persons have visited this page since September 3, 2006
* CONTENTS *
�When you deal with something
spiritually,
it stops coming up in your life."
Scotty
from Phoenix
Vann G.
from Atlanta
The Power of Love
The Blessings of
Strife
Full Disclosure - Boe
Roy Drum : the Spirit of Writing
A Spiritual not Religious Program Known as Narcotics Anonymous
(click on titles to view)
Preface
Other books are addressed to issues of ongoing recovery and punch a hole in the fears that surround our service structure. This book is about what keeps NA alive and spiritual. All members draw on this source of unending inspiration, imagination and hope to stay clean. Helping others, working the 12 Steps of NA, and seeking spiritual growth all come from the Spirit of NA working. With clean time, this spirituality grows deeper yet we are still largely defined by our noisiest addict resisting the recovery process.
Far too often we are judged as a Fellowship by the noisy, unruly addicts who are not getting the NA program at all. It is part of the disease of addiction to sabotage recovery and justify continued using. Those addicts who are working their program don�t get heard from and so we are committing to this work in their honor. It is time to tell more of our real recovery from those who have been clean for decades as well as those who get on the Spirit road earlier than that. With the need for re-statement, this book will include sharing from Christians, Muslims, un-believers who are spiritual, Native Americans and African Pygmies if any submit material. It is the wordless miracle of stilling the mind and catching the wind from the rising spirit within that never ends so long as life remains. Human beings of all faiths have a common duty to acknowledge the beauty and wonder of this our Higher Power's Miracle and power for life. All roads lead to the top of the mountain.
Their love and devotion to their own recovery as well as the recovery of others is a song that shall not go unsung. We will include material from internet posts, correspondence, minutes and any source within NA that illuminates or illustrates the glory and beauty of this spiritual way of life. Let it begin here.
Beginning with surrender to the fact of our addiction and the 12 Steps recovery program of Narcotics Anonymous, we find ourselves with unaccountable luck. Expecting the worst, we are able to stabilize and go through whatever initial withdrawal symptoms we have. Then, even in our weakened state, we are able to get a place to stay, find some form of work and begin to renew our connection with humanity by making new friends among clean addicts and in the outside world. Hope begins to rise in our heart like the return of a lost friend. At some point in our recovery, we begin to sense a higher power that we can trust and understand. This begins a journey that will revolutionize our lives. It is important that we remember to maintain our surrender and we will continue to get the progress and recovery we need. Those who begin to make decisions based on ego and self-interest soon find themselves besieged and preoccupied with holding on to their gains rather than doing their job well and trusting to the process.
In Loving Service,
Bo S.
Introduction
This book is being written as a group project of the NA Foundation Group. It is intended to address the needs of NA members worldwide and our hope is that you readers will have something to contribute. There is a wealth of unpublished material in our correspondence files, internet posts, speaker tapes and other sources to compile this work. We may also welcome and include original material written just for this work. Let the members who service this website know your reactions by mail or email and your input will be addressed in our periodic conferences as announced on the www.nawol.org website.
Introduction to the Stories -
Because this is a new effort and because of the unusual nature of our first story, let us make plain our desire to include all sorts of spiritual belief and practice that we find among our membership. Inclusion, not excluding, is our aim here. Hindu, Buddhist, Christian - Catholic and Protestant, Native American, Jain, Zen, Wicca and the many shades of spiritual grey. It is always illuminating to delve into the working belief and practices of those who are living a spiritual life. Define spiritual as loving, caring, principled, taking time to life our own lives well and time to help those we encounter on our journey through life. Even those who point with scorn and ridicule at the beliefs of others forget that the answers lie within their heart, not at the end of their finger. The journey to a spiritual life can be frightening especially if we come from fear-based living. Step by step, the obstacles to a clean and happy life fall away and we gain the freedom to look at things the way they are and not as they are supposed to be. We learn to trust ourselves and to trust others. Each awakening leads to one greater than before.
We hope to include many varieties of applied spirituality as utilized by clean addicts living the NA 12 Steps. Once we stopped using, our disease went on to manifest itself in all the areas of money, property and prestige. Sex, security and society continue to be frustrating issues involving lust, greed and pride. Replacing fear with faith, we go on together - the NA way!
In Loving Service,
Bo S. - December 2006
"When you deal with something spiritually, it stops coming up in your life."
"Can you recall the first meeting you went to where everyone present qualified only as an addict?"
"Spiritual non-attachment allows us to move through life without getting stuck."
"All lasting recovery is based on unconditional love."
�When you deal with something spiritually,
it stops coming up in your life."
This quote taken from the One Liners section of The Spirit of NA reminded me of an incident that occurred if my memory serves me correctly shortly after my Third yr. Clean celebration in 1989 but actually started when I was 8 or 9 yrs. old.
About that time in my life I started resenting my adopted mother and siding with my adopted father. Over the next 10 yrs. my resentments grew and by the age of 21, I had returned home from the military a full blown using addict, only to discover that she had divorced my father as a result of his addiction. At this time I naturally chose to once again side with my father. In the beginning, I would frequently visit my mother and these visits always turned into arguments so I soon began shutting her out of my life to the point of crossing over to the other side of the street if saw her coming in my direction , just to avoid confronting her.
This continued for a few yrs and then my father died as a result of his disease. At this time I chose to make up with my mother but I had alternative motives and I used her to aid my financial status and feed my addiction by playing on her guilt. I continued doing this for about 4 yrs. Then, I settled my fathers estate, got my inheritance and at the same time as God would have it my mother got remarried . So we said our Goodbyes and each went our own merry way. This would be the last time I would ever speak to my mother. I think that this was in 1977.
Over the next 4yrs I chose to delibertly not contact my mother in any way, of let her know if I were alive or dead. I also discontinued communication with any remaining family members.
I n 1981 I found myself living in Miami, Fl. and an aunt of mine tracked me down from an old Phone # after going though 4 states and several old friends over a 3 to 4 month time period, to inform me that my mother had died calling my name and not knowing if I were alive or dead. Ironically, she was living within a 100 miles from me at the time. Armed , with this knowledge I disappeared once again into my addiction only to re-emirge 5 yrs later and 3000 miles away when I walked into the rooms of NA and said � my name is Lester and I am an addict.
Needless to say, I carried a lot of shame and guilt into these rooms with me. Over the next 3yrs. the subject of my mother kept coming up at least 2 to 3 time a yr. And would send me into a funk that would last for weeks. Nothing, that I could do seemed to help. Working the steps, talking to my sponsor and a therapist, writing letters to God and then burning them, talking about it in meetings, all to little or no avail, giving me only temporary relief at the most.
Then several months following my 3rd yr . anniversary I went on a NA Campout in the mountains of Northeastern Or. & Southeastern WA over by Devils Canyon. I took with me the balloon that was given to me at my 3rd anniversary. I think it was on the the 2nd morning there that I awoke before everyone else and walked a little ways away from the campground and sat down in scenic area, prayed and then wrote a letter to God, humbly asking that he make this amends to my mother for me seeming that I could not. And vowed that to the best of my ability I would try and never treat another human with the disrespect that I had shown my mother. I then tied the note to the balloon which still some helium in it, released it and gave it to God.
It has now been over 17 yrs since I gave that balloon to God, and I have not been plagued with remorse, guilt, or shame surrounding events with my adopted mother since that morning.
It works.
Lester O
Hi Family,
My name is Lester and I am an Addict In Recovery. A very good friend of mine recently asked me to put this story down on paper. Here it is.
Right around my 3rd anniversary in N.A. I was working for a company in Portland, Oregon that paid me what I considered to be good money. It was more than I had ever made as an hourly wage. But my life was rapidly becoming unmanageable, as far as stress was concerned. I was working a forty hour week, going to 10 to 15 meetings a week, doing H&I two or three times a month., going to area service and participating on several sub-committees and doing local functions whenever I could, while taking a bus everywhere that I went.
So, when I found myself getting all stressed out, it immediately became the jobs
fault and my other activities had absolutely nothing to do with it. Armed with this knowledge I quickly decided that I don't need the money, this job isn't worth the stress, So I quit my job and took a lesser paying job as a dishwasher at a local treatment center. Everything went fine, no more
stress in my life. This lasted for about thirty days. Then one morning I got fired from my job.
There I was 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.
I also learned through this experience that I could apply the Steps to any given situation, anywhere and at anytime.
And that it need not be a long drawn out affair. Admit my powerlessness and
unmanageability, come to believe, surrender m will and my life, inventory my defects and assets, share this this with God and another person, take another look at my defects to see which ones I am acting on, humbly ask the god of my understanding to remove my shortcomings, ask who I have harmed
and become willing to make amends except when to do so would injure them of others, with the guidance of a
sponsor make those amends, continue to inventory, consciously work to improve my contact with a god of my understanding and tell others of my recovery.
Seventeen years latter. Recovery still works.
Yours in Service,
Lester O.
Titusville WOLF Group
A Zen monk went to the Master in his quarters and shared the pain he felt due to a problem he had with anger. He would on occasion get very anger and act out in various ways unbecoming a Buddhist monk, living a monastic life of contemplation. The Master was very concerned and wanted to help the monk who came in such humble sincerity and sought his guidance on an embarrassing issue.
The Master told him that it was a terrible thing and that he would help him any way he could. He asked the Monk to display his anger so that he could see it and help him deal with it. The Monk looked up confused and said, "Well, Master, I am here in peace with you. I can not be angry here." The Master said, "Well, then. Perhaps the anger is no with you."
Watching a Walt Disney movie about a dog growing up on a farm, I had a memorable perception. The story line was about a young German Shepard puppy who was terrified by a huge goose drake. The goose was very aggressive and would flap its wings - which appeared big as a house to the puppy - and honk while striking at the cringing little dog whining in a corner under the assault. As the summer went by the dog grew and grew but still was conditioned to run from the big bully of a drake. Finally, in the fall, the pup was nine months old and the goose took one more run at the pup. Cornered one more time the pup began to whine and whimper but then a look spread across its face. It could see that it was standing as high as the goose now and that the goose, well the goose was not quite as big as it once appeared. Turning and facing its life long enemy head on for the first time, it gave a slight 'grrr' and the goose fled in terror.
