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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 827 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: steve-s-steve-s-at-miracles-of-nebraska-convention-ca-2001-archive-827.mp3 Duration: 01:24:09
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Thanks, Harry. I'm Steve S.. I'm an addict and an alcoholic. I'm grateful to be here today. Thanks for the introduction, Harry. I've always felt real close to Harry, too. There is something about our stories, and Harry has a real calming influence on me. He always has. He's a real spiritual guy. This has been a remarkable weekend. I think when we get together on one of these deals, you can't help but have the magic rub off on you. It's recharged a lot of things in me that needed recharging. It's gotten me back to some gratitude, which is a place I desperately need to be as a recovering addict. I've been struggling with that for a long time. It's no secret, at least to my sponsor, that this has been a difficult year for me, really. A very difficult year. I'm thinking back on the last 12 days and what happened 12 days ago with those horrific scenes we all saw on television. I know we don't have any opinion on outside issues, but what happened that day, that's life on life's terms and it had an effect on me, as I'm sure it did on everyone. At first, the effect was not very good. It was profound, but as I've gotten farther away from 12 days ago, it's restored my faith and my gratitude in a lot of ways. On September 10th, I flew to Indianapolis.
I had a job to do out there. Then on September 11th, that happened. The horror of what I was watching, I really just wanted to be home. I wanted to be home and I wanted to be holding my daughter more than anything and just telling her that I loved her and it was going to be okay. I'm a pretty patriotic guy. I'm not a war hero like Harry, but it brought out a lot of feelings. The best way I can put it is just duty, honor, country, that kind of stuff. Good things. I felt very disjointed being away from home and very lonely and very powerless, very helpless to do anything. It was very hard for me to pray. I still prayed.
One of the things I tell guys that I sponsor is when I encourage them to do a couple things with prayer, I say, try not to get up off your knees until it's more than just words, that you're just regurgitating words, until you feel what you're saying. I wasn't able to do that. I went through the motions, which I need to do, but it was just words. I got back to Omaha finally. I was telling somebody about this. They weren't taking me to task on what I was saying. They were just making some comments. They hit home with me. I was talking about how I was stranded in Indianapolis away from home. They said, at least you weren't in New York. I wasn't. They said, at least you had a motel room. A lot of those people that got herded off those planes got put in a gymnasium for three or four days. Really, that's true. It just put a lot of things in perspective on how really insignificant my problems are and how good I really do have it. That is all a result of the program of Cocaine Anonymous working in my life, that I do have it really so good and my problems really aren't so big. The last year, I've been aware of the fact that I just haven't
[00:05:02]
felt as well connected to the fellowship and to the program as I like to feel. Not as well plugged in, not as much on the beam, not as serene and having as much peace of mind as I have come to enjoy having since I got sober. It helped in that respect, too. This has helped in that respect. I'd like to ask everybody just for the next hour or so to find one thing that you have to be grateful for and hold on to it and latch on to it and think about it and don't let it go. If you knew and you're having trouble finding that one thing, just thank God for the blessed fact of your sobriety and you're here today.
You know, the fact that I'm here today and not holed up in a motel room somewhere shooting dope is proof on a daily basis to me that God's literally doing for me what I've never been able to do for myself. And that does make me grateful. All I really have to offer you is my story. It's not much of a story, but I like the way I tell it. And about my experience, strength and hope, you know, what it was like for me, what has happened and what it's like today. I grew up in Omaha in an alcoholic household. I spent a lot of time blaming for that, you know. I don't do that anymore. To me, that's just a cop out.
Like the book says, my problems were basically of my own making, you know. And my parents really did the best they could. They loved me very much and still do. But I can tell you and I can relate to a lot of things Jeff was saying last night in his story about not quite fitting in, you know, never measuring up. I've felt that way ever since I can remember, you know. And a lot of the things you were saying, Jeff, about how when you're out in the wilderness, the madness of your addiction is one compromise after another, you know.
