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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 872 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: harold-c-recovery-in-the-rockies-keynote-ca-1993-archive-872.mp3 Duration: 01:11:18
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Short but brief. I hope you can hear me, and I'm not one for setting up boundaries for excuses, but I can't keep still, so I might vary from this thing, but if you can, put your hand up and I'll try to get a little higher in my voice. Before starting, I would like to give honors to my higher power. I also would like to say to the convention committee members here at Utah, thank you, and thank you for enriching my life and my wife's life by inviting us here. I'd also like to send to Scott and Wendy a very special thank you for meeting us, making us at home, hugging and bringing us into your loving arms, and we will ever and always remember that, and I love you both.
Now down to what I hope will be something that you can use and I can use and we can take home from here together as we journey, and in the journey as we journal toward recovery. For recovery to be of any common bound, my belief is that it has to have a destination of where you want to go. No different than the destination of my addiction. I knew where I wanted to go. I wanted to do it until I died. That was my goal, and I got pissed off when that didn't happen.
Well, I need to look and see that there is a correlation between powerlessness and powerfulness. I am not powerless standing here before you because I have not used. The Twelve Step Fellowship gives me the right to tell you if I use the tools and the skills. I am not powerless at all. Not one bit. I need to move away from helpless and hopelessness all of my life and begin to look at when I use, not only am I powerless, I'm useless. I don't exist. I do things that don't look good, they don't feel good, they ain't good, and I use for more. That's crazy. I do it. I'm an addict. I ain't unique.
And you know the part I like about not being unique? Bill and Bob knew about me. Bill, Bob, and the Early 100. They knew. The Second Step said return to sanity. Hell, you can't be returning something before you're in. You can't. You don't got to go to Howard to get a rocket degree to know if you're going to get returned to sanity, you must collapse it. So for all of y'all that ain't crazy, you're in the wrong place. The program won't work for you. This is for crazy folks that had a spiritual awakening because they don't want it no more. Help me.
That is the premise of what this is all about. For all of us that got the answers, you know us narcissistic fellows and ladies, we know the answer. We keep reinventing the wheel. You know, we keep doing shit and it's still safe. But we don't flush the toilet. Something's wrong. You know, now where I come from and I'm not too sure it's not here, there is some discussion about what age you belong to. And that's sad. That's sad. It should be a marriage. A marriage of all their age because AA is a parent.
I may not agree, but it's to save a life. It's to help a person suffering whether it's from drugs or food or sex or lack of, they're suffering. They need help. And guess who's the people to teach it? We're here. We're the people to teach it. You don't need to bring your medicine bag and your wheel. You need to bring your body and your spirit. And we need to have the courage. Get the courage. And if you don't, stay here. Do something. Stop doing nothing.
See, there are two types of me. My first few years in recovery, I was an observer. I went and I leave and I think, what's wrong with these people? Nobody spoke to me. You know, what the hell's their problem? I mean, they didn't speak. They spoke to everybody else. You know, they hugged, but nobody spoke. Well, I didn't participate. I didn't speak. I said, sad, lift world up, real clear message, leave me alone. And guess what they did? Damn them, they left me alone.
[00:05:00]
Then I was mad. Then I got involved. And I got some participation going on. And people began to know me. And I began to know people. And guess what? A difference began to happen. I became a member. I became active. I became involved. Not only did I became involved, the insanity began to leave. I didn't say the sanity came back, but there were some things that I just wasn't doing anymore. Not by plan, but I wasn't doing anymore.
And I heard some of you talking today. And I heard some of you yesterday. And Martia, my wife and I came up and Scott and Wendy Madison, we talked. And I heard the potential for the sharing. And I felt the caring when I arrived here. And it was present. It was just present. The decision that I made was done because you can't be here and not do it. You can't be here and not get it. The same way there's some other things we couldn't get if we wasn't in the hit house. Well, there's some things in recovery, if you're around it, it'll get you. It'll get you. And that's what's been happening here today for me.
I've heard some sharing. I've heard some people celebrate. I've seen some people cry. And I've seen some people sit and say, I need to talk and go off. And what I suppose they were doing was remembering. I suppose that they were going off to remember how it was or going off and recollecting and calculating how it could be. I remember them going saying, in a sense, we don't want to forget. Will you talk to me about how it was?
I've seen some folk and heard some folk experience here today going through something, wanting to talk about it. And I think that that is the essence of why we come from around many, many states to convene here for the last three or four days. And I think the message has been remembering. The message is not to forget. You know, there's a guy, and I share with all the taste that I have in my heart. Certainly don't mean any disrespect.
But I need to just share with you something that I carry with me and I share because it's so powerful. And it's this. This gentleman, some of you may or may not know him, is named Ali Basler. Ali Basler, in 1981, was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize. There was a lot of arguing and in-house fighting about Ali. Because, you see, Ali's a historian. And Ali wrote books, done a lot of research. And Ali is a guy that we all know, maybe never met. Ali Basler is the gentleman that keeps bringing for us to remember the Jewish helicopter. He's the guy depicting those pictures we see on television.
He's the man making us remember how it was for this group of people, how their pain was. And he was on television. And it wasn't a flick station, you know, all the motorboats. He was out of the 360 and Barbara Waters was sitting there. You had an Ed Bradley, you had a Cronkite, you know, and you had another one. They were all heavy hitters. And they were interviewing Ali. And what got my attention at the time that this was happening, for me, I didn't like meeting them. And I didn't understand why I needed to go and leave feeling bad, crying, and in some cases feeling in a different place than when I went.
