this page has my
experience, strengh and hope. I do talk about what
drugs I did and how it was. And what it took to get
me into recovery.
Hello: My name is Chuck and I am an addict.
This is my story has I know it.
I was born March 8th, 1959 I don't remember
it though I think I was in a blackout."LOL"
My parents were good parents, My father
worked at General Motors, He worked there for some 30
years. He is now retired.
My mother was a house wife my whole life.
She was always there for me and she kept a routine in
my life.
I have a brother he is 11 years old than me.
I also have a sister she is 3 years older than me.
"yes I am the baby of my family"
Now I will start my story by going back to
my earliest memory.
My earliest memory is when I was at the age
of 4 or 5. I remember that I just didn't feel like I
was right or that there was something wrong with me.
No real big deal, but this feeling grow.
Today I believe that this feeling of being
different was addiction just waiting for drugs to
bring it to full blossom.
Ok back to my story. When I was about 8 or
9. I was have trouble learning, especially with
reading. The school that I was going to talked to my
parents. So my parents took me to Children's Mercy
Hospital in Kansas City Missouri. The hospital did
their test. They told my parents and the school that
I had a learning disability called dyslexia. Dyslexia
makes one read word backwards.
Then the school put me in Welcome Back
Carter's class. For you that don't remember Welcome
Back Cater's tv show it was a class room of miss
fits. Today they call it special education or
learning disability class.
Being put in a special class feed into my
feelings of being different and that there was really
something wrong with me. It wasn't long after this
that I got my first interdiction to drugs.
The first time that I used. I was 10 years
old. I was in the hall at school and another kid gave
me a pill and said "try this. It will make you feel
good" And I just took it, I didn't even ask what it
was or what it would do. I find out later that it was
some kind of speed.
I don't know about anyone else, but for me
that first time was like magic. It was like the world
shifted and for once in my life I fit in. "if it
would have stayed like that I would have never
stopped."
For a while I only used speed once or twice
a week. When I was about 14 was the first time I
smoked pot. It was in Jr. high school in one of the
bathroom. It wasn't long after this that I started to
drink and smoke pot and do spread every weekend and
during the week was just pot and speed.
From this point on, when I used, I always
smoked pot and drinked. Till the end of my using and
I will get to that in a bit.
Ok sometime in the last part of high school
I got my first experience with acid "LSD". At this
time I almost gave up on doing speed.
This was in the spring of 1977. I had just
got out of high school and working has a cook at a
truck stop. And just partying has much has I could.
In the summer of 1978 my father got me a job at
General Motors. Wow I went from making $3.00 an hour
to $11.00 an hour over night.
I was 19 years old. Living at my parents.
With really no responsibilities excepts my car and
giving my parents $50 a week for rent and food. I was
set to do has I pleased. With all this money I was
making and no responsibilities, I was free to use
what and how much and when I wanted to. I got my only
DWI when I was 19.
Sometime in the fall of 1978 I meet this
girl. We started dating and partying. We got married
in March of 1979. To make a long story a little
shorter 6 years and 4 children and me using all the
time latter, we separated for the last time. And some
time in this time I had quit working at General
Motors.
I need to back up for a minute. On December
23, 1982 I got arrested for 2 count of sells of a
controlled substance. On March 18th 1983 I was put on
probation for 5 years.The first 9 mouths I to take a
drug test 2 times a week. And seen a PO once a mouth,
But I really never stopped using for this time. After
about a year and a half on probation. I was put on
unsupervised probation. "only had to send a paper in
once a mouth."
Ok back to 1985 it was right about the time
my wife and I separated that I first did Coke. With
coke it started out just some on the weekends and in
a matter weeks it was all I was doing and thinking
about it. It got where I was running 5 or 6 days and
sleeping for one. Because of my using I lost at job.
This was July of 1987.
I was still married but living with this
girl. And for the next 2 months that was all I did.
Using and looking for ways to use and get more.
My using had become the only way I know to
survive. Life had become real insane. One day
something happen and I blamed Coke for all my
problems. So I told myself that I wouldn't do any
more Coke. So for the next week I did everything else
that came in my path, but it seemed that I couldn't
get high on anything I did. 6 days of this using and
not getting high on anything I did, oh and not
sleeping at all. I went and got some more Coke.
I took this Coke and went back to the house
where this girl and I was staying at. She was at
work. She worked in a bar. I started doing this Coke.
