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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 904 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: matthew-facing-fear-nasac-cape-town-2005.mp3 Duration: 00:21:29
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I don't swear, but I lie occasionally. Did nobody get that? I won't swear too much. But I was at the meeting before this, and I was feeling very nervous, because people tell me, don't think about your share, you know, and it's kind of hard when you're on the floor listening to people share, you know, don't think about sharing. But, you know, I was listening to what people were having to say, and especially when everybody came up to express how many people have died because of this disease, and that sort of humbled me in a way, because, you know, that's why I'm here, and that's why I think a lot of us are here, you know, because we don't want to go back to that place, and if I go back, like, I don't know if I will die, I'm not going to say that I will, I have no idea, I don't know my future, but, I mean, I know a lot of people who have, and, you know, they're no longer here, and I think it's pertinent to remember that, that that's really what happens with this disease, you know, is that it does kill.
And it kind of just got me out of myself when I heard that, and that's, you know, it helps with the unity, that's why we're all here, you know. So, My Resentments, My Fears, and Me. I'm doing the My Fears bit, and I sat down a bit with the basic text, which is the best-kept secret in NA, I don't know how many people have read it, but there's a lot in that book, you know, I've also been told, and I actually sat down and I did a bit of reading up in that book, and the green and gold.
And what I picked up about fear is that it's, you know, what I fear now in my recovery is my negative interference in my recovery, you know, and I know that my self-will takes away from the quality of my recovery. I think Penny was speaking about, you know, the people in the room are so clean, and the people in the room are so clean and have recovery. And I want to be one of the people who is clean and has recovery. And the quality of my recovery is important to me.
That's why when I work through the 12 steps, I do what the 12 steps suggest I do. Because there are millions of people that have worked through it and they have quality recovery. And that's what I want to do. And my experience is that very often my self-will, or what I most want to do, takes away from that quality. And fear is a part of that. Fear, if I let it, keeps me from changing. There are many things I used to fear when I came in, like when I was talking about low self-esteem. I mean, I came in here with hardly any self-esteem. There are a couple of people here, I remember when I came in, and described as being very hands in the air and very timid and all this stuff.
I was scared as hell. When I came in, I was turning 17, and there weren't a lot of young people in the rooms, and I didn't really know what I had in common with the old people that I saw in the rooms. I hadn't lost cars, I hadn't lost children, I didn't even have children. I didn't lose many things that you people lost. But I'm still qualified for recovery, because I will lose those things. And I have faith that I will lose those things if I use again. I don't just believe that, I have faith that I will. I know that. People have gone out to use again and they've lost all those things. They come back saying, you know what, I lost all those things because I thought I would never lose. And I'm like, thanks for telling me that, because I believe them.
When I came in here, one of my biggest fears I had was fear of rejection, hence the low self-esteem. And I was very sensitive to what everybody had to say about me. And I kind of took it to heart, any jokes or comments that people said about me. And I'll tell you a little story about that a bit later. But there are a few other things I fear today. And two of the biggest ones are losing what I have and not getting what I desire. Those things are good things. And I fear losing those now. And I want to gain quality recovery. I want to gain what this fellowship has offered me and sometimes fear that I'm not going to get it.
And like I mentioned, what these fears do to me is they constrict me. They constrict my freedom. They don't let me do things. And sadly enough, or maybe gratefully enough, fear is just a part of life. Like Amy said, pain is a given in life. It doesn't matter whether you want to feel pain or not, it matters how you deal with it.
[00:05:09]
You're going to feel pain. I'm going to feel pain. And I do feel pain. What's different today is that I don't use that pain to make it greater. And for me fear is about the same stuff. I'm facing one of my fears now. I hate doing this. I really hate talking in front of people. But I've learned that I can still feel fear and be courageous at the same time. Courage is not absence of faith. You can feel both at the same time. And that's what I'm busy doing and that's what I've been suggested to do and I work with my sponsor and we work through these things and we see what my fear actually is.
Another interesting thing about fear is that it's useful. If you're anything like me, my fears are way out there. They're this big when they're actually this big. They get inflated beyond repair. And the usefulness of it dissipates. There's no use in it. Fear is useful. What happened to me recently is I was trying to fix a light in my house, a little lamp. And I put the light bulb in and I switched it on and I switched the switch on and I didn't know if it was a switch or whatever. And it wasn't working. So I kind of switched the light switch off, which I thought was off, and I undid the globe and I stuck my hands in and there were naked wires there.
