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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 820 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: mike-d-spiritual-growth-and-recovery-the-dark-night-of-the-soul-ca-2012-archive-820.mp3 Duration: 01:06:02
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Well, good evening, everyone. My name is Marcia S., and I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict. It's good to be here with y'all tonight, and it's my honor and privilege to introduce our speaker, Mike D. Mike has traveled all the way from Los Angeles, California, to come share with y'all this evening, and I can tell you that you're in for a real treat. I was just sitting there kind of thinking, going over my mind, my relationship with Mike.
And what I remembered was the first time that I ever heard him share from the podium, I got chills all over my body. He has a message of clarity and a message of depth and weight. And what I really love the most about Mike is his humanness and his willingness and honesty to be vulnerable with the people in the Twelve Step rooms that he has an opportunity to speak to. Mike travels all over the country sharing from the podium about what it was like, what happened, and what he's like now.
I really love this man, and he's been a leader for me, and he's been a mentor. And I've looked up to him a lot and watched what he was doing with his feet. And you guys are, I'm telling you, you're in for a real treat tonight. I know we have a packed house. We'll keep the air going. I hope it doesn't get too hot in here, but it's worth it. Believe me. Mike Dolphin, come on up. I'm an addict. My name's Mike D.
And I'd first like to say it's good to be here. I'm kind of full. And not from the food. You know, it's amazing when I look back on my life. I'm a product of concrete and pavement, Harlem, New York. And when I look back on my life and see what God has done in these 25 years, it amazes me. I would like to take a moment of silence for my buddy, Mark Houston. I thought when I was in Texas almost two years ago now, I came down to spend time with my sponsor, because we had been on a long-distance relationship for years.
When I left Texas after about a year, I realized I had been sent to Texas for an entirely different reason. Coming out of New York, Texas was one of the places you did not want to go. And when I was on my way here, the only thing I could think of in my head was, you're going to have to deal with rednecks and cowboys. And coming off East Coast, that ain't too cool. What I didn't find in Texas was rednecks and cowboys.
What I found in Texas was family. Just goes to show you, you never know what God has in the plan for you. We want to figure it out. We want to know. We don't truly know. So I'd like to thank one of my mentors and my angels, Mark Houston, if we would take a moment for him in remembrance of him. I don't know what I'm going to talk about tonight, but there's something I'd like to read. And it's something that I've been transitioning through for the last couple of months.
And my life and my recovery is moving to another level. And there's another layer of the onion that's about to be peeled. And that peeling is not that comfortable at certain times. But as a result of what I've done for the last 25 years, my recovery date is March 9th, 1987.
[00:05:05]
I just celebrated 25 years. As a result of what God has already done in my life, there's no place else for me to go. So in the transition of my spirit, there's a book that I've been reading called Dark Night of the Soul. And it says the dark night descends on a soul only when everything else has failed. When you are no longer the best meditator in the class because your meditation produces absolutely nothing.
When prayer evaporates on your tongue and you have nothing left to say to God. When you are not even tempted to return to a life of worldly pleasure because the world has proven empty. And yet taking another step through the void of the spiritual life feels futile because you are no good at it. And it seems that God has given up on you anyway. You can scarcely conjure up your old passion for him. It has become perfectly clear that you are incapable of doing anything on your own to remedy your spiritual brokenness.
I don't know. I know we have a mixed audience tonight. But what I've found over the years, the principles, the conditions and the tenants of the recovery process not only applies to alcoholics and addicts. It applies to you guys who call yourself normal. And what I've found out, there are no normal people. You might not be alcoholic or addict, but something's going on. Life ain't always peaches and cream for you.
Dark night shows up. Dark night of the soul shows up and you don't know what to do. I'm in a place at 25 years that I put conditions on God. It's like, why you ain't did this yet, man? I've done everything you've asked me to do. Why have you not changed this? And then what he does, he gives me glimpses into reality. And the reality is that when I go to a convention or I wind up in other parts of the country and they have countdowns and people stand up when they get to them higher years, very few people stand up.
Because they are not willing to weather the storm because the storm is coming. Dark night of the soul is coming where everything that you've learned to do is of nil. It does not suffice. And you wonder, what do I do next? And the reality of that, there's nothing you can do. It's really about the rubber meeting the road, man. It's about, do you really believe? Do you really believe that I am? And I'm capable of doing whatever is necessary in your life.
