What I've Learned in 26 Years

Next month will be my 27th anniversary in Narcotics Anonymous. It amazes me that I have managed to stay clean all these years. For someone who drank and used the way I did, to stay clean for almost three decades is a miracle and one I thank God for on a daily basis.

On my anniversary I will speak my home group, Hip, Slick & Kool. I will give a brief drug-a-log, because newcomers need to hear you used the way they did—the heroin, methadone maintenance, cocaine, liberal doses of PCP—and I will share about some of the key things I have learned in my 27 years clean. Here they are.

The people you love may not always love you. Or, the way they can love you may not be the way you need to be loved. As painful as that was, once I faced the truth, turning it over and moving on has been my only answer. It takes time and courage, but admitting that I needed more and detaching with love has been the only solution that has worked for me.

Everyone is struggling with something. You may see people who you think “have it together.” Trust me, everyone, no matter how long they have been clean or how spiritual they appear, struggles with something. It may be food, it may be gambling, it may be an inability to be intimate, it may be how they handle money—but it is something. We each are gifted with our own personal struggles we wrestle throughout our lives.

My family often lets me down, but people in the Fellowship rarely do. I continue to be disappointed in my family members. I continue to invite them into my life; they continue to refuse. People in the Fellowship are happy to accept almost any invitation I extend. My friends in the Fellowship have become my family. I can call on them at any time and they will drop everything if I need help. They are always at the top of my gratitude list.

My God is always bigger. I have walked through very difficult circumstances in recovery. The death of both parents; a painful divorce (which is almost an oxymoron); very public humiliations; an almost fatal illness and subsequent organ transplant; the death of animals I have loved more than most people, to name a few. In all these instances, and when I thought I could not go on either emotionally or physically, my God has always been bigger than the problem at hand.

There were many times when I wasn’t sure I could stay clean. Whenever I ask myself: “Why am I bothering to stay clean, to suit up and show up?”—when I am at my wit’s end, considering that first drink which will lead me back to my drug of choice—that is when God inevitably sends me an Eskimo. It may be that newcomer I reluctantly agreed to sponsor, calling with some drama of her own. It may be my sponsor showing up at the door. It may be my phone ringing unexpectedly, the caller ID announcing a close friend. It may be a simple post from a Facebook friend that suddenly slips into that hole in my gut and clicks into place. These Eskimos tell me that, one day at a time, nothing is so bad that I can’t face it and that I never have to face it alone. There have been many, many Eskimos in my recovery. You may be my next one.

You really can’t take it with you when you die. When my doctor told me I had only a few months to live, I had a lot of time to think. I looked around my house at all the “stuff” I owned. I realized that at best, these possessions were just things that someone would have to dispose of or donate when I died. None of the physical things I owned mattered one iota in the end. What matters is how I live my life and how I treat others.

When shit hits the fan, and it will hit the fan, put on the blues and lean into the pain. There is no way around the pain—no shortcut, no detour, no avoidance. Just walk toward the pain to get past it. It will not kill you. It will feel like it will kill you, but I and others who have chosen to stay clean for years and years have learned that pain is not fatal. Beyond the pain there is new freedom. You will come out stronger on the other side.

What really matters is friendship. To have friends, you have to be a friend. Whenever I have problems in my recovery, my NA friends are there for me unconditionally. That is because I am a friend to them. NA taught me how to be a friend.

These are just a few of my thoughts about my years in the Fellowship. My dearest friend in NA, the love of my life I will never marry, sent me a card last year for my clean date. I think his words sum it up much better than I can.

“That you arrived was an act of Providence. That you stayed is a daily miracle. That you endure displays your courage. What you have accomplished makes you an inspiration.”

Those words can be said about almost anyone who stays clean in NA. We didn’t get here by accident and we don’t stay clean by accident, either. I thank God daily for the Grace that brought me to these rooms.

Carpe Diem

Peggy's husband died last week at the Veteran’s Hospital. A Vietnam combat veteran, he passed away surrounded by a loving group of friends, held by his wife as doctors removed life support. Last Friday we filled the Congregational church; family and friends. Bob, a serious man I know only slightly, ministered at the podium. He is a mail-in reverend who owns a Jack Russell Terrier named Walter, famous for his terrible terrier antics. Peggy stood at the front of the room, receiving hugs and condolences.

