The NCCNA in Sacramento, CA

make me an angel that flies from Montgomery

that's

hit me

it was it was as long ago

I was going to go to court but then I got high

thank you

so I thought we do the recovery version of that song

and this is your part

because I didn't get high I didn't get high I didn't get high okay let's practice that ready

there you go

I got up to clean my room because I didn't get her

net

I hadn't I hadn't locked them up in the vacuum because I didn't get high

my house is immaculate that's a lot

why because

I paid all my back child support because I didn't get a

when sponsors need help that's the only time I go to court because I didn't get a

no legal problems marital iris and you know why

I got my son back in recovery because I didn't get on

most of my family's clean because at any given time

I even found the love of my life and you know why and

I've got a purpose in my life today because I didn't know how

I walk with a loving god because I didn't get done and I picked up my double digit point and you know why

my name is Carmen I'm an addict

we have a permit logic though see I get that right nobody said a lot of

in and France it's monochrome images we day pond all their dependence over there

in yeah in Germany it's initialize the Kermit if wins Lustig

resistance in Germany in in Israel it's Kermit my horror

in Turkey it's been the album Kermit been B. R. Bloem Liam

as this is a good while in Greece it's me leva Kermit you may not call monies I said to not call monies what's that he said narcotic maniac

but then I got this big into why there was some people from Japan and I said well how do you say my name is Carmen and Japanese you know you're an addict into it a little bit shorter she said

she said Jaka to Kermit and said okay Jakob what's that she said narcotic

narcotic Kermit yep

I'd like to thank the committee

this is a great honor for me a great honor you know

it's an honor for me to be asked to speak at a detox

and I mean that from the bottom of my heart and that's the way I look at sharing you know it's an honor and I also want to give a hand to the other speakers because this is **** hard for

these people get up and put their heart out

I've heard some wonderful messages here this weekend I heard my message yesterday afternoon

there was a woman lesbian speaker

she said she was Jewish from New York and went to summer camp

they had a motional problems let's move

let's have a moment of silence for me

thanks

my moment of silence I ask god to relieve me of the bondage of self that I may carry his message and not mine so the no addicts seeking recovery need die from the horrors of addiction without having had a chance to find a new way of life and so that we may bear witness to the miracle

and the miracles one one heart touches another one

now

I

welcome to my first twelve step meeting in August of nineteen seventy nine I was in a treatment center wearing what the well dressed addict wears blue pajamas

this little group of well folks came down the hall to get you know when your treatment two weeks you're well right

I'm a six on the newcomers right so this little band well folks came to check me they're going to care a lot to me and they said that we're gonna go this alcohol meeting and I thought you have great I'm a social chameleon I can fit in anywhere you know you tell me the game plan right and

so I went down the hall with little groups Mylan you know

well this little treatment room that one little crummy Formica tables beat up chairs and things a little different than this I was twenty six years old I was singing in a new wave punk band and I look around this room and there was these forty and fifty year old guys have had big red noses I had pot bellies after their ball back to there and they said if you want what we've got and I said **** no

because it is

I quit drinking for the next two years

through two more treatment centers strung out on heroin but I was sober

I I made out of that treatment center for unknown ninety thirty ninety something you know I used to go to the bars and you know where I played and you know set the bar drink coca colas and show you how cool I was and didn't do any meetings or any other stuff they talk about my

relapse

the

I don't have a retail laps from the

I call the treatment center you know he said I think I need a refresher course first I've been taken

they're kind of like the fellowship you know say we love you keep coming back will be ten thousand dollars

I had to go through three treatments banners and spend thirty thousand dollars to find out that the meetings were free

so here I am in my second treatment center will treat

I was in there for about two weeks so I was well

I met a girl in there for drug addiction and other symptoms

and I found out what the other symptoms were

now it's one thing like when you're twelve or thirteen and your parents come in on you and you're playing with yourself in the bathroom but

when you're twenty seven years old and you get caught naked with the girl who treatment and you gotta go to group and apologize