My God, yes. That really hit home with me. Growing up, you know, I grew up in a middle class family in Omaha and we had an image that we projected and it was expected that we needed to project to everyone outside the four walls of our house of this perfect little family, you know. And inside the four walls of the house, it was anything but that, you know. You never knew when my dad was going to yank down a chandelier or throw a drink in my mom's face or beat me up. You know, he just, you never knew what it was going to set him off. You know, it was like walking on eggshells, walking on thin ice. And I see some people out there going like this. That's another thing I've learned in Cocaine Anonymous that was so important to me is that I'm not the only one. Anyway, that's what it was like at home. And you know, if you don't know anything else, you think that's normal. You don't have anything to compare it to. You think that's normal. People talking about not being comfortable in their own skin, you know, if you never know what it's like to be comfortable in your own skin, you don't have anything to compare that to. That's normal, you know. The first time I ever drank anything, I started out with booze and I was about 12 years old and my parents had gone out one night and there was always a liquor cabinet full of liquor in our house. You know, my dad, the first thing he'd do when he got home from work was walk in the door, scream hello and head for a scotch and soda, you know. And I thought that was normal. I did that for a long time too. But anyway, they had gone out one night and I was home alone with my little sister and I chugged a quart of scotch and that's all I remember, you know. But I've been told what happened and what happened was my parents
[00:10:09]
came home and found me passed out on my bed in a pool of vomit. And, you know, I'm lucky I didn't asphyxiate myself right then and there. And I'd also chased my sister around the house with a hatchet. And they threw me in the shower and, you know, but it was a blackout the first time I ever drank. And that was always the way I used, you know, whether it was drinking or drugging. I wanted to get so high that I could go duck hunting with a rake. You know, that was my objective. There was no in between. That's where I wanted to be. I wanted to get out there, wherever out there was. And over the course of the next few years, I got to the point where, you know, by I was 14 or 15, I was drinking every day to get drunk. And I had started in that time to experiment with the drugs that were available in school. And by the time I was 15, you know, I was drinking every day to get drunk and I was smoking, you know, four or five joints every day. Ominous warnings which I failed to heed. But I guess during this time, I, you know, I was just pretty damn happy with myself. I thought I was bulletproof, cock of the block and everything else, you know. And by the time I got to be a senior in high school, I'm old, man. I mean, we used to call it the jocks and the heads, you know. And I was playing both sides of the fence, you know. I was the biggest drug dealer in school and I was a real good athlete, you know. I was starting running back on the football team and starting guard on the basketball team and I was real good in track. I had the best looking girlfriend in school and, man, I was a real asshole, too, you know. I'd get up in the morning and I probably looked in the mirror and said, you good looking tiger, don't you ever die, you know. What I was was I was a very shallow person, you know, and very into material things. And, you know, I was in high school, so that was kind of normal, I think. But by the time I was a senior in high school, I was doing a lot of drugs. I mean, you know, and it was whatever was with Bill's. I've got a friend here today who is not one of us, but drove in from western Nebraska and Bill and I have been friends since we were little boys and Bill has seen me at my worst. And through it all, Bill has never judged me and he has just loved me and tried to be my friend and wanted me to get better. And I have a couple of friends like that that are Normies and just remarkable people. And I hope you'll make Bill feel welcome after the meeting today if you haven't met him. Anyway, thank you for being here today Bill.
By the time I was a senior in high school, and a junior for that matter, you know, I knew in my head that I was an alcoholic. I can't explain that, but I just knew that, you know, and I was smoking a lot of dope and doing a lot of mescaline and acid and whatever was around, you know, and going to class under these conditions. And because I was such a good athlete, the rules didn't apply, you know. I got away with a lot of shit that other kids weren't getting away with. And that is really, sums it up for me is, you know, I was almost like a sociopath. I mean, the rules just didn't apply. I just did what I wanted to do. And there were no consequences. My senior year, I spent a little time on this in my story because it had such an impact on me. Football season was over so we didn't have practice after school and basketball season hadn't started yet. So we didn't have anything to do after school and my best friend and I jumped in my car, went to the liquor
[00:15:04]
store and got a bottle of MD-2020 and a case of Budweiser and a bag full of dope and went out pheasant hunting and you know pheasant season wasn't open yet but we were really drunk and really high which at the time was a normal condition you know and we had no business pheasant hunting one because the season wasn't open and two because we had no business having firearms in our hands you know under those conditions and we were coming out of a field and you know because the season wasn't open I mean man we were as far away from any civilization, any houses, any anything as you could get because we didn't want to get caught. We're coming out of this field and just about the distance from me to Greg my friend's gun went off and hit me in the stomach and I caught a full load from a 12-gauge shotgun at about that distance you know and right in the abdomen and you know I remember laying there and there's been a couple of times when this occurred, the best way I can describe it is when you're dying you know it you know and if you've had that experience you know what I'm talking about and if you haven't maybe you don't but when you're dying you know you're dying and I knew I was dying you know I had my eyes wide open I was laying there on the ground and I was looking right at the sun and all of a sudden everything went black and my eyes were still open I could still hear stuff and and I just knew that if I lost consciousness right then that I was gonna die and this guy that shot me was in shock and he kept trying to pick me up and carry me to the car well he didn't know how to drive for one thing and for another thing the keys to the car had gotten blown into the middle of my leg with the with the with the with the gunshot wound and I grabbed him by the sideburns you know and and pulled it pulled his face down to mine and I just said Herm you got to get help or I'm gonna die you know and it seemed to bring him out of it for a minute and just at that just at that moment this little boy came riding up on a horse and he was eight or nine years old and saw what happened and galloped off and then rescue squad came about a half hour later and to this day nobody associated with this accident the ambulance the sheriff's myself knows who that little boy was you know and as far as I'm concerned he was an angel in my life and I've had some experiences like that since then that are really meaningful to me I've tried to find that kid you know and nobody knows who he is or where he lives or anything about him and they took me to the hospital and the first night of surgery I had 12 hours of surgery with no anesthetic and they just literally took my guts out of me and put them on the table next to me and we're slicing through my eighth of an inch at a time stitching up holes and taking out pellets and asking me if that hurt and they stitched up over 1,200 holes just in my intestines and my parents were there you know and I know the sheriff kept running out of the operating room going I'm really helpful I can't believe he's still alive you know and great bedside manner but I really wasn't supposed to live through that and the next morning they moved me from Midlands Hospital to Methodist Hospital where all my doctors were from and when they got me to Methodist Hospital they discovered that not only did I not have any pulse in my right leg but I hadn't had since this happened the femoral artery in my right leg had gotten totally severed and the keys to the car I'd plug that artery the whole time and they'd been so busy operating on my belly that they
