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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 908 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: alex-c-freedom-nasac-johannesburg-2006.mp3 Duration: 00:13:18
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Good evening friends, my name's Alex and I'm an addict. I think just like all my friends, I am a bit nervous. This is my second share at a convention. I want to thank the convention committee for giving me the privilege to share tonight. And I think the theme of tonight is freedom. Freedom from active addiction. Waza freedom. You know waza in KwaZulu-Natal means come. Come freedom. Come freedom comes through the twelve steps of recovery. For me, there's no other way for freedom. Freedom from active addiction is one of the promises of Narcotics Anonymous. Narcotics Anonymous never promised me that I'll have a brand new car, new house, a very, very tough job.
But the initial promise was that if I followed the twelve steps of recovery, I would free myself from active addiction. They told me something else. When I came into the fellowship and they said, you know what, drugs was only one of the small things. It was just the tip of the iceberg. The rest is to follow. You know, and I thought these people are talking, they don't know what they're talking about. But as I started going around the fellowship and learning about certain things, I realised what they said was very, very true. That drugs was not my problem, that addiction was my problem.
You know, if you talk about freedom, freedom is the condition of being released from, no longer suffering from something unpleasant or painful. And if I go back again and look at all the unpleasant and painful things that I've been through my using of all different types of drugs, and coming into here and being recovered, and it's given me the freedom to do things in my life now. I've been in the fellowship, I cleaned up on the 25th of March 2001. Previous to that I've been in recovery in my sister fellowship, and I learned quite a bit in the fellowship about recovery.
But my problem was that I just focused on one specific drug, that was alcohol. I never knew that I was a person who was an addict. And because I had a problem with one specific drug, I only thought about it and prayed to the God of my understanding about helping me with that problem. Not realising that because of my addictive personality, that anything that I do or take up, I do it very, very quickly. But recovery for me has been very, very good in the last couple of years, because I've been able to apply the programme of recovery to me.
I think the first step, by admitting that I was powerless over my addiction, was the key to it. And admitting it and accepting the fact that I'm an addict was the first signs of my freedom. Because in that step, step one, they say powerless over addiction, that I did not have God in my addiction. That's step one to me. And the moment that I put God into my addiction, I had some signs of accepting the fact that I'm an addict and I was able to do something about it.
And that was my first journey on the road to freedom. And they say, was that freedom? Come freedom. Freedom doesn't come very, very easy. Because of our addictive personalities and the things that we do all the time, and not constantly keeping in contact with this God of my understanding, I'm not able to attain and maintain this freedom that I always have. I come from a group in Petersburg. We have a very, very small group there, but we are growing slowly. And I want to thank the friends of my group for giving me the privilege to be around them and showing me the way to freedom.
You know, as much as I have had freedom for myself from active addiction, I've also passed it on to my family. You know, when I used to go to a party or something, or go to a wedding, I would leave my wife one side, and I'd go out and sound to friends and everything. And my wife, I never used to see my wife. I'd probably come back after the wedding to eat something. I'd go to a dance with her, and I'd leave her sitting at a table, and I'd go sit in the pub. And I'd come about half past eleven, and I'd come back again and say, come on, let's go home.
And because of my using the evening thing, I denied the freedom of my partner, and also my children. You know, my daughter, she's writing matric exams and everything. A few years ago, she used to write letters and put them into my bag, and telling me how much I deprived her of her freedom to think on the lines that she wanted to think, and do the things that she wanted to do, and talk about a wonderful day.
[00:05:12]
So as much as I have been able to get my freedom, I have passed this freedom on to my family as well. I've got four sisters staying here in Transvaal, and there was a stage in my life that two of my sisters were going to pay for my divorce, and my wife and my children were going to stay at home. But I was blessed last night that I could sit down and have supper with my three sisters, and bless them with this freedom that I am able to get through a fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous. You know, I've got my mum too, and she's quite old now, and she's 69 years old, and I put her through a lot of misery in her life, because I think she was the only one who's taken the most brunt of my addiction.