N. Zory threatens to Brody

we'll sit on either side of the couch converge very selfless service

you can see where this is going right

you know got a treatment center didn't do **** he showed up at ninety days to the a meeting to pick up your calling because that's what you did back there to pick up a white chip in nine days later you got another one and

I you know I picked up again and

it was always something innocuous it was no big deal you know one sticking needles in my arm wasn't as the one that was just it was just a joy to throw as to try to

and you know one turned into this and that and you know

right up my son and I lost my son and my comic book store and my wife and my you know all that stuff already and

my first my wife was up in Boston and I moved to Virginia geographic and we're supposed to meet up there and I was gonna get my son for the summer that was my brother's high school graduation and I came up early

and my mom left her pocketbook out

First National Bank of mom

no penalty for any withdrawal right

and I slipped out of twenty you know and now with the city to do what I did and I was only going to do one

and then one turned into five and it turned into ten that turned into me nodding out of the front row my brother's high school graduation

eleven o'clock a one night my wife who's been the somebody's classes she pulled me aside and she said you know what you can't have your son for the summer

so why can't I said no and you know what I'm tired of telling him you're gonna tell

so Levin o'clock at night I had to tell his five year old boy that he couldn't spend the summer with his dad

and my son looked up to me semble home why Daddy so what you can do so well well why is that because I'm I'm sick and I can't stop taking drugs and I'm sorry it's not your fault

anyone cried to mom and I went to the bathroom to do what I had to do

and I wander back to Virginia and I got a relationship with a married woman husband taught at the college she like to do the drugs I didn't have a husband went away to DC for the weekend and she said come on over so I came on a

and the guy decided to hitchhike home

two and a half hours

got back to this little town in Virginia

big hill climbs huge hill happy to be home cuts as house open the door walked up the stairs happy to be home open the door to the fire inside of me doing it to his wife and I was a friend

six get out

I got out

I went out back and I sat down in my

car and I had all those feelings that we have at the bottom

I felt ashamed I felt embarrassed I felt disgusted with myself now I call my therapist I said I think I need some help and so will the treatment center won't take anymore we had one

and I hung up the phone I don't know what to do and I remember two weeks later there was some deal with the local mental health and like summer saying Friday night is that when the pupils ready the teacher will appear right and god will move you into the people that

to be with the people that you need to be with us right

if you're in this meeting today and you're a new comer there's no mistake baby

all right

somebody's been praying for you

but I remember there was a local mental health had some deal on a king of course was five blocks from my house right and I wandered down there and I got this counselor named Martin and I walked in his office in the first he says to me says you know Wes yes my dealer so well

I sent west to treatment at the beach and he's got six months playing my thought wonder why the Deborah short

that is that we're going to send you and I was like oh no barbecue

no no I don't have any fight left you know he just poured me into the car and drove me down

cross the state of Virginia this little hole in the wall treatment center in Hampton Virginia

or thirty days before I got there they started the first in a meeting in that town in that treatment center some people from Virginia beach we're doing H. ally they were bringing it over clean today through H. and R.

I got in the treatment center and I immediately noticed a serious architectural defect in the planning of the building

I wanted to let him know right away

there was no door knob on my side of the door

Thompson your twitch and growling in my blue pajamas and you know feeling like you know three time loser I'm never going to make it in

little group well people came down the hall to get

and they said the words were going to change my life they said would you like to go to and in a meeting

I said yeah

no because I'd heard in in the mountains where we went to meetings in there that there was this place called narcotics anonymous

and

I walked into that meeting and folks

I weighed a hundred pounds less than I do today my skin was kinda yellow my hair was matted up my tooth was chipped in half ahead athlete's foot and god knows what else when I when I sat down in that meeting I knew that the women were checking me out

the regular stud muffin

with

see my world was so crazy I had to build the world around me that I could be comfortable and you know

and they read out a little white book and and they read you know we were addicts and that we live to use and used to live and I said yeah

now

and he said that you know we admitted we were powerless over addiction that our lives had become unmanageable enough because they're being kind