I didn't know. And I didn't want to go. And I struggled. And this night on television, it was a Sunday because it was the night that I went to a particular meeting at home. And I was getting dressed and the TV that I had, it was in a halfway house, and the TV that I had had a coat hanger in it. That's how things go. You get what you can get. So I had a black and white AMX from Kmart with an antenna, with a clothes wire, and hats. Did you hear me? Hats. You know, don't need no color, just something. And that's what I had.
And they were interviewing Ali Basil, and they were saying things like I like. They called him a pervert. They called him an emotional pervert. And that got my attention. I said, my kind of shit. I can't even spell his name and never heard of him, but when I heard pervert, it got my attention.
[00:10:07]
They were saying, pervert, you are emotionally raping a group of people every year for money. Pervert, you have, and that's what they were calling them. You have a lot of people waiting to go see a play that you've depicted about a group of people since 1946. And you wrote books, and you lectured, and yet if some people have picked you, nominated you for the Nobel Peace Prize, we think you need to tell this audience something. Ali Basil didn't open his mouth. He said something. He wanted to lift his head up and show courage. He didn't. I got mad because I wanted to smash one of them for him.
They were dogging this guy, and he was just sitting there. So when they got done, Ali Basil picked his head up with one of the biggest tears that I've ever seen, and I cried in my chair. And I cried. I cried tears that was called for a crane to hold my head up because the pain was so heavy when the water came out of my eyes. And Ali Basil looked into the camera, and all he said was, when we forget, it will all happen again. Isn't that what Bill and Bob and the early 100s tell us? When they tell us to tell our story, to tell how it was, so we don't forget what happened, so we can spread the miracle of where we want to go, so we can spread the hope.
That's what the new coming means, and that's what we need every 24 hours. So when Ali Basil put into my life a new whole spiritual concept of why I need to go to music, because I wanted to forget the pain. I wanted to forget the emotional juice in my life. I wanted to forget the bullets that move in my body like they want to, when they want to, without my permission. And I wanted to forget how they got there. I wanted to forget how I got false teeth in the penitentiary. You know, I did. I ran my mouth too much, and the guards slapped me in, and that was in the front row of the teeth. I wanted to forget. You know, I wanted, I really wanted to forget a lot of things.
But then I found that I needed to remember them, because in forgetting, we relax. In forgetting, it will all come back. In forgetting, and not caring, we're doomed. It's going to happen again. And Bill and Bob in the early 100s talked about the spiritual principles, three of them. And those three spiritual principles have been out here. Today, we have moved so far away that we don't want to tell our story no more, because it's a war story. It's all the hell we've got.
And if we forget our past, our future is doomed. And our today has no meaning, because we don't fall too far from the truth. And that's the hope. And that is the hope, that we all need to carry a flicker flame, to share that where I come from is no mystery. What I need to share with you is how I got from there, and I need to now begin to talk about how I move from there. I need to now begin to pull people into a loving circle, and a loving arm, and a caring God, as I understand Him.
And that's a very profound question. Thousands and thousands of people have died today. Why not me, Lord? Why me? Why me? I've escaped death with a license. I've escaped the virus. I've escaped life in the penitentiary. I've been given a chance. Just two weeks ago, I got a Ph.D. from school. I came into recovery with a ninth-grade education. Why don't I share that? Why do I want to keep that? What did I get it for? Did I get it for me? Yeah. But then I got it for some other guys, too. And I ain't going to lie to any of you.
The Harold and Tamara became the legacy of my family, of all of us. Since somebody in our family is my brother, and then I've done it to make the fellowship all over the world very proud of me. Because without you, it didn't happen, and it wouldn't have happened. And then lastly, I've done it for me. And the only reason I put me last, because without you, and without Harold and Tamara in my life, I wouldn't want it, and don't need it, because financially, I'm doing A-OK with what I had before that,
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and that probably won't get me no money. It gives me some more responsibility, because they ain't giving up no dozen. But I have it, and I care. And as we move through, and remember, what was it like before then? Here was a guy, me, weighing 90 pounds, with clothes on, and extra clothes, to look like he had some behind him. 90 pounds, and a body of heat. Here's a person that had 12 pancreatitis packs in one year, and didn't stop.
And it's in remembering your moment, and that's what I want to do tonight for me, is remember my moment. And I think each and every one of you out there, and I say it rhetorically, need to remember your moment. You need to remember the moment, because we have one. And when we forget the moment, we relapse. Remember the moment. Mine was special. My moment was in a hospital, in an emergency ward, that I had been to, and taken to, about 10 times.
So obviously when I came, there was little enthusiasm about getting to me. You know, like, there he is, when we get done, we'll get there. And that was okay with me. Because what nobody knew, I was tired of suffering, and wanted to die, and didn't know how. That was my secret. So everybody running around saving my life, I had a real problem with. And I wanted them to leave me alone for real. That was my little thing going on in this reality of suffering and dying.
For this night was my moment. I had a girth, a gut, a stomach, weighing 92 pounds, of about a 42. Might be 8 months pregnant, looking, that I could stand and hold my hand on what I called my Buddha. And my stomach would rest my hand. I had not had a bowel movement in 6 months. A bowel movement. I'm not talking about the exercises for one. Y'all know what I'm talking about. Them good runs we have, and I'm showing off companies, and we get it all mixed up, and get some baking soda, and all that other stuff, and smokey cocaine in there, and vitamin this, and vitamin that, and Thunderbird, and Mountain Dew, and Howl Dolls, and all that other shit.
