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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 923 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: patrick-s-carrying-the-message-and-h-i-service-na-2006-archive-923.mp3 Duration: 00:39:34
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My name's Patrick, I'm an addict. Y'all hear me out there? Can y'all see me? Do I need to stand up? I get that a lot. Sometimes I go where the podium's this high and nobody can see me. They just hear a voice. Can y'all understand me when I talk? Do we have anybody that can translate Texan? Hey, y'all can understand us a little better than we can understand y'all. Sometimes when you talk. We were staying at a hotel in Cape Town and this guy that works for the hotel knocks on the door. Absalon opens the door and I'm standing right behind him and he looks in there and he says, uh, you got a handlebar there? I said, what? So we asked him, what'd you say? He said, you got a handlebar there? So it's like three times and Absalon finally says, man, I don't know what you're saying. So he slowed down and said, do you have an ironing board in there? I think we pissed him off a little bit, but it's all good. It's like, you know, this is, I got to tell y'all what a privilege it is to be here and how honored we are to be a part of this, uh, you know, experience that we're having here. The first regional convention. I'm glad, thank y'all for showing up and supporting all of us. You know, when they told me what the topic was, the primary purpose, it just overwhelmed me because that's our passion, carrying the message, right? That's what we're all about. Saving lives. So it's like, I was real, um, pleased to be able to share on this topic. And, um, I know it's y'all had a good time here. Everybody's having a good time. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Um, we've had a great time. We got off the plane and Mark picked us up and he gave us an inter-aid and said, here, man, you're going to need this. We're having a heat wave. And I looked around and said, what? I think it's 110 degrees where I live. This is not a, it's a springtime to us. But, um, it's, it's been a really, really pleasurable trip and we've had some awesome fun. It's a long weekend. I know a lot of y'all are tired and I've seen some of y'all nodding out out there. So if you need to take a little nap, go ahead. Just buy the CD later. So, um, you know, a beautiful gift we have, the opportunity to carry the message to other addicts. And, um, you know, I'm, I'm grateful. Like Ron was saying, the foundation that we set early in recovery, it's very important to take care of ourselves first. You have to do that in order to carry an effective message. Um, my sponsor would always tell me that if, you know, if you don't have a sponsor and you're not working the steps and you're out there carrying the message, you're not carrying the message, you're carrying a mess and you need to go back home and take care of yourself first. So I strongly encourage you to get a sponsor and work the steps and learn how to carry a clear and effective message of Narcotics Anonymous if you want to save somebody's life. Um, you know, we came here, people ask us another thing. It's like, I like when people come up to me and say, you know, what brought you here? Why are you here?
How are you able to do the things you do? And, uh, you know, it's kind of like something y'all know that movie, the blues brothers, y'all seen that movie, Elwood blues. We're on a mission from God. And I like that. And we are, you know what I mean? We are, we are empowered by a power greater than ourselves to do what could never be done by anybody else, man, save the life of another suffering addict. We are that power. We are the messengers of the gift that we call the message of hope, the promise of freedom, you know, and, uh, that's what we're all about. Um, a lot of times I tell people, you know, how are you able to do what you do? And I say, well, I got up this morning and I took a third step and that is it. And that's, that's why I'm here today. And I can tell you, it's like, you know, we came here to carry the message, not at this convention, but to a prison. We came here to go to polls, more maximum security prison in Cape town. And we had the honor and the privilege of securing the message to the addicts over there. Um, you know, it's funny because, uh, you know, the way God works is like, I know what my passion is. I know what those who came with me, I know their passion, but the reasoning may be different for why we're here. It may reveal itself in different ways. And it talks about that in our basic texts that, um, you know, we will go through an experience, but we may not understand it until down the road it will reveal itself. And that's kind of like what it goes on with stuff like this. I love the infinite wisdom and power of God because he, he orchestrates things through a series of events to fulfill his will in each of our lives. And sometimes he has to do it collectively through a single experience. And I'll share with you the reason why, why we're here. And, um, you know, it unfolded itself into many things, but this is what initiated it. Um, in my country, I've been to prison a few times and I'm kind of fond of the prison system. Um, as far as like the addicts on the inside and reaching back in because I was one of those who had to do time in there without, you know, it's sad because if you think about being an addict, if you've never done time, think about this.
