Greg P. of Marietta, GA at Connecticut Regional Convention 3 January 3rd 1988

My name is Greg. I'm an addict

and I'm a real person too,

and I'm the disease of addiction

and I'm recovering

and I'm Narcotics Anonymous just like all of us are.

I'm real glad to be here.

I have no idea what I'm going to talk about. I rarely do.

Probably talk about

about where I feel

because I lookout and

you know, I see a gang of faces

and I see a lot of little lights

on those faces and some of them are real clouded

and some of them real well hidden

and some of them shine brightly.

And really, all I have to say is take care of those little lights,

Nurturum

and strengthen them and let them shine.

That's where the miracle is.

Let them shine. When I talk, I like to start with another moment of silence. And if you will please, for the attic that still suffers.

Thank you, guys.

I'm not going to talk a lot about what got me here. I love it when people come in and say, you know, I can't use anymore. Sure you can, you know, do that. Good, so do I. We are experts with the disease of addiction. We maintain that long into our recovery. At least I did.

An expert at the disease of addiction.

I know how to use.

I know how to go out there and die.

I know how to go out there and hate myself all the time,

you know? I know how to sit backwards on a toilet and drip blood on the floor.

I know how to do all those things,

but that's not what we're here for, is it?

I'm not here for that. And it's kind of like when we're doing the steps and traditions and reading. I get a funny feeling when I, you know, I hear people try to turn them into the midnight movies.

I get an itch and somehow that doesn't sit right with me. But I love you

and I know we identify on different levels.

When I came to Narcotics Anonymous,

there were perhaps 110th of you.

NA was like 200 people

and maybe 20 meetings in the world.

Part of my great joy is watching NA grow. You want me to put this up? I can put it up. Anything else?

I've been giving the gift

of seeing your lights light up

and seeing lives come back in your eyes.

That's one of the most exciting things to me, to see the death go out of someone's eyes

because I know it was in mine.

I cherish you.

I cherish you.

I'll tell you a little bit, I guess, about what I how I got here. I started using when I was 678 years old by prescription.

Umm, And I use for about 15 years

and I was never arrested and I was never hospitalized and I never gotten a whole lot of trouble.

But there's nothing worse in the world than hating yourself.

That's the price we all pay

I believe.

Self loathing, self hate,

and I don't have to be that way anymore.

Don't have to hate myself today.

And that's a miracle. That's a miracle.

I was 23 years old

and I was all used up.

I've done everything twice, like any good addict, just to make sure.

Or three times. Or four times, just in case it might work

and I was all used up.

I was ready to die.

I've been praying for death, or at least God. Please don't let me wake up

for a while. A lot of things happened, uh, in the year or two before I got here

that I think drove me to seek help.

One of them was

giving up a child for adoption.

My girlfriend and I had a baby

and

was just about 18 years ago,

and we talked because I really wanted that trial,

but I couldn't promise to be there to help raise that child.

I couldn't promise to be there in six months

because the way I was living said I wouldn't be,

or the way I was dying said I wouldn't be.

And my grandmother died. She was an addict, too. She took too many Reds one night and slipped and fell and stalled them to death in the shower.

Death by addiction.

It's listed a lot of ways, isn't it?

It's listed by asphyxiation,

Choking on your own puke.

It's listed by burning

calling to death in the shower.

It's listed by traffic accident.

It's listed so many ways, but never death by addiction.

And maybe someday we'll start recognizing

death by addiction

because we know what it's like.

I tried getting married. Oh, by the way, that woman

who I had a baby with is. We got married shortly thereafter and we're still married.

Umm, we have two more children

who've never seen me loaded.

We have a life,

a life beyond what either of us could dream about.

On the day we got married, my best friend hung himself.

They've been stiffened, too much glue and he couldn't think anymore. In the left, a note saying I just can't think anymore.

And I didn't go to his funeral.

And that's the sort of thing that got me here

those last two years. What I remember most is the feelings, the hopelessness,

because I've been looking for help

and one thing that I know is that in 1970 there was no place for an addict to go.

There was no help.

I was left down to about 3 choices.

Umm, I was seriously considering

suicide.