Sitting in an omelet restaurant on South Cobb Drive in Smyrna, Georgia about thirty years ago, I was talking to a fellow NA member about my higher power. I said that though it may seem incredible to some, my higher power was watching and guiding me every minute of every day. For a handy example, I told him that if I picked up the newspaper another customer had left on our table, I could open it at random and point without looking and there would be something interesting there. He laughed uneasily and told me to give it a try. Without hesitation, I flipped the newspaper open and plonked my index finger down while gazing at the ceiling.
We both looked with interest and were surprised to see the article was headed: "US Government spends $50,000 to find out what a 'bore' is." We read the short article and it was serious. After research and study, they concluded that a bore is a person who talks without basing what they say on facts and personal disclosure about the subject. Interesting. When I talk today, I try to at least emphasize factual items related to the topic and disclose and relevant information about my own part in things. Funny, I can recall all this clear as a bell but I can't recall who I was talking to...
In Loving Service,
Bo S.
What
is the big deal about today? Or,
may I ask,
If
yesterday is gone and tomorrow is only a fantasy -
The dictionary says
reality is : that which exists (the past existED, it no longer existS) in
contrast to something merely conceived of (the future).
My disease wants me
out of reality (insane), ultimately by being high. But, if not high then, stuck
in the past in my head or looming out worrying or fantasizing about the future,
will suit this cunning disease just fine.
It knows, if I am not
in the now, in my mind, then I am not in reality.
No, God is only here
and now in this moment, in each moment,
patiently waiting for me to pay attention.
So, if my mind is "thinking" off back in the past or out in the
future, I am not in conscious contact with God.
That is my God, who is here and now in the only reality, waiting for me
to focus on the now and thus actively be present with my loving Creator.
What is the big deal about today? When DO I recover? If not today, then when? If not now, in the moment (the only reality) then when? My disease says - never - haha. It reasons with me in my mind, "today you need to work, silly. You will go to your meeting tomorrow. You have lots of bills to pay and you are broke from your active addiction. Work is good." "Today you need to rest. You are tired afterall and you must take care of yourself so give up your meeting today to rest." "Today you don't feel that good. What does it matter that no matter how bad you felt you would go out and get your drugs if you were jonesing? That was then, this is now and you are clean. Whats the big deal?" "Today you need to help someone who really doesn't want to or is not really able to benefit from your help. But, go ahead and ignore your needs just today and help them. Its the right thing to do." "Today you need to be with your child. Your child is more important than a meeting isn't she? You have neglected her enough. Do not put a meeting today ahead of your child." "Today you need to clean your home." "You'll get to a meeting this week." What's the big deal about today? Its only one day. My mind/ my disease logically reasons with me. "Today you need to pay attention to your man. He needs your time." "Today, you need to do your laundry." "Today you need to take a break from meetings anyway." My mind/ my disease convinces me that doing this and that for my recovery to save my life is just dribble and not all that important today.
Why do I believe it
is OK to work my recovery when it is convenient?
Did I only use when it was convenient?
In the end, was using convenient to you?
My disease convinces me its a good idea to take a break from something
that literally saves my life. Is
that crazy? It tells me I am being
selfish today to put recovery before anything or anyone else. My mind tells me to lighten up and that recovery is not
really about life or death, at least not today.
"I am fine today. Afterall,
I'll do it tomorrow. What's the big
deal about today?" " So what, if I thought about using every day.
So what, if I have this disease every day.
I will do what I need to do tomorrow.
Today I need a break."
Wait a minute, how
can I forget, the pipe dream of tomorrow? Tomorrow...
when I believed I would use less or actually quit.
I believed in tomorrow for hundreds of days but it never came.
In recovery, tomorrow is also a pipe dream in terms of how it applies to
my recovery. My disease
(mind) uses the pipe dream of tomorrow to keep my life stuck out of the reality
of the now, stuck in unmanagablity and the pipe dream of tomorrow keeps me away
from recovery today. This disease
is totally satisfied working me one day at a time, keeping me away form
recovery, keeping me from making time to call my sponsor, or read literaure, or
pray, or get to a meeting - just for today.
One day at a time, my disease/ mind keeps me from working my program as
it waits for me to give up, due to lack of inside progress and just go use one
more time.
My disease/ mind
kindly tells me, "give yourself a break , take it easy".
Just for today, "I don't have to do that recovery stuff today, I'll
do it tomorrow, I did it yesterday." I
am not aware that there is no recovery bank to draw from. I can only recover each day, one day at a time, in the only
reality...this moment.
I must be responsible
and take care of my responsibilities or I am just acting like I did when I was
using, right? My disease directs me to be self-determined to fix my
life on the outside. It wants me to
feel in control. It does not want
me to put recovery first and actually allow the God of my understanding to care
for me. "Afterall, I have too
much to do and too many things to take care of to work steps."
"I'll do that later when I have more time...when I get back on my
feet." It tells me to do it
all myself. And, the outside stuff
makes me feel good. Attending to the outside stuff makes me feel better.
The job, the family, the home, my health such as by exercising....all of
that stuff really feels good. Doesn't
regaining outside stuff mean I am recovering?
Wait a minute. Before, I had
a marriage, a great job, my child, a beautiful home, prestige, a health club
membership, lots of money, vacations, fancy cars.
Did any of that keep me clean? No.
Did any of that keep you clean? Will
gaining or regaining any of that outside stuff keep you clean?
Let's get really simple. Is brushing my teeth more important to my life, to today, than working a program of recovery? Unlike during active addiction, I do now brush my teeth each morning no matter what. I do not go up in my head to 'decide' if I am going to brush them or not. "Hmmmm...I brushed them yesterday. My breath won't be too bad for one day. It'll be OK. I'll brush them tomorrow." I learn to approach my meeting attendance in much the same way. I have become aware that, if I go up in my head (where my disease resides) to 'decide' if I can go to a meeting today, I will decide not to, just for today. Afterall, I have so many other important, caring, and responsible things to attend to. So, I do not even decide. Just like I do not 'decide' to brush my teeth or not. I just do it. It is part of my daily life.
Recovery is that
important to my life. My very
survival. My potential to thrive.
If I do not brush my teeth I might lose friends and I will eventually
lose my teeth. If I do not recover,
I will lose friends, my mind, my partner, my daughter, my home, my job, my
health, and eventually I will lose all freedom and my very life.
So, I ask again: Does my behavior indicate that brushing my teeth today is a
more important priority than getting to a meeting?
What does it mean -
anything I put before my recovery, I will lose?
If I put my child before recovery , I will lose her?
Today, if I put my home's cleanliness before recovery, I will lose my
home? Come off of it.
Isn't that silly? If I put work before my recovery just today, I will lose my
job? If I put my relationship with
my partner before recovery today, I will lose the relationship?
Is recovery really a big deal today?
Is it really a big deal every day? Let's
see, if I do not work on my recovery today, in the only reality, I will not
recover one day at a time. String
all those days of not recovering together and get weeks and months of
"responsibly" taking care of other business and not recovering.
I will use eventually. I am
an addict. My brain is wired to
use. There is no cure. Without recovery addicts use.
I will end up the walking dead on the streets, in jail or prison or dead.
I will lose it all. What
about you? Or, are you different? Does
this one day, the only reality, matter to your life or not?
Do you have time to recover today? Can
you really afford not to?
With Love from an Addict in Florida
My name is Scotty. I am an addict.
Here is a little about me. I was raised in Calif. I starting getting loaded at a young age. Both of the parents were drug addicts. I had rough childhood. What I remember of my childhood - we moved around a lot. My mother would leave me at someone�s house for days. I always felt like an outsider.
My father died when I eight years old. I felt lost. I remember shutting down. I would not let any one get close. I was scared and felt alone. By this time my mother was locked up in C.R.C. I had to live with my aunt. There was a lot of drinking, she and my uncle did. And there was a lot of abuse. I felt god hated me. I lived there for two and a half years. My mother had gotten out of C.R.C. I went back to live with her. She was still getting loaded. My mom used to smoke pot with me. When I was stoned, I could escape from the things going on in my life. I grew up feeling no emotion. I was taught not to show feelings. I would stuff my feelings. I never felt love from my mother.
She never said, "I love you." or shared any emotion. I felt that she hated me. As I got older, drugs became part of my life. I would use to escape so I did not have to feel the pain I carried aroudn with me. I started getting in trouble. I hated my home life. I made friends with gang members. It was the first time I felt support from a bunch of guys. It was the first time I felt a part of something. Still getting loaded and drinking.
I ran away from home. Hanging out with my home boys, getting loaded and drunk. I had to stuff my feelings of pain. I would take out on anyone that got in my way. I stayed loaded for years. I began going to jail. I felt everyone was against me. I was full of anger and rage. I started selling drugs. I started to carry a gun. I started doing things I said I would not do. I tried to get a job and tried to stop using but I could not stop using and I would lose that job. My life was insane. I thought it was normal to feel the way I do. Here I was, thinking I can control my life, all I need was to stop dealing. I was full of so much pain, full of resentment, anger. I hated the world. I went to a meeting of AA when I was fifteen. I thought they were full of bullshit. I had been in and out of jails since I was a kid. The only life I knew was getting high. I ran from my feelings for years. When I turned eighteen and was still dealing and still feeling so alone. I woudl use drugs and didn�t feel alone anymore.
In 1983, still shooting drugs and living out of motel rooms. I knew I would have to stop. My mother has been clean for two years at that time. She took me to my first NA meeting. I got clean for a week and would get loaded again. I thought I could do this myself. I went in and out of the rooms for years.
In 1987 I finally got willing to change. Went to treatment and I found NA again. This time I did hear what they were saying. I found a sponsor, started working the 12 Steps and going to meetings daily. I found HP and things were changing in my life. I wanted to be clean so bad.
I got into service. My first service position was being a secretary for a group. I would set up for the meeting and make coffee. And when the meeting was over, I could clean up. This made me feel a part of. Then, one day I lost hope and got loaded again. But came back and the Fellowship was there for me. In 2000, I went out again. the disease had me believe if I got loaded and my life would be ok. I started to believe my own lies. I went to jail again. While I was in jail, I got to go to meetings and there again I found hope and I knew I needed to change the way I was living. I moved to Arizona and found NA again. I went to meetings daily and did service. I found home again.
