Steps 4-7 at CMSRCNA #2 in Modesto, CA

I know about this microphone. Hi. My name is Carolyn. I am an addict. Hi, Carolyn.

And, well, I don't know where this is gonna start out today. This is supposed to be the topic is steps 4 through 7. And and I don't know how I'm gonna start this out today. I I was just talking with a friend of mine for the last hour before this meeting started. I've known this person since I was about 6 months clean.

And I personally, right now, feel like I I'm probably in a more introspective period of my recovery, which means people who know me well know me as a pretty loud mouth opinionated extroverted person, who's not afraid to state my mind about anything. And that means, you know, at times I've been also a controversial figure in this fellowship. And, I'm probably at a quieter, more introspective period of thank you of my recovery than I ever have been. And so that I don't share too much with people other than my sponsor right now what's going on with me. And, in the process of doing that with with a friend who, is obviously not my sponsor and also somebody that I don't get to see very often.

It sort of loosened up some of the stuff that's that that I'm experiencing today and and made it less afraid, for me to share with you about it. And I think that's part of what this, topic is because we're starting off with the 4th step. And, and the 4th step I know, for me, the first time I did it, was a really scary step. I've also recently been been working with a woman, a sponsor of mine, who, it's been a long time since I've experienced the sponsor part of working with someone so afraid of this step. And, she's had, you know, some some pretty good reasons for being afraid of it, but to not of the step itself, of the process of it.

And I've watched her, you know, getting Being able to have the courage to face her greatest fears with herself and writing them down on a piece of paper, and sharing them with another human being. And part of why I know that she was able to go through this very scary thing for her was that we had spent a long time before she ever started her 4th step on 3rd step. So I know that that if you've been, in an earlier meeting and had already heard about the 3rd step, This is probably gonna be redundant. But I truly believe that when we get in touch with ourselves for the first time, in this in this process of recovery. I think if we don't have some sort of feeling I know for myself if I didn't have some kind of assurance that there was a power greater than myself.

And I don't know if at the first time I did a first 4th step, I thought it was a loving god. I don't know if at that time I had any relationship with a loving god whatsoever. But I do know that I had a sponsor that I totally trusted in. I trusted her to hear whatever it was I was gonna be telling her and not to tell me that this was too unacceptable and that I no longer could be, a member of Narcotics Anonymous because I was the one twisted person or perverted person or asshole, you know, that whatever I did, it was over the line and that I was gonna get kicked out of a NA. So I guess what, I'm saying is that it's really important, these steps are written so that one step spiritually prepares us for the next step.

You know, I I think that's god's plan how these steps were written. And for her, I watched her be able to write down what was most frightening to her only after she believed or began to believe that she wasn't gonna fall through that void. And, and I know that's where where I started off the first time I did my 4th step. I didn't know that I could share these secrets, you know, and not self destruct right then and there. And I went I don't know.

Everybody's experience is unique, but it took a really long time writing my first four step. I took, like, 8 or 9 months and and I thought it had to be a novel and it was probably about 400 pages long. And in the process of doing all that writing, you know, and I would do some writing and then I would put it off for 2 weeks, and I would do some writing and I would put it off for, you know, however long I could get away with it. I can remember periods of time where I'd rather scrub the house from floor to ceiling and back again than write a sentence, about what was, you know, going on inside of me and also thinking that it had to be, a biographical history of everything that I ever experienced and never did and never said and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Anyway, in the process of of that whole thing happening, my sponsor's daughter had died.

And at one point, I brought my my, riding over to her house to to sort of for safekeeping, and it got lost. I mean, everything that I ever wrote, these wonderful precious words got lost forever totally. So that, that was a lesson in humility right off the gate. You know? It was like, oh, well.

Now what are we really gonna get down to? And the important part about that whole 4th step, my first 4th step, was not what I wrote about. What ended up being the most important part of that first four step was what I did not write about because I have written pages and years of abuse child abuse that I had suffered at the hands of my parents and all the things that I had done in reaction to the kind of childhood that I had experienced. And after about 4 or 6 hours of listening to all of my stuff, I just was gonna call it garbage, and I and I just edited myself right when I was thinking that going, that was not garbage. You know?

