Audio
Transcript
Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 899 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: david-w-learning-how-to-live-nasac-2004.mp3 Duration: 00:21:08
============================================================
I'm an addict. My name is David. Hey, family. Feels good to be clean, man. Feels good to be in South Africa. Feels good to be at an N.A. convention. Just feels good to see so many people here tonight. This makes me feel good. I am truly grateful and honored to the convention planning committee for inviting me to be here. I'm especially grateful and indebted to maybe one of, certainly one of my best friends, if not the best friend that I have in the world, Graham, for asking me to speak here tonight. I've been here before. Some of you know that. And each time I come back, he always tells me how happy he is to see me. And then he asks me the question, how long will I be here?
And I can truly tell that he's sincere when he asks that question and that he hopes that I'm here this time for a long time because I've told him more than once that one day I hope to be able to move to Durban and live here because I love it that much. So I just love you so much, man, and I'm grateful for this opportunity. And I'm especially grateful to Alex, David, and Leanne. They've kind of helped to make me a little less nervous. This is not, I mean, I've had a chance to speak before. I've been clean for a long time, so I've spoken a couple times before. But each time I'm always nervous. That never, ever changes.
For me, however, I think it's a bit of a good thing. I think that if I was up here and I wasn't nervous, then you all would have something to worry about. But the reality is that I've prayed several times today, and the prayer has always been the same. I've said, please, God, let me do your will while I'm up here and not my will. This ain't about sounding good. This ain't about looking good. This ain't about being special. Because the reality is that any of you could be up here. This is about the reality that I have a major responsibility as a result of being a member of this fellowship for a long time.
So I'm up here just trying to share with you all the many blessings that God has given me and how a day at a time I'm learning to live the Narcotics Anonymous way. So that's what this is about. If I could, I just want to say a small prayer again, just to kind of get centered, just a moment of silence. The reality is that I'm cleaned by God's grace, and I know that. So I just want to thank God for leading me to NA and thank NA for introducing me to a God that I am truly grateful to have in my life and a God that I understand.
And when I was sitting here thinking about the topic and hearing the other speakers share, I realized that I didn't come to Narcotics Anonymous to learn how to live. I don't know if any of you came here to learn how to live. I just came here because I didn't want to hurt anyone. And it was as a result of being a member of this fellowship that I learned that one of the key responsibilities was learning how to live. In the beginning, I came and I didn't use and I continued to practice all the same behaviors that I had before I got here.
I was clean on the outside, but I was struggling on the inside. And my sponsor used to call it, he used to tell me, David, the fix in recovery comes from the inside. He used to call it an inside fix for outside job. I didn't understand what that meant. I figured as long as I wasn't using, that everything would be okay. I was one of those kind of recovering addicts that figured that I could continue doing all the same things that I was doing before I got here and just by osmosis. Now, if I just kept showing up, then eventually all my negative behaviors would go away. Unfortunately for me, what happened was that my negative behaviors actually got worse. My behaviors in early recovery were worse than what they were when I was out there on the streets.
I had a painful experience in this program when I had about six years clean. I had been involved in every level of service that you could be involved in. There were a lot of things that I was doing right. For example, there's a suggestion in my home group or in my home area where we suggest that people get to meetings 15 minutes early and help set up and stay 15 minutes late and help clean up. That way you could kind of feel like you're a part of the fellowship and not just hanging out in the fellowship. I always got to the meetings early. I used to actually like setting up the meeting room. That was something that I became extremely good at.
At the end of the meeting, a lot like Dave talked about, I would hang around after the meeting, hug newcomers and tell them how much I loved them and give them my phone number and tell them to keep coming back because that's what folk did for me when I got here.
[00:05:03]
I was taught early on that if I wanted to stay here, I needed to be involved in the fellowship. I just couldn't hang out. So that was something that I did early in recovery and it's just been a practice of mine ever since. One of the things that I dislike the most is showing up to meetings late or showing up to meetings with not enough time to help set up. I'm real big into just help being involved in the early part of the meeting. That's important to me.
I just kept coming, kept coming, but my behaviors, many of them, just kept being the same. When I had six years clean, I had this real bad experience. Some of my friends came to me and told me that they thought that I needed to go on treatment because they thought I was going to use. And that was a frightening feeling. So they talked me into going into this treatment program when I had six years clean. It was a relapse prevention program way up in this state called Minnesota that was cold all the time.
And I got there and I learned that I was actually in a psych hospital and I didn't feel real good about that. I was there for 42 days and the doctors told me that if I didn't change my behaviors, the chances are that I would use again. And that frightened me, because I had seen people who had been clean for a long time who used. And so something happened and then my life just began to change. I started to understand that if I didn't change, that my clean date would change, and that I couldn't continue these negative self-destructive behaviors and be an effective member of Narcotics Anonymous.
