga drum and start beating! Today I realize that fun is about jumping in feet first and to heck with what others think. No one ever erected a statue to a critic. Statues are for doers.  

So why should we live life prosperously? Aren't we supposed to give up the things of the world to become more spiritual? Who said that? My higher power wants me to prosper. The more I make, the more people I can help. The money I make helps me reach out to addicts around the world. In 1981 I agreed to live on 5.00 a day. My girlfriend was an accountant and she helped me pay off my debts over time. By the time I got my nine month chip, I had a key ring for my new car to put it on, wow!

An attitude of gratitude goes a very long way. Gratitude and self-pity are mutually exclusive. You can't feel sorry for yourself and feel grateful. I don't take things for granted today. I thank God for the good things as well as the bad. If I thank God for the goods things, I will cherish and appreciate them all the more. When I thank God for the bad things in life, it forces me to see what good might come out of this. It helps me hang onto the belief that my higher power has a purpose and more will be revealed, in his time, not mine. Today I understand that God has 5 answers to all my questions; "Yes", "No", "Wait", "You have got to be kidding!".... and.... "If you must"

During my Eleventh year crisis, I lost my house, my wife, my three dogs, my business, a small fortune and ended up owing the government $150,000.00! All this pain brought me to my knees and back to the steps. I did a lot of inventory on my childhood. Growing up with a workaholic father, a depressed mother and a chronic alcoholic step mother was too much for that little boy to handle so he turned to drugs to survive. A part of me never learned how to deal with life on life's terms. I learned at a very early age that life was something to be avoided at all cost!  

Toward the end of my inner-searching year, I met a woman with a lot of clean-time who was dealing with her own emotional pain. Her marriage of ten years was falling apart. Her husband, who had been a workaholic, was becoming an alcoholic and her mother was dying of cancer. She was an only child and was feeling forsaken by her Higher Power. One night after her home group she was sharing with an old timer about her fears; "I don't know Man, maybe God has some plan for me, but I don't know?" The old timer looked her dead in the eye and said; "Girlfriend, there's no maybe about it, God most certainly has a plan for you and it's better than any plan you could ever dream of!"  

She heard me share on die 12^th step at a retreat and asked if she could call me some time? You've been divorced tor a year now and your basically happy. I sure would like to know how you got from miserable to happy in one year? I offered her my number and told her she could call me anytime if she needed a friend to share with. Any addict who is suffering can call me at any time day or night. We lived in different Cities and for four months we talked on the phone, one addict helping another with no strings attached.  

She invited me to come visit her, if I was ever in town and I shared this with my sponsee of fifteen years. Man, go down there! You think, I asked him? I decided to take a risk and take her up on her offer. I cannot begin to tell you what my life would be like today if I had not taken that risk. I know it would be a whole lot lonelier and shallower than it is today. That woman is now my wife. We have been together for ten years and we are still deeply in love with each other. Once again, God bad it already taken care of for us.  

Had I not left that sick dicing life I was trying so desperately to hang onto in my time of crisis, I would never have found true love. Had I not taken a risk and asked her if I could come down, I would not have found the love of my life. Only a loving Higher Power and the steps will tell you if you are in the right relationship, we are not marriage counselors in NA.

Today I tell my sponsees; "If you want to know where God is, he's right on the other side of willingness." Take a risk! What do yew have to loose but a moment of embarrassment and maybe a brief feeling of rejection? What do you nave to gain, who knows, the skies the limit in NA.  

God, relieve us of the bondage of judgmental-ness. I have found that a lot of my relationship problems stem from the fact that I am busy taking her inventory and finding her lacking. If I am standing in judgment over my fellow man, I can always find fault. The insane part is that I never tell anyone about their short comings. I just sit and stew over what I have judged as inadequate in others. What a loose/loose game to play. What a waste of time. Since I have started to pray for my higher power to relieve me of my judgmental-ness, guess what, my wife has gotten better. Okay she still has character defects I don't like, but our relationship has deepened immensely. When I let go of judging, I find I have a lot more time to cuddle and be close. My lack of resentment has made it possible for me to allow more love into our lives. Every time I surrender a character defect, it opens up my life for more goodness to come in.

All my life, I felt less than and not good enough for this world. A woman on a passing bus would frown at me and I would have a bad day. Today I am a responsible, productive member of society thanks to God's grace and the Steps. My wife says; "The 12 steps of Narcotics Anonymous put us on a level playing field with the rest of humanity." Man, isn't that all we ever wanted? Not to feel less than, all the time. This is one of the greatest gifts NA has given me.

The Basic Text states; Narcotics Anonymous offers us only one promise, freedom from active addiction, the solution to which has eluded us for so long. We will be freed from our self-made prisons." Today I understand that my addiction is the negative voice in my head and N.A's promise has come true in my life. I have been freed from that negative voice of doubt, shame, guilt and fear. I have been freed from my self-made prison, wow! Now that is one heck of a promise. Hey, if you just want freedom from active drug addiction, you can have that, but for this addict, I want it all!

God please watch out over your trusted servants. This is our prayer whenever we travel for NA. My wife and I hold hands on the airplane or in the car before we head out on the road for another NA adventure. I have lived an incredible life and I know that my time on this earth was of some good purpose. I could not have said this before I came to NA. When you're going nowhere, any road will take you! Before I found NA that is exactly where my life was heading, nowhere.

At the end of our day, as my wife and I are lying in bed, we hold hands and say our evening prayers. Thank you God for keeping us clean and guiding our actions. Thank you for helping us deal with our powerlessness over our addiction and helping us in our search for serenity. Thank you for everything you've given us, everything you've taken from us and every thing you've left us, just for today. We then close our eyes, having no regrets and we sleep like God's children should, at peace with ourselves and world around us.

 In loving service,

 Kermit O. - A deeply grateful member of Narcotics Anonymous  

David D. 
 Appleton, Wisconsin USA

 NA Purist

My name is David D and I am an Addict. I grew up in Sheboygan WI, a town of 50,000 people. Growing up I had my name and picture in the newspaper for something good one day and then the police would be at the door the next day for something bad. My first drug deal was going to Boy Scout camp. With me, I took two packs of cigs, one pack of menthol and one pack of non-menthol, and half a bottle of vodka I had found on the side of the road. My friend was going to get me some weed. The plan was to get drunk away from home so my parents would not know. But they found the cigs and vodka before I left and they were not going to let me go. They could not understand why I had two packs of different cigs. At this point I never smoked or did any drugs. The troop leader talked them into letting me go. When I was at camp my friend had gotten the weed. I paid him for it and then smoked it. And boy did I cough. I said I don’t feel any different and he said the first time you don’t. I found out that it was weed and not marijuana. Yes, weed from the field. I got my picture in the paper from that camp. It was another five years before I would use. When I did start using it went from 0 to 60 in seconds. My using was alcohol, real weed, speed and LSD.

When I got married I would go out for a pack of cigs and come home two days later and no cigs. Six months after I got married I went in to treatment for 29 days. I got out and relapsed many times. My sponsor would say “Well you had two weeks clean before you went out. Don’t you see what a miracle that is?”

I thought that I needed some discipline so I signed up with United States Army Reserves. That did not help me to stop using. I went to basic training and got my divorce papers while in basic training. When I got out of basic training I came home and had to move in with my parents. I could only stay clean for weeks at a time then went back out. And when I did use I would not come home. I went to a friend’s house to use for three days at 11:30 pm and he finally said “David, you’re going to have to leave.” I told him that I had no place to go.

I left my friend’s house and walked two blocks, climbed over a wall and curled up in the snow and tried to sleep. I could only keep part of my body warm at a time. It was hell all night long. I was shaking violently. The sun came up and I sat on the wall feeling the warmth of it. It felt so good. Here I am on a street that goes nowhere. There was no reason for anyone to drive down this street. At this time in my life I had no job, no money, no friends, no car, and recovery did not work. I was thinking “How will I kill myself?” I thought of many ways and decided that this is what I am going to do. Then my parents show up in the car. What the hell. They asked me, “David what are you doing?” I told them that I just went for a walk. They said “Get in the car, we will take you home.”

 I went with them and I took a shower. I had not had one in three days.  In the shower I was thinking what do I do? I had tried meetings for alcohol. Then I remembered the drug meetings that I had gone to while in treatment. So I got on the phone looking for a drug meeting. They told me where there was one and I walked two miles to get to that meeting.

The meeting started and the people started to share and each time I thought “Wow, are you messed up.” I listened to one story after another and I was thinking that I should leave. Then a man had shared that the drugs were a symptom of the disease. I thought well he must never have had a problem with drugs. I could not wait to get away from those freaks. The meeting ended with the Lord’s Prayer and I tried to run out of there as fast as I could. This was not for me. But they kept hugging me. Finally I thought that I was out of there and oh no here comes that man that does not have a drug problem. He gave me a hug and puts his hand on my shoulder and says “We need you here.” Instantly I felt I was home. The man bends over and showed me a meeting list and where the next meeting was held and I told him that this was the best meeting that I was ever at and that I will definitely be at the next meeting. That day was January 8, 1985, and I have been clean ever since. This year I gave that man my 23 year NA medallion and thanked him for my 23 years of being clean. If he would not have said that we need you here I would never have come back to NA.

I went to 89 meetings in 90 days and on day 90 I felt like using mentally and physically. I was trying to not think about using. I had spent the day with my sponsor. We went to a NA meeting that night. When I came home and was in bed I had thought “why did I have such a bad urge to use?” I did all the right things and went to meetings. I had a sponsor and did use him and did all the right things to stay clean. Then it hit me – it was because I am an addict. This was a turning point for me. I still had no job, no money, and no car. I went to functions all over the Midwest. Another addict drove us all over and said if you have gas money or not, I am going and you can come along. It was a great time. Every function that I went to I would talk to someone that I never met. Then I got a job in a foundry. I got a car and spent three years paying it forward by driving other addicts to functions and meetings. At the time there were only one or two functions within three states. I remember working on the NA 3^rd edition revised basic text at workshops and then voting on it in meetings. At the time, I did not know how important that this was.

You see for me, when I started service work, I did this at 90 days clean. Someone had asked me if I wanted to go along with them to area service. I asked them what they did there. He told me and I asked him, “do you take lunch?” He said yes that we go out to eat.

Coffee and fries are what kept me clean. After the Friday night meeting we would go out for coffee and fries. Meetings were awesome but I needed something to do after the meetings and this made me feel part of that group. Those people had become my friends for 23 years. I did service work back then but did not want to be there. But somewhere it says to do the things we don’t want to do. But the coffee and fellowship were always great.

Years went by and at around eight years clean I was doing all the right things and I found a church and attended it for a few years. I found God but a couple of addicts at the church said that God removed there addiction and that I don’t need recovery. They went back to using. Red flag! I am out of here. I left the church but did not leave God.

I woke up one morning and turned the bathroom light on and looked in the mirror and spit at myself. Welcome to the next phase of recovery. I spent the next four months in therapy dealing with my feelings. What a kick in the butt that was. I got done with therapy and people said “Wow, you had changed and I like it.” This gave me the self esteem to move forward in life. I worked on many things. Perfectionism was one thing I was working on at this time. I did not like to speak in front of big crowds. I probably went to 15 conventions and never went up to the podium to share. So I asked the Wisconsin Convention Committee if I could chair a workshop on perfectionism and they said yes. So I did the work shop and I did not do a great job. It was not perfect. That’s what made it perfect.

I was inactive in the United States Army Reserves for three years and the 1^st golf war had started and I went to the recruiter to go back in to the Reserves. I was in formation one week later and got inspected buy a 3 star general my first day back. I completed my last year and got out.

Then I went to truck driving school and started driving over the road. I look back and this is where I started missing meetings. I was out for four to five weeks at a time. I would get to a state and have time to call the 800# hotline for a meeting and a ride. I had to go to another fellowship because NA did not have contact info out there. I did this a few times and got off the road a year later. I got a local driving job and I went to NA meetings once in a while. Then, I went three years before I went to another NA meeting and someone came up to me and asked me to speak at a dance. Being an NA purist I said “did you not hear what I had said that I have not been to a meeting for 3 years?” I told them no, that this would not be a good message of recovery. I went to another NA meeting about three months later and someone asked me if I would speak at a treatment center and I said “so you can use me as how not to work a recovery program?”  My next NA meeting had 65 people at it and the topic was the 12 promises of AA. I was sick to my stomach. I was going to say something but what hurt was that they all loved the idea.

I had gotten into a relationship with another recovering addict at this time. I had got promoted to dock supervisor and then to operations manager at my job. I said to my self that this is because of NA. Then I bought my own semi-truck and became an owner operator for 10 years. I made a lot of money but made very little NA meetings. What hurt the most were the NA anniversaries. I was high-fiving myself but I missed being with other addicts. Sometimes I would make a function or convention.

And then I found the casinos and this was to become the next symptom of my addiction to make my life insane and unmanageable. During the next phase of my recovery  I went through a lot of money and kept doing a mental check to see if it had made my life unmanageable and the answer was no. Well, the answer ended up being yes. I had thought that I was working a program when I did not attend NA meetings. I don’t know what had kept me clean. The relationship that I was in was a big thing. Without that relationship I don’t think I would be clean. The Serenity Prayer was - can I change it? That’s it. Where things did go bad for me was not attending NA meetings and not having a home group. What’s funny is that I was still grateful and I am forever grateful for NA for giving me a great life.

I have cars today, a great relationship of 15 years, a place to live and some toys. And so on. This is it. I am going back to meetings to give back to NA. They need my help. They need to see you can have clean time and get a great life. So I made it back home after 10 years to give it away.

My first function back I made was the 20^th Live the Steps or Freeze. This is the area function that I had started and had put on the first two. I started looking at all the things I had done in NA that became a part of NA history. So I was looking at NA history and started looking for a NA text 2^nd edition because I had one given to me while I was in treatment. I went online looking for one and came up with things signed by Jimmy K and other people. I called up a friend that’s more in touch with the NA history than me and I told him that I knew who Jimmy K is but who the hell is this Bo guy? My friend reminded me of whom Bo was and that we had spent the weekend with him at a convention in the late 80s. My friend had put Bo up on a pedestal and then I remembered who Bo was and I saw him as just another recovering addict. What these men, my recovering friends and I did was that we played a part of NA history. We started areas and regions and so many other wonderful things. But I never looked at it as NA history. We were just doing our job to help another suffering addict.

I have a home group today. I got a sponsor today. I recently went back to visit a regional meeting and I have decided to be a GSR for my home group. I have been reaching out for help. Funny thing is I came back to NA wanting to give back and help you because my life was good and it all backed fired right in my face. I have gotten more from NA than I can ever give back. I have never loved myself more. I have never loved my life more. The lady I am going to marry I have never loved more and today I am in love with NA. Thank you NA for 23 years of being clean.

Michael M.
Marietta, Georgia USA

(NOTE: This was written in an attempt to jaunt down some random thoughts about recovery as I prepare to take a more active role in H&I work at a nearby stabilization unit.)

My name is Michael and I am an addict. By the grace of the God of my understanding and the program of Narcotics Anonymous I did not have to use today. I consider this a miracle but when I sat where you are sitting now--lonely, afraid, hurting from physical withdrawal, feeling rejected by family, friends and society in general-I could not imagine that there would come a day when I could say that: "I did not HAVE to use today." The compulsion and the desire might have been there, but I did not HAVE to use today.

I could attempt, as I have done in the past, to rationalize why I am an addict, but in the end I would have nothing but a bunch of rational lies and it no longer concerns me why I am an addict or how I became one. I accept the fact that I suffer from the progressive, unpredictable, cunning and fatal disease of addiction. There is no cure, but there is a way to control this disease and that is by not using any mood-altering chemicals. But abstinence alone can be a struggle I choose not to undertake today and there is a better way and that is found in working the steps of this remarkable program known as Narcotics Anonymous.