That was my first, 4th step. It was my very best effort at 9 months clean to be as totally honest as I was capable of being at that time. And the total honesty that I was capable of being was being able to share with my sponsor that I had come from an abused childhood, come from an alcoholic abusive family. What I had not been able to share with her was the kind of relationship that I had with my own children. Because what I did not write in that first 4th step was that the violence that I had experienced, I continued to perpetrate upon my own children.

And out of all of these 5 or 6 hours of listening to me, my sponsor got that. You know? She heard the silence. And immediately, when we were sharing together on that first 5th step, she said, now I want you to write about your children. And I was petrified.

That was when the fear kicked in. Because for me to have to start not only talking about, but writing about, and sharing about my violence, my, you know, beyond spanking, I mean, my, uncontrolled rage and especially how it took over, not when I was using, but after I got clean. You know, when there were no drugs anymore, when I couldn't, offset frustration or sorrow or fear or any of these those feelings that I have no names for them in the beginning, and I couldn't separate one from the other. They all came out in a massive rage most of the time. And my children did not live with me, my 1st year clean.

They lived with their dad. And when they came back to live with me, it was right after I had done that first, 4th step and 5th step. And I can remember very clearly thinking to myself, we're not going to be the way we're used we used to be. That we're going to we're gonna be a functional family now, you know. I'm gonna buy all the things that are necessary to put this family back together.

You know? They'll have bedspreads and bicycles and baseball gloves, and we'll be a a together family. You know? This is, like, not really reality here because we're talking about a mother who, when I was a single mom, the whole time I've been in recovery, I've been I've been a a single parent. But, we're also talking about, you know, when I was married, a family that I got pregnant and married when I was 19.

I married the musician of my dreams, and your dreams at 16 are not the same as they are at 41. I can tell you that right now. But in any case, you know, I got married to this musician. We were on welfare. You know, both my kids were born on medical.

When we were married, 5 years. He got cancer. When we were married, 6 years. 1 of my brothers committed suicide when we were married, 7 years. 1 of my sisters had a a psychotic breakdown and spent 2 years in a mental hospital.

And by the time we're married, 10 years, we were divorced. You know? So we're not talking about a family that had been real functional from the gate. You know? And all of a sudden, I've got a year clean, and and I'm gonna put this whole thing back together by buying them all these things, and and I'll be the mom and the dad to both of these kids.

Well, these kids have seen already, several years of my using, several years of my relationships with men where they were put off not just to the side but completely out of my consciousness. You know? If I was in a relationship, these kids had no place. If it was between me and and the man I was with at the time or me and my kids, my kids always came second. You know?

And those are the things that I could not write about in the beginning. So when they came back to live with me and they're seeing me all of a sudden be, you know, miss straight and narrow and I'm telling you, when I'm miss straight and narrow, I'm also pretty fucking uptight. You know? There are enough people around here who know me well enough to know that. You know?

I'm about as rigid as they come on my own. So all of a sudden, these kids are like, this fucking house has gotta be perfect all the time. It's got to be clean. There can't be dust. You can't not have an unmade bed.

You know, you've got to be in at a certain time. You better walk that dog and feed that dog and water that dog. And if you don't, you know, and if the you don't part was when I would see red. It's like, what happened to my perfect family? How come it's not being controlled the way I'm trying to control it?

And I didn't know any of this when I got clean. All I knew was that it wasn't happening in the way it was supposed to happen. That the dream that I had of being clean you know. I thought that when I got clean that the world was going to amend itself to my way of thinking. I'm quite serious about that.

You know, I did not think that in a sentence, but I really thought that once I stopped using, that everything else would fall into place naturally. I had no concept of what life, on life's terms, really means. You know? I still have a hard time with that, but at least I have a glimpse of maybe that there's nothing I can do about it. At that time, I didn't.