[00:20:00]
didn't even get that far down on me or something I guess so I had eight more hours of surgery that day and they told my dad at that point that you know we think we're gonna have to amputate his leg and my dad told me you know that's the only time he ever really broke down and cried and I still got my leg so thank God but I spent the next five months in intensive care of Methodist Hospital you know and I had tubes coming out of every orifice and I had orifices that I didn't go in there with you know I mean I literally had a I had two holes in my belly that I could take my fist and stick them in up to here and not touch the backs or the sides of myself you know they were just big gaping holes and the other thing that they did what during that five months was they came in and gave me a hypo full of morphine or Demerol every two hours you know which I needed at the time and for quite a while after there but at some point during that five months maybe about the three and a half month mark I think I didn't really need that shot every two hours and I somehow crossed the line between needing it and wanting it and I was aware of it but I didn't say anything about it and at about the four month mark these doctors came in one morning and they said we're cutting you off of this stuff and I said what are you talking about so you're an addict you're addicted to this and I remember feeling about this big you know really wasn't my own fault but I was at the time I was kind of like a garbage can just throw it in and I'll take it you know and the whole time that I was in there yeah I kept having these aneurysms and they kept having to rush me in for surgery you know where something would blow up in my belly and I had my family coming in to see me and this priest coming in to see me and they were all telling me what a miracle it was that I was alive and what a little trooper I was and how God had this plan for me and I was getting all this outside stimulus and on the inside I couldn't have felt more the opposite you know on the inside I just felt hideous you know I mean I had gone from 165 pounds and I started running back on our football team to you know 105 pounds and and just a mass of scar tissue and stitches and and a colostomy coming out of the side of me and I was very much into shallow things like physical appearance at that time was probably the most important thing to me and and I I came to hate myself in a lot of ways that I can't explain but I'm very aware of you know and and this was uh this was 24 or 25 years ago I seem like they didn't they didn't refer you to therapists and head shrinkers and stuff like that at the time you know it's just you just went on and and you know I'm quite the reason I spent so much time on this part of my story is I'm quite sure that when this accident happened I was I was a drug addict and I was an alcoholic and it would have had the consequences for me ultimately that it did have I'm not sure I would have become a junkie though you know because a junkie was always somebody sitting under a bridge with a needle hanging out of their arm and and I had that kind of stereotyped image of what a junkie is and and I certainly wasn't going to do that you know needles were always where I drew the line and and towards the end it was needles was still where I drew the line only I was on the other side of the line you know that that was all I would do and I got out of that hospital and I walked out of there and I weighed 92 pounds and you know I couldn't even stand up straight and I had this colostomies coming out of my side still and these big metal retention stitches on my belly that they'd open up about eight times and and I remember feeling the same kind of shame that I felt when I first
[00:25:09]
got into cocaine anonymous I couldn't look people in the eye you know I couldn't talk without turning bright red I was just so ashamed and I I'm not sure where that came from at that time you know but I managed to get back into school and I graduated with my class through some creative bookkeeping on my teachers parts I think and I got into college I went to college up in st. Paul Minnesota and you know I don't know if it was fate or or what it was but the roommate that they assigned me to in college these guys from Cincinnati and he turned out to be an IV cocaine user you know and up to that time you know I'd used a lot of cocaine because that was like the thing to do at the time you know that was the elite drug and I had snorted a lot of cocaine back then and I found myself in a situation with a guy that also did cocaine and but he shot it up and all of a sudden I didn't have an aversion to sticking a needle in my arm anymore and matter of fact I kind of missed that feeling of that I'd get when somebody would stick a needle in me and after a couple weeks we got some coke and I remember asking him was this stuff addictive you know you do it this way and just like in a cocaine addict this guy told me only psychologically and I believed him I was so naive you know and at this point in my life you know I have gotten off of cocaine and I've gotten off of heroin and I've gotten off of booze and I've gotten off of Demerol and blotted and I think the hardest thing I've ever gotten off of is cocaine I don't think that I know that anyway he he shot me up and I knew as soon as that hit hit as soon as that hit hit me that I was in deep deep weeds way over my head because to this day it's the best feeling I've ever had in my life before during or since and I've still got euphoric recall about that first hit all the consequences all the shit that this disease rots in our lives and I still have euphoric recall about that first hit and this is when over the next four years of going to college this is when I started to make some of those compromises that Jeff was talking about last night you know in order to get cocaine you know you're in school and you don't have a lot of money to be spending on this stuff and I found myself stealing and lying to get it you know and I'd go to the infirmary and I'd steal I'd go in there and some false pretense and steal some rigs out of there and and if a dealer was stupid enough to leave the room while I was sitting there with cocaine on the table that biggest rock wasn't there anymore when he came back you know and when you start compromising yourself like that I think it uh it can't help but affect the way you feel about yourself and it was a compromise to stick a needle in my arm too you know and I managed to graduate in four years with a bachelor's degree in economics and finance from the school and I don't really know how I did that man because I was drinking every day to get drunk and smoking dope every day and I was using cocaine as absolutely as often as I get my hands on it you know and doing a lot of trip or whatever else was around and I came back to Omaha after four years and got a job running a restaurant in a bar and it was a great job for a drunk addict you know I tended to spend most of my time concentrating on the bar business but you know when I first got here they they told me that you gotta forgive yourself for all these things that you've done, and
[00:30:02]
I just didn't know how to do that. Like everything else in this program, it was foreign concept to me, you know, and I remember asking my sponsor one time, my sponsor's Dan, he's sitting right here, he's a wonderful example to me of where I want to go in my sobriety, you know, but I asked him one time, the only question he never could answer for me, and I asked him, how do you forgive yourself? And he didn't have an answer for that, and what I know today is that by participating in this program and working these steps, when you get to step twelve, you will have found that you have forgiven yourself.