I first was introduced to NA about 24 hours after beginning my last round of treatment, a lengthy journey that was to last for seven months, almost exactly the same amount of time I have spent on a downhill spiral of a relapse after nearly two years of sobriety. At an earlier treatment center it had been strongly suggested that I check out the program of NA but I was adamant in my refusal. After all, since I had never used a needle, I did not need to mingle with a bunch of junkies. Attending meetings of another 12 Step program, more to keep my job and marriage than anything else, I stumbled along through the first year, marked the traditional first birthday and began a second year of abstinence which I realize today was nothing more than what the other program refers to as a "dry drunk." Shortly before the second anniversary of my sobriety rolled around, I decided that a single glass of wine couldn't hurt me. I remember very little of the next seven months.

From the first time I felt the warm glow of a shot of bourbon, rolled the first joint or popped the first pill, I spent the better portion of my life high one way or another. I was given the dream job of any addict on my twenty-first birthday when I became nightclub editor and entertainment writer of a major newspaper. In those wonderful days of graft and payola, I used every opportunity that arose to feed my addiction, all at the expense of

club owners and others in the entertainment industry making sure that my every whim or desire was fulfilled as they bribed their way into my various newspaper columns. A typical day at work would be to have lunch with Ann-Margaret, attend a cocktail party for John Wayne and then check out the club scene. The ideal life!

We all have our war stories-accounts of our using days-and while they are different just as we are different, for the addict the end results are always the same: jails, institutions and death. I've had my fill of the first two and am in no great rush to experience the third. Jail didn't help. Institutions didn't help. An attempt to kill my best friend while on a bad trip didn't faze me. Today I need to share my recovery rather than my active addition for our literature rightfully informs us that we can only keep what we have by giving it away.

Following marriage, a family, the traditional house in the suburbs, the day came when an intervention forced me to either enter treatment or lose my job, which was now with another newspaper and very far removed from the club and entertainment scene as it was as associate editor of a religious newspaper. I would joke that I had gone from covering the city's strippers to covering God and found it much less predictable.

This treatment failed and the only thing I gained from it was the reputation of being the only person in the history of Ridgeview Institute to sweet talk a nurse into getting me something to mix with Bacardi light, among the first things I packed as I prepared to enter "treatment." Coming up with a plan with fellow patients to lock the entire staff out of our unit, a plan which succeeded very nicely at change of shift, is another example of how seriously I took my time at Ridgeview. Twenty-eight days later I was "cured" and discharged. I did not use for almost two years until the night I decided that the one glass of wine wouldn't do any harm.

Seven months later the day, or more accurately middle of the night came when I realized that I would not be able to go to work the next day, and the thought of another 28-day rest at a nice institution would be better than coming up with an excuse for not showing up at the office so this time I checked myself into treatment, where I was immediately locked up in the psychiatric unit. It didn't take long for me to think that perhaps I hade made a mistake and I decided to leave-much easier said than done I quickly discovered. I formulated an escape plan whereby once I set the hospital on fire, as these were the days of being allowed to smoke anywhere and I had cigarettes and a lighter, I would flee into the woods across the street and head to the home of an old friend. It didn't occur to me that I could barely stand up, let alone "flee" anywhere and the plan seemed perfectly

logical to me. Just as I was about to ignite the fire I was told I was being moved to the detox unit. Once there I demanded to see the person in charge and explained that I had changed my mind and would be leaving. Fortunately for me he was a recovering addict and used his street sense to bribe me into staying with drugs, pointing out that he could relieve the physical withdrawal symptoms that were quickly setting in with medication. Made sense to me-get high and then leave!

I didn't leave. Although the details of my first NA meeting remain rather fuzzy, that night a group of recovering addicts, doing just what we are doing here tonight, came to the facility to hold a meeting and attendance was mandatory. I spent most of the time at that meeting observing one guy, trying to figure out what he was on and where he got it, but somehow I realized that maybe these people had something to offer. They were happy. They seemed to have stories similar to my own as far as their need to obtain drugs in any form went but they had found a way to kick their habits through the program they represented. After the meeting ended, the guy I had thought was high came up to me and introduced himself, saying that since he had not seen me before, therefore that I must be a new patient. I told him that I had blown two months' clean time and in a matter of seconds, he outlined everything that I must have done-quit going to meetings, failing to admit my powerless, not working the steps, taking myself too seriously, becoming too insolated and the list went on. It was as if he was telling my story and after he left I found out that he was one of the founders of the program in this area and rather than being high had many years of clean time.

I looked through some of the literature they left behind and decided that I'd stay in treatment until they came back for another meeting to observe them with a clearer head. This was the best decision I have never made in my life. Yes, I wanted what they had to offer as their literature explained. Yes, I had reached a point where I could admit that I was totally powerless over my addiction and that my life had become unmanageable. Yes, I had found "my tribe" after looking for it all of my life. An off-sight meeting to which patients were transported introduced me to the Rising Sun, an NA clubhouse that would have made most crack houses look like something out of a decorating magazine, but a place of such recovery and unconditional love and filled with people just like me from all walks of life, that I was hooked on it from the first meeting. Years later I would attend the final meeting at the Rising Sun, where I had made friendships unlike any I had ever experienced, and sit throughout the night reminiscing with fellow addicts and shedding many tears, mostly tears of joy for all that I had learned there.

What I thought would be another 28-day vacation progressed into seven months of treatment. From the original facility, I was sent to a half-way house and intense therapy

and on a daily basis. About a month into this phase of my treatment I experienced the most devastating event of my life, the sudden death of my sister, killed in an automobile accident the day after she had picked me up at the half-way house and carried me out to dinner. All I could think of was to block out this pain with drugs. The arrangements had already been made by my wife and the program director that I would return home for a week or two, so being able to self-medicate to block out my pain would be no problem. But something made me call my sponsor, the guy I had focused on at my first meeting thinking he was high. We spent many hours together in the next few days and he convinced me on a daily basis to not use for just that one day. He got me through this ordeal and I returned to treatment.

You are probably told here, if you have not heard it before, that once you leave you should attend 90 meetings in 90 days. As obsessive and compulsive behavior if a part of my disease of addiction, I attended well over 100 meeting during the first 90 days out of treatment and can only share that it worked for me. I later obtained a second sponsor as a back-up system and due to the fact that my original sponsor, having been married five times, did not seem to be the best person to turn to for discussing relationships!

My marriage finally failed. I lost my home and family. In recovery I have suffered other losses but through it all I have managed to stay clean and sober one day at a time, for that is all that I have-one day, good or bad, at a time. After a number of years of attending meetings on an almost daily basis, moving, changing jobs that required me to work at night, developing a relationship that is about to mark sixteen years duration and other commitments took me away from the program for far too long. Realizing awhile back that I had an NA birthday coming up it dawned on me that I had been living dangerously for entirely too long and that I need what this program has to offer. The program had been with me from the beginning, but I had separated myself from the fellowship and there is great truth in the statement "An addict alone is in back company." So I have returned to meetings, renewed ties with my sponsor and become involved in service work. I am saddened by the loss of so many recovering addicts who were so important in my life in years past, many of whom have either died or returned to active addiction. I am fortunate to be getting "involved" once again.

This is a simple, not easy, program for complicated people. It works.

By the way, my first NA meeting was over 27 years ago and I have not used since that time. Thank you for allowing me to be here with you tonight.

11/07/2008

Greg P. got clean on October 25, 1970. Greg's story is in the Little White Book entitled: "I was different" and the NA Basic Text. He also wrote the informational pamphlets, "The Triangle of Self Obsession", "Living the Program", the first fourth step working guide which was called "An Approach to Writing the Fourth Step", and the NA Tree, which was the first service structure in NA. Greg P. gave his last NA talk in a small North Carolina town and died on April 29, 1999.

Greg P.'s Last NA Talk

April 17, 1999

"My name's Greg and I'm an addict. Wheels all going around, around, around and around?" (chuckles) (talking about cassette recorder)

Well alright. I'm real glad to be here to help you celebrate your anniversary, and I'm tickled to death that we have so many new members, because I very strongly believe that the newcomer is the lifeblood of this institution, the lifeblood of this thing we call Narcotics Anonymous. The lifeblood of this society, whatever you want to call it. For those of you who are new, you can probably discount about ninety percent of what you learn. I believe that recovery over a period of time is a process of simplification.

We learn a lot of stuff about recovery. You'll come in here, and you'll do worksheets, you'll read books, you'll talk to this person, you'll talk to that person, you'll get sponsors, if you can stick with the basics you have a chance. It's real easy to get lost in all the gimmicks.

We have a brand new set of wonderful step writing guides_ but you can work them diligently, and they won't help you stay clean. We have a Basic Text_ you can read it every day, and it won't help you stay clean. We have a book called It Works How and Why that gives you lots of information about the steps, and the traditions. You can learn it perfect, and it won't help you stay clean. It's what you do with that information. It's the way you take that information from all sources and apply it to your daily living and use it to find this thing called recovery. And recovery is a very precious gift.

This is liable to be an interesting talk tonight. Because in the last couple of months I found out that I have cancer of the liver and uh, I don't feel real good, but you see I'm an NA member and the day I found out I had cancer of the liver, I called my sponsor and went to a meeting. That's what NA members do!

That's part of how this program works. We don't isolate. We don't hide. We don't disappear into the woodwork when things get tough. We reach out to the fellowship. We reach out to our sponsors, we reach out to our meetings, we reach out to those around us that we've come to learn to love and depend on. Umm, that's a big part about how this works.

This is a place where we take turns saving each other's lives. And you know, the people that come after you that you meet in recovery_ treat them real well, ‘cause you never know when your life's gonna depend on 'em. And you'll meet people that come after you_ even though there were? it seems like a whole bunch of brand new people here_ stay clean? hang around_ give this thing a chance _ keep the faith. There's something very special happening here. You know some of you who introduced themselves as being new have probably been here before. Some of you have probably never been here before.

Aw, give yourself a break. Try this way of living_ what have you got to lose? If you're like me _ you don't have much to lose. If you're like me _ you didn't get here 'cause things were going good in your life. Those of you who are here for your first meetings_ you know _ I know where you lived_ it's called Hell. 'Cause that's where NA is _ go to Hell, and turn left. That's NA.

You're not here because you're good at holding down a job. You're not here because you're good at staying out of trouble, you're not here because you have successful relationships. You're not here, because you're, you know, the candidate for poster child of mental health. You're here for the same reason that I'm here. You're here because you're none of those things.

You're here because you're in a trap that you can't get out of by yourself. And despite all the things you've tried, you're still in that trap. In other words, in desperation, we sought help from each other in Narcotics Anonymous. In desperation we sought help from each other in Narcotics Anonymous. And it doesn't make any sense. Doesn't make sense that we can get together, a bunch of losers, and anybody would stay clean. But we do.

You know I've seen NA grow from 20 meetings to 40,000 meetings. I don't even know how many there are now _ that's a guess _ maybe more than that. I've seen NA meetings grow from perhaps 150 _ 200 people attending, and maybe a quarter that many involved, to look around the room _ there's as many people here tonight as were in NA when I got clean. And here we're in Winston Salem, North Carolina of all places. The birthday of a group_ all together. You know what _ there's another meeting in Bombay, isn't there? And there's one in Denmark_ I had the opportunity to speak not too long ago in Denmark. There were nine hundred NA members from Denmark there. Nine Hundred members from Denmark!!

You know I didn't know when we had one from Arizona, or one from Carolina, or one from New Jersey. There were times when there weren't any anywhere. We got people staying clean living this way of life all over the country. And there's power here_ there's miracles here_ there's magic here, if you will. But it isn't going to work unless you let go, and let it work. One of the things I've learned over the last twenty_ eight years is there is no substitute for surrender. If you want this thing to work _ you're going to have to give up. You're going to have to give up being a dope fiend; you're going to have to let go, give up you know, being hip, slick and cool. You're going to have to give up standing on the corner.

You're going to have to give up all those things that sometimes seem so attractive when you're not hurting too bad. And reach out for help. First of all to an NA member, second of all to a loving God. There is no substitute for surrender. There is no therapist that you can go to that's gonna make everything OK. There is no church you can go to that's going to fix your addiction. There is no book with all the magic answers in it.

There is no medicine that'll take care of your addiction. When I say my name is Greg and I'm an addict it means three things and they're very simple. Number one, when I put drugs in my body, I lose the ability to control how they react in my body. I lose the ability to predict where they're going to take me. Number two, I have a tendency to get strung out on anything. I'll take wonderful things and make them self_ destructive.

You know _ it’s reading _ I got a book _ I didn't read it much on the way down _ 'Cause I wasn't feeling all that well. I was catnapping in the car most of the way. I love to read! I didn't read before I got clean. But I've learned it's a great escape. But you know what? If I pick up a book and get into it, I maybe might have to finish it before I set it down. Now I might be able to set it down, in the meantime, but I have no way to determine that. I'll get strung out on all kinds of weird stuff. And thirdly, when I say that I'm an addict it means that I carry this spiritual illness that separates me from you. Separates me from every other human being. It separates me from God, it separates me from life and reality. And that's difficult.

You know we know what it's like to be alone. One of the things I remember before coming to NA was the loneliness of addiction. The loneliness _ even when you're in a room full of people. And some of you sitting here tonight, in a room full of people, are about as lonely as you can stand. Nobody knows it, because you haven't let anybody in _ because you're afraid. ‘Cause of all these things. I came around the program and now I did what pretty much what we do _I mean there aren't a lot of different ways, we think we got some unique handle on how we do this program, but there's not.

And I come around here and the first thing that happens is I start going to meetings and I stop using and you know, it's kinda like I start getting high off of not being high. It's almost like not using nothing is a new drug. And then after a while I'm going to these meetings, and I'm listening to what people are reading and all this stuff _ You know, I kinda memorized that stuff. Couldn't read very well. And I know people who've come around to NA without being able to read at all, who learn to read by listening to the readings in the meetings. Again and again and again and again and hearing them, and seeing them at the same time. If you have a problem with reading, get yourself a little white booklet, and as the readings are being read, follow along with it. And that can teach you how to read.

It's taught many, many people how to read. You don't have to talk to anybody about having a reading problem_ lots of us have reading problems. But read along _ learn the words. And at ninety days, I had all the answers. I had 'em all! I had this shit down. I'd tell you _ ask me any questions_ ask me a question _ just go ahead.. I'll tell you. And I'd spout this stuff about the "Therapeutic value of one addict helping another is without parallel." I didn't have any idea about what I was talking about. Or I'd say something like, "there's one thing more than anything else that will defeat us in our recovery, this is an attitude of indifference or intolerance toward spiritual principles." Do you think at ninety days I had any idea what that meant? It sounded good_ you know _ it made me feel like part of _ and people would accept me _ they'd pat me on the back saying "Oh you're doing good"_ but the reality is I didn't know _ I didn't have a clue _ I just memorized the words! And I thought I had all the answers . You know the funny part about it is I did have all the answers _ I just didn't know which were which _ and which went with the which questions, you know or what they meant or how I could use them in my daily living _ that's the biggie.

Our twelfth step says, "Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of the these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts and practice these principles in all our affairs." And I'm big into practice these principles in all our affairs. You know, once you find out about how this program works, start using it in your life; in every area of your life. You know, don't withhold anything. Don't reserve anything. You know reservations are the kind of the things I told God "Hey God I'll handle this one, you just leave me alone. I can take care of it, I can handle it." And I'm in trouble. Because I can no more handle my life than the man in the moon. You know, if I could handle my life, I sure wouldn't end up sitting up here in front of you guys with cancer _ I'd be bouncing around the room you know_ finger popping, talking long shit. But I'm here tonight because I'm an NA member. I'm here tonight because this is part of how I live. This is as much about a part of the way I live as turning my will and my life over to the care of God, or writing an inventory or making amends or any of the other things the program teaches me to work.