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Um, think about the day when you first showed up at Narcotics Anonymous. Think about the fear and the loneliness, the emptiness, the pain, the suffering, the degradation, dereliction that you lived in, the isolation and how bad it felt and not being able to reach out, not knowing where to go, needing something, not having very much hope, wanting to die. And then take that same spirit and lock it into a cage and just think of this person locked away from everybody and everything, not being able to get out even if they wanted to. And that's that person I was. I was locked in that cage, filled with pain, filled with hurt, filled with fear, wanting to die and not knowing what to do and not being able to go anywhere to do anything about it. And so I understand the nature of the addict and I especially understand the nature of the addict locked up in a cell. And so I'm very passionate about that service, yeah. Um, you know, so I'm sitting there, I work out of my home, I have a home office and I'm sitting there at my desk and I usually turn the TV on for background noise. And, um, there was this program on, it was, it was, uh, the Polesmore maximum security prison in Cape Town. And I just let it run and I wasn't paying attention to it, but the story got really interesting and it was about the gangs in Polesmore, how violent they were, the numbers gangs. And it got to a point, it was so bad that the guards were even afraid to go to work in fear of getting stabbed. And so they needed to do something and they didn't know what to do. And they had heard of this lady on the outside working with the gangs on the outside. And, uh, what she did, she implemented a program of intervention, um, conflict dispute through communication rather than violence. And she worked with the gangs on the outside and it seemed to have an effect. So they asked her to come on the inside and try her program on the inside. She said she had never done it, but she'd be willing to do it. And, uh, the gang leaders in there got together and held a little meeting and they felt threatened by her presence in there. And they put a contract out on this lady and said, when she gets in there, they're going to stab her. They're going to try to kill her. And, uh, she went anyway. And, um, so they had little meeting and, and, uh, one of the gang leaders made a remark that God must've been with her cause nothing happened to her, you know, and we know about the power of God protecting us. So she made it through there, man. And it, and in the beginning of the show, it interviewed two, two gang members.
And, um, one of them, especially his name was Arafon Jacobs. And, um, I fell in love with that dude, man. And, uh, uh, it interviewed him at the beginning. And, uh, if you could understand the transition of this man's life through the power of the program, you would feel what I'm feeling right now and understand just what the gift is we have and what power this program has on, on a person, the message. And, uh, it interviewed Arafon in the beginning and Arafon's just got tattoos all over his face and tattoos all over. And he's a general in one of the gangs and his job was to enforce the rules of the gangs or whatever. And, um, he said, yeah, he said, uh, you know, this is life and this is the way it is. I've killed a lot of people in here. And when I get out, I'm going to kill my mom. And he had tattooed on his face. I hate my mom. And, uh, you know, so you know, we're dealing with somebody that's pretty hardcore, man. And, uh, you know, and, and that's the beginning of the show. And then it followed them through this program and, and, um, it actually affected change in some of their spirits and towards the end of the program, two of these inmates got out and six months later, this lady went to their, or a few months later, this lady went to their houses to check up on them, see how they're doing. One of them was struggling. She went to Arafon's house and Arafon said, please come in and let me show you. And he went into the kitchen and he hugged his mom and his mom started crying and they had a relationship and they were embracing each other. And, um, his story was so moving. It touched a doctor so much that a doctor agreed to remove the tattoos from his face for free. And I believe he underwent that process, but he said, sit down, let me show you. And, um, so the lady sit down and he went in the back bedroom and he brought out these papers and a book and he sat down and he reached into his pocket and he pulled out a newcomer tag and he pulled out a 30 day tag and he pulled out a 60 day clean tag. And the book he had was a basic text and it just floored me. And I was glued to the TV and I just sat there and watched as he spoke about the message of Narcotics Anonymous. The lady didn't get it. She had no idea. And she said, well, what does this do for you? What did they give you? And, and he said, uh, uh, step away from the microphone. And, uh, so anyway, um, Erfan, Erfan said, you know, they gave me a message and, uh, the lady said, what do you want to do with
