Fathers day was unique, something special. You see, my son is now serious about his recovery form the use of drugs and Alcohol. Yesterday, being fathers day, my son made the decision to follow through with his commitment to himself, to AA, and to follow the 12 Steps to recovery.
Today I am going to talk about a couple of those 12 Steps, you regular people may not know about the steps, we believe they are a pathway to life, as a regular person, not the low life scum we became during ours days of using a substance to deaden our thoughts, our stress, our inability to cope with life on life’s terms.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
The 8th and 9th steps of the program is where our recovery begins, when I would speak at meetings about the steps, I would always stress the fact that when making a list of folks you harmed, always put yourself on the top of the list. That is simple to understand since you poisoned your body with excessive amounts of chemicals, sometimes in an attempt to take the shame of using.
My son, Chuck, has been involved with drugs and alcohol since his high school years, we both became involved with 12 step programs in 1987, for some unknown reason I was successful and he was not. The fact is that the success rate for any treatment or 12 step program is only about 10%. AA or NA are both simple programs, if you do not use you have a successful day, then tomorrow is a new day and it starts all over again, hence the saying (ODAT) all you have to do is be successful One Day At a Time.
Back to the real purpose for this post, my son, chose Fathers Day to do his 9th step in his program of recovery. He has never got that far before. He came to our house, set down with Miss Bee and Me, and fessed up to all the harm he had done to us, his theft of our property, his con jobs for money, and a lot of other hurtful things. Over the years he said he had ripped us off for over $20,000.00 and it is his intent to repay that to us when he can.
The theory behind this step is that if you keep these deeds inside you, never sharing with another person, there is a likelyhood that you will do them again. That takes to another of our sayings, “Pain shared is pain lessened,” that seems simplistic but the fact is, it works. Try it sometime when something is really bothering you, share that pain with another and you will feel better.
Well, that was my father’s day present from my son, if you can top that then you had on terrific day.
After our afternoon together we attended an AA Meeting, a group he started as part of his obligation to his recovery and the 12th step.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
He asked me to speak at the meeting and I was most pleased to do so, the following is the text of my talk: (This is what I planned to say, but I speak without notes, so it will not always come out exactly, this is close.)
Hi folks, my name is Charlie, and I am an alcoholic....
Any fathers in the house, I am, any one else. Happy fathers day.
Is there anyone here that has ever drank Alcohol? Come on, don't be shy, hold your hands up.
How About drugs, you know that chemical stuff, you smoke or shoot up so you feel good, anyone ever do any of that stuff?
Good, I see all of you are up to snuff on how to use drugs and alcohol, so I will not have to spend much time explaining how to do them. Experience is a greatest teacher of all, besides that It is hard as hell to teach someone how to smoke crack without a bowl or a can, this is a relief. Oh, how stupid is that anyway, who invented smoking a can? I could teach you some other stuff, did you know you can get high by licking a frog, that is like eating mushrooms out of cow shit, or the very best I heard was licking a frog, not just any frog but a special frog, maybe one that lives in cow shit. What I want to know is who it was that licked the first frog.
OK, OK, I know this is not a joke, we are here to talk about some serious shit, like living or dying.
Just to let you know I got my seat in this room the old fashioned way, I earned it. I was what they call a lifer, I spent 26 years in the Army. I was just a country boy from north Georgia who was drafted in 1960, shortly there after I was sent to Germany for two years. My home in North Georgia was in a dry county, no beer, no wine, no booze, other than white corn whiskey. While in Germany I acquired a taste for good beer and whiskey, and for the next 25 years I abused booze.
I was in Vietnam for 19 months. I saw some bad stuff there, things that I choose not to talk about, even today.
I separated from the Army in 1986, and for the next year I was totally out of control. I know now that I was suffering from depression but at the time all I knew was I wanted to die. I self medicated with assorted substances trying to find relief.
By 1987, I was stealing money from my wife, writing bad checks, selling assorted valuables we had accumulated of our years of marriage, just to sustain my never ending demand for more, "One is too many, a thousand is never enough"
Thankfully I had someone to intervene, my wife, no longer able to cope with me, took me to a medical doctor, he readily admitted that he knew nothing about chemical dependency. He sent me to CARP. They wanted to take me in-house to Detox, but I refused an was treated as an Outpatient, with regular drug test, and there I found AA and another 12 step fellowship. Yes I attended a lot meetings.
After a few weeks I found a good strong sponsor who showed me the way to stay sober. Russ was his name, he died a few years back and it was like losing a brother, I would not be alive today with out the knowledge I gained from Russ. He is up there tonight, looking down on me, saying man, “you got folks here that will die if someone doesn't show them the way to out of hell, it’s on you brother.”
I went to meetings, lots of meetings, sometimes two or three in one day, during the first 6 months there was not a day that I did not meet with people like me, people who loved me, and wanted to to stay clean and sober.
I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2003, related to the experience I had in Vietnam, I was so bad by 2003 that for no reason I would break out in tears, sometimes, I even wanted to of kill myself. That is when, after over 30 years of depression, I was finally willing to admit that I needed help. I was treated by the mental health department and the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center. They medicated me for a little over one year and now I am doing well.
As you know I have a son who is an addict/alcoholic, it would be easy for me to blame myself for that, saying the apple never falls far from the tree. Today I choose not to accept that blame, he made his own choices, he knows that recovery is possible. Today, being Fathers Day, my son gave me the very best possible gift, he is involved with his 9th step, how good is that. Today he is making the right choice, he has a strong sponsor who is guiding him on his way and yes, he too will recover.
Thanks for letting me share my experience, strength, and hope, without hope we will not recover.
Along comes Congressmen Henry Waxman, Democrat, California, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman. His baby, the Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade Bill is designed to put the rest of the country on California Standards, yes, I said California Standards. The bill, written by the nut case, (Waxman) is in large part based on how they do stuff in California.