you know I I I went through treatment the way I always do treatment

getting groups you gotta get all this mother ****

it's gonna be great

I love it even covers the one of the three steps are

one nine and twelve

hi surrender I'm sorry I help you

well you see these guys you know that I do a July and I'm in the treatment center through the whole meeting these guys in the front row with his hand up course acting up pick

so you pick the right you know what he's going to say or you could stop there

we'll be working with first three steps with will sponsor

making amends to my family

get ready to do before still

please open the best two days of our lives

thank god

I remember I had three weeks Klay wrote about twenty one days and trying to get a job for you to get out of treatment right now hello they had won them and a speaker meetings right now I have this guy get up and he was rough he had motorcycle you know changed out of nuts and everything is

I was in blue pajamas right your piece of

scared to death

it was tough right

this guy got up he told the worst worst or you ever heard because that's all we have back then right

this guy talked about B. and he'd been in and out of twelve treatment centers and state psychiatric hospitals

I've been in and out of prison he had forty white chips

that's an outfit like a belt a choker

you know and they at the end of the meeting he sat back down and and they call them back up and they gave him his one year medallion

a year that's forever

I thought that's a little bit you can stay clean so can I have

that's a visibility and this year he celebrated twenty one years clean in our hearts

so I got to the end of my treatments day then

but you know

do it my way still right and I

I

I decided you know that I should speak to my higher power about this because they wanted me to get a halfway house for six months

so I decided to call my higher power I don't know her name's Patty do you know

I called a girlfriend of mine is that I think I should go to the halfway house for six months is that

what should I tell

tell you made your mind up

so I went back to group I've made my mind up

have a weasel it out of the they have one of those super groups you know my group the group next door and all the doctors try to tell little Kermit to surrender

they got it out of me if I go to treatment and if I go to the halfway house she'll leave me and my life will be worthless

all

we were married a year later and nine months after that we were a little older and my life's been great ever since

so much well I thought so that's the way I live treatment with everybody tell before this could be loaded by nightfall

basically the right

when across the state of Virginia three Richmond out to the mountains and I saw the signs seven miles to town and the disease started talking

and there was a loud

we're going we're going it's money what kind of story we tell connects are like sh one hundred you can hear it

I moved out of my brother's house because he was you bear with us I've moved in I made he moved in with side to move in with my best friend who was only dealing cocaine

I made a decision

so I laid down in this empty hippie paths basement apartment where he'd thrown a mattress to the floor of an empty room and that's where I came back for treatment and I laid down that matches with paddy next to me and I started shaking

I was right between a rock and a hard place you know what I was gonna do what I always did when I had a feeling that was uncomfortable which was run or use or do something else

and someone sodomy cracked and I turned around said Patty

we all want to do is get away from it until it's been open and really scared I don't know how to do this to her and she said you know

there's a name meeting tonight that's all we have

and I can check into that and I said okay

just so you know we go to my folks get some treatments that okay that's what I did hello friends in the mountains of Virginia in nineteen eighty one they were not thrilled to see drug addicts in there a meeting

I said the other day maybe with much people in the center section

that everybody's going around saying hi my name's Joe I'm an alcoholic and we came back to me as a my name is Carmen I'm a drug addict and three people said hello

and I didn't care you have

then came around to me at the end and I'm going to raise my hand and I said you know what is criminal drug addicts and still an addict is back then and I said you know I'm thinking about is getting high and I really don't know how you know

in this little redneck was sitting next to me had a **** eating grin on his face ready have answer right because just Mallon is out you won't believe what he says because this is

I just don't get out today

the run that by me again you mean till I go to bed he said yeah this is not going to want to go that

so I went to bed that night clean

and I woke up yeah and I woke up the next morning freeze

I'm not saying I don't have a burning desire to use inside because I've had some barn burners

but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I never had to use again the rest of my life one day at a time in the twelve step meetings September six I celebrated twenty years clean and are

