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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 804 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: ivan-l-love-faith-and-hope-in-recovery-ca-2004-archive-804.mp3 Duration: 00:48:29
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I'm Ivan. I'm a recovered cocaine addict. I hate these things. You know, first of all, I'd like to thank the Recovered Group for being a great host and inviting me to come out here and share part of my story with you. I love the fellowship here. You know, do you want to talk about some growing pains? This group is so far much more advanced than the groups that were in Austin when I got there. And I love it. I love the unity, camaraderie, the fellowship. It's beautiful. Is that better? Okay, thanks. You know, I was at a meeting last week and I was talking to my sponsor and I got invited to go speak in Laredo last Saturday. And I was, I think it was like Wednesday night, and I get a phone call and they said, you know, this guy was supposed to come speak in San Antonio Friday night and he's not coming.
Can you come? So I feel like now, you know, I'm like some kind of designated person, you know, because I travel all over and it's like, yeah, okay, I'll go, you know, whatever. But so, you know, I go down there Friday night and I share my story and, you know, small group as well. You know, and I see these groups and I see the fire and I see what's going on in the fellowship and I see what the power of God is doing in these people's lives and it just, it warms my heart because, you know, when you're growing up in CA, in Austin, you know, when I got there, you know, my sobriety date is 2-13-98 and I don't like sharing that at all at a meeting. You know, that's my sobriety date and I'm grateful for God and I'm grateful for the grace and the love that he's cared for me and for the times that I don't want to accept it, I love it. But, you know, for growing up in a fellowship in Austin and seeing how much struggle, and the big book talks about this burden that we want to carry, carry the fellowship and carry other people and sometimes it's not healthy to do those things, but you have this drive, you want to succeed, you want this fellowship to grow because the book says, create the fellowship you crave. And sometimes, you know, you fall between the cracks and the meeting goes dark and things start to happen and you start doubting the power of God and you start doubting your faith and what I want to talk about tonight is I want to talk about three things. I want to talk about love, I want to talk about faith and I want to talk about hope. Because these are the three things that they gave me when I walked into the fellowship. See, at the age of six and nine, I was physically abused and raped and I did not quite understand why that happened to me. You know, but it happened more than once in that period from six to nine. And when these things started happening to me, I didn't realize that I could succeed, I didn't realize all my dreams and everything that I thought could happen to me was taken away by these simple acts, by a sick man.
You know, and I realize today that all these things were like a building block, the stepping stones to have a relationship with God. Everything that's happened to me in my life has happened for a reason. Some of it selfishly on my part, but it's happened for a reason because I get to grow from it and I get to experience the loving and caring grace of a God that has blessed me, whether it's in my perception, in my determination, whether a good experience or a bad one. And to me, there just is. It's just about love. See, because I was reading this book and it tells me that if I don't do actions out of love, I do them out of fear.
And one of the biggest fears that I have when I come up to speak is that I'm going to be speaking and then all of a sudden I'm going to have to go to the bathroom. You know, I'm going to say, you know, I'll be right back. I'm just going to have to hold it. And you know how hard it is when you're trying to hold it? You know, remember when you were drinking and you're pounding them and you're driving and you don't want to stop, you want to pull over, you're just holding it and it's kind of hard to drive and take a drag. And it's like that, you know, you're going to be speaking like this the whole time. You know, it's so funny. But you know, that's one of the things that I fear. And it's constantly on my inventory. Why is it there? Do I have this thing that they're going to ask me to speak all the time and all of a sudden that one time? You know, for some reason, what it was like for me was that the first time I took a drink, the first time I took a hit off a joint, the first time I popped the pills, the first time I took my first line, the first
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time I free-based cocaine, the first time I did all these things, something happened to me internally, something that I didn't quite understand, but I loved the effect produced by it. I loved what it made me feel and the things that it made me do afterwards. See, I'm a sick individual and once I put this into my body, for some reason, I get a little bit sicker. But in my mind, I get better. See, in my mind, I think that everything has changed and that was my solution. You see, when I'm blinded, you see, I understand now when the book says, how blinded were we? Because it starts to make sense to me how once, how blind I was. You know, and I look at it and there's this guy in the fellowship and his name's Blind Dave and he'll sit there and he'll quote the book verbatim. He's blind.
