The West Virginia Conference

Well, I understand the speaker. I'd like to, first of all, just say that I know that they'll get what's coming to them and what's due coming to them, but I'd like to say the program committee has done one hell of a job. And, also, I'm grateful to be clean today. About 3 years ago, I guess, I think at Ripley, West Virginia, I got a chance to hear this gentleman share, And it's had a real impact. I don't know the man real good.

I've just heard his message. And it was a clear, strong message of Narcotics Anonymous, the steps, and the traditions. I don't know what he's gonna do tonight. I don't know what he's gonna share with you, but I'm sure what it is, it'll be good. And, you know, it just it's made an impact on what I have believed and learned about the steps.

And he had a way about how he shares that has really touched me. I've I don't know. I just listened to this tape over and over again and I never get tired of it. I've given it to the sponsees and, in hopes that they would too learn some of the things that I've learned from him. And, okay.

Without further ado, I'll go ahead and introduce the speaker, Vito. I'm an. Hi, family. I'd like to thank the convention committee for giving me an opportunity to share here tonight. West Virginia has always been a a good place for me.

First time I've been down here in the lower Panhandle, and I like the recovery, you know, that I I see. I'm not gonna give you a a drug log because I stopped sharing my story quite a while ago. I really don't think it's necessary. The drugs that we use are all the same. We all have our own bottom.

We have our pain, and I believe narcotics anonymous is about recovery and solution to all that. And that's what I wanna share about is recovery. And what I have to share is strictly my experience and everything that I share is not original. Everything that I share, I've learned in the rooms and come from you. So there's not gonna be original thought or anything that you're gonna hear out of me.

It's everything that I've learned from you and my experience of what I've learned from you. And I'm gonna start, just to qualify very briefly, I started using in 1944. I'm from New York, and I stopped using in 1960. And that ended in a gutter in a place called Bridgeport Station in New Jersey. And, at that time, I was suffering from both infectious and serum hepatitis.

I didn't know what was wrong with me except I had turned yellow. I lost consciousness, and I was laying in the gutter and they rushed me to a hospital. And, while I was in that hospital for the 1st 30 days, they kept me in an isolation ward because, I had the infectious hepatitis which was contagious, and they had to separate me from other people. And during that time, one of the interns that was taking care of me had come up to me and he told me, he said, Vito, that you have some stash on you, and the man wants to talk to you and he has to wait for you to get out of isolation. However, I wanna offer you something that, you know, you may be interested in.

And being an addict, I'm always looking for a softer and easier way, and I listened to his proposition. He said upstairs, we have a place for people that have addiction problems. It's not for people exactly like you because at that time, there was no real, rehabs or facilities for drug addicts, but it was what they called an alcoholic ward back then. And he says to me, if you're willing to sign yourself in there, even though it's not suffering from the same type of addiction you have, maybe the man might let you alone. And this was in the middle of February and offering that to an addict when it's cold outside, I jumped at it.

And I went upstairs for a place to hide for the rest of the winter because, you see, I didn't have a problem. I just felt that I abused drugs a little bit too much, but I didn't have a problem. And I didn't like the idea of being stuck with all these people that have problems because I figured they were weak, you know, and they weren't like me. And I really looked down on those people because I believe they had a problem and I didn't. And when I got there, I wasn't very friendly and I wasn't really interested in what was going on.

But 2 things happened while I was in that facility that changed my life. The first thing that happened to me, I got very friendly with an old man, and I use that word very cautiously because that man is probably the age I am today. But back then, he looked real old. And, you know, I looked at this man like, you you ever meet these people, you could sit down, you could rap with them, and they know everything there is about every and you're just comfortable with them. And I looked up to him like a father figure or or something along those lines.

And, you know, I looked up to them and I just gravitated towards them. The other thing that came in, this fellowship, and it wasn't this fellowship here. Another fellowship was bringing meetings in. And, of course, those people had the problem, and I didn't. But what I liked about those people, they would get up there and they would talk and they handle themselves in a way that I always wished I could've, but I never could because you see on the outside, I'd be missed the pool, and on the inside, I felt like a piece of shit all the time.