Over the years, our programs change, you know I got to that point where I was talking about knowing all the answers _ and that only lasted about a month before the roof caved in, you know, the big blue bird of feelings flew over and took a healthy dump and I figured out _ "Oh! This is why I used." And I had no way to cope with those feelings_ I had no way to cope. And what did I do? I turned to the program. And I can remember at six months going "Oh my God it's not the drugs!"

Because I thought drugs were the problem. I really thought the drugs were the problem. And had you asked me I would've told you I was powerless over heroin and it had fucked up my life. And that's what the first step said. But that's not what the first step says.

The first step says we're powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable. And again addiction is a three fold disease_ it's physical, and that has to do with the drugs that we used, but it’s also mental and spiritual. And my experience is that the mental part and the spiritual part are much more devastating and much more far reaching than the physical part of our disease. Now once we clean up and kick a habit, the physical has pretty much taken care of itself. The mental and spiritual aspects of our disease continue throughout our recovery. The potential for the physical continues on for our recovery. But in reality the mental and spiritual aspects are things that you'll have to deal with all your life. And again the tendency we have is to get strung out on anything, take wonderful things and make them self _ destructive. And number two, lack of faith, lack of hope, lack of trust, inability to love, self obsession, low self_ esteem. Those things are things that we have to cope with on through time, and things that I have to struggle with today. The most difficult thing in my life today is the third step. The most difficult thing in my life today is the third step. To really make that decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand him.

As I continued, and approached a year I got into the _ what they call the birthday crazies, where just before a year where, you're into sabotage, you know? Oh my God I'm a sick man, another three weeks I'll have a year and I'll have made it, what'll I do now? How can I, how can I wreck this? Or just after a year when you're going, "Whew! Boy I'm glad I made that, now I can get back to looking like a real person." The reality is that I've been looking like a real person, you know. Or the step that happens at eighteen months, when we find ourselves bored with the program and it says it in the white booklet we get tired of repeating our new practices or that sometimes in those times are when the greatest changes take place within.

I'd get tired of this. You know, I'd discovered that there were other things to do other than go to meetings. I mean, I found Star Trek on the TV, I found books, I found hobbies, I found things I enjoyed doing, I thought I found things that were fun. Certainly not a whole lot more, certainly a whole lot more fun than listening to you guys. You know, we come in here, you know, meetings don't change too much, from day to day, year to year. Every once in a while there's something spectacular that happens, but basically year in and year out, people say pretty much the same things. Newcomers ask the same questions, people's responses to those questions are pretty much the same, you know, and it's not a thrilling existence, it's not. The thrilling part comes in watching someone's eyes, the thrilling part comes when you're talking with someone after a meeting, and you can see a change take place. See someone begin to live, where once they were dying. That's the thrilling part.

The thrilling part's at a convention, when finally something clicks. You're going, "Oh WOW now I understand that!" Or at someone's house, becoming a part of someone's life. Those are the thrills of Narcotics Anonymous. You know, NA to me is not about an hour, an hour and a half in the evening. An hour, an hour and a half in the evening is fine, but NA is so much more than that. It's a way of living. You either live this way or you don't live this way _ it's ok if you don't. It's ok if you don't.

I've had to give people permission to reject this way of life. Because, you know the reality is that some do, and it hurts when you care a lot about 'em. We're not in recovery in isolation, we affect each other's lives. And when someone you've cared about, and you've spent time with, and you've invested your spirit with, goes out, it hurts. I can remember saying, "God, _ please don't let me love another addict, cause it hurts too bad when they leave." And you know what _ that isn't the answer either. That was too much like the death I had using, not being able to care about anybody. At three years I found myself in a situation where it seemed like all the things I'd used to try to fix myself quit working, substitution quit working. And uh, I was in trouble, and I had to dive into the program on a new level.

At four and a half years it seemed like the program quit working. The things you taught me about NA, um the gimmicks; the write the inventory, the call your sponsors, the work with your newcomer, all those things seemed to quit working. And I had to get right with my Higher Power; I had to come out with a new relationship with God. I had to turn my recovery over to the care of God as I understood him. I couldn't just turn the symptoms over. I had to turn the real deal over. I had to work the third step for the first time. For real. My understanding of the steps has changed over time.

You know like I told you about the first step, I originally thought that meant that I admit that I am powerless over heroin, that it had screwed up my life _ that was obvious. But I've come to believe in this three fold disease. Perhaps the most change has come in the second step, particularly in the last few years. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. And I thought originally that meant I'd come to believe that God could fix me. You know, maybe God can fix me. But I don't think that's what the step says. I had to look at this idea of sanity and what did that really mean. And I went back to the simple stuff _ a person who is sane is a person who is in touch with reality. A person who is insane is someone who is out of touch with reality. And what's reality? Ultimately reality is God _ the universe, all things.

So, my second step changed to where I come to believe that a process_ these twelve steps_ can put me back in touch with reality, can restore my spirituality, and restore my relationship with God. And that's really changed all the rest of the steps. I used to think the third step was about making a commitment, and saying the words_ they had a third step prayer I used to repeat. It was a really good prayer. Today, my third step is about trying to live life, as if I really believed there was a loving God trying to take care of me. I mean, what if there really was! What if there really is someone taking care of you? And it's ok to risk living. What if there really is a loving god out there working for you and you don't have to try to control all this shit? And you don't have to try to make the unmanageable turn out the way you want it. What if?? It'd be a different world, wouldn't it? I know it's been a different world for me when I can believe that.

The fourth step, instead of being show and tell, you know, has been a matter of really taking a look at who I am, and seeing the ways that I've separated myself from God, you see, and those things that I've done throughout my recovery that keep me from growing spiritually _ the patterns I've fallen into, the mistakes I've made, and even some of the successes, which have kept me from surrendering. You see, if you give me a quarter inch of success, I'll ride it for a mile and a half. I try one thing, and it turns out OK, I'm going to try it a hundred times, just to try to make it come out OK again. Except I forget the first time it turned out OK it wasn't because of my doing, it was God's doing. I forget that. So my fourth step has become an exploration of me, and how I relate to God. It's become a lot about humility. You know we talk a lot about humility in the later steps, but there's a lot of humility in the fourth step, knowing who and what you really are. Only by knowing my patterns can I avoid them.

In the fifth step, to me it's become a time when I can gain some clarity about that. Get someone sitting down with me who doesn't have a big interest in who I am. You see, I am incapable of being objective about myself. Everything I think about me is tied up in my hopes, my prayers, my fears, my shit, my issues, my past, my present, my dreams, and you know, I'll tweak anything. Lois brought home a thing one time from a meeting saying "we're the kind of people who from a single tree can create a mighty forest into which we immediately get lost." It's true! That's the kind of stuff I need a sponsor for. He can say "hey dummy this is just a tree!" This ain't the world! Who is not prejudiced about Greg. Who can see me objectively and say "hey_ this pattern here_ don't you see this?" and I go "no.." And, that's what my fifth step has turned into. Getting some perspective on what I learned in the fourth step. Getting some unprejudiced, outside opinion about what's going on, what's really going on in my life.

The sixth step; becoming entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character, to me is about getting ready. It's about learning about those defects, and taking the step I learned about in the fourth and fifth step, and really taking a look at it. Why is this a defect? What does this mean? What is it all about? It's about learning more about humility and it's also about preparing to do the seventh step. One of the things that has been very helpful and has become a big favorite of mine in the sixth step when I'm working with someone, is asking the person I'm working with to write their own personal individual unique seventh step prayer. And something that means what they really want it to mean.

And then in the seventh step going and following it through, and taking a look at the effect of it on their lives. Writing a journal. I'm a big believer in writing, although I don't think writing's the only way. Writing a journal about how this step is working in your life; how this prayer, this seventh step prayer, that you've begun to use daily, is working in your life. The amends have changed dramatically for me. But before I talk about those, you know, our defects and shortcomings, I used to think of those things as being like symptoms and things like that, but I think back to that, what I found in my fourth step. Those have to do more with the things that separate me from God. My defects and shortcomings are those things, which separate me from God, which separate me from sanity, which keeps me sick.

And the eight and ninth step are the primary way, other than humbly asking God to remove those things, that I can contribute to change. I make a list of how I have separated myself from God. All those things I used to stay off track, 'cause I was afraid of me. All the things I've used that have kept me from growing spiritually. And I take a look at them. And I plan how I can amend that. What can I do about this? You know the ninth step says "we made direct amends whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others." There's a couple things off the top that for me, I've learned about that step. Number one is I'm not others. I'm not one of these members that says, "well you don't do nothing that could place you in jeopardy as part of your ninth step." That's not what the ninth step is about to me. It's not about placing anyone in jeopardy. It's about trying to amend and restore where I've gone off track spiritually. And, the second thing I've learned about the ninth step, I feel real strongly about is, you make amends. If possible you make direct amends. If not possible, you still make amends. You just can't do it directly. I myself have used this idea "well I haven't had the opportunity to make direct amends so I must not need to do anything about it this year or next" to avoid some of the things I had to do. You know I think we make amends, and to me, the process of making amends is to take positive action to put myself back in spiritual balance. Take positive action to restore my spirituality. Taking positive action to try to see how I've gotten off track, and bring myself back on track.

The tenth step is a really neat step. And the tenth step, for me, has to do with balance in our lives. Staying on track, here in the eighth and ninth step we kinda, seven, eight and nine _ we've kinda gotten back on track, some. Through our amends, through humbly asking God to remove our shortcomings, we've gotten kind of back on track, and one of the ways we stay on track is through the tenth step, and that's by keeping track of how we're doing on those things. And I've learned for me, you know, checking out the day at the end of the day don't cut it. But I have to do almost a constant monitoring to see how I'm doing throughout the day, and make adjustments. And when I head off track, you know, the tenth step says when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. And I, for years I thought that meant "well when I do something to somebody I apologize for it." I read it in my head, and when we were wrong, promptly apologized for it. You know, today that's so much broader. When I start heading the wrong direction, I need to come back on track. I have to admit that I'm heading off in the wrong direction, and do what I can do to come back on track. When I fall into one of my patterns, self_ destructive patterns, whether I involve someone else or not, I have to recognize that I'm headed the wrong direction. And take action to come back on track, to maintain that spiritual balance. So, for me today the tenth step is, about maintaining spiritual balance.

Eleventh step _ we sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for the knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. To me, that has to do about growing spiritually, has to do about keeping ourselves on track in the future. It's about discovering what God has in store for me. Being open to God's plan, not just my plan, and having the courage, and the power to follow that plan, not my plan. Follow up, and work the program! Work God's program. You know, prayer and meditation are two of the important ways we do that. I'm telling you that life is all about prayer and meditation! What if everything you do is a prayer? What if every sleazy thing we did was a prayer? What if every generous thing we did was a prayer? What if every negative thing we do is a prayer? What if every positive thing we do is a prayer? That scared the shit out of me at one time. Because I started looking at my life, and I wasn't real thrilled about some of the stuff I was doing. And my prayer was not a very positive prayer. So I believe the eleventh step is about making our lives a prayer. Is your life a prayer that you're proud to give to God? Or is your life something you're embarrassed about, or feel guilty? I suspect that if you're embarrassed about your life or feel guilty about the way you act, you need to do some changing. And that's part of the eleventh step. We need to change the way we live, and make our lives a positive prayer. And if everything I do is a prayer, then maybe everything I think is a meditation. And I honestly believe that if I can come into a room looking for the presence of a loving God, aware that God will be speaking through whoever's speaking, I'll hear God's will for me. I'll hear what I need to hear. A lot of you guys have experienced that_ gone to a meeting in a blue funk, and some newcomer said something so outrageous that it just blows you away. And they have no idea what they're talking about, and it's so profound. It really is! They, in that one moment of time, become a vehicle of God. And are able to say something in a way that you've never ever been able to hear it before. And the light goes on inside you, that is, you have a spiritual awakening. You know, you can experience that around here. Out of the mouths of babes.

Twelfth step _ Having had a spiritual awakening, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and practice these principles in all our affairs. And the bottom line of that is live this way. You want to be an NA member? Be a fuckin' NA member. Do it right! You want to follow a spiritual path? Commit yourself with abandon. It's the only way it works. This is not a half _ ass program. Having had a spiritual awakening, a rebirth, enlightenment. And I believe in Narcotics Anonymous, this twelve step path we're on, is just as sure a road to enlightenment as any philosophy or religion. And does not exclude any philosophy or religion. But, having had that awakening, you know, it's kind of like when someone turns on your light, let it shine babe! Don't cover it up! When you get enlightened, when you have that spiritual awakening, don't hide it! Let it shine forth! And share with others so it can grow! So it can be nurtured. So it can shine even brighter! Carry this message to addicts. What's the message? The message is hope. The message is spirituality. The message is all these things. And practice these principles in all our affairs. That’s a big part of the message_ live this way. You know, I can say all kinds of stuff about the steps. I've learned a lot about the steps and traditions and Narcotics Anonymous in twenty_eight years. But the message I show you through the way I live is the real one. Kind of like "don't tell me how good you're doing, show by the way you live." How am I living? How is my life today? How's my program today?

I'm coping with a very serious illness. Some days I do pretty good with it. Some days I don't do very well with it. Yesterday, I sat and told Lois, I'm so tired of being sick. I was struggling with being sick. Some days my relationship with my Higher Power is strong. I have not fallen into the trap of "Why me God?", thank God. I'm pretty much convinced that this is an opportunity rather than a punishment or a curse. And God has got wonderful stuff in store for me. And I've experienced part of that. Last weekend there were three guys over to the house. All from different parts of the country. And they had an experience. They had a number of experiences, which may have changed their lives. NA members _ one from the Midwest, one from New Jersey, one from Indiana, who didn't know each other. But were brought together for a common purpose. And they worked together, and they laughed together, and they told stories together and they shared together. And the barriers came down and they sat out in the woods, and they experienced something.

My dream for a lot of years was to have a place where that could happen. And it's happening. In spite of me. Don't know what the future holds for me. I don't know whether, like anybody else, I don't know whether I'm gonna buy the farm tonight on the way home, have six months, two years, ten years, fifteen years, I don't know. What I do know is that I have had a good life beyond my wildest dreams in Narcotics Anonymous. I have been given the great gift of having had a chance to touch some spirits. Getting to know people just like you. And contribute to their recovery, and have them contribute to my recovery. And that's what this is about. It's about touching spirits. It's about giving you a little bit of my glow in exchange for a little bit of your glow. And both coming out brighter in the process. It's about being there for each other when no one’s ever been there before. It's about learning how to love when we never knew how to love. It's about learning how to give instead of take. It's about all those things. And it's a helluva trip! I have a good life. I have had a good life. I continue to have a good life. And I ain't done yet. So I thank you for asking me down, I love being with you.

Note:

Greg wrote the entire tradition portion of the Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous! When the Literature Committee was finishing the Grey Book rough draft of the Basic Text, they only needed the Tradition Portion to complete it. Greg was in Oregon and they were in Memphis, Tennessee! They chose to get a woman who typed really fast and they held a phone to her ear as she typed out the entire tradition portion from Greg's notes and edited as he shared it to her.

The phone call took six hours!!! When it was over, the Lit Committee voted to turn that portion over to the Board of Trustees, as Guardians of the Traditions, to review and approve. The section came back with barely a single change. It was the least edited portion of the Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous. Wow! The way it came out of Greg's mind is basically the way you read it today.