But today, I can put a smile on my mum's face, and I'm the only one who could take the smile away from her. There's also times when I'm sitting at home sometimes, and she'll ask me, aren't you going to a meeting tonight? I'll say, yes, mum, I'm going just now. Because my mum has realised the freedom that I have attained from coming to the fellowship, and at times, if I don't go to a meeting, what can happen to me? And I've given her the freedom of herself that she can keep a smile on her face at the moment.
You know, the 12 Steps of Recovery, I think, is one of the greatest tools that I have taken into my life. It's the biggest decision that I've made in my life to try to adhere to these principles and to practise this programme. I think I was very, very blessed in that, because I've taken a lot of my friends and my family, people around me, and I know the type of life, they're not addicts or something, and the type of life that they live and the type of things that they do is much more different from the type of life that I have been using, since I was using.
The God of my understanding, you know, I've been a guy who is very, very, I wouldn't say spiritual, religious, conscious, I respect all the different types of religions, but I was never ever spiritual. But the God of my understanding has given me the freedom of spirituality. You know, we say we claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection, and that's what has given me the freedom to grow spiritually.
I'm able now today to put and bank some of my spiritual and be happy with it, instead of looking at all the material things and looking at life at a different level. Narcotics Anonymous has given me so much of freedom to do things that I want to do. I've been blessed now, and all my working career I've been working now at one company for eight and a half years, because all the previous jobs that I worked for three months, six months, two years, and because of my using patents, I had to either quit the job or I would get, say, right, OK, I had to leave the job.
But freedom from active addiction has given me something to concentrate upon and give myself and my employees something better for what I'm supposed to be doing in life. I'm a very, very good example to people that I work around, people look at me, because all of the freedom that I have attained in the fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous. You know, we talk about the spiritual principles, and one of my things was fear, you know, this unknown fear.
When the postman used to come and drop some mail, and I'd go home and look at the mail, and I'd look at this letter and I would throw it away, because I didn't want to open the mail, because there may probably be a letter from the lawyer or something. And then talk about the fear, that deep inside fear that I used to have and I used to use. Most of my using of higher drugs I did in the transvaal, and there were times I would sit down depressed and not knowing what to do.
And when I came into this fellowship and they said something about rock bottom, my rock bottom was not all the things that I was losing in my life. The rock bottom in my life was when I had nothing inside and I was crying out for help. And when I cried out for help, his ever-loving presence, and allowed this God of my understanding to come back into my life, he gave me this freedom of not self-fearing anymore.
You know, all the other spiritual principles, like honesty, I think is one of the key ones in the fellowship, to do, to ascertain and to maintain this freedom.
[00:10:07]
You know, I was trying to make some notes down here this week, but I was so busy, I was writing an exam and getting up all other things. But freedom to me is, just like everyone else is, to be blessed to be here at a convention this year is one of the freedoms in my life. Because in my using days, if I went out to some other place or something, my partner would be worried, what the hell I'm going to, where I'm going to.
But nowadays I can go anywhere and be with my friends for X amount of time, and I know she has granted me that freedom. And I will be able to maintain that freedom by being truthful and trying to be good to everyone else in the fellowship. I'm also a diabetic, and so I do get dehydrated a bit, so I'll see. But anyway, my day with diabetes, I've got to take medication every day, just like I try to do my addiction one day at a time.
But unfortunately this afternoon, I think because I was coming up to talk and everything, my sugar just went up. And freedom to do work in the community and to do fellowship, I think is very, very great. Carrying the message to the suffering addict is one of my blessed things that I enjoy in my life. I love my fellowship, and I try my best in my way to do some work and everything in the fellowship, because freedom from active addiction has allowed me all these things in life to do.
But as I said, freedom from active addiction is through the 12 steps and everything. You know, you take all the people that are hurt, and I was trying to make amends to people and try to free myself from this bondage of other people and everything. And this thing has really helped me and turned me on to this wonderful life. And I see one of the things is the inside job. I think that's very, very true that freedom has to come from inside.
I cannot be a Jekyll and Hyde person and try to show people on the outside that I am a very, very happy person, when deep inside I haven't been able to let go and let God happen things in my life. And, you know what, I have so much things that I want to say, and I think I'm getting overwhelmed with this thing, and I don't know what to say anymore. Thank you for listening.