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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 903 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: penny-steps-one-two-and-three-personal-recovery-journey-na-2005-archive-903.mp3 Duration: 00:24:10
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Hi, my name's Penny and I'm an addict. And I've been asked to speak about steps one, two and three, and I've been told I've got about twenty minutes to share in. And I don't like having constraints put on me. I don't like being, you know, saying right, twenty minutes, that's it, you know, because maybe I'll speak to, maybe I want to speak for ten, maybe I want to speak for thirty minutes, who knows. But I'm going to try to do it in twenty minutes.
Right, steps one, two and three. You know, I used for a long period of time, and when I first started using, I thought I'd found the answer, because of what happened the first time I picked up a drug, was it took away all the negative, horrible feelings that I had, and suddenly I felt that I'd found a sense of belonging, I'd found the answer, I'd resolved all of the problems that I'd had during my childhood. You know, when I used, I suddenly felt powerful, I could communicate, I felt I was going to be someone. And that was when I was fifteen years old. And then what happened, you know, and the first drug I ever used was amphetamine tablets. And then what happened, over a period of time, you know, all that sort of hope and ambition and dreams that I had, slowly dissolved. You know, all my dreams slowly turned into nightmares, all my ambitions slowly dissolved into dust, into nothingness. And what happened was, you know, when I started using, I was bright, I was intelligent, from the outside. Inside I felt like shit. Oh, I'm allowed to say that, it's okay. Right? And so I felt really awful inside. But the drugs, to begin with, changed that. It changed that awful feeling. And, as I said, you know, it gave me a sense of being someone. But what happened, that someone that I felt I was, just slowly eroded, and I turned into, like, you know, I started using sort of speed, and after some years, I then later started injecting sort of other stuff, and then other stuff, and then I started injecting anywhere from here down to my feet. You know, and I look at myself in the mirror today, and I think, that person, was that really me? You know, did I really sort of shoot up loads of Dikenor, and smack, and crack, and coke, and God knows what else? Well, yeah, the truth is, that was me. You know, but it's like, I can look in the mirror today, and think, I didn't really, you know, that wasn't really me, that must have been someone else.
But I know that today, that if I don't come to meetings, if I don't work these steps, what happens, I become that person that I became again. You know, and I want to say where my drug use actually took me. When I was using, I, towards the end of my using, no, no, no, where was that? I was selling sort of drugs at various times throughout my using, and I was selling quite a lot at various times. And what happens to most people who sell drugs, eventually, is that they get arrested, and they go to prison. And kind of like, that's what happened to me. And what actually happened, I got sentenced to a seven year jail sentence for supplying heroin. And that was kind of like, seven years more than I expected to get. Because what I thought, I thought, because I was going not guilty, because I was thinking, well, I can just be like the drug dealer's wife, so, you know, I won't, I'll get nothing here. But of course, they didn't realise, they didn't believe the word that I was saying, which they didn't, of course, because it was lies, you know.
But there we are, so anyway, I got seven years. And what happened was that the day I got sent down for seven years, my thoughts weren't, what's going to happen to my kids, what's going to happen to my home, what's going to happen to anything, it was just, oh shit, I can't use for seven years. That is the first thought that came into my head, was that they've taken away my drugs for that time. And that is what I had become, I'd just become, over the years, I'd become, you know, from being a very sensitive person as a child, I'd become, I'd turned into, over the years, a sort of, like a drug machine, you know,
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because that's all I used. It says in our readings, we use to live and live to use. And that's what happened to me, you know. And when I went to jail, what actually happened was that my children, I had four children, and my son lived with my parents, and my three daughters lived with me and my ex-husband. And so my three daughters were actually put into care, and then they were adopted whilst I was in prison. And so, when I was in prison, as part of my get out of jail plan, I decided that I was going to go to NA meetings while I was in prison, so then I would get some parole, because of, you know, it looked like I'd really changed my attitude and I'd become a very good person, and then they'd let me out early, so then I'd go and use again. And so, at these meetings, you know, I used to go to these meetings in prison in Manchester, and they used to talk about, you know, it's the first one that does the damage, so I used to say, oh right, well I'll forget the first one, I'll have the second, third, tenth, fifteenth, twentieth sort of one. And they'd say, narcotics anonymous, and I'd say, well, narcotics unanimous, thanks for me, you know. And I used to be sitting there, and I'd be the heckler, and I'd be taking the piss, and laughing, and I'd think, look, these people, what are they? You know, like, did they ever use? Look, they're so smart, and clean, and tidy. And then one day I was sitting, and I was listening to some guy, and I thought, he knows what he's talking about. I suddenly started listening, and I didn't get clean at that time. But what actually happened was, the seed of recovery was planted, and then when I did get out of jail, after being out of jail for two weeks, and kind of like using for two weeks, I was sort of puffing and drinking for two weeks, and then what happened, after two weeks, I used some heroin. And I didn't want to use this heroin, but I used