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his message? He's, he says, I want to carry it to others. And, uh, man, that just so impressed me that here we had somebody, a stone cold gangster converted to somebody of passion who wants to get out of himself and help others. I identify with that cause I spent my whole life taking from others my whole life. And if I couldn't get it through from you by manipulation, which I wasn't very good at, I took it by force and I was pretty good at that. And, um, so I identified with this man very much and, and I identified with the transformation of spirit and it really moved me. And, um, so she set him up carrying the message to kids in school and it kind of baffled me. I said, I didn't get that part. I said, how, you know, he's carrying this message to kids in a middle school. They were like 10, 11, 12 years old, something like that. And I said, you know, what's he going to tell him how not to use or how not to get started or something, I guess, which is okay, which is fine. It's intervention. Um, so I just kind of let that go, but I was so moved by the story that I got on the internet and I started writing the fellowship here in South Africa and I sent an email to what was posted on there, I guess was, um, Johannesburg. And I sent an email to Johannesburg and, uh, I understand the difference between Joe Berg and Cape town today, Joe Berg, boom, they'll hit you right. The next day, Cape town, it might take a week for it to get back to you. Hey, I liked that. We're kind of laid back like that, but, uh, knock on, but it was sweet because here's what happened. So I've been in contact with Mark in, in, uh, in, uh, Joe Berg and David in Cape town. And, and man, these guys have been awesome, man. They've taken care of us and a lot of others in the room since we've hit the ground. And I've got nothing but love for you guys here, all of y'all, man. But so we, I sent the email to, uh, Joe Berg and Mark wrote me back and he said, man, it's good to hear from you. I don't know about this dude, but what I'm going to do is email forward your message up to Cape town and see if we can find the guy, by the way, how you doing or how's it. Right. So I said, cool. So I started communication with Mark. Right.
And then, um, I didn't, you know, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if I'd hear back from anybody or not. And it wasn't that long, really when, when Cape town wrote me back and said, Hey, you know, I heard you're looking for this dude named marathon. Um, I don't know. They said, maybe that I don't know him. Maybe that documentary is a couple of years old, but by the way, how are you doing? And so I started communication with Cape town and I asked him about the prison. I asked him about this and they said, there's a convention going on. What are you doing? Do you think you can come up? And I said, you know what? I don't know. Let's see what God has to say about it. And so I started the process and here we are. You know, it's a God thing. God brought us here, man. And it was a spirit of verify. So when I tell you, I don't know. And I've asked about him and I heard he's dead. Um, I don't know about air farm, about his life, about his recovery.
I don't know if he lived clean or, or, or died dirty. I don't know any of these things. Um, I just heard that I've spoke to people who took him to meetings. Um, he did show up in the rooms. He did carry a message and, um, I understand he's dead and then I don't know the situation, but you know, I, I thank that man for reaching out through the TV and touching my spirit and allowing us to come to South Africa to be with you guys. Pretty amazing man.
But, and, and, and, and I was communicating with Mark and he was telling me about, you know, the fellowship here, how young it is, but how exciting the growth is. And we see it, man, this is awesome. I'm, I'm so touched by what we see here. Y'all are on the right path and I hope y'all focus and keep it on the path that you're on. I'm sure y'all are not without your internal struggles, but you're on the right path. You're doing all the right things and it's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful experience that we see from this side. And um, so I'm writing to Mark and he's sending me pictures. I sent pictures. I took a picture of my home group and y'all call it a shout out, a shout out to, uh, South Africa. And we sent it to Mark's home group. They sent one back from their home group. I got one from Cape town home group. I got one from Soweto home group and I was really moved.