Today, my recovery is bliss. I found HP and God of my understanding. Today I don�t have to be afraid of my feelings or fear. Today, I can recover. I am blessed with many gifts in recovery. I share e-s-h with other addicts and it is time to change the way I think of things. My recovery today is I don�t have to get loaded over the pain and my feelings. Today, I can face the fear and recover.....
My name�s Page and I�m an addict. Hi everybody.
The next speaker is someone else who is very near and dear to me. There is kind of a chain of events here today that go, you know, down the line.
There was Bo, giving it to me and actually at the point where it came into my mind for me to get it, I was robbing a hospital in 1979. January of 1981 and Jim and Bo were sitting on the front porch of the Clubhouse of the Rising Sun and I just had this moment of clarity that I had better stop using drugs.
Well that was Labor Day of 1979
January of 1981 me and this other guy Cecil L. with two weeks less clean time than Bo, were riding out to the Brauner meeting and we were reflecting on the we used to shoot narcotics and how the people who always had the best narcotics were black people and how there were no black people in the Fellowship.
So, Cecil and I were going to the meeting at Brawners Hospital that evening. We agreed if we see any black people in the meeting we need to really focus on them. So, we walked in there and sure enough, there were two black people in the meeting
And me and Cecil were walking in and one was an astute looking guy with glasses and everything like that and the other was a rough looking guy with an afro. So Van was the rough looking guy. So, Cecil said I�ll take the guy with glasses and you take the street looking guy and that was Van G.
And Van was the first black person, black man, to get clean and stay clean in Atlanta, Georgia. and that was a daunting task back then cause there were no black people. If I turn the tables on that and think if the tables were turned and that were me, would I have the courage to come back day after day in the deep south prejudice environment and I don�t know if I would have.
It was hard enough for me to tell Van when I brought him home from treatment - cause he had asked me to be his sponsor - uh, it was hard enough for me just to address that racial issue
But I did, I told Van there is going to come a time when you look around the room and you�re not going to see any other black people and your disease is going to tell you that you don�t belong here. And I said, "You know, don�t listen to it - stay."
And he did and if you ever come to Atlanta and want to see what that brought, you ought to see the miracle. I mean they got the West End Convention, the Midtown Area, it�s a miracle and with that I give you Van G.
I�m Van G. and I�m an addict. I gonna use this, here in just a minute (this mike). I guess I�m gonna qualify a little bit. I got clean in January 15, 1981 and I haven�t found it necessary to pick up a pill, fix or drink since that time. I believe in total abstinence. Today, I know for a fact that dope ain�t my problem. Dope ain�t my problem. You know I got a problem that will make me use some dope this afternoon if I ain�t careful. That thing came in the door with me tonight
And it�s the same thing I suffered with 25 years ago. Today I know the monkey isn�t on my back but it damn sure follows me around. So if not using dope was the solution to my problem, I�d be well by now. So, I just want to say a few things, first of all I just want to speak on a few things. First I want to congratulate everybody who shared tonight
I want to thank everybody it�s such a nice day, I haven�t been bored. Because today what I like a good discussion meeting. And today I have been privileged to hear some of the best speakers I�ve heard in a long time. People who knew what they were talking about, people who understood the process of recovery and know what they are talking about. Even the lady with three years, she seemed to know what she was talking about.
I�d like to thank my sponsor: If there was not for Page C. there would be no Van G. Seriously, he saved my life. He picked me out of a crowd and he saved my life. At that time a good friend of mine named Billy B was telling me how Page would look when he came to a meeting and I would come in behind him and Page would look like �Look what I got.�
(group laughter)
So, it was a very interesting time.
And I would also like to thank Bo S. for taking the time to talk to me and tell me things like, "You can�t screw you way into recovery." and stuff like that because I really thought that was what it was all about and I didn�t have a clue.
But tonight I want to take us to another level. I know we talked about service structure. I know we talked about not using drugs, things like that. We talked about clean time and stuff like that. But I kinda want to talk about two words that are found in "Our Symbol" that are very important and those words are occult and esoteric.
In our symbol, it says, "We can find all sorts of occult and esoteric connotations in the simple outline but foremost in our mind were easily understood meanings and relationships." And this occult thing is dealing with the supernatural. It some magic that goes on in these meetings. It ain�t nothing we do. It�s almost magical.
I know I dope-fiended my mother! And for me to stop using? I�d steal my Mother�s money and cry all my way to the dope house but I still shot dope with the money. And to stop that? Aw, that was magical. That was beyond human conception. That was hidden from view. What this program has to offer is not only simple, it is deep. It is beyond the obvious.
Just like when you walk into a room, there are obvious things going on like chairs and people and coffee and humans and coca colas and computers but we don�t see the electricity running through the wall, the plumbing, the ductwork. Those things are hidden from view. They are beyond the obvious. They are the things that make the obvious possible. That�s what this occult is about. Supernatural things. See?
Also, esoteric. Esoteric means �for a select few.� For a select few. That everybody ain�t gonna get this thing. Most people ain�t gonna be able to get past the obvious. You start explaining duct work, electricity in the walls and most people say, "Naw, I can�t see nothing but the chairs. I can�t see anything but the table. I can see the carpet." Because in order to see beyond the obvious, you�re gonna have to look with an eye different from this eye. Cause we can�t see through walls But we know electricity wires are there, don�t we?
It is for the initiate. What in the hell does that mean? It is for the initiate.
Yes. Yes. You have to be initiated into this new way of life. Into this �beyond the obvious.� It is esoteric: for a select few.
What are the qualifications for initiation? Those who dare to be honest with themselves. And I don�t mean being honest with myself like, "I didn�t steal anything today." But I mean being honest on a deeper lever. Be honest about - who we really are. How honest can I be when I am denying who I really am.
Now, in the beginning I had no idea who I was, I had no idea.. I thought I was Van the black man and all I had to do was get rid of all the white folks, get back to Africa and everything was gonna be alright. That�s what I thought.
I had a job driving a truck. They say, "Who you Van?" I said, "I am a truck driver." Then they fired me and said "I said I don�t know what I am, I ain�t no truck driver anymore."
I never was a truck driver. I am not what I do. I am not my activity. I am not a sum total of my activities. Some of the activities I have done are gone. If I was my activity, I�d be gone too. But I�m not gone, I�m right here.
So today we know it�s about getting honest. And my honesty comes in degree according to my realization of the truth. It is impossible to be honest from a dishonest position. And the dishonest position I was trying to get honest from was thinking I was black, thinking that I was male, thinking that I was good NA member, or thinking something here belonged to me.Or thinking that this was thine and this was mine and don�t you touch mine.
Today, where our program has taken me is to a spiritual awakening. It�s has taken me to a spiritual awakening. The first time I worked Step 4, what does Step 4 say? It says, "We did a searching fearless moral inventory of ourselves." And the last word from that Step is what I kept overlooking. I want to inventory everything except me. I wanted to inventory my sex history. I wanted to inventory my using history and I came up with a big pile of stuff on the table and none of that was me.
The very first sentence in Step 4 says, "The purpose of a searching and fearless moral inventory is to search through the confusion and contradiction of our lives so that we can find out who we really are."
And if you apply Step 4 and you don�t come to the conclusion that who you really are, how can you say you worked Step 4? Now, you can inventory anything you want to but that don�t mean that inventory is Step 4. The most important word in that sentence is �myself.�
Now, who is self? I had no idea who self was. I thought self was �black.� I thought I died. I know today that none of us make it tothe grave.
I thought �this self�was black. I thought I�d die. But I know it for a fact today none of us make it to the grave. We;�re long gone out of these bodies before we are put in the ground. None of us make it to the grave, we all cheat death. This is a spiritual program. What the hell does that mean? What is the spirit? Webster says, "The spirit is the animating force of the body." So, the body is not even animate. It is the spirit that makes the body animate.
So, this program is much deeper than we think. Why do we want to get to this next level? Why do we want to get to this next level? We want to get to this next level because of what we have on page ninty-six of our literature. It says, "Ongoing recovery is dependent on a relationship with a Loving God who does for us what we find impossible to do for ourselves."
It�s not just a bickering over the literature. It�s not just a hee-hawing over who�s doing what and who�s doing this, if we don�t get to this next level, what�s the use? If we don�t try to please this loving God, what�s the purpose? What�s the purpose? Because all this stuff we are fighting over is temporary. It�s impossible to apply spiritual principles from a material position.
Hope is a spiritual principle, right? How much hope can you have relying on things that are here today and gone tomorrow? Faith is a spiritual principle but how much faith can you have in something that not going to last noway? All this stuff is temporary. And if we continue to place our value on the temporary existence of things, we�re going to be real disappointed when they are gone. This relationship with god is the only real relationship. All other relationships are real but they damn sure ain�t permanent. So, it behooves me to cultivate this permanent relationship with God cause when it comes time to sever this relationship with my wife, my children. With this I. With this I. I�m gonna have to give up this I. With this I. Oh, Lord, where did my wife go. Why did she have to go before I even met her.
So, it�s about going to another level. It�s about going to a spiritual level.
Spirituality is without the slightest tinge of material or material desire. Now, let�s face it, we cannot make our activities zero, we�re here. We have to make the best out of a bad bargain. We are here. It�s not that we are not going to have to interact with the material, we�re going to have to interact with the material. But the way we do that is to use this stuff for whom it rightfully belongs. And that serving God is not a particular activity but it�s a state of consciousness in which all activity should be performed. And this consciousness is that God owns everything and you should use everything for whom it rightfully belongs. Cause when I use things for God, there no repercussions for my using but when I use things for Van, I suffer the reactions of my own damn action. The trouble with that is you can�t flex God
He knows my sincerity, he knows my heart. There is no way I can flex Him. So, this is a very important thing, of going to the next level. What is the next level?
After we stop using, after we get clean, after we stop using. What is the next level? Is it to continue collecting toys?
No matter how big your mansion is up on the hill, you�re not going to be able to live in it forever.