I'm still working on a couple of things I need to forgive myself on, that I haven't been able to, and one of them was when I came back to Omaha, I turned my friend on to the needle, and that is something that I just wouldn't wish on anyone. You know, I've found, I've got as much of an addiction to that needle as what I put in it, and he became the same way. And one night I was hitting him up and did too big of a hit and he had a seizure, I never knew you could have a seizure from using cocaine.
I didn't know what was happening to him, but all I knew was he was freaking out and scaring the shit out of me, you know, and turning blue and couldn't breathe, and I got on his chest and I was trying to get his tongue out of the back of his throat so he could breathe and wouldn't swallow his tongue, and his teeth were just gnashing, you know, and he bit about halfway through three of my fingers, and I finally got his tongue out of there and he took a breath and he came to like this, you know, and I didn't know where he was or who he was or who I was, as a matter of fact he thought he was back in Vietnam, and he started chasing me around the house with a gun thinking we were playing a war game.
And that scared me, that incident scared me enough that I just left cocaine alone for about four or five years, put it down, didn't go back to it, just out of absolute fear. And during that time, the next five years, I was a sloppy drunk, I mean, I'm qualified to be here, I'm certified, you know, I got all the diplomas necessary, and I was thinking about that, you know, I've had five DWIs and three felonies, and I've been to inpatient treatment thirteen times, thirty-day treatment, I don't know how many outpatient treatments I've been to, and a lot of time in jail, although I never associated that jail time with the fact that drugs and alcohol were involved, you know.
But during that five years, I went back to school and I got a master's degree in economics and finance from Nebraska, and I went to work as a stockbroker, and I went to work for a little regional firm out of Kansas City called B.C. Christopher that had an office up here, and after about a year, I got hired away from B.C. Christopher by E.F. Hutton, you know, which at the time, they were really the premier firm on the street, you know, and I'm in my twenties, and I'm just a hot kid in the business, you know.
I got up to E.F. Hutton, and I had an office, my office was as big as this room, you know, big glass windows, secretary sitting out there, I probably had $40,000 worth of furniture in there that they gave me, you know, all cherry furniture, and by society's measuring stick, you know, I had arrived. And I was in a bar every day by noon, you know, drinking black Russians and martinis and playing pickles and thinking, yeah, by God, I have arrived, you know.
And, you know, it was a business where if you made your numbers, which I was making
[00:35:02]
my numbers, there was very little accountability, you know. You were, you could pretty much do whatever the hell you wanted as long as you were making your numbers. Kind of like high school, if you were a good athlete, you could pretty much do whatever the hell you wanted. So again, there were really no consequences to what I was doing, and during that time, you know, you hear people in the rooms talk about the ism, especially in Alcoholics Anonymous, you hear them talk about the ism, and the ism for me is incredibly short memory about just how bad it was and just how fast cocaine takes me down to the absolute bottom.
And I just forgot, I guess, you know. And I picked up the needle again, and over the course of the 14 months from the time I picked up to the time that cocaine separated me from that job, I didn't go to work but three times in 14 months, and it was just for like 15 minutes at a time. And really all I did during that 14 months was sat in my apartment and shot dope, you know. And I would go out and get an ounce or a quarter pound or something and a couple of box of rigs and you wouldn't see me until it was gone or until I overdosed.
And they hauled me to the hospital. I mean it was just one right after another. Every 10 or 15 minutes, as quick as I could get it in. And this would go on for six or seven days until I couldn't get a hit in my arm fast enough before I'd pass out from exhaustion. You know, and I'd pass out for eight or ten hours and I'd get up and I'd start the whole procedure right over again, man, just rolling. And it was during this time that I did start to have seizures.
And I found myself waking up instead of in a chair with a needle in my arm, I'd wake up in the emergency room at the hospital. And one of the things that happened during that time was my liver shut down. I didn't know your liver could shut down from using cocaine. Nobody ever told me that. But I found myself in the hospital with my liver shut down and I got a staph infection from using a dirty needle.
And they told me that half of all junkies die from using a dirty needle and getting a staph infection. And I didn't know that. I prided myself on the fact that I'd never shared a needle with anyone. But in the course of that madness and that obsession, I wasn't always real careful, you know, about proper preparation. And one day I found myself where I just couldn't move, you know. I was like, it was like I was paralyzed.
And they called the ambulance and they came and picked me up and took me to the hospital. And I had a temperature of 106 when I got there. And it was from a staph infection. And they put me in intensive care. And they put what's called a Grishon catheter in my heart. And it's just a little needle about this long. It goes right into your heart. And it drips heavy-duty antibiotics into your heart 24 hours a day because when you have a staph infection, what they're afraid of is that thing is going to abscess in one of the valves of your heart and you're dead.
And by this time, literally all the veins in my arms and my legs were collapsed from using. And I had been shooting up in my jugular vein and it was just a scab about that long and that wide. And the whole time I was in the hospital for that two weeks with that staph infection, I was shooting up into that Grishon catheter every 15 or 20 minutes because I just couldn't stop. You know, and that was my dilemma with cocaine is I just couldn't stop using.
And when I wasn't using, I couldn't stop thinking about using. And that's a hell of a dilemma. How do you stop doing something that you just can't stop doing?
[00:40:01]
How do you stop thinking about something that you can't even stop thinking about? I didn't have an answer. I just kept acting on it. And I thought I was going to die that way. I had been that way for so long that I just thought I was going to die that way. I got out of there and went back to my apartment and kept doing the same thing. You know, this disease, and I've come to think of it as a disease, I don't know how you guys feel about it, but thinking of it as a disease is the only thing that really explains my behavior.