I was seriously considering

going out and hitting a comp

so they would stop me

and I was calling the helplines. I came off

the helpline, somebody else's helpline. I don't know, it's suicide line or something like that.

So those of you who work on the helplines, God bless you. That's how I got here.

Those of you who take those phone calls,

that's how I got here.

I finally reached someone said, are you eligible for Narcotics Anonymous? I said I don't know, what do you have to be? And said, well, we don't know either, but here's his phone number, so call it.

You can get that today a lot of places, but a lot of places you'll get a real live attic

and that makes a difference.

That counts

and I'm into making a difference and I look out and there's some people that I love dearly here,

some people I've met briefly here and some people I, I don't know formally.

But I know, I know we share the same feelings. I know we share the same experience. I hope we share the same commitment.

And I call that and the first question the person asked me, do you have a car?

And there were not a lot of cars in Narcotics Anonymous.

And I said yes. And I said we have someone we'd like you to pick up.

And no one came to get me.

They just, the guy just said, of course I wasn't real honest with him. You mind you, you know, I told, you know,

I might have a little problem.

Umm,

I'd like some help stopping using. I didn't come to Narcotics Anonymous because I had a desire to stop using, Uh, I doubt, as very many of you did, to tell you the honest damn truth. I came here, uh, because the drugs didn't work anymore and I figured if I cleaned up for a while they'd work again.

And I came here because of the pain.

I had an honest desire to stop hurting

all the time.

I had an honest desire to stop hating myself and hating life all the time,

you know? Outcome from life sucks, you know

I don't suck. I suck periodically. My attitude sucks. My insanity kills me.

Life's just fine. It doesn't give a shit one way or the other.

It doesn't have the capacity to suck.

I learned that here. Isn't that wild?

I don't know. It's being picked on by God and by society and by everybody else, and I don't give a shit about me.

They don't care for me to hurt. My God cares about me.

But reality isn't there for Greg.

I'm not so special that I should be singled out for pain and misery.

I'm just an empty headed guy,

you know? Uh, I don't want her anymore.

This sucks.

It's amazing how easy it is when we first come around. Most, most of us find it easy to do it. We're told when we first come around, when you've gotten a whole lot to lose,

it is until a little while down the road where we've gotten a little healthy and, you know, gotten accumulated some stuff and and you know, got some prestige, maybe have a job again that we start worried about having something to do. And it's different, difficult to surrender. I was much easier for me to surrender my first leak than it wasn't. Two years. Two years kicked my ass

much easier when I crawled in the door so I remembered the pain a lot clearer. It's funny how we forget the pain.

Anyway,

this guy said well why don't you come to our on our meetings? And he said, you know, ask me about a car and the whole bit. He really didn't ask me that first. That was not true. But it was in that first conversation that he asked me whether or not I had a car and was willing to transport people. Umm

and I promised him that I would come to a meeting. This was a Tuesday night in the beginning of October of 1970

and there was a meeting that night but it was too far to drive. I've had my last fix the day before and I was ill.

I was not doing well.

And that was about 50 miles to a meeting and

and I could, I, I wasn't gonna make it. And I said, no, I can't do it. And he said there's a meeting Thursday and I close to where you live. Why don't you come to that? And I count it up Thursday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,

Tuesday.

So that's my ability. I counted up and I and, and I figured I might be able to make Thursday

because I knew that, you know, the 1st 345 days were the worst

and I'd use enough dope and pretended to withdraw enough times,

umm, that that I knew that I might make it in four days.

Uh,

and I promised, which is real interesting because I'm a promiser. I don't know about you guys, but I will promise you anything.

I am a wonderful promiser. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful

promise. My best game was all I know. I was wrong. I'm sorry, you know, It's just terrible. I promise I'll never do that again. You know? I really take responsibility. I do what I damn please, you know

My son does it to me today. It drives me crazy.

How can you come down on him when he admits he's wrong? It's a good stick. Yeah, it comes by it. Honestly.

As a parent, I said a little differently, but as a great manipulation,

I was a great promiser.

I promised myself many, many, many times

in that last two years that I wasn't gonna do this anymore.

You know those times and

you all have it.

It's different for each of us maybe,

but remember that time

when you recognize and maybe became a little aware and saying God,

this is not the way it's supposed to be. This is not how I had it planned.