But God forbid you find that out. But I like the way they handled themselves and they look like they really were what they were acting like. But of course, I didn't have a problem. And one day, this fella that I got very friendly to was being discharged. And back then in these type places, you had to dress in hospital garb.

And, he had to go into the back room to get his street clothes. And when he came out, he was dressed as a skid row bum. And that sort of shattered me. And that was the first time that I was able to correlate the fact that I wasn't much different than him. When they had brought me in, I had probably lived in the streets about 6 or 7 months.

My hair was knotted. I had holes in my my shoes. I probably hadn't slept in the bed in at least 6 months. And, I've I've realized that I was no different than this man. My only difference between me and him was our drug of choice was different.

So I began to listen to these people when they brought the message in. And, you know, I begin to identify at a level of feelings and I can relate to a lot what they had to say. And when it was time for me to leave that place, I was still homeless, but these people gave me a meeting list and they told me that I I should go to meetings. And when I got out, I had no place to go but these meetings. But when I showed up, something happened to me that happened to me all my life.

They told me I was different. And it brought all these old feelings up because when I went to school, they told me I was different. I was mentally retarded, and I didn't fit in, and they put me in special classes and wore dance caps. And all my life, I was different. You know, I hung around with all the kids and I was the neighborhood clown because I wanted to fit in, and I always felt different.

And I walked into this meeting and they told me I didn't have the kind of problem they had. I was different. My disease was one that was moral and social, and I didn't belong there. And they asked me to leave, and they physically escorted me out. They told me people like me just don't get better.

But they went to that meeting list and they circle these meetings that were open and they were big speaker meetings and they told me I was welcome there, but chances were it wouldn't do me any good because people like me just never get better. We just die. And I immediately caught the resentment. And it's probably the only resentment that ever worked on my side because they told me I couldn't get better and not to come back, and I kept coming back. And these meetings were huge, and I never had any problem getting receipts.

I walk into a meeting that would be about half this size, and I would sit down and everybody would move away. I I guess people believe that you can catch addiction. You know, just end the way. But I stood in those rooms for almost 5 years and something happened during that period of time. More and more people like me begin to come in.

You know, they say water seeks its own level. We sort of congregate it together. But the strange thing is we never talked to each other except be cool and hi. How you doing? You know, we knew nothing about each other, but we sort of knew that we belong together.

And during that time, I got a nickname that I was called animal because they told me that drug addicts were nothing more than animals. And after 5 years, I began answering to that name. And one day, I was sitting in a meeting in the Valesburg section of Newark, and somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said, hey, animal. There's a drug meeting in the back room. I had no idea what a drug meeting was, but it certainly felt like something I should look into after sitting there for 5 years and not opening my mouth.

So myself and a herd of animals, we went into this back room. I guess we all consider ourselves animals then. And there was a strange sight, but if you lived through the 19 sixties, a lot of the older people remember, The hippies are love children in the 19 sixties. There was a bunch of people in there, 5 or 6 of them. The guys had real long painted shirts, and the women had the long dresses and all kinds of flowers in their hair.

They were the love children of the 5th of the sixties. And what they were doing, they were going cross country from commune to commune, and these were recovering, hippies that were trying to carry a message that they had picked up in their hometown, San Diego, California. And they had stopped over in in a commune that was a place called Morristown, New Jersey, and they hit this meeting in Newark. And they called themselves narcotics anonymous. And they were sitting around the table, and there wasn't very many readings back then like we have today.

But they opened this meeting up and they begin to share. And I call that the first day of my life because for the first time in my life, I found out I was not unique and different. All my life, I thought that there was only one person in this whole world that was like me, and there was something wrong with me, and nobody ever thinks the crazy thoughts that I had. And god forbid if you ever found out my secret because on the outside, I'm gonna look like I have got it all put together. I'm cool.

But on the inside, I was afraid you're gonna find out I was full of shit. And these people begin to share, and I identify with them, and I found out they were sharing what I was thinking. And they allowed us locals to start sharing. And I found out the guys that I was sitting in the room, the ones that were just as cool as me and didn't open their mouth were no different than me and had the same fears that I had. And we created a bond that day.