And, um, I even made a blow up of the, uh, eight by, I made an eight by 10 blow up of the Soweto group and I took it over to our African American group in Austin, Texas, and they got it posted on their meeting wall, man. And that's just awesome. That's very powerful. So I'm communicating with Mark and he tells me about the group of Soweto. So when me and Absalon saw that they showed up, Susan saw that they showed up, we were very passionate about their appearance. And for me, it's, it's a little special because when I was talking to him, he was sharing about the meeting in Soweto and he was telling me that about the youth and recovery over there and he was saying yeah he was at a meeting one time he was he said there's 30 in the group and majority of them were were you know very young you know and he said there was one guy who got up went to the front of the
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room and he said my name is so and so I'm an addict I'm 10 years old and nothing bad happened to me today I thought that was pretty cool man you know and I can relate because I was 10 years old. when I started using. I stuck a needle in my arm when I was eleven years old. I OD'd for the first time when I was twelve years old. And I lived the life of an addict until I was thirty years old. And a lot of that time was spent in prison. So I got a lot of compassion for those addicts who make it to the rooms early. And there's a lot of addicts in here, Cape Town, Joburg, man we've been hanging out with guys in their twenties. And I'm just so overwhelmed by that. Man, y'all don't know what a blessing it is. Y'all don't know what a gift it is to see you in the rooms. I went to my first meeting when I was nineteen years old and I didn't get it. I spent the next ten years in prison because of it. And I'm okay with that today. The passion for H&I in our country, you gotta be a year clean and two years out of prison before they'll allow you to qualify to go back in. I got denied twice. They wouldn't let me back in prison. That's pretty sad, isn't it? I'm trying to get back in, they won't let me in. For five years. So what I did though, I was a service man. I got on the phone line. And people used to tell me, man when I got clean I was afraid to talk to you. You scared me. Well my expression is a little softer today.
I guess I was a little hard when I got here. So I took up phone line. I worked on the phone line. I became chair of the phone line. I wrote policy for the phone line. And I thought this is beautiful, man. I can talk to another addict on the other line. They can't see me. I can't scare them. I can get them to a meeting. So that was pretty cool. So I was of service that way. And when my day come up to get clearance to go back into the penitentiary, I went back in. And I loved it. I loved it. People told me, I said, man we got to go to Poles more. And they looked at me and said, ooh, really? They said, were you scared? I said, no, I felt right at home, man. Just like home, just in another place, man. And we had an awesome time with the guys. I didn't say a whole lot. It's like I had other people with me. And for me, the gift was just being there. Just being there. And you talk about carrying the message. There's many different ways we carry the message. One of them is just to show up. Those of you who do H&I, you understand what I'm talking about. Make a presence. I believe that the group is the single most strongest, important, valuable vehicle we have for carrying the message at the group level. After that, it's getting out into the streets by way of public information and hospitals and institutions. In our country, in the states, in Texas, man, we post billboards. We put signs on buses, back of taxis. We do PSAs on the television, the radio. Everywhere we can get the message out. We put flyers up in post offices, parole, probation department. Wherever we can stick a piece of literature, we stick it. And, you know, try to get addicts into the rooms. And I believe that everybody in the room has a certain gift and a certain talent. And by obligation of the 12 steps, we're obligated to carry this message. And we are, in effect, messengers. We come into the rooms for the first time to hear the message. Once we get the message, it's our responsibility to carry that message. We become messengers. And it talks about that in our basic text that we become the vessel of our higher power. And every time before we share, we get together with other addicts and we pray. And we ask God to remove us. And I have found it very easy to become invisible so that you don't see me, but you see the God in me. I have found it very necessary to become nobody in Narcotics Anonymous so that I can become somebody for my God. Because that's what's important to me. You know, my passion goes where it goes. It comes from where it comes from. And it hadn't been until just this past year where I shared a lot of this information because of ego in early years of recovery. But when I was 23 years old, I was in a Dallas County jail. I had been married about a year. My son was a year old. My daughter had just been born. She was a month old. I was strung out in a Dallas County jail and they gave me 116 years. And I was guilty. And they could have made it stick. The prosecuting district attorney wanted me to go away for 116 years.
The judge wanted me to go away for 116 years. I had no money because I was a junkie. My family had no money to buy me a lawyer or bail me out. I had taken a court-appointed lawyer and I just felt doomed. The only thing that passed in front of me was my life. I'm never going to see my children again, my wife and kids again. I'm going to die in prison. One of the cases was 99 years aggravated. And where I'm from, on 99 years aggravated, you would do 33 years before you even come up for parole. This was when I was 23 years old. I'm 45. So by all rights, I should still be there until another 10 years. And by all rights, I should be dying in prison. God stepped in. And that's all I can say. It's a long story, but God stepped in, took that time off of me, and I've never forgotten that.