Jack W.
Seattle, WA  

I'm an addict named Jack. I don't think anybody's going to have a problem listening to me because I always had a bulldog mouth and a hummingbird ass. I see some of you identified with that because laughter is the greatest point of identification we have. I am thankful for the committee allowing me to help them this afternoon with the little that I did and for all the hard work that they did. And I don't think they heard from us quite that we appreciated them, particularly the people from the kitchen, so just give it up for them. Right on.

So, it's a daylong task in the labor of love. And if you're new, I hope you saw that and you see it. And I hope additionally that you see, you hear, you feel something or have so far in this meeting today of all these wonderful speakers that will give you the empathy to come back to another meeting even if you got to come dirty. Ain't nothing strange about somebody being in a Narcotics Anonymous meeting using. You know, that's what we do, and we don't have to do it anymore. And having said that, would everybody with under 30 days stand up so we can recognize you.

Right on. Right on, yeah. Right on.

You may not believe this, but you're the reason that we're all here this afternoon. We got no other purpose but to give away what we find. And the only way we can do that is through events like this and through meetings. And it says our primary purpose is to carry the message to the addict who still suffers, but sometimes that addict is somebody that's been around for a spell. You know, sometimes, and you've heard that from everybody today that shared about the problems they've had during their recovery.

So, I get on a big thing and not talk about me at all, which some of you probably will prefer, but I'm going to give it up, you know.

My first meeting with Narcotics Anonymous was in 1966. I know I don't look that old, but I remember when I did. And I was out on parole one more time. I was dope sick. And somebody told me if I go to this meeting over on Yucca and Gower in Hollywood, still in this - this meeting is still there too -  then I can find somebody that I can go see Downtown Brown with after the meeting and get well. See, because I wouldn't want recovery.

You know, I was wanting to get out of the elements. Because by that time in my life, my best game was the Greyhound Bus Station in Downtown Los Angeles or some all night Laundromat where I can get in, where it's warm. And I had a parole officer who was not particularly happy with my behavior. I don't know why, but he just wasn't, and he just kept giving me the rope. When I came out of the joint a couple of months earlier, he told me, I'll give you the rope and you can just wrap it around your neck. He says, When you get tightened up, I'll take it back.

And that's what I was doing, because I didn't have any other way because the reality of my disease wasn't really up close and in front of me. It was going to be a while before it was going to happen. But that first meeting, I remember the people that were sitting in that meeting. My brother was in the meeting who was clean at the time. Pepe was there. Chuck Skinner was there. He's dead, so I can use his last name. My name is Jack White, so forget Jack W. because if you go looking for me if I'm in the hospital, you're going to need to know my last name. You can't go in there and say – You know, at the level of press, radio and films, I don't use my last name, you know. So, that's the deal.

In here, we got to know each other's names because there are times that we're going to need to go help somebody in their healing process that's going to be in a hospital or something and we need to know that. Because today, you know, the way rules and regulations are, you're lucky if you can even get in if you know the whole name. You know, that's just the way the world is today.

But anyway, so they were there. And Jimmy Kinnon was there and Bob was there, who's very sick now and he's my grand sponsor. And Jimmy told me, he says that same thing I said about Beth, and he says, "You can be too stupid to make Narcotics . . . Too bright to make Narcotics Anonymous, you can't be too stupid." And I thought he's talking to me. He wasn't. He's talking to my brother. And he told me a lot of others. So, I'm going to use some terms that saved my ass that Jimmy used. You know one of those about you can be too smart to make it, you know, for you pseudo-intellectuals that like to dot I's and cross T's, sometimes you got to get stupid, you know, so you can learn, so you can hear. And I had to get that way because that's what I was all my life, I was a pseudo-intellectual because it saved my ass a lot of times.

So, at that meeting nobody volunteered to take me to their house after the meeting. Nobody was going to give me any money because everybody was clean that night and didn't want to go get loaded, and I left disillusioned. But I heard, see. I heard, inside that little kid inside heard the message. Once a dope fiend hears the message, you can refute it all you want. You can play like you didn't hear all you want, but it's still there. And sooner or later, the seed may sprout, you know. So, the seeds were planted. The seeds were planted and they encouraged me to come back even if I was loaded, you know.So, I encourage you, man. You're sitting here and you're little on the high side. You know who you are. You know, just because we get clean for a while, we didn't get struck stupid, you know. And just keep coming back. Just keep coming back, you know, however long it takes. You know, hopefully, it won't take long.

You know, hopefully, that noise that goes around having heard about recovery and being loaded is going to diminish fast, you know, because it will screw you up. It will screw you up and there's a lot of evidence in here and people will tell you that. But I wasn't ready. I'm was too busy pointing my finger at other people, places and things for my sorry rotten life. It was the neighborhood I grew up in. It was twenty-three foster homes. It was all in other people, places and things. It was never me. It was never my responsibility.

And I had a lot of people, places and things to blame on and some of them didn't even happen. Some of them weren't even there. And when I got to the point where I got the fourth step inventory, I learned that some of that was just bullshit. I manufactured it, you know.

You know, there's nobody else in here that's done that, I'm sure, you know, except those of you who are laughing. But I always wanted to be the kid next door. All my life, I wanted to be that little boy next door. That little boy next door, he had a dad that was at home. He had a mother that seemed to love him. They had things, you know, and this was in the projects. And he'd be getting his butt whipped at night and swearing off, I swear I'll never do it again. I did that a lot of times later on in life. I did it when I was young too.

But the next day, he got a reward for being bad and I didn't understand why. How does this work? How come I can be bad and get my butt whipped and not get a reward the next day like all them other little kids seemed to. And that's the only ones that I saw, of course, the ones who were different. The ones who were similar I never saw, but I didn't see similarities though until I came to Narcotics Anonymous. You know, I always saw differences, all my life.

So, I grew up confused and scared and looking for attention, all the time looking for attention. You know, I did things like write the F word on the wall at school in front of people so that they can tell on me, and then I would swear it wasn't me. It was my handwriting and some girl over there said, I did that too, you know. We've all done things similar. I pulled a fire alarm box and then there is -  some of you were not going to identify it, but some of you will because you're a little bit older. But they used to have these little red and white fire boxes, fire alarm box on telephone poles. You know, and I'd reach in and I'd pull that alarm and then I'd split. And then when the fire trucks and all that stuff had come to the corner and all the people would be gathered and wonder what's going on and I'd show up.

And they'd tell all the kids to put their hands up like this (indicating) and I'd do it, and I have this ink right here. But I didn't do it. But I didn't do it. I always lied when it would -  I'd lie just to lie, you know. I'd lie just to lie. I'd rather lie than get paid to tell the truth, I guess, you know.

And that looking for attention out there, my father was wherever the hell he was at, the only time he came home was to beat my mother up and knock her up and that was his gig, man, you know. And he was called an officer and a gentleman in the United States Navy because he had some rank of note, but he was not a good person, you know. At least for me, he wasn't a good person.

And so, you know, that started a lot of confusion. And I remember being very, very small, when I was knee high to this podium and I'm not much higher than it now, actually, and saying I'll never ever do that. I am going to never ever treat another person that way. Never, you know. Even when I was a very small child, I knew that behavior was wrong. I knew acting out that way was wrong. And to this day, I never have, except to me. And I did it to me over and over and over again, long before I found chemicals. So, the disease of addiction was working and alive and well to my life long before I found relief. And I found relief in chemicals.

The first chemical was wine. And it was in an alley. I was on the way to junior high school with two other little runts. Together, you know, the three of us made one person, you know. But you would think, man, we was the army, you know, the way our mouths run, you know. And so, we went to the alley with this bottle of wine we stole out of this liquor store. And I remember those feelings that I got. You know, and that warmth that started going through my body. I started feeling feelings in places I didn't even know I had yet, you know.

I noticed some girls at school. I just come into puberty, but I didn't know what I was going to do with all that. But it seemed like I had a heightened awareness. But because I was a pig and I had to have too much. I had to have more. Always wanted more, you know, always wanted more.

I got this headache and it felt like somebody was using my head for a speed bag, and I did this great thing that some of us have done, I swear off forever. I will never do this again. I will never do it again. The next morning, on the way to Woodrow Wilson Junior High School in East San Diego, same three kids, same liquor store, same kind of wine, same alley, you had a few hours before I was never going to do it again. That lit something inside of me that created a desire to get more. And it was uncontrollable. I mean, I'm talking about a 12_year_old runt, little kid, man. A snot nose, didn't know anything, that has that kind of experience.

Now, I know I've heard a lot of people talk about their first experience, but I don't know anybody but an addict who has talked about that first experience who remembers it with the same kind of clarity.

So, if you remember the first time you got loaded with, like, picture clarity, I'm thinking if you're new, you got a problem. You might as well just give up and throw the towel in and stay here for the duration because you're doomed, man.

If you're new and this is your first meeting, you're in a lot of trouble, man, because there's just hundreds of years of recovery sitting in this room right now. People who suffer from the disease of addiction and all of these manifestation, you know, all of them, you know.

So, anyway, that first time turned into a second time and the third time and, you know, because I was clever like a lot of other people behind you, I went to jail a lot. And when I was in jail, I was real clever. But I didn't have anybody visiting me. There wasn't nobody sending me any mail, you know, but I had that going on, you know. And I got loaded in jail, man, like most of you who have been to jail got loaded in jail. You know, I just wasn't getting it, man. I just wasn't getting it.

And I didn't care what it was. I didn't care whether it was Pruno or shoe glue, carbon tetrachloride, you know, whatever, man, some stuff that I found out later was kind of lethal in

nature. But at the time, I didn't care. You know, I didn't care because I wanted to get from where I was to some other place.

Somebody was talking about it earlier. I wanted something out there that I can participate in, touch, feel, taste, whatever, it was going to fix me inside. And it just don't happen that way. It's an inside out job here. You know, and it seems to be the only way that it works, you know. And so, I went to that first - I'd go back to the first meeting,

I kind of got diverted a little bit, is that I left there feeling disillusioned. But with all the ammunition I needed to use to stay clean a day at a time the rest of my life. There was proof my brother was clean at the time. He passed away in 1985, was 16 1/2 years clean and as a young man. And so, he was young. There was somebody - Keith was talking about being a young man coming in. My brother's a little bit older than that, but he stayed clean in spite of it, but the big C got him, you know, and you know, it's kind of sad, but anyway. So I knew. I knew, but I just was too damned prideful to ask for help. I had to go in and out of the joint a couple of more times until I got touched by somebody on an H & I panel that I knew, you know. That I knew, you know. They was not my family, they wasn't somebody that I had met that was clean in recovery that I knew, you know. And then he told me, "Man, you know what, I ain't fixed a today, man. Because I wanted to fix, man, I didn't do it."

And I got curious. How in the hell did you not? You want to and you didn't? That didn't make no sense, man. It just didn't, you know. Wanting to and not doing it. So, anyway, I let the thing where I was going to __ it was preparing me to come here and admit complete defeat. It was preparing me to come here and step out of my own comfort zone and let somebody else know what was going on with me. It was preparing me to come here and listen to somebody else that had some problems too.

Get out of my self-centered butt, you know, because I didn't do that very much, you know. I didn't do active listening. That was a skill you guys taught me how to do. You know, you're very patient, very kind and loving. And sometimes your love presented itself in ways that were rather odd, you know. Like you hit me in the head with a Louisville Slugger to get my attention, you know. So, I came out of prison the last time, December of 1969, because I had __ right after that, within two weeks, I was back in jail and on the way back to the joint. And I got out and I went to the Yucca and Gower again and I stayed clean for two years. And in 1971, in December, I was a little complacent. You know, I had this house in Pasadena and I moved dope fiends in there and I was going to show the two kind of fledgling recovery houses that were going on in Los Angeles, how to do it, you know.

And that kind of arrogance and that kind of complacency, even though I'm sitting in meetings two and three times a day sometimes, I wasn't talking to my sponsor anymore, I wasn't praying anymore, I wasn't writing anymore and I was all consumed with Jack. You know, how great thou art, you know. Pitiful. I looked back on it, man, I was pitiful. I sounded good, but that's all it was, sounded good, with no action with it, you know.

And so I got loaded in December of 1971 and I had an awakening. I called my sponsor and told him that I'm in a hospital. I was in the hospital. I manipulated the doctor to give me some non-habit-forming Dilaudid because I was in grievous pain, and he did. And he told me, "What kind of flowers you want, Jack?" What do you mean what kind of flowers do I want? I just told you I got loaded, man. He said, "No, what kind of flowers you want?" and hung up. And I called him back and said, "Why the hell did you hang up?"

"It's because I asked you what kind of flowers you want, you didn't answer me, you know. And I want to send you the flowers that you want because you deserve to have what you want at your funeral." And I said, "I ain't dying." He said, "Yeah, you are. You're dying real quick, man, if you're not careful." He said, "This is what I want you to do, I want you to go to the meeting tonight when you get out of the hospital." I was getting out of the hospital a little bit later on that morning. "I want you to give it up. I want you to tell everybody, man, that you got loaded." I said, "No, I can't do that. It's a speaker meeting, man." He said, "I don't care what kind of meeting it is, you go tell them." And I damn sure wasn't the speaker that night.

And so I went to the meeting. The lady shared who was speaking that night, they didn't ask if there was a burning desire at that time because if they did, man, somebody would take the meeting hostages for an hour, you know. And some of you probably experienced that locally, you know. Not a good thing to do sometimes.

So, I did that, I blurted it out and it was uncomfortable and it hurt and I was crying. The first person that came up and hugged me, gave me a kiss on the cheek, was the one person in Narcotics Anonymous I was the most envious of. Was that an accident? I don't think so. You know, I don't think so.

And so from that time to this time, it has been unnecessary for me to put chemicals in my body. Although, like some of you, I'm getting older and I've had certain traumatic stuff happen to my body and I've had to have chemicals, but it didn't light that fire. It didn't light that fire that says, man, you got to have more, man, because more is better. This is just a little hors d'oeuvre, man, you got to get it on.

And I wasn't like some of you, I wasn't into go fast, stay up three to four days at a time and looking for shit on the floor that ain't there, talking to tree people. That just wasn't my gig. But thank God, Narcotics and nurses and other things and that hadn't been part of their experience yet, you know. And we weren't very warm and welcoming sometimes. Talking about me. Man, you know, if you weren't a heroin addict and an ex_convict when I came here, I wouldn't listen to you. And I'm ashamed of that. I am. It's not a good behavior. That didn't create a welcoming atmosphere for people.

Well, that was then and this is now. And you know, that's why I'm always very clear and I want to give acknowledgment to Methadonians that come here looking for a way. They don't feel like they're welcome in a meeting of Narcotics Anonymous. And it says in our literature clearly, any addict. Any addict, you know. And thank God somebody mentioned it earlier, they don't have honest desire to stop using in the traditions anymore. Thank God. Because most of this, the only honest desire we have is get over, you know. In some manner, shape or form, get over.

And it's just not that way, man, you know. Any addict, man. Rich addict, poor addict, doesn't matter, man, you know. We come from all different __ wherever, man. As many people as there are, man. And Bo was mentioning that, how large Narcotics Anonymous is, you know. The fastest growing region in Narcotics Anonymous is in Iran. Iran, they have thousands of people in a stadium at one time wanting to get the message of Narcotics Anonymous.

You know, it was just a few years ago they executed addicts right in its town square, noon time so everybody can see it because they wanted to make a point. They weren't going to tolerate drug addicts. But see, the disease of addiction is bigger than that. And there were just a few meetings in the whole world. We had to drive miles and miles and miles to go to a meeting, you know. And everybody knew everybody that was in that area and we were hungry, man. We wanted that spirit. We wanted to be able to stay clean. We wanted to be able to know what it was like to do all the things that we get to do. And just before I got loaded, I was clean and going to meetings and active and I had this thing going, it was all ego involved. And people would tell me, man, why don't you incorporate it into our program. You know, Cry Help would and Impact, and I'm going to show you how to do it, you know. And that just got too much. And because of that, you know, I just couldn't let it go.