And we tried to keep the meetings going after these hippies had left, and we weren't able to do it. We didn't we we had some clean time, but we had no recovery. We had no structure. And we tried keeping the meetings together. And back then, there were some laws around that were called Rockefeller laws that if 2 addicts congregated together, whether you use it or not, you got busted.

And we even tried secret meetings in houses and they just didn't work. But I kept in contact with one of these hippies who had gone back to San Diego, and he asked me to come out and join him. And when I went out to San Diego, I figured I'd have a lot of this narcotics anonymous because I really identified, and there was only 2 meetings in the city of San Diego at that time. But the people who went to those meetings stuck together like glue. And they had to go to other places for their recovery.

But after that, they would go to restaurants and diners, and they would talk Narcotics Anonymous. And I finally asked this one man to sponsor me who was one of those hippies because I had been in the program of recovery for over 5 years, and I had not worked any steps, and I had not had a sponsor, and I had a do it yourself type program, which strictly meant stay clean because those people told me I couldn't stay clean. The first thing this man has said to me, he says, Vito, where are you with the steps? I said, I work them all. I hear them read at meetings all the time.

He just looked at me with that dumb look and he said, wrong. And that's when he told me that my disease was right between my ears. You know? Because he said to me, he said, Vito, what's the first step? And I said, I'm powerless over drugs and my life will become unmanaged wrong.

And he looked at me and he said, wrong. Show me the word drugs. And I looked picked up a piece of paper and I read we're powerless over our addiction and our life had become unmanageable. And he said, where's the word drug? I said, addiction, drugs, same thing.

He just laughed at me. He says that funny little thing between your ears is what addiction is all about. The disease of attitudes, of personality, and negative outlook on life. And what he did, he put it all on me and I looked at him and I said, you mean I'm the problem? He says, you got it.

What he did, he closed my back door. Because, you know, as an addict, I always wanted a back door. But it it began to make sense, you see, because I had over 5 years of abstinence, but I was no better than the day I walked in. I still waited for people to relapse so I could roll them. I mean, that's being pretty sick.

And I really had to take a look at that. My problem was me. You see, because I had 5 years and I white knuckled it every day. Every day, I wanted to use, and something was wrong. And I really had to take a look at that.

And I did admit that I was the problem. And that's when he told me, he says, Vito, stop putting all kinds of labels on me because back then, I used to be a cross addicted, drug addict, alcoholic, dope scene junkie. I figured the more labels I had, the badder I was. And that's when he told me, keep it simple. Identify as an addict only because it covers everything.

And I do that to this day. You see, because if I'm a drug addict and I'm an alcoholic, I'm sort of insinuating I have 2 diseases. And I'm putting the focus on the chemical rather than on the disease, and I am the disease. So I identify as addict only. Then he moved me on to a second step.

You know? And I thought this was the step where you get down on your knees and pray or something like that. And I had a problem with that because I was an agnostic, and I said, woah. I'm not into this god stuff. He looked at me and he says, show me the word god in the second step.

I looked at it and said, we came to believe that the power greater than ourselves will restore us to sanity. I said, power greater than ourselves? I said, that's not god, dummy. You don't need him till the 3rd step. This guy was blowing my mind.

Every time I had a backdoor, he kept shutting them behind me. What he told me, he said in my addiction, chemicals were power greater than myself. It had complete control and power over me. And in my recovery, anything that makes me aware of the insanity of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting it to be different with a power greater than myself. And that could be a literature.

That could be something I read, something somebody shares with me, something a sponsor shares with me, anything that makes me stop and look at the insanity of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting it to be different. And he told me even if the word said god and that god don't open the skies and send herds of angels down, he works through people, places, and things. So I would find that power greater than myself through people, places, and things. And that made sense to me. I became willing then to work that step.

You can see I still wasn't gonna get on my knees and pray. And he said time for the 3rd step, and I said, mm-mm. And he said, mhmm. See, I said to him, I said, you don't understand. I'm an agnostic.

And he just looked at me and he said, why aren't you an atheist? And I had to think about that for a while. But I said, just in case there's a God, I wanna say that. He didn't he didn't, you know, shut him out. And he said, mhmm.

