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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 896 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: siphiwe-gift-of-recovery-nasac-johannesburg-2004.mp3 Duration: 00:07:20
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I'm Siphiwe and I'm an addict. The Gift of Recovery. When I started recovering, we were a huge group in Soweto, in Johannesburg. And we were placed by a guy who knew Narcotics Anonymous from Lenz. And he's from AA, so he would help me. So he would have his own meeting beside and we'd have our own. And we were about 40 or something like that. And when we got there, we had fights. Every week we had fights. We'd fight over books, we'd fight who's reading what.
And slowly we started deteriorating. Some started leaving and some stayed. Week after week, two, three guys started leaving and God gave me the gift of recovery. And I had a choice. That I leave with the others or I stay. And today I'm only one of two people attending meetings in Soweto. And that for me is a gift of recovery. You know, to stay clean. Recovery for me is very lonely. I come every Saturday and the only thing in my mind is, what are we going to talk about? Is it the same thing that we talked about last week? Am I going to be convincing enough?
All these things run through my mind. And then when I reach the meeting, it's where I feel protected. It's where I feel God's love. It's where God has shown me that this is my recovery. And when I started recovering, it wasn't that easy. Because we knew our meetings were on a Saturday. And before they were at 9 o'clock. And we'd all get there about 10 o'clock, an hour later. And we'd all sit there and we'd be arguing who did what on the weekend. Who saw who, when and how. And you know, I enjoyed that. Amazing. It kept me clean for six months, my whole entire life.
I never knew I was recovering. We were just fighting who was going to get 90 days, all the way. And when I celebrated my first year, I actually cried. Nobody believed me, not even my own mother. She always told me, never stick to anything that you do. And when I did my first year, she wasn't there. She was working. So my sister was there. And I was supposed to tell my whole life story. And when I told how much I've hurt everybody, she actually cried and I cried too. It was that moment where that gift comes out and blesses all of us. And it's in that moment where you start healing and forgetting the past.
And my recovery has been not all good. Because I've still got some of my bad habits. I like pretending a lot. Especially in school. I'm in college now. And spreading the message for me is a bit difficult. I don't tell anybody that I'm an addict. But they know I don't drink or smoke. Because for certain reasons, when I was in high school, I started recovering. It was close to a year. And they were having parties and stuff. And I couldn't go and all these things. And one day, one of my friends, actually a guy from my school, saw me in a meeting.
And I started telling everybody, this guy, shit about this, shit about that. Which I didn't deny at all. Because this is who I am. You know, today I stand here and I listen to everybody talk differently. We all have our differences. And with me, my difference is that I'm an addict and I'm doing it on my own with God's will. I made it. It's a difficult thing just to come every day, pray, try and get some friends in to come to meetings. It's a difficult thing. Especially in Soweto. It's so big. And there's so many addicts.
You know, trying to spread the message is difficult. Because we still want to keep the ghetto in us. You know, the roughness. We're hard people. We don't care who thinks what or who does what.
[00:05:09]
You know, which I've lost along the way of recovery. I've lost the thinking of how good I am. I've lost that. I've lost the ego that I had. You know, I've lost so many things that it's hard to get, like self-respect. You know, self-respect for me is quite a difficult thing because I don't know how to respect anybody else. And it becomes difficult to respect myself. And being here every day, trying to get a meeting there and then, kind of teaches me that I have to respect somebody who doesn't want to recover.
You know, it's not my fault that he's not recovering. You know, actually I have to embrace it. You know, whatever I've said, I've said it. That's it. There's nothing much I can do or say. You know, I'm powerless over other people's decisions. That was my recovery. The gift of recovery. The lonely recovery. And I've seen people, when they go to meetings, they say they have 40, 50. And they ask me, how many people are in your meetings that I go to? I go, man, that's lonely. But it's for me. I managed to recover for two years all by myself.
And that says something, all in all. You know, that this program is working. No matter where you are, in Joburg or in Durban, it is working. You know, if I can do it, so can anybody else. So, thank you for listening to me. Thank you.