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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 889 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: dirk-b-gauteng-area-na-convention-2007.mp3 Duration: 00:13:24
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Good day, my name's Dirk, I'm an addict. Still obsessive. Thirteen people there, nineteen people there, twenty-two here, one just left, one came back. Sat down, I had to clean all the bottles off the table, the empty ones, because I'm not that well, but I'm getting better. Came to this room, or these rooms, a couple of years ago, when I was defeated. I had destroyed a marriage with two kids, I had used up a business, and I got to a stage where I didn't even own a mattress. There's number twenty-threes coming back. When I came into the rooms, I had a huge mask, and I had a mask of superiority. I felt better than everybody else. So, when the suggestions were made, that's what I've got to talk about, they went in one in, they went out, and I sat around in a couple of meetings, and quite quickly I found out how to play this game. I had to look cool, act like I was well, make people laugh while I share, fool the chicks, and all sorted. I never relapsed, because I never was in recovery. For two years I struggled, in and out of these rooms, and I got sore.
I had a loud mouth when I first came in, and when I came back for the first time that I ever actually came into recovery, I walked in with a lot of willingness. And that willingness was to listen to anybody who had more clean time than I did. I didn't judge them on their car they drove, I didn't judge them on their religion, their backgrounds, colour of their skin, their cell phone. They had something that I wanted, and that was 24 hours clean.
I couldn't do that by myself. I was too embarrassed to go into a meeting, one of the regular meetings that I used to attend, and I ended up going into some obscure meeting on a Tuesday night. And I vowed at that time not to go out and use again, and do whatever it takes to stay clean. So for the next six months I went to meetings every night, and it wasn't much of a strain. I had nothing else in my life. I hardly saw my kids. I was renting a room from another girl that I didn't really get along with. I had no friends. And life was empty, through my own doing.
I'm not sure why my life landed up the way it did. If it was the English teacher at school, or my parents' narrow-mindedness, or… I'm not sure what it was, but I landed myself up in a situation that I didn't want to be in anymore. So for the next year I stayed clean. I stayed out of relationships for most of that year. Went to a meeting every night. And then I got involved in a relationship. And things were good in the beginning. I had a daily program of stuff that I needed to do. Did my meetings. Spoke to my sponsor. Did step…
No, I didn't do step work, actually. Went to meetings. Was of service to other people. And my life got better. And got worse, on other hands. And after a couple of years of being married, I recently asked for a divorce. And the reason I did this is because I was no longer happy in that situation. And what this program has given me is the ability to remove myself from any situation that I'm not happy with. There was a lot of fear and
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judgment around that. Judgment of myself. But I made those changes, and my life has
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improved once again, and is improving. My life goes long beyond the five basic suggestions of staying clean. For me, this whole recovery is about positive change and staying clean. Without positive change, I wouldn't want to be in this. If I had to do the same piece of shit that I was when I walked in, this would be agonizing. So when I do go to meetings today, I don't speak while the program is being read. I don't SMS people. I sit down five minutes before the meeting starts. I'm of service to people. I do what I need to do.
I have a busy schedule on a daily basis. So when I go to a meeting, I go there to get better. After a meeting, I normally like hanging out with them afterwards, with recovering addicts, and that's where I socialize. And that's where I have fun, and that's where I laugh. But during a meeting, from half past seven to nine, that's the meeting that I go to, my home group, that's the meeting, that's the times it runs at, I'm there to save my life. And I'm serious about that. And I get aggravated, and I get short-tempered, and I can relate to what Greg was saying yesterday. I want to tell people what to do, and I want to control it. And it's difficult not to do that at times. But I sit today in a meeting without judgment.
And that's big for me. My whole life I have judged or justified my actions. If I was smoking batons in Bosmont, I justified it by apartheid problems. When I used cocaine, it was another justification, or I thought that's where I belonged. My day consists of, my weeks consist of recovery, consists of that positive change. I do that in other areas of my life. I do it through step work, I do it through meditation, I do it through healthy relationships with my girlfriend, by being honest on a daily basis, by being honest in business, by not being corrupt, by not backhanding, trying to the best of my ability not to be egotistic, not to be self-centered, not to be obsessive. My obsessiveness and my perfectionism comes from a place of judging.
When I do things better than anybody else, I can judge them for being less than me. And it keeps me stuck. And I learn this stuff from speaking to my sponsors, working with them, doing step work. I have a wonderful step work group with men that I love and men that I can learn from and they teach me on a daily basis how to be a man, to take responsibility. Irene said, it's quite simple, I love this fellowship. I've heard it said, NA has given me a new life. I don't actually know if I had a life before I walked in here. I existed out there, I fought for everything I wanted, I screwed people over and I know today that's not a life that I want for my kids. If I stay clean and I change and I grow, I hopefully don't pass it on to them. And that I see as my job being done. I don't see the point of existing in this life but not growing, not becoming a better human being. What's the point? What's the point of me being around if I'm going to be exactly like my forefathers were? So slowly, on a daily basis, I'm
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getting better. I am of service to other people. I accept myself, still with difficulty, a lot of confusion, sometimes because there's a lot of different aspects to me. And I'm not one of the other, I'm not Jekyll, I'm not Hyde, I'm somebody in between that and I'm okay with that today. It took me a long time to become okay with just being me. I still want for a nice house and a nice car and those type of things. And I hopefully one day will have that stuff.
Maybe I do have it. But I don't need it. If everybody in this room stayed clean for the rest of their life, I'll give up everything I had right here. It's not about the car. It's not about that shit. It's about living life, being okay with who we are, being grateful for beautiful people that we have in our lives. Not some chemically produced crap. That gives us a false sense of security, false sense of achievement. I love this fellowship and I get frustrated to the fucking heel with it sometimes. And that's because of the personalities. And I'm sure people get frustrated with me and that's okay.
Today I'm willing to listen to those people. I'm willing to hear what they say, get pissed off and maybe start considering it and trying to change it. I have a beautiful girlfriend. I have two wonderful kids. I've got two ex-wives. It's okay. My life is great. Staying here, talking as if I've done this by myself. If I could do this by myself, I wouldn't be part of this fellowship. I wouldn't need every single one of you here. I wouldn't need a higher power. So the truth of it is, without my higher power, without this power greater than me, I wouldn't be able to do this or continue to do this. Thanking today and I'm grateful, grateful to be part of this fellowship and the diversity of this fellowship. Thanks for letting me share.
Thank you.