Many of us see each other only occasionally, so the chatter took minutes to subside while we said our hellos and exchanged hugs. People in recovery are huggers, oblivious to how nervous it makes non-program people. When finally we quieted, Bob offered a poignant portrait of Bill, who died from throat cancer after a lifetime of smoking and occasional relapses on crack. Bob told anecdotes about Bill; about the time he was selected from the audience at the Renaissance Festival and pulled to the stage to “be king.” He made his wife come up to the stage and kneel before him. “That didn’t happen at home,” Peggy said. We all laughed. We know Peggy and we knew she wasn’t kidding. She definitely was the king of her household. Bill bowed to her wishes. Hers and crack’s.

As pictures of Bill, an accomplished photographer who was usually behind the camera, flashed on a screen, attendees shared their recollections about him. The memorial service lasted 45 minutes, perfect for a group of recovering addicts. Many of us still have a hard time sitting still. It was such a beautiful service that I approached Bob afterwards and only half-jokingly said, “I want to reserve you for my memorial service.”

That night many of us wrote about the beautiful ceremony on Facebook. “I booked Bob for my own memorial service,” I posted. Then I went to sleep.
My phone rang at 6 on Saturday morning. “Hello,” I said groggily. “Nancy, are you sick?” It was my sax-player friend Rayna in Central Missouri time, where I lived until I returned to Arizona in 2008. “No,” I said. “Why?” The fact that I had a liver transplant six years ago rarely occurs to me; but to my friends who watched me nearly die several times both before and after the transplant, that detail remains firmly fixed in their minds.

“I just read your Facebook post about your memorial,” she said. I started laughing. “No, I’m fine,” I said. “Thanks for asking.” I hung up and went back to sleep.

After I got up, I drank my coffee and updated my status on Facebook. “The reports of my death are highly overrated,” I posted. But are they? Are anyone’s? Did anyone who went to work at the World Trade Center on that warm day in September of 2001 expect to die? Does my brother, who is in the agony of three months on a feeding tube after esophageal cancer surgery, what is left of his stomach the size of a fist? Each time he eats he vomits into a kidney-shaped plastic bowl. Does my middle brother, raging in his alcoholism and denial, expect to die soon?

I think of myself as 25 or 30. It surprises me when young people treat me as “old” or talk around me as if I am not there. I was in the carwash a few months ago and a young cashier admired my copper jewelry, commenting on this piece and that piece. “You’re like a really hip grandmother,” she summed up enthusiastically. For a moment, I wondered who she was talking to. I went back to work in a huff, telling my older coworker what she said. I felt only slight better when my coworker laughed and said, “Don’t feel bad, dear; that’s why she will always work in a carwash.”

I am 55; solidly middle aged. I don’t feel it. I feel 30; that I still have a full life still ahead. None of us know when our hearse will arrive. As I waited near death for the liver transplant, not sure if I would be put on the transplant list, I was forced to accept that I might die. I spoke often to the God of my understanding, telling him how powerless I felt and how sure I was that I still had things to finish. “Of course it’s your choice, God,” I would say humbly. But I wasn’t humble. I wanted to live so desperately! I wanted to sit in my armchair in the middle of my five cedar-lined acres in Missouri and watch the squirrels fight the blue jays for possession of the feeders. “Carpe diem, squirrels,” I would say, laughing as they climbed up the most ingeniously designed anti-squirrel feeders. I wanted to live long enough to write a book. I wanted to see the newcomer women I sponsored stay clean and celebrate their victories—getting their driver’s licenses reinstated, buying a car, getting married, having children.

We don’t know which day we will die. As I have aged, I live each day with that fatal understanding that I am granted a tiny, daily reprieve. As my friends and family get sick and die around me, those days I contemplate dying. Most days, I live a life full of joy and occasional wonder. For each day, I am grateful.

When times are tough...

Last night, my cousin was beaten to death in front of his house. We don't have any more details; the family is waiting for word from the police. It's a tragic waste of a life. This week, one of my coworkers was confronted by a gunshot wielding teen who tried to rob her. She told him to leave and he took off. She's lucky. We could have been attending her funeral. Perhaps it just illustrates which you'd rather deal with: A shotgun or a menopausal woman.

Today has been a very stressful day, from dealing with family members who each handle grief in their own fashion, to dealing with a real estate transaction that goes from bad to worse. But I know what to do. I'll go to a meeting tonight or get on the phone with someone and vent. I'll spend some time in prayer, because for some reason, I feel very far away from God and a bit stuck in fear.

Today I fully understand how precious life is. Hope your day goes better than mine.