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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 887 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: kevin-s-gauteng-area-na-convention-2007.mp3 Duration: 00:11:54
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Hello, my name is Kevin, I'm an addict. Nervous as hell. I guess, I'm here, my sponsor said to me I'm never allowed to say no when someone asks me to share. And I guess even if it is 30 minutes before a convention meeting, I still have to do it. So, I didn't have much time to prepare. But, like I can relate to dreams. I was told in school I'm a daydreamer and that I never used to work much and just used to sit there and stare into the sky. Until I found drugs, then I just didn't even go to class.
I mustn't say 'um' too much. I'll get into that habit. Heart is racing. I think when I did pick up for the first time, it kind of took away all my worries and everything kind of felt okay. It felt like I could be this person I wanted to be, this confident, self-loving, believing in myself kind of person dreams that I had that I wanted to be. And it was like that for a while, I guess, until eventually the drugs stopped working and I couldn't stop using them.
By that time, I had no more dreams left. I didn't know what was going to happen to me. I dropped out of school. I had crappy bartending and waitering jobs. And I didn't really have a future. I didn't know what tomorrow held. It was just this blackness that I couldn't see where I was going to be in 10 years. I didn't think I'd make it to my 21st birthday. And thank this NA program I did. Using took a lot away from me. It really took me to a place that I wouldn't wish on anyone. And coming to this program has given me so much more. Today I've got, let's say, things beyond your wildest dreams in recovery.
And I've got some pretty wild dreams. And I've also got things beyond those dreams today. It's amazing. This program doesn't ask much of me. It asks me to show up and take my part, do what I've got to do. And if I do that stuff, then good things happen. And I know that it happens. I've seen it in so many people in this room that I've seen come in broken people and kind of get better, get their shit together, and get well.
And it's happened with me as well. Today I can dream and I know I can do anything I put my mind to. I've got a career path that I've chosen that I can go work anywhere in the world in a couple of years. And that's fantastic. From someone who dropped out of school, was using, didn't think they were going to make it to their 21st birthday, I've got a life in front of me today. I've got these things I can do. I've got things I want to do. I want to go see the world, skydiving, bungee jumping, crazy things. And that is stuff beyond my wildest dreams.
I never thought I'd be able to do that. The way I was carrying on, I had to wake up every morning and figure out how I was going to get the fix for the day. And that was it. That was my existence. That was all I cared about, all I worried about. Nothing else mattered to me. My mother put up an electric fence. She kicked me out of the house and I kept breaking in and taking her stuff. And she put up an electric fence around the house eventually to keep me out. And that stuff didn't bother me. I was angry with her. I thought, Jesus, how could she do this? This isn't very nice. What kind of mother would do such a thing?
But I wasn't quite the prodigal son, I guess. And today, that whole relationship, at a stage I went through that I thought I'd never speak to her again. She'd kind of written me off, I'd written her off.
[00:05:04]
And I think one of the best gifts of my recovery is relationships that I've managed to rebuild and get back together. And it's only because of those five simple things that [name unclear] spoke about, the service, getting to meetings, doing step work, speaking to my sponsor, and trying to figure out this higher power thing. If I do those things, my life will get better. And I've seen it. It's happened to me. It has kept on getting better. And I don't think it will ever stop. As long as I keep doing these things, things will continuously get better.
I often fall into a kind of headspace where I wake up in the morning and I think, what am I doing all this for? And kind of lose the gratitude for a while. But if I kind of get through that period and have a look back, then I realize it's really not as bad as active addiction. The quality of my problems today is just, I wouldn't change them for anything, not the problems I had before. This program has given me so much. I never thought I'd be able to stand up in a room full of people and speak to them. I kind of got my home groups that I go to and I speak in those meetings. And if I go to different ones, I usually keep quiet because crowds freak me out a bit.
And I'm doing it. I don't know if I'm doing it well, but at least I'm doing it. And that's a gift to me. It's amazing, this program. One addict helping another. That's all it is. The kind of topic for the whole convention is reaching out. I almost forgot it for a second. Luckily it's written here. And someone reached out to me when I came into these rooms. Someone said to me, no matter what, just keep coming back, even if you relapse. And unfortunately I did, but I don't think I wanted the change enough. I don't think I wanted or believed that my dreams could come true.
I kind of believed that I was destined to live this miserable existence. And for some reason I managed to do it. I relapsed and I came back and I knew I needed to give this program everything. Otherwise it's not going to happen. I can't just make another half-arsed attempt to get clean. Because I've done that for quite a few years and it never worked. All the different things I've tried. And the whole Just For Today thing, that is huge for me.
Because even if I have a terrible day and my boss freaks out and shouts at me and I just want to escape and isolate, as long as I put my head on the pillow at night and I don't pick up, it's been a good day. There's nothing I can really find wrong with that. And there's growth in that. There's really spiritual, mental growth. The whole higher power thing is really kind of overwhelming to me because I know without a doubt that there is a higher power today that's out there looking out for me.
I'm not really sure what it is, what I should call it, what I should do to it. I think the awesome thing about this program is I get to choose my own higher power. I get to find something that I want to believe in. It's not something that's been pushed on me by my parents or by society or anything else. And I know that it's there. And I'm okay with not knowing what it is and where it is, what it looks like. And that's okay because I know that it's loving and it wants the best for me, which is something that I'm not very good at. I'm not good at self-loving things. I'm not good at taking care of myself.
[00:10:11]
I've shared before, I've come into this program and I never used to brush my teeth or shower, brush my hair. I still don't really brush my hair that often, but I do try to fix it up a little bit. And since I've come into this program, I've started taking care of myself, the whole self-loving thing, where I brush my teeth every single day and shower every single day. And it sounds insignificant and I don't think non-addicts would understand it.
But coming from where I've come from, that stuff never used to bother me. It didn't matter how bad I smelled or what I looked like. As long as I could use, then everything was okay, I guess. And today, it's the whole clean and serene. It's really clean. I've showered and brushed my teeth and I'm clean. Not only not using drugs. And that's amazing to me. It's like those little gifts like that and small dreams like that to big dreams to traveling the world. It's all like there for me today. And there's no ways I'd be able to do it without this program.
Thanks for letting me share. Thank you.