I'm not talking, I mean really. Okay, you're here and you're talking it. Are you walking it? And what I find is that there's another layer of the onion that needs to be peeled in order for me to effect a more conscious relationship with this God deal and become aligned more in world of spirit living. And it's not easy. Because there's this little guy inside called Mr. Hunt 12th Street from Harlem, New York.
That was born and bred out of concrete and pavement. That's been fighting since he was 11 years old. Grew up in poverty. Grew up without a father in a house and a mother and a grandmother that beat the living mess out of him when he didn't do right. And he forged this belief system as to how he would live in this world so you can't touch me.
[00:10:03]
And it almost killed me. The miracle is that I was introduced to some angels that began to impart to me a new way to live life that I no longer had to depend on Mr. Hunt 12th Street to live. That if I just became willing to follow some directions, I'm not a tenant of suggestions as outlined in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't buy that suggestion crap. You suggest something to me, I ain't doing it.
Because I think I know better. I mean after all, I can live in that concrete and pavement. I was pretty intelligent in school. In culinary arts, I'm a master. In organization, I'm a master. I think I know something. So I got an altered ego that any time I come up against something, it wants to tell me, you can figure it out. You got a solution. You bet. You bet. You bet. Look what you came out of. Where I come from, people don't make it out, man.
I don't know where you come from. They don't make it out. And I'm talking about not the physical deal. I'm talking about the allergy, the obsession, and the spiritual malady. They don't make it out. Because when dark night of the soul comes, they make a conscious decision to flee as opposed to stand their ground. And they begin to rely on what they think they know. And it's insane. Because what I think I know got me here.
So something has got to happen that puts me in a place where I become willing just to believe just a little bit more. Just a smidgen more. There's another book that talks about the grain of a mustard seed. And a mustard seed is minute. It's teeny, tiny, teeny, teeny, tiny, tiny. But it tells me that if I have that much faith, I can probably make it through. That's what's kept me here. Because this is not the first time that I've had to move through a dark night of the soul.
Dark night of the soul is only God chipping away at you. That's all it is. He's refining you. He's doing exactly what you asked him to do. He is recreating you. The trouble with that is we ask him to do it. Then when he starts doing it, it's like, no, don't chip over here. That part is wrong. Ain't nothing wrong with that part. Why? Because I'm still getting something from it. It's still working to some degree.
But I've asked him. What I found out, he does exactly what you ask him to do. And then when he starts to go to work, it's like, okay, rest period. Rest time. So I'm having an awesome experience with just seeing. Just seeing. The process of recovery and the program of recovery is so much more than it's talked about in the rooms, in the 12-step rooms. It's so much more. We just scratched the surface in the room.
It's when you hook up with guys like this, and guys like Joe Hawk, they are commissioned to take you to a deeper level in your awareness and your consciousness about what? About you. About who you are, that who you probably shouldn't be, to be changed into who you need to be. In order to be effective in this world, this physical deal. And the horning and the changing and the chipping away is only for thoroughbreds.
Man punks and wimps don't get it. If you ain't got no heart you ain't hanging in there. When dark night comes if you don't have no heart you are fleeing because dark night is a mother.
[00:15:06]
Dark night I have you in the middle of the night crying out where are you man? Because I can't see I'm blinded. Dark night I have you that he's done everything he can do and he's altered and changed your life and performed miracles and then you have the audacity to doubt him. The audacity to put your reliance out here again after you have numerous experiences that show you that ain't cool man that don't work.
