I know... it's been over a month, but it has been quite a month for me. I've been promoted to foreman at my job, I had a reality check at my house towards the size of my ego that made me realize that I'm not as saavy in this program as I thought I was and in turn gave me inspiration to move even more, I made my first trip back home to College Station and made amends, and I got a new sponsor since my old one left. There is more to tell, and there is more I will expand on, but really, the first thing that comes to my mind I have to share is an experience I had a couple of weeks ago when I went to a rehab here to do something called and an Hospital and Insititution's panel (an H and I for short).
What an H and I really is is where people that have time in the program (CA in this case [Cocaine Anonymous]) go to a rehab, jail, hospital or something (rehab in this case) and share a message of the twelve steps with the people that are currently patients in there. Each H and I have different formats. Some are topics from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, some are open topic, some are pure Q and A, and like the one I went to, some are tell your life story, and then leave time for Q and A.
So, at this particular H and I, I went with a couple of friends of mine. We each shared a 15 minute version of what we used to be like, how we got to what we were like now, and how we are like now. I was the last to speak, and if I do say so myself, I felt very inspired. I shared five minutes on my life, because I felt more important to share on how my life changed. I went off on finding God and doing service work. Of course, I talked about finding God, Higher Power, in tenents of CA and the Big Book, and I was very political about it not to throw anybody. I could see in people's eyes that they were responding to me- I even noticed this one girl that didn't listen to Robert and Tara and instead was painting the whole time they spoke, she had her eyes fixated on me. So, I thought I spoke well.
Anyway, when it came to Q and A, we answered questions as a group, and everything was going fine, until this question was asked: "How did you guys find your higher power and realize that you were powerless (a reference to steps 1 and 2 to those of you not in the program)?" I had to think about that question, so Tara and Robert spoke before me. My answer was somewhere around this: most people when they come into rehab think that they have hit rock bottom, but they haven't. They can always go lower and lower until they are dead or in jail. If you've ever relapsed, you really know what I'm talking about (I've relapsed many times). There is always more pain out there, and everytime you are in the middle of your addiction, you know that there is more pain out there and there is nothing you can do about it. But, when you reach that point of desperation when you are willing to so anything to stop, you will turn to God- you will realize that just like drugs were stronger than you, there is something stronger than drugs, and something is God and he will save you from going any lower. That's how I found God.
After I was done, someone raised their hand, and asked me this question: "Well, how about the people that are dead or in jail- are we just lucky or something or does God not care about them?" And that question fucked me because I didn't know how to answer that. Thank God for Robert because he gave some bullshit political answer that really didn't answer that man's question but went right around it but sounded good enough that no one said anything, but I could see that man looking at me with a pain and animosity that I did nothing to help him, and that really fucked me up. And even though people after the meeting came and thanked me for their help, and even some told me that they like my answer about not hitting a bottom, I couldn't get that man's eyes out of my head.
Right after that, we went straight to a meeting, but my mind was still on that question- what about the people in jail or those that are dead? It brought me down that I couldn't answer that, and I was shaken. Then, I heard something that cleared my path. This woman, someone who couldn't seem to stay sober longer than a few weeks was speaking, and she said: "You know, I don't get why this isn't working. I turn my will over to God, and I pray and I pray and pray and pray, and I still get fucked up. I don't get it. Why doesn't he hear my prayers?" And two things became clear to me. First, that when I turn my will over to the care of God, it doesn't only mean what God wants me to do in my life, but it also means that I have to pay attention to what God puts other people in my life for and what do they mean in my life and that my life should be dedicated to them. Other people are parts of God's will in my life. The second part was the answer to the question that bothered me. Those people that are dead or in jail, they aren't unlucky, they had their chance and we very well could become those people at some point in the future if we don't practice God's will in our life. Those people in jail can go lower, and those people that are dead, it could've also just have been God's will. The thing is, we can't stand around idly hoping that God will scoop us up and save us, we have to take some action, and God will help us. We have to walk with God. It's like this: God has given us a car and we sit in the drivers seat and he's in the passenger seat. If we don't drive the car, then he can't guide us. We have to drive the car, once we do that, he will guide us, and once he tells us somewhere to go, we better damn well take that order too. We must walk hand in hand with him, praying isn't just enough- the power of prayer is amazing, but faith without works is dead. Those people that are dead or even lower than we are now aren't unlucky, they just didn't drive the car, they stayed idle, and they couldn't escape the storm. And I felt peace.
That was something I found to be of importance to me. The other thing that happened in this past month that really was important was that I went back to College Station for the first time since I left. The primary purpose of the trip was to make amends face to face. I already made amends in letters, but I felt it was time to make those amends face to face, and some others that I needed to make. I didn't waste anytime. The first thing I did when I arrived into town was go to my old job at the Holiday Inn and make my first amends. It was a very exhausting trip and I made a great deal of amends, including financial amends which has left me broke to this very day. But, I got to hang out with my friend Felix quite a bit which was great. I miss him a lot. It got me thinking about my friends, and what they mean to me. I almost didn't want to leave. I have these friends that through all the bullshit I did, still drove five hours to Center Point just to visit me in rehab to find out I was in San Antonio in a psych ward and drove there, and to find out they couldn't visit me so they left a letter, and they were okay. I don't know if they know how much that meant to me and how much I cried that day. I'm going to have six months sober soon, and it's hard to think that just six months ago I was sitting around drunk as a skunk and high not caring and taking these people for granted and now I pray for the next time I can see them just to show them my appreciating for not telling a professional liar and manipulator that he is forgiven and loved.
One interesting part about the trip was that I brought my roommate with me. For some reason, he started feeling really sad in the middle of the trip and he didn't really know why. We stayed up one night when I found him crying and talked long about why he was feeling sad and I suggested that maybe it was time that he went home and made his direct amends. I said that we see so many people talk the great talk but not many people but their money where their mouth is, and that's why we see them relapse and why the relapse rate is so great and that's why I've relapsed so many times before. I said that I don't care what people say about me, the one thing I am proud to say is that what I share in meetings, I can back up. And it's true, I am proud to say that I do a hell load of service work- chairing meetings, H and I's, sponsoring, etc. At the end of the conversation, he decided that he wanted to make his face to face amends, and that he also wanted to do more service work, which he is. For some reason, that makes me feel good.
I don't know what much more to say. I decided to finish my bachelors to go along with my LCDC. I start school this summer, hypothetically, and my LCDC course starts in January of 2008. It's funny for look to look at my life now and see how in a few short months the concepts of motivation and atonement are becoming more than privileges, but every day actions. People tell me that they are happy to see this Fernando or Sketch, and it's funny because I still feel essentially the same except for I am catching myself before I tell a lie, or I admit to the lie right I tell it, and I apologize for shit now, but I still feel the same. It's funny to see how my life has moved on for me because I think, at some point, I really resigned myself to believing that there was nowhere for me to go but nowhere. In the past I used to fear tomorrow because I had the feeling that I was going to be alone and scared. Now, I don't know where tomorrow is going to take me, but I can always count on my God being by my side and that's all I need.
There is peace. Serenity is not having everything calm around you- serenity is when everything is chaotic on the outside, and you are calm on the inside.