And I approached him one time. We were out in Kerrville and I said, I want to share this experience with you because I want you to tell me how it feels in your heart. I want you to tell me how it feels inside and I'm going to share this and I'm going to try to be as visual and as detailed so that you can tell me what you see. And I shared it with him and he said, wow, what a beautiful experience I had. He said, you were so detailed, you were so visual that I could actually see it. See, that's how my faith with God is today.
I can actually feel it and see it. How do I see it? I see it in every one of you. Because the book says deep down inside there's a fundamental idea of God. It might be obscured by pomp, by calamity, by worship of other things, but it is there. See, when I came into the program, I looked. It wasn't there. How could I have survived if I didn't have any faith when I came in? See, I was one of those that came in at Atheist Agnostics and I said to myself, I have no faith. Look at your own experience. The book says I was living by faith and nothing else. It must not have been the one that I could identify I was. It wasn't the one that you could identify with me. It wasn't the one that is somebody that's talking about God in their life. It was just some kind of faith. I didn't know what it was though. I didn't know that I could build on it. You see, the whole thing about this program is that, yes, I have faith, but what am I going to do with it? What action am I going to take?
This is the book. It outlines the action that I need to take to have a deep and effective spiritual experience. This is the text that's going to show me how to have a relationship with God, how to build on that faith. For me, when I came in, it was how can you build on a faith that I don't even know that is there? How can I build on that? How can I love somebody if I can't love myself? What kind of hope can I give somebody? What kind of hope do I have? See, when I started looking at these three things, these are some of the three things that are very evident in my life today because I have them. I'm aware of them.
I experience them daily. See, the hope that I have today is that I can reach somebody. The hope that I have today is that God will be evident in my life in a way that I can see Him, that I can feel Him, that I can touch Him. See, today I have hope. See, I was hopeless when I came in. See, cocaine did with me what it was supposed to do with me. And for as long as it wanted to do with me, it did it to me. You think at that point when I'm hitting, you know, I'm sometimes jealous. My first inventory had jealousy on it because I'd never got the smoke crack because in Mexico, you know, I'm from Mexico, you get powder. You get kilos and bags and this and pills. You got everything else. But ain't nobody going to sit in some room and start cracking up, start making some rocks, you know. So we did this thing called Freebase down there. Loved it. You know, and I wasn't privileged to go into the local head shop down in the corner and picking up some nice pipes and some nice, you know, Brillo and this and that. And no, no, no. And you just take some, poke some holes in a can and smoke it. You know, that's the way, that's the way I smoke. Most of what I did was, you know, up my nose and the pills up, pills. Anything that the pharmacy has, I took. If any of you are familiar with Mexico, you just go in and, you know, you don't need a prescription, they'll give it to you. For hypnols, Xanax, roaches, anything. Darbins, whatever you want. See, but when I came into the program and I looked at all my experiences and I looked at everything that I had done and I saw this tornado, like the book says, and I came in and I said, you know, I really haven't done anything wrong. I really haven't hurt anybody. All I've done was destroy myself. See, I had to look at these things. And the book says, I had to fearlessly look within. You know, a moral inventory. You know, that's
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one of my favorite lines in the book because I go to a lot of meetings and I hardly ever hear anybody talk about morals. The book says, this is a book that's going to be moral and spiritual. There's a fourth step that says, I'm going to write a moral inventory. What about these morals? What kind of morals do I live by today? You know, do I live by the morals that were entrusted on me by my parents? Do I live by the morals that were given to me by society? Do I live by the morals that my friends give me? What kind of morals do I live? Am I still living under the shadow of somebody else? Am I still living behind somebody else's motives and this and that? No. Am I living with this power that God has given me to do anything that I want to do? You know, why am I still so afraid to do things?