But I'll tell you, I've been here for a while and, obviously, I still work the steps, I still have a sponsor that has a sponsor, we pray together, we work steps together, we're part of each other's lives. I'm part of the lives of a lot of people that are members of this fellowship. And I've done some amazing things and we'd take three or four meetings to tell you all the things that have happened in my life. Because like our friend here who is telling this, you know, she's working in a prison now. You know, she used to be in a prison. You know, she used to be in jail and now she's working in one. You know, those things happen. And because of that it has an impact on other addicts here, man. And them women in CIW can't pretend that they don't know that recovery is alive and well because some of them have sat meetings with her, you know. And so those things happen in our membership.

I decided a few years ago I was going to go back to college, graduated, 66 years old. So, I don't know what the hell I'm going to do when I grow up. So, that's a miracle. That's the miracles that happen in recovery. This happened to a lot of people. We've got a lot of educated people in Narcotics Anonymous today. Some of them might be over_educated and they got it here in Narcotics Anonymous. They came here lost and hopeless and found hope. They got that ray. Somehow they absorbed that spirit that they can do anything they want to do. Just like it says, our literature and our people prove it over and over and over again.

In Narcotics Anonymous, we can get out of the slums that we're in. Wherever it is, outward manifest, and we can rise above that. We can be useful not only to ourselves but to another human being. It talks about that in our literature. We can touch another man or another woman's life like hell wouldn't have it, you know.

One other thing, I want to share a couple of things with you. It's about respect through other people. It's about being aware. A few years ago, and some of you in here will remember, there was this __ Well, there was a lot of feelings going around about literature changes, and they didn't want the literature to change. And what I developed through meditation and talking to my sponsor was I can't bitch about anything I really chose not to be a part of. Bo was talking about the literature process and getting right in it. I ain't got no complaint coming, man, if I turn my back and say, "Oh, that's too much work. I might want to got to Venice meeting tonight. I don't want to come over to this literature committee meeting," you know.

And so, you know, if you hear that there's a new piece of literature coming out, man, get on that subcommittee. You've got a say. You've got a big say in it, you know. After that, I got involved in several, but that's neither here and there.

The other thing is I used to use the term rather loosely, and I heard it today, NA Nazi. That's a terrible fucking term. Terrible. It's not good, I'll tell you that. Because there are men and women here whose families were wiped out by fucking Nazis. And they're carrying a lot of pain about

that. I have very strong feelings about that, obviously, but the way that it impacted me __ and I know some people, they've been here for a long time that their parents had those tattoos from concentration camps. They were spared, but the rest of their families was annihilated in the chambers.

And so, it seems like on some level, well, it's no big thing, it's just I'm strong, man. I was born in Narcotics Anonymous, man; worked the Narcotics Anonymous steps. You don't need to go anyplace else. There's one program, one disease, rah, rah, rah, and that's true. But how are we going to present that to other people?

How are we going to present that to other people, you know? And so, I had for me, you know, to be sensitive about that in a way that I referred to women. I had to become sensitive about that early in recovery. I knew that referring to them as old ladies and broads and stuff like that was degrading, but that was kind of intellectual awareness. I hadn't integrated really in here where I live, where I can see, that's really an offensive term. I say no wonder women shun me when I use those kind of terms, old lady, broad. There's some others which aren't quite complementary too but I know you never used them.

But the whole thing is through working the steps and being able to open my mind up and be willing to get egg on my face, I've been able to do a lot of things that I've never been able to do before. I've been able to recognize the behaviors that I thought were perfectly all right are not all right at all. And that before I open my mouth, I better check what the heck I'm going to say so that I don't offend somebody.

And there's a lot of ways that I can do that. Me. I don't know about you. You have to look at your own self. But I know for me, I don't want to create situations where people all the same. We're young, old, black, white, in_between, you know, it doesn't matter. Fat, skinny, it doesn't matter. Addict's an addict and the disease of addiction knows no barriers. It just doesn't know any barrier.

And so, what's new? Okay. I'll tell you the new thing. I'll tell you about listening to the spirit, you know. Should I do it? Yeah, I'm going to do it.

You see, it sounds like I'm going to be bragging. In a way, I am, but what the hell, man, you know. We all need a good laugh anyway.

Yeah. I worked in a counseling agency and I have this routine that I have. I know you all have routines, things you do. You don't need to stop and think about it you just do it.

Like for me, one of them is the toothpaste tube, you've got to roll it up from the bottom, you know, don't be squeezing it in the middle. The toilet paper has to come up from the back of the roll and not the front.

You know, I mean that's the thing that I do and I've gone to people's homes and changed their damn toilet paper. I was at an NA party a few years ago and I had to go to the bathroom, I went in there and I changed the toilet paper roll. And several hours later, I had to go to the bathroom again, I went in there and the toilet paper roll had been changed back.

You're getting the picture, huh? I mean, I just changed it. And the host of the party __ hostess, rather, came out to announce to everybody, "Jack, leave the goddamn toilet paper roll the way it was!" you know. And I just, you know, I just do things. What I'm leading up to is, so I go by this Safeway store and I buy a carton of milk and cinnamon roll and a newspaper, so I can do the crossword puzzles, because I ain't going to read the news because I could care less. I got CNN if I want to know what's going on. And this clear voice, clear voice, said, Jack, buy a $20 scratcher.

And I usually don't __ wouldn't think about buying a $20 scratcher because more is better. So, I can take that $20 and buy twenty $1 tickets. I mean I got a better chance, right? Yeah, you lottery players know exactly what I'm talking about, you know. Because if one is good, two is better, so you got 20, you know, I went and bought that ticket. I never bought a $20 lottery ticket in my life. I go to my office, do my thing, I scratch it off, 50,000 bucks. And I could have missed that by not listening to the voice.

Now, that same voice, that same voice has talked to me many times in recovery, has led me out of dangers and tight spots, has taught me to pay attention. Pay attention, Jack. Quit being so fucking consumed with yourself – excuse my language. Pay attention.

And so, that's what happened, you know. And you know what else? I got about $30,000 in student loans I got to pay. So, who knew what they was really doing, you know? And that's what I'm going to honor. I'm going to honor what I have, you know, because I might decide at 70 I want to extend the education. I don't know why I would do that, but you never know. I don't plan on dying before 70, that's for damn sure, you know. And I know I don't look it, so – Quit it. I'm sensitive, you know.

I say this, you never know what the next miracle is going to happen in your life. Listen to the clear voice that's unmistakable when it comes to you. The universe doesn't make mistakes. And none of us got in this room by mistake. None of us stay in here by mistake. None of us have any single experience we've ever had for no better reason but to give it to another human being.

jimmy used to tell me that all the time.He said, "Every experience you've ever had is going to benefit some other human being. And you don't know when they're going to come, so you need to stay clean and keep coming back till they get here. Because they're going to need to hear it out of you. They don't need to have it read to them out of a book, they want to hear it come out of your mouth so they get some hope from your experience of having made it through it.".

And we all have traumas. We have deaths happen, you know, we have suicides happen. We have people who decide they want to go back out and use after many years of being clean and having been in service and done all of that stuff. Man, heaven helped lots and lots of people, and they decide they don't want us anymore and they just go out, and it's sad. It's very sad when somebody goes out, because they take a part of us with them.

And we have to go through a grieving process when it happens. And that runs the emotions, man. Mad, glad, sad, really pissed off, want to kill him, you know. Dig him up in the goddamned cemetery and kill him again, you know, all kinds of feelings. But you know what, that's life, man. That's what we get to give to one another, man. We get to give that essence of reality, you know, and share that and embrace it, encourage other people, man, to reach out when they feel like they can't reach out anymore. Because there's no unreachable dream in Narcotics Anonymous, there isn't. Like some other people, I've been here long enough to know that anything, anything is possible in Narcotics Anonymous. Anything. I've seen it and so have a lot of other people who've been in this room a while. If you're new, you know, try to believe that, man.

And keep coming back, man, because you're valuable, man. You're a valuable human being, man. We love you. When you're unlovable to everybody else, we love you more, man, you know, because we've been there. Ain't nothing you've done, thought about, wanted to do, any of that, you know, because we've done all of that and stayed clean, you know.

Oh, you didn't do that? I'm thinking a sharp pencil and a pad of paper might do you some good. I'm going to tell you this one other thing and then I'm quitting. I know you're sick of me, we got to get out of here.

My first inventory, I wrote it on a legal pad and I wrote it in pencil, and it was like a novel of War & Peace. I mean, it just went on and on. It was voluminous, went on and on and on and on and it was sad, pitiful. And I was proud that I had this done and I took it to my sponsor. And we're going to a convention of another fellowship, because Narcotics Anonymous didn't have any conventions at that time, it was yet to happen. And I handed it to him. He's driving, because I didn't even know how to drive at the time, and still don't, according to some people. But that's another story.

But he said, "What the hell are you doing, man? You read, I listen, man. That's the way it works here, man. You know, I'm not going to read this, you're going to read it to me. And since I'm driving right now, I'm not likely to fall asleep." That's exactly what he said. It was Jack W. And he gave it back to me and I started reading it and he grabbed it all of a sudden, he started ripping it up, all of it, and threw it out on the Santa Ana Freeway, you know.

And I said, "What in the F did you do that for?"

He says, "Very interesting, Jack. Anybody that uses a pencil uses the eraser on the other end, and dishonest MF'ers like you use the eraser." I said, "How did you know?"

Like he's an addict, you know. Like, how does he know I use the eraser? He knew. And he said, "I suggest" __ I'm just leaving this with you and then I'm going to sit down and shut my mouth, because you're tired of me already anyway. He said, "I suggest that you pick a prayer, Jack, any prayer, and you write that on the top of each page, on the top of each page," he said. "And you use a ballpoint pen and don't rewrite anything." Because I like to rewrite, because I want it to be perfect. I'm a Virgo, you know. There's a Virgo too, born on my same birthday. But that's an addict trait, that's not just a Virgo trait. So, those of you that are Capricorns and Leos, you know what I'm talking about. Because I can tell immediately. I can tell. Look at the paper. I know immediately if you rewrote anything. I can tell because I've written an inventory, you know.

And so, I picked a prayer, and it's a simple prayer. And it's, "Dear God, help me tell the truth. I'm tired of lying and dying."

That's as simple as it is. It's so frickin' simple, for me it's profound, you know. And ever since then, many years ago, I use that same prayer because I still write inventory, because I'm not perfect, nor will I ever be. And I hope I never get to the point where I feel like I'm above anybody that's sitting in this room, because I'm not, and I never be. I love you guys. Thank you.

(Applause.)

BILLY A.
Allentown, Pennsylvania

I'm an addict. I'm Bill. Who's got a dictionary?

    AUDIENCE: Who has one?

Yeah. Who has one? What does the word "radical" mean?

    AUDIENCE: Free agent.

Free agent. Oh, I didn't know I played for the Phillies.

You know, I want to tell you. The first thing is, okay, being an addict is radical when you're in recovery. The first thing we do is radical. We're doing something that's against the grain. All right. You staying clean today is doing something against the grain. And I want to congratulate you on that. If no one's congratulated you on that day clean today I want to do that. I've listened all day here and I heard a lot of things, a lot of good stuff. And I didn't make a decision to what – about a week ago to come here. I was going back and forth on this year. I've been away sixty days this year already from my wife and children. And not just because of NA. I've made a moral commitment to Narcotics Anonymous to what we're doing, because other people have decided they won't make that decision to do something about the situation we've been in for years. And that's delusions.

I'm a guy about solutions. But I also run a restaurant business. I've been away a lot because I've also made another commitment to my kids that I work with. So, I've been doing a lot of traveling. You know, I almost lost my wife early in recovery over the stuff, traveling. You know, because I used to spend about 24 weekends a year away from home because of NA service.

You know what, recovery demands change. And I'm not going to do a typical storytelling here tonight. I think I heard enough on how to stay clean here today. If you haven't heard it, you've been here all day and haven't heard how to stay clean, you need to get together with the people who spoke because they can share that with you.

I don't think you asked me to come here and do that, did you? And seriously, I don't think you asked me to come do that. You don't say it to the most radical member of Narcotics Anonymous. I don't even know if I'm a member half the time. I'm a member of a home group in Narcotics Anonymous that I participated in since I got clean. And the most spiritual intervention in my life was at the second East Coast Convention of Narcotics Anonymous. And why, I am not going to say that? Because I met a bunch of people that made a difference in my life. This thing is about people. This thing is about people who touched each another and care enough about someone else to encourage them and let them know they can be a winner in life. And that's what this is about for me. I met a man named Joe Proctor from Memphis, Tennessee at that convention. He gave me two different things. And I'm going to put this away. If I fall over, I fall over. Who cares? But he gave me something, and I have a copy. It's not the exact one, it's a copy of one. It's the great book of Narcotics Anonymous, a pre-publication draft of our Basic Text printed and sent to all NA groups for review and input by NA members, Memphis, Tennessee, 1981 draft.

This is the most radical thing that ever happened to our fellowship. Bo shared about it. People share about this here and they share about a movement that happened back then. And if you didn't experience it, don't worry, you can experience it again. You can experience the adrenaline that went along with it. You can experience the love and care and compassion that went along with that there, because Narcotics Anonymous, they're alive and well through people that can share their experience, strength and hope with you all on ongoing NA recovery. But that ongoing NA recovery is when someone rubs you down.

Joe Proctor gave me a five-minute hug. He gave me this here and he gave me a fourth step inventory guide that you no longer can buy from the World Service. It is approved literature. Never was disapproved. All right. I like carrying stuff.

It's an approach to the fourth step inventory guide. NA World Service Office Inc., P.O. Box 622, Sun Valley, California, approved literature 1983 Carnena. It's the inventory guide I give my sponsees today. We copy them, we distribute them. The conference that year said they're off the product line. Never disapproved. Happened in Santa Monica. They removed it over special interests.

Had nothing to do with Narcotics Anonymous, was never put in an agenda report, never sent out to the fellowship, the conscience. They made a decision at the conference to remove it over special interests. And I like reading this stuff here because it's important to me when I read this here, it said, "Write about your perfect relationship, casual affairs, lover or spouse and how your sexual relationships have lived up to and fallen short of this ideal. Write about your sexual fantasies whether or not you have acted them out. Write at least three sentences about each of the following sex-related acts or desires that apply to you or that used to have strong feelings about.

"Use this list as a starting point and add any others you can think of: Adultery, incest, prostitution, homosexuality, interracial sex, indecent exposure, oral sex, sex aids, drug abuse as a sex act, sexual relations or acts which you feel are abnormal or unnatural, rape, machoism, molestation, animal sex, masturbation, sexual jealousy, group sex, fetishes, sadism, pornography, voyeurism, teasing, abortion."

Anyone we got strong feelings on any of them. Anyone walk in with strong feelings on these issues?

AUDIENCE: I do.

AUDIENCE: Yes.

I have a lot of strong feelings on a lot of these issues. I didn't come in here as a perfect human being. I come in here as a product of being raised in Carbon County, Pennsylvania. Still 99 and 9/10 percent white, Anglo-Saxon, macho, egotistical, male human beings that discriminate through old European naturalism. They started German. And everyone knows where the World War, or two World Wars were over that.

And then they started going to the Czechoslovakians, Hungarians, Slovaks, Russians and anything -- You start getting lower and lower. I never saw a black folk in my life until I moved out of that county before. I saw it on TV and that was on Shirley Temple. I thought all black folk danced, really. I thought they could all tap too. All right?