But you gonna try it anyway. And Then You Scurry Back To God, And You Talk To Him, And When He Don't Do What You Want Him To Do, You Find Fault With Him, And You Become A Disbeliever, Cause He Don't Work On Your Terms, I Don't Know, I Know We Got Guys Here That's In This Program, And I Don't Know What You Doing Here, But I Wonder If You Know What You Doing Here, I Wonder If You Really Know What's Going On With Your Life, I Know When I Was Working Here They Ain't Know, They Thought This Was A La-Di-Da, La-Di-Di Thing, Until A Few Of Us Hammered It Into Them, Something's Happening That You Ain't Got No Control Over, You Headed To Somewhere You Don't Really Want To Go Man, You Don't Want To Sit In Penitentiary Cells Watching The Booty, You Don't Want To Do That, You Don't Want To Have Police Stretching You Out On The Ground, You Don't Want To Be Spiritually Bankrupt Totally, You Don't Really Want To Be Homeless, You Don't Really Want To, You Might Think You Alright With It, Get Homeless, For Real, Get Homeless, For Real, See How You Like That, You Don't Really Want Somebody Sticking Pistols To Your Head, You Don't Really Want That, Serious Deal, I Work In A Recovery Ranch In Altadena, California, And Same Type Of Deal, Same Type Of People, Middle Class To Upper Class, Silver Spoon, Gold Spoon, Born With Diamonds Around Their Little Baskinette And All That Shit, And It's Like They Don't Have A Clue Man, They Don't Have A Clue, It's Like We Don't Know What We Doing, But It's 75 Years Of Recovery Sitting In The Room With Them, And Y'All Don't Know What You Doing, Why I Gotta Do Chores, Why Can't I Have My Cell Phone, Why Can't I Go On A Pass When I Want To Go On A Pass, And It's About Chipping Away And Breaking Down And Bringing Into Reality That We Are Undisciplined People, I Need Somebody To Give Me Direction, I Needed Somebody To Tell Me Exactly What It Is I Need To Do, And That Ain't Only For People In Recovery, That's Why We Have Ministers, We Have Rabbis, We Have Priests, We Have Other Spiritual Advisors That People Go To For What? Direction, Because I Don't Know How To Live, So There's A Real Important Factor That To Me It's Not Talked About Enough In The Rooms, And It's Not Brought Home Enough In The Rooms, And That Is What's My Problem, What's Really Wrong With Me, Is It Really That I Just Smoked A Little Bit Too Much Crack, Or Is It Really Because I Stuck A Little Too Many Holes In My Arm, Or Drank A Little Bit Too Much Alcohol, And If I Can Just Get A Handle On That Stuff I'll Be Alright, Is It Really About That, Or Are You Suffering From A Devastating Deadly Disease That's Out To Kill You,
[00:20:16]
And That If Something Does Not Happen The End Result Is Not Only Jails And Institutions But The End Result Is Death, And What I Find Is That The Youngsters Just Don't Get It, At Nineteen I Didn't Get It, I'm A Recovered Heroin Addict, I Thought It Was About Heroin, If I Can Just Stop Shooting Dope I'll Be Alright, And I Actually Stopped Shooting Dope And It Wasn't Alright, And Synanon Didn't Tell Me That That Wasn't The Root Of What I Suffered From, Synanon Told Me If You Can Just Stop You'll Be Alright, And It Didn't Work, It Wasn't Until I Got To This Book End, And It Began To Move Me Through The First Four Chapters As Outlined In This Book, And Alton Said Here Man Take Statements And Opinions, Turn Them Into Questions And Ask Yourself, Did You Think Like That, Did You Use Like That, Did You Feel Like Bill, Do You Have An Allergy, Can You Control The Amount You Take After You Take One, Is Your Mind Twisted, My Mind Is Twisted, My Mind Is Still Twisted, A Little Secret, That's Why I Stay, That's Why I'm Still Here Twenty Five Years Later, Cause Left Through My Own Devices, I'll Tear Up Some Shit Man, Mark Died Man And My Whole World Shifted, And My Whole World Shifted Because My Dependence Was On Mark, But I Could Never Have Seen That In The Experience, I Had To Move Out Of The Experience To See, That Any Reliance On Human Aid Will Not, It's Not Gonna Get It Man, But We Such Knuckleheads, We Can't, Somebody Can't Just Say That To Me, And I Buy It, And I Buy In, Okay I Hear You But, Okay, I Gotta Experience It, So The Tenets Of The First Step, My Body Being Abnormal, My Mind Being Abnormal, Meaning I Suffer From An Obsession, That Tells Me I Sit In Mark, Mark Houston, No Benchmark, For Six Months Or Three Months, And Out Of Nowhere A Thought Comes And Says I Can Have One, Now The Insanity Is That This Ain't The First Benchmark I've Been In, In My Mind, This Is Not The First Attempt That I've Tried To Stop And Stay Stopped, And Every Time It's Come Before I Brought The Lie That This Time I Can Do It, So I Got Umpteenth, I Used To Have A Group Called What, The Umpteenthers, Meaning You Done Tried Umpteen Times To Do It And You Ain't Pulled It Off Yet, What's Up With That?