Together, we just, we lock up. And I locked up. Didn't get nothing moving. And I locked up. Didn't get nothing moving. Well, I ain't too smart the day it wasn't then. They took me into this room, and it was like an x-ray room, and they rolled me in on a stretcher, and they put these red screens around me, like, you know on TV, when they look through them to see how you're doing, and everybody put on white stuff and gloves.
And I'm laying in there looking, and I'm looking, and I'm saying, What's up? No problem. What we want to give you, Mr. Carter. That's the first time I got a Mr. Mr. Carter. It's something that will relieve the enormous pain that you're having. I said, well, I don't know. We know what's best for you. And it don't look right. But it is right. I said, okay. So, I don't know what a bad enema is. Any of y'all know?
Well, I don't know, but I learned that night I lost my cherry, number one. All my virginity was gone. It's gone. And I didn't complain. I didn't complain. They took it, and they rolled me over. You know the fire hoses they got in the hall? They grabbed one of them champions, and they pulled it. I still didn't know what was up. The doc come over and took a whole handful of that lubricant. So it'd be easy access to whatever they was going to do.
And she said, just hold your head still and breathe. And I said, well, okay. While she's doing it, she's seducing me. And she said, breathe slowly. I'm going to put this there, so it will be rather painless. And I said, oh, thank you for the concern. They rolled me over. One person took my leg.
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He hit me. Bop. And he went up in there, too. I mean, he went up in there, too. I said, well, where you going? He said, we got to get there. I said, okay. He took my hose. And he put his hose up there. He said, now, hold your breath. Whatever you do, it's going to feel like you're going to bop. Don't breathe. I said, okay. I held my breath. They turned these valves, and everybody ran. And I'm in the room holding my breath.
So they come back. They say, how are you? A little painful. I'm wonderful. What was supposed to happen? Nothing happened. It didn't work. It didn't work. So I don't know the seriousness of what happened until they take me. They admit me in the hospital. Then they start putting tubes down my throat. So then I find out they couldn't get it one way. I didn't blow up. They was going to pump it out my mouth.
I was so full of shit, the nurse said if I had felt, I would have choked on my own waist. And they was pumping my waist out. And guess what I was in the hospital doing? Trying to get some more cocaine. And the sad part? I didn't see anything wrong because I thought it was my duty. I didn't feel the impact of this until two, three years into the recovery. I didn't know all the things that went on with me until it happened in my life.
And as it happened in my life, another thing began to happen that I didn't understand. I'm a guy that's graphic. I need to see stuff. Because a lot of this got damaged and burned out, you know, between getting hit from here, up. And stuff happened. From home, after school, doing school, football without a helmet. Just a whole lot of stuff wasn't working up here before cocaine and alcohol. So add that on to the damage, we had a little problem with retention.
So I needed something to really parallel my life and to really see what was going on. And for me, things had happened for me when I needed them. But I didn't know I needed them. And they happened. And I've shared this story. Howard's heard it and the committee has probably heard it. And I want to share it with you. And I must parallel and connect it to my life. Because it exemplifies my life. How many of you know Don Merrick, the elephant man?
How many of you know his story? Just for fun. I'd like to ask you, how many of you know how he died? Well, for the sake of knowing how he died, let's talk about it. Don Merrick, as you all know, had a disease. That his head was very large. And his face was that, similar to that of an elephant to a very small child. And I paralleled Don Merrick's life to mine. Because Don Merrick's disease was on the outside.
And my disease was on the inside. Don Merrick felt that he was lonely. Don Merrick felt unloved and dirty and disconnected. Don Merrick was abused and misused and no attempt to understand. I felt dirty. I felt very disconnected. Never having anyone having time to understand me. I felt very alone and very different. So, it's not much difference between Don Merrick and myself. Other than Don's was on the outside and it was visible.
And mine was on the inside. Now, not only was Don Merrick similar, Don Merrick had Dr. Treeves. Who was his doctor. Kind of his sponsor. I have a sponsor. I have a business. I need a business. I don't care yet, but I'm getting better. Dr. Treeves, you see, because Don was obsessed with wanting to be like other people. See, Don Merrick not only had a disease, but Don Merrick could not lay down in an incumbent position flat on his back.
Don Merrick needed to sit, and I can't show you, because of modern technology.
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Don Merrick laid in his bed, as you can remember the picture, with pillows neatly tucked in back of him. And the position that Don Merrick assumed all of his life was his head as big as an oblong was placed in his knee. And Don Merrick slept like that. Don Merrick was obsessed with being able to do what other people do. And that was to assume the incumbent position to lay down to sleep. I am obsessed with wanting to drink and use cocaine like other people do.
I am obsessed. I am angry that I can't. And I'm always looking, thinking, and reading ways to do it. It is part of the disease that I have that is not going to disappear. I have it, and some days it gets me. Well, one night, according to Dr. Treves in the late 18s, excuse me, in the late part of his life, Don Merrick, in a pathetic attempt to be like other people, assumed the incumbent position. And the records show that as Don Merrick laid down, he instantly snapped his neck and he died without struggle.