it. And after I'd used it, you know, part of my, when I eventually did get parole, part of the plan was that I had to go to this parole hostel for people with drug problems. And so what happened there was, they used to do urine specimens, and all that sort of stuff, and all the guys who were in this hostel when I arrived, they were all using, and they all got thrown out, because they'd been doing these, they'd been fixing their urine specimens with, I don't know how they were doing it, but they were doing it anyway, and they all got captured one day, and one of them left some gear in his room, and he asked me to get it out for him after he'd been thrown out, so I said yeah, alright. And he didn't come back for 48 hours. And what happened was like, I got the gear for him, and I was holding it, and I didn't want to use it, because I didn't really want to really use that much by then, and I knew that I was having urine specimens there, so I didn't want to take it. But what happened, all of a sudden this gear, it developed a life on its own, jumped on some foil, wrapped a piece of foil up on a pencil, put the tube in my mouth, struck a match underneath it, and there I was smoking this gear, and I didn't want to do it, but I did. And then within 10 minutes of doing it, I'd put my coat on, and I was out over to, where was it, Nunhead in South East London or somewhere, none of you know of, and knocking on the door of some dealer I knew. Fortunately, my higher power was with me that day, because the person wasn't at home that night. So I went back to the place that I was staying, in Clampton Junction, and started to think. What happened? You know, you didn't want to use, you used. And then it made you want to use more. And what that made me think about was what they'd said to me in those meetings, which was that it's the first one that does the damage. It's the first one that brings out that obsession and desire to use more. So I thought, well, maybe there's some truth in what they were saying in those meetings. So I started going to meetings, and that date that I started going to meetings was the 12th of April 1988. And I've been clean consecutively since then.
And that is seven days, seven months, and 17 years ago. And I want to say that my recovery has been a bit of a roller coaster ride. It's been
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up and down, because it's been about living life on life's terms. I can speak about the powerlessness of my addiction, and about repeating the same mistakes, expecting different results but the same things happening. I was totally powerless. And I can just give you one example of powerlessness and step two at the same time, is being junk sick, not having any gear, and someone comes in with some rocks and crack and says, do you want some? No, no, I don't.
And then I see them piping, you know, and it's like, oh yeah, give me some. But I know what would happen when I'm junk sick, if I smoked some crack, is that it just intensifies withdrawals, and I feel a thousand times worse. But I can tell you that I did that so many times. And that is just powerlessness, really. That's a prime example for me. But what I really want to talk about here is faith. Step three, we've made a decision to turn our will and our lives over. When I first started coming to meetings, I noticed that there appeared to be two different types of people in the meetings. There was people who were clean, and there were people who were clean and recovering. And what I saw was that I wanted to recover. I didn't want to go back to that life, and I suddenly feel quite emotional when I think about that. It says in our readings about jails, institutions and death. And I've done the jails, and I've done the institutions, and I don't want to die yet. I'm not ready to die yet. And I've completely lost the plot of what I was talking about, but that's alright. I shall just recollect my thoughts for a minute.
Step three, for me, is a very important step. And for me, it's about faith. Faith that whatever happens, it's going to turn out alright. As I started off by saying, when I was in prison, my daughters were adopted. And when they were eight, five and three, I had a visit with them in prison to say goodbye to them. And it was probably one of the hardest things, one of the hardest things that kind of happened in my life. And it was like I was in a state shop some time after that. And it was very hard, you know, saying goodbye to my little girls. But what happened, you know, after I eventually got clean, I had suddenly developed this faith that one day I would see them again. And I'll get back to that in a minute. When I was about four years clean, my son started using. And he'd come up to me and he said, Mum, you know, I found the answer. And I thought, oh, I've heard that myself. I think that was me many years ago. And he'd started using all the fun drugs, the party drugs.
He was having a way of time. And within a year, he was shooting up heroin. And I tried to be supportive to him. I kind of like got him into treatment. He got thrown out of treatment. Got him into treatment again. He walked out. And I was dreading, you know, every day I was filled with fear. Fear that the phone would ring, the doorbell would ring, and something would awful would happen to him. And then eight years ago today, it is the actual anniversary day, I got that phone call that I had been dreading. And I was actually in Elan. And my sister phoned to say that Troy, my son, had had a coronary and that he was on life support. And it didn't look very, the prospect was not very good. And I didn't know what to do. So I prayed. And I prayed to my higher power to help me and to help him. I came to help him, and I know that my higher power heard my prayer, but my higher power's
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plan for him was not my plan for him, because an hour later I got another phone call to say that he had died, and that is, I guess, that was my worst possible nightmare in recovery. I tell you that my life has been a sort of roller coaster ride in recovery, but it's about faith. And people said to me after that happened, God, didn't you want to use? And I said no. Why? Because my son had died for using. Would I then want to go and die myself?