That I Can't Tell The Truth From The False, I'm A Believer Of The Lie, This Time I Can Manage And Control, This Time I Can Have Just One, This Time I'll Drink And I Won't Smoke No Crap, This Time I'll Smoke Weed And I Won't Shoot No Dope, This Time I'll Stay On My Side Of Town, Oh It Gets Deeper Than That, This Time I'll Mess With Her Cause It's About The Blondes You Know, Oh It Gets Deep, Maybe If I Get Two Jobs And I Look Up I'm A Workaholic And In That Experience I Don't Even See It's About What I Do, See There's Something That I Do And I Believe That's What's Kept Me Here For So Long, What I Do Is Shoot Dope,
[00:25:18]
What Makes Me Think 25 Years Later I Won't Pick Up, What Makes Me Think I'm Immune From Heroin 25 Years Later, I Ran For 30 Some Years In Some Kind Of Mind Altering Something, What Makes Me Think I'm Exempt Now, The Disease Of Untreated Alcoholism And Untreated Drug Addiction, Who Is By Any Length Out To Get Me, There Is No Such Thing For Me As Just Don't Pick Up, I Don't Buy That One, What I Do Is Pick Up Man, And I Got To Stay Centered, I Got To Stay Focused And I Got To Stay Aligned With Really What's Going On And What Happens Is The Majority Of People That Come To See Us In The Rooms They Don't Do That, It Becomes A Struggle With The Very Thing That's There To Give Them Life And Vitality Becomes A Struggle And They Are Seeking A Solution And We Give Them A Solution And They Make A Conscious Decision To Do What They Think They Know And Then When They Get The Results They Deserve They Got To Come To The Podium And Want To Cry About It Pisses Me Off, Pisses Me Off, Somebody Is Dying In Here, Somebody In Here Right Now Is Having A Dark Night Of The Soul, Not Somebody, Somebody, There Is Enough People In Here There Is A Bunch Of Y'All Out There, Y'All Having One, Couple With The Fact You Ain't Telling Nobody Either, You Can't Tell Nobody Because They Might Not, What's Wrong With Him Get, Get, It Rubs Off, The Very Thing That We Do, Be Accountable, That's What That Man Taught Me, He Taught Me Accountability, He Taught Me Tell Somebody Man, You Better Let Somebody In Mike, Where I Come From You Don't Let People In Man, You Don't Trust Nobody You Don't Share Nothing Because You Don't Never Have Enough To Share So You Make Sure You Got What You Need And Keep Some For The Wake Up Somebody In Here Tonight Needs To Talk To Somebody Whether You Alcoholic Or Addict Or Not You Need To Find Somebody To Talk To Before You Lose Your Mind I Used To Wonder Why Guys In Recovery Would Blow Their Heads Off, Friends Of Mine In The Room Shot His Wife Then Shot Himself, Doing Book Studies Too, Talking About The Process From The Podium, Blew His Wife Away And Blew Him Away Counselor In The Treatment Program I Graduated From Put A Shotgun In His Mouth And Blew His Head Off, Why? Because Dark Night Of The Soul Came And There Was No Accountability There Was Nobody That They Could Go To That They Trusted Would Tell Them The Right Next Thing To Do Which A Lot Of Times Is Nothing Just Be Still And Know That I Am And Watch Me Work The tenets of the first step is what's kept me here all these years.
I'm a real one, man. Don't turn your back on me. It's not quite as bad as it was 25 years ago. Matter of fact, I'm scared. I'm scaring somebody. It ain't quite as bad as it was before, but still.