The coverlets on his bed were neat. There was no struggle. He died. What a pathetic, what a disgusting, and what a powerful experiment to take that you would want to leave and go. Don Merrick people pleased himself to death. He wanted to do what other people did and did not appreciate the kings and the queens, his artistic ability, his writing ability, his charm, his glory, his mannerism, and being well-renowned.
He had lost his attitude of gratitude. He had become obsessed with the one thing he couldn't do. Well, you may not agree, and I may not need you to agree, but that would be the way that I go. With the whole desire to want to be part of, with the whole desire to have the one near being, with the one desire to want to go to a clean, sober club and partake, I can go. And kill me. Why? Because as recent and as soon as there's evidence of recovery and a miracle, the question is not the miracle anymore.
The question is what will you do with the miracle. You have it. It's been given. What will you do with the miracle of recovery of another life? We go and we want people to teach us spirituality and we buy tapes and we buy books. Fine. Get your medicine basket. But it can't be taught because it's been given already by the higher power. We have to use it. We have to tap into the force that we have. And I think addiction, from the very time that we used, takes it away.
And it leaves us very powerless and very vulnerable. It leaves us unfree. Most of us think, I just used to be free. We used to be slaves. We lost our freedom. And John Merrick exemplifies that to me. When I forget, I want to go and go down the Soul Train line with Fat Buck Fannie in the gang. Thinking that I won't drink Billy D. Williams Co. 45 because he will. I don't know where they got all them women from to run over him about a can of beer, but I want to get a cable.
We're being seduced by television. We're being seduced by mass media. President Clinton, for whatever it's worth to you, we know that 600,000 people die directly as a result of alcohol. We're increasing the taxes on cigarettes and gasoline. Nothing about alcohol. I ain't the brightest guy in the world, but I know Anthony Bush put a whole lot of money in his campaign. Whatever that means, you know, you ain't got to be a genius. Recovery lets you see stuff down when you ain't nodding.
You can read. And we need to begin to read. We need to begin to read signs and
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symbols. Relapse is a process, it's not a museum. You just don't relapse. We need to see signs and symbols of spiritual working happening. Recovery was an event. It's a long process, and we're in the mix. We're in the zone, and we're growing. Relapse begins with belief that I can still go and do this and do that, but not you. I don't know nothing about golf guiding, but I know there's 18 holes, but most people end up in the 19th hole, and that's where the problem is. The clubhouse is the bar.
You need to be aware of signs and symbols. we need to know that the only reason that I pick up is because I missed all the warning signs, from five meetings to one, to no sponsor, you know, an addict sponsoring himself, you know who they got for sponsoring on you, in case you don't, an asshole, you don't sponsor yourself and look, you can teach two addicts in a real conversation about using, and expect them not to use, it's crazy, it's insane, and the insanity about what we do for ourselves, and about what we don't do for ourselves, most of us want to live recovery in a closet, we want to live recovery not in secret, but in a cult, recovery in the 12-step program according to Bill and Bob in the big book, prepares us to live life on life's terms, you know, I have sponsors that tell me, sponsors that say to me, I want to do a first step, and I tell them, when you understand and live it, we'll write it, I got one guy, three years, still wanting to do the first step, the first step, it's powerful, but there's another part to the first step, the 12-step, did you know that the 12-step is the first step in reverse, did you know that, no you didn't, too many of your mouths are open, you can't do that now, it is, what does the 12-step say, I practice these, what, as a result of having what, holy, where did you have the spiritual awakening, you do what with it, oh no, oh no, I don't know what y'all reading, you got a book on every table, and you ain't reading it, practice these practices in what, so I only have to be honest in my drug and alcohol, I have to be honest with my wife, I'm powerless over some other things in my life, I need to begin to integrate this into all of my affairs, it's just not my drinking and drugging, it's some other parts of my life, that this fellowship and program, the 12-step program, is all spiritual, not step 1, 2, and 3, and 4, something else, and maybe 7, it's all spiritual, it's all an inventory, how the hell you know you're powerless if you ain't looking at something, we gotta know, and you got a responsibility to know, so we can do something about it, step 3 and step 11, start to pray and meditate to improve my conscious contact, well what did I do in 3, I made a decision to do something, I think I did, step 4 and step 10, step 10 what does it say, continue to do it, now a lot of you academia's in here, what does ED imply, already did it, we're getting better, we already done it, where did we do it, and the 4th step, so really, we might have 9 steps, 10, 11, 12 are maintenance, and some argue, if it's not, some say that the 9th step is a transitional, it's a transition for me, you already made a list now we're gonna make a hook, and in 9 we're gonna do something else, except when we're in the other, the step is like a system, it's a rhythm, they're perfectly done, each step sets you up for the next, the next, they are not separate, they are very much in accordance with each other, and I think that's all we're trying to learn how to do, before you can become powerful, you have to make our policies, because then that energy goes to something else, it took 27 years for me to, for a glimmer of hope, that something was wrong, for a glimmer of hope that I didn't have the answer,
[00:35:04]
and it was a woman, it was a nurse, and she don't know it today, and what she said to me, she said, I don't know what's wrong with you, but I'm tired, and every time I look up, one of you people come in here, and you die, if you wanna die, pick the hell up, and get out of here, I can't take another, that's the game I was playing, I wanted to keep it to me, I never had anybody tell me I was dying, I wanted to keep it to me, it took me 8 months to be able to write my name, because that's how I feel, like I was having TB, my hands are in pain, my whole body is in pain, and it's not been chemically treated in 28, 29 years, and I have to deal with how those things happen to me, and you have to deal with how they happen to you, we have to deal, and I have to look at my fears intimately, I have boundaries, most recovering people, if not all of us, most of us, Mr. Harmon, I've done a workshop today, and I hope this isn't a cage job, I hope it is, I tried it, I'd like for you to think of before you're recovering, I'd like for you to think of before you're recovering, before you're recovering, when's the last time you had sex without a drug or a drink, don't answer, just think.