Why am I still so, you know, shortchanging my life? See, and this all happened before I came into the fellowship. See, the two things that I've got to know, and this is from the bottom of my heart, and I am crystal clear that once I put anything, anything, anything into my body, it's going to react a certain way and I'm going to lose all control. And the first thing it's going to tell me is that I have a choice whether I'm going to put it into my body or not. That is the first thing it's going to tell me. And once I put it into my body, it's going to set up this reaction. This reaction that's going to overcome anything else that I want to do in my life. Anything that's important, anything that's there is going to disappear. God does not take away anything from me. I destroy it myself. He will sit there and look at me and say, when are you coming? When are you coming? When are you coming? And I'm going to just boom, boom, boom, destroy it until it's gone. See, I don't have that kind of a God. I don't have a judgmental God and I don't have a God that takes stuff away from me. I have a loving, caring God. And you see, in these two things I can understand, but when they threw at me this little curve that said I have this spiritual malady, I have this soul sickness that's in the pit of my stomach that's destroying everything I touch. It's destroying me from the inside out. How am I going to get this out? How am I going to expel this disease that the book talks about? And I was baffled. Just like in how it works. You hear it at every meeting. Cunning, baffling, and powerful. Do I stand a chance? Do I stand a chance? And you see, every time that I got high, I said to myself, I have a chance. And every time I came down, I said, wow, I made it back. See, I have a friend of mine that's in the penitentiary and he was one of the first guys that I met in a CA meeting and he was sitting there and I came in and he was around like two years before I got there. And then, you know, he kind of nurtured me and brought me through and walked hand by hand and we had a lot of experiences together. We did a lot of things.
We did step work. We did a lot of stuff. And he went on a run. And I wrote him a letter and I asked him, when you went on this run, what were you thinking? I'm just going to get a rock. I'm going to go back to the room and smoke it. That's all I thought. I'm just going to go get this and go over here to stop the chatter in the head. To stop the madness that I've created. To check out. See, but the thing that I understand today from these people's experiences is that you don't know where it's going to take you. You don't know what's going to happen. The lucky ones, I don't like that word, the ones that are graced by God will make it back. The ones that God says, you know, it's time to go home. He's going to take home. You know, I have a friend of mine that he was a little kid and he didn't get abused like I did, but he would get beaten by his dad. And I remember waking up in the morning and he would break into my house and he'd be laying on the carpet next to my bed. And we took these two different paths. See, I went to school and I did stuff and I got kicked out and I had a job. You know, like the book says, a promising career ahead of me. You know, I would manage with the utmost of, you know, like Bill talks about these enterprises, you know, with the utmost assurance. And I would have these great things.
I fancied myself a leader. The word fancy, you know, why not just a leader? Because that's what you are. Why do you have to be a leader? That's What You Are. Why Do You Have to Fancy Yourself One? See, and I sit there, and his
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journey went this way, and mine went this way, and now he's in the penitentiary for ten years. He hasn't been out since he's been 21. Ten years in the penitentiary. And he writes me these letters, and he tells me that I'm his only friend, and why I keep writing to him. He wants to know. Why I keep sending him money. Why am I the only one that cares about this guy? Because I see myself in him. I see myself as this scared little boy, running away from everything, with nowhere to go, and breaking into my house, and waking up next to me. See, that's how my life was. That's what it was like. See, all I wanted to do was I just wanted to stop. But I couldn't stay stopped. See, what happened was, I overdosed and I went to treatment, and I had no idea what treatment was going to do for me. You know, what I tell the guys that come to talk to me, and I said, the only thing treatment did to me was it took me out of a situation for 30-something days, and allowed me to think straight like the book says. I don't have anything against treatment. But treatment is not my solution. Treatment will allow me to see that there is a solution. Treatment is going to mess me up. Me, personally. Because it's going to show me a lot of things that I do not want to see. And it's going to show them to me as soon as I put it down. And it's going to hit me like a ton of bricks, and then what am I going to do? Am I going to seek the power? Am I going to work this program? Or am I going to go back and try to do it my