Plus, I was going to miss out on all the many wonderful blessings that all my other friends in recovery seemed to be having. And so it was at that time that I started going through the steps with my sponsor. That was an experience that just completely changed my life. For the first time in my whole life, at least I started to find out who I was and what I was about, because I never really knew. And I came to realize that part of the reason why I was afraid to change was because I didn't know what it was I was going to change into.
And I used to hear people talk about God all the time and talk about being spiritual, and that stuff actually frightened me. I was afraid that I would turn into one of those kind of brothers you see standing on the corner in a hot sun, in a polyester suit and a Bible, talking about Jesus all the time. And that's what I associated spirituality with, and I was afraid that that's—I knew for sure that's not what I wanted to be.
So I struggled, but he taught me that—the steps taught me that I could learn to become spiritual without being religious, that I could learn to become self-reliant. That I could become selfless, that I didn't have to be selfish anymore. That I could actually be somebody, that I could be a child of God and have fun in recovery. I was also afraid that I wouldn't have fun in recovery. I learned that I could have fun in recovery, and so my life began to get a lot better.
The reality is that since that time in my recovery, I've experienced almost nothing other than blessings. As a result of surrendering, making a conscious decision to change, following some simple suggestions, and learning how to practice these principles. I hear people talk about working the steps a lot, and I'm one of those kind of people who— I don't always understand the steps, but I believe I understand most of our principles.
I know how to stop and step back and think about the steps. I know what it is I'm going to say to somebody before I say it. Because I used to be one of those kind of people who wouldn't think about what it was I was going to say to you. I would just say the first thing that came out of my mouth. And today I understand that particularly in Narcotics Anonymous, there appears to be a lot of sensitive people.
So I have to—I mean, this is learning how to live. And so wrapped up in the David, it didn't matter how I would make you feel or how you would feel as a result of what I say. And today I'm really conscious about how I interact with people. We had this wonderful saying in my home group where—in my home group, you'll oftentimes get a hug from a member who at the same time will whisper in your ear, how long is your eight-step list?
See, we believe that you can tell how good we're doing in our recovery today by the length of our eight-step list. We believe that the more often, a little like Leanne said, the more often we take the first part of the 10th step, the more often we take inventory, the less often we have to do what? Take the second part of the 10th step. And if I'm not taking the second part of the 10th step, then my eight-step list is like this.
You can tell where I'm at in my recovery.
[00:10:03]
I mean, I've been around for a long time. You learn a lot of tricks in this program. But if you really want to know where I'm at in my recovery, all you got to do is take a peek at my eight-step list. It'll tell you. If there's a whole bunch of folks on there, that means that chances are I'm doing David's will and not God's will. And you say, how long is your eight-step list? And you say, short. They say, yeah, job well done.
And some days we have to say my eight-step list is long. So that's what I mean when I say learning how to practice these principles. Because the reality is that I knew very little, but I was afraid to let you know that I knew very little. So I pretended like I knew everything about everybody, particularly when I was in my home group or around my home area. And the reality is today I'm learning that through humility we learn teachability.
And it's through coping to the fact that I don't know everything today that I become teachable. It's important in this program, to me it is anyway, it's important that I remain teachable. I mean, I come to meetings and I sit up front and I listen and I know that my higher power speaks to me through members of this fellowship, so I have to be open-minded. I have to be willing to learn from new members, just like I have to be willing to learn from members who have been around for a long time.
Those things are important to me today. My recovery, the reality is that learning how to live, for me, a more appropriate phrase might be enjoying living the principles of this program, because I'm enjoying my life today. I mean, I'm not taking life real serious today. I'm doing my principles as best as I can today. I ain't trying to be perfect, especially after learning that the program itself is, what, imperfect.
To me, insanity is trying to be perfect in an imperfect program. So not being perfect is okay for me today. Not having, you know, more service positions that I can handle today is important to me. I was taught, I'm old school, I learned that you have one home group, one sponsor, one service commitment at a time. That's what I learned early in recovery, with the exception of the fact that I have two home groups.
I've got a home group in Atlanta, Georgia and one here in Durban, if that's okay. I mean, other than that, I'm doing pretty good. Most of the time I don't overwork myself. I don't have to do everything. I used to believe, I was one of those kind of members in my area who I used to believe that I had to do everything. And today I know all I have to do is my part. And if I just do my part and be okay with that and surrender, I know the higher power is going to continue to provide, continue.
