NA Twenty Plus  

(click on titles to view) 

By

NA Members from All Over

“Let our clean time tell our story…”

copyright © 2007 
Victor Hugo Sewell, Jr.

NA Foundation Group
521 W. Bay Street #12
Jacksonville, Florida 32202

www.nawol.org
nawol@nawol.org

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

Table of Contents

 Preface

Introduction

Stories: 

Chip A.
Marietta, Georgia USA  

Lester O.
Titusville, Florida USA

Angel
Papago Reservation - Tucson, Arizona USA

Marie F. 
Florida Keys USA

 Marc B.
Hagerstown, Maryland USA

 Gary Homan Story  
Houston, Texas USA

Bob B.
Los Angeles, California USA

Gene H.
Portland, Oregon USA

Kermit O.
Ruckersville, Virginia USA

David D.
Appleton, Wisconsin USA

Appendices

 Preface

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

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

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

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

Introduction

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

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

In Loving Service,

Bo S.   

Chip A.

Marietta, Georgia USA

An Only Child

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recovery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lester’s Story

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

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

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

Next Miracle:

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

My Recovery:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lester O.

Feb. 17^th 2008

Angel

Papago Reservation - Tucson, Arizona USA  

Beer for a baby

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

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


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

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

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

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

A teen heroin addict

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

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

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

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

A helping hand

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

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

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

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

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

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

Angel turns the corner

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

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

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

What ex-addicts have to offer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marc B.
Hagerstown, MD, USA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gary Homan Story
Houston, Texas USA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love Always,

Gary H.  9.21.74

Bob B.
Los Angeles, California – 45 years

My name is Bob and I’m an addict.

Hey Bob. (Audience)

(Bob sighs.)

Best I can say right now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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