way? Continuously, over and over and over. Just like the book says, over a period of time, I get worse, never better. See, and what happened was, at the end of this facility, 36 days, they said, you know what? You need to go somewhere where you can continue this program. And I remember writing this release thing or whatever, and it was like, I'm going to go to a meeting, and I'm from Eagle Pass, and it's south of San Antonio on the border, and there's no meetings there. And I had Uvalde, which is about an hour away. I'm going to go to a meeting in Uvalde, and I'm going to go to a meeting in Del Rio, which is another hour away. And so this is the kind of mentality that I have at 36 days, when I know I have everything that I need to know about the book, because they already gave it to me, and it's highlighted, and I did the workbooks, and I'm great, I'm feeling good, I got food in my stomach, and everything's great. I haven't used in 36 days, and everything is just perfect for me right now. And I have this plan, this plan of action, which is faulty, because you honestly believe that for me, that I'm going to go to work, and then drive an hour to a meeting, stay for an hour, and then drive back an hour. And I'm going to do that every day. I'm pretty willing, but I don't know how much, to be honest with you, how long that would have lasted. So they said, you know what, why don't you go to Austin and go and live in this halfway house? And I said, okay, well, I don't know, I'll think about it. And a couple of things happened while I was there in treatment, and I took this halfway house deal, and I went. And I remember, I remember the day, I went to the meeting at the Oxford house. They interviewed me, and they gave me the position. And it was a Wednesday night, and I went to an alumni meeting from this treatment center, and there's a couple of guys in here, maybe one that was at that meeting, and I remember going into that meeting, and as I was driving from the Oxford house to the meeting, my mind was already telling me, what are you going to do in Austin? You don't have a job, you don't have any money, you don't know anybody, you're 36 days sober, let's go back to Eagle Pass, let's work the other plan instead. In my mind, that was the easier, softer way.
And I decided, I'm going to stay. Something came over me and said, I'm going to stay. And I stayed. And this is where my journey starts. This is where it talks about love, and it talks about hope, and it talks about faith, because this is how my life changed from this point on. This is where I started seeing the miracles of God working in my life. This is where I started seeing the power in other people. This is where I started seeing the fellowship grow. This is where I started seeing all these miracles, and everything taking place, and it was just overwhelming me, and I couldn't understand what was happening,
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and I was filled with all these emotions, and I was driven, and the only thing that I could do was pray. And I remember, I moved in with this guy, and he relapsed, and I was living in the streets, and I was living out of my car, and I'm three months sober, and I've just got a temporary job, and I don't know what to do. And finally, I humbled myself, and I picked up the phone, and I called my dad, and I said, Dad, what do you want? You're in trouble, aren't you? I said, Dad, I need some help. Money. Hands the phone over to my mom, and tell her what's going on, and they said, we're going to come to confirm this, to see if this is true, and then we'll talk about money. So they drove up to Austin, I'm staying in a Motel 6, or whatever, and they come, and they see how I'm living. All these clothes, and the back of my car, and I'm 90 days sober, and you want to tell me that this is the way it's supposed to be? You want to tell me that at 90 days sober, I'm not grateful? I'm grateful for every second up to that point that I hadn't used. I hadn't finished working the steps. What's happening? What's come over me? And I'm sitting there, and they come in, and this is the first miracle that happened. This is where the book talks about being rocketed into the fourth dimension. This is where the book talks about having this conscious contact with your Creator. This is where the book talks about this small, minute, as this is, the first relationship, the first conscious contact that you can have with your Creator. This is where I can start building. And I remember, we went and looked at this apartment, and it was like $900. It was $450 to move in, and $300, and all this.
And I remember sitting there, and my dad wrote a check out, and gave it to him, and walked out the door, got in the car, and left. Now, the drug addict that I am, I'm like, well, what about the cable? What about the gas, and the light? Now, you work it out. What about furniture? Now, you find and sleep on the floor. You got a roof over your head? That was my responsibility, and no more. And that was on a Sunday. Monday afternoon, he calls me, and he says, there's a letter for you here from the IRS in Mexico. And I'm like, what? I'm like, what do they want? You know, because I worked in Mexico for a long time.
