Lester's Recovery Page

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                                                                                                                  To My Recovery 

My name is Lester and I currently have over 22 yrs of Recovery. My clean date is 7/2/86.  I created this site so that I could  have a pleasant  recovery atmosphere in which I could communicate with my friends in recovery.

  

My Story:

     

 

                

Lester’s Story

 

I have come to believe that addiction has been with me always. As far back as I can recall I was thinking and acting like and addict. I was adopted at age 3 and my first memory is being introduced to my parents. From that day forward I was different, I was unique, I wasn’t like you because I got to choose my parents and you didn’t. Like the good addict I would become I ran with this single thought and the rules no longer applied to me. When I was eight years old my adopted family moved to a part of the country where alcoholism was rampant and my father began drinking again after 20 years of sobriety. I proceeded to spend the next nine years of my life being the sole communicator in my family. All that I seemed to hear was Lester go tell your Dad this or Lester tell your mother this or but Lester you don’t understand what it is like. Being an only child I have time for using. When I turned Seventeen, while away from home on my senior trip, I used my first drug (tobacco) and immediately fell in love. This was soon followed with alcohol, marijuana. Later that year I moved away from home when I went to college. Here I started experimenting with amphetamines. College lasted for one semester. Then I dropped out and got job selling encyclopedias. This lasted a couple of months and on May 4th 1970 I enlisted in the Navy. Here my disease rapidly progressed extending itself to include hallucinogens and anything else that might alter my state of being. Being the good addict that I was, I fell in love with every drug I ever took and would continue on this road to self-destruction for the next 17 years.

During this period of my life I lived to use and used to live. Often telling myself that I was enjoying life the end results were always the same, lost relationships, lost jobs, and lost dignity. Then in 1983 (having just turned 32), a series of miracles began to occur in my life. Miracle 1: I found myself Homeless in Portland, OR living under a bridge and eating out dumpsters, a wino at age 32. I then proceeded to explore this new way of life for the following two winters and in the spring of 1985 I came too one day and realized that I could no longer continue living this way. My life had been reduced to an animalistic level and I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. Miracle #2: I asked for help. I told a friend that I could not go on living this way and He called Detox for me. Thus began my journey to Recovery.

In April 1985 I went into treatment. At this point of my story I need to mention that about half way through treatment. I started using again and continued to keep it secret until after I left treatment. They used to let us out in the mornings to go to an AA meeting a few blocks away and while on these excursions I soon found that a certain crowd, out side the meeting place would be getting high on pot before going into the meeting and it wasn’t long before I joined them after all I still believed that pot was not a drug. I somehow managed to keep this hidden from the treatment people and in July of 1985 (having completed phase one of the treatment program I was transferred to a halfway house. After arriving at the halfway house I landed a job, the 1st I had had in over 3 years. After receiving my 1st paycheck, (thinking I was well) I moved out of the halfway house and into a house full of addicts. Upon getting my 2nd paycheck I moved into the tavern across the street and proceeded to learn a lesson on insanity (repeating the same mistakes over and over again and expecting different results).

Next Miracle:

Monday, June 31, 1986, I found myself too hung over to go to work so I called in sick. I knew I had to detox so began detoxing myself and started to check around for an out patient treatment thinking I might be able to save my job. Tuesday, July 1st—still detoxing I called in sick again; made arrangements to return to halfway house. I took my last drink at approximately 2am July 2nd 1986. I then get up at 5 am and go to work. Still detoxing, I confront my supervisor with the truth about my addiction and am placed on probation pending the out come of my attempt to find recovery. July 4th 1986 now abstinate for 2 days, though still detoxing I re-enter the halfway house. This time around I had insurance so I decide to stay for 6 months. Once again I had to get that proverbial  piece of paper signed and at 1^st I started going to AA meetings with the rest of the crowd. However I did manage to refrain from getting high outside the meeting house. By now I had pretty much convinced my self that a drug was drug and that I did not matter which drug I started using 1^st, they all eventually took me to the same place, making my life unmanageable. Then one day while on the bus going to work I met two ladies, one of which was reading the big book of AA. She was someone I had gone through treatment with a yr. earlier and was now coming up on 2 yrs clean. The other lady, the cute one, was reading the Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous. I immediately started bullshitting her, telling her How I am in recovery also, blah, blah, etc. and she invited me to an NA meeting that was just a few blocks from the halfway house I was staying in. So on the following Saturday I took my little piece of Paper and went to an NA meeting. She was not there but the person who would later become my sponsor was.  At my 1st meeting of NA I heard someone tell my story and I knew that I had found a home. I went back to that meeting a second and then a third time just to hear this person share. At my third meeting I asked him to be my sponsor. The empathy that I felt in this meeting was new to me and every time someone shared it was a though they were telling my story. My Clean DatThese addicts had what I wanted, they had found a new way of living and were willing to share that way with me, another addict, and my recovery from addiction begins.