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I'm here by the grace of God. He saved my life. Narcotics Anonymous did not save my life. God saved my life. But he loved me so much he knew I was an addict. He brought me to the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous, and I've never forgotten that. I give a life of service today through carrying the message in love to my God, love to the addicts, and out of respect for the fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous. I don't go anywhere else for my recovery.
I'm an addict, not an alcoholic, and I understand for me there's a difference. And this is where I belong. I work the 12 steps of Narcotics Anonymous so that I can give the 12 steps of Narcotics Anonymous to other addicts. You know, I've been involved in service since I was, you know, three months clean. I've been doing H&I for over 16 years. I've had a service position since I was three months clean. And I spent two years at the regional level. I was regional H&I chair. And to be honest with you, I'd rather be sitting in the prison with the guys than sitting at a committee table arguing about money. But good luck. I hope and pray that y'all don't lose your focus because I feel like sometimes we forget what we're about. We forget where we come from. We forget why we're here and the direction we're supposed to be going. And I'm very passionate about the newcomer because that's what we're all about, man. And it's so good to meet so many people in the rooms here that are new. Man, y'all have a, I don't know how to describe it, but this would be like, oh, we, man, if we were all here from Texas, we'd be having a blast, man. Oh, yeah.
So enjoy the growth that you're experiencing because it's a blessing. You're going to grow. You're growing. There's no turning back now. You're a new region. That's new birth in this area, man. Y'all are blessed and I'm real happy to be a part of it. You know, when I was regional chair, we started a program called Adopt an Inmate. And, you know, it's a program to where any inmate in the state of Texas can write to this address and we'll send them a basic text for free. It doesn't matter what institution you're in. And that's a big deal because the way that the prisons are structured over there, you go, you got minimum, medium, maximum security, but then you got something called closed custody. That's for people who don't want to behave. And then you got administrative segregation, which is usually gang members.
And then you got death row. We execute a lot of people in Texas. They got no problem putting somebody down. And they do it by way of a needle. They put you on a stretcher and load you up full of sodium pentothal and take you out. And it's really sad because you know as well as I do, a good majority, probably 80, 90 percent of the people in prison are addicts. You know, thank God that the courts are taking notice. And we were talking about this last night that I think it's eventually going to happen here. They started something called drug courts in Texas. Now they're taking a person's history and behavior and referring them to the drug courts. And they're making a decision to put these people in prison rather than, I mean, in treatment rather than prison. And they're saving the lives. They're helping to save the lives of a lot of people. Me and Absalon, Absalon coordinates a prison unit that's kind of in our backyard, the only one really. And it's called the Kyle unit.
It's the group, there's the new vision group. We've been doing this meeting. I coordinated it for five. We've been going out there for 16 years. I coordinated it for five years. He's been there for about seven. We get an attendance every week of over 400 inmates at that meeting. That's a big H&I meeting. We're very proud of it. And it's not just so they attend. They're actually paying attention. They're not sitting there talking and looking around. They're watching you. They're listening. And we see a good majority of these guys getting out and staying clean. And that's, man, that just like really touches my spirit when we see this. And they're getting a lot of the books that we're sending out. But anyway, so we started this program called Adopt an Inmate. A case of basic text for us costs about $450. Our budget at Region was about $800 a quarter. The first quarter we gave out three cases of books. We're already in the red. Region, the administrative body, they freaked out. Everybody freaked out and wanted to shut it down. What are we going to do? We can't support this. Shut it down. I said, hold them up. I said, don't be in such a hurry, man. I said, let God do God's work. You know, let's give this a minute.
Well, little did they know that we were pulling some dope fiend moves behind the scenes. But I wasn't going to let it die. No way was I going to let this go away, man. This is the right thing for the right reason. I'll do whatever it takes to see it through. Right? So we, during break, we got with an administrative body of one of our regional office or area offices and we asked them if they would be willing to oversee this project. But as a fellowship project, fellowship funded project, not a regional or area fellowship, you know, funded project. Because it is our responsibility. If you read the 12 Concepts of Service, it says we are ultimately responsible for those things that we create in our rooms. We are responsible. We don't delegate it to just a region or just this. We as individual members, we as groups are responsible for those things that we create. And so I said, don't let this
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happen. Don't let it die, man. This is too important. And so we talked them into it and they agreed to oversee the project. And so I went out and I started, I hit the streets, started hustling money, man. I went to individuals. Can you donate a few dollars? Went to groups. Can y'all donate a few dollars once a month to this program? And this was a few years ago. The program is doing well. And I got to tell you, man, we get letters from these inmates because here's how it works. Any books that go into the prison system go into a library.