I'm born in that environment. That's the environment that molded me and my thought process. And we all come from different environments, and we all come here with these make-ups. We all have issues.

Homosexuality, I can tell you this sexual guide saved a lot of their lives because I wrote on it. Because a man named Joe Proctor had me write on it. Had me write about these issues in my life. We talked about fourth step inventories, a journey. There was no fear in a fourth step inventory, told me in this guide is fearless. It's a moral and social fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Not of you, of ourselves. It's taking an inventory of myself with the help of my sponsor. This is an important piece that people need to know about. Because when I was at Santa Monica in the year 1984, there was a march on our conference floor. It was an outside issue that took this off from you being able to have. You can print it, distribute it, hand it out to anyone you want without fear of reprisal.

And it's important because I come in here with too many hang-ups molded by this culture, molded by a culture that discriminated from white on white. I am part American-Indian, I'm French, I'm mulatto. You said, you know, not black, but I'm a mulatto, basically. I am a mutt is what I am. You know, when they say dogs are, you got a mixture, it's me. So, I was at the bottom of the heap where I come from.

I know what it's like to grow up with feelings and pain. I know what it is to be raised in a home with sexual misconduct going on. My sisters got raped by my father, I was molested. I believe I was molested by my mother. And you bring that in here, you bring all of this garbage. I'm a strictly -- I'm an abused child, extremely abused child. I know what it is to be a punching bag my whole life.

And we come in here, we bring it all here. She talked about the levels. The levels. Addiction covered the pain up for me. Addiction is what made me become who I become and like. But the drugs could no longer cover it up and that's what brought me here. I could not stand the pain any longer. I didn't come here to get clean. I come in here because Icould not handle the pain of life.

I couldn't commit suicide. I couldn't take my own life. I tried dying by becoming a human being that tried to take other people's lives instead and then end up being shot in the meantime. And that didn't work. That's how I made it here, not because I wanted to stop doing drugs. I could no longer take the pain of living. I could no longer handle my emotions, talk about emotions. Emotions are something that I never could face in my life ever. I was raised not to cry. You cry, you get beat. Am I right? A man does not cry. Most of men can identify with that. We're not to cry as men. We're to be strong, we're to be a support, we're supposed to be the pillar. It didn't work for me. It didn't work for me and it brought me here to Narcotics Anonymous.

And then I come in here. And I won't talk about the issues we deal with in Narcotics Anonymous. We deal with a lot of inside issues that we like to cover up and not talk about.

These are some of the issues right here in this guide. The issues of literature that Bo was talking about that opened the literature process and what it did for our fellowship, the growth from it. And then going to the conference. You know, we used to talk to our newcomers and drag them along with us so they can be a part of this thing that we're doing.

And then we send them there, and Bo can confirm, I argued with him over it, I felt that I was let down when I was out there. I felt I was abandoned by my sponsor, Joe Proctor and then Greg and then I told Bo he abandoned me.

BO S.: You raised bloody hell, buddy.

I raised bloody hell with all. Grateful Dave and I raised bloody hell with Greg down in Alabama also when we jacked him up in the hallway. Because we felt rejected, we felt abandoned, we felt we were lied to and deceived. Because we were brought up to believe in a thing called group conscience. That there is such a thing that's true.

And I believe it's true. I believe it's true. Where I exist in my home group, we have a conscience. We do not participate in theknown service structure because of the lack of ability or accountability of the structure itself to the group structure.

I'm handing out stuff here. I want him to read something. One line he has, I want him to read it for me.

CHRIS: You want me to get up there?

AUDIENCE: Yes, of course.

CHRIS: This is the only reason. This is -- My name is Chris, I'm an addict. This is the only reason why I pass these damn things out. There's one line in here and I like it. It says, The real marker of our ability as a fellowship to grow and change is publishing the sixth edition of our text. Nonetheless, Chapters 1 through 10 remain as they were in the fifth edition. These chapters speak to many of us in a way that no other piece of literature does, in a voice that is difficult, if not impossible, to duplicate.

And then it goes on to glorify the sixth edition. The bottom line -- it's on page 2 of the preface to the sixth edition. Basically, what that says is they admit that they cannot write literature one addict to another.

AUDIENCE: But we can.

Right, we can. We can and will. All right. And the whole thing I'm talking about. Okay? It is important. You shared a beautiful message with me. I love it. I love that ability that you had to come in here and get that message of hope and promise of freedom. All newcomers should be able to have that. Without the structure tampering with our newcomers. Without our message really -- I don't believe Narcotics Anonymous would be a program of what we say we are, of total absence from any mind or mood altering chemical, that we would be as large as we are today.

And why am I saying it to you? Because we come from other walks of life. We come from other places. All of us. Whether we want to -- We're talking about predecessors? The only place I ever thought of a predecessor was not in Narcotics Anonymous. Whenever I'm talking about that there in our hard-won traditions were founded by our predecessors and their work, I always looked to that as another fellowship. I never looked at that as us. All right? And I'm being honest with you. all of a sudden I walk, Oh, you are a predecessor. And I'm looking, I'm not a dinosaur. I'm not dead. I'm alive and I'm well. And then they want to tell me I'm – No, I'm a newcomer. I look at my recovery as a newcomer. I've looked at it as the date that I walked in here, I'm still a newcomer today. I'm working on my 27th year clean on November the 16th. God willing, I get there. But I'm a newcomer. I don't want to be your predecessor. I'm alive. I want to be available to help another human being stay clean, but I don't want to be the obstacle for you being able to stay clean in this program either. I want to be the person that can help you and give you back what I was given freely. I want to be able to offer that to you when I walked into that second East Coast Convention.

And you need to know where we come from and what we were about. Kathleen shared it a little bit about they had a little white book, three pamphlets. We were lucky we had five pamphlets even when I came in before you, but our group had five pamphlets and a little white booklet. You called it hip pocket recovery, and it's no this thick, it's a little white book. And it fit in your pocket and it was your basic text. You could take it to work with you, you could read this thing, and it was always there. I used to take them in the steel mill with me and read them with my meeting away when I was at work.

When I had no other contact, I had my little white book and I read it. And it was very important to us. But there's another book in our rooms back then, and it was about this thick (indicating), and they call it The Big Book. And you could change words in there, okay? Change words in there, where you had Jim Beam you put whatever drugs of choice you did, all right?

And then we have our differences because of our drugs of choices. See, I don't talk about any drugs of choices ever. I've never shared with you about my active addiction because I believe you all know them how to use. I don't care what drug you did. It's none of my business what drug you did.

I mean, we may get bullshitting around as guys all night and talk about the crap, but when it's inNarcotics Anonymous, it's no one's business, it separates us. Alcohol separated us when we went into that other program. And it carried over that separation when they tried to start a program for us and their people sat there with us.

I thank them for sending me out of the program and telling me I did not fit. I thank them because I would have never made it there. I didn't drink for a year and they told me to take a cake in '78 as I got high outside the room. They said, but you didn't drink. And then they wanted me to gamble on Friday nights with them at poker games. I don't gamble. I don't participate in that lifestyle since I come through Narcotics Anonymous. I had to leave and go over lifestyle if I was going to make this thing work here. I had to give up the rock concerts that I lived in for how many years, from 1967 to 1979 before I got clean. I had to quit following the Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix. I had to quit doing these certain things. I had to quit going to the rock festivals where I spent three, four days, sometimes two weeks cause you get there a week early and leave a week late. I had to stop doing these things.

I had to take my Harley and put it away. I had to leave and go over lifestyle when I got to Narcotics Anonymous. And when I was We looked in the dictionary, it's going to tell you S-O-B-E-R is not total accidents. You can manage to drink yet. It doesn't talk about that in the dictionary. See, Joe Proctor gave me a fourth step inventory guide and a fourth step -- and the gray book and told me to work the steps or die, mother fucker. And I'm using the language that he told me. I do not use curse words on a regular basis, but I will tell you exactly what the man told me. And he rubbed me down and I thought he had a sexual problem and that was it.

And I was going to do something about it. And I met some of the people you talked about, Charles K., Tom the Red and a few other people out in the field on Trenton State University. And I went out -- and I'm talking to them about this bastard that's hugging me. And I believe he wants to go to bed with me and I'm going to kill him, and he gave me a choice.

The choice is what we make here. He gave me a choice, and the choice was you can go and do what you want to do, while I spent my life in and out of prison because of some of the things you were talking about. When you were up here sharing, you were talking about a part of my life. Assault and battery on police officers, that was my deal. You know, I committed assault, attempted murders, that was my deal. That's what bikers do.

You know, and I'm go there and talk to them and Charles said to me and Tom the Red said to me, You have a choice to make, work the steps or die, mother fucker, all right, or you go to prison. Which way do you want them?

I didn't come here to go to prison. I came here because I couldn't stand the last time I walked in that cell. And I realized I couldn't live there any longer; I could not handle the door shutting on me any longer; I could not stand being a trapped animal any longer. When I was up in the tier and you look down in the street and you see the people walking there, I could not handle it no more.

I couldn't handle watching when a they brought a 16-year-old boy in there, and he was a pretty boy with blonde hair down to his butt, and they raped him that night in the tiers. Okay? Because they played that jailhouse courtroom. You see, I like to talk about things that really happened in there when I share about it.

And I remember him screaming going to the tier that night, and the guards doing shit. And then the next morning, I watch them take that boy out blue. That was an impression of on me, and I realized I could no longer live that way. I couldn't live like that. I wasn't meant – When you listen to the music, I listen to them and they talk about freedom.

Everyone talks about The Beatles and how a great deal -- I hated the Beatles. The only song I believe they did was Revolution. Okay? And that's when I was about. When you talk about revolution, I was about revolution, and this program was about revolution. It's about internal revolution for us to grow and be spiritually fit. That's what this program is about. It's about growing and becoming spiritually fit.

And that's what I'm here for. I'm here to grow. I don't care who likes me. I may like to be liked, but I don't care if you like me. The things I do in my life, you know -- Oh, you sat and pulled it off with Dave and me.

The most spiritual experience in my life in Narcotics Anonymous was not at a convention, was not even with Joe Proctor hugging me, was not anything that happened through my step work, but was sitting on that stand and the judge, a federal judge, got off his chair, off his pedestal and come down and took his water and poured that water into our glasses.

Remember that, Bo? Judge Pollack, when he poured that water into our glasses –

BO S.: Judge Lewis J. Pollack.

Yeah -- and I was spiritually touched. As our World Service Office took Dave Moorehead to court. Okay. That's part of my life in Narcotics Anonymous, and I'm going to share that part of my life, because it's the most spiritual event in my life when that judge saw fit, okay, as he sat there and served us -- served us and saw fit that this thing here had no business in his courtroom to start with. Because you see better than our whole board of trustees and our World Service Office who is directing us, he could see that where we were headed is not the decision that any of us was going to like.

See, I totally believe that if he had to make a decision -- This basic text that I carry, okay, that was the issue. Okay? This was the issue -- It's the same color, just a different binder, all right -- was why we went to court. And everyone says, Oh, we wanted a cheaper text. It had nothing to do with the cheaper text. Yeah, there were issues about having a cheaper text.

We believe the fellowship would bring that about someday. The issue was the content and the lack of accountability and the lack of respect for you to make a decision. For you to have the availability. He passes stuff out here. He's passing this information now. He read a line that means something to him, that they are omitting saying, No, we cannot.

Book 1. But how many times have they done it to us before, and tampered with what you are allowed to read? How many times have they taken that responsibility away from you and they've done it here even with the stories.

How many stories are taken out?

BO S.: Thirty one.

Thirty one stories removed.

Who ever got a vote? Who asked? Who's saying that collective experience back then, okay, should even be removed? What group set that on? Where did it come from? It didn't come from groups that I know.

Groups are debating all over the country right now, I'm hearing from them, and they're arguing all over.

Who made that decision? Whoever made the decision from to open the book up. Who ever made the decision to say they want the stories to be changed. Yeah, I don't like storybooks. If you want a storybook, let the group say we want a storybook and write one and write the greatest story of our lives on NA recovery.

If you need another text, then write the greatest book of our lives on NA recovery. And great periods and the greatest input to the basic text was this book. The greatest revision come from here. And I don't care who you are. Pass this around, open up pages and read it. Just read a line or two out of it. Pass it around and read a line out of that and tell me you can identify with what's in there. Tell me you can't identify with it.

That's my basic text right there. That was my first book outside the little white book. That's the one that made the changes in my life. And when I struggled in the '90s, I struggled because I was not hearing the message of hope and promise of freedom that I was delivered back then. I was looking for it and I couldn't even find it in here. And I wasn't hearing it anymore because the members that were involved start getting squandered off. So, I wasn't hearing it like I did before. And I read that. And I realized I didn't create anything. I started reading Greg Pierce's words; I start reading Joe's; I started reading Bo's and Jim's and Paige's. I started reading the stuff that they put together for us. I start reading what turned my life around and saved me from total destruction.

I'm not concerned about dying. The night before I stopped using I had a woman call me up. See, I celebrate the 16th like I actually cleaned up on the 8th of November. I celebrate the 16th because that's the day I made a decision to stay clean. On the 8th, I made a decision, I could not handle the pain. And the woman called me up as I planned mass murder that night. As I cleaned my weapons and I was doing my deal and I was going to die that night in a gun battle. I wanted the front page. See, addicts, we look for glory. I want a front page of the Morning Call and other national newspapers. I want the front page.

And that woman called me up, and she said, Billy, I read your name in the paper at Deja Vu. I said, That's tomorrow morning. And she was talking about three months earlier when I got arrested from my last offense on a police officer. She's talking about that time and said, It's been three months. This has been on my mind every night telling me to call you. And God woke me up at 2:00 in the morning and says, Call now or it's too late. She called me and she asked for five minutes of my time. I gave her five minutes.

And that brought me here. She put me in the back of a halfway home where no one lived yet, in the carriage house said they were opening up, a three-quarter away home. And she let me live there and I realized I couldn't stay clean this way. I could not do this thing. I could not handle the pain. I put myself away, yeah. But putting myself in the rehab and stuff didn't help. It just gave me time. I struggled for a year. I struggled with a sponsor that was not of this fellowship, but came to this fellowship and gave me no direction except, You stay clean. You don't use, okay. And told me stupid stuff about higher powers, like an ashtray could be your higher power.

I thought people were insulting me. The chair there, a chair can be your higher power. I thought they were insulting me. Because I'm like, I'll take that chair and bust your damn head over it. What are you talking about, that can be my higher power, a doorknob? Rip that doorknob out and pop it in your eye. I'll be your higher power, sucker. And so, my integrity -- I'm not a stupid individual, and that's the way I was being treated, I thought. You know.

And one thing Joe told me, okay, That greater power has to be loving and caring and got to be greater than us. That table, that chair, that doorknob, that ashtray has no love and no care in it. None whatsoever. That greater power has to have that. And I can tell you it can't be me either, because I'm not always loving and caring. I dealt with a lot of anger since I come to Narcotics Anonymous. I dealt with so much anger, it's ridiculous.

And there's times I didn't love or care for anyone, let alone myself, so it couldn't be me. I had to look for something that was spiritually -- that was binding you people together. And what was binding you together at that point of time when I walked in that second East Coast was the literature moment. With people staying clean, people excited about it, and it reminded me when Bo was talking about the '60s, okay. You know, it started – I tried to go to Nam. I didn't burn my draft card. I got thrown out -- basically thrown out of the Army for being mentally unadaptable to military life or any other form of living. You know, because I remember in '68 when my cousin came home in a box from Nam, Tet offensive. I remember that well, and it's all I can remember, is the date I'm going to go to Nam and I will take revenge. And I'm going to kill these gooks for doing what they had done to my cousin. And I wanted to go there, and they wouldn't let me go. Because you're supposed to die to stop communism.