[00:30:04]
And I'm not afraid to say it, man. I don't wake up on the right side of the bed every morning. I don't wake up with chipper, happy, lovely, smiling thoughts every morning. I'm so glad to be alive. Oh, no. Another day. Somebody knows what I'm talking about. Only difference between me and you, you ain't told nobody. And it's killing you. It's eating you alive. Because you that person that's supposed to be able to take anything.
you're supposed to be able to stand with anything, didn't daddy tell you that, didn't mama raise you to be fortified and withstand anything, so I can't bend, I can't be flexible, and in the process of doing that, I'm killing me, and I'm not only killing me, I'm killing those around me that love me, and really care about me, and I've aligned myself with the disease of untreated whatever it is you're going through, as opposed to aligning yourself with the spirit of God, that can bring you through anything, and basically that's all this program has done for me, it's aligned me with the spirit of God and a spiritual way of living life, the majority of the time, and a knowingness that knows that there is a power that's at work in the universe that can do anything, if he brought this Dauphine out of concrete and pavement, he can do anything, why, because my brother didn't make it out, Wardren didn't make it out, he blew his head off in the middle of the street, my brother O.D. from Iran, he didn't have a habit, he just went uptown to hang out, left Brooklyn one afternoon, took off early from his job, and just went to hang out in Speedball, didn't know he'd get that bag of dope, see, we be looking for stuff, we actively go out looking for the booyah, not believing the book, you just might get the booyah, it's crazy, man, when I sit back and I look at me and I look at my experience up top, I just say, man, you's a crazy soul, it's only by the grace of God that he stayed with me, through all my insanity, Alfred not pulling the trigger on that roof that night was not about luck, and I thought it was about luck, because I owed Alfred a lot of money, and Alfred was a killer, and I knew contracts that Alfred carried out, and when he caught me on that roof that night, put the gun to my head, and didn't pull the trigger, instead he said, I'm taking you to my captain, the power of God stepped in, see, I gotta recognize God when he's working, and I couldn't do that until I got here, until I got here, that was a lucky experience, I was lucky, I was lucky that when he took me to Jimmy, and Jimmy asked me who I was, and I told him my brother's name was Brad, Harold D., he said, Harold D., I went to school with Harold D., get him on the phone, that was God, they kill people where I come from, so something needs to happen in my life where I begin to align my life with spiritual experiences, because I'm up against something that I have no power to control or make a difference about it in my life, it's just some stuff I can't change, Jimmy, thank you for the experience today,
[00:35:01]
thank you for the honor today, it's just some stuff, man, with all the willingness I can muster up, I can't do nothing about it, God, I want to, I don't want to be that guy, man, I don't want to live that way no more, but I have not been thoroughly convinced that there's nothing I can do, and until I am, I'm going to keep trying, because I really want to be God, I really want to run my life, but I not only really want to run my life, I want to run your life, I want to run your life, I want to run your life, I want to run all of y'all, and it don't work, I lost the privilege to run my own life, I can't fix me, but we see them all the time, they get to the podium, man, and they got the fix for you, used to be me, how can you talk about it, because it was me, I was telling you what you needed to do, all I can do is impart my experience to you, that's all, then I leave it up to you what you do with it, man, they couldn't drive it down my throat, what makes me think I can drive it down your throat, my ego, because I'm bad, and what happens is I look up, and somebody's got me up here on this pedestal, and I'm up here all by myself, and I'm looking down, and I hate it when people say they look up to me, don't look up to me, man, look at me from our level, man, treat me as if I'm on the same level as you are, because I am, there is no more God in me than is in you, God don't love me no more than he loves you, God has got the same blessings for you that he's got for me, I don't care if you got 15 days, 15 years, 15 months, he is willing to do for you the same exact stuff, the difference is are you willing to receive it, a lot of stuff we ain't willing to receive from God, because he brings it to our door and we don't open, and he keeps knocking, let me in, through all the experiences that I have that fail, he keeps knocking, and allows me to move through the experience and then allows me not to kill myself, on one hand I talk about I'm supposed to be dead, but on the other hand the spiritual part of me says no you ain't, you're supposed to be alive, you know why knucklehead, because if you're supposed to be dead, you be dead, it's that simple, it's that simple, and recovery for me is that simple, the longer I stay clean the simpler it gets, it's so simple now it's about the moment man, can I enjoy the moment, God that's hard man, because I either want to be in yesterday or I want to figure out what's going to happen tomorrow, and I ain't got no control over none of that, the moment, if I can just enjoy the moment, get the best out of the moment, maybe