Everything got to go. It�s here to day - and gone tomorrow. See? That�s the truth.
I had a spiritual awakening in this program. It was so profound. That thing was so profound it changed my entire value system It changed my entire value system. That awakening was that I am not even the body. I am the spirit soul inside this body.
I�m the person inside this body that makes my eyes light up and see. That makes the tongue taste and the legs walk. If you took me out of this body, could these eyes see? Hell, no. These eyes can�t see. I�m inside this body looking through these eyes.
When I really took a 4th Step, it went something like,. " I am not the body, I am the spirit inside the body. Nothing here belongs to me. Everything here belongs to God. I�m unchangeable. I�m eternal. I can�t be burned. I can�t be wetted. Nor can I be detected with any material or material devices. And I not slain when the body is slain." Now, that�s an inventory of me, not an inventory of my activities. that�s an inventory of me. Who I am.
I am an eternal spiritual person, I�m not a temporary material body. I�m not a body that possesses a soul. I am a spirit soul that possesses a body. That�s the truth.
(applause)
And everything is subject to revision, especially what we know about the truth. Cause at one time, I didn�t know that truth. At one time, I thought I was black and you was white and you were
female and such and such and on and on, whatever and all those designations are based on the body and when the body is gone, all those designations are gone too. And when we get to the spiritual platform, there is no duality. The duality is only on the material sphere.
On the spiritual platform, there is only oneness. Everything is of the same quality. Every thing is pure spirit. Everything is eternal, on the spiritual platform. It ain�t like on the material platform where everything has a creation time, a maintenance period, and a destruction time.
On the spiritual platform, there is no need for creation time and destruction time, everything is eternal. That doesn�t mean there is not variety.
On the spiritual platform there are tables, chairs and persons. There are tables, chairs and persons, they are just spiritual. They are just spiritual. Everything always is. Nothing ever goes away.
The spiritual world is not a myth. It�s not a myth. That�s where we come from. That�s where we�re trying to get back to. That�s the whole purpose of the Narcotics Anonymous program.
Where we can surrender to this loving, caring God and get home.
And if you�re not trying to get home, it don�t� make no difference what you�re trying to do. Like a man in prison, if you�re not trying to get out of prison, it don�t make any difference what you do - you�re still in prison. You�re not going to be able to keep this �stuff.� No matter how shiny your car is in the parking lot, or how much money you got in the bank.
I sponsor this lady and she was going back to get your nursing degree and she quit going to meetings. She called me on the phone and she was telling me about her degree and what I thought about it. And I said, well, if you think your certificate is so important when death comes, show him your certificate, see if it matters. Show him your bank account. Tell him how much clean time you got. When death comes creeping in your room early one morning. And it�s coming. Everyone of us is going to get sick and die. I�m telling you now, it�s coming. It�s gonna come at a time to die when you don�t even see. No matter what kind of job you got, it�s gonna come a time when you get there. So, if you place your value in this, you�re going to be real disapointed in the end. Rude awakening.
When this thing was twenty-one years old, you couldn�t tell me shit. I thought I was God�s gift to women - and I was cute too. Now I�m 54 years old, mean to her in the morning when I wake up. Grey hairs all over. What I used to do all night, now it takes me all damn night to do. You know what I am talking about. I don�t sock it to �em no more, I just lay it on �em now.
I�m just so thankful to the Narcotics Anonymous program for pointing me to a new way of life
Not just the same old way of life and not doing dope, but to a new way of life, a spiritual way of life. That we can live spiritually. We can recognize who we really are and go on and live spiritually. We can have a spiritual awakening. What does that mean? That means I was asleep, asleep to who I really am. You see?
The spiritual awakening is waking up to who I really am. Not who I thought I was, but who I really am. To God we are all feminine. God is the domanator, and we are the dominated.
There is a Rabbi who said it a different way. He said God is the groom and we are the bride
and everybody is invited to the wedding. You know what I mean. So, this thing about being macho is really not. We should do tp God what a bride does on her wedding night and we should submit.
And I tell my sponsees, if you don�t know what God is, surrender to the program. I heard talk a few minutes ago, and it says in Recovery and Relapse, it says, "We have never seen anybody relapse who surrendered to the Narcotics Anonymous program." That�s in Recovery and Relapse. It�s even in this book. We have never seen anybody relapse. We�ve never seen anyone relapse. It didn�t say �rarely. If you work this program, you�re guaranteed not just to stay clean but to recover.
When I first got to the program, I thought, when I heard the word recovery, and when I heard the word addiction, my mind automatically went to negativity. I thought addiction was something I had to get rid of. But today, I know addiction is simply an overwhelming, obsessive, compulsive desire. It is neither negative or positive. It�s actually neutral. Now, when I point this neutral desire negatively, it becomes the disease of addiction. The disease of addiction is mis-directing this overwhelming obsessive, compulsive desire. Misconceived ideas.
When I point this same desire positively, it becomes what we call recovery. Recovery is properly directing this overwhelming, obsessive, compulsive desire, remembering my relationship with God, and acting in it. This relationship is that He is the master, I am the servant, that don�t never change. My duty in this relationship is obedience. What I encourage my sponsees to do in the group conscience, don�t forget the decision we made in Step 3.
What is that decision? To turn my will and my life over to the care of this God. What is my will? My will is my thinking. What is my life? My everyday activity. We made a decision to start thinking for him and acting for him.
Wonder what God would think? Not, I should vote my opinion. I should do what Jim says, we should get together and make some all inclusive policies, not exclusive policies.
You know, how we got in our meeting, "Are you a member of this home group? You ain�t a member of this home group, you can�t do that. Page, did you help mop this floor? No? Well, you can�t walk on it then" That�s the kind of policy we�re making. It�s called selfish policy.
Include a few, exclude a great many. You see? We got groups in our area, in our region, that say that, "If you ain�t a member of this group, you can�t participate in service to this home group. Only the home group members can participate in this service." See how that sounds?
We got a statement in just about every one of our formats that says, "You�re a member of Narcotics Anonymous when you say you are. But you�re a member of this group when you sign a pledge and make a promise." You got to promise to come to five business meetings and you got to sign our group booklet.
And right in our literature it says, because this, the 3rd Tradition is so simple there�s no need no group roster. Cause you�re a member when you say you are. You ain�t a member when no group says you are. You�re a member when you say you are. And that goes for groups too. In our group booklet, "You can be a member of any group you want to, all you got to do is say so. In our area, they voting on members. They voting on who can be a member and who can�t. They got a thing, saying if you don�t have a home group, you�re homeless. And in many parts of the world, they ain�t even never heard of no damn home group. But you don�t have to join Narcotics Anonymous twice. They are forcing you to join Narcotics Anonymous twice. They got it where if you don�t have a home group, you can�t even participate in service.
At the Georgia Region, they roped off seats. Seats. They roped out seats for the big shots who paid for the banquet. All this is done under what we were talking about, management and control
Because they believe that you can�t have structure without management and control. They forgot about us the program was working fine when they got here.
You know, they say, "Thank God for the predecessor!" but they don�t want to hear a damn thing you got to say. They don�t want to hear what works. And I�m like Bo, we can tear this thing right up. We can tear it up. All we got to do is continue the way we�re going and we�re going to become a corporation concerned only about money. At the world convention, registration was $65. $65. It�s already our money. It�s already our money. I could see it if it wasn�t our money.
You know, they�re hustling. They hustling. It�s like, say for instance, what they do is, they take up donations from the group, pass it on to the area, and the region and the world and they buy literature, they print literature, and turn around and sell us the literature most of the time on a marked up price
It�s like I get ten dollars from you and I buy hats with it and then I come back and sell you the hats. That�s a good hustle ain�t it?
(From the audience, "What does it cost to print the book?")
Ten dollars. A dollar twenty-three to print the book!
So, there is one statement here in More Will Be Revealed, and I�m going to read it. It�s one of my favorite statements. It says, "While using, we thought that we had fun and that non-users were deprived of it. Spirituality enables us to live life to the fullest, felling grateful for what we are and what we have done in life. Since the beginning of our recovery, we have found that joy doesn�t come from material things but from within ourselves. We find that when we lose self-obsession, we are able to understand what it means to be happy, joyous and free. Indescribable joy. Indescribable joy comes from sharing from the heart." It�s simple honesty. We no longer have to lie to gain acceptance. You know what I�ll do to get accepted? I�ll use dope to be accepted. I did it for 18 years
I�ll do anything to be accepted. And I �m proving it right here in Narcotics Anonymous. I�ll stay clean to be accepted.
(You got that right!)
I just want to reiterate a few points, and that is . . . The Narcotics Anonymous program is spiritual and it is highly suggested that each one of us find a Higher Power of our understanding. That�s not the ending, that�s the beginning because God is not formed according to the whims of the worshiper.
He is not as I understand him. He is what he is. The whole purpose is to get to know him as he is. It begins with how I understand him but it should end in how he is.
The word God is not a person. The word god is not a person, the word God is a position. But there is a person who holds the position. Do you know who he is?
Just like the word president is not a person, it is a position. but there�s a person who holds the position president do you know who he is?
Imagine going to the Oval Office and not meeting George Bush and coming back saying you met the president. Well, that�s the way we do God. And the reason why we make him so unapproachable, because if he was approachable, and a personality we that we could approach, then we not only have to approach him we�d have to do what he say do.
But if we make him unapproachable, we can make it up as we go. You know how we say, "Your higher power don�t let you do that? Well, my higher power, he let me do this."
Ha, ha, ha!
You know, so I�m gonna stop cause I want to give my sponsor time to share. I know he has a lot of things to share. I love him so much. Words can�t express how I feel about it Whenever I think about love and affection and stuff like that, I think about my sponsor. He�s come to by birthday�s. He�s cried at my birthdays and stuff. If there is anybody I know who is in my corner, it�s my sponsor. He�s in my corner, I never felt any pressure from him. I never felt any pressure from him. All I felt it love. Whenever I call him on the phone, all I feel is love. And whenever we get together, it�s about love. I have nothing bad to say about this man.
As I said in the beginning, without no Page C., there would be no Van G.