I made a second surrender that next morning and that was the second half of the first step

are we always miss

that my life was none of my business

my life has become unmanageable not manageable every time I manage my life I ended up in blue pajamas

I figured that right

I went to every meeting that we have we have like eight meetings a week and I went to the C. this drug counselor mia Wessels tall brother and after about four months west Martin looked at me a west and east pulled out this little things they want to go started in a meeting

cool

one line of thinking that you know

I loved and they have the folks I'm not a good leader I'm not even good follower I get lost

but this guy gave us this thing you know this little kitten was on fire

I was the committee

I was literature committee the committee the phone was about

I was chairman of GNI

guilt and intimidation

my favorite committee

I see we have some local chapter presidents of

so we sent flyers out all over the place for you know to get addicts to come to our in a meeting

drop some off of the university hospital about a week before the meeting I got a call from this guy uses

zero from the university of Virginia psych flora six floor psych ward we've got this fourteen year old girl up here

she's been up here even speed it's our third time trying to commit suicide and we don't know what to say to her anymore would you come and talk to her

the bigger room for months

but since I was the committee is that okay

I don't know twelve step call to be Billy I just showed up right they gave us two chairs and we sat down

well when you've been using for like fifteen years and you've got four months to recover what do you talk about right

for an hour and twenty minutes I tell this poor little girl every rotten nasty scummy disgusting thing I've ever done in my whole life

the last five minutes I said that I have for monthly when I go to and that

when she looked at me and said okay

she was nodding at all the appropriate places go yeah me too me too she was identified in health and god bless her mother trusted her enough you know trust us enough to come pick her up her her name is Jennifer

and

shoes have a little trouble with the one day at a time you know she did she go a few days and the need some speed and go few days need some speed and

you know and somebody was given a ride home one night so well Jennifer you haven't trouble this one day at a time stuff is that one should not use from tonight's meeting till tomorrow night's meeting and she looked at him said

one thing

and this January Jennifer celebrated twenty years clean and archive

with it we don't have any literature literature commission

I took what how why pay a flatmate a hundred copies and that was our literature

what Alan we have little poker chips like up poker chips with what little events on battery life on it

so

what we had was we had the therapeutic value of one addict helping another which is without parallel

and

I was I had about nine months clean and I decided with no sponsor that at nine months I should be on step three

the

so this is how it is I was gonna work step thirty right I said I'm going to look for god's will and everything

okay we come up to a red light okay this must be god's will because there's gonna be an accident up ahead and he's stopping me before this that I

I mapped it would fall off the table it's a sign from god

but it's all the you know where's god you know tell spots if you want to find god he's right on the other side of willingness right and I was willing right

when I get into patties Carmen's don't have a car yet right

and she gets in the mail and I'm looking through and it's a letter from the sheriff's department

I knew they wanted me to come speak

and I open up this letter

it's a warrant

something I know you guys never did right

writing checks knowing there's no funds in the account right

so I'm mad right I'm doing all this good **** I'm clean I'm doing the NA stuff and I take this letter right now holed up in the sky and I said all right god what he already knew about this one then the Beatles song let it be a moderate

speaking words of wisdom let it be

sure I've heard from the almighty Paul McCartney

I mean that was as close to let go and let god as yet right

so I figured I'd go let go let god right I'm going to turn this problem over to god and I'm going to act as if he's got it already taken care of right now I'm just gonna do the next right thing

and you know not worry about I I did I really let go and and to like the night before and start again and then day of court I was a nervous wreck right

so

went down the court and sat in the back row only guilty people set

hello Richard Briers as I went there for justice and that's what I found just us

every time I go to court with sponsors I want to bring a stack of white books thirty days have a white book

drunkenness or have a one

subset of the background

they should and should not it's called it's called the argument if you could get on

subset of the back right now get ready to do the long walk right because it's the judge

you know the judge

the one who said if I see you here again either by court trial you did

that judge

so I'm dressed nicely go suit on I got my big book under my arm

yeah and I'm doing the long walk you don't agree with her Chris

I get up to the front you know this is this is Mr Altman said you want to tell us about this check I said well your honor I he said hold