What am I doing here?

This is not the way it was supposed to be

because I was a crusader. I thought my found my answer in drugs.

The lessons of my childhood was that you take something here there are feel or act better and it was a lie.

I lived on misinformation

most of my life till I got here.

That lesson that the doctors taught me and my parents taught me

was a lie

came from misinformed people.

When I take something, I'm not bitter. I don't feel better and I don't act better

a die. I hate myself. I destroy everything I care about,

and most of all, I destroy myself.

See, but I didn't know that.

I look back at my life and

and I've done some shitty things. You got to be an asshole to get here.

I was talking Kathleen Friday

and no, we weren't talking about apples

and we're talking about getting up and and and I just said, you know,

the worst thing that can happen is I come out here and make a complete fool among myself. And by identifying as any member, you already know that

that's the prerequisite. When I called her and say my name is Greg and I'm an addict, you know I'm a fuckup.

Oh my God,

it's like getting a sponsor. All of us are so worried about finding the right sponsor. If you pick a complete fool, he can't hardly screw up your life any worse than you already have.

At least he's not prejudice, huh?

I'm prejudice about my life. Everything I think filters through this insanity. You know? If it's about you, I'll get 2 + 2 = 4. It's about me. I'll get 2 + 2 = 6283

every time.

They told me when I came around that 90% of what goes through my head is bullshit. You know,

I figured you'd get a percent of years. Here's 17 years down the road. 73% of what goes through my head is bullshit. That's good.

And I'm worried about picking the right sponsor.

Oh God. Hello.

Where do we come from?

Worry about, you know, the third step, making a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God. I mean, how good did you do?

If there ain't nothing there and it's just chance, it can't be no worse.

Those are some of the things I thought about and yet I worried about this. I have to find just the right.

Since when was I such a perfectionist? You know, all I ever wanted that was perfect was I wanted the dope that would kill me, you know? Please sell me an overdose.

I wanted the best dope out there, didn't you? I mean, I didn't want to chew. I didn't want the bunk. I wanted the good stuff. I wanted the one that put me under, you know, and then I, I would get as close as I could.

Umm,

I went to that first meeting

and I got all dressed up. I got I bathed. That was amazing. I

hurt too, I didn't bathe much my last few years.

Umm in the 60s. In, in the mid 60s I did a lot of acid and ever since that water hurt me,

you know, it just kind of felt bad on your skin.

I don't know, you know, I guess that's identification, but, umm,

it hurt.

But I bathed for that first meeting, and I spent most of the afternoon getting ready.

Umm, slowly.

I was sick.

Umm, you know, I was coming off of a 2 1/2 year run, my only run and uh, I've been using quarter to half an ounce a day and and I was sick. Of course I didn't have a problem. I wasn't a dopamine. I wasn't an addict. I'd read about addicts. Didn't you read about addicts? I read about it. I wouldn't like them. I was a nice boy.

I really was. You know, my grandma's house caught on fire. I put it out with a garden house. She had me on the back and it's a nice boy. I can't went went to the grocery store and found $100 bill and

in the candy and turned it in.

I was a nice boy.

I did that

see you know where that 100, no one claimed that $100 bill.

I got it 10 years old

all right. I had to use it to replace the stamps I'd ripped off from my cousin.

They didn't know what it's like,

and that's where I come from.

Now look back and you know what? All I ever wanted was to be OK. I used to make this thing, but I wanna feel good. I don't wanna feel good. I wanna feel OK,

just wanted to be OK.

Just wanted to be a real person. Just wanted not to hurt all the time

and you gave it to me.

Free here, don't hurt anymore.

You told me if I was hurting all the time I was doing something wrong

and I believed you. And I honestly believe the recovery is not painful. And I'd like to say this, whenever I talk,

I hear people talk about how painful recovery is. Bullshit. Lack of recovery is painful.

Recovery is relief from the pain.

I only heard

from my insanity when my heads up my ass and my programs out the window.

When I'm in touch with the God I believe,

when I can reach out and be a real person with you,

when I care,

when I'm oriented towards spiritual principles, I'm not in pain.

I'm not in pain when I live this way.

It's times I don't live this way that life kicks my ass.

