working the 12 steps gives us a better perspective on life, and how to deal with it…  that is what its all about, just cause we work the 12 steps does not mean we will be all well and wonderful. but through doing the foot work we start seeing the changes we are making and so do the people around us…  It is then that we start filling more confident in ourselves and in what we are trying to do… narcotics anonymous is a simple program, yes. But to stay clean we must work hard for this, and it is worth every second of it…  We are promised freedom from active addiction, only if we work hard for it and really want it… No where in our readings does it say we will recover, because we will always be recovering… When we stop recovering, we stop working our program and without a program we have nothing left…

Keep coming back… and if you just decide to stay, that is even better. very few addicts will make it back, jails, institutions, and death, thats our destiny if we stray away from the program…

Today I have that love and so much more… last night i chaired a meeting that was loseing support fast, when it looked like only a very few people were gonna show up, they just started pouring in. We filled that room and i realized I have so much love for my brothers and sisters in recovery, since I have been in recovery i have built a new family, a family that stands beside me and has unconditional love for me, regaurdless if it was someone i just met or someone who has been walking this journey with me from the start… But people showed up to support me and let me know that they love me…

Family comes in all forms, my blood family who i have never had such an amazing relationship with as i do now, or my (soul) family who are my friends that are always in my heart and mind… i love you all…

This program has givin me a new way of life as promised from the beginning, in our basic text of narcotics anonymous, it sais,” any addict who thougholy walk our path has never relapsed, it is not till we started getting complaicent that relapse happens…

my wife and kids…

I remember stealing my moms vodka and gingerale at a very young age, maybe 10 or so, I truly believe that that was the start of the hell that I would eventually live through.

A little about me, i have 2 older brothers, 1 is a total “normy”, and the other, well he was always in and out of prison due to his addiction and surprisingly, he was the 1 I looked up to. My father was put in prison for armed robbery when I was about 14, they gave him 16 years, so he was never really around even before that.

My mom, she worked hard to be the best mom that she knew how to be, when I look back on it now, I see that she did do a good job.

Alcohol was my life, no matter what other drug I put in my body, alcohol was always my 1 true love… We use to steal my moms alcohol and put it in water bottles and drink it at school, and i actually believed that no one could tell, every chance I could i would sneak away to get drunk, I was a black out drinker, I drank to the fullest always… I started slipping in school and getting in fights all the time and just not caring about what was really important because don’t ya know, my drinking was all powerful and important in my life, it ruled over all.

My first time smoking weed, i was caught by the police, shitty, i know. It didn’t stop me though, I found out that I liked the rush of breaking the law, another addiction of mine. I pushed my limits to see what I could get away with… At the age of 14 I met crystal meth, with this drug i could drink 10 times more than my usual amount which i had built up an amazingly high tolerance too. Meth took me to a whole new world, I learned how to sell drugs and make easy money, that was my life, doing drugs, drinking and making money, I thought I was the king of the world, untouchable, I was wrong. I started losing control of my life, really fast, nothing mattered anymore except my addictions, my mom sent me to live with my grandma who i took such advantage of, every thing I did to myself or other people in my addiction, I was the addict who felt so bad about the people I was hurting that i spent a lot of time crying myself to sleep over it, I would use, rip family off, then I would feel so bad about it that i needed to use to cover up the pain of what I’ve done, INSANITY, that’s all I can say to describe it… I started getting locked up young, By the grace of god, I have never had a drug charge. but the behaviors I had when I was using got me in a lot of trouble. I was on probation since the age of 12, 13 years of probation, I just couldn’t get it right, and I don’t know if I wanted too at that time.

19 years old I had my first daughter, during her birth, i was in the hospital room drinking, smoking weed and selling dope out of the bathroom, I didn’t much like kids at that time and was not ready to be a dad, so I was never around, my kid didn’t like me and at the time the feeling was mutual. I know that sounds bad, but that’s my truth. In and out of jail most of her life she never got to know me and I was ok with that.
Now let me jump forward a little, when she was 4 her mom pretty much abandoned her, i was heavy in my addiction, the woman i was with at that time convinced me to let her come live with us. I got to know my little girl and decided she was an ok kid some times, In my addiction, I was very abusive to my kid. physically and mentally, She was terrified of me and that’s how I liked it. I dragged my daughter through hell with me, and she survived it better than I did. in 2007 cps got involved in my life, when they took my little girl she didn’t shed a tear, I believe she was relieved to be going to a better place and that killed me inside.

I went on a 2 month blackout binge, going to cps court loaded, doing my visits loaded, I felt I couldn’t live unless I was loaded. I met who is now my wife during that horrible time in my life, She was the one thing that gave me hope… on November 27th 2007, cps called me and said they found a program in Sacramento for me, after some hesitation i went. Ill never forget that day, November 28th 2007, hung over black and blue from getting jumped the night before, no idea what I was in for, I was scared. cps dropped me off at a place called D&A Detox, I detoxed there for 7 days, miserable, angry, terrified but willing. after detox i went into a 28 day treatment program, during treatment I was confused and scared, I had no idea what i was going to do when my 28 days was up, I knew I couldn’t go back to Tahoe… I ended up in a t-house for about a year, during that time my girlfriend got clean as well and moved down to sac in a different t-house. I couldn’t find work and I started getting very depressed, after some time the opportunity to become a counselor came along, I took it…

Today I have 23 months clean and sober, I am proof that Narcotics Anonymous works, I had a new baby in January of 09, who has never seen her parents use and god willing will never have to, in march of 09 my little girl who i so freely gave up to cps came home to me and my new wife, and our case will be closed on Dec. 2nd of 09 and I will be granted soul custody…

I live recovery to the fullest, just like i used, I don’t have any time for negativity in my life. What keeps me sober today is the fact that I remember the hell that my world was and I dont want to live that way ever again. I owe so much to a group of people that had no idea who i was and still welcomed me with open arms into there program, I was married on my 1 year clean date in the same facility where i detoxed, and where I attended my first meeting, In recovery I found out that people can be trusted, loved and become a good person once again…

My life is filled with miracles on a daily basis, I have an amazing family, support group, and a life that i could have only dreamed of in my addiction, I got out of recovery only what I put into it, I did the foot work, I followed suggestions and stay connected, Narcotics Anonymous makes one promise to us all, and that’s freedom from active addiction, I achieved that promise and am forever grateful for it…

Thank you for taking the time to read my story, I hope it helps someone out there, if you didn’t get anything out of it, don’t let that get you down, move on to the next story, and the next until you get what you need…

2.Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us back to sanity.

3.Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood him.

4.Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5.admitted to God, ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6.Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7.Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.

8.Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9.Made direct amends to such people whereever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10.Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admited it.

11.Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understand him, praying only for knoledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.

12.Having had a spiritual awakening of the results of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics and drug addicts and practice these princaples in all our affairs.