A Thank you to my NA family!

  

     I was reading in my NA text tonight and it brought me to a few passages that describe exactly how I feel about Narcotics Anonymous!  It is in the back of the book where "Members share about reaching the end of the road and surrendering.  Their paths to find recovery differed, but they all found that in coming to NA, they have come home." *  I found the same.  I wanted to share sentiments from this member which touched me and seemed to speak from my own heart.  The chapter is properly titled "Coming Home".

    "...I don't remember what was said [that night], even though several people spoke to me.  I know I cried.  I remember the warmth I felt when i was with those people.  I felt I shared something with them.  I felt I belonged, that I belonged to them.  I had never felt anything like that.  I had always felt different with everybody, even my family.  It was hard to stay clean those first weeks.  Each day seemed to go on endlessly until the next meeting.  When I stopped using, it was as if I had been in a deep, dark cave for years and suddenly I stood in full sunlight.  My eyes had to adjust to light that sometimes hurt terribly.  Everything, good and bad, became more intense.  Living without anesthesia, I did not understand the feelings that would suddenly surface.  Sometimes I thought I was going crazy.  I would be immensely sad without reason, sometimes for days.  Other addicts who remembered their own struggle assured me that everything would be fine.  I did not have to understand everything immediately.  There would always be someone to fall back on.  I was safe.  I kept coming back, and it got easier.  The obsession disappeared."**

     The first NA & AA meetings I went to made me feel THE EXACT same as the reading above.  The people at those meetings in Prairie Du Chien, WI, made me feel so at home.  Immediately I felt closer to them than I did to some of my own family members and for the first time in A LONG TIME, I didn't feel alone anymore.  When I attended the last meeting (for me) in PDC, I shared a short story from my favorite television series The West Wing.  In the episode, my favorite character is struggling with PTSD after recovering from a gun shot wound.  His boss, the Chief of Staff for the president was an alcoholic in recovery and in showing him support in his own kind of recovery,  This is the story he told

, " There was this guy walking down the street and he falls into a hole and he can't get back out.  He looks up as a doctor walks by, he says, "Doctor Doctor I am stuck down here in this hole and I can't get out".  The doctor writes a prescription and throws it down into the hole and keeps walking.  Then a priest walks by, the mans says "Father, Father I am stuck down here in this hole and I can't get out."  The priest writes down a prayer and throws it down into the hole and keeps walking.  Then a friend walks by.  The man yells "Hey Hey I am stuck down here in this hole and I can't get out!"  The friend looks down and then jumps down into the hole!  The man says "What the hell are you doing?  Now we are both stuck down here! and the friend replies, " I know, but I've been down here before, and I know the way out!".  

     To my family at those meetings ... That is what you did for me!  Thank you!


  
* Pg. 155 Narcotics Anonymous Blue Text
* Pgs. 203 & 204 Narcotics Anonymous Blue Text

A Purpose...

     All my life I have had this feeling, deep inside my soul, that I was destined for something more.  Like I was put here on earth to do something meaningful.  I want(ed) to help people - to make a difference.  In my childhood and all through my teenage years I bounced ideas around about what to be when I "grew up".  A lawyer, a teacher, a nurse..etc. I wanted to do something meaningful.  As I grew older I leaned more towards being a teacher.  I wanted to be Michelle Pfeiffer's character in Dangerous Minds or Hillary Swank in Freedom Writers.  To be one of THOSE teachers who make a difference in the lives of the children they taught.  That dream seem to fade when I dropped out of college before the end of the first semester and I lost my way. Then, as they say, life happened.  I made numerous choices that led me away from my dreams.  Now, I am finding them again, which begs for me to use that good 'ol line from one of my favorite Gospel Hymns... "I once was lost, but now am found!"

     Hello,  My name is Stacey, and I am an Addict!

     Anyone who knew me 5+ years ago would tell you that those were words that they could never imagine would ever come from my lips.  If you would have foretold my future as my recent past, I would have told you you were crazy!  But it's true.  I became addicted to prescription pain killers after a serious neck injury in 2005 and my life began to slowly and methodically unravel.  I've lost everything!  Relationships over, material possessions gone, thousands of dollars spent, and custody of my daughter ripped away.  My life ruined. And in May of this year, my life nearly ended with an overdose,  Thanks to a few family members, my probation officer, and  to a very special therapist who believed in me and thought I deserved not only my old life back, but a better one, I was able to get help and that help saved my life!

     Now, more than ever, I want to "make a difference".  Only now I know how I can do that!    I have come to believe that ALL of the horrible things that have happened in recent years, happened for a reason.  I needed to go through hell to prove that it could be done!  I hit SEVERAL  "Rock Bottoms" before I was able to get the help I so desperately needed and wanted.  My dream now is to help others who are going through this horrific disease.  I want to be there for others just like SO many were for me.  I want to speak out about my pain of addiction and my road to sobriety!

     Through my time at Rehab, (The Villa Sucess' in Prairie Du Chien, WI)  with the help of the amazing counselors, my "family" of other patients I shared my time with there, the support of members of my real family, and my new friends in AA & NA, I came to know and believe wholeheartedly that I was WORTH sobriety and my life was WORTH being saved!  Now I want/need to share that knowledge with other addicts seeking the life of recovery they so deserve!

As Step 12 says in the 12 Step Program,  "Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."
That is now my purpose.