I thought I lost an arm and it went straight to my head. I had a migraine for about three days. It was terrible. I couldn't sleep, nothing. So I fear electricity. I fear that now. Every time I see a light, I don't turn it off. I go to the wall and I turn it off. I fear that now. That's useful. Because it means I'm not going to get shocked again. But my fear gets, like the way I fear things sometimes, it gets done out of proportion.
So somebody says a comment about me that I take to heart and I fear rejection and then I feel rejected. So what do I do? I stay away from people. That's not useful, is it? No. That's what I used to do. I didn't care about you. I cared what drugs you had for me. I had a using buddy or a person who, I suppose basically I'm a pimp, but I used him for my drugs. He bought my drugs, my munchies, all that kind of stuff. And that was why we were friends. If I had any choice in the matter, I would have had a robot for a friend or something I didn't have to interact with, for heaven's sake, because I didn't like people, because people could hurt me.
And I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about, about fear and recovery and how I've kind of dealt with these things. I went away to Port Elizabeth for a little while. My father lives there and our relationship has gotten so much better, but it wasn't, maybe a year ago, it wasn't too good. And I don't have any other family down in P.E. except my father, and he's now living with, I suppose she's going to be my stepmother, and two kids. And I went down there and I was all by myself in Port Elizabeth. And there were a few meetings that I got to and it was okay, but I was incredibly fearful, because I was away from Cape Town, I was away from my support group and I was in an isolated place.
And all I had was my literature and I was incredibly lonely. And all I did in P.E., there was nothing to do, I didn't have any friends. My father was at work, all I did was watch movies and read. I was reading Lord of the Rings, so that kept me busy for a little while. And so I sat there and I was just overwhelmed by this feeling of fear and I didn't know where it came from. It just knocked me down. So what I did is I took my literature and they have, in the back of the literature they have subject indexes, or indices, and I looked in there and I looked under fear, because that's what I was feeling, and I read the literature.
And what it told me was what I told you, that true courage is not the absence of fear, but it's living with fear. We overcome our fear, we don't remove it. We live with it, same as pain. And at times it does overwhelm me, but it doesn't mean it's going to kill me. I mean for a long time I thought feelings were going to kill me, I thought pain was going to kill me. I broke down one day and I was just crying, bawling in tears, this puddle around me on the floor on the phone, my sponsor at the time, and I could barely speak to him on the phone. I was crying like this. And he just had this calm demeanor and he just said to me, wow, sounds like opportunities for growth.
[00:10:15]
I was like, did you hear me? But it's true, and I know some people don't like to hear it. You go through pain, you go through fear too. But what I did was I sat there with that literature and I read what fear was about in this fellowship. Basically I just wanted to get fear out of my system, I didn't want to feel it anymore. And what it told me was, I need faith, and I can deal with my fear with God, and that's the way out. And what that led to was me thinking about where we actually deal with fears in this program and that's in step four.
We do our resentments, our fears, and a whole lot of other stuff, sex, all that stuff. We put it down on paper and we see it for what it really is. And what that does is it objectifies it. I was speaking to somebody, and I don't know about you guys, but when I have a resentment or a fear or whatever, I can only think of the one thing. And when I put it down on paper, I see how many I have. I see what they actually are and I can see the patterns within them. That's what we write step four.
And suddenly I see how silly it is for me to have these things. Resentments are a silly thing to have, but I have a whole lot of them that I have to regularly take out of my system. They're silly. Somebody said it's like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. It's silly. But I have them. And very often when I have them, that's all I can see in my head. When I put it down on paper, I look at it and I'm like, jeez, I'm not stupid. Why am I resenting that person for that? I mean, come on. Some of them are more tricky, and I need a bit more help than I can get.
That's what we do. We expose our fears to the light of objectivity and they fall away. That's the amazing thing in my step four and five. When I shared it with God and another person who was my sponsor and myself, they just fell away. And some of them I needed to do a bit more work with them to get them out. But most of them just fell away. And I said I'll tell you a bit about my fear of rejection.