The line between sexuality and spirituality is so thin, it needs no discussion, because the most powerful part of one's life is the ability to conceive and bring forth hope, we pollute that with a drug, we pollute it with a drink, and God knows we are some of the most pernicious people in the heart of our history that one would ever want to know, to come into recovery like we know how, we need to learn how, we learn how by working on ourselves and building relationships with ourselves and offering that relationship to another person we find worthy, that's great shit, but until that happens, you cannot embark on developing relationships with yourself through that program, because it's about you, you and I and I and you, you and me, we are all the same and we're all on the same journey, there is no great melting pot for recovery, that all of us from all the different walks of life in this room can go into one pot and come out the same, we have to keep our cultural diversity, we have to keep our backgrounds, we have to keep sight of where we came from, all we do know is that addiction is an equal opportunity destroyer, the way out of addiction is based on a desire that may move from day to day whether I want this or not, I pray that you want it and I certainly pray that I continue to want it in the days that I don't, that one of you around can tell me that it's worth it, the long shot of recovery for me is very simple, today I can share the driver's seat and I don't want to share it because anything that I'm attached to now, I generally make a mess of, I need a little more time, I need a little more time and maybe with a little more time I'll be able to take that responsibility, you know, I can't do that, I need to continue to foster this disease, the disease that I have is inside me and the part about the disease that's inside me is the intra, intrapersonal relationship with myself, remember the days we looked good with the tailor made suits and looked good on the outside and looked good in the gowns and the diamonds and somebody would say, wow, you look good and we'd say, that's where our disease is, our disease lives in a vacuum and a hole that's right in the midst of our soul and there's nothing or anyone that can fill that hole permanently but the relationship with ourselves and our higher power, our outer force, our inner force, our Buddha, our Allah, our Ruka Duka, whatever you want it to be, as long as it ain't you, we got a shot, you know, as long as it ain't you, there's a shot going for it.
So, my love for you is to just really simply say, life is worth living and I think that needs to be a hallmark because I talk a lot about life being worth living for me, you know, and things I have to do and I also question some days what I think is spirituality because I get it confused. Some days when Marcy's happy and the kids are happy and I'm happy and the warmness is running through my body and the dog is okay, I think it's spirituality.
[00:40:08]
So, I'm going on about my business but the days when Marcy's not happy and the kids aren't happy and the dog ain't happy, where's my spirituality? I have to be grateful for the tears so I can enjoy the laughter. I have to be grateful for seeing the other thing about anger. I hope everybody out there know they better be angry because you can't stay in recovery unless you're angry. So, all y'all working on getting rid of anger, get busy and take it back.
That's my gift. Now, I'm talking about not to anger back to turn inside and beat ourselves up but every night I take a shower, I see track marks. I still can look up one nostril and see to my brain, I'm angry about that. I'm pissed off about that. You know, I'm angry that it took me 27 years. I'm angry. I'm angry that I put people in problems and hurt people that didn't deserve to be hurt. Because the only victims in my life were the people that loved me that kept coming back.
Other folks stayed away from me. I'm angry and I take that anger for motivation so that I don't get comfortable in recovery and think that the work's done. I take it to motivate me when I don't want to be. I take it to motivate me when I think I got this thing. I take it to motivate me when I don't want to be what I want to be. And that's what I need my anger for. And when the anger's gone, complacency sets in.
Do you know what we do with complacency? Be aware. Be aware. Because when we be aware with complacency and what sets in, we have one other thing to remember and I'll leave you with it. I believe, I believe that addiction is a process. And this is how I believe the process works, not only for me, but for all of you, my brothers and sisters, all over the world. I believe when we use, when we begin to use, we lose our spirituality, our ability and internalness to trust the decisions that we make.
I believe when we use, our ability to trust right decisions are gone. I believe when we use, the hopelessness sets in and we begin to disconnect from anything that's been meaningful to us. And I think after our spirituality is tapped, we go to yet another level. Our addiction then begins to destroy our emotional state of being. Our emotional state of being. We don't feel. We don't want to feel. We will kill you about telling me to feel.
There's nothing to feel. Why do I want to feel? Don't you see the use in drugs? Lots to feel. And we go around numbed. Numbed. Drunk. Falling down. Then spirituality's gone. Emotion's gone. Then we have what I call mental lapse. I'm not sure about blackouts. If a blackout means once you have it, you don't know what you've done. Somebody tells you and you report. If you want to know my story, she knows more about it than I do because half mine was in a blackout.
And if she told me I'd done it, I'd say, okay, baby. Fine with me. We have memory lapses. You know what a memory lapse is? You know how it takes you two minutes to look up and wonder where you're at? Where you parked your car? Or another minute to see why the house is trashed? It comes back to us. And those memory lapses store a lot of gunk. Like the person almost married and I didn't know who it was.
Again. You know? That kind of shit. It's gone. The business? It's gone. The third marriage? Two gone. Other one got both feet out. But gone. The police don't respond anymore to disturbance. Because we both beat the cops up. And they go. You know? All that stuff gets warehoused. You remember when you used to go to the bank and the teller would see you coming? Oh, hi. And they just come right up, and they just show themselves.