So I had basically stopped using drugs. And as far as any recovery goes, I hadn't yet begun to comprehend that my disease, my addiction, really had to do with how I thought and how I viewed and how I perceived the world around me and how I related with other human beings, you know, and how I needed to control my environment completely in order to be happy or in order to feel comfortable. So, so I continue to try to do that for a few months, you know, and I would not write that inventory. I would not do 4th step on my kids. And they have been living with me for about 4 months.

And my older son was at that time 13 years old. And, one day, he lost the key to the house. It was like no big deal. You know? Children do that.

Adults do that. I lose things. He lost the key to the house, and I chased him around the house with a knife. You know? And by the end of the day, that child put himself in a closet and tried to hang himself.

And that was at 16 months clean. And that's when I had to, for the first time, do an inventory telling the exact nature of my wrongs. You know, the exact nature of my wrongs, not what somebody else had done to me. What I was continuing to do and how I was continuing to live out my addiction. And that was probably the very very beginning of Understanding the concept of addiction and under understanding that I have a disease and it's not gonna go away because I don't use drugs.

It's never gone away. I haven't used drugs in 10 years. I'll tell you that my addiction per se has not dropped off one single part. I I am just now, you know, in this 10th or beginning of 11th year, I guess, really beginning to understand more that the nature of addiction I will never be another human being. I will never not have certain feelings about things or certain attitudes about things, you know, or think one way instead of another just on a natural basis.

And I'll tell you more about that in a minute. But what I have come to terms with is that I do have a choice not to act out the destruction of this disease. That I have. And that I have that choice because of these 12 steps. I have the choice because I made a decision to turn my will in my life over at that time to my sponsor, you know, and share with her the most shameful secrets of my life.

And let her give me direction in areas that I didn't understand and that I did not want to follow so that I wouldn't have to keep beating out my kids. So that I wouldn't have to keep destroying. Because along with the with the rage and the anger came a deep deep shame and a deep guilt, you know, knowing that I was doing exactly to my children what had been done to me and what I felt like as an adult, you know, that I still carry around those scars in as an adult and knowing that I was gonna take that and give that to my kids. That second 4th step was written and it was shared. And I was given some pretty strict direction.

I, it was between my 1st and second year clean. And I can remember up until that point that, I continued in my early recovery if I didn't have enough money to pay the bills or the rent or the food or whatever, that I would write a check knowing there was no money, you know, knowing there was no money. And I continued to balance checks right, left, and center throughout my 1st year playing. And especially if there were things like, you know, a dance on a Saturday night, and I always had to have a dress for a Saturday night dance. Excuse me.

You cannot walk in the room, you know, just looking like a regular human being. So if it came between buying groceries and buying a dress, I would have the dress, you know, and my kids wouldn't have food for a week or wouldn't have very much food for a week. And what she was able to share with me about the 6th step and about my defects of character and about the willingness to have god remove these defects of character was that I could not possibly begin to have willingness to have these defects of character removed if I continued the action that kept those defects in place that I could not steal and simultaneously keep asking god, please help me not to steal. I couldn't keep bouncing checks and asked, please, god, fill up my bank account, you know, so I don't have to keep doing this. That my willingness to have my defective character removed depended upon my willingness to take the opposite action of whatever the defect was that was driving me to keep repeating the same destructive behavior.

You know, we can take that in any area of our lives. We can expand it from the the very concept of how do you stop using drugs. You know, please god, the prayer not to use for 1 more minute or one more hour or one more day also has to come and has to be with the action that while we are praying and asking for help, that we are willing to do our part of the footwork which is to not pick up while we're in the middle of that prayer. And she extended that for me to the defects of character that were killing me. You know, the disease that continued to act out or that I continued and it didn't continue to act out.

I continued to act out on it, that had nothing to do anymore with using and everything to do with how I viewed the world, you know. And I, I made a promise to her for that year that I would pay my bills, pay my rent, spend for my kids, pay off all the bounced checks, and not buy anything for myself. And I'm talking nothing for myself for 1 year. We're talking no makeup, no clothes, no haircuts, no nothing. I've got, someone here who knows me during that period of time.