I was so afraid of whatever, that I couldn't sit in
the front room of this house. So I went into the
bathroom and locked myself in there. In the bath I
just kept doing this Coke and not getting that high
on it either. When the girl I was living with came
home from work. She told me to get the hell out of
her bathroom and out of her house and her life.
I left the house, I got in a car and just
started driving. My life had falling apart and I know
that I had no control over my own life. I really
thought I was insane. I drove to a mental hospital,
that I had been to in past. I sat in the parking lot,
looking at the building and looking at the Coke that
I had left. I wanted to take the Coke in with me but
was afraid that they would find it, so I just did all
I had left. This was in the early morning hours of
September 20, 1987. It was also the last time I used.
PART 2 OF MY LIFE
"WARNING"
I do talk about God and
how I find a god of my own understanding. I pray that
the God that lives inside of me, touches the God
that lives inside of you.
Well I went into the hospital. They asked me
a bunch of stuff, I really don't remember what, but
they did ask me when was the last time I used was and
I said in "your parking lot" and they let me stay
there for 30 days.
Let me tell you
a little about what I looked like. I was 6 feet 2
inch tall and 113 lbs. My eyes were sink in and so
was my checks. You could count all my ribs and my
legs were shin and bones.
Treatment taught be the tools that I would need to
stay clean. They told me don't use, work the steps
and go to meetings.
They tooks us to meetings, but they only
took us to AA. And I kept telling my consoler that I
couldn't relate to them. " I was only looking at what
was different and not what was the same." The day
before I got out of treatment my consoler what
talking to me. I was telling her that I was having
trouble with relating to the people in . She told me
that she wasn't suppose to do this, and she gave me a
meeting list for the United Kansas City Area of
Narcotics Anonymous. See at this time NA wasn't
allowed to be talked about by the consolers of this
treatment center. The next day I left treatment.
I was going to AA and sharing
about what and how I was using. After a meeting these
two old times came up to me and told me that they
didn't feel like AA could help me, and that I should
go some where else. I was leaving that meeting a this
woman handed me yet another meeting list to NA.
In the NA basic text on page xv it
says " We are grateful to the A.A Fellowship for
showing us the way to a new way of life." and this
rings true for me.
The next day I
went to my first NA meeting. I got there and sat in
the parking lot looking at the building. The Na
meeting was in a Church. Churches scared me. I
believed two things happened in church. You get
married or buried in one and both scared the hell out
of me. But I went in anyway, because I really wanted
to stay clean and didn't think or believe I could.
I went inside and there was
someone there that I had gone to school with, this
did make me feel a little better. The only thing I
really remember about the meeting it's self was I
heard a lot about God, now I don't remember hearing
any thing about god in treatment or at AA, they most
likely talked about God and I just didn't hear it,
but I did hear it at this NA meeting, and maybe it
had something to do with it being in a church, and I
was just listening for it. After the meeting this
addict talked to me. I told him this God stuff scared
me. He told me that the 3nd step said a God of your
understanding. That no one was going to tell me what
to believe and he told me to "keep coming back". By
this addict telling me this, it made it ok for me to
keep go back.
At meetings I heard
alot of stuff. "Go to 90 meetings in 90 days" "Work
the step" and "Get a sponsor one of the same sex" I
was told about the 'H.O.W." the program, "honesty,
open-mindedness and willingness." They told me these
things, but when I got here I wasn't any of these.
See I had this perception that
when I got clean everything would get magically get
better.
They told me to do 90
meetings in 90 days, "I didn't" They told me to get a
sponsor and since that sponsor had to be a man and I
didn't trust any men. "I didn't" I had 3 years clean
before I got my sponsor.
The only
thing I did that they told me to was, I didn't use no
matter what." and I was going to 4 meetings a week.
Let's go back. 2 days after I left
the treatment center. I started working. I have been
working there ever since. I was living at my parents,
and had my 2 oldest sons living with me to. I was
working but I didn't trust myself with money. So on
pay day I would go home and sign my check and gave it
to my mother.
A little before
christmas 1987. I ask my mother to save 2 of my
checks back so I could go shopping for christmas.
When I cashed the 2 checks, the clerk start counting
the money back to me. Has he was counting, in my mind
I was counting grams of coke. and this scared me. It
was a fear I never had felt before. When I got home I
asked my mother to go shopping with me. And that
night went to a meeting. I think that was the first
meeting that I shared what was going on with me.