I'll have a chance man, I can go back and try to clean up yesterday, but that's all I can do, and when I come if you don't want it, sorry I'm moving on, but I do whatever I can do to align myself with the person God would have me to be, yes this is a God program, I'm talking about the real program, I'm not talking about the poopy program, because there's a poopy program going around, and it's my own personal deal, not as opinionated as I used to be, am I Bobby B, not as opinionated as I used to be, I used to be one opinionated son of a gun, work the steps or die, now you work the steps if you want to, if you don't there ain't no sweat off my back, how free do you want to be, that's that man, how free do you really want to be, are you really willing to go to any lengths, if you're like me you went to any lengths for your drugs, any lengths, you sold your soul and everything else,
[00:40:23]
for your drugs, but then you don't want to get a sponsor and follow directions, you don't want to show up in meetings and take commitments, you don't want to stand at the door and greet people when they come in, new people, because that's a little bit above you, I'm above that, I'm the secretary, in a meeting of doping, in alcoholics, I'm the GSR, in the nut house, if you didn't know it or not, we nuts man, the roots of CA and AA is the nut house, don't get it twisted, the reality man, what's really going on here, I joke about it man, but I'm serious, it's out of my experience, when I get the power to sit back and watch people work, just watch it, but the most profound experience is when I get back and I'm able to see me in action, and I say you sick son of a so and so, you better not go no god damn way, keep your butt here, keep treating your body, your mind and your spirit, one day it will get better, so I'm hooked, I'm hooked on recovery the same way I was hooked on heroin, my first piece of work hooked me, my first set of amends hooked me, when I was able to go back to New York and make amends to those fatherless mothers, that I had kids by, that I never married any one of them, and they all about different women, when I could go back and make amends, walk into Daniel's lion's den, and make amends to dope dealers that I owed money, and they didn't do nothing to me, they threw Kenny Bione off the roof, threw him off the roof, but I walked in with a willingness to believe God would take care of me, and if I perish, I perish, but if I don't do this, I am shooting dope, I was crystal clear by the time I got to nine the first one, crystal clear first time, I can remember going back and making amends, I used to call myself a booster, a thief, a high class thief, because I used to go in Lord and Taylor's and Bloomingdale's and back then they had B. Altman's and Macy's and kind of high, you know, I got in a piece of work, man, and I came through that goddamn fourth column, and that fourth column said you wasn't no booster, you was a petty thief, scared to death, you ran in there and ran out praying you didn't get caught, I'd pray on my way to the store and I'd pray in the store and I'd pray coming out the store, Lord just let me get out of here.
The reality of my experience, who I'm not that I need to become and the only thing that I need to become is totally dependent on God. In every area of my life, every single area, there are none left out. In my finances, in my relationships, on my job, as a father, as a brother.
[00:45:10]
I'm going to deal now with my brother. in New York, he has, in L.A., he's got Parkinson's. And I went back, you know, like I said, when I came to Texas, I thought I came to hang out with Mark. I didn't come to hang out with Mark. I came to hang out with you guys. Because out of that experience, I got a whole family. Blows me away, man. Blows me away. When I left here and went back to New York, I keep saying maybe I'm going to New York. When I went back to L.A., I thought I was going back to work in a treatment center. Worked there about three months, didn't like what they was doing. I don't deal in dishonesty on a certain level. Then on other levels, it's all right to deal in dishonesty. I'm just being honest. I'm just being honest. He ain't finished with me yet. He's still got some work to do. And I thought I was going back to work at a new recovery in Palm Springs. Got there, left there, went to stay with my brother in L.A. and saw that his Parkinson's had progressed. And he needed me. He needed somebody around. And at first, it was about I'm just staying for a minute and I'm going to get my own place. And then the spirit said, you can't go nowhere. Didn't he look out for you all through your user? Did he not keep his door open for you when everybody else closed them? Here's a living amends. What you going to do? How willing are you?
You want to say you're going to sacrifice you for your brother? And I answered yes. And I'm having a hell of a ride because I ain't perfect. So it's days when patience is like monumental. It's like take your medicine. And it's like I ain't taking it because God's going to heal me. But Bobby, God made doctors, man, to give people medicine and help them heal and get better. I don't care. I don't like it. I ain't taking it. He's always been slow and methodical and laid back. He's from the beatnik era, Greenwich Village in New York. So he's real laid back and he's real cool and suave and debonair. He even got photons there. Patience and tolerance. What I thought I was going back to LA for is not why I was sent back to LA. Whole landscape has changed. Who I thought was my friend ain't my friend.