And they're a little bit behind on their taxes, especially on their refunds. So, this was a refund from two years back, $950. And I sat there, and I said, wow, send me the 50, and keep the 900, and we're done. We're even. And I sat there in this apartment on the floor with no furniture, and I grabbed my pillow, and I held it tight, and I said, God, if this is your way of showing me that you're going to take care of me, I am yours, utterly. And I know that sometimes I'm not going to want to do the things that I'm supposed to do, and I know that sometimes I'm going to make mistakes, and sometimes I'm going to fall short on my expectations that I place on myself, that I am yours. Because today, without Him, I am nothing. Nothing but this body up here that's going to use and abuse the hell out of you. It's going to take anything that you have, because I want it. See, that's what God does for me in my life. And I sat there, and I remember calling my sponsor, and I had a hard-ass sponsor, and he said, you're calling me for this? And he hung up the phone. I said, wow, isn't he happy for me? And I remember going a couple days later to his house, and I said, hey, man, what's the deal? And you know what he said to me? He said, you know, Ivan, and some of you might know, and he'd go like this, he'd put his hand right here, he says, you know, Ivan, this is the kind of stuff that's going to happen to you all the time if you stay close to God. And when these things start happening, everyday occurrences, everyday experiences, they're going to get you closer to Him, but they're just going to overlap in your everyday things. They're just going to take over, and you're not even going to notice them. But you're going to notice the love in your heart, and you're
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going to notice the faith that you're going to have, and you're going to notice the hope that you're going to give other people. That's not the answer I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear thank you, you know, congratulations, give me a hug, let's go smoke a cigarette, something, you know. No pat on the back. My sponsor doesn't pat me on the back. He kicks me in the ass. Just get busy. See, when I started working the steps and I got to that inventory and I realized that in order for me to sit out and write this moral and fearless inventory, I needed to have a firm foundation on the first two steps. Not only that, I needed to have a faith in a power greater than myself. I needed to trust this power. And I sat here, I sat there, and I wrote this inventory, and I didn't realize this until 18 months later that I had come to believe in a power greater than myself. It took me 18 months to actually trust it. You know, because, you know, there's a thing for me is I can sit here and tell you all day long that I believe, but do I have faith? Do I trust it? You know, today I can tell you that I do believe and that I have faith because of the actions that I take behind that faith prove to me that I have a relationship with God. They show me through my actions. He blesses me through His grace and I get to wake up every morning.
I wake up every morning and I see His power, His light, and His way of life, and I fall short sometimes trying to express it in other people. But today my job, I feel, sometimes is to make mistakes. Not only to make mistakes, but to admit them to other people, to humble myself. See, because if I could create humility, if I could create this humility that the book talks about, I wouldn't need this program. If I could create this, I can't do it. I've tried. I wrote this inventory and I left out the two people that abused me and my sponsor sat down and we were doing this fifth step and he said, okay, let's put the book away and I want to talk about what you didn't write down. And I said, what do you mean? The people that you left off the list. And I'm thinking to myself, is this guy like a mind reader?
Can he see me? Who has he been talking to? From the age of six to the age of 26, not a word has been said to anybody that I had gotten abused and raped. So I sit there and I start talking about them and it's like this thing got lifted from me and it was like replaced instantly by this sense of power, this new direction, this fear fell from me and I realized that I was standing in the presence of my creator, that I was being blessed and taken care of and nurtured and that I wasn't going to feel harm anymore, that these things happened for a reason and now I had purpose. Now in God's hands, like the book says, this is the biggest asset I have when I have it in His hands to help other people. See, because when I have it in my hands, I'm going to turn it to shit. But when I leave it in God's hands, it's the biggest asset I have. I'm the one that turns it into a liability. And I realized when I went home and I did six and seven, and you know, I love coming out to where there's water because that's where I wrote my first inventory and I sat down and I wrote it in Lake Austin and I wrote my inventory and I sat by the rocks just like they are out here and I love being outside. It's so peaceful. And I went home and I did six and seven and I realized then that six and seven were about these character defects and about these shortcomings that I was ashamed of that I had and that I had continuously beaten myself for having them and I continuously fell short of my ideals and I realize today that these things that I have, these character defects, there's nothing I can do to remove them. I can ask God humbly, ask God to help me. Because the book talks about two of the main ones, selfish and self-centeredness, and they both clearly state that there's nothing we can do to remove them ourselves, that we have to have God's help on both of them. So I'm sitting here and I'm standing here and this obsession has been removed and I'm going to think that God can't handle some of these character defects that I have when He's already taken one of the biggest ones, when He's already removed this obsession, when He continues to grace me whether I like to accept it or not, and I sit there and I realize that six and seven is a life-long journey. It's not about putting the list up and you're done. No. They pop up all the time. You know, and
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I get to my eight-step list and I start writing it out and I go and I make all my amends and up to this day I've made everything, every personal amends is done except the people that I can't find and I'm steadfast ready to finish those and the people I still owe money to that I'm paying. Everything else is done up to this point. And you know, this brings me to some of the amends that I want to share with you. One of the most powerful ones was when I went home and I did my mom and dad. And I remember going in and I was scared and I drove down there and I sat down and I had these note cards and I had written everything out. I was detailed and I knew I couldn't talk about this and I knew that I could do this and this and this. And I sat there and I started sharing it with them and I saw the tears rolling down my mom and I saw my dad, you know, kind of trying to hold them back and he couldn't and they both sat there and they said, you know what, we just want you to be happy. We just want to know what you're doing. Just call us, let us know.