- Van G. a recovering addict in Atlanta, Georgia USA
Love is the Spiritual force of Infinite Power....power through access to Divine power. God is Love. Love is like the power of water that naturally flows to the lowest places and is soft and gentle yet, so strong and powerful it can disintegrate stone. Love disintegrates the stone of rock and the stone cold heart. Love, in the form of empathy, tolerance, and unconditional love, naturally flows to the deep dark places where the hopeless, furiously hurt, and the
downtrodden-sad ones painfully exist. Maybe, only the example of living Love can ultimately break the 'egomaniac with an inferiority complex' person's grasping, harmful need to control and exploit others.
The baffling illogical power of Love is exemplified in Jesus' words to "turn the other cheek". In Martin Luther King's and Ghandi's Non-Violent protest. The worldly use of force or striving through powerful means is intrinsically ineffective to produce lasting change. It is the effortful 'fighting fire with fire'.
Through the miracle of NA, I have come more and more to trust Love is the answer to everything. It may not seem sensible or practical to turn the other cheek. It may seem weak or naive or non-sensical to our finite minds or simply like giving-in. Yet, in a complete and sometimes irrational surrender to the Love of God, I suspect anything is possible and profound naturally healing occurs. Love intrinsically flows to and
touches the very depths of anger, pain, and suffering in the hearts and minds of men. The Power of Love, through unwavering 'practice' of spiritual principles in all my affairs, is the very hand (reaching from me to you) of the all healing God upon the sick heart.
Just for today, I can be the vessel of Love to help heal the world one kindness at a time.
With Love from an Addict in Florida
To the Spiritually gifted, much is taken away so that, much can be given. The Spiritual Warrior has traveled a long road (many lives?) to arrive to the place where they can gain new depths of spirituality or, in other words,
dependence on God. If all of life is the journey back to God...to home...then one can view pain and suffering as the necessary fires we must go through to earn spiritual wisdom. Life is our classroom.
I had to ask myself, why is one I know, who is so kind and connected to God, suffering such horrible circumstances in this life? Could it be that the spiritual life is not about an easy road? Could it be that only those further on their spiritual path are given the most difficult problems to gain from? To the spiritually gifted, is life like an advanced course in survival 101? If we lived in paradise - a Garden of Eden easy existence, there would be no need for problem solving nor personal growth. In such a world, all our needs would be taken care of and there would be no motivation to evolve. Believing in reincarnation, I find the big picture comes into focus. I can get out of my daily problems to see that it is all about my progression to reunite spiritually-whole with God. I can see that it is about the path... all about how I live...rather than nitty gritty of the problems I encounter or even the ultimate results of my actions. To conceive of designing, in collaboration with God, this life's major obstacles and my means of death, before I came into this body, thrills my spirit. It brings meaning to the tragic apparently useless deaths of those in
Tsunamis', or victims of rape, etc. It brings meaning to those, like I, who must die of active addiction. It is their very (sacrificial?) deaths that generate great desire in the living to keep on the path of life via recovery. When great men are assassinated such as Kennedy or MLK, an eternal brilliantly shining spotlight is put on the self-less message
represented by their lives. The focus instantly becomes potently intense and miraculously inspires multitudes to seek.
Maybe, those who seem to live the dream life of ease, comfort and success are learning their own lessons to be applied towards their journey? Maybe, they need to
experience great joy to be enabled to experience and grow from great pain in the next life?
So...if this life is one more on my road to reunification with God, then can I view my struggles in a grateful light? Might I be grateful that I have progressed to a point where God views me worthy and capable of surviving great pain? It is as if God is the grand renowned Divine Professor who has chosen me to take a more difficult challenging course in life. Maybe, I even applied for this position in life? Maybe, I am a volunteer who knew (before this incarnation) with God what would most benefit my soul's development and enhancement in this course back home? Geez! If so, then I cannot even say "God, Why me!?"
Maybe, Divine inspiration comes as Spiritual gifts snuggly wrapped up in pain? Surrender breaks open the seals that bind the impossible. Miracles are indeed possible!
With Love from an Addict in Florida
from an addict in Montreal...
In the interest of full disclosure, and in the hope of clearing up or clarifying for you what is going on with me up here on the south-shore of Montreal, I thought I would simply share my story and what brought me here to this point as it helps understand, in good measure, my way of reacting. My intentions may be noble but my methods might be � shall we say suspect.
I was, along with my older sister, abandoned to our maternal grandparents who adopted the two of us when I was
thirteen months of age. I mention this only to bring into perspective the strength of influence my abandonment issues might come to bear on the current situation.
Our home life was filled with much dysfunction. Issues of physical violence, terror, and witnessed attempts on my life at the hands of possibly a psychotic mother (we did not know we were adopted at the time) our father (grandfather) never intervened to protect us as I have come to understand, he had his own toxic shame and abandonment issues.
At the age of eleven, our grandmother died from coronary illness (brought on, I presume, by her mental / emotional health) � either way, I started using substances at that time. Up until then, we had moved a total of thirteen times. Our father had always kept a steady job at the cotton mill where he worked for a total of 37 years, until his retirement a short three years prior to his passing. I had insisted on remaining with him following our mother�s death while my sister, eleven months my senior went to live in the country with an aunt. � At this point, I began to run wild. Unsupervised, using, angry and rebellious, juvenile delinquency became my lifestyle as I roamed the streets flaunting my freedom at the world.
Earlier, growing up and raised in an insane asylum, I had heard about guardian angels and God and although church attendance was compulsory as children in our household, God was represented as someone who lied and was strict and vindictive; Someone who lacked integrity and coherence. That might help explain my utter dismay and much of my reactions in Fellowship service.
Anyhow, I was using and running wild. Reform school was inevitable and most predictable when at the age of fifteen I was found guilty of stealing cars, joy riding really. possessing drugs, and truant from school. Was my life unmanageable? Not enough it would appear. After serving eleven months in reform school, I was released back to the custody of my grandfather. His take on the whole matter, and I have come to understand it, was that I ought to be left alone and that I would straighten myself out. His toxic shame and guilt issues played a large part in his reaction to my misbehavior. He was never one to set and enforce limits and consequently, my lifestyle continued.
Sexually promiscuous since the age of thirteen, there I was, at the age of sixteen, shacked up with a girl who was nearly five years my senior, who had just given birth to a little girl who was mentally deficient and whose father was in jail. Do you suppose I was looking for a mother? � God love them both because I sure as hell wasn�t able to and how she could put up with me for twelve years, I can only suspect speaks to the extent of her own shortcomings. Either way, she mentioned I ought to join the army and, low and behold, they accepted me when I was seventeen. In the process of joining the army I was found guilty of theft and a judge gave me a two year suspended sentence admonishing me and stating that he would let a drill sergeant straighten me out.
So, there I was, proud and in uniform at seventeen. Did I mention I was an addict? The military offered me a selection of three trades. Medical assistant, military police
and air defense technician. Their tests revealed I was reasonably bright and intelligent. Anyhow, if you haven�t it guessed so far, I chose Medical Assistant (access to drugs of course) I feared that if I would have chosen to become a military policeman would have put me in a compromising position. And I certainly had no intention of becoming a brute to lord over people. I wanted to care and be a loving individual. I also wanted recognition and esteem. I wanted to save lives and hold power over them. I became pretty good at it too (or so I thought).
Drugs were available and I soon learned the system well enough to obtain and use prescription meds. � Seems I had a difficulty with women in positions of authority (I wonder why?) Anyhow, I began using prescription meds. Valium to relieve the tension and stress, dalmane, tuinol seconol, codeine, and eventually morphine � the list goes on. Pot was since the age of
eleven a constant, but that didn�t really count � did it? I am an addict and my favorite drugs are the ones I get for free. I didn�t really see myself as an addict because I had stopped using LSD and such chemicals when I joined the military � that and my soon to be wife (mother by proxy) wouldn�t hear of it. We got married tow months after my 18th birthday, had our first son a few weeks before my 19th and a second just before my 20th. So there I was, twenty years old, married with three children in tow and trying to maintain some sort of order and direction in my life. Christ, was I in trouble? Needless to say, that I was using, cheating on my wife at every opportunity and trying to run a concentration camp at home. Is there any wonder why I was taking meds in an attempt to cope with reality?
After a few years, I must have impressed someone because I was given the opportunity to specialize into the field of Preventative Medicine. Some took a liking to me and could see my potential to excel when given the opportunity. I became short listed for accelerated promotions and was soon given the freedom to be left essentially unsupervised in the expression of my work as an health inspector / preventative medicine tech. those who known the field, know it as one where the selection criteria is very stringent. Many say that it is not a job but that it is a position which carries considerable power and authority (pseudo authority really) � I became recognized as responsible, managing files, and personnel (subordinates) � I now despise and stay clear of that word because of it�s connotations. I became sought after as a competent specialist in my field. I mention this only in the sense that I developed, from early on in my childhood, a fear of being wrong so I took it onto myself to always be right and as a psychologist would later help me understand, I became an expert at being right because I feared my life depended on it.
Anyhow, to move this along, I left my wife and children after twelve years of being together. Seeing myself torment and brutalize those at home, I could no longer, in good conscience blame them for my dissatisfaction about life. There just had to be a better way to live out there. I was twenty nine at the time.
Within a month of leaving my wife, I was in another relationship. My self centered addict mind was working overtime. She was, again some five years my senior, a professional psychologist/sexologist, divorced woman with three bright, intelligent and beautiful daughters. She and I smoked pot together, talked and had a lot great fun. We�d play as a family. She went so far as to follow me around the country as I was being re-assigned elsewhere with the military.
Well, the inevitable at the time happened and the control freak within took over � had he ever let go? I was soon issuing threats in the form of innuendos and eventually threatening to evict her and her daughters should she not comply with my wish to have some order in our home. Well, she left as I had instructed.
But wait, that�s not what I wanted.
I called her and pleaded that she not leave me because that wasn�t what I had meant to say. But, it is what I had told her to do. She suggested that although she loved me, she was not prepared to return unless we consulted. In my state of narcissism I thought that just because she was a psychologist, she would soon figure out how screwed up she was. I, of course, could not be the problem. In any event, we began consulting and it took about three sessions for the psychologist we were seeing to help me uncover the fissure in the personae I had created as a defense mechanism. That fissure was that of control. At this point, I began an inner journey which goes on to this day.