Then when you come, there's no telling. Nobody talks to you no more. Wow. Then after that's gone, the physical happens. What is the physical? When the chemical in the nation butt up, you know, we hip.
[00:45:01]
We change fashion. Like, what's up with chemical? Well, this is the loose look. I don't want to show my figure, so I got this loose shit on that don't show my butt. The fact is, the cocaine and I hollin' ate it up. Ain't no butt. It ain't none there, you know. Well, why you wearing that dashiki? Well, people tell me that I'm seductive and I don't want to be seductive and give off the wrong message.
So I want to hide what I got. Why? Jenny Craig's diet, we beat her. We go out Friday night, lose 40 pounds and come back in. M&M's, we don't eat. We go to the bathroom, our urine yellow like gold. We know we dehydrated and we go do some more. That brings us in. That brings us in. How do we go to recovery? Soon as we go. And why do we talk about it all the time? Soon as we go. Mirror, put in the right place. Nobody knows why.
We are right outside the shower. Because the first thing we want you to see is coming out, you physically get better by just not using it. Don't got to do nothing. Put on 20, 30 pounds. You didn't get clear. You know how we used to? We used to get dressed without a mirror. Do the breath test. Now we're ready to go. You know, that shit, did our shit. Now we all sit off it. We stink. We stink, y'all.
And it ain't got nothing to do with the shower. It's got to do with that chemical coming out of our bodies. And the last place we come out is our feet. Put your shoes outside in order to come back in the door. Because our feet don't get no air. Your feet's the last thing to detox. And that's over the detox guys on feet. We can do it. That's to let your feet the last thing to detox. You can use Dr. Schiff, whatever you want.
Jim Cummings is the last to come around. When your feet come around, you got a shot. You got a shot. You got a shot when your feet come around. When you can walk around on your wife's carpet with no socks on. You got a shot. So when we get better, we put on weight. We smile. By accident, we want to make sure nobody sees us. Because we want people to think we're a joke. So they have to… What? You don't know nothing.
This must be it is. You don't know about my story. This is it. Then you call me home. I see guys that we have on in their underwear, socks. The rest of the staff have a problem. I said, I said, Dr. Schiff, leave him alone. Leave him alone. That's his ass getting swept. If you want his underwear swept, let him wash them. Why you gonna bother? He's taken enough time, washed his underwear, washed them, put them on the ironing board, and ironed them to wear.
Are you jealous? He ain't bothering nobody. That's his ass. So we begin to feel better. You know, I'll never get better without medication. Rest. No chemical. Good diet. Good status. And it comes back to me and cousin. As we physically didn't be able to sign our names, we don't shake, we wake up one morning without shaking. And we do. We don't know when it happened, but it kind of happened. Then after the physical happened, I believe what begins to happen is we begin to remember.
We begin to remember the gun. We begin to remember that I didn't go to Oxford to play, you know, because I was getting high. We begin to remember that I haven't said I haven't done homework since I was a kid. Because I don't feel like profiting academically and educating myself to do that for a few days. We begin to remember the hurt and what we've done to people. Some of them, like myself, begin to remember how do you get 47 and a half, 80 years in a penitentiary and took it for 10 years.
We begin to remember all the bones into the core, what's going on in those bones. We begin to remember the millions of men and women in that relationship. We begin to remember the abuse,
[00:50:00]
the physical, the verbal. And I think all of it's terrible that there's another abuse that I think runs right up there with it. Not being available to your partner, to your children, abstention, remuneration, etc. Because the wounds are so deep. I don't have to tell you that you can have an ACL group if the wounds are so deep. You cannot leave the room and move the phone. You know? We begin to remember.
We begin to come and we begin to see it. And we begin to see wounds and we don't know where to go with the healing. We begin to cry and speak it. We begin to feel pain, unwanted, disconnected. And then I said we proceed to put those few people that's available away and see if they'll leave it. To the point of believing and living that I think in some force or some something or some whatever intervenes in our life and gives us, for a moment, a blinker of hope.
And that in my family is what I believe is spirituality. I don't think it can be measured. I don't think that the scientists can work with it because we know about AA and we know what Young told Bill and Bob and said I'm a man of science. I can't prove it. I can't measure it. I can't see it. But surely we must have had some conversion but I would never tell the scientific community that I did such a thing.
He put it over early folks in his program. And I think we begin to do some things at that point that our lives begin to do something a little different. And that's the beginning of a lifetime gain. Even as we do recover because we did, we really did, there's work to be done because it promises us in all of the literature that I've wrote and all of the recovering folks that I've talked to more is revealed.
And what is more is revealed usually it's more of the unresolved don'ts. The unresolved pains that we suppress. The abuse. Depression. The smell. And we get in touch and we cover it. And we want to deny it. But when it's revealed and it's spiritual because it is saying in essence you're ready because if you weren't we would have dropped it on you earlier. And the program says that you just progress more and more more and more revealed.
So there's a chance. There needs to be some enthusiasm that I'm beginning to learn who I am and where I come from that somewhere in my life I didn't wake up to being at it. There was some forces out there that pushed me that way and I went. Are they wrong or right? I don't care. I couldn't cope. And I found something to help me and no addict do I know wrote a blueprint on how to fuck up their life.