You know, in the big book it talks about how I was using to overcome a craving that's beyond my mental control, and that's exactly the way I felt. It was beyond my control. After a few months they had me committed as being a danger to myself, which is quite true. And you know, I weighed about 100 pounds, and I was yellow with jaundice. They committed me to Richard Young, and I was down there, and part of the deal of getting out of Richard Young was I had to agree to go to treatment again.
I'd been to a treatment a lot of times already, you know, and they arranged for me to make my third trip up to Hazelden up in Minnesota. My dad drove me up there, and you know, by this point in my life, when you take away all the material things, when you take away everything on a very genuine, heartfelt, human level, all I ever really wanted to be was a good son, a good father, and a good husband.
And I was failing miserably at all those things. You know, everything was taking a back seat to my cocaine addiction. I didn't want it to. In my mind it wasn't, but my actions and my intentions were two totally different things, although I didn't see it at the time. That 14 months that I had at E.F. Hutton, that I didn't go to work for that time, I went through $192,000 worth of cocaine. I know that's what I went through, because that's what my W-2 said for that time period, and I got nothing to show for it.
I put it all in my arm, and I supplemented that with stealing $80,000 from my parents, and that all went into my arm, or my neck, or my leg, or wherever I was using at the time. It was compromises. Anyway, my dad drove me up to Hazleton, and it was in February, and there was snow on the ground, and all the way up to Minnesota, in the back of my dad's car, I was shooting up every 15 minutes, because I just couldn't stop.
I didn't want to be shooting up in front of my father, but I just couldn't stop. We got to a little town called Redwood Falls, Minnesota, and I did too big of a hit, and I started to have a seizure, and I knew it, and I jumped out of the car into a snowbank. My dad had a stroke, and I don't know how you forgive yourself for something like that. I got up there, and the nurses in detox told me that I was one of the worst addicts they'd ever seen come through there, and I remember being proud of that.
It was like the last thing in my life I had to be proud of. I got out of there and went back to doing exactly the same thing I'd been doing every time, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. And I guess by this time, I wasn't really expecting a different result. I knew what the result was going to be.
[00:45:07]
I just couldn't stop doing it. And I ended up in treatment again, out at Emanuel this time, and gave it a shot. You know, I stayed clean and sober for a year, six months, and 17 days. Not that I was counting. But it was, you know, nothing had changed, yet everything had changed. And I did the things that I had never been willing to do before. You know, I got a sponsor, and I read the big book, and I went to meetings, and I worked the first five steps.
And up until this time, you know, I had always drawn a distinction between alcohol and drugs in my own mind. And even after all this, I still had a little inkling of a notion, a little bubble of an idea in the back of my mind, and I couldn't pop it. But it said, you know, someday you're going to be able to drink again. It'll be all right. And eventually I acted on that after a year, six months, and 17 days.
And it wasn't too long before I was back where I was before, and worse. You know, and I can trace my addiction and my using on an annual basis by how far east on Leavenworth Street it took me. You know, it started out in west Omaha, and over a period of 23 years, it got me all the way to, you know, 17th and St. Mary's. But during that time of one year, six months, and 17 days, I got married to a girl that was in the program, and an addict, recovering addict and alcoholic.
And we got married by the priest I did my fifth step with out of Emanuel, you know, and we had a recovery wedding too, you know, and it was real cool. And I was so happy. And then I guess the ism kicked in again, that incredibly short memory. I did those things they tell you not to do, you know. I quit going to meetings was the first thing. And I quit reading my big book, and it wasn't too long before I was back out there again.
And this time it lasted for three and a half years. And I had this notion in my head that if I wasn't home using, it wasn't affecting my family. And during that time we had a baby. I've got a daughter, and I just love more than anything else in the world. So I would blow out and go get a motel room for two or three weeks. And, you know, I wouldn't come out until the dope was gone or until I overdosed, which was starting to happen with more and more regularity.
And I had this notion that if I wasn't at home, it wasn't affecting anybody. But the point is I wasn't at home, you know. And I basically missed a couple of very wonderful years of my daughter growing up that I'm never going to be able to get that back. She didn't deserve that, you know. And, you know, I remember I'd come home after about three weeks with my tail between my legs and say what needed to be said to smooth things over with my wife.
And I'd stay around for a week or ten days until I got my nose above water financially. And then the whole process would start all over again. And this went on for years. And finally it got to the point where I came home one day and Julia said to me, she said, Steve, you know, if this is what we have to look forward to, this is nothing to look forward to.
[00:50:02]
And I knew she meant it, you know. And a couple of times, I mean, this disease has just taken every precious loving thing out of my life. And I wasn't going to let it take my family. I wasn't going to let it get my marriage. And so I made some deal that I agreed to go to treatment again, you know. And at that point, treatment wasn't, it wasn't that I was learning anything so much as it was just getting me off the street and breaking the cycle, you know.
But I owed myself one more trip to the motel room first. And so I went and rented a motel room. Do they have any water out there? Orlando, are you going to get something to drink? No. Could you get me a water or something? Thank you. So I holed up in this motel out on 72nd Street in Grover and I overdosed again. And I remember coming out of the room and just as I hit the top of the stairs, I had a grand mal seizure.
And went down the stairs and I woke up in this room that they had carried me to. I got to the top of the stairs and I yelled help. And on the ride, they took me out to a manual to the emergency room which they were getting to know me pretty well out there. And this was the second time in my life that, you know, the best way I can describe it is just to tell you that when you're dying, you know it. And it's again, I knew I was dying.