My Recovery:

My Clean Date is: July 2, 1986 (the day I quit using). I found my 1st home Group and Sponsor when I had about 8 or 9 days clean. I attended my 1st H&I subcommittee meeting when I had 30 days clean. I joined the H&I Committee when I had 90 days clean. At two yrs clean my sponsor relapsed and I had to find a new sponsor, which I did. Then at 3yrs clean my original sponsor came back to recovery and after he had been back for about 6 months I asked him to be my sponsor again. He still had what I wanted, Knowledge of NA, the Steps and the traditions.  He had thirty plus yrs of on again off recovery.  He always said that he was sicker than most and his past kept catching up to him. He had originally gotten clean in NA in southern ca. in the early Sixties and knew many of the founders of NA. Even though he was never able to accumulate substantial amounts of clean time he always returned to the fellowship that gave him freedom and life as he knew it. If there were no meetings in the area the happened to be in he would a start one.   He agreed to sponsor me again and I kept him as a sponsor until he died from cancer when I had 10 or 11 yrs clean. I have since gone through several sponsors. For my first 4 yrs of recovery I attended 2 to 3 meetings daily and was Secretary of a meeting for five yrs. Also, I started another meeting and did H&I and area service. I started attending Regional Service when I had 3yrs clean and also served on the Merchandising committee for the World Conv. for 1 yr in my 4th and 5th yrs of recovery. I think it was in my 3rd yr of recovery that I learned a most valuable tool. I learned that I could work the steps any time at any place over any given situation allowing me to get on with my life.

One day I got fired from my job. Then I found myself walking down the street in Portland, Oregon, jobless for the 1st time in recovery. While walking down the street my 1st thought was "Why ME?" Then it occurred to me that it was my time for this to happen. I then went to a noon meeting and talked about my getting fired. Next, I went home and started writing by that evening I was at Step 5. I picked up the phone and called my sponsor. By mid-day the following day I had gone through all 12 Steps and within 2 days out of the blue I had received two phone calls from people who had heard that I might be in the job market. Both were companies I had previously worked for and both had job offers. one of them was the job I had quit because of stress. 

I then proceed to tell both companies that I would interview with them and then I was going to take one week to make a decision as to who I would go to work for. Both companies agreed to these terms. True to my word I interviewed with both and then took a week off to decide. In the end I went back to work for the company that I had quit because of stress, and stayed with them for another nineteen years.

What was different? During the interviews I learned the art of negotiation, something that would never have occurred tome a month earlier. I was able to re-negotiate conditions and went back to work as a part time employee making the same hourly wage that I was making when I quit.

In my 6th yr of recovery I would meet that special someone who would become my wife. I met her at a Regional Conference of Narcotics Anonymous. Kristie and I got married on Jan 17th 1992. On September 20 1992 shortly after my 6 NA Anniversary our daughter Tiffany was born. Suffering from complications at birth Tiffany would live only 5 months. During this time of my recovery I did very little service work and only made it to meetings whenever I got an opportunity because for 3 of those months we had Tiffany at home and she required 24 hr. around the clock care which Kristie and I provided with the help of a nurse who would come to our home 2 to 3 times a week. Fortunately, I had good INS. At the time and my place of employment was there for me. When they found out about Tiffany they gave me two yrs sick leave with pay retroactive when combined with earned vacation came to 30 days off from work and when I returned to work I was allowed to work a min of 20 hrs Per week at a schedule that I chose. And this lasted until Tiffany’s death. When Tiffany died on February 19, 1993 my entire world seemed to collapse in front of my very eyes, but once again NA would be there for me. Through working the steps, going to meetings and doing service work and using my sponsor along with having my stepchildren come to live with us. Both my wife and I were able to stay clean through this period of our lives and return to living a life with some normality. Life having taken it’s toll on our marriage, it lasted until Dec. 97, at which time my wife broke the news to me that she was leaving and that there was no saving our marriage. Once again my world seemed to crumble and once again the fellowship of NA was there for me.

Shortly after she broke the news to me we discovered that her eldest daughter, my step daughter who was now living with her natural Father had been diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer found only in adolescents and almost always fatal. Andrea was fifteen yrs old at the time. So our Divorce was put on hold. Still being on my INS., We brought Andrea to Portland so that her mother could be near her and had her placed in a hospital near us. The Doctors here confirmed the diagnosis and began treatment, which involved a stem cell transplant followed with radiation. Andrea went into full remission only to have the cancer return a year later and this time it had spread throughout her body. Andrea died on the day before her 17th birthday on May 4th, 2000. During the time that Andrea had lived with us, we had been at odds most of the time with me being the other man in her Mothers life. However, I am pleased to say that during her last two years we were able to get know each other and have a good relationship. Also it was during this time that Andrea was able to come to terms with her disease and accept life for what it was and learn to enjoy life to its fullest (coming to terms with her own demise and finding the ways and means to make peace with the God of her understanding and those around her.  What a gift to be able to witness such a miracle, I learned a lot from her and will forever be grateful that she got to be apart of my recovery. In experiencing Andrea’s life and death I was able to come to terms with Tiffany’s demise and see that all of the pain of grieving that I had put myself through was a product of my own self-centeredness in not wanting to let go of something that I loved so dearly. With this realization I was finally able to let go and give both my daughter and step- daughter to a God of my understanding.