It's the times when I set it all aside in favor of some brilliant idea. You know those I know it's got. You know, I learned the first thing I have to do in the light bulb goes on into my head is unscrew it.

I swear, if it's a brilliant idea, forget it.

Forget it, don't even consider it.

Is this one of those you know? No,

that's disease.

I've had some some great ideas like that in my recovery such that it is a

oh, by the way,

the only thing that I found that's really good about time is the lessons that it takes time to learn. And if you've read the basic text, you had more than I do it. I did it 10 years

and that's wonderful.

I want you guys to do so good with this program.

I want you to become the most spiritual perfect beings you can

and learn this way of life because my ass depends on it.

Because I come to you when I'm hurting,

umm, come to come to you when I can't. You know, I said people say well using them like the way you talk. And I said if I can just remember that, should everything be OK?

There are times when I can't remember this shit and I need to come to you and I want you to know it so you can tell me my life depends on.

I'm here today for the same reason that I walked in the door. I can't make it on my own.

Left to my own devices, I will destroy myself.

Left to my own

will, I'll not only destroy myself, but I'll destroy everything around me and everything I love.

I don't want to do that anymore.

I lived that way too long.

Today I choose not to live that way, and choice is important to me.

There's magic in the choice we make. We talk a lot about choice, don't we?

And it gives us a choice. We don't believe that most of us. We assume that everyone will choose recovery,

and I've varied a lot of you

over the last 17 years.

I buried a lot of friends and I buried a lot of loved ones who died of this disease

and it hurt.

It hurts so bad. I swore I'd never care like that again

in recovery.

Fortunately, I can't control that either. I don't have a whole lot of choice. I feel what I feel. The love I feel is 10 times as important than the love I get.

The love I feel for you is the payoff.

It isn't you coming up here and saying, you know, I love you, Greg, because I can't feel that. I can a little bit,

but I could feel the love

for you.

I can worship the light I see in your eyes.

I can respect the God in you

and know that we're brothers and sisters.

That's very that's real for me.

Those feelings fill me at times to the point where I leak out all over the place.

If you haven't experienced those feelings,

look for the God in each other.

Listen to the newcomer. God works through us, works through every single one of us.

You've all said things

that are so far behind your beyond your comprehension. It has to be gone.

I know I've said things that God damn did I say that

you know the answer is no, you didn't. You were just a tool.

Do you ever find yourself an immediate? I know you found yourself in a meeting after you've shared saying I'm so full of shit,

but have you ever sat in a meeting and said, oh damn did I say that?

That's God working through you,

and look what we do to each other.

If I judge you and put you down and separate myself from you by violating your anonymity,

who am I separating myself from?

I believe I'm separating myself from God.

If I push you away,

I believe I'm pushing the God away.

If I'm too busy for you,

I believe I'm too busy for God.

And it makes us all a part of each other.

Now, that's great to say. In practice, it ain't so swift.

I get there occasionally.

I feel we are all one occasionally.

That's good ship.

That's better than dope.

That's even better than the greatest rush in the world. You know the greatest rush in the world is. It's a pity when you really got to go.

Better than sex,

better than any of that stuff.

But you know what's better than math?

Being really with you?

Being really with another human being and touching souls and hearts and spirits.

If you haven't experienced yourself that yourself,

please stop pushing it away.

Please stop hiding it from it.

You can find it all over this room and in rooms like this all over the country.

You can find it in many, many people

love and respect each other.

Stop running away.

If you don't want your life to be the way it was, Stop living the way you lived.

If you want your life to be about recovery,

live a life that's about recovery.

You know? If you don't want to feel like you're in hell all the time, stop raising it.

If you want to feel good, have positive things in your life, do positive things. I honestly believe one of our primary principles is reciprocity. I don't hear it talked about much.

The law of retribution. Karma, cause and effect. What you sow, you reap. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That's all. The principle of reciprocity.

Be the person you want to be,

and if you don't want to be who you think you are, stop acting the way you do.

My job as a human being,

I believe

it's very, very simple. I'm supposed to be the best grade I can be.

We're supposed to follow a spiritual path.

Given myself along the way,

that's it.

That's all I got to do.