They stay in the library. Not every inmate has access to that library. If you're in close custody, if you're in maximum security, if you're on death row, if you're in administrative segregation, you don't get to go to the library. They'll bring around a little cart if they feel like it with books on it. And chances are very slim that there's going to be a basic text on that cart. If there is, we got a letter from this one girl in prison and she said, thank God, thank y'all so much for what you're doing because I finally got a book of my own. You know, they cherish what we take for granted. They cherish with their life because it's theirs. That's all they have in their cell. That means anything to them is their basic text. They said, when we check them out from the library, pages are missing. There are marked up, you know, we don't have anything we can take back and call our own. Now I do. I can go through and highlight. I can read my book every day.
So it's very touching, man. And I used to take these letters into groups and at group conscience I would say, hey, I would like to ask you if y'all could donate some money, you know, and here's I just want to read a few letters. By the end of the meeting, when I read those letters, people are giving me all kinds of money. Here's my rent money. Here's my lettering money. It's sweet. You know, it's very touching, but it's very real.
And I heard that one of our books ended up in the hands of a death row inmate. I don't know if y'all can understand what I just said. One of our books ended up in the hands of a death row inmate, an addict that is going to be killed, going to be executed for the things that he did. I don't, I don't, I don't take away what he did. If he needs to be executed, he needs to be executed. Depends on how you feel about that. What I feel that he's an addict and he deserves a chance just like any other addict. And for the first time we're able to bypass all that red tape and our basic text goes directly into the hands of another addict. So I heard one got into the hands. So now I feel comfortable that we can, even if an addict is going to die, that they can go out with a clean spirit, that they can go out clean in recovery through the 12 steps. I sponsor about five guys in prison through the mail. And actually on the plane ride over here, I had to do some step work. So I'm on the plane riding these guys and doing step work with them. And when I got to South Africa, I mailed the letter. So they're going to get letters from South Africa. I think they'll like that. I think that'll be a gift. And also there's a website you can go to. And on this website, it's about execution, about death row inmates. And it puts on their, their last request, what their last words were. And there was one inmate on there that put, it started with a needle and now it ends with a needle. You know, that was one addict that we could have carried a message to. That was one addict that we could have saved on the way out. You know, and by the power of this program, we're able to do that today. And I'm real grateful that there was enough of us who had enough passion to keep it going. And you know, it's still going today. Maybe someday y'all can reach that point. I know y'all struggle with the literature here, but I know the World Service office is working with you as well. You know, but that's what we're about. We're about carrying this message. I'm a good one to put out on the street. I love going into the barrios, into the hoods, into the jails and the prisons. I got no fear because I walk with God every day of my life. You know, every day I wake up, I do a third step and I know God is with me everywhere I go. So I'm not worried. You know, and I love what the steps talk about.
I remember I was sitting in an H&I meeting and it's in the eighth step. Okay, I'm in denial about the glasses thing too, so hold them up. Yeah, Susan gave me a pair of glasses. I hate them things, man. It says, by the time we reach this step, we have become ready to understand rather than to be understood. I remember sitting in an H&I meeting and realizing it was no longer about me. It hasn't been about me in a very long time. It's about you.
It's about how can I help you get to where I'm at? Because I got mine. God is with me. I'm content. I'm full in my spirit at all times. You know, as I heard Absalom share this, nothing we really say is original. Either I heard it from somewhere else, but a lot of my stuff is dictated through spirit by God. And something he revealed to me is that All that I am and all that I have is given to me by God.