And I got thinking. But what he told me, he says, go to the end of the 3rd step and read what it it says. And it says, god as we understand him. And he says, you don't have to have the same god as anybody else, and that's why it says that. And he says, for you, Vito, he says, in the position that you're in, why don't you just take g o d, good orderly direction, and let that be the god of your own understanding?

Took my back door away again. I had to work the steps. But he introduced me to something then that I hated then. I hate, today, and everybody I sponsor hates it. It's called pencil, paper, and dictionary.

That's when he put me in school. He told me to get a good dictionary and look up the word decision, life, and will. And I was amazed how much of the English language that I didn't know. I looked up the word decision. There was a couple, you know, different definitions in there.

And one of them was a point of action, a place to start. And that sort of made sense with the step. But where I really got my education is when I looked up the word life, and there was 2 or 3 definition. 1 was to breathe, 1 was to be alive, and the third one seemed to fit. Things that occur in a lifetime.

Then when I looked up the word will, one of the definition was reaction to things that happened to you. The step now begins to make sense. So I said to them, well, can I be like everybody else then? Take all my problems, turn it over, and let god work it out and do what I wanna do? Because back then in the program, everybody would be walking around saying, well, turn it over.

Turn it over. You know, I thought it was a good idea. I'd go out and create shit and turn it over. And he told me I had to learn how to read because it said turn it over to the care of, and that made a big difference. It's like you got a couple kids and you're going out on Saturday night.

You turn the kids over to the care of god. I mean, take care of the babysitter. You don't turn them over to the babysitter. You come back in the evening and take your kids back. And what I was to do is to take my life and my will and turn it over to the care of god as I understood them.

And about that same time, he was in the whole thing about, you know, Vito, don't you think it's about time you gotta work and you got a job, stop hustling 9 ball and robbing people? You know, it just wants to be about step. And I work in the 3rd step, so I had the answer for him. When it's god's will for me to get a job, he'll give me a sign. So he had to close that backdoor.

He says, Vito, he said, god's will for you today, tomorrow, and a 100 years from now is to be as mature and responsible as you can from where you are in your recovery, and the results will be as mature and responsible as mature and responsible as they possibly can from where you are in your recovery. And I said, He should get a job. Well, I was starting to get better. The obsession to use was leaving, and I did not wanna pick up at that time. And I went and I got a job.

And I didn't like what I was doing. I was washing dishes for a living and it was better getting a welfare check. But I did wanna get better and I started to take direction. But you see, now I had these first three steps, and they were beginning to work in my life. And I wanted to be like the elite in the program because these people that would come to meetings and share, I'm working the 4th step.

They sound like, woah. They were really into their recovery, and I wanted to be like them. So I said to my sponsor, I've worked the first three steps, put me on the 4th step. And he says, wrong. Learn to live the first three steps.

And this went on for quite a while. I would bug him almost on a daily basis. Well, I wanna do my 4th step. He said, you gotta learn to internalize the first three steps. They're the foundation.

They're the key of the program. And, you know, of course, being an addict, you know, I didn't wanna work the steps for 5 years and all of a sudden, I wanted a boom right through. So I kept bugging him. So finally, he gave me permission to do the 4th step. 24 hours later, I was done with it.

He just looked at me, shook his head. He said, there's a Catholic church down around the corner if you wanna go to confession. So what we want he always said, we want your history. We want to you the things that you had put into it. He said, but what I want you to do is to go back and write about that history, how you felt when you were creating that history and how you feel about that history today.

And what that will do is tell me where you were and where you are today so I'll know during the 5th step where you have to go. And I went back, and I took that history, and I wrote to the best of my ability how I felt when that history was occurring. What my attitude were, what my feelings were, why I did it. And then I wrote how I felt about those actions today. And it did give me a good chance to me to get to know myself.

Because you see I could think back over the past and everything, but all I was doing was glancing over it. When I had to sit down and get into my feelings, how I felt, and why I did those things, and how I felt about them today, I got a pretty good idea of who I was today. So I really got into this bug of writing, and I created this beautiful manuscript that was yay thick. And I figured when this man sits down with me, I have a captive audience for 24 hours. So we went out to the, like, Arid Hills south of the city of San Diego towards Tijuana.