I was pretty shitty during that time. I did not like those restrictions. You know, I hated those restrictions. I was a spoiled brat who continued to, you know, feel that mine came first. Mine always came first.

So not to have not to have made a real firm commitment to my sponsor that I was gonna put my own house in order and take care of my children, and they were gonna come first. And whatever else happened happened, but that I wouldn't do that. You know what? The funny thing about that year is I not only survived that year, I had more clothes given to me in that year. I mean, you know and from that day to this, to tell you the absolute truth, I've been I never, had more than 1 quarter of my wardrobe be bought.

Fit me and I look nice in. I'm not the bag lady. You know? My ego has not really shrunken down a whole lot, but what I did find out is that, you know, if I didn't make that priority, that I got mine anyway. It was a real neat thing to find out.

And then at the end of that first year of doing that, I, I wasn't rich, you know, but I had paid rent on my own for 1 year. I had paid all my bills for 1 year. I had kept my kids clothed and fed for 1 year. I have that to stand on, you know, and I knew that I could do that. And that was the first time in my life that I ever knew that I could do that.

Now that was not a permanent state of mind. Believe me. But for that time, it was a real important thing for me to find out. And I also found out something more important. I found out that if I did not hit those children for the time that I was most enraged, you know, and because it it hurt for a while.

It I had to pull back and physically stop myself. It was as much of an obsession and a compulsion, you know, where I got pissed and wham. That was gonna be the next thing that happened. There was no in between time whatsoever. So to physically stop in the middle of that that red blind rage and get down on my knees and ask god, please help me not to hit.

You know, and it did. It was an effort. It was not an instantaneous removal. But at the end of that 1st year, I never again went through that totally unconscious beating. I I did not have to be a victim to that character defect anymore.

And I really believe that before that character defect, before that obsession to hit was removed by a loving god. The obsession, I believe, a loving god removes. That I had to become entirely willing not to keep repeating that action. And I don't know how else to explain that. I don't know if that's making any sense whatsoever.

It made total sense at that time and continues to make sense today. Where that obsession will not be removed if I continue that action. And the 7th step has a lot to do for me with the humility of of to let go, and that's that's not probably. That that's pro even it's definitely I have to say, fight to get that out of my mouth. That's the one I have the hardest time with.

You know? My early recovery was a whole lot about following direction because my sponsor said too, and because I believed her and trusted her so much and continue to do so to this day. But it didn't have a great deal to do with me taking responsibility for my own recovery. For the first 5 years, I lived in a playpen for for a lot of for all intents and purposes, I lived in a very protected environment. I didn't get clean in a recovery house and I didn't, you know, I wasn't in jail or anything, but I was in the kind of environment where, if I was out of line, I got checked back into line real fast, and that was checked in for me.

I did not check myself in. You know? I did not pull myself up. I got pulled up, so I didn't have to assume a whole lot of responsibility for my own recovery, and I didn't. Anytime I didn't wanna do something or did wanna do something, I would always say, well, my sponsor said I couldn't do this.

Well, my you know, call up my sponsor. She'll tell you I can't do this, and that's how I got to absolve myself from any responsibility for my own recovery. At around 5 years clean, I couldn't do that any longer. And I had a year where I had a spiritual breakdown. There's no other way to describe it.

I could also describe it, I guess, as a psychotic breakdown, but what really happened is is that, I had believed in my heart and soul that I had been a good recovering person, that I had given back what was given to me, that I had sponsored people, that I had been in service, that I had done all the right things, that I had played all my monopoly pieces the right way, you know, and that it was time for me to turn that corner and get around and go, and that I deserved some things in my recovery, You know? And I never said that out loud in that way either, but I know that I until that point that I really did not totally understand that this is a spiritual program, and that I not only saw people, gaining things in their recovery, like jobs and houses and relationships and all those out outside things, but I wanted all those things, and I believed that I deserved all of those things, and they weren't happening the way that I wanted them to happen, you know. And and that was unacceptable to me. You know, that was unacceptable.