And in the ambulance on the way over there, I could just feel the life leaving my body. And it started with my feet and it worked its way up my legs and my torso and my chest to where by the time they got me on that cold steel table in the ER, the only part of life left in me was from the neck up. And my wife and my dad were in the other room and I had two nurses on each arm trying to get an IV in me while my veins were collapsed.
And then they tried to put an IV, they tipped me up so all the blood rushed to my head and they tried to put an IV in my jugular vein, well that was all scar tissue. And I looked at this doctor and I can laugh about this now, it is funny. I looked at him and I said, Doc, I said you're going to have to give me a Grishon catheter right now or I'm going to die right here. And he kind of did a double take, like how did I know what a Grishon catheter was, but he agreed with me.
And he said well you got to hold still and I said I will, just don't miss or I'm going to die here. And in an odd sort of way, the things that were running through my head was in my own bumbling little way, I made peace right then and there with a God that I didn't even believe in, much less understand, but I found myself making peace with God. And I screamed out to my wife and my dad, I'm sorry, you know that's all I could say, and I lost consciousness.
And I woke up on the fourth floor of Emanuel where they were also quite used to seeing me by this time. And thanks Roy, thank you very much. There was a doctor that came up to see me, who's still on staff here, Dr. Farina, she's still on staff at Emanuel. And she came in and she said, Steve, I'm just worried about you, you know you're starting to, every time you use you don't know if you're going to have a seizure, you don't know if you're going to overdose and you've had staph infections and your liver is shut down.
She said, I'm just afraid you're going to die. And I knew she meant it, and it had an impact on me.
[00:55:01]
And so I agreed to what I had agreed to begin with, to go to treatment one more time. And I walked out of the hospital at Emanuel and by this time, you know, I had gone from having arrived a few years earlier to, you know I had a hundred dollar pickup truck that maybe ran half the time. And I walked out to that pickup truck and before I put the key in the ignition I reached underneath the dashboard and grabbed an eight ball and loaded a rig and hit myself up.
Because I just couldn't stop. And I agreed to go to treatment out in some place I'd never been before, you know. I went out to O'Neal and Valley Hope and normally that's about a three and a half hour trip. And it took me two and a half days to get out there because I was pulling over every 15 miles, shooting up because I just couldn't stop. And I had it measured out precisely that that eight ball would get me to treatment and it did.
But I remember pulling into this little cow town out in western Nebraska, you know, and I mean I'm covered with blood. You know, I stink. I haven't bathed in days. And I'm yellow, you know, and I remember thinking, man, this place ain't ready for me, you know. Well, it turns out they were ready for me and probably more important than anything is I was ready for the message that was offered there. And, you know, while I was laying on that operating table a few days earlier, this thought had come to me that, you know, this is going to be my legacy to my daughter who was three at the time.
Her daddy died a junkie on the operating table up at Emanuel Hospital. That's all she's going to know about me. You know, and I was driving out there and I got to Columbus and I pulled over and did too big a hit and started to have a seizure. And I jumped out of the truck and I got down on all fours and I remember screaming, no, you know, no. And that thought just came to me crystal clear again, you know, this is going to be your legacy to Kathleen.
Her daddy died a junkie on some dirt road out in Columbus, Nebraska next to a goddamn feedlot, you know. And when I got out there, I spent 30 days there and I was suddenly willing to do absolutely anything. I was willing to go to any lengths. And I was open-minded about everything that they told me there. And I was as honest as I've ever been in my life. And it was a kind of honesty that for the first time was void of self-deception.
And I just did what I was told to do, you know, without putting my own twists or turns on it. I just did exactly what they told me to do and that was so important to me. And one of the things that they told me that still sticks with me is if there's something you don't want to do, that's exactly what you do need to do. And I knew they were right, you know. And they told me to spend some time praying for God to just, you know, and I went through the whole spiel about not knowing how to do that and not even know if I believed in God.
And they told me, well, you just need to pray for God to manifest Himself to you in some way that you can understand. And I spent a lot of time praying hard, you know. And I don't know if I was expecting a burning bush or something. Probably was. I was about that grandiose. But eventually some very meaningful things did happen to me that, you know, I'm standing up here today and I can tell you absolutely without any reservation that God is in my life today.
And He is making a difference between me using and staying sober. And he is literally doing for me what I have never been able to do for myself. And during the course of that 30 days up there, I didn't even recognize it at the time.
[01:00:06]
That obsession was gone. That obsession of not being able to stop using, and when I wasn't using, not being able to stop thinking about using. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, man. Just got taken away. And I, when I got to this, when I got to O'Neill, Nebraska, and for a long time before then, I was beyond human aid. You know, you couldn't help me, I couldn't help myself. God knows enough people tried, you know.
And lack of power was certainly my dilemma when it came to cocaine. And it was up there that I found a power greater than myself. And I went to a meeting in town, I had been there about 10 days, and there was this old cowboy in there. I mean, here I am, a junkie from Omaha, you know, and he's a cowboy from the sand hills of western Nebraska. This guy had 48 years of sobriety. And I still had a chip on my shoulder about the size of Montana.
And I wasn't really into listening to people, much less taking their advice. This old man pulled me over and he said he had no more reason to talk to me than the man in the moon, other than he knew what it was to carry the message. And he pulled me aside and he said, Steve, this is a simple deal. He said, you do three things every day and you'll stay sober. He said, when you get up in the morning, you just humbly ask God to keep you clean and sober that day.
