- Alcohol
- Drugs
- Faith
I have been in recovery for eight years. The first time I knew I needed help for my drug problem was in 1965. I was 20 years old, and there was only one option for therapy and addiction treatment at that time. I stayed with the program and stayed clean for five years from 1965 to 1970. When I left, uneducated and without any kind of career, the only thing I could do is open up a therapeutic community. I was an ex-addict and para-professional, and I opened up a place in New Jersey that lasted for about four years.
I left the field, and, when I left, I ended up using again until 1988. I was trained by Xerox as a salesman, became a corporate executive and ended up managing a sales force. As my addiction grew stronger, I no longer put a needle in my arm, but I did everything else. Life took it’s toll on me, and I had to do something about it.
In 1988 I was introduced to support group meetings. I showed up looking for connection, and I raised my hand and said, “I’m introducing myself to embarrass myself, so maybe I’ll do something about my life.” Right after that meeting several people came up to me, put their arms around me and told me, “Stay, stick around.” I tried to. For a year I came in and out, until the fellow that was sponsoring me said, “Listen kid, if you can’t stay clean for more than a week I can’t sponsor you.”
I was on my way to work one morning. I was almost unemployable at the time, but I had just gotten a job at a little retail store, because nobody would hire me. I was working at this furniture store, and I was on my way to work. It was raining, and I got stopped and pulled over for eluding a police officer. He took me to jail, and I had to decide whether to call my sponsor or my 75-year-old mother, who I’ve called every other time. I made the decision to call the sponsor, and he showed up with a bunch of guys from the program. They picked me up, took me back to the car and back to the meeting room, and I managed to stay clean for four years.
During those four years, while working at the little furniture store, I borrowed six thousand dollars. I bought an open space on a federal highway and opened up my own furniture store with little more than a pencil, God in my heart and being clean. I stopped going to meetings. I met a woman, moved up to the suburbs and ended up using again, but I worked in that store for fifteen years.
I married a woman with two children and became a stepfather. After my wife passed away in 1999, my daughter told me I was an alcoholic, and it shattered me. I kept drinking and using for five years, until I found support group meetings again in 2005. I was 60 years old, and at that point my life seemed over, but I showed up at the rooms again, and I raised my hand. It took me another six months to get clean, but by the grace of God and by showing up and not giving up one day at a time I got clean. I sponsored a dozen people.
This is my life. I work in recovery, and it’s never too late. My story is a story of hope. It’s not so much for those who’ve just started out and are 19 or 20. I didn’t have what you have today. I didn’t have recovery philosophies and support group meetings available in every town. Most 12-step programs were hidden in somebody’s basement in the middle of nowhere, and you had to be looking for recovery. For many years I wasn’t looking for it, until this last go around. The seed was planted in 1988, and I came back to it, when I was 60. I’ll be 68 years old, and I’ll have 8 years clean. I’ll be 69 years old, and I’ll have nine years clean. At 70 I’ll have 10 years clean. I look forward to double digits and carrying the message to the addict that still suffers.
Pray for the willingness to change every day. You’ve got to have the willingness. If you don’t have the willingness, it’s all for nothing. You’ve got to pray every day for the willingness to do the step work, to show up at a meeting, to call your sponsor and to do what’s necessary for your recovery.
The “addict man” that lives inside me was there first, and he doesn’t want to move over. I moved in, and he doesn’t like this “recovery man” at all. Recovery man and addict man constantly fight. They don’t fight about using drugs. They fight about doing the right thing. They fight about who I want to be and about what legacy I want to leave in this life. It took me a while to figure this out, but today I support recovery man. We have a disease unlike any other disease. If you have cancer, you have to get chemotherapy, or you’ll die. If you’re addicted, you have to go to meetings, or you will die. However we have free will, and we have a choice. Choice is what kills us. The choices we make not to do what we need to will kill us. Every day I have to pray for the willingness to do the right thing.
You don’t know what you are capable of, until you take the road to recovery. No matter what keep coming back to support group meetings. If you show up regularly, you don’t have to do a thing. Support will come to you, if you show up. If you show up, along the line you will adopt the recovery lifestyle. I make no major decisions on my own. I can call my sponsor and other people, when I have to make a major decision. Ultimately the decision is going to be mine, but I have all these people who are looking out for my best interests better than their own most times. We see how to help others, but we have to apply it to ourselves. That’s what I do, and hopefully I touch a life in return.
When walking through the grocery store yesterday I saw a woman with her hands full of groceries. I had a little basket in my hand, as I was going in for one thing, so I gave the basket to her and did an act of kindness. I would have never thought to be that guy before, because I was a horse with blinders on. I was here to get in there, get something and go get high. I notice opportunities to help today, opportunities to change an encounter. Little things make up the character of who you are. I’m not the guy I was anymore, because I feed recovery man. I don’t feed addict man. This happens, because I kept coming back, and because I find the willingness every day to want to do this. There are days that I don’t want to go to a meeting, but those are the days that I have to.