And I take all these papers. We're sitting on rocks out there, and I'm ready to begin reading my 5th step. And he says, put those papers down. I don't want you to read them. I don't want you to look at them.

I mean, I immediately got totally angry. Here's all this time investment. My ego is in there. I dare you tell me to put them down. And he explained to me the whole thing of writing that 4th step was for me to get to know myself.

Now we're gonna talk about what I had written, and he allowed me to glance at the title and begin talking about it. And today, I realized why because 3 times as much came out of my mouth that was on paper. What I was doing was priming my memory and getting in touch with my feelings to share all this stuff. And today, when I do a 5th step with somebody, that's what I do. I don't go for the reading.

We talk about what's been written. And what happened is, I believe that spiritual awakening that they talk about in the 5th step was very simply, I got to know myself a little better. I shared it with another human being and god of my own understanding, and I knew where I had to go because I didn't get the spiritual awakening I hear people share at meetings. I'm still here today that I did this 5th step and this big tons were lifted from me. That did not happen with me.

All I felt was relieved that it was finally done. And I didn't have all this this great feeling. But what had happened weeks and even months after I had did the 5th step, things had changed in my life. And I I attribute that to the 5th step because things begin to change automatically after I did a 5th step. Things seem to fall in place because I had a lot of the answers why I was the way I was and where I needed to go.

And I think that's really why the 6th step follows the 5th step. You know, where they talk about we became entirely ready to have God remove all these defects. And I said to my sponsors, this will you pray and he takes all the bullshit away? And he said wrong. He said there's nothing in that 6 step that says God removes these defects.

What it says is Vito became entirely ready to have God do it. It wasn't God's step. It was my step. It was a step of preparation. It was a step of getting ready.

And I had asked them, how do I become entirely ready? What is this whole thing? Do you pray about it or what? And he said, well, the first five steps were part of that process of becoming entirely ready. But what I need to do in the 6th step is take a piece of paper, draw a line right down the center, list all the defects that were identified in the 5th step on one side of that line and the patterns that go with them, and opposite on the other side of the line, write down the things that are opposite of the defects in the pattern.

One side will show me where I'm at. The other side will show me where I need to go, and I now have a road map on recovery of what I need to work on. And when I went through that process, my sponsor said I have become entirely ready. So he put me on the 7th step, and I said, is this where you get on your knees? And he takes care of all this shit, And he's only wrong.

He told me the 7th step is where I really begin to work. And I really didn't understand that till he explained to me. You know, I said, well, we humbly ask him to remove these shortcomings. He told me part of the humility or or becoming humble is to admit that I have the problem, that the shortcoming is on me. You see, he said I'm not responsible for my defects.

A defect is a defective personality. It's like my disease. It's part of my makeup. But he said the shortcoming is different than the defect. The shortcoming is the acting out of the defect.

And he says, when I own up to my shortcomings that they're on me, they're my reactions, and nobody else's because as addicts, you know, we're in a relationship. It's her fault I lost my temper Or my boss wasn't there. I have a right to act out. But when I own my shortcomings for acting out, I have become humble. Because any addict who admits that he's wrong is becoming humble.

And what he told me is the way god removes these defects, these, these, shortcomings is through spiritual principles. Because god only works no matter what your concept is through spiritual principles. And the way you have to do it is through the first three steps. And he explained to me to see at that time, one of my biggest shortcomings was violent jealousy. And he had explained to me that it's very normal for a human being to become jealous.

There is nothing wrong with it. But to act in a jealous way, there's something wrong. And what I had to do was go through a first step and admit I'm powerless over the feeling of jealousy. Own it. Don't deny it.

Don't fight it. Except that I feel jealous. And then he told me to go to a second step and see the insanity if I act out on that feeling that I had. Then he told me to go to a third step and take that feeling and turn it over to the care of god as I understood him. Praying for the strength and the courage to do it different, and then go back to a second step and do it different.

Tell me to go 1, 2, 3, and back to 2. And every time I did it, it was removed just for that time. And that's how god removes my shortcomings by owning up to the way I feel, admitting it, and working spiritual principles on. And over a long period of time, that violent jealousy was removed from me. And that happened one day at a time by working that step to the best of my ability.