And yet I worry about this and I worry about that. And I, you know, part of my disease is this addictive personality. I have this thing that this part of me that will take anything and make it self-destructive. You know where I focus. Tunnel vision. You know, most of everyone in this room has been the best at something, even if it's at being the worst.

OK, I'm going to

but most of you, most of those have been the best at something been the best dancer among your group, been the best skateboard rider, have the best baseball card collection. You know, that's our that's our obsessiveness coming out. I mean, we'll get fixed. Attic report card.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And a the A is in Greek mythology or something weird, you know,

or some close to that. It might have been the, the, the, the, the a you know, might have been CCCDDDD Hey, you know, it's close.

Umm, I I'll take things and I will, I'll get involved with them and I will focus them on so hard

today. Everything else goes away. It's like walking through a room with a blindfold on. I kick over a lot of shit and it breaks.

You know why I do that?

So I found out very, very early

that it hurt to look at Greg.

I mean, I'm real self obsessed.

It's kind of like that, that toothache, you know, everybody's having toothache and, and you lay down at night and the tooth goes

and it becomes the whole world and it's going.

That's all there is.

That's the way my head works.

I latch on to something and it goes

and it becomes my world and everything else goes to shit.

I'm real self obsessed

and I found out, you know, and I also hate myself, right? Low sales and whatever that issue is,

you know how I cope with that, how I learned how to cope with that. I found something outside of me. Well, I could do the same thing with if I focus hard enough on that shit out there, I don't feel this. And then I found the drugs and they were good.

They work real good.

Unfortunately, I got stuck in the drugs in a vicious cycle.

I got stuck in that cycle of using and having a reaction to the use and craving and using to fix the craving and then having a reaction and then having craving and you then drown.

You know, I got stuck there because I have this disease.

Other people don't get stuck there.

I got stuck there.

And that's because I'm in it

and it kept going round and round a long time after I shot here,

but I got here. I'd really like to spend the rest of the time talking about NA,

my greatest joys and my greatest pain

focuses around in it. When I first got up here, I said I am Narcotics Anonymous

and I am. And one of the miracles

is that spiritual principles aren't vulnerable.

NA lives in here

and as long as I believe it, as long as I keep the faith, NA is going to be OK.

And I know as long as you keep the faith and he's going to be OK and live,

spiritual principles are not vulnerable.

I get lost in the turmoil periodically. I get lost in the personalities periodically. I get lost in the shit periodically

but it helps me when I remember that NA is safe because it really lives in US.

NA is not an external. NA is not something I go to.

It ain't a place, it ain't a person, it ain't a thing.

It's inside,

just like recovery isn't out there and no recovery out there. Recovery is in here and as seen in each of you

and we've been looking at the wrong places all our lives. We've been looking for that magic. I don't. I look for that magic. That person plays their thing that make everything OK

fix me.

But it's in here

and I was looking out there. I've honestly come to believe that there is absolutely nothing external about the first step. The powerlessness and unmanageability. Live in here

and live out there

that live in here

and they kicked my ass from within, not from without. Maybe the symptoms are from without,

but the price that pays within.

It's kinda like, you know, when something comes down,

let's say someone I'm driving along the freeway and someone cuts me off. The problem is not that asshole cut me off.

The problem is that I want to kill him for an hour.

And I am so caught up in that wanting to kill him for an hour that I missed my off ramp and I'm late to work and you know, and my life goes to shit, you know,

it's not the external thing, it's my reaction to those external things. It's one of the things I disagree with in our basic text.

I think we misplaced the emphasis when we said we're powerless over people, places and things. It's true. We are,

but it's my reaction to those people, places and things that destroys me. That really creates pain for me. It's not them. It's not the drugs, it's not the situation, you know, it's not the lousy place, you know, it's not being having a flat tire. It's me hating me.

It's me hating me.

It's me destroying me.

It's not those outside things that kick my ass. It's me.

I am the problem now. I love that saying. If I'm not the problem, there is no solution. I believe it.

Those outside things are real.

Umm, but my attitude depends a lot on, on, on how I respond to them. And some of my attitudes are really mixed.

