Audio
Transcript
Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 906 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: irene-how-i-lightened-up-nasac-cape-town-2005.mp3 Duration: 00:15:30
============================================================
Good morning, all the bodies. I'm Irene, I'm an addict. Like Hank, you made you all hug each other yesterday. I want you to turn to the person on your right, the person on your left, the person in front of you, behind you, and give them a huge smile, like this. Now, don't you all just feel lightened up, okay? That's because my topic is how I lightened up. So I thought a great way to start would be with an addict joke.
I heard this this week. It's probably been around the rooms already, but I thought it was really cool. What's a good thing about being a cocaine addict? There's only three sleeps till Christmas. It's my second Cape Town convention. The first one I didn't feel nearly as comfortable as I do now, but I'm having a really, really, really great time. When I filled in my form online for the first convention, or no, I don't even know if I was online, but I filled it in and it said, would you like to share?
And I said, no, not really. I thought they were talking about accommodation. Anyway, since then, anytime, anywhere where they said, would you like to share? I've said yes, and I've been turned down at every opportunity. However, service helps you keep clean, and it does give you all kinds of good things. The Torah meeting in Johannesburg sponsored an addict to come, and at the last minute she couldn't make it.
So I phoned Neil on Wednesday and said, could you give the place to somebody in Cape Town? And he said, yeah, while you're on the line, would you like to share? And I said, yes. Yeah, but then it was too late. But when I heard the topic, I knew it was made just for me. And on Wednesday, somebody phoned me just after that and said, just to say, like, you're on your way to Cape Town? And I was like, yeah, and I'm going to share.
And I'm going to be the best at the convention and all that addict stuff, you know. And the next morning when I woke up, it was like, ah. So I phoned him at about 7 o'clock in the morning and said, don't tell anybody I'm sharing, OK? Because I don't want them to have any expectations that I can't live up to and all that stuff. How I lightened up. In active addiction, if ever I went away for a weekend, I would probably take a bag about half the size of that table, and a basket, and a, and a, and a, and a.
If I was coming to Cape Town for 10 days, it would be two suitcases, my fishing gear, because I always had to have everything for just in case. Once we were invited to go climbing in the Drakensberg, and it was just one night up to the top of the amphitheater and down again. And I had to bring an extra set of this in case it got wet, and whatever in case of that, and whatever in case of that. And when we left in the morning, I picked up my backpack, and I could hardly lift it onto my shoulder.
And I thought, fuck, I got, sorry. I can't even carry this to the car. How in God's name am I going to carry it up the chain ladder? But anyway, we went, and God was very kind. He sent rain and sleet and all kinds of stuff that we weren't allowed to climb up. So we stayed at some little bed and breakfast thing and played silly drinking games in the bar for the entire weekend. So now, last year's convention, we got one of these.
And this is my overnight bag, and it's really, and what's best about it is if you're ever looking for something, it's like immediately available. And there's really not much that I need anymore. How I cleaned up. Like I heard in the how-to-step-working guide, someone said that the how means honest, open-minded, and willing.
[00:04:59]
I've always been way too open-minded and far too willing.
[00:05:05]
But the honest, I always prided myself on being entirely honest except about one thing. I always had one secret, and that secret weighed me down for 25 years and got heavier and heavier until I was suicidally depressed. And the way higher power stuff works, I have a really good friend who says she's not addicted to anything, but luckily she's addicted to work and making money. And she likes me, and she offered to pay for my treatment.
And said I only have to pay her back if I don't relapse. So, so far, I've scored. One wonderful thing that has happened to me in my recovery is I used to practice karate when I was in active addiction. I didn't ever use before I went to class. That would have been way too much insane, even for me. But I never, never managed to get to the top. I managed to get to my brown belt, and then I went for my black belt grading, and that was all okay except the fighting bit.
And because I'm naturally a people pleaser and too shit scared to be angry and all of that, I failed the fighting miserably. My sensei, who has now become a shihan, that's like a makulu sensei, he said at the time that he knew in my head that I was shodan, which is first level. But had he given me my belt, if I'd gone and trained anywhere else in the world, someone would have killed me. So he didn't give it to me then.
But typical addict fashion, I knew I was going for my grading, and I had all these expectations of passing. Just prior to that, people from my dojo went to Japan, and I sent money with him to get me a Japanese black belt with my name engraved, or I was engraved, yeah right, embroidered in Japanese. And it's been sitting in my cupboard for the last 13 years. I wore it once to a fancy dress. And then two years ago I decided that these women's exercise classes and cycling on a bicycle going nowhere was not where I wanted to be, so I decided to go back.