Following Andrea’s death I got my divorce papers in the mail and my now ex and I went our separate ways. She has since remarried. I haven’t. For along time I hoped and prayed for reconciliation. Then I finally accepted that our divorce was to be permanent and by now we are no longer in contact. Life continues to go on.

In 1998 I was permanently laid off when the place I was working at sold the branch that I was working in. I then went to school at business computer training institute to learn my way around a computer, do word processing and such, only to find that after graduating I could not find a job in that field. I was forty-eight yrs. old at the time and for every interview I went on there would seemingly be 100 twenty year olds with more qualifications than I had and guess who got the jobs,

I still continue to go to meetings at least 3 or 4 a week and still do regional Service. I became Archivist for our Region. And on a local level I have switched from H&I to PI. I have tried several Sponsors since my Sponsor died and am currently looking for a new one. I do have a large support group and my old sponsor taught me to always be able to turn to my support group in case of the absence of a sponsor, which I do and he also told me that I work the steps the 1st time around wit a sponsor and after that I work them with those I sponsor and I also do this. He also helped me come to believe a simple fact that I have had proven to me over and over again that nothing happens in Gods world by mistake and It took what it took to get me to where I am at today and that in the same respect it will take what it takes to get me to there where there is at. Today I want to go there.

So for the next 4 or 5 yrs I bounced around with several minimum wage jobs and finally in June of 2004 when the fast food place I was working at lowered my hours from 18 to 9 hrs a week. I said enough is enough and I called a sponcee of mine who had relocated to Florida a year, earlier for the same reason, (he couldn’t find work in Portland in his field). He told me that there was plenty on work here in Florida and that he had a place I could stay at and car I could use until I got on my feet again. So I borrowed money for a plane ticket, moved to Florida and have been working since. I now do shipping and receiving at a tractor dealership here.

I arrived in Florida on my clean date July 2, 2004 and immediately went to a Convention on NA. I then went to live with a sponcee of mine who had come to Fl., a yr., earlier for similar reasons. I immediately started going to meetings here and became involved in Service at an area level. I started going to casual labor seeking employment and on my 2nd or 3rd time out I went to work for the company I am currently working for. My hire date was Aug.10, 2004. I soon found a home group and became involved at the Group Level. Continued involvement in NA helps keep me clean. I have friends today old and new who care about me as a person. My life is good today and rich in recovery. It has by far exceeded my wildest expectations. I recently had the privilege of helping start a Foundation Group (for more info on this go to nawol.org). We are currently doing a Step Study using the NA Way of Life book and I am gaining a whole new perspective on the Twelve Steps of NA and how Recovery affects all areas of my life. Life is good and Higher Power is great.

The above paragraph was written on March 27th 2006. Twenty –Three months have since passed I now have a sponsor with 33yrs clean in NA. I am still with the company that hired me when I 1^st came to Fl. The foundation group that I started is still going. I still have my same NA Home group. I now have several sponsees and grandsponsees here locally, and I have since become Area P.I. Chair. I am now approaching 22 yrs of Recovery in N.A.

I am not free of misgivings about N. A. as a whole. I can see what I perceive as mistakes that we as a fellowship have made. I can also see the vast amount of good that we have done. Were it not for the fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous, I clearly believe that I would not be here today and in all probility my addiction would have taken my life yrs ago.  I believe that N. A. is a (God given fellowship) and as such cannot be destroyed. This is not to say that it will not evolve. I believe that a power much greater than myself will direct us keeping us right where we are supposed to be. I have found that my life in recovery in N. A. is constant journey that is forever providing me with new opportunities to learn from my mistakes and to grow spiritual, mentally and emotionally. Quite often I do not immediately comprehend why something is happening at the moment, but without fail I always seem to discover why it happened somewhere down the road.

A friend of mine once told me that there are three types of people in NA. There are those who want someone mainly our trusted servants to lead the way for them and there are those who believe that the Groups should dictate our actions and those who could care less as long as they have a meeting of some kind to go to.

Without going off on a political rant, I tend to go with the second opinion believing that our groups are at the top of the pyramid and that everything that occurs in the course of N.A.  Service must be motivated by the desire to more successfully carry the message of recovery to the addict who still suffers. I have seen the results of members of our fellowship when they become corrupted with Power derived from the accumulation of money , property or prestige  I have also seen the results of members trusting in the process and  one addict telling another to keep coming back, It works. All of this at times may seem confusing and contradicting, but I have found that in attempting to adhere to our principals and practicing our 12 Steps and applying our 12 traditions to all areas of my life I continue to grow as the process unfolds. With each step I get a little bit closer to becoming the person that I am capable of becoming.

 

Lester O.

Feb. 17^th 2008

 

 

                                          

 

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