The saying that some people come into your life for a lifetime and some for a season and some just pass through, I'm experiencing that on a daily basis. Carving out a whole new fellowship and deal for me. In a family where I was the black sheep that they didn't want to let me in. They would fix plates for me and leave it by the door and I'd have to get it by the door and leave. On Easter with a room full of 50 people, they said, Uncle Mike, would you bless the food? Might not mean nothing to you guys. That's a big deal for me. Somebody's regained their trust and faith in me. Something's happened as a result of the example of new life that I live, man. I don't do it perfectly and I don't do it to the best of my ability all the time, but I stay willing. I stay willing. When I get off track, I become willing to get back on track because there's a reality for me. And the reality is I'm shooting dope again. The reality is, Mike, you're getting loaded again,
[00:50:05]
If God in this way of life does not stay first and primary in your life, sure as my name is Heron, you come in to hang out with me again. And I ain't twisted on it. I'm crystal clear, man. So I muster up the willingness to keep moving to effect a conscious, deeper relationship with the God that has kept me all these years. This piece of work that I'm in now, when I say a piece of work, I mean the 12 steps, moving through all 12 steps.
I'm in inventory and I told my sponsor, I said, Carter, I meet with him once a week for two hours and we are reading inventory as we write inventory, me and another friend of mine, Kevin, LA. And I've never been in a place like this. I said, Carter, I don't want to do this crap no more. I don't want to look at me. I don't want to look at me no more, man. I've been looking at me for 25 years. Can it be therefore? Can't she be the problem, man? My God, why is it I'm always the problem? And in that moment, I forget.
In that moment, that quickly, I forget that if she's the problem, I am F'd. The problem can never be outside of me. Because if the problem is outside of me, the solution is outside of me. And the solution is not guaranteed because you just not, you might not act the way I need you to act to make me okay. So it's got to be me. But Heron is bad. Shows up in all kinds of shapes, forms, and fashions. Takes on different attire. And shows up. The minion crew up here, they get busy. I got a little crew live up here. They live up here.
It's a whole bunch of selfishness, dishonesty, self-seeking, insecurity, feeling less than, feeling more than, feeling better than, feeling worthless. It's a whole bunch of them. A whole trot. They just hang out up here. They don't pitch their tents up here. And I don't have no say-so on how they act. They'll just wake up in the morning and say, okay, we gonna get him today. And it might be through the door because I'll let Deuce out. And his butt don't want to come back in. It's like, man, I got to go. Don't you know I got stuff to do? And he just stand there looking at me. The crew. My head. The book tells me the disease centers in my mind. I sat in a group with some youngsters and they talked about, he was talking about, oh, my uncle and aunt don't like y'all because they say you brainwash people. And I said, you ever thought your ass might need to be brainwashed? You ever thought maybe there's something wrong with your brain? That's the whole deal, man. I need to be brainwashed. I need some of that old stuff taken out so some new stuff can come in. I need some old morals and values and philosophies as to the way I live life. I need them washed away. And I need to make room for God to implant some new stuff. And that's a whole brand new deal because God, when we get here, God ain't implanting nothing. The world is implanting stuff. And I begin to rely on that stuff. Money, property, and prestige makes me who I am. And for a lot of us, that just about killed us. I need to get rid of that human stuff and have some spiritual
[00:55:00]
stuff come in and be willing to live along those lines. That's all. Just be willing and then follow the prompts. That's when the voice says don't do it, don't do it. That's simple. When the voice says go left, go left. Intuition and inspiration. I think my time is up. So it's good, it's good being home. This is home. To see Eric and Emily and Revett and Joan. Daughters here celebrating 27 years. All the way from Atlanta, Georgia. Came to celebrate. You got it like that, huh? My buddy Mike, my friend. He's not a pigeon and he's not my baby. Like we want to call sponsees and recover it. No, they ain't pigeons and they ain't babies, man.
They're children of God. And we need to recognize them for that, man. Celebrating four years of recovery. There's a bunch of miracles sitting all around. I want to have you tapped into one. I wonder if you reached your hand out tonight to somebody that you don't know and say, hey, how you doing? My name is such and such. What's your name? Are you a part of our fellowship? Where you from? Are you having a good day? Sometimes people, that's all they want to hear. How you doing? You having a good day? How's your day? Sometimes I text Marsha and all I say is, how's your day? And she sends me a text back this long.