And during the day, you go to a meeting. And the third thing is, before you go to bed at night, gratefully thank him. And I can't explain to you why that had such an impact on me, why that registered with me other than this old man was an angel in my life. It may sound corny, but it works for me. Ever since he told me that, I've done those three things every day. I've done the first and the third. I quit going to a meeting every day after about two years.
My sponsor said, quit going to a meeting every day. You're going to get burned out. But the meetings that I do go to, I'm committed to. If I'm in Omaha, I'm at those meetings. You know, the whole thing with how it works speaks about commitment. We hear it every day in a meeting. You know, completely give yourself to this simple program. And half measures availed us nothing. And that suddenly started to make sense to me.
I became willing to do the things that I had never been willing to do before. You know, in the course of 13 treatments, they will suggest that you go to a halfway house. And I had never been willing to do that before. And I got back to Omaha and I went to the Lyle House. Something I didn't want to do, but I needed to do it. I had never gotten past step five before. And today I've worked all 12 steps with my sponsor.
You know, and I read the big book a lot. I don't just read it, I study it. And every time I read it, something different comes out of it. I got into the Lyle House and I went through their program. It was really good for me. I got a sponsor, not the one I have now, but I got a different sponsor. And after six months, I found myself working a job that took me behind the pharmaceutical counter of a drug store.
And I swiped a bottle of Dilaudid. And I ended up with a new sobriety date out of the deal. I went on a little heroin Dilaudid cocaine binge for about ten days and wound up overdosed out here again as usual.
[01:05:02]
That was my pattern. And I went to my sponsor at the time and I did a fifth step with him. And he had his sponsor there. And I was facing my third felony on this deal, you know, in sobriety. And I kept asking his sponsor, you know, what do I do about this, what do I do about that. And I was really wanting some specific answers, you know. And the thing that he kept telling me, his answer to every question I asked him was, trust God, clean house, and help others.
And I hated that at the time, you know. I didn't understand it at the time. And looking back on it today, that was exactly the advice I needed. That was the answer to every question I was asking him. And I didn't any more than get out of the front door of my sponsor's house. Then he called the state patrol and turned me in on what I had done. And that's when I realized that not everybody is here for the right reasons.
Not everybody is well-intentioned in their rooms. And he is one of those people. And I did end up on my third felony out of the deal. They came to my house one morning about 7 o'clock in the morning. Six people dressed in black with masks. God, do you think they were after John Dillinger? You know, and my daughter opened the door. These guys have guns drawn. They cuffed me and took me away. I remember sitting down in the bullpen down at the police station.
They got me in there about 7 o'clock in the morning. And I was the only one in there. I don't know if you've ever been in that little room. It's small. They didn't get me out of there until 10 o'clock that night. By the time they got me out of there, there were 86 people in that little room. And I was the only guy that did it. But by that time, I had some things that I hadn't had prior to that. Things that I found in these rooms.
One of the most important things I have is I have something in here today. That money can't buy. Drugs and alcohol can't give you. And it's the best feeling in the world. It's a completeness. It's a fullness. It's something I wish I could share with everybody I come in contact with. And I got right back into the meetings. Actually, I was going to meetings. This was several months after I relapsed. And I thought given that scenario, it was maybe time to get a different sponsor.
You know, after he shared my fist up with the state patrol. And so I went and asked a guy named Jeff to be my sponsor, who was a guy I knew and liked. And thank God he said what he said. He said, no, I'm not going to sponsor you. He said, you need to ask Dan W. to be your sponsor. And I did. And I've had Dan for a sponsor ever since then. And it showed me again that I can't do anything right for myself, you know.
I mean, I can't even pick my own sponsor, man. But in a way, the program picked my sponsor for me. And it's worked out better than anything I could have scripted. You know, when I was up in that treatment center and trying to have God manifest himself to me in a way that I could understand. At some point, I think, you know, we all come in here this way to a certain extent. You know, God is a sticky wicket.
[01:10:02]
I mean, it's nebulous. You can't reach out and touch him or feel him or see him. And I wanted those things, you know. And at some point, I think we get mangled enough and beat up enough and desperate enough that we become willing to just take a leap of faith towards the idea of God. And the book helped me a lot. You know, it told me that deep down inside every man, woman, and child is a fundamental idea of God.
And ultimately, it's there that we find him. So it was with the people that wrote this book, and so it was with me. And I don't think that God makes too hard of terms for those who honestly seek him. And I think when we get to the point where we've had enough, we honestly seek him. You know, it said things like, we see people rising above their problems. And they say God makes these things possible, makes a powerful case.
I feel that way today. You know, I think that once you accept the fact that you are who you are, that we have a responsibility to grow and blossom where God plants us in life. And strange as it may seem, and even though I didn't give my permission, I really, really am an addict of sorts. You know, now what am I going to do about it? And I think the answer to that for all of us at some point becomes we need to place ourselves in a position where we can be of maximum service to God and others.
And probably the place where we can be of maximum service is in the rooms of Cocaine Anonymous with addicts just like ourselves. I've learned that I am, through painful experience, I am uniquely unqualified to help myself. But I'm uniquely qualified to help somebody else just like me, by virtue of the fact that I'm an addict. And I think we've got a responsibility to do that. And one of the serendipities that you find in this program is that it's the givers that do all the getting.
It's one of those things that didn't make sense to me. You know, like surrender to win. This whole thing, you know, when I got here, man, these steps read like Chinese. And I don't understand Chinese. But between the book and the rooms and my sponsor, and just taking a leap of faith at each and every one of those steps, I've got a lot better understanding of them today. And I try and apply them in my life every day.