She and I never did really come back together, although an attempt was made later after I came into NA recovery. I had started having an affair with the wife of a friend and in so doing put an end to any hope of renewing a relationship with the lady who brought me into the psychological realm of introspection. I will, however forever be grateful for all she has brought me. I call her from time to time just to let her know that I love her, miss her and wish her well. She is ok as she is, as am I. and although I fear we would never be able to be totally happy together, I love her just the same. I am who I am and she is who she is.
In December of 1985 things were at an all time low. I had left the military, had moved in and was playing psychologist � playing God really � with the previously mentioned �friend�s wife�. She had put me out after I had betrayed her by divulging her incestuous past with her father, to the rest of her family. My journal still testifies to the depth of my sickness. I truly thought I was God reincarnate. Now there is a frightening prospect if ever there was one! Anyway, she had put me out in December of
1985 and there I was in March of 86. Convinced that all that was left to be done was to die (so that I could rise from the dead of course) and in so doing, others would know me for who I am GOD!
Well I, as well as they, did come to see me for who I am / was at the time. A sick addict without a program! I just didn�t know I was an addict. Nobody told me and if they did, I didn�t hear it. When I awoke, alone and confused a few hours following that last attempted suicide I yelled at the ceiling calling out to whatever God was out there and asking what the heck could he want more from me? And since I didn�t know,
He had better tell me!
At that moment, a small voice from within asked �could I possibly have a drug problem? - �Hell no!� I replied � I have all kinds of drugs - not a problem!� but, I am a proud individual and I sought to get a professional opinion for should anyone else suggest I had a drug problem, I would be prepared to offer some sort of documented proof to rebuff the allegation. And so I made some calls and was soon referred to NA.
At that time, NA had only been in Quebec City but a few months having started, (just for me � lol) in December of 85 and although I could yet not admit my powerlessness, as I had never even tried to quit, I could identify with the readings and the disease concept of addiction. I however thought you were all pretty sick and demented if you thought, as you had suggested, that I throw away my drugs. I made a deal with myself that I would come back, as you had suggested, but that I would continue to use until I had exhausted my stash of drugs. I would only use when I felt good as I did not want to escape my feelings. Does that make any sense to anybody? Well, it did to me! I would attend the three meetings in the area, go home and use. The next day, there was no meeting and I would stay home hurting and feeling sorry for myself. I was heartbroken and misunderstood by those who were not in the rooms. I wasn�t even certain that I was fully understood by those in NA. I kept on stalking the person who had thrown me out in December of 85, convinced I now had to make amends � she would hear nothing of it.
May 22nd of 86, I finished using the drugs I had been using and decided that was it. Finished! Fellow addicts cautioned me to take it one day at a time but, what did they know, I had decided that was the end! No more, never ever again! �Three days later I was using. The date was and remains to this day, one day at a time, May 25th 1986. I still recall the fear rise up that I would never ever be able to quit. I spoke to the ceiling and asked the creator � some sort of loving higher power out there to help me and take it away. That small gentle voice lovingly replied, take the suggestions you are given in the program, �take it one day at a time, one step at a time� go to meetings, read the literature, get involved, get a sponsor, work and live the Steps and Traditions. Practice the principles to the best of your ability and most of all, take it one day at a time.
I really like the acronym advanced for GOD as being �Good Orderly Direction� as it is what I have sought all of my life and although I am able to experience it from within, I often have great difficulty seeing it around me and in the people I associate with. �Birds of a feather flock together� � I sometimes have difficulty letting GOD express �Itself� in my thoughts and my actions.
Back to the story! I took the suggestions, read and studied the program (of course I already understood all that stuff about the Steps and Traditions. The Steps showed me how to live with me and the Traditions showed me how to live with you and since I was not an island unto myself, I needed you � and the Traditions prevented you from throwing me out. Fantastic! What could be better? I quickly got involved in service, and took my first sponsor after I had moved to the Montreal area when I had five weeks clean. He disappeared less than a week later going back to AA (I suppose) so I shopped around for a bit and spotted this other man whom people seemed to congregate around. He was intelligent, articulate and professional. That�s what I want!
He sponsored me for some eight years. We were involved in service together, we participated in the reviewing of our basic text translation project, attended recovery retreats, shared and cared with and for other addicts. I had earlier made a decision that whatever my sponsor would suggest I try, I would, else I would switch sponsors. I needed direction. I understood early on that I was pretty damned good at giving advice but that I was lousy at taking my own advice. So I would take his. If I couldn�t, I would replace him and select another.
A time came when he no longer had a sponsor. He had invested some considerable amount of money in a recovery house that failed. The recession hit and financial downfall ensued for him. His pride took a beating and he gradually withdrew. I would reach out to him but he was increasingly unavailable and unresponsive. I felt abandoned.
During this same period, I had been in a relationship with a woman I had met in our rooms. She had been there in the company of her brother who was a member. She however was not a substance abuser as we define them.
This relationship came following some three years of living on my own, living and working the program to the best of my ability, maintaining a relationship with my sponsor and taking it all one day at a time. Prayer and meditation were a part of my lifestyle as was regular meeting attendance and service commitments.
My sponsor had earlier advised me that if I wanted to enjoy a loving relationship, I had best bring my love home and filters my shit through him before considering bringing it home.
Less than six months later she had moved in with me. A few short weeks later, we discovered we were expecting a child. The first indication of a problem started when a yellow light flashed one evening as I came home and found her there in my bed. We weren�t yet living together and she had not checked with me before coming over. My roommate had let her in and I found a note on the coffee table letting me know she was there. Instead of expressing the truth, I merely said I was surprised. I really ought to have told her that I was not expecting to see her there and that I would appreciate she check with me before coming over as she had. Well, that set me up to run away with my disease. I began looking for instances in which she was not considering me before acting in manners that concerned me. I allowed her to move in with me following her subtle threats at possibly sabotaging our relationship. Her first �fit� of hysteria occurred the day she moved in. I had not so much as heard her swear before that day. I was baffled and confused. I spoke with my sponsor and tried to cope and understand as best I could one day at a time. She would blame her �moments� as being associated with her PMS, her hormonal imbalance, and what ever else she could come up with. Anyhow, as I said, we discovered we were expecting something like five weeks after she moved in. I was about to receive my three year cake in May of 89 and my resentment notebook was gradually filling up.
I would plead with her to stop and take responsibility for her outbursts as she would become denigrating toward me and our unborn child. I viewed this unexpected pregnancy as an opportunity to vindicate myself as a father because although I had made great strides in repairing my relationships with my boys from the time I was married, I had still not fully forgiven myself.
Following many in�s and out�s, I had finally had enough and came to understand that the thing I had long cried for in this relationship was the thing I gave none of to myself. Respect! I moved out in November of 1992 and spent the next several years fighting for my right�s as the father of our son, yes, I have three boys. We had built a new house, had a new car, a young child but I was not home. Shortly before I left, I was still involved in Fellowship service and what not, I was elected to co-chair our regional convention and that service commitment kept me rooted in our rooms. During this commitment, sensitive as I was to disrespectful outbursts, I became increasingly intolerant to the shit that goes on when spiritual principles are not being applied around me. I began to apply fewer and fewer of them myself while being ever so vigilant toward my responsibility as a trusted servant and control freak. It got so bad that threats of physical violence were made against me because I would not let go of issues regarding transparency, accountability and our responsibility to create a loving and welcoming environment. Controversy over our convention�s priorities: were we to be a large fund raising activity, a large celebration or a friendly gathering of recovering addicts. I have always felt that we ought not to allocate more to the activities sub-committee than we were prepared to allocate to the programming sub-committee. Currently our regional convention spends some thirty odd thousand dollars toward the activities sub-committee and something in the area of five hundred dollars on programming. Is it group conscience or popular opinion or yet again, the opinion of the popular? In my opinion, the activity has become a cesspool of disease promoting behavior designed to solicit much needed funds while promoting the disease. In any event, it got to a point where in 1995 I was strongly tempted to literally throw some in our service structure through the window. Fellowship money was being stolen; service contracts were being issued without consideration of bylaws or competitive bids etc. I had had enough! I pulled away feeling betrayed and ridiculed by the fellowship. I no longer felt understood by those involved in our service structure. Was I crazy? � Perhaps not! I was, however, very confused.
I knew the problem was not with my identity as an addict in need of a program. Where could I go? I needed to work some things out.
I had heard of program called ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families). I felt that my emotional state ought to be understood there at least. NA was still very young in my region at that time. I was already considered an old timer with nearly ten years of abstinence. And the people, including my then sponsor all seemed to tell me that my problem could be worked out with the Steps. I suspected there was more to it then that and that if such were the case, I needed someone who knew and could understand what I was experiencing and could help me work it through.
There, and as a result of the work I did with the Steps, I was able to recognize the toxic shame that I was experiencing. Much of it came for my grandfather and much of it came about as a direct result of my childhood and being raised to feel I was inconsequential and of no value as a loving human being unworthy of consideration or respect.
In ACOA however, I did not find the Fellowship or family I so dearly sought. I was not �home�. Still, feeling rejected by many NA, I further rejected myself by not immediately returning to our rooms. I stayed home, exercised, to the best of my ability, my duty as a father and parent whenever I was granted access and took life, one day at a time. I would attend an NA meeting every six to eight months when a friend would celebrate a clean date anniversary. I would attend fewer and fewer ACOA meetings but still, felt increasingly alone when Adam (my son) was not with me. I lived but for him. Come the fall of 2001, depressed and obsessed with the idea of suicide as a viable alternative to live as I was experiencing it, I desperately returned to our rooms. I refused to pass on to my children my suicide as part of their legacy.
God does work in mysterious ways. The day I returned, I met someone whom I had been previously involved with in service. She had since then relapsed and returned a few months before. She told me that in order to restore my sense of belonging, I needed to get re-involved in the Fellowship. Welcome people at the door, make coffee, clean up the rooms afterward, welcome the newcomer; all of this would re-establish my sense of belonging. I knew several people in the rooms yet there were so many who had been there for a few years that I did not know. I felt that I was skeptically viewed, by some but it did not matter. I was probably judging myself far more harshly than any of then ever could.