And I, I was in so much pain and so much fear and so much hopelessness. And I was not willing to let go and let god's plan as I didn't know it work itself out in my life. You know? I had my own plan, and my own plan was not working, and that was not acceptable to me. And I refused to surrender to that.

And the to that. And the end result is that at almost 5 years clean, I tried really hard to commit suicide. I mean, I I made a good attempt to commit suicide, and I didn't die. You know? And I can remember feeling when the paramedics were coming.

I was still real pissed off. You know, I was like, well, God's will and my will are definitely not the same here. You know, that I knew in no uncertain terms. I was really well aware of that. Beyond that, I was still pissed.

You know, I was angry, I was angry. I was miserable. And that next year, I was telling my friend earlier today, it wasn't until it finally became okay for me not to know a single answer at what the end result would be in my life, not to know anything, you know, when it became finally okay not to know where I was gonna live, who I was gonna live with, what kind of job I was gonna have, how my kids were gonna turn out, you know, if I was gonna be in a relationship, if my car was gonna. This didn't come instantaneously either. This came I mean, there's a guy in this room.

I sat on his lap and snuck around it, rammed, you know. I mean, I was crying so hard. I I couldn't stop crying for hours and hours and hours when it finally became real apparent that this one's between me and god and nobody else, you know, and it has nothing to do with the outside. And until that became okay, I was not okay. And and when that started being acceptable not to know a single answer to all of those questions that I posed, it was probably the most peaceful internal time in my whole recovery.

It wasn't peaceful externally. You know, I still had 1 14 year old kid who was using drugs. I got fired from my job. You know, all sorts of things were going on on the outside that were no different from anything that had ever happened before. What was different was that I was no longer flipping out about it.

That's what was different. And I guess what I'm trying to say about that is that when I let go long enough to let god have the answers, you know, things started changing in my life, externally too, in in ways that I had had no, absolutely no idea about when I got here. When I got here, I basically wanted a couple things out of my life. I wanted, you know, a job that paid enough money to pay my bills. I wanted a relationship, and I wanted my kids to grow up and be nice kids.

You know? And beyond that, I didn't have any of those ex you know? I mean, those were my my 3, like, bottom line expectations. None of those three things have happened. You know?

None. I my kids now are 21 18 years old, you know, and and when I was talking, earlier, and I've been sharing it a little bit more, my 21 year old was in the Gulf War last year, and I thought that that was a place where I would let go, you know, and be powerless. And in the middle of my fear, I was I may have been uptight a few times, but What happened is that I did. I went on with my life. You know, I did what I I needed to do and continued on with my life when I didn't want to.

I wanted to give in to the fear, you know, and and be paralyzed and do all the things that I had always done, and I didn't do that. And he went through the war and came out, and, he was on his way back across the country. He came back to California for a minute to say hi, and he was traveling back to New York, and he stopped off in Illinois and said, you know, I met this woman and I'm gonna marry her. I said, you're out of your fucking mind. And, he said, no.

I'm really gonna marry her. You know, I'm in love with her. I said, yeah. Right. I said, you know, everybody's in love for about 10 hot minutes, then what happens?

You know? And he had known her for about 3 weeks, and he said to me, but, mom, this is different. You know? And when he said those words, but, mom, this is different, I thought, oh, fuck this conversation. It's over.

You know? And I wasn't real happy about that, but I knew those addict words, you know? They were like, oh, you know, end of the story. And and he got married. And he and his wife have not had a real nice relationship.

They've had a pretty shitty relationship, and there's been some physical violence in that relationship, and I guess they're getting a divorce. You know, and and for me to get up here and say this is what happens, you know, this is what is happening. This is not the monopoly board. This is, like, I don't want this to happen. I didn't want this kind of pain for my kid.