So, what you're talking about is for the freedom of the world. Oh, nothing about that for me. It was these guys took my cousin's life, and I got to go take care of responsibility for the family, and they won't let me go. Now, you think about that. This wasn't about -- I knew what the war was about then. People only realize about oil, Texaco and Exxon, offshore wells over there, and bailing France out. We just sided with a bunch of bullshit and they took my cousin's life and that was fighting words. That was -- You had to be a man. Talk about being a man again.

Being a man and go out and taking care of family business. That's what it was about for me. I didn't have to go to the Army. My draft number was too large already. And I was at 500 and some. At that point, they weren't even – They were taking a little over a hundred, 150, 160, something like that. I was 500 and some for draft. I didn't have to go. I could do the nicest plan, burn my card with everyone else.

I didn't believe in any of that stuff that was going on. What I believed in was the party and I was going along with it though. I believed in the big party. You go to protest and you get wasted. Get wasted in the park. That's why I believed in, the big party. Had nothing about principles there. I knew where I was going. I was going to Nam. But, yeah, I went there. I like the adrenaline, the rush that went along with it all. And that's what this basic text is for me. When these people are writing it, they excited me; they got me involved. They told me I could do things. They told me I could be -- that I could be a winner in life.

I went home, and I went back to that home group. And I took that book. And I took that fourth step inventory guide and I put them on the table. And I dumped all the other literature that we had in the garbage can. And we had AA literature there, every bit of it. We had the DNA literature there. We had -- We had loads of literature. I dumped it in the garbage can and let everyone know, here's the way it's going to be.

This is Narcotics Anonymous. This is our book. I don't care. It didn't say approved on it. It didn't matter. That is stamped and everything for review and input. It didn't matter. This is ours. It's for us, it's by us. And everyone was all getting crazy. And I said, we have a choice to make. We can either surrender and leave or we can fight. And I prefer fighting. And I'm being serious. I told them this. And my fellow -- the fellowship I want from over 60 members down to three. My wife, myself and a newcomer. And we started from new. Everyone else went back to where they came from. And we started over. We started a new fellowship called Narcotics Anonymous from that day forward. We were no longer attached to our apron strings. We were no longer having to use the word sober and sobriety. We were no longer being told we got to go over here to get this day and come over here and talk about drugs.

Did you know that's what they told us, go over here and talk about drugs? That we didn't have the ability to recover. We didn't have the ability to do these things. See, they were telling us the same things that we are being told now that we don't have the ability.

These people told me I had the ability to be a writer. Talked about the Ivyland, Pennsylvania farmhouse. The story conference, the IPs. Doing the IPs there. I was there at that conference. I remember Joe Proctor there. Joe Proctor will walk around; he'll rub your back down and tell you you can write. Tell you, Sit down, you can write. And then he go get your coffee and get you food. And then he'd come back and rub you down and he'd write. And tell you, You can write, Billy. You can do this.

So, I sat in the sponsorship IP pamphlet, that's where I sat. They were on the phone and taking stories from around the world. I remember that very well, some typing and stuff like that and people just -- lot of action going on, a lot of excitement. And I went to Miami, to the World Convention that year. You know, that was a big run for me, going from Trenton to Miami. And I remember sitting up there at the Marco Polo Hotel looking over, and these literature people up there are talking about this thing and talking about and energizing people and telling people, We're going to have a book. We're going to have a book. Open, participatorial and believing in each other.

That's what this is about, believing in each other. And I believe -- Okay. I believe that not only do we have a book, but we need to restore everything that's been group conscience to our fellowship. And I'm not saying fight the service structure anymore. I'm not saying send us out to battle this thing anymore. I'm saying, let go of it, just like we had to let go of the other fellowship. It's not ours to deal with. I'm saying get back to group service and do group service and help each other and support each other, set a communication network back up, set what I call an informational structure back up for ourselves so we can communicate and get our best of our best back hooked up together.

Okay. Follow group conscience. Attach whatever we're doing to group conscience again. If we're going to talk about it, let's walk it. Let's be together and walk what we do. We'll celebrate in this man's 25 years here tonight, we're celebrating what this man's life has been about recovery. That's what we're celebrating tonight, you know. This whole thing is about his birthday and about bringing people together and share their experience, strength and hope of ongoing recovery so everyone can hear the collectiveness of what we do.

And that's why I don't believe I'm here to just talk about recovery. I believe I'm here to share my experience, strength and hope of what I do in life. I was dying in this program during the '90s. After the Grateful Dave court case, I was dying after that. You know, people like to talk about, I just wrote world service a letter because my group conscience told me to do this here for them. The three groups that I participate in as our area told us to write this letter and let them know that is illegal and illicit, just like they told Grateful Dave, it's illegal and illicit for what you're doing and it needs to stop today.

And here's the things that you have violated. You have violated the day you took Grateful Dave to court, you have violated that court agreement, you've violated our literature trust document that came out of that court case that you stopped because of financial needs, and you check our letters that we sent in. You have some of them letters on the Internet. You've violated all these things and then you wanted to show the fellowship that you're following what they asked you to do. We're not asking them to do anything, but they keep on doing what they want to do.

And I got a nice letter back from Anthony, talking to me like I'm some type of newcomer, like I wasn't there. And telling me how they are not violating the court agreement, they have not violated anything. And I'm saying, Who do you think you're talking to? I was there every day in that court case. I sat with Grateful Dave for weeks in my home going over the planning of this court case. I called Bo up in Pittsburgh and told him, We need you out here today and then -- and we need you on this -- that morning. We need you there and he came.

We need his testimony, to tell him what this literature movement was about, what this book – because this book was not written to be a product. It was written for recovery and was written how, not for hire. It's not a work for hire. What come out of our court case was that everything they do has to be a work for hire for them to own. That's what came out of it. If the judge have to make a decision, it would have been public domain. And we didn't want public domain either. And that's what the judge knew. And it's not even listed limited public domain, limited public domain where we have control of our content but anyone can print it as long as it's not for costs. That's what Dave and I were looking for, that you couldn't tamper with us if we printed our literature, that the groups would have that right to print it and not 25 percent of what they put they tell you you can print. Read your literature trust document. It says 25 percent of a pamphlet. You're not allowed to print a whole pamphlet. That's what it's about. It's about control, manipulations and conning. And that's not what our groups are about. Our groups are about helping and assisting. And how can I send a newcomer into that type of service, if that's what we're doing. I will not and cannot live up to that when the traditions tell me they're non-negotiable. Non-negotiable. They don't leave room for me, for my opinions to get involved in. What they do for me is give me directive how to follow it. It tells me what I need to do. It tells me when I walk to the conference floor that time and we come in with the war chest like you used to do with the literature, we walked in with our war chest, it was we want you to fulfill the a conscience of the groups, we want you to restore our only voting participants that you threw out, because you manipulated it. We want your fourth step inventory guide put back up to the fellowship. We want the fellowship to make decisions for us, not you. We want you to trust us, that we have that ability to do that. We want our newcomers to feel they can be part of something, you know. I don't go to conventions. Do you know why? I heard it here a couple of people talking about, Oh, they had to buy $30 from a moonglow band. I can tell you, when I was chairing the convenference, okay. When I was chairing the convenference, you could still go to your home group, a newcomer would say they can't afford to be there and you say, You don't have to worry about it, you're taken care of. When I chaired the convenference, I don't care if you brought the newcomers there, we will rent rooms for you, we'll make sure newcomers are in bedrooms, we would give them their banquets, we give them their brunches, we would have a hospitality suite with fruits and all different types of vegetables and stuff in it. You could have a meal in there. Okay. You were taken care of, because that's what we were -- that's what happened to us, we were taken care of. This is not about money. This is about taking people, if they can be part of this great thing called Narcotics Anonymous. That's what this is about. I heard talk about other literature, names stamped on our name. It's not ours. It's not written by us, for us. Not ours. To me, it's just like any other piece of Hazeldon literature. Okay. And I'm being honest with you. It's the same literature I threw in the garbage can except they stamp NA on it today. I heard, Oh, what a great book this is, this writing guide thing. I don't use it. I used how I was given it. I give my sponsees exactly what I was given. I believe we can write the greatest piece of writing literature ever, okay, on how they apply these steps in our lives. It would collectively come together and we write it together.

We make it open, participatorial. All right? And we don't support that. We don't send our funds on to that. We dry up the funds and keep the funds in our group structure and what group projects are, fund them instead. You can't operate without money. You can't operate without money. We want a piece of literature, we can write it. We consider our service, but we need a vehicle first. A lot of people don't understand, we've been doing a lot of good things since the early '90s, trying to get our history projects going. We ran history project '89 in Allentown. We ran one in '91. And they have the one set of tapes up there on that history thing, but they don't have our conference on there where Greg and everyone came to, where Betty Kinnon couldn't even speak, if you remember that, who was there. She broke down after five minutes and I had to get up and speak instead.

You know, I have them tapes, I have them tapes. We have the information. The information -- But we need a vehicle first in place. A vehicle in place first that we can attach ourselves to. Okay? That's a structure that's informational and not making decisions, but following out the decisions of the groups instead. That's what we need in place first.

Well, I've been participating in this, setting it up as is NA. I've been participating with setting it up and we call it anonymi again, what used to be back in the literature movement, when you have anonymi card. And that's when you went back to your home group and you would have this members – worldwide members who were doing what you were doing, you communicate to help you, to fellowship with you, to tell you it's all right. We need the same thing again for us.

See, I know how to do these things. We know how to do these things. We know how to help each and other and there's a number of things that I want to talk about. I want to talk about these type of things, because these are the things that are going to make it possible for us. And I don't care what people think of my sharing tonight. I come here and said God is going to make that decision for me. I listened all day long, and God make them decisions. The greatest men in my life came from that literature movement that has made a change my life. It wasn't the bikers that changed my life. It wasn't the outlaw bikers I ran with that changed my life. It wasn't my abusive father. It was these men that were in the literature movement and these women that were involved, that were involved in being faceless, sexless members in Narcotics Anonymous. They taught me how to be a man.

They taught me how to be a member. They taught how to follow group conscience. They taught me the ability to become humble in my life that would lead me to my dream today, lead me to help my son with his dreams even through all the obstacles he had.

His dreams are going to be an Olympian, to wrestle for the United States of America. My dream is to help him there. My dream is helping kids today because of what happened in 90s, I had to apply another vehicle to serve. My vehicle was wrestling, and I've been involved in that ever since. Don't make no money, but -- I'm not good at that yet. But I am good at creating champions. I am good because I know how to do them things that I was taught by these people. I know how to encourage someone and tell them they're a winner. I know how to take a kid and get him a $250,000 scholarship to the University of Penn, all right, Ivy League. I had the number one recruit this year in the country wrestling for my wrestling school, that I'd been training him for seven years for that pinnacle, 54 and 0 at the hardest tournaments in the country this last year in high school. This kid's dream is to be an Olympian, be a national champion in college. I've been along with him. And because of you, was I able to pass it on to him. Because of you I am able to help my son through his obstacles in life, you know, and help him so he can see that focus in that dream of one day standing on the podium in the Olympics.

Them are dreams I never had as a kid. My dream was not getting beat. I mean we come here and say, Oh, you can live your wildest dreams. My dreams, I didn't have any. All right? I just didn't want to feel pain anymore. That's all. I didn't have dreams of what life could be for me. Beyond our wildest dreams, I've lived them already. I don't care. I could die today, and I lived my wildest dreams. I lived them. I've become a service to mankind because of this program. I'm not molded by people's opinions anymore. I know who I am. I'm comfortable with who I am. I can sleep with myself at night. And the day I die, I can sleep with myself and I know I lived that life to the fullest. That's the miracle for me.

Money, property and prestige will give me that, and the traditions warn us of that. That's what causes division in our fellowship, is money, property and prestige. See, we don't like talking about traditions. They're uncomfortable. You know, what's the World Service doing. Did you ask them to put special interests back in the World Convention? And now when we call it -- we're going to rename it. What's the name for it? What's the name for that now? Special needs instead. See, special needs at one time was for language barriers, okay, for handicapped people, first commit. Now, Special Needs are for your sexuality again, for women's meetings again, for men's meetings again. So, we could talk about our differences instead of our similarities again.

I was not saved by a man in the program of Narcotics Anonymous about being raped as a child. I was saved by a 14-year-old girl who shared about being molested by her father, was I able to talk about being molested in my own bed. There was no man that brought that up. A young girl brought that up. If she was in a women's meeting or teenagers' meeting, what would have happened to me? I would have never heard it. If you didn't put homosexuals in the room with me, I'd never had to deal with them, would have I, if they were isolated and segregated. If you didn't put black folks in the meeting, would I ever have to deal with my discrimination because of color barriers? Or Hispanics? Would I ever have to deal with my opinions of them if we segregated and isolated them again? No. We belong together because wecan overcome together by looking at our similarities. And that's what the program talks about. And that's what my recovery's about.

My recovery is being uplifted from all these obstacles, all these handicaps that I've been given in life by society. I come in here with a lot of baggage. I'm still leaving go of the baggage today. I sit by humbly with my children and saying, Okay, whatever is going to be is going to be today. Children can teach you that. All right? Children can teach you that. My children are young adults today. But I'm learning from them. You know, my son, I said to him -- We bought a car. We didn't have the money to buy him an Audi, a '98 Audi for – we paid $4,500. We had to go put three grand into it. We had to get insurance. And I told him, Here's how it works, kid. Drive aggressive, you're going to get in an accident. It's just the way it is. I'll never get in an accident. Two days later, he's calling me up. Car is demolished. And he goes, Dad, he said, I should have listened to you. That's the first thing I did not say, I told you so, either. I said, I understand.

I couldn't do that before I come here. I couldn't do that a year ago. But I could do it a couple of weeks ago when the car got demolished. I told him about drinking. Do not drink excessively. I can't tell you, you can't drink. You're 24. But I can tell you it's going to wreck your life. Two weeks ago, he gets hauled in for rape because of some girl he had sex with when they were drunk decides she's going to have him arrested for rape. Well, coming back -- Well, more than two weeks, we were coming back from Ohio when that happened. I got a call on the way back, and the cops were in my home. And I'm trying to get them back together to what's going on here. I get home and -- you know, I'm still like a criminal. You know, the first thing I look at, let me see the paperwork. I'm looking for all the loopholes right off the bat. I look at, this is not a search warrant. This is not a search warrant. It's an application for a search warrant. They had no business in my home. And they gave it to -- They told my wife, We're not giving you the search warrant because it's for your son. It wasn't for my son. It was for William M. Allen The Third's home. It wasn't for my son. They had lied to get into my home.

But what do I look for? I still have them criminal intents. I'm still looking for the shortcuts. And they're still there, drop of a dime. And what I do right away, I contact the lawyer. Work a deal out for the attorney, okay, and get everything rolling. I mean I act fast. I still have that in my life. I go once -- I go on to a modem, okay, because of all the pain I lived in. I don't want him to walk into the same jail cell where that 16-year-old boy hung himself that day. I don't want him to experience what I had to experience. I don't want that pain in his life.

And I told him, But one thing you got to do, you got to be honest with your attorney. If you've done something, you need to be honest about it. If you've done something, you have to be accountable for it. And it comes back, the -- They took him to see the cops. The cops told his attorney, The doctor said this was not rape. This was rough sex. They already went through the DA, and said that if he passed the lie detector, he's free.