And it took a long time. I did not work that step on it and instantly it was gone. It took a long time. Today, I don't have that problem. I can feel jealous, and I could admit that I feel jealous and know the insanity if I act out on it and just turn those feelings over.

I'm not insensitive to the feelings. The feelings have not gone. The defect has not gone, but I do not have to act out on that shortcoming if I choose. But if I choose not to work the steps on some of the shortcomings, they're back in my life as the same day as I walked into a program. And that happens.

There are days that I work a program that amazes myself, and there's days my program is worse than somebody with 24 hours clean. Right. And if my wife was here tonight, she can tell you. She shared at a convention last week in, Utah. She was a spiritual speaker, and she explained how Vito goes into his pouting room when he's angry and closes the door.

And that's what I do. If I don't work the steps, I get into my shit. I go in my little pouting room as I call it, and I close the door. And, you know, I stay in there till I get out of my shit. Because if I don't, I'm gonna act out on it because I'm not ready to let it go, and that's on me.

The thing is if I decided to work the the steps on it, it'd be gone. But being an addict, sometimes I'm comfortable with my own pain. But if I keep coming back here, maybe some days, a lot more of those shortcomings will disappear. But I realize that this is a lifetime program and we don't get cured from it. I just try to strive for progress.

And when it got time to get to the 8th step, I told my sponsor when I became willing, I would make the list. And he said wrong. He said, read the steps. I picked it up and said we became willing to make amend we we made a list and then we became willing. He said, read it again.

I said, we made a list and become then we became willing. He said, so make the list then become willing. So I was accustomed to direction then. So I made the list and came back. I said, I'm still not willing.

She says, yes. You are. You wouldn't have made the list. And I guess he was right. And now I know why the 8 to 9 step is 8 to 9.

Because I come to him with this list. And he said to me, he says, Vito, you did not come this far to crucify yourself. And I said, what are you talking about? He said, some of the things that you have on this list is gonna get you into a lot of trouble. And he said, read what the 9 step said.

He said, we made direct amends to all that we we had injured or harmed. We made direct amends to all those we had harmed except when to do so would injure them or others. And he says, you're part of others, dummy. He said, when you make these amends, if it's gonna injure another human being, it's not wise to make that thing because you're part of recovery is not to hurt other people. And if you're gonna hurt yourself, that isn't wise either.

And he went over that list with me 1 by 1. And I understand why we do a 9 step with somebody more experienced because there was amends that I was told not to make because I couldn't determine that it would hurt somebody. I figured that I would go to these people, and I would tell them what I did to them, and they would just love me to death for being so honest. And he went over that list, and he says these people don't know anything about what you did to them. And it wouldn't be wise because all you would be doing is hurting them.

And we went over all these things. And then I had on my list, category that said all those faceless people. You know, the people like ships passing in the dark, the people in the alleys, the people you never see again or never really knew. And he told me I just couldn't turn my back on them. Amends needed to be made.

But he told me the way I make those amends is through my higher power. And if my higher power felt that I needed to make direct amends, he would put them in my life. And that has happened. People have come back into my life as much as 17 years later, and I didn't know who these people were, but I recognize what it was, and they recognize who I was, And I realized why it was kept out of my life that long because at that point in my recovery, I could not handle making amends to them. I wasn't in that spot, and maybe they weren't in that spot.

They may have killed me. But when my higher power felt that they were ready, they appeared. Because I didn't know even their names or who they were or where they would be. But I know when they pop pop back up on my life, that was the time, and it worked out well. And that's happened to me a few times.

And I believe today, we do step 9 at number 9, and the steps are done originally in in a formal matter in that order because there's a reason for it. And when we got time to do the 10th step where we said we continue to take personal inventory, except when we're wrong, promptly admitted, or something along those lines. I figured I had this one made because I could say thank you, and I'm sorry just like that. And my sponsor looked at me and he says, Vito, you suffer from. Never say you're sorry again.

And I looked at him, and I couldn't understand what he was saying. He said what they really mean is when you're wrong, promptly admit it. It's self honesty. When you do something wrong, if you don't admit it to yourself that you've done it wrong and work it into your program for the next day because you're doing personal inventory of your day, You can't do anything about it. And saying I'm sorry and continuing to do it over and over again just doesn't cut it.