You know? I didn't want him to have to go through all the addict stuff. I don't want him to find out the answers the hard way like I do. You know, not because somebody told me them, but because I've had to hit bottom and be up against the wall and be in so much pain that I finally surrender, you know, and and trying to protect my children. Right?

You know? This is about being powerless too. This is about not knowing the answers too, and there's nothing I can do about this. You know? I can share it.

I can pray for him. I can, try to continue to be an example in my life. You know, I showed him his first 10 years enough examples about what this addiction is. I can try to show them and be an example of recovery, which means that I don't have to act out on the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning. When I was talking about changing the nature of addiction, I really haven't changed my way of thinking inside to the point where, you know, the last 3 weeks of work, at my job, there hasn't been a day when I haven't wanted to go in and just choke my boss.

I'm real serious. You know? Just fucking choke the shit out of him and be self righteous about it and tell him what an asshole he is, you know, and tell him what an lazy, stupid idiot he is, you know, and take his inventory and do all this stuff. The difference is I used to really do that. If I thought about it, I would do it.

There was no time in between me seeking those thoughts and taking those actions and then wondering why I had people pissed off at me. Today is like, you know what, Carol? You may not be happy right now, and you may not wanna practice law the way this man practices law. But this is for you to find out and for you to keep doing your job and do the best that you can do and leave the rest to God. You know?

That's really, really what it's all about for me today is I cannot change my son and take away from him his own experiences. I cannot make my boss do what I want him to do. I cannot make anybody else do what I want them to do. You know? I can, for me, listen and take direction on my own stuff, you know, and learn about practicing some of the character assets as opposed I mean, self righteousness, that's second nature.

That's real, real natural for me to be able to pull back and say, you don't have all the answers. You know? You're not the smartest person in the world. And he may he's been practicing law for 25 years. Maybe he knows a little bit more than you do.

To be able to say that is much, much harder. It makes it so that I don't have to keep destroying. You know, it makes it so that inside myself, I can find some peace of mind. I don't know how my kids are gonna turn out. I don't know how my life is gonna turn out.

You know? I know that it was nothing that I expected when I got here. I know that the love that I've experienced in the last 10 years I mean, I I look throughout this room and I see people that I love so much. I get to look my friend and I were talking about the continuity of recovery in Narcotics Anonymous, And I get to look down right now and see someone that I started sponsoring when I had 18 months clean. We're talking no time.

We're talking unconscious. Okay? And she's she started sponsoring her 1st, and they're 1st sitting they're both sitting here. And one of them has 8 years clean and another one has 6 years clean. You know what?

And nobody knew what the fuck they were doing on their own when they got here. You know? But somebody's sponsor taught somebody else's sponsor taught somebody else's sponsor how to work and how to live the principles that we are given in the steps and traditions of Narcotics Anonymous, and this is how it works. I did not get here on my own. I did not learn about humility on my own.

I did not learn how to share with another human being or how to trust another human being or how to let go when the last thing I wanted to do was let go by myself and on my own. I learned it from staying here. You know, I learned it from being willing When I wasn't willing to give back what it what was given to me, when it wasn't convenient to pick up that phone, when it wasn't convenient to talk to another human being for an hour and a half, when I was angry, when I was tired, when I had other things to do. You know? And then I think sometimes we tend to lose that.

We were talking about, you know, what's mine and I don't find what's mine and what I need in in these meetings. So I have to go to other places and do other things and talk to 17 psychobabble therapists, you know, and work out all my assorted ills and maladies. You know what? I've got them all. And 99% of the time, what I've learned to work through has because I've had a sponsor who's been willing to work with me.

And this is all about the 4th, the 5th, the 6th, and the 7th steps of Narcotics Anonymous. And I'm really grateful and really lucky to have stayed around here long enough to be able to start reaping, you know, some of the benefits, some of the promises. I did not come in here being at peace with myself. I did not come in here having hope. And I don't have them all the time today.

I don't have them a 100% of the time. But I've experienced them enough to know that when I let go, when I give up what I think the way the world should be like, I get to have them again. And thank you.