The higher power has been providing all along. In one lifetime, think about this for a moment, God has offered me two chances to live. That in and of itself is enough of a blessing for me to be truly grateful for the rest of my life. And I mean that. The last time I used was on a Tuesday night, July 17, 1984. There were three of us. And that night we shared one set of works, syringes, between the three of us.
And in June of 1991, one of those brothers, who happened to be my nephew and the best friend I had ever had, died from complications due to AIDS. We all shared the same syringe that night. The other brother, there was three of us, is doing 25 years to life today. And me, I'm neither HIV positive nor am I in prison. So see, I just got so much to be grateful for. And when I put my recovery in that perspective, when I think about that last time I used and compare me today to that experience, and that's all compare me to today.
I don't compare me to nobody else in N.A. Whenever I put my recovery in that perspective, I just smile because I'm thinking, look here, God, I could be dead, I could be locked up, but I'm neither one. I'm here. And guess what else? I'm more than just here. I'm in South Africa, and what I believe to be one
[00:15:04]
of the greatest countries in the world, at least one of the greatest countries I've ever experienced, participating, speaking at an N.A. convention. Who would have ever thought, certainly not me, if you had asked me in the beginning to write down all the blessings that I wanted in my recovery process, I wouldn't have had the ability to include this experience. And though I know that this is a day-at-a-time program, I do want to tell you this, that while I'm a little selfish and a bit arrogant, because I've already claimed tomorrow, and see, that to me is arrogant, because I know that God owns tomorrow, and for me to think that tomorrow's mine is just a bit arrogant, but I'm going to be a little selfish here just for a moment. I've already prepared my dialogue for all my friends when I get home. I can't wait to tell them. Think about it, man. This is, I mean, you may not, you may not, I mean, maybe it might, I might be asking too much to ask you all to understand how important this is to me, how much this means to me. I mean, how good it feels to be here at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. I've been here before. I sit here tonight and I see all these people, and I had a conversation earlier with Dennis, and I've spoken to Graham about this. I remember when the Fellowship in Durban was that big, and we met in a little bitty room, and for me to be here at a convention sharing my experience, strengths, and hopes just makes me feel so good. I love this Fellowship. I'm not confused about where I would be if it weren't for N.A. I know I'd be dead or in prison, but the reality is that I'm neither.
I'm here tonight trying as best as I can to please the higher power to spare my life, and that's what this is about for me. It ain't about being on a religious zeal. This ain't got nothing to do with religion, but I know that God is involved in my recovery, and the reason why I know that is because I promised myself one day when I was shooting some heroin, I said, one day I'm going to quit, and I quit one time for about two hours, and then when I found Narcotics Anonymous, a day went by, and then a week went by, and then a month went by, and I was like, yo, I ain't stupid enough to believe that I have anything to do with this. I know that that kind of blessing, and believe you me, the fact that I've been able to put a lot of 24 hours in a row as a blessing that comes only by the grace of a power greater than myself, and so I just want to make sure that you know that I know how important the higher power is in my daily recovery, and so, yeah, learning how to live.
This is what it's about. It's about being okay with who I am today, not being caught up with believing that I have to dress up the outsides in order to impress you or impress myself. Remember I told you S. taught me, my sponsor taught me, Ray taught me that recovery was an inside fix for an outside job, and I'm one of those kind of recovery addicts that I asked Graham and Anthony, and I couldn't really tell if Anthony was serious or joking in his response. I said, do I need to go change clothes to speak up here tonight?
Because where I'm from, people actually dress up to come do this, and I didn't know if that was the case here or not, but again, it's just an outside fix, because the reality is that it doesn't matter what I got on the outside. What's important is how I feel on the inside, and as a result of all the smiles I see on your faces out there, I feel good. I feel good about me. I feel good about our fellowship. I feel good about my relationship with the high power. I feel good about my relationship with my good friend Graham. I feel good about my relationships that I have with you all, and those are the kind of things that are important to me today.
Now, if you really want to know how well I'm doing in my recovery today, you won't be able to tell by how big my house is or how many letters I got behind my name, even though those things used to be important wants and needs. In the 11th Step, it teaches us that when we forget where our real strength lies, that we're subject to return to the same thinking and patterns that got us through the program in the first place, and I used to be like that. I will tell you the truth. I used to think that you could tell how good I was doing
[00:20:02]
by how shiny my car was, how expensive my clothes were, and how much jewelry I had on my neck. That's how vain I was, but the reality is that I didn't use, and I kept coming back, and they used to pat me on my back and say, whatever you do, Dave, just keep coming back. You're going to get it at some point. You're going to learn that this ain't about outside fixes. It's about an inside fixer. I'm grateful to be here. I love being here.
And I do want to tell you this, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, even if I never, ever make it to heaven, at least I'll be able to say that I've been to South Africa. Thanks for letting me share.