Without a sponsor I tried to work
the step on my on. I worked step 1 2 and 3 to the
best of my ability. But when I tried to write on the
4th step. Feelings would start coming out that I
didn't like feeling. So after some time trying to
work the 4th step by myself and not getting anywhere
with it, and not liking the feeling that it brought
on, I just stop trying to work the 4th step.
So after about 3 years of no
sponsor, working the first 3 steps on my own, going
to meetings, and still living at my parents house. I
met this girl. It wasn't long after we moved in
together. Well this relationship didn't last. I did
learn alot about myself from it. When we broke up it
hurt real bad. And I didn't know what to do with all
these feelings I was having.
Right
after this girl and I broke up. I went to a speaker
meeting. I was really hurting. The speaker was
celebrating his 2nd clean time birthday. I had
watched him come into the fellowship. When he got
here his life had falling apart, and he was a very
angry man. Has he spoke this night I seen that he had
changed. There was a peace with in him that I had
never known. I want that, so after that meeting I
asked him if he would be my sponsor. And he said that
he would be honored. "he is still my sponsor today."
My sponsor has gaven me so much.
Especially pen and paper. Working the steps with a
sponsor has taught me so much about myself and about
the disease of addiction.
Working
the steps to me is with pen and paper. My writing on
the steps I learn how to live these steps in my life.
My sponsor started me on step 1. "A good place to
start is the beginning." Step one tells me that I
have no power over my addiction. And if I am living
in my addiction my life will become unmanageable. It
tells me that it is not drugs but my own way of
thing.
Step 2 is where I got hope.
The first place I got hope was at meeting. If it
could work for you all it could work for me. It
always showed me that there is alot of powers
greater than myself.
Step 3 is
where I find the God of my understanding. I find my
God my taking a little bit of other peoples God a
made my own. Making a decision to turn my life and
will over to that God is a daily thing for me and
some days it is every 4 or 5 minutes. My life is
"from point A to point B" My will is what I do with
my life.
Step 4 is a list of what
I have done "bad or good" how I felt and what part I
played. Step 4 is a step where I learned what I
wanted to get rid of and what I wanted to keep. My
first 4th step I was putting off do it, I broke my
hand and was off work for six weeks. My sponsor said
that being off work would gave me enough time to get
step 4 done. I told him that I couldn't write because
I broke my right hand and it was in a cast. But I
wrote it any way.
Step 5 was part
of letting go of the bad person that I thought I was.
I belive that I should work the 5th step with my
sponsor, he is the one who is guiding me in my
recovery and he needs to know me like no other.
Step 6; Defects of character are
things about me, Anger, Lust, Low self-esteem, Pride,
Isolation, are all defects. I believe that all
defects spring from fear. In step 6 I need to become
willing to have God remove them.
Step 7: Is asking God to remove our shortcomings. A
short coming is acting out on one of my character
defects.
To put steps 6 and 7
together is like this. If I go out to my car and it
has a flat tire. The flat tire is he defect. If "I"
drive my car anyway that is the short coming
The 8th step: Is a list of people
place and things that I have harmed. It is a list of
who and what my part was. The 8 step is to become
willing. Willingness to me isn't always what I want
to do, but is doing the right things.
Step 9 is making a amends. Most of my amends
have been indirect. I have to make some amends to
people that are no longer alive. And the biggest
amend I have to make is to myself. And the best way
for me to make amends to myself is to do the right
things for the right reasons, and not to act the way
I use to act.
Step 10: is the step
to keep stuff from building up. It is taking care of
today, today.
Step 11: Is the step
where I got and still get peace of mind. Pray is
talking to God and meditation is listening to God.
Step 12: Is trying to live these
spiritual principles in my whole life, and is giving
back what was so freely gaven to me.
When I first go to N A they told me that I
to coud live life without the use of drugs. They
didn't promise anything else. Today I see anything
else as a gift from the God of my understanding.
Things that I once was leaving behind in my using are
some of my greatest joys today. I love this
fellowship and I'm internally in debt to the God of
my understanding and the fellowship of N A. I truly
believe when I got clean I robbed death. That God had
either plans for me.
Thank you for
taking the time to read this and for being apart of
my recovery today.
I want to thank the God
of my understanding for being the God of my life.