You know, but that's how I go into that mode. Right away, protection of your children, right? Protection of your family. It's the same way I go in the mode with Narcotics Anonymous when you tell us that we're not to live by our principles. The same mode I go in is to help my newcomers, to help people to participate, to open up the participatorial process again. And there are a lot of good people here. There are a lot of good things going on. We just got to get it under one umbrella again. We got to get what we're doing moving again. We need to help people.

And I want to read something because this touched my heart. All right? And it says,

Dear Friends, I'm a grateful recovering addict named David. In February, my dad passed away after a 26-month ordeal with both pancreatic and liver cancer.

I was sad. But in a way, I also was relieved for him, that his long-suffering was over. Only matters of weeks later, I heard my sponsor, Greg Pierce, had also been diagnosed with liver cancer. Once I got over the initial shock, I called him, offered my love and support and prepared a package of alternative healing information and nurturance for him, which he promised to look into. Last Thursday morning, I got a phone call from my friend, Jack. He said that sadly, Greg had died suddenly that morning. The disease had progressed with incredible swiftness, causing his internal organs to fail. I was stunned, in an odd way, not surprised in having been through my father's painful last six months, I was, again, in a way relieved that Greg had not had to endure that long ordeal of suffering. I found myself feeling a mixture of sadness, appreciation, love and regret. I regret at not having called Greg more frequently. But of course, how could I know that he would be gone so soon and so suddenly. I regretted not having expressed my love and admiration and gratitude to him more often and more directly. But I think he knew. And I also realized he didn't sponsor me for gratification and recognition, but rather out of love.

I also made peace with the loss of a wonderful man. I want to share a few words about him. Greg had 28 years clean. Had about twice my clean time. It's hard to find many people to say that about in NA, yet Greg got clean in LA where there was hardly any outside Southern California. He found a tiny fellowship and as he always said, he bet life on NA and Greg quickly got involved in service. He wrote the NA tree, our first service manual, and he wrote virtually the entire traditions chapter in the basic text, he chaired our first World Service Conference. Greg was also for a time the chairman of the World Board of Trustees. Maybe the most significant contribution Greg made to us is was encourage, shepherd and perhaps serve as a godfather for the effort for writing the development for writing our basic text. Had Greg not been here to champion the project it could not have been born at that time. Greg's story appears both in the Little White Book and the Basic Text too, Chapter 35, I Was Different. If you heard him speak you recognized his story of showing up for his first meeting in a three piece black suit and tie. The modesty of his story doesn't hint at the greater contributions he was making to the Basic Text. Circumstances brought Greg first to Georgia and then to Tennessee. For some years he was the director of a juvenile facility for the state of Tennessee and much loved and respected for his work. He expressed his love and gratitude for his loyal and loving wife and kids. Through all his journeys and travels Greg never stopped loving and serving Narcotics Anonymous and caring deeply about his fellow addicts. In a fellowship of bright people he was outstandingly intelligent yet always down to earth and approachable. He traveled internationally as one of NAs finest speakers, sponsored 20 addicts, collected an archive of NA material that may only be rivaled by WSO collection. In spite of all these accomplishments and the love and admiration of thousands he remained humble, kindly, God-centered and gentle in nature. Even though NA so oftenly departed from his vision of a fellowship fully guided by spiritual principles

Greg continuously offered principles based rather than personality based suggestions and corrections to the problems he saw. He was one of the best listeners I ever met. He never sought to control, rule, censor, decide or dictate. Fourth and Ninth Tradition. That's no longer in the book. It's not in the Third Edition revised, it's in the Second Edition of the Basic Text. Not in the Third Edition revised, but the one that we put out is where that's stated. His level of acceptance even in the face of a terminal illness was cool and sometimes uncanny. Greg P. was one of those rare sponsors living the program even after all these years, the kind of man that you want to emulate as well as admire. It was an honor to know him. I will miss him. I counseled by the knowledge that he is now on an even better journey. I wish him well in a new edition with a brand new binding and a very encouraging forward by author.

Loving and blessings, David H. Miami, Florida.

e just put that on the internet this past week. That's the dream. The dream to continue the dream. That's what we should be about. Binding back together, getting our best of our best back to work. If we need a writing guide, let us write it. If we need a tradition booklet and how to apply the traditions in group structure by practical means, we can write it. We don't have to accept what's being given to us today. We have the service manual already, we have the NA Tree, we have the stuff in the Green (Service Manual), we have the stuff that works that's untampered with. They tampered with it and we got what they gave us, a structure that they want, not what we want. We can bind together and we can do great work again, but we've got to bind together. We have to fellowship and we have to hug and we have to love each other back to life. We have to quit separating and become a color, creed, sexuality, men, women, we got to stop it all. When Greg sponsored people was it a man or woman? It was an addict, faceless, sexless, the way I sponsor people. I will not sponsor a person that my defects of character would act out on. That's what it comes down to. If I have not that growth in that area I will direct that person to someone that can help them. I will talk it over with my sponsor to get help. I will not say no to a human being. I will give them direction and ask them what do you expect from me. I don't know if we can work together. I never tell a person I am going to sponsor you. I ask that person what they expect from me. I am going to tell you what I expect from you, can you live up to it? I don't believe in 90 in 90. People that taught me didn't tell me 90 in 90. They told me a year to a year and a half. I don't know about this 90 in 90. I believe it's rehabilitation stuff that we got in our book somehow. When Joe Proctor rubbed me down he told me a year to a year and a half. I had a year and a half clean when I met him. He told me a year to a year and a half and I said, wait a minute, I did it. He said I only want to know about your surrender. I didn't ask you about what you did. If you want me to sponsor you this is what I am asking you to do. He's the guy that told me make three phone. He's the guy that told me he didn't count as that third call. He's the guy that directed me who to call to. He's the guy that told me I need to be in Miami. Every time I tried to give him excuses he said I don't want to hear your excuses, you'll be there.

I don't know about the softer gentler way. I don't know anything about it. I know about being directed and telling you if your garbage is hanging out there, I am going to get a shovel and pick it up for you. If you say, don't take my inventory, I am going to tell them don't leave it all over the place. I don't mind cleaning it up for you. I will tell you that directly. That's the only way I know. I don't know about the softer, gentler way. I know about softness when I hug you and love you and care for you. Joe Proctor was a man that could call me up and I could call him up and start bullshitting and he would cut me open on the telephone and pull all my shit out and make me see it, he would stitch me up on that phone call and he would hug me and rub me down and when I got off the phone I felt loved and cared for and I felt that I did some work. Who ever could do that on the telephone for a man?

I don't ever talk about what the God of my understanding is in Narcotics Anonymous, but I can tell you Joe Proctor led me to a God that was not his God. That man loved and cared for me and I don't know what he believed in, but I can tell you when I talked about God and resentment towards God he had me write about resentments with my grandmother and the church that I went to about the pastor. He had me write about my junior high principal who was an excommunicated priest who used to read the bible to me. He'd read the bible to me and he would get a big paddle out and beat me and then he would call the cops, the chief of police to come see me. What message am I receiving about God? And then my grandmother would get upset with me, she used to give me a quarter to put in the basket. I am an intelligent kid already. I'm little. I went to the pinball joint. I went to the gas station, all gas stations had pinball machines. I go in with a glass cutter I took from my dad and I cut the glass and then I would take a baseball card and put the baseball card in there. I put my nickel in there, because they were nickel machines, and I would ring up a hundred games. Then the soda you could buy for five cents for a seven and a half ounce pony bottle of Coke. Then we rigged the machine up so you could pull the Cokes out all day because the old machines. And we could drain the machine. Then you could buy an ice cream bar for a nickel and a bag of chips for a nickel and you could walk out of there with a nickel and you go to church and give them a nickel. I was intelligent as a little kid already. I figured it out. Little did I know I was stealing.

Joe Proctor got me to look at them things and do inventory on them those things. Joe Protor got me to take an inventory of myself and look at myself for who I was and not who you were. He got me to look in the mirror and see what principles that are embodied in the Basic Text, what are embodied in the steps and traditions. What was applicable to my life That's what this program is about. He taught me how to love you for who you are and not what you are. He taught me how to accept yourself for your positive and your -- Your positives and your negatives. He taught me to look for your best in you and help you become that person. And that's what I'm about today.

Anything I can do to help you, I'm going to be there for you. I'm going to be a vehicle to help the fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous grow. And Narcotics Anonymous should -- It talks about being in total abstinence, we need to stand by the principle of total abstinence. Medication is an outside issue, I'm sorry. It says total abstinence and then it moves into any chemical and that's what it talks about in the Basic Text. When I went to a hospital and I got operated on, and they reconstructed my hand after my fingers were severed and crushed, and they had to reconstruct these things just so I have them. All right? I did what it talks about in that chapter, that all these people on medication want to point to.

And it talks about extreme physical pain. That's what it talks about, extreme physical pain. I was in extreme physical pain. The first thing I asked my -- when I went to the hospital is do not put morphine in my body. I don't want any drugs. Give me a nerve block. All right? And they tried to talk with my wife into giving me drugs. I said get me an -- I need to call my sponsor, I got to get NA members in here. And my wife called the pastor of our church up to come to see me. And the doctors were trying to say I was in shock and tell my wife you need to sign for the drugs. I didn't pray for pain to be relieved, I prayed for the edge to be removed. I can handle extreme physical pain, just remove the edge.

I left that hospital drug-free. I left that hospital drug-free. And a year clean when they told me I was manic depressive schizophrenic, that's what they used to call it. Now they got other words for it. And they said you're done brain damaged and you're going to take medication the rest of your life, Mister. I got thrown out a the halfway home on a one-way street, because I would not take their medication and I would not go to another fellowship any longer. They said I violated the rules.

The NA program told me I didn't have to use. They said I will get balance emotionally. I talk about -- In the book, it talks about three-fold, and I know you've been debating with some guy from India and he said two-fold now. And I believe in a four-fold. I believe you have a physical, a mental, spiritual, and emotional. I believe, when you get the mental and you work on the spiritual, the emotional – and it says in the book, and people can miss that one little key part, the emotional part is the last to return. It's in the Basic Text.

The emotional side of our life is the last to return. And that's the part they diagnose as being imbalanced. And I'm not saying there's not imbalanced people out there. But I'm telling you if you don't work the steps, you haven't given it a chance, how do you know? And a doctor told me, Bill, it was going to take two years to purge your body of the drugs that you put in it. And we are going to have to get you on a strict diet, you're going to have to flush your system, you're going to have to have a sponsor. He knew better. And he said these are the things that you are going to have to do. And you'll never know it could be a mental problem until you do these things first. Don't see a psychiatrist, is what he told me, that's a doctor. He said, You don't need a doctor, what you need is a program. You need to flush all this crap, these chemicals you put in your body for how many years.

You know how much stores in your fat tissue? How much of your brain is fat tissue? How much of your body is fat tissue? Drugs store up there and they release over a time frame. We're not like the drug alcohol that can be flushed out in three to six months. The chemicals we put in our bodies are stored up and stored up. And then you go put their chemicals in and they got a -- what's that – the additional life they have. You do 10 grams today, and the next day you start up with 5, and then to 15 and you build up over the years?

What do you think our drugs did to us? The same thing. He said flush your system, work with your steps, do what your sponsor's telling you and you'll get emotional balance. But first, come to know God through the steps. Find that greater power that can restore you to sanity. Turn your life and will over to the care of God in the third step. Learn to do a fourth step and learn to admit the exact nature your wrongs to yourself, God and your sponsor. I know in the steps it says another human being, but admit that. And then ask God to heal you in the sixth step and remove your defect of character. And in the seventh step, ask him to remove your shortcomings, you're acting out on them defects, so he removes the defect. And work on your eighth and ninth and start repairing the damage we did over the years so we start getting balance. And then take continuous inventory in the 10th and admit when you're wrong immediately when you find out about it, without excuses. And the eleventh step, through prayer and meditation improve our conscious contact. And the 12th step, go help another addict. Go help another addict get this message of hope and promise of freedom and I guarantee you, you will have emotional balance. When you read us that paragraph, and not rarely, we've never seen anyone fail that followed our path. You don't have to be the excuse. I do not believe that this program is a failure. I believe this program has one hundred percent success rate for those who practice it. I don't believe we have all this relapse that we talk about in this program. I believe we just have people who hadn't started recovering yet and they just keep on using. All right. That's all, they go back out and use. But the recovery -- You had to start recovery, you have to start going through this whole healing process to relapse. And it doesn't happen in the fourth step. If you can't do a fourth step and you're fearful of doing the fourth step, you're not there yet. Get back and do a first three step inventory again and find out where you're at with it.

Fourth step is fearless. It's a journey, It's a beautiful journey. It's the most beautiful journey in the world to find out who I was. I'm in the basement right now, getting my archives together. Getting all my tape library together. I have 15,000 tapes I got to put together. I got to buy some machines to get my tapes on to CDs. I've got to get all my -- I got stacks, I mean this high stacks about half the length of this room, about half the width of this room just for the box of NA archives I've got to put together. And I'm down there doing inventory.

That's what I did with my own life, I did an inventory the same way. You find the good stuff and you build upon it, the garbage, you give to God and say help me in this area. Help relieve me. That's what it's about. Thank you for allowing me to share.

Appendices

Earliest mention of a 12 Step program for addicts: 1944. Alcohol, Science and Society, Yale Summer School for Alcohol and Drugs, William W. speaker

Danny Carlson, Houston Sewell, Charlie McGee and others started Narco meeting at Lexington, Kentucky in 1948.

Efforts to build NA on East Coast result in NA on West Coast in 1953.

Twenty known meetings in the world in 1970.

First World Convention in 1971.

Board of Trustees formed along with World Service Office in early 1970’s.

NA Tree Service Structure approved by the World Service Board of Trustees in 1975.

First attempted World Service Conference 1977 at San Francisco, California World Convention.

First World Convention outside California was held in Houston, Texas in September1978.

First World Service Conference Literature Committee meets at Wichita, Kansas September 1979

Second World Literature Conference at Lincoln, Nebraska September 1980

Third World Literature Conference at Memphis, Tennessee February 1981

Fourth World Literature Conference at Santa Monica, California May of 1981

Fifth World Literature Conference at Warren, Ohio August 1981 (?)

Sixth World Literature Conference at Miami, Florida Fall 1981

Seventh World Literature Conference at Bucks County, Pennsylvania February 1982

World Service Conference at Santa Monica, California May 1982 - Basic Text Approved

WSC 1985 - Friendly motion to clean up typos in Basic Text 

1988 - Fourth Edition printed without Fellowship approval or viewing, Fifth Edition created without review and input.

1989 - Grateful Dave puts out Baby Blue to tease WSO into suing him in Federal Court

1990 - Judge Pollack presides over the WSO lawsuit against Grateful Dave

1991 - WSC suspended for eight years to do inventory

1997 - Superboard approved and WSC begins to meet again without sub-committees for H&I, P.I., Literature, Policy
           Board of Trustees disbanded, NAWS, Inc. created

(Someone please do research and help me out here with dates and significant events 
or changes that should be known by Fellowship.- Ed)

persons have visited this page since November 6, 2007

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Reprinted from the 
Narcotics Anonymous Way of Life, 
Traditions War: a pathway to peace,
The Spirit of NA 
or NA Twenty Plus
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Victor Hugo Sewell, Jr.

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All rights reserved. This draft may be copied by members of Narcotics Anonymous for the purpose of writing input for future drafts, enhancing the recovery of NA members and for the general welfare of the Narcotics Anonymous Fellowship as a whole. The use of an individual name is simply a registration requirement of the Library of Congress and not a departure from the spirit or letter of the Pledge, Preface or Introduction of this book. Any reproduction by individuals or organizations outside the Fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous is prohibited. Any reproduction of this document for personal or corporate monetary gain is prohibited.