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From:
Category: Category 1
Date: 13 Jan 2000
Time: 23:39:27
Remote Name: r-81.109.alltel.net
I was speaking at a history workshop, last week. I shared about what it was like in NA in the early 80's. Of course, to me, that wasn't that far off. After I finished my talk, I realized that there were a lot of things I used to talk about that I no longer share in my story. Today I talk primarily about the steps. I decided, on the ride home, to share with the fellowship about the early days for me. The period has fondly come to be known as "the purist movement".
I landed in my third treatment center on September 5th, 1981. It was there that I went to my first NA meeting and heard the message of recovery from the disease of addiction. Actually what i "heard" was that we were powerless over drugs and when we used them our lives became unmanageable.
The members of NA back then were going to one or two NA meetings a week and going to AA on nights when there was no NA. Our recovery was based on AA's focus of powerless-ness over alcohol (the symptom). We were instructed, by well meaning AA members, to change the word "alcohol" to the word "drugs". So that's what we did.
When I had four months clean, my drug councilor gave me and my running partner a starter kit for AA and said why don't you go start one of those meetings. So we did. It was more group therapy than 12 steps and I was the therapist, of course. I was the old timer. My buddy had the most clean time but he wasn't the talkative type.
I moved across the state when I had one year clean and began to go to local meetings. There was one meeting about 8 minutes from my house. It was called "junks and drunks". We were still substance oriented, back then. We started a second meeting on Wednesday nights at the same location. On Tuesday nights we sometimes drove to the beach, about forty minutes away. A Thursday night meeting had started in a treatment center forty-five minutes in the other direction. Friday night we met back at the beach.
On Saturday, we all went over the river to the area next door. Sunday was meeting in that area as well, at the hospital I worked in. This was the norm in NA, driving between thirty minutes to an hour for a meeting. We knew no other way. I was asked to speak at a meeting on a Wednesday night. The meeting was three hours away. We packed up the car with addicts and went, then turned around and drove home that same night.
We did know an easier, softer way. This was to go to the AA meetings. I went to the AA club house most every day at noon. I was working the evening shift at the treatment center and we had no noon NA meetings yet. I had just picked up my two year gold coin in AA and knew all their readings by heart. I never committed to serve in any capacity. For some reason it didn't seem right, alcohol was not my drug of choice. I was never asked to chair and that didn't seem to be a problem either. I was doing my service at the treatment center, with my sponsees, and at the NA meetings.
I got a call from my friend Larry. He was the guy that first taught me about NA service. He had called me a year before, when I lived across state, and had let me know what area service we were in. He suggested that we elected a group service representative. So I elected myself GSR. I was doing everything else. I was the PI committee, the H and I committee, the Literature Committee and the phone line was at my house. No ego here. I was also chairman of the GI committee... guilt and intimidation. It was my favorite position.
In February of 1982, Larry called and said that he was going to a convention and asked if I would like to go. I said,"Great, where is it?" And he said Georgia. Georgia! I proclaimed. And then, as I had with almost everything Larry suggested to me, I said, "OK." I knew, from passed experience, that wherever Larry went there would be a lot of great new NA friends and that we would be taken care of in style.
A group of us got together at a central location in the middle of the state and waited for Larry. He used to drive this beat up old grey van and wherever it went, it was chuck full of newcomers. Whenever he pulled up and opened the door, they would all come tumbling out like the clowns stuffed into the little Volkswagen at the circus. Larry's life was dedicated to carrying the message to the addict who still suffered. We called him "the old man" due to his older age (40 something) and his 9 plus years in NA . . . that was forever.
Larry showed up very late and at midnight we took off for our 9 hour drive to Atlanta. It was a harrowing drive, since Larry's steering wheel could be turned half way round and you would still be going straight down the road. Being a northerner and driving this unsafe vehicle into the deep south, in a rain storm, at 2 in the morning, was an act of sheer faith for me.
We arrived early in the morning on Friday and were too excited to go to sleep. It seemed that Larry knew all the movers and shakers in NA and proceeded to introduce us to them all. We met Bo from Atlanta, who was spearheading the World Literature Committees work on something called the Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous. They had approval copies all over the place and everyone was reading it and talking it up.
I went to the opening meeting that night and a guy from Michigan got up and said, I don't know about much but I heard "work the Steps or die mother f+++er. Wow! I thought, nobody at home talks about the Steps. Of course, they didn't work the Steps, I didn't work the Steps and a lot of them looked up to me. They did what I did, talk good stuff about powerless-ness, acceptance and surrender but nothing about Steps. We really didn't have much on the Steps in NA back then. At the time, Step 3 was real cool.