We don't want to worry about you. And the reason they said that is because when I was out there, my mom would leave a note on the door every day thinking that that day is the day that I was going to come home and let me know where she was at. And I didn't know that until I got sober. I didn't know that until I was sitting there across from her making my amends, that she was doing that every day. Look how much of this emotional security I robbed them. Look how much of all these sleepless nights that I robbed them when I wasn't even living there. And I'm sitting in treatment thinking everything that I did, I did it to myself and I didn't hurt anybody else. See, this powerful experience that I'm having during amends is something that's so beautiful that you shouldn't want to miss it, you know, because if you're done and if you're ready to let God take you to bigger and better things, then you have to humble yourself. You have to go and take care of these amends. If you want to have a life of temporary sobriety, if you want to have a life of just being sober, that's your life, man. I want to be free. I want to be free.
I don't want to be a slave to cocaine or anything else. I don't want to be a slave to anybody. I want to be free. You know, when I start working on 10 and 11 and, you know, I have this prayer and meditation life and it's been falling a little short and I remember a while back I talked to a friend of mine and he said, you know what, why don't you go talk to a guy that does meditation? And I did and I went and I sat with him and it changed my life because he talked about these principles and he's not one of us. He talked about how he practices these things and because he wants to enlarge his spirit life, he wants to have the closeness of his Creator all the time. And you know, for me, I sit down sometimes at night and I think it's a chore and I sit down and I think, I've got to do this, you know, it's a discipline, this and that, and you know what, it's not about that. It's about where I want to be with God. See, I'm not looking at these steps now as an outline of something that I need to do. This is what I want to do. This is the way I want to live.
The book says that this life is not a theory, we have to live it. This is the spiritual way of life. Some of you might not be prepared to live that way. You might have to go out and do some more research. You might have to go out and experience different things and you might have to go out and find another fellowship or go out and do other things. You know what, that the most beautiful thing is, is that when you realize the truth about yourself, you will do whatever it takes to find something that will help you. That's what I found out, is that when I got to see the truth about myself, I was armed with these facts. Like the book says, there's nothing left but to pick this tool, pick it up. It was me. Just like the first speaker said, it's like they wrote this book for me.
You know, two years ago I went to buy this bed, and this is one of the most powerful experiences I've ever had in this program. I went to buy a bed and I ran into the guy that had abused me in Austin. And I saw him, like, from here to this mic, was standing right in front of me. And I was looking at him and I gave him my slip and he looked straight at me and I could see the pain in him. I could see that remorse, that quicksand, that demoralization, that fear. And I got all tingly and excited and I was like, what's going to happen here, you know? And he put the bed in the car and next thing I know I'm unloading it at my house and I go up to my room and I go up to my room and I sit quiet for about 45 minutes.
And I come back downstairs and I talk to my roommate and I said, hey man, you got a couple
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minutes, I need to talk to you about something. And he said, yeah, what's up? And I shared this story with him and he said, why did you go there? And I said, I didn't know that this program, this recovery thing, that this relationship that I have with God is going to prevent me from going to certain places, you know? That means that if I want to go buy cigarettes, then I can't go to a store that sells beer. You know, what kind of power is that? What kind of God is it? I'm not afraid of anything today. So I shared the story and I said, you know what, I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. And I remember walking off and I remember talking to my sponsor and I remember that night sitting quiet and I felt the nearness of my creator and I could feel that this man was in pain and I could feel that this man was a sick man and I prayed for him. This is a man that I wanted to just do insane, crazy things and no longer have him breathe in this world. And I remember sitting there and praying for this man. You know, that's what love is about. See, when I share that, I can give you hope. When I share that, you might see that my faith is strong. See, these are the things that were taught to me. See, my life hasn't been perfect.