Anything that God has for me is all that I will ever need, and if you can understand what I just said, it doesn't matter where I'm at in the world, I'm taken care of at all times. God is with me ever present. So it enables me to get out of myself, and I heard somebody else sharing, a spirit of
[00:30:03]
selflessness. It enables me to live in a spirit of selflessness. I can continually be there for somebody else. And for this ad… You Don't Know What a Gift That Is, You Don't Know What an Honor That Is, When a Guy Asks Me to Sponsor Him, I Say Yes and Thank You for Allowing Me the Privilege to Be of Service to You, Because That's What It Is to Me, It's a Labor of Love, of Service to Another Addict, I Love the Guys I Sponsor, They're Dear to Me, The Guys in Prison Mean So Much to Me, They're Working the Steps, They're Sharing the Information, They're Diligent, I Write Them Back and I Say Thank You, Thank You for Your Work, It's Beautiful, My Guys on the Outside, We Hang Together, I Called Them All Before I Left to Make Sure They Were OK, and I Said If You Need Anything, Call Your Grandsponsor and It Will Be OK, It's Beautiful, This is a Beautiful Site, It Really Is, and I've Been Touched by So Many People Here, and We've Been Involved, We Went to the Leo Cop Prison, is that right, Leo Cop, something like that?
Alright, whatever, but we got to carry the message over there and we had a great time, and a girl went in with us, and she had a wonderful time, and a guy went in, Mark went in with us, him and his wife, and they went in, never done that before, and they went in with us, and they were touched by the experience, and I know the guys heard our message, I know they heard us, and I know they were touched, and it's just, it's not for everybody, like I say, there's some people we need sitting at the committee tables, I'm not one of them, because if you piss me off, I'm going to come across the table at you, you know, so it's better somebody else does that work, but there are some of us who are able to go out there and carry that message, and that's what we're about, you know, and to further our growth, I know we're getting into places that we've never been before, and I understand that the message is going to be translated into five different languages here, they're working on that, that's beautiful, man, that is very beautiful, and we've done so much, our sponsor's done a lot of work in Mexico, we go to Mexico, and we reach out to these guys in Mexico, they're along the border, these little struggling groups, man, it's like, they're along the borders of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, California, and nobody can get to them, they don't belong to anybody, they're too far from Monterrey, and, you know, they're away from us across the border, so we start going down there to support them, because they need support, and another thing I like is outreach, I love getting in the car and going to support other groups, man, and so we've sponsored these, we've supported these other groups so they can get strong enough, we even pulled them into our region, they became part of the Esperanza area in San Antonio for a while, now they're part of Monterrey region, you know, and so everything's taken care of, but I do believe very strongly in the fact that we've got to take care of business at home first, because if I didn't do the work on me in the beginning, like Ron was talking about, then I'm of no use to anybody else, how can I give away what I don't have, you know, and it's like, it's cool, man, and I want to share this, there's a, y'all like this, it's a story about a rabbit, a monkey, an elephant, and a lion, and so this rabbit one day, he just takes off running through the woods, right, just takes off running, and he comes across this monkey rolling a joint, right, and he stops, and the monkey's rolling a joint, fixing to fire it up, and the rabbit says, he says, stop, man, stop, monkey, man, you don't have to live like that anymore, you know, you can do something different, why don't you come run through the jungle with me, and the monkey says, okay, I'll do that, so the rabbit and the monkey are running through the jungle, they come across this elephant, this elephant's got a line of coke, or y'all do speed here, right, this elephant's got a line of speed out on the table as long as it's drunk, and he takes his trunk, and he snorts up that big old line of speed, right, and the rabbit looks at him and says, hey, Mr. Elephant, you ain't got to live like that no more, why don't you come run with us through the jungle and do something different, it'll be okay, trust me, the elephant says, okay, let's do this, so they go running through the jungle, the rabbit, the monkey, the elephant, and they come across this line, and this line's tying off, man, he's fixing to do a shot of heroin, right, and so they come across the line and the line's fixing to fix, and the rabbit looks at him and says, hey, man, line, you ain't got to live like that no more, why don't you come run with us through the jungle, the monkey says, yeah, man, this is great, why don't you come with us, and the elephant says, yeah, man, let's go run through the jungle, and the lion reaches down and grabs the rabbit by his throat and just starts beating him, he starts hitting this rabbit, and the monkey and the elephant freak out and says, dude, what are you doing, how come you're beating up the rabbit, and the lion says, man, to hell with this rabbit, every time he hits the crack pipe, he wants to run through the jungle, so I guarantee you, you know, I've known, and the moral of that story is, you've got to take care of your business for yourself first before you can pass it on to others, else the end result is always going to be the same jealous institutions and death, oh, my, right, and it's important,