The next thing that struck me was a guy from Georgia who got up and said,"What really excites me is that this is an NA convention with NA speakers", and the crowd applauded thunderously. This was a novel idea in Narcotics Anonymous in the early 80's. Most of our oldtimers, back then, had surrendered in AA or were going to both fellowships. We had no identity of our own. Maybe that's why we had so few meetings back then. Why go to the hassle of starting another meeting when there are plenty of good AA meetings everyday.
That was the other thing I was hearing about at GRSNA II, making a commitment to only go to NA meetings. I remember the Friday night speaker talking about letting the his local AA fellowship know that once they got seven meetings of NA a week, they wouldn't see him at there f+++in doorstep. There was something attractive about that radical stuff but "better safe than scary" was always my motto. I feared rejection something terrible, being a life long people pleaser.
The next thanksgiving, I went to the volunteer regional convention in Nashville, Tennessee. Larry met me there and introduced me to the local NA's. I remember thinking back to the convention in Georgia and how cool it was to see people speaking at the microphones. So, every chance I got, I would raise my hand and go to the podium to share my words of wisdom. I remember debating with the world "H and I" Chair and we didn't even have an "H and I" meeting were I lived.
On Sunday afternoon, when the convention was all but over, I was talking with this guy from Memphis named Joseph. He was a friend of Larry's and so he was family to me. He said,"You know, you must of spoken on everyone of those tapes." I was not thrilled with this guy, right from the start. Who the hell did he think he was, anyway.
He went on to say,"I heard you identifying yourself as clean and sober." I said,"Yeah, clean from drugs and emotionally and spiritually sober." He said,"You know, I looked up the dictionary definition of the word sober and it means somber, serious, moderate and not drunk and I cant afford to limit my recovery in those terms."
He then went further to say,"I looked up the dictionary definition of the word clean and it means free from dirt and diseases and when I came in to NA, I was a dirty and diseased guy. I go to na, not only to become physically clean from drugs, but to become spiritually clean, emotionally clean, clean in the way that I deal with the world."
"Were do you find your recovery," he asked? "Well, I go to the NA meetings I can get to but I work evenings at the treatment center so I go to the noon AA meetings during the day." He said,"All my life I never made a commitment anywhere, I never stuck it out. If I didn't like this girl, I had another across town. If I didn't like this group of friends I'd hang out with another. If I didn't like this school, I'd get my parents to move me to another. I never made a commitment anywhere. You need to make a commitment somewhere and stick it out, and when the service arguments get tough, you can't take your ball and go home."
If they needed someone to chair the aa meeting on tuesday would you be missed, he asked? No, I said, they have hundreds of people there. If they needed a speaker at the na meeting would your absence be noticed? Well of course, there's only a dozen of us. You need to make a commitment, he said, one or the other. I don't care which one. And when the going gets tough, you need to stick it out and grow up. It was then that I said, well thanks for sharing buddy and quickly got away from that creep.
I remember going to a local meeting that night and complaining about that guy. I got several giggles from the local members. Apparently, he had been sharing the same way with a bunch of them, and they were just as impressed as I.
I got back to my home area on monday night and the next day, guess where I was? In my usual seat at the noon aa meeting. Tell me I cant go somewhere for my recovery, hah! I just picked up my two year gold coin.
It was my turn to share on the topic of humility. I identified myself, as a drug addict, and shared on the topic. I never talked much about my using, as it wasn't consistent with aa's first step and I felt it would be disrespectful.
As the meeting ended, an old drunk walked up to me and said; we don't talk about drugs in here and then walked out. I sat there flabbergasted. Why, I hadn't talked about drugs at all, I merely identified myself as a "drug" addict. I was still holding onto the chemicals.
Well! The next day, guess where I was, right back in my same seat. Tell me I cant be here, hah! As I sat in that meeting a quiet voice came into my head. It said; what are you doing here? And I thought; resentment! Is that any reason to attend a 12 step fellowship, the voice asked? And I knew the answer to that one. So I got up and left the meeting. I made the commitment to only go to na that day and I haven't looked back since.
The next time I saw that jerk from memphis, I asked him to be my sponsor. I wanted what he had to offer. He talked to me about integrity and putting your money were your mouth is. He spoke the truth to me