The next step was to get myself another sponsor. Who was �qualified� to sponsor me? Very few indeed! There was however one man who caught my eye. I had known him as a loud mouth through my earlier NA experience. He was not someone I liked terribly much but I had to admit that I missed the passion he seemed to exude. I also appreciated the way he spoke of his program and his chain of sponsorship. The way he claimed he was sponsored and sponsored others. He could have sponsored me much sooner had he said fewer stupidities than I. - He would stand there and profess to quote literature and say such nonsense as �it is strictly forbidden to work the Steps without a sponsor. I would literally burst out and call him on it saying �prove it�. He would simply laugh. I still do that from time to time when people claim to be quoting from our literature and obviously don�t know what they are saying. People are as a result quite leery before quoting our literature around me for fear of being shown to not know what they are talking about. I tend to say, when I speak as home group secretary �It is important to read our literature so as to not suffer the advice of those who don�t�. The thing is that I mean it as sound advice. The problem is that it is perceived as my trying to dictate how others should work their program and behave. My sponsor sometimes asks me if I would rather be right or be kind. Of course I would rather be right! What a question! Still I know what he is talking about. (all of this reminds me of my five year old grand daughter. I had sent her to her room for having thrown a bowl of pretzels at her older brother one Saturday morning at 9:30 AM. Well, she cried and pleaded not to go to bed. I told her �Well I know dear but I think you are tired and not being very nice right now. I think you need some sleep.� She would respond with tear filled eyes pleading� No grampa, please, I�m not tired and I want to be nice.� I would then say, �I know you want to be nice dear but you are not being very nice right now and I think you need to have a bit of a rest. You�ll have a chance to be nice later� � �No grampa, please, I want to be nice now!� God love her, she �wants to be nice� Do people have that problem back where you live? I have often had that problem growing up. I wanted to be nice and do the right thing. I just didn�t know H.O.W.
Over time, I maintained regular meeting attendance 3 times a week and things got increasingly better. Work, my son�s football, and my meetings filled my days and weeks. The bank for which I worked closed it�s IT center in early 2003 and I was once again out of work and time on my hands. Another job came shortly thereafter and six months later I was let go because I was not happy in that environment. I had just prayed the night before asking God to intervene and do something. The next day I was let go. � thank God!
I knew, from all of the therapy and psychological tests and profile analysis�s I had undergone that I was a writer and that I needed to get back to writing. I had stopped fairly early in my relationship with Adam�s mother. But, the passion was out of my life and I was stuck with writer�s block. But I am digressing.
There I was, once more out of a �job�.
An adjacent area needed an executive committee chair person. My sponsor was the vice-RCM and I had a sponsee as RCM. Ok, why not?
Shortly thereafter, my son�s football schedule was made available and low and bhold, he had practices three times a week with a game on Sunday�s. I resigned and was accused of abandoning the area service committee. I was told that I only had a son as a result of what the Fellowship had given me and that I owed the Fellowship more than I was giving. I told the members who said this to me to �Deal with it!�
Last fall, I stood in for our GSR at our area�s monthly service meeting and noted that several vacancies existed in both the executive committee and sub-committees. The only positions occupied that day were that of Executive chair and treasurer. No RCM, or vice, no secretary or vice. The vice chair was absent. Why not??
So I nominated myself as RCM to go to the next regional meeting and was duly elected. Another candidate lacking the prescribed clean time submitted his name as vice-RCM. Motions were made that the �guideline� be amended to permit his candidacy. I spoke against the motion to amend the �guideline� to accommodate any individual but, as my long term plan was to eliminate or at the very least provoke thought about restoring spiritual principles in lieu or stringent bylaws, spoke against the idea that we measure recovery or competency utilizing �clean time� as opposed to experience with and knowledge of the program as our basis for choosing our trusted servants. The motion carried and I was given a vice-RCM with which to serve and represent our area.
Prior to our attending our first executive committee meeting, I had a meeting with my vice-RCM with the aim of getting to know him and giving him the opportunity to know me. He knew of me, but did not know me. The first thing I asked him was what his view on our Seventh Tradition and out 10th Service Principle was with respect to traveling expenses. He strongly believed it was up to him and not NA to pay said expenses. Ok, I expressed my position on the matter and suggested he take some time to read the Seventh Tradition in it�s entirety and to consider it in the light of Tradition Twelve and the Tenth Service Principle. Once he had done that, I suggested he speak with his sponsor and others and then speak to me about it some more as he passionately disagreed with me.
Two weeks later, just prior to our area meeting, he told me he had considered and read as I had suggested and that he had changed his position on the question of traveling expenses. Cool, I thought! He has an open mind. That�s good.
At the same time he said this to me, he handed me a receipt for his gas for having gone to a meeting that had not been represented at the area for a few months.
Our guidelines stipulate that I am to go yet, being the holiday season, I had asked the executive committee if the decision to send me could be deferred to the next month. The committee agreed that my vice RCM go in my stead as he was so volunteering to do so.
The receipt he handed me was for some $38.00. A reasonable amount considering the number of kilometers he had to travel to go to the meeting in question. Yet, I knew it would be contested. Starting with our treasurer who flatly refused to pay (there was already a conflict between she and my vice RCM). I defended the claim citing Traditions and Service Principles. She rebuffed the claim alleging that my petty cash was to be used strictly for photocopies. The existing guidelines did not support her allegation. I proposed we defer the question so that we could both, the treasurer and I, prepare our arguments for the following Area meeting. The Area chair supported my request and reiterated my suggestion that members take the time to carefully read the cited referenced Traditions 7 and 12 as well as how they applied to the 10th Service Principle, to discuss it with their members and that the question would be raised the following month.
We attended the Regional meeting at which time a motion was presented by an ad hoc committee tasked with examining the question of traveling expenses. They were presenting three motions on the subject.
1. that the amount reimbursed for traveling expenses be reduced from .30 cents a kilometer to .20 cents.
2. that the guideline be amended to delete �upon request�
3. that the guideline be amended to delete �the lesser of� (as that item pertained to the reimbursement of a bus ticket or mileage an was sometimes exercised using the treasurer�s discretion. This way, it was dependent on that which was claimed.
How timely! During the weekend at the regional meeting, my vice-RCM wanted to submit a claim to the region for his mileage. Being as the Regional guideline states that the Region would pay for an RCM and vice-RCM in cases where and area could not, the regional treasurer refused to reimburse him because, as she justly put it, she did not have a request from the area to the extent that they �could not� pay. We had just made a $500.00 donation to the Region that very day.
He then asked me to sign a motion to the effect that our area �would not pay� and I refused stating that there was no such policy as of yet and that the question was still up in the air. Well, frustrated and angry, he threatened to hit me if I did not sign. Lol
�What? � You are threatening to hit me? � I think you need to go and reflect on what you are saying and we will discuss this later!� � I then proceeded to continue listening to what was being discussed at the table.
Come break time, I confronted him and asked him what all of that was about. At first he started apologizing and what not, swearing that he admired me and that he would never hit me but that he was so frustrated and in dire financial stress that he simply felt so angry. I then lovingly suggested that perhaps he needed to pull away from some of his service commitments and that I would not suffer alongside of him with his insufferable behavior. I also advised him that as a result of what I had seen and heard of him so far, I was seriously considering requesting his resignation when I returned home. (I did just that! Although he gave it before the question ever came to a vote. He sent me an email and left two messages on my machine blasting me and everyone else in the Fellowship accusing us of being stubborn old control freaks that thought we knew it all and that we were all full of shit and that we didn�t care for the newcomer etc�.)
Come the next Area meeting, as the question of our Area�s traveling expenses come to the table, one group rep stands to state that his group proposes that if the area pays traveling expenses, they would no longer make donations to the area. Another young GSR, uncomfortably stands to state that his group conscience proposes that whomsoever submits a claim for traveling expenses be resigned from his post.. lol � oh my, such a loving environment � so spiritual, don�t you think?
The question of my traveling expenses has not yet been fully exposed at the Area by either me or the treasurer and already, the threats are coming out. Still, I expose the reports I intended to in order to support my claim as well as the motions to be voted on at the next regional meeting. (I should add that the motions from the regional meeting were only being brought back to the area at my insistence because the regional debate was going around in circles .30 cents, .25 cents, .15 cents. Ultimately, the ad hoc committee put forward the motion of .20 cents to be voted on at the next Regional meeting along with the other stated motions from their report).
Controversy was running rampant. Accusations of trusted servants seeking to be paid for serving the fellowship were being brandished. Rejection was being offered from some long standing members. Impertinent use of the principle of unity was being held up as justification for not applying or violating other spiritual principles. Members saw no relevance to any of my arguments of applying the principle of anonymity or of self sufficiency or even ensuring our freedom. Nothing was getting across.
Anyhow, they had three regional motions to discuss at their groups and I had the hope that members would clue into the fact that what I was claiming was justified as I still had a motion on the table that we be reimbursed for our justifiable and reasonable expenses incurred as a result of a mandated service.
I missed the following months Executive committee meeting as I had a 23 year cake to present to one of my sponsees. None the less, I stopped off at the meeting early to leave them a copy of the report I intended to submit at March�s Area meeting.
I later learn that the Executive committee is presenting a motion stating clearly that the area not pay for any travel expenses. This is brought forth to �clarify the position of the area and avoid future
controversy.�
I learned this motion was being presented several days before the area meeting and was left with a decision to make. Our Area�s annual elections are held the first Sunday of March and being as the elections are held before the regular Area meeting, I needed to decide if I would attempt to renew my mandate or not. If I chose to renew
it, I could not, in good conscience do so as a condition of my expenses being reimbursed. Then again, I had difficulty with the idea that I resign should my motion to reimburse not pass.
I amended my report to clearly state that I would neither seek nor accept nomination for the position of RCM for another mandate.