My life has been filled with ups and downs, but I can tell you right now, at this moment, I am free and I feel my God today. I can tell you that I'm having a wonderful time out here and I can tell you that I love the hospitality and that I love the fellowship. You know, at some point in my sobriety, I started relying too much on the fellowship. I started demanding stuff from the fellowship. And the book says that when this burden is going to overcome you, it's too heavy for you. And I call this guy that's involved in a lot of service and this is what he said to me. He goes, take off the God suit, it's too big for you. It's too heavy. So why do you want those responsibilities? Why do you want those things? Don't you have enough on your own? So I took a different perspective. You know, when I first got to Austin, there was a total of four meetings. There's over 30 meetings in Austin. There's over 87 hospital and institutions meetings from a year ago where there was two. And you see, I have this small little part in all this. But it's not because of me that these things are there. Because I can leave and God's still going to take care of these things.
See, but it's my part to bring in my recovery, to bring in my relationship with God, to bring in my faith to these groups. See, that's what the traditions talk about. Traditions talk about the unity, you know, about being involved in service. And when these things occur, 12 and 12 talks about being a bleeding deacon. You know, the 12 and 12 also talks about being an elder statesman. See, I didn't get the opportunity to come into a fellowship that was already established. I didn't come into a fellowship that had about 30 meetings a week, you know. No, I came into a fellowship that was starting just like this. And you see, and if I can share with you one thing, is stay close to your God and stay close to your sponsor and work the steps and everything else will take care of itself. See, because you're not going to be able to give something you haven't got. And you know, they tell you that all the time. But look at your own experience. Is that what you're doing? Is that what's happening in your life? It's happened to me in my life. See, in the back of the book of this new fourth edition, they included this thing that they call the concepts. See, I have 36 principles today. Some of you might not be familiar with the concepts, but I'm a service junkie. I'm involved in Cocaine Anonymous, you know, at a world level. And not to brag or to be arrogant or anything, but that's the path that God has taken me.
And I'm involved in a once a year meeting where it makes decisions on what this fellowship is going to do throughout the year and what budget, what tips they're going to make, what literature they put out. And all these things occur on a four day, you know, four days sitting in this conference room from seven in the morning to three or four in the morning. And I am so honored and privileged just to be sitting there representing something. Because
[00:40:00]
when I came into this fellowship, I was not a part of life. I wasn't a part of anything. And you see, in these concepts that showed me these three things, one of them talks about the right of decision. The other one talks about the right of appeal. And the last one talks about the right of participation. And I like to include these when I speak, because, you know, if you look at your own experience, are you appealing every decision that God has done? Are you appealing everything that's going on in your life? And once you know your in this appeal process, if anybody's watched any TV or has been involved in any court situations, what is the only thing that an appeal does? It just, you know, delays something. You know, the court, the judge goes in there and they file an appeal and come back in two months.