Nobody thought they would be where we are. We got there on faith. Well it's the same faith that moves us from there if we got the courage the anger, the fight. And the fight is not about anything but this little guy. It talks to me. It tells me you can't do it. Your father was an addict. How are you going to do it? How can you not do it? Your brother's an addict. How will you not do it? One out of ten make it, punk.
You ain't going to make it. I got to talk back. Back in. And I will. And I'm going to. No, I don't know how but I ain't using the day because this little sucker works out in the knowledge shop while I'm through. He runs the crack, lifts weights and drinks good juices and protein to fuck with me. That's all he's for. So fuck with me. Nothing else. He don't got no opinion. There's the guy I got to talk to to take his power and give it to you.
And together we harness him. And I ain't scared of you. I can't do it but I got a group of family that's going to teach me now. I ain't using. The whole principle is like we do a number with kiss. And I know, y'all know what it means.
[00:55:00]
Keep it simple, stupid and all of that. So when Bob said kiss me keep it simple and spiritual. That's what they said. We got keep it simple and sensual. Keep it simple and sensuous. Keep it simple and stupid. You guys are doing every damn thing except keep it simple and spiritual. And that means keep trusting the journey that you are on. Keep trusting faith. This is how this program is you know. My first sponsor and I love him.
I still call him a sponsor. At 29 years he went back out. Why? Why oh my goodness. He took the gun out. What was he supposed to do? Stay in? He knew. I bet he was. And he got two PhDs. Because he's got practice and attention in the first place. He's got complacency. And that's how he's got complacency. He's got to focus in on everybody but his family. The biggest thing that takes us out is not our struggle.
It's not. You know most people we laugh at Now let me do a little backlog of what we laugh at to me. You may not agree with this. I don't think a person can relapse. I think a person can relapse to have about at least three months in the program a sponsor making some meetings you know and doing some things. Now if you take that backdrop that I've shared with you most people that relapse most people that relapse 80% of the relapses in typical days Y'all feel better?
Breathe. Breathe. Most of the people 80% that relapse definitely relapse in their succession. They relapse in their succession when they're pregnant. We don't relapse when we're working hard trying to prove to the wife things are okay for the kids trying to get some credits off our backs get the business back in order. We don't relapse when we're trying to prove to mom we can be the son or the daughter that she's always wanted or to the kids we can be the mom or the dad.
You know we don't relapse while we're looking for employment. We got that. We got two, three, three, three in the project now so it's a little better than Superman I can take this off and put that on I can take a half a day give me that, give me that, give me this then you get complacent and you change the program and work through it. Check it out. And check it out to people that you know that came back out and check out what level of recovery they're at to change the program and take it back.
A relapse is not an event. A relapse is a process. The person just didn't pick up the day for something that's wrong today they've been in the process. Broken relationships, and I talk about it some difficulties at work and keeping it a secret high expectations to hypocrisy, to high expectations there's a guy that's called numb and he was saying this fictional malice and stuff you know what he's telling big corporations you're missing stages in all this crime you don't have to change anything lower your expectations don't call in a consultant firm and tell you what's wrong lower your expectations if you want to run it again, again lower your expectations don't worry about the rest of your life lower your expectations the biggest tragedy we're living in December and October and all we're really doing is like I can't do it up here it's all up front it's a bonus there's yesterday there's tomorrow where is today you got it you can't live in yesterday you can't go to tomorrow if you do you kiss on the day you have to live in today put one foot in front of the other We don't have to reinvent anything. We don't even have to have the same interpretation, spiritual principles.
And the nature of anything is the same anywhere in the world. It's the fact. Addiction robs emotion. Addiction takes away our own right to feel, to be free, to have a self-esteem.
[01:00:09]
to be honest, to have a relationship, to be involved in that relationship, and to have it make itself work. It even allows us to allow people to mistreat us when we say it's okay, we deserve it. And we stay there for mistreatment, abuse, deprivation, and say we deserve it. Recovery, on the other hand, gives me the freedom to choose who I be with and how long I stay with them. It allows me to choose who my friends are and where I work.
And it so allows me to tell you, you can't hit me in the name of love. That's bullshit. You got to roll like a donut and beat me. Recovery allows me that. It gives me a right to do that. It gives me a right to say no and not feel guilty to myself. Recovery tells me, you know, I know I'm not perfect. I know that. And I know you're not. But I've got to try. I got to try to love you more. I got to try to love you more. I have to try to love you more. But I got to love me. I got to love me, too. I got to give to you more.
I have to be more available, have to be more in service, I have to be more by the phone. I have to be more active in it. I have to be active, orientated for me and my family. Two, I do. I've got to try. The only way I have to cry for you, for the next person, for the next person who has to cry for me, I have to give to myself. I have to love me. It's okay to tell Marcy I love her, but sometimes I've got to feel her. I've got to touch her. I've got to pull her to me. I've got to put a hand on my shoulder and show her I love her in the midst of the storm of recovery. Because I can't keep doing what I have to do. I did that in my mission.