And this is something that really helped me with my faith today. I was dealing with my step six and seven about my fear of rejection. I wrote down all my character defects. And I was doing my step six and I was ready to have them all removed. And I moved on to step seven. And I asked Him to remove them from me. And what happened is that I kept on asking and asking and eventually one day came when I didn't have it. I don't know what happened to it.
When I said I didn't have it, I mean, it's still within me, but I was given new behaviors to deal with it. It didn't take the fear of rejection away. I still have it. I know how to deal with it now. And what happened was that I was just able to speak to people. I was able to go to people I know and say, Hi, how are you doing? And ask them about their life without worrying about what they're going to think of me.
Without worrying about what they might say about me. I was able to do this without fear. And suddenly I felt like I was normal. Whatever that is. But I felt like I was being a human being. I'm not only an addict, I'm a human being as well. There are many things that we'll have to deal with as part of being human. And I just suddenly felt like I belonged not only to NA, but I belonged everywhere. And that I had a place here.
And it was an amazing thing because suddenly, I don't know, I mean I never knew this kind of stuff that I was doing. I was just talking to people. I mean, I don't know if anyone's had that experience, but I just knew how to talk to people. I never knew that before. And it happened to me and I was overwhelmed by this amazing experience that I had. And it helped me with my faith. I don't know if you want to call it spiritual awakening or whatever, but it helped me believe that I can change and that God can change me.
And more importantly, I need to depend on God to do that. Not rely on Him, depend on Him. It's the only thing I can depend upon. And that happened through step 6 and 7. And I moved on to 8 and 9. And once I got my defects of character and fears and all this stuff out the way, I was able to do my step 9s. I was able to make my amends. Once I saw them for what they really were, I was not… If I'm really scared about making amends with somebody, if I let fear constrict me, I'm not going to do it.
Which means I'm not going to grow. Which means I'm going to be comfortable in the place that I know, which is stagnancy, I mean, which is nothing, okay, and I don't want to be there anymore. I want quality of recovery. I listen to people say they did this amends and they feel so free about it, you know, and they have this amazing experience of freedom and I'm like, that's what I want, you know. And if I let fear stand in the way of me doing that, I'm not going to get that, you know. So it's not about, it's not really about feeling the feeling, it's about just doing it, man, not thinking about it,
[00:15:27]
But Doing It, It'S Action, You Know, Somebody Once, I Heard Someone Say, You Know, Step One, Ok, Is The Problem, Step Two, Is The Solution, And Steps Three Through Twelve, Is The Program Of Action, Ok, That'S What We Have To Do, Right, And That Makes Complete Sense To Me, Ok, And I Realize That For Me To Grow, I Need To Do Those Certain Things, Not Think About Doing Them, I Need To Do Them, Right, I Can Think About Anything, Ok, I Love This Thing, It'S Amazing, It'S A Machine That Churns Out Endless Philosophies And Theories And Crap, And, You Know, It'S Not Necessary, Ok, It'S Not Necessary, There'S Not A Stitch Of Theory In This Program, It'S All Experience, There'S Not A Stitch Of Theory, You Know, And So, As I Mentioned Before, Like, The Way Out For Me Is Faith In God, Ok, And The Way I Got There Was Through Knowledge Of What He Can Do For Me, Ok, And What I Need To Do For Him To Do That For Me, Alright, And There'S A Difference Between Belief And Faith, Ok, Like, If I, I'M Getting Some Of These From Shares I'Ve Listened To, But If I Come To You, I'M New In The City And I Come To You And I Say, I Need A Car Mechanic, Ok, My Car'S Stuffed Up, There'S Something Wrong With Whatever There Is In The Car, And I Need Help, Ok, And You Tell Me To Go To This Bloke, Ok, Go To Him And He'Ll Fix Your Car For You, Ok, I Believe What You'Re Telling Me, Alright, That'S Trust, I Trust In What You'Re Saying To Me, I Don'T Have Faith In It, Because I Haven'T Gone There Yet To Get It, I Don'T Know If He's Going To Give Me A Reasonable Price And A Reasonable Deal, I Don'T Know That, Ok, I Believe You, I Trust That'S True, But Only When I'Ve Done It Do I Have Faith, Ok, So, I Started To Believe And Trust In You People When You Told Me That This Worked For You, Ok, And When I Did It For Myself, I Now Have Faith That It Does, Alright, That'S The Difference, Ok, That Faith For Me Now Is Knowledge.