So you got these two months to just do nothing. You know, go back, sit in the cell, and then you let your lawyers do the work. See, for me, when I start appealing stuff, I go into my head and I start trying to fix it, arrange it, so I can take care of it whenever it needs to be taken care of instead of doing it right then and now and not have to worry about it. See, but if I do that, if I take that decision, the right of a decision, and I take action, like the book says, and I write the inventory and I do the 10 step, and then I go out and make the amends, then I can participate again. Then I can be a participant in life. You see, why would I just want to live by 12 principles when they've given me 36? See, I firmly believe that if it's in this book, why am I not utilizing it? Why am I not working on it? You know, it clearly tells me that the stories are there for a reason. So they may be able to reach somebody. They say, we hope that some of these stories will be able to help you. That yes, I am one of these. And yes, there is a solution. See, this book is filled with miracles and blessings and you know what the most beautiful part is? Is that when it starts to come alive in your life. When you're sitting in front of somebody and they're talking about something and all of a sudden, boom, not the page number, but the line in the book comes to you and you're like, wow, that's what's happening. Or you're sitting there and you're going through some stuff and all of a sudden, boom, this line comes out or the 12 and 12. You know, one of my favorite lines in the 12 and 12 is that I'm a savage. You know, I was talking to somebody about this yesterday, you know, the bewildered one. You know, this program has not only given me an opportunity to experience life, but it's also given me an opportunity to be free. This program has given me the tools to access a power, the tools to have a relationship with God. That's what this program has done for me. See, now if I can give you some hope that you can find a solution in this book, that you be given this power to help others, I beg you, like the book says, to search fearlessly within yourself. And see, but I will not chase any one of you. I won't. I will give you every second of my time and I will not waste one on you. That's what this program has shown me. It's given me some discipline. Not a lot, but it's given me some. There's still room to grow. You know, the thing is that when I start working this program and I start living by these principles, there's no way it's not going to overflow into my rest of my life, into where I work or the relationships that I'm in. It's just going to start flowing out and it's going to start coming out and I'm going to start talking about these principles at work and I'm going to catch myself and say, wait a minute, this is work.
Now to tell you the story, I was at work a couple of weeks ago and I was telling this person that sits across from me in this queue about the fellowship and about how I've been sober and about how my life has changed. And she says, I have a friend and can you help her? And I gave her some numbers and she called and she went out to have a smoke break and all of a sudden this other lady's looking for me inside the building and she sees me walking, but doesn't know who I am, but knows that I came out of my queue. So she figured that that was me. So she walks right up to me and she says, are you so-and-so and are you the cocaine addict? And she didn't just say, are you the cocaine addict? She said, I am. Right there in front of everybody. And I said, yes, I am. How can I help you? I'm Not Ashamed Today of Who I Am, I Know Exactly Who I Am, and I Sat Down and She Told
[00:45:01]
Me About This Girl, What a Beautiful Thing to Be Able to Experience That, To Be Totally Free of Who You Are, You Know, Up to This Point in My Sobriety, This Is What God Has Done in My Life, I'm Sure He's Not Done With Me Yet, You Know, I'm, I Don't Know How Much Time I Got Left, But, You Know, I'm Going to Wrap It Up Here, and I'm Going to Share With You One Last Thing, and, and, I Got a Call About Two Weeks Ago, You Know, It Was Last Week, and I Was Getting Ready to Drive to San Antonio, to Go to That Meeting, and This Guy That's Got About Four Years, He Called Me and He Said, You Know, I've Been Depressed and I Haven't Been Feeling Good, and, you know, I Went and I Saw These Doctors and They Told Me That Maybe, That What I'm Suffering From Is Not Really Alcoholism or Drug Addiction, That It's Really Something Else, and That I Think That I Can Go Out and Have a Drink, and That I Think I Can Control and Enjoy, and That These Four Years, you know, Really Haven't Done Anything to Me, and I Sat There and I Said, You Mean to Tell Me That The Four Years That God Has Graced You Don't Mean Anything to You? And I Let Him Have It. I Said, The Book Tells Me That The Main Problem Is Going to Center in My Mind. When My Mind Starts to Lie to Me, When My Mind Starts to Tell Me That I Can Do Things That I Know That I Can't Do Because I Really Don't Know, I'm Headed for Trouble. Because That's The Insanity of This Disease. And I See People Go In and Out, and Sometimes I Sit There and I was like, Damn. And I Stopped Asking Why. I Stopped Asking Why Can't They Get It? It's Not My Deal. It's Not My Problem. I Don't Know Why I Have It. I Don't Know Why God Gave It to Me. The Only Thing I Know Is That Today I'm Sober, I'm Free, and I'm Very Grateful for What He's Given Me and What He's Taken Away. You Know, the Celebration of Fourth of July, about three years ago, I experienced celebrating it for the first time as an American. And it means a lot to me because it's an independence. I don't really know the history, but today I celebrate independence from drugs and alcohol. Every day that I wake up is an independence. Every day is a gift. Thank you for allowing me to share and God