Think about it. We leave home. I've got to go do what I've got to do. And you know I've got to give to me. Well, you did what you had to do for 30 years, boy. What's the difference now? You ain't home. Microwave is the worst thing to the recovery family. We go home and our kids don't know what we do. Who is to hug? Who is to touch? Bill and Bob and the world's early 100s and lowest in them folks told us we get sober to be better human beings than the cherished, not just with other addicts, with the people in our lives, in the big cosmos, in the world. It ain't enough to come here and hug everybody and go home and say, get like this. Look, I'm tired. I had a hard meeting. Leave me alone. I didn't have 30 people. Hope everything's going all right. And go home and look here, girl. Look, I'm tired. Go sit down. Go sit down. I can sit down with you for an hour about you and your family, you know, and help you go home to mine and threaten everybody. Is that what recovery is? You know, I tried you. You know, when do you have dinner? When do we have dinner? When we come to convictions and celebrate? Is that what we come to? To be a family? When's the last time you got homework? We got to work. We got to work. We got to pay the bills. We got to see the family. We got to be on the road. When's the last time you saw your loved ones for no reason?
Get a clue, ain't it? When's the last time you saw your loved ones? Oh, just what they thought of the guy. He's an asshole. Leave him alone. How about sitting in a mule? You know, you don't even have to write no more. You can write everything. Sign the damn thing with X and send it. You know, they know you. You know, you're bossy as hell. You know, you're taking the people. Scotty and Wendy, I love you. Thank you for your hospitality.
Bill and to the area of Cocaine Anonymous, I love you. Thank you. Just deal with that. They want another punchline. Nothing. Here's two goddamn calls. Clear. Double. Clear. We're programmed. And we got to break the mold. It's got to be a punchline for love. No. I'm able to love you today. It's an investment. Tomorrow, I'm going to be on me. And I might
[01:05:00]
not do anything to deserve it. Just as you see me do. But I'm struggling to pull myself together. I think for me, that exemplifies the process of recovery. I think for me, not forgetting continues to earn me a place to pray. You know, for me, and not forgetting, I know that the reasons that I got sober, I was sober 14 years, are not the same reasons I'm sober today. I challenge you to look at your mission statements of recovery. You can have one. Everybody should have a mission statement in their life about why they're sober. And I hope that it ain't the same reason when you got sober. I hope it's changed.
I hope it's grown. I hope there's more mountains, more hills, and more valleys, and more hell. Because they only prepare us for the good stuff. It makes us available. It makes us ready. It makes us accepted for the good stuff. If you don't fight the battle, why do you go? You know, a lot of battles are won. A lot of wars are won and the battles are lost. And I think we as United States folks know about winning wars and losing battles in our lifetime. Well, we can win the war and recover and lose our families. But what have you sold us for? To lose a family and be miserable because I've got to go to a meeting, and I've got to go here, and I've got to go there, and I've got to be on the phone, and I've got to do this, and I can't do nothing at home? You know, put mine in the microwave and I'll get whatever he is, and I'll eat it when I get home. And then I give it to the dog. I don't even appreciate the fact you picked it, that you made a decision to go to the store and get some food. Take time and labor with love to prepare that food for nourishment out of her day, out of her hours, and made it available, that I don't have to do anything to eat it? Is that why I got sober? Is that why I keep coming back? Is that what this phenomenon of recovery is about? Me continuing to do what I need to do? Or is it about me including people in the fellowship, out of the fellowship, in my life? I think Bill and Bob and those of us in TA know that our parent, our parent, over the day, is AA. It's a rare fact, and if you haven't, you not died by cat. It talks about the history of AS and the struggle. The whole struggle to return us to our families as productive individuals.
That is a struggle. Why do you think Lowe started out alone? Because he was bored? He used to be a poor boy. He used to beat him up. He used to smash his guys, because all the drunks would be downstairs and the women upstairs lay drunk. And he's talking about this is for men only. He's lying, son. Women, well, they're drunk too. He said, well, they can't come down here. Well, that's the great power of a woman. God bless you, do your job and make it worth it. Of course, it's a family disease. For every addict, there's believed eight people are held hostage in this family, in our family, due to our addiction. Hostage, because they won't leave. Well, what profound effects do you think recovery will have on the family and the community and on society? And most importantly, to your loving body, you understand them, because you've been given the opportunity to embrace and to love the second chance at life. That's the second chance. You have a second chance, you have a gift. The miracle's over. So if you're waiting for lightning and thunder and milking chips to fall from up in the air and the floors just get to open up, if they do, run like hell and don't be slow, because I will run you the fuck over. It ain't happening.
The spirituality has happened, the miracle has happened, and we have been selected to be recipients of the gift. What we have is what every human being should have, the ability to choose whether or not we want it. And that's what this cause is. Do we want it? And if you want it, you didn't get it alone, you have an obligation to share it. And if you don't share it, you'll die with it. You'll die with it, because it's not meant to be kept, hoarded, and isolated. It is meant to be shared however you share it. That's our task. And our task is to do that and to marry and be in a marriage with other relationships,
[01:10:05]
other AA's, other aid programs that are dealing with a suffering person, to give the experience, sense, and hope that we have. And most importantly, whatever you do, whatever you do on a daily basis, if you don't do nothing else, say something real positive about yourself in a real bad way. Because whatever it is, give it to yourself because you owe it. Because a lot of people A lot of people are starving, we had a beautiful meal, we had a German solo, we sang wonderful music and songs that gave it a feeling and a history behind it that made us remember.
We helped each other remember. Why do we go home and forget it now? No. Being here is an obligation to go home and pass the word, share the message. Go home and say I learned something. Go home and say I disagree with something. Go home and let folks know you're in an environment where we had courage enough to change our thoughts and ideas and didn't have to feel things that had been right or wrong, but the courage to say, God has put me at work. I love you, thank you for having me, you called, C.A., thanks for saving my life.
Thank you. Thank you very much.