And I said to him, well, there's times I really feel I need to apologize. He says, that's right. And there's other ways of apologizing besides saying I'm sorry. And to this day, I do not use the word I'm sorry. I have other ways that I apologize.

But I understand really what it means to take personal inventory when we're wrong, promptly admit it. Because when I do go over my day, I have to take a look at my day and the things that went wrong that I was at fault. And I have to admit it to me to try not to do it again, and that doesn't always happen. I still do the same things over and over again, and I still create insanity in my life. But at least I work on it on a continual basis, and it does get better.

Today, I'm not making a lot of the same mistakes, although I'm making new mistakes. But I still make a lot of the same mistakes. And that's okay because I'm a human being, and I'm in the program of recovery. And they tell me it's okay to fall short as long as I can own it. And I try to do that to the best of my ability.

In the 11th step, when they talked about, through prayer and meditation to try and improve our conscious contact with God as we understand them, praying only for the knowledge of his will for us today. My sponsor told me that we were doing that since the 3rd step, and now we're formally working on improving that. And he told me the program does not tell us how to pray, and it doesn't tell us how to meditate. It tells us that we need to do it and improve on it. And I don't believe anybody in this program has a right to tell anybody else how to pray.

And yet I hear people telling other people to get on their knees. And I see nothing wrong with getting on your knees if that's the god of your understanding and you're okay with it. But I believe a person has the right to improve their prayer and meditation to their own way. Personally, the way I meditate, I go for walks. I'm a walker, and I get in contact.

And other people do it other way. Some people have formal ways of meditation. And I think any way that we do it is the proper way for us as long as we continually to do it. And I think praying only for the knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out comes automatically if we do that. I think as long as we're searching to improve that that prayer and meditation, the knowledge of his will for us at that particular time is brought to us somehow.

And I think the knowledge of his will for us changes as we change. Because what I'm capable of doing today, I may not have been able or capable of doing 5 years ago. And what I'm not capable of doing today, maybe 5 years from now, I may be. And all that I do is just keep coming back, and it gets better. And then the 12 step, what they say is a result of these steps, we had a spiritual awakening.

And they talk about we try to we carry this message to other addicts and practices principles in all our affairs. I believe for me that that spiritual awakening is very simply that these steps work. I think what it's saying in the 12 step is these steps work, and we carry the message of the steps to other addicts and practice them to the best of our ability. And that's all the 12 step is saying. Yes.

That covers 8 to 9 work and chairing meetings and all that because that's all part of carrying the message that the steps work. But I think that we don't really focus that much on carrying the message at the step. Sometimes I go to meetings and I think I'm at problems anonymous and not narcotics anonymous. And I think all of our literature tells us in plain English that all we do at meetings is carry the message of recovery to the 12 steps in narcotics anonymous. We carry the solution.

Yes. It's okay to come to a meeting and share where you're at, what problems that you're at, but we shall also share what we're doing about it. But yet I've seen, we'll come to meeting somebody shares a problem and 10,000 people wanna tell them how to cure it. We have 25, 10 gods. And I don't believe we're a rehab.

I don't believe we give feedback that feedback at Narcotics Anonymous means. I believe we just share our personal experience, strength, and hope. And I believe the steps are necessary for my own personal recovery and any addict's personal recovery. But I personally believe that if we're working the steps in our life, we're only working half a program. I believe we have another set of principles and a lot of people say service junkies and NA politicians and all that.

And I don't believe that. I believe that everybody who walks into the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous is a failure at relationships. We do not know how to have a relationship with another human being, let alone the male female relationship. And I believe the 12 traditions teach us how to have relationships with other human beings, and they're written for the group because we learn how to have relationships in a group setting, but we take those spiritual principles of the traditions into our personal lives. Well, they talk about in the 1st tradition, our common welfare should come first.

Personal recovery depends on NA Unity. Well, as far as our group is concerned, our common welfare is recovery from addiction because that's the only thing we have in common. We come from different religions, different ethnic backgrounds, different races, different drugs, drugs of choice. Were different completely. But the one common bond we have all have in common is we suffer from the same disease no matter what we use.