and because a lawyer over for Safeway supermarket chain he says councillors is to recognize that this checks a year old the lawyers will yes your honor is a will you can't prosecute this man in a criminal case for a check of the year old is a wall I can't this enough so now you can prosecute imminent civil suit les mis Ross when you're here to pay what you owe would you like us yes your honor that's what I'm here to do he said

okay the man thirty two dollars case dismissed

I have had a deep faith in the god of my understanding since that day

and honey when the music plays I listened

I I got all involved in service group area region world cat dog

you may give me a title for right

and who ran all over the place and

I I had I had an emotional bottom at five years completely crazy right nuts in lots of shopping

please five credit cards right up to limit three times

good

please call at poly addicted right

polyurethane

so I went looking for some help I was at the fifth Virginia convention and and there was a guy there is quiet spoken guy who's like a natural kind of leader that he just naturally lead you know soft spoken you know and lastly in time the man and I grab him on the steps you know and I was gonna talk about some **** because jurors radical then

I said this is Michael and I had done this in awhile since

would you be my sponsor

and tears came up in his eyes he said I'd be honored to be your sponsor I'm honored that's the kind of guy was racist yeah with the steps listed I don't know

seven

you tell me

is it will you know what's what what's the last thing you've done it so well I wrote out the first three steps I send them my sponsor Tennessee I have sponsored nine hundred miles away right

and

and he said good so we're gonna do for stuff I say great hi I can scroll for years now but

given that pale blue with the five hundred questions about your mother's sex life and everything

we had a killer forced a bag that right

you know I thought I was gonna hide is that no no it's not just what you write about three things three things

what's that he said resentment sex and fear

so I could do that the sentence was resentful and fearful that my wife wouldn't give me sex

six hundred

senator make appointment for first up I sent a what he's an appointment he said as a was that a civil for four steps are really nine and twenty nine twenty so yeah now I'm not so worried about twenty minutes to write

I'll give you a deadline and you'll

when the writer

and that's what I did you know one moment

sat down to write you know and for some magical about writing you know it's like why would you lie to yourself on a piece of paper to yourself

well I know we have some of these the greatest story ever told right

the company with a toilet paper roll you know slowly take a couple hours

so I started writing and I was doing traveling stuff I was typing and you know and I I started writing it said I felt abandoned when Georgie left home and I started to cry and that it happened when I was like fourteen years old my older sister had moved out

and

you know my house

let me tell you about my family

this is our theme song

do you

you look up this functional dictionary there's a picture my family's malam

the

so I wrote out this inventory and I got to the end and I sat down Michael do this you know set up for fifth step of the botanical garden it sounds that you know and they set up Sir but I tell you the best store ever heard about it feels better right this is Kathy guys do is best able to sponsor in sponsors you know read what's on the paper an add on and the sponsors reading and he's having in his reading is having is your

our the reading as follows finishes and sponsor says that it guesses yep that's it

this is the surest ship if nothing else but that that users of yep yep so will give me a hug I'll see at the meeting in spots he starts to leave a sponsor's apartment gets almost out the door he yells back one thank you for

I fought the checker

the sponsor yells back did your

there's only so many things that the human mind the body can perform and we've done all

so you figure stuff so we're the jury to be rejected forget it

because of I have a good I've heard a dozen people you have

so I do my inventory with my sponsor I told him all about my chickens

how many told me about his and I what you're saying

so yes are you my friend and that's why we're working the steps are

at the end of that inventory right when I'd finished and shared all my pain and all my hurt and all my sorrows and my Lawson he took that my staff and he rolled it up a little too but he held in front of my eyes and he said

not forever

and not for always

but at this moment in time are you entirely ready

to have god remove these defects of character not forever but just right now all this pain all this hurt

and I said yeah I'm ready

we batter heads and we share that willingness with god we went back to his house in Virginia beach and we got on the lawn tennis front lawn him Christian major and we put those papers in a pile

and he said what's your favorite prepared I said just for today and we lit him on fire he said just for today we humbly ask god to remove our shortcomings