But you know what that does for me? That confirms the intuition and the guidance by God. When he speaks, I follow. I take action because I'll be driving. I'll be doing something in spirit to say. Text Marsha. Say good morning. Call Bobby B. See how he's doing. And I follow the prompt, man, and we begin to talk about deep-rooted stuff that affects where I really live. See, I don't live out here. I live in a place that if I don't tell you about it, you'll never know. You'll never know.
What I've learned over the years is that I need to have at least a few people that know every single thing about me. Everything. I have a female sponsor because I found out years ago I know nothing about you guys. I thought I did. Thought I knew something. When I looked up, I was treating you the same way I treat men. And you're completely different. You process stuff different. You think about stuff different compared with your physical deal is different.
It's a world of difference. And the majority of us men never look at it like that, man. She's just a woman. Where I came from, there's only two things a woman could do for me, and I'm not saying them. not saying them. And that's been tooth and nails to be chipped away at by God, because it was inbred in me. And I was raised by three women. Part of it came out of that. I have a spiritual sponsor, because 10th Step says we have entered the world of the spirit. Do you know anything about spirit world living? I didn't. They knew something about it in that little church I grew up in, though, when they'd catch the spirit and shout and talk in tongues. Yeah, I'm from all that, talking in tongues and spirit and all. Yeah, prophecy,
[01:00:04]
all that stuff. That's part of my deal now. Works for me. But I didn't know nothing about spirit world living, but the book tells us we have entered the world of the spirit. And then Bill talks about being catapulted into the fourth dimension. Fourth dimension is spirit world. So how do you live in spirit world? The tenants of the 10th Step show you how to live in spirit world. That's what 10th Step is about. Ain't about maintenance. Somebody said it's about maintenance. If I could maintain anything, I wouldn't be It's about spirit world living. How do I live in God's world? Continue to watch with selfishness, dishonesty, and resentment and fear. My God, I just finished nine steps. I still got to be doing something? Yeah.
Yeah. 10 and 11, the honey of this program. I get to hang out with God. I get to live in God's world. Awesome experience. Awesome experience when you become willing to walk in all the way and stay there for as long as you can. We don't get to stay there, though. It's too powerful. That's why after a certain amount of time, it's time for me to move through another piece of work. Her Honor's bad. Her Honor tell me she's the problem. And I can't see that she's not. Her Honor tell me they ain't paying you enough because don't they know you super worker.
You are the employee. And if they don't give me more money, you need to go. So I'm just grateful, man. I'm going to wind this up. I'm just grateful that somebody thinks enough of me. And there's a whole bunch of y'all that are here to hear whatever I have to say. My life is beyond anything I could ever have imagined it to be. It's no way when I sat down in my first piece of work with my first sponsor, and if he had said, map your life out for the next 25 years, it's no way I could have came up with this. I don't want for nothing. I don't desire for nothing. My needs are met. I don't want for nothing don't mean I don't have wants.
But I don't want for nothing. So maybe you need to live in the place of your needs are being met and be grateful for that. Yeah, that you have today. Still, 25 years later, I did not wake up this morning and my first thought was, where are you getting a shot of dope from? Because I live like that for eons. My first thought in the morning is let me go brush my teeth, wash my face, and I'm getting on my knees and I'm thanking God for another day.
And keep me through this day, Father, that I might help someone and be of service to someone, that they will know that their life can be different. Life can blossom and open up for them, and they too can have a life beyond their wildest dreams. And I get up and I go about my day. And at the end of the day, the last thing I do is fall on my knees and I say, thank you. Thank you for another day, sir.
Doing for me what I could not do for myself. Because I don't know what you are, man. I'm a real one. I pray that God never lets me forget that. Coupled with the fact that you guys never let me forget that. And the root of that is without God, I will die.
[01:05:00]
I want to thank Marsha and Benchmark and Patrick and all you guys for having me out, for having me home. This is home. And I say it's home because anytime I come here, I meet him here. I meet his spirit here. He was such an inspiration in my life. He brought so much to my life. And I'm grateful for the people and the guides that he put in my life to get me to this moment. And if in the next moment it's all over, I've had an unexplainable life, man. I could not want anything more. Thank you guys for coming out.