When it talks in the book about the spiritual, life is not a theory, we have to live it. I try to do that. And I try to increase my knowledge of God and my higher power and His will for me, whatever that may be, just by trying to increase my knowledge and understanding of what His will for me is. Whatever that may be. And a lot of times that just means doing what's in front of me. Doing the right thing in any situation because I want to do the right thing.
I had to ask myself, you know, when you get on a convention like this, where we're all together and you feel the magic, I feel something. I know you know what I'm talking about. And those are the times when I find myself asking myself, you know, is this by chance? Is this coincidence? Or is this God working in my life through the program of Cocaine Anonymous? And I know what the answer for me is on that score today.
You know, five years ago, I had a $100 pickup truck that ran about half the time, and all
[01:15:00]
my veins were collapsed. And today, I coached this girls basketball team. We're just about to crank up another season. I've been coaching them for four years now. And those kids' parents wouldn't even let me on the same block with their kids five years ago. You know, and these girls are, in four years, they've lost three games. They won 70. It doesn't have anything to do with me, but it's wonderful to be a part of it, to see these kids develop their confidence and their ability. It's a way for me to give back, and it's something that I certainly never thought I'd be capable of doing. And it's an experience I would not miss. My daughter came up to me yesterday. She's nine now. And she came up carrying her little bowl of change. She said, Dad, we're going to be selling lemonade for victims of the thing in New York, and can I give this all to them for the Red Cross? And she must have had 20 or 30 bucks in there. It's all the money she had to her name. And I said, is that what you want to do with that? And she said, yeah. And I said, well, I think that's about the most wonderful thing you could do. And I came on my way to the meeting last night. I drove by the corner, and there she was. Her little gang had their table set up, and one little guy had a coffee can with a hole in the lid and a Red Cross on it. And there was my daughter holding the sign, so please pull over. Whatever it said, it was kid language. Donate. Big Red Cross on it. And every car that drove by was stopping.
And it's hard for me to find the words how that affected me. It made me well up in tears. As I've done a lot over the past 12 days, just uncontrollably welled up with emotion. But it told me more than anything that one of those things that was so important to me, more than anything else, being a good daddy, I'm moving a lot more towards that ideal as a result of Cocaine Anonymous. I'm going to read a couple things out of the big book.
First one's from a spiritual experience on page 570. And I think they ought to put this in the beginning of the book, but then I'd be messing with it again, you know. So I guess it's right where it needs to be. But this was kind of my attitude before I got desperate enough and mangled enough to not have an attitude anymore. You know, if I had gotten sober the first time they sent me to Alcoholics Anonymous, I'd be sitting up here with 24 years today.
You know, when I was 17, Judge Robert Vondrasek looked down his nose at me over the bench and said, Mr. S., you've got to change your people, places, and playthings. Little did I know he was exactly right. You know, and that's exactly what's happened. But I really had contempt for people, for the institution of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the people in the rooms. I didn't want to be like you. It says, Most emphatically, we wish to say that any alcoholic or addict capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover, provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts. He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerant or belligerent denial. We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. Willingness, honesty, and open-mindedness are the essentials of recovery, but these are indispensable.
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation. That's powerful stuff, man. This whole book is so powerful. You know, I really believe what's in this big book. The first part of the book
[01:20:09]
they talk about, the purpose of the book is to show you how to recover. Man, they wrote a manual for me, you know. And they talk about awareness of a power greater than ourselves is the essence of a spiritual experience. And my sponsor's sponsor talks about if you got this disease, he's a man of few words, you know. He says find God or die. And I really do believe that if you have this disease, like I have this disease, that one of three things is going to happen, and there are no exceptions. You're going to get locked up, covered up, or sobered up. And the ones in this room today are the lucky ones. You know, I don't know what you guys say when we have a moment of silence for the addict who still suffers. I just bow my head and close my eyes and thank God may you find him now. There's one more thing I want to read and then we can pray our way out of here. It's from page 100. It says, both you and the new man must walk day by day in the path of spiritual progress.
If you persist, remarkable things will happen. When we look back, we realize that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God's hands were better than anything we could have planned. Follow the dictates of a higher power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world, no matter what your present circumstances. You know, and it talks in the book about all we really have is a daily reprieve from this disease contingent on our spiritual condition. This is where I get tuned up spiritually, you know. I believe that part about all we really have is a daily reprieve. I claim my daily reprieve every morning when I get on my knees and humbly ask God to keep me clean and sober that day and he has not failed me. And I have all the faith in the world today that if I continue to do that on a daily basis, he will not fail me.
You know, when I got here they talked about, well God isn't going to do for you what you can do for yourself, you know. And what I never heard anybody say was that God will do precisely for you what you can't do for yourself. And that's exactly what he does for me. You know, and I say it a lot and I'll say it again. You know, the fact that I'm here today and able to talk to you guys instead up on one of the floors with the door locked and the needle in my arm is all the proof I need that God's literally doing for me what I have never been able to do for myself. And for that I'm grateful. And it's not fate. It's not coincidence. It's not by chance. It's God working in my life through the program of Cocaine Anonymous. I'd like to thank whoever was responsible for getting me in here to speak. I'll pay you back sometime. This has been a wonderful week, a remarkable week.
And you hear him talk about the winners in the program. If you wonder who those are, just look around this room and the person sitting next to you. I love you all very much. And thank you for having me here today. And if you will join me in the Lord's Prayer, I'd like to close this up that way.