I like to say if you get real spiritual you write your resentment on a piece of paper light him on fire they'll because

attics we run around here Bernie Shipman

if you

defects and shortcomings are removed through action and prayer action

what happen to me at six and seven was that my defects became real to me it's like before that they were kind of hidden and I was could bullshit myself but now there are like a two by four

I think all lost after the girl today yeah yeah which went home alone in the last five times

I think I'll spend on that credit card that'll make you feel better yeah but you're paying off five other ones

star reeling in a

I had a bottom at a regional you know they were supposed to like me ours are all

and they looked at somebody else and even the rapidly dot requirements

did they know who I was yeah that's one lecture

god knew who I was right god didn't want me running around all over the place you want me to sit still and do my work you know

and I went to Michael with the thing and you know he was H. I. chairman we sat down and you know you said you were to do some special on this deal I went oh **** here comes

he said I want to go home and write down everything you're doing or not doing that's keeping you from god's will for you

it

now when you're on six and seven for a while you know basically it boils down to just a handful of ship and it's right up here because you've been using all your effort to keep it back in right so I sat down and wrote down this list and you know I got to get up with my son I got my son back in recovery now

my wife and married my my running partner they're both trash all the time and I was in recovery and wasn't ready and couldn't take care of them and god brought a woman into my life and the next day or the next week that she decided that she was going to move in with me my ex called me and said I have to go to treatment would you take your son back

I don't have to serve papers I don't have to do nothing god said here now

yeah

when we got him I got him in the wonder years it was a wonder I didn't kill of

the

because he was full of resentment I was floors that we had to grow up together no

and that's one of my sad dilemmas you know it's like I want to say that narcotics anonymous saved my life and transform my life so much that it saved my son's life and transform my son my son is manic depressive

and this just happened in the last like four years

and

like

about three months ago I got an email from a man I was injured I was in Alabama and he was in Boston in the email said this is a suicide note

my son was staying at his mom's

and I didn't know her number and I called the police and they went up there and they they went to that my mom his wife's and and and can you

Todd no nothing's wrong but she thought maybe I should go out to the beach where he always hangs out and went out to the beach and found the van out there and the beach was closing and they got a one of those scooter things to go out on the sand and and there he was he had it in a bottle of Prozac and drank a bottle of nyquil and

his phone was open to my number he was trying to call me

and

they they gotta move and they took him to the hospital my poem to stomach can

the and and he's doing better

I you know I was

a look at this list was the No I got to get up in the morning with my son and stay up I would get up and wake him up and then go to sleep on the couch you know

and you know I gotta quit procrastinating

why put off till tomorrow what you can put off till the day after tomorrow

that was my biggest if you stop procrastinating if you just did everything today you know instead of when it needed to be done guess what you be happy joyous and free

oh no we can't do that because I'm

the negative commission

and the you know there's a couple other I gotta quit playing with myself I did that every day with the news or not right

it

all I just mentioned active always at the end of the convention somebody comes up to me to really go talked about this problem happens sooner could you let me I have

I don't think so

but I put all the stuff on that list and I looked and I went nah

put it down I woke up the next morning I said that to not surrender I'm tired running my game for the glorious ability to be right

well yell Kermit killed himself yeah but he was right

well we got any like just be right

I remember going back over to the to the others part of January I got clean and and walking down the street

and I walked past the ghetto where I used to shoot though

and it dawned on me that I didn't know what it felt like to be that guy the run in that street I had changed that much

having had a spiritual awakening hi yeah

I made a list of all persons would harm me and I made sure they made amends making

I made a list I went over with my sponsor and I went you know

a bunch of more New York city's are actually flew up to see them and my grandmother was here my my brother was here my sister was there and I didn't want to three and there was an NA meeting down at the end of Saint mark's place in the village and I had it set up that I go to the health club global Bowman recovered