Following the elections in which most positions (including mine) were filled, my report was presented and the votes concerning the Regional motions were gathered. Every group except the two in which I am involved (not all groups discussed the questions or referred then to their groups because, as they said, �we didn�t know we had to�. Anyway, of the groups that voted on the Regional motions, two voted in support of the motions and seven voted against yet, not one of them brought forth a motion that the Regional guidelines regarding traveling expenses be abolished. �
principles before personalities??
On the question of the executive committee motion to not reimburse traveling expenses for area reps, the question had to be referred to the groups and was to be voted on at the April Area meeting. Once more, two groups were against the motion submitted by the area to not pay and all others were in favor. So, the Areas guidelines are now clearly in violation of Tradition Seven (as well as many others)
At the Region, all motions brought fourth in my February report were adopted with our area being the only to vote against all three. � go figure?
Perhaps I misrepresented the questions. No, that can�t be it as I copied them word for word.
One group rep, who was the area chair until the moment he resigned the day I was elected, stood earlier during the election process to make a mockery of the guidelines in putting forth his personal nomination for the position of Vice RCM (do you suppose he was resentful at the election of the vice chair I had been assigned a few months before? Anyway, he wasn�t elected as he broke with the guidelines that stipulate that he an officer could not occupy another position for six months following his resignation or dismissal. Anyhow, during the round table open discussion portion of the meeting held toward the close of the Area meeting, he stood and flatly stated �I seriously doubt that the Region reimburses for traveling expenses for RCM�s. � it was at that point that I blew up and plainly told him to �shut the fuck up. You have no idea what the hell you are talking about�. The meeting was ended at that point. I got not hugs (although a few members had earlier thanked me for the quality of my reports stating that they did not recall seeing such wonderful reports filled with valuable information.) I received a restrained applause.
I left that area meeting, went home and called my sponsor. I was livid.
He merely suggested I was not ready to serve at the area level and that I could perhaps better serve the fellowship at the Regional or World level or that, I could possibly better serve the Fellowship by translating documents that inform them of this program and it�s Spiritual Principles. I agree.
I am translating, as you know, Traditions War: A Pathway to Peace, into French. Others I know are doing the same with the NA Way Of Life book and have since been in regular contact with Bo and others involved with / in
NAWOL.
So, what does all of this have to do with my childhood? Well, it�s simple really. I need and seek God as may be expressed in Good Orderly Direction in my life. I need Narcotics Anonymous as I have nowhere else to go. My life depends on it. I need you but only in so much as you seek to practice these principles in all your affairs.
Thank you for taking the time to read me. Now, please tell me more about what brought you here and why you stay.
I am also attaching something I wrote many years ago in order to reinforce where I came from.
Hugs,
Boe
The Spirit of Writing
(A Healing Process)
While still in the healing process following a decade that consisted of a marriage and divorce coupled with the deaths of my daughter and step-daughter the God of my understanding opened some doors for me that allowed me to go to OCNA XIX in July 1991 to participate in a workshop on dealing with Grief in Recovery.
While at the convention another door was opened when I was given the privilege of meeting Roy Drum (now deceased) from PA. Having seen archives of our history I recognized the name and knew a little about his involvement with the writing of our Basic Text. His name appears on all of the attendance sheets for the workshops that produced our Basic Text and his story (Why Me, Why Not ME) can be found in Chapter 19 our Basic Text, 3rd Edition.
Over the course of the weekend I was given several opportunities to converse with Roy and on one of these occasions he told me about an NA meeting in Youngstown, Ohio that was a writing meeting. He went on to explain the meeting format to me.
At the beginning of the meeting, the chairperson names a topic and then for the next 15 minutes everyone present writes down whatever there thoughts on the topic may be and then they go around the room and everyone reads what they wrote. Next, if time permits they will discuss what was read and at the end of the meeting everyone is given the opportunity to either submit their writings of not. Submitted writings are then forwarded to another writing group to add to their stockpile of topics or directly to World Services to add to their archives of future Lit. material. From talking to Roy I was left with the impression that some of the material became our Basic Text was generated in this matter.
I have since come to believe that the true Spirit of N.A. can be found in the writings of Addicts in Recovery as they travel along this journey called Life. Our Experience, Strength and Hope are reflected our testimonials and what we write down leaving behind a legacy of recovery that will continue to carry the massage to addicts not yet born long after our individual demise.
While I am still on the topic of writing, I am reminded of another one of our members, Greg Pierce (also deceased) who wrote a good part of our Basic Text. About two years prior to his death I was allowed the privilege of hearing him speak a t Western State�s Learning Day in Portland, OR. One of the things that stand out the most in my mind today is how much he stressed the importance of committing our Recovery Journey to Paper so that our legacy as a Recovering Addict may live on long after we are gone still carrying a message of hope that no addict, anywhere, need die from the horrors of addiction.
Lester O.
Meditation is the science of God Consciousness, God Realization. It is the most practical science that exists in the world today. Most people would want to meditate if they understood its value and experienced its beneficial effects. The ultimate object of meditation is to improve one�s conscious awareness of God and to improve the connection of the meditators� spirit with the reality of the God of their own understanding.
Here are the simple instructions for meditation;
Sit with a straight spine on a chair or cross-legged on a firm surface. With eyes closed, gently focus your gaze and concentrate your attention at the point between your eyebrows. This is the seat of concentration, and of the spiritual �third eye�, or divine perception in the human being. With the attention fixed at this center of calmness and concentration, practice the meditation you have chosen. Meditate until you feel that the concept on which you are meditating has become a part of your own consciousness.
This process showers on the person meditating the infinite amount of Peace of Mind, Power and Wisdom that comes from God.
Meditation uses concentration in it�s highest form. Concentration consists of freeing the mind�s attention from all distractions and focusing the power of the mind on any thought on which the individual might be interested in. Meditation is the special, highest form of concentration in which the attention of the mental stream has been liberated from all restlessness and is focused ONLY on the God of our understanding. Therefore one can say that Meditation is concentration utilized to get to know God.
In response to our love for Him, God manifest himself in various forms like truth, all the divine qualities that are present in every human being, in the creative power and beauty present in nature, and in the spirit of every human being. Therefore meditation on any of these concepts can bring to the meditator a deep awareness and direct knowledge of God as we understand him.
- Joe M., Miami, Florida
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, I
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 keepme 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. As we say in NA; "Bring your ass and
your brains will follow! By the time I hit my 3rd treatment
center in the fall of 1981, I was willing to try just about 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 for
you. For me, 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 maybe 8 meetings in the
entire State. God delivered a meeting to me the 1st night I was
allowed out 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 recovery. 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 will 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.
I learned that if it did not work out the way I wanted, it was because God had a
much better plan in store for me. After years of repeating this simple
prayer, it finally dawned on me� 'If God is for me', why am I against me?
Today, 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 mar 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, you can be serene or you can
be right. Which is it going to be?"
One of the
spiritual principles that guide me today is the principle of
"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 3 years clean, my
ex-wife called me in crisis. She needed to go to treatment; could I take
our son back? When God brought another woman in my life and I had all I
needed to raise my son, 5 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
marriage. "God, thy will be done for her as well as for us, take our
relationship and let it be 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. 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 11th year clean, I prayed a lot 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� lap after lap after lap.
I learned my
biggest lesson about finances during that period. A fellow addict pointed
something out to me that has since changed my life. "You know what
your problem is?" He said to me. "Your problem is that you
are running your life and your 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' 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. I would do shows to sell my wares.
I would watch everyone 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 that 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 it would make the whole trip worthwhile. Today I tell sponsees;
"I know that you don't feel that there is someone special out there but, if
there is abundance 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 than enough for
everyone, including you."
I took a prayer
from the introduction of our Basic Text and made it my own; "God
relieve of 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 knowledge of
your will for us and the power to carry that out; 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 of empathy) and so 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 an
N.A. meeting or function. By saing this simple prayer for several years
now, I hve 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 form 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, that 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 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 around 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 with the rhythm. 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 our lives 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 to 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
key tag, I had a key for my new car to put on it, wow!
An attitude of
gratitude goes a very long way. Gratitude and self-pitty 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 good things, I will cherish 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 and
not mine. Today I understand that God has 5 answers; "1. Yes.
2. No. 3. Wait. 4. You have got to be kidding� and � 5. If you
must!"
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 10 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 older member 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 is better then any plan you could
ever dream of!"
She heard me
share on the 12th step at a retreat and asked if she could call me
some time? You've been divorced for 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 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 her town and I shared that with my sponsee
of 15 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 10 years and we are still
deeply in love with each other. Once again, God had it already taken care
of for us.
Had I not left
that sick dieing life I was trying so desperately to hang on to 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 your in the right
relationship, we are not marriage counselors in N.A.
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 you have to loose but a
moment of embarrassment and maybe a brief feeling of rejection or uncomfortably?
What do you have to gain? Who knows, the skies the limit in N.A.
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
there short comings. I just sit and stew over what I have judged as
inadequate in others. What 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
defects that I don't like, our relationship has deepened immensely. When I
let go of judging, I find I have a lot more time to cuddle and be close to her.
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 then and not good enough for this world. A woman in 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 and Narcotics Anonymous.
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 then, all the time. This is one of the
greatest gifts that 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 form our self-made prisons." Today I understand that my
addiction consists of obsession, compulsion and self-centeredness. It is
the negative voices 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 that
I lived with all my life. 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 our over your trusted servants. This is our prayer whenever we
travel for N.A. My wife and I hold hands on the airplane or in the car
before we head out on the road for another recovery adventure. I have
lived an incredible life and I know that my time on this earth was of some good
purpose after all. I could not have said this before I came to N.A.
When your going nowhere, any road will take you! Before I found N.A., 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.
Than you for helping us deal with our powerlessness over our addiction and
helping us in our search for serenity. Than you for everything you've
given us, everything you've taken from us and everything you have 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 the world around us.
In loving
service,
A deeply grateful member of Narcotics Anonymous
persons have visited this page since September 3, 2006
Reprinted from the
N.A. FELLOWSHIP USE ONLY
Copyright � December 1998
Victor Hugo Sewell, Jr.
N.A. Foundation Group
1516 B Live Oak Drive
Tallahassee, Florida 32301
[email protected]
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.
Last update March 27, 2007