I had, I had this thing that I heard about when I first came around. This is one of the things that, that really helped me identify with Narcotics Anonymous. See, because some of you got up in meetings and said some things that I've never told anybody. And one of the things I heard early on, I heard someone say I felt both inferior and superior at the same time. And I didn't know you could have contradicting feelings.

I didn't know it was OK. My grandmother died when she scalded death. Part of me was real sad

and part of me is glad that she was gone.

I hated myself because I wasn't supposed to feel that way.

I remember five years I was going crazy. And I'm, you know, you're not supposed to feel that way with five years clean, Greg,

who the hell will I get? Who the hell gave me the right to decide how it's supposed to feel?

It's what I do with those feelings that I have some choice about.

I can I can feel not all right and destroy myself because of it. I can feel not all right and I can reach out to you and things turn out just fine.

No, this isn't a program about me getting well. It's a program about

us.

Because I can't do it alone.

My recovery depends on you. My life depends on you. Without you, I will destroy myself one more time.

A lot of things happened, and I went through a very difficult time in my recovery.

There were some events. I just described one of them. Greg, you're not supposed to feel this way,

alright?

Umm, another thing that happened. Coincidence. I was moving. I have a reputation for moving a lot. I lived in three towns in 17 years.

OK

umm

and I was packing up the bathroom

and off the top shelf of the medicine cabinet out fell this electric razor case split open and there was a set of works in the whole bit

and it felt just like someone hit me in the stomach with a baseball bat.

It terrified me because I had no idea it was there.

I put it there,

but in the zest of recovery, you know,

All right, we get when we first come around,

you know, I forgot

and I hadn't been reminded of it down the road when, you know, we go through a lot of stuff and I talk about some of the thresholds of recovery sometimes and I go through the six month and I don't wanna do that today.

But at five years,

I found myself utterly destroyed

because the program quit working.

It didn't work anymore

to

read the steps,

didn't work anymore

to smile when I felt like shit,

didn't work anymore to talk good stuff in meetings. You know, go in there and impress people

and I found myself

saying this God shit that everybody is talking about. It better be for real or I'm fucked.

Because I could no longer continue to control my recovery,

because I found out that that control was just as dangerous as

trying to control my using.

I found out that my life had become unmanageable,

and it was devastating, but it was the beginning

of dependence on a power grader myself. I've toyed with the idea before, and I've done some really neat things. You know, at two months clean to the day, I was sitting there crying in someone's arms saying I don't believe in anything

and it was destroying me. And I did have a program and I did have faith and I did have hope,

and I did have a higher power before then,

but it was theoretical higher power.

And I don't know if I can tell you what's happened since then, but I know that ever since then there's been a small part in me

that shined,

that I was aware of. It was a safe place, It was a warm place.

It was a place that I could go to

and touch. Gone.

I believe that every recovery is based on divine intervention.

I don't believe that any of us get clean

because of circumstance or because of our will. I believe that every recovery is based on divine intervention,

and you're all here. And I'm here

because some power greater than ourselves have the grace to let us live.

And if you're wallowing in self pity, how dare you fuck up God's time?

I can remember getting real pissed off at me. And when I wallow in self pity, some jerk tells me how dare you, you know? And I say thank you, you know,

but I need to be reminded of that

when I get caught in myself. Obsession.

I need to be reminded that it ain't my life anyway.

In my life,

I gave up

the right to decide how my life was supposed to be. I gave up the right to write the script and plan reality.

Isn't that the greatest insanity of all?

I can manipulate and control reality. To me, that's restoration of sanity. The second step

has a lot to do with the realization that I can't manipulate and control reality,

that I ain't gone.

Took me a lot of pain

to learn that lesson

and it took me a lot of joy to learn that lesson too.

You know, recovery has not been that tough for me. I found out that staying clean ain't no big deal.

It is first and the hardest thing we ever have to do is 30 days

for one day.

The toughest years, the first year, I don't care what I hear. I hear a lot of people say my artistry was no. My hardest year was the first year. It was touch and go most of the time

and I'd walk into rooms and say I don't belong here

and I had to get over that and say I belong here and that's my chair and I will fight you for it.

I had to get over being different.

I had to get over being separate, and I've had to get over it many times. Every time I come to a convention, I have to get over being separate. I don't know about you, but it takes me a while to adjust to being with this many people.