And in June this year, I graded and I got my shodan. And every time I put on my gi and tie that belt, I'd just get a big smile on my face. I knew I was getting better at karate when I wasn't getting hit so often. And now I actually manage to score a few points every now and then. But I always go, sorry when I've hit the person, but we'll get over that as well. How's my notes doing? I'm kind of in order.
In active addiction, I was very popular because, sorry to mention drugs by name, but I was the world's greatest joint roller. And that's got nothing to do with ego, I just was. I had friends who used, but I've discovered since I cleaned up they were just using friends because since I don't use anymore, no one much pops around anymore. And when I ever arrived at a party, it was like, yay, Reem's here.
And not for any other reason than they were too lazy to roll their own stuff, you know. So now that I don't use, I've lost, not lost, I've given away, I've discarded probably 95% of my friends. But I've found a whole bunch of new ones. When I go to meetings now, people are pleased to see me, not for any other reason than they're pleased to see me. And apparently I do give great hugs. But I notice more than them lightening up when they see me, is that I light up when I see them,
[00:10:00]
because with this disease you never know if it's going to be the last time you're going to see someone. Just in the last little while, people who don't know about my story, people at my work, have all noticed that I'm really looking well, and I'm glowing, and what am I doing, and what am I on. And she's got to be in love. And I've discovered that I am in love, I'm in love with life. And I think I'm getting to be a little bit in love with me too.
I love myself most of the time, and quite a lot of the time I like me too. The most noticeable difference in me is the lightness of my soul. Years ago, I got stoned when I went to see a movie called The Incredible Lightness of Being, because it was one of those movies that you have to go and see. I slept through it. But I think the title of the movie kind of sums up who I am, how I feel about myself today.
When I was a little girl, I used to tell my mom, I'd be a fairy, or I'd be a witch, or I'd be a squirrel, or whatever. And so my email address now is [email name unclear], which kind of for me is cool, because I'm really at a yes place in my life. The Incredible Lightness of Being is just all about me. My notes have all disappeared. I just wanted to share one scary thing that happened to me this year.
I've been having issues over relationships for a while, that I'm never going to be in another one ever again, and all of that. And so I kind of set myself up, but I have been setting myself up for failure. I had an idea on a Saturday morning that, because I have a housemate who still uses, and he'd gone away for the weekend, and I had this whole idea of like, yeah, this is going to be it. And I phoned the person I wanted to, yeah.
And his cell phone was off, so I left a message saying, you know, typical addict stuff. Could we meet for coffee? Give me a call? And then went home and madly cleaned the house and got everything ready, and then he didn't call. So I went to my local sushi place and bought way too much sushi for one person, and pigged out completely. And then I really had nothing else to do, so I thought I would do my housemate a favor, because he's one of those people, I don't know if it's a man thing, or whether it's just a him thing, that they don't like to carry change in their pockets.
He says he makes holes in his pockets, but I think he just likes to rather flash notes. But whenever he comes home, he just dumps change all over the house. And I decided I would count up his change, because in December I did that, and there was like 600 bucks. So I got all the change packets together, and as I went through them, I found the tiny, weeniest little block of hash. And my heart just sank.
And then I thought, hmm, I found something to do. Nobody will know. But even before I'd finished the thought, I knew that if I did that, my big H for honesty would be gone. And although I probably would have had the greatest high of my life, I would have had the worst low of my life the next day, and I don't think I'd be standing here today. I'd be back out there. So I've learned to love me and like me, and people say I shine.
I feel like I shine. My mom always used to call me a little sunshine, and I think I'm getting close to being back there. On Thursday morning, I met a musician in Cape Town whose music I fell in love with and got on the Internet and said, I'm going to be in Cape Town for the weekend. Were you gigging? And he wasn't, but he said I could come and see him at the studio anyway and had a lecker after him, and it may lead to me getting into selling music, which is closer to getting me to writing music and singing music and becoming the superstar I know I was born to be.
[00:15:05]
But I asked him very very specially if I could play one song on on his CD that has meant a lot to me in the last couple of months because every time I'm down I switch that on loud in my car and I've dedicated it to my higher power and I hope that you enjoy it all and thanks for letting me share.