No, I want to live, you know, because I'm worth living for, you know. Anyway, so that was eight years ago today, and it's painful some days, and some days it's easy, but it's about life, and it's about living life on life's terms. And the one thing that I don't have to worry about him anymore, you know, after he died and I flew back home, and I went to see him in the hospital, in the viewing room, and I just looked at him, and he looked peaceful. He looked very peaceful, and it's, I hadn't, you know, it's a long time since I'd seen him looking so peaceful. The only sad thing was that he looked like he shouldn't have been dead, because he looked like there was not any lines on his body, on his face or anything. And he looked quite beautiful, really. I'm sorry, I'm getting a bit emotional here, but that's alright. Anyway, so that was eight years ago. And life's okay, you know, I can live today. But what happened to me throughout that period was that my friends in this program helped me through it. They carried me when I couldn't walk. You know, people came and picked me up, took me to meetings, took me out for lunch, took me for dinner, constantly phoned me. You know, it's like all the people in recovery carried me when I couldn't walk, and that was amazing. And I retained my faith in this program. And then what happened, another thing, about four years ago, just over four years ago, I had a phone call from my eldest daughter, and I hadn't spoken to her for 15 years, hadn't seen her for 15 years. And I was 13 years clean, and I spoke to Saffron for the first time in many years. And we were talking on the phone, and we were laughing and joking and crying and laughing, and it was an amazing, really amazing thing that happened. And then we went to meet a couple of days later, and I saw this young woman who looked very much like me when I was her age. But she had very clear eyes without any trace of addiction in them. And today I have a great relationship with her. She's getting married next year, and I'm very much involved in her wedding plans and things, and she's been on holiday with me. And we have a great relationship today. And it's like, we're kind of like, we're still catching up, four years later, we're still catching up on those 15 years, you know, because there's still obviously lots of things that I don't know about her that she doesn't know about me. And one of the things that she asked me was, why did I use? And I said, that the thing was, that I really loved her, but I didn't love myself. And that was probably the most honest thing that I could actually tell her about why I used, was because I just didn't love myself. In fact, I hated myself. And
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today, I care for myself. You know, I have a good relationship with me today. You know, it's like, I live in my body today. You know, I don't have to get out of it all the time like I did, you know. And like step two, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to vanity. Oh, no, sorry, sanity. And that's the thing, you know, it's like, it's also about being restored. You know, when I was using, I didn't care about what I looked like, you know. I looked a mess, you know. It's like, when I'd be cooking up, or with the foil, you know, black all over the bottom of the spoon, sort of on the face, you know, it's like my face would be covered in blackness, and my clothes, you know, some white random clothes, and the clothes would be dirty, and sleep in your clothes and wake up, and the sweat would dry, and all this sort of vile sort of stuff, you know.
And it's like today, I'm clean, you know, and my clothes are clean, and I care about myself today. And it's like that, that's what I meant by vanity, really. It's about looking after me today. And, you know, life is really good. When I first met my eldest daughter, she said that my other daughters weren't ready to meet me yet, you know. She said, you know, give them time. But she said my middle daughter had two little children.
That was the grandmother. Anyway, I didn't know whether I was ready for that or not, but there you go. Anyway, a while ago, I went to this convention in Brighton, which is just outside London, and I was driving back in the car with three friends. One of them who's, I don't know where she is today, but she's kind of like here somewhere. And we're driving back from Brighton, and my dad phoned me, and he says, I've just had a call from my other two daughters, and he says, they're just going to phone you, and I've just given them your number. And so we're sitting in the car waiting for my phone to ring, you know. And my phone rang, and my hands were sort of shaking, and I was trying to sort of press a button and things, and I was talking to them, you know, and it was just really, really amazing, because this is, it's like then, it's like 17 years since I've spoken to either of them, you know, and they were really sort of little the last time I saw them. They were like three and five. And, you know, I was sort of talking to them, and they were asking me things, and I was telling them things, and I was asking them things.
And then my middle daughter says, hold on, there's someone who wants to speak to you. And I thought, who's this? God, I hope it's not the adoptive mother or anything. Anyway, there's this little voice that says, hello Nanny Penny, and here's my little granddaughter. And that was just so, so amazing, you know. It really was, you know. And so I have today, I have a relationship with my daughters, you know. It's getting better. You know, I still have a great relationship with my oldest daughter, but the other two, it's kind of, you know, it takes work. That's the thing, it's like relationships take work. Anyway, you know, it's like, so in recovery, I've lost a son and gained three daughters, gained two grandchildren, and I'm just about to finish in a minute, before I get told off here for giving the tea sign. Anyway, I'm very glad to be here. I'm glad to be clean. I'm going to keep coming back, because NA is what gives me life, and that's it. Thank you.