I Can Stand Here And I Can Honestly Say To You That This Stuff Has Happened To Me Because It'S What I Know, I Mean There'S No, I Don'T Actually Care If You Disagree With Me Actually, Ok, It'S Happened, You Know, It'S The Truth That I'Ve Experienced And I Know It'S True, And That Helps Me Have Faith In God, Ok, And When I Have That I Can Do Anything I Like, Alright, I Can Do This Program, I Can Get That Quality Of Recovery I Need, I Don'T Need To Let Fear Keep Me From That, Because Most Of My Fears Are Silly Man, They'Re Silly, Fear Rejection Is Silly.
Ok, Because The Amount Of Times I'Ve Been Rejected In My Life, People Have Rejected Me In My Life Is Minimal, I Can Count Them On My One Hand, Ok, The Amount Of Times I Think People Have Rejected Me, We Need Many Hands, Ok, And I Mean That'S What It Is, That'S The Truth Of The Matter, You Know. Another Thing I Read Was That Most Pain, Most Pain Comes From Resistance To Change, Not Change Itself, Ok, Like When I Was Phoning My Sponsor Up I Was In Pain Because I Didn'T Want To Change, Ok, I Didn'T Believe I Could, I Didn'T Have Faith That I Could, Right, Now That I Have That Faith I Have Less Pain And I Have Less Fear, Ok.
Sometimes It Does Overwhelm Me, Ok, It Does Bring Me To My Knees And It'S Very Sore, Ok, But That'S When I Need To Reach Out And That'S When I Need The Unity That We'Re Speaking About This Convention, I Need The Support, I Need The Fellowship, You Know, And Most Importantly I Need The Program Of My Higher Power. What Else Do I Have Written Down Here? I'Ve Got, Ok, The Way I Came About This Was I Then Went Through My Step 6, 7, 8, 9, Ok, 10, And Then I Went Into My Step 11, Which Is An Amazing Step, And I Realized That I Need To Accept What My Higher Power Will Is For Me Even Though I Don'T Know It, Ok, But I Have Faith That He Will Let Me Know It, Because He Has Let Me Know Many Other Things, Ok, I Just Believe I Have Faith That It'S Going To Come True.
And So I Try To, I Mean I Tell You The Truth, Most Days I Don'T Know What The Hell My Higher Power Wants Me To Do But Stay Clean And Work On My Recovery, Ok, Maybe That'S It, But Most Days I Don'T Really Know, Ok, I Follow What Is Intuition, That'S What I Follow, Or Conscience, Whatever You Want To Call It, That'S What I Try To Follow, And I Need To Meditate And Pray To Hear That Voice. But Coming To That, I Read In The Blue Book, The Basic Text That It Said There, By Working The Steps, We Come To Accept Our Higher Powers Will, Or A Higher Powers Will, Acceptance Leads To Recovery, We Lose Our Fear Of The Unknown, And We Are Set Free.
[00:20:15]
And That'S The Part, One Of The Greatest Things I Fear Today Is Still The Unknown, I Don'T Know What'S Going To Happen, And That'S Part Of What Alexis Was Saying About Living In The Moment, Ok, Just For Today, Because I'LL Never Know What'S Going To Happen Tomorrow, I'LL Never Know What'S Going To Happen In The Next Minute, Not Even The Wisest People Know That, I'LL Never Know That, So Why Do I Bother With It? It'S Because I Fear It.
But That'S Ok, What'S Not Ok Is If I Let It Constrict Me, If I Let It Hamper My Recovery, And Take Away From The Quality That I Have Today, That'S Not Ok, Then I Start To Move Towards The Drug Instead Of Away From It. And Today I Really Do Feel Free, It Took Me A Long Time To Work This Program, It Took Me About 2 Years To Accept That I Needed To Do It, But When I Started Doing It, It'S Endless How Much Freedom There Is, And I Do Want To Be Free, And I Will Be Free Today.
So That'S It, Thank You Very Much.