[00:35:02]
man, because you cannot give away what you don't have, and you may get by with it for a few years, sooner or later, you're going to end up in a place, and I'll close with this story about an addict that I sponsor in a prison, there's an addict that I sponsor, and he's very dear to my heart, he had three years clean when I drove up, and I admired this dude, man, he was on top of the world, man, having fun in recovery, three years clean, had a good job making plenty of money, just having a blast, and I said, man, that's what I want to be when I grow up, you know, and so I was watching him, right, I stuck around long enough to see him relapse, and, you know, he went out on crack, he's a crackhead, you know, and a petty thief, man, he's not a violent, he's not a criminal, he's just a crackhead, so he goes out to supply his habit, he steals stuff, little stuff, he'll steal a spare tire if he can get a couple of dollars for it, right, and he never made it back, man, he'd get a year clean, six months clean, and go back out, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and one day I was thinking, I said, man, that's got to be the luckiest person I know, he can go out and play, come back, go out and play, nothing ever happens to him, and I started to get a little jealous, I started thinking, man, maybe I can do that, but I know better, I can't do that, and so I didn't, passing thought, so one day we found out he went out one day to steal something, and he was driving by this restaurant, he stole this little six foot ladder, and he threw it into his car, the manager of the restaurant saw him do it, and he came running out and jumped on the hood of his car, started stabbing the window with a screwdriver, and the guy freaked out, right, so he took off, man, he took off and turned a corner, and the guy on his hood flew off and hit his head and killed himself, so my friend is doing 20 years for involuntary manslaughter, and I'm his sponsor today, you know, and he's going to be pretty old when he gets out, you know, there's no guarantees, man, there is no guarantees, and all it takes is once, and I pray, I pray to God, for God's sake, every one of you, that you stay in these rooms, y'all had that topic, keep coming back, me and Absalom were laughing, forget, keep coming back, just stay, just stay, you know, I don't have the experience of relapse, thank God, I'm scared to death, like I was hearing somebody else, I'm scared to death of relapse, I don't know if I'll make it back, I do not know if I will make it back, I don't want to find out, you know, I fought too hard, I lived too long to get what I got, man, my clean date is June 17th of 1990, I got 16 years clean, I don't want to lose it, man, I'm scared, what I got is precious to me, what I got means my world, June 17th of 1990 is the greatest day in the history of my life, you know that? I mean, I can sit here, when I introduce myself in H-9 to prison, I do it by way of prison numbers, my TDC number is 388-439, my federal number is 147-360-77, my Wackenhut number is 91-3042, some things you just never forget, but you know what, today I got a new number, 617-90, it's my clean date, and that means a lot to me, and I just, I want to tell y'all how much I love you guys and how much you really, really mean to me, and y'all just, I can't, I don't think there's a word to describe the feeling that I have inside, and y'all know what I'm talking about, empathy, you know how I feel, because you've been there, you're headed in that direction, trust me, but it's like when you guys come up to me and tell me I got a few months clean, I got six months, nine months, I'm excited, because I know what waits for you down the road, I know the gifts and miracles that I've gotten out of this program, and it's the steps that allow us to do what we do today, it's the steps that allow us to have the passion for this program and the compassion for one another, do you understand that, compassion, a selfish, self-centered addict has compassion, cares about another human being, how did that happen, I grew up in treatment, it never came from treatment, it came from here, it came from the program of Narcotics Anonymous, this thing works man, this thing is the most powerfulest thing I've ever seen in my life, and I've been through a lot of treatment centers, you know, I'm really grateful to be here, I want to thank you for all that you all have done since we've been here, we've been welcomed with open arms, and it's all about carrying the message, man, so I love you guys, and keep doing what you're doing.
Thank you for letting me share this. Thank you very much.