Step Up To The Plate

Step Up to the Plate is a ground-breaking discussion forum about the 12-steps and fellowship meetings. In episode 1, we discuss the origins of the fellowship; we ask, if you have to do the steps to go to meetings or vice-versa; and we talk about step-one of the twelve steps.

Keep Coming Back

When I was asked by a member of the Recovery Radio team to write a piece on Twelve Step recovery for the website, I took a little while to think of what I could write. I thought about writing a piece breaking down of each of the steps, but then ruled that out- 12 Step literature is available that describes that better than I ever could. I thought of writing a piece about what my life as a member of a 12 Step Fellowship is like, “ a day in the life” sort of thing, then decided against that, as each day is different, some good, some bad, and I wanted to write an honest article – my life in recovery, abstinent of all mind altering substances (alcohol, substitute medications, or cannabis included) isn’t always good, but I do my best, and stay clean, a day at a time.

In the end, I decided to write about what life was like for me before I came to the doors of my first 12 Step meeting, what happened in the three years between then and now, and what things are like now. I came to my first meeting on 16^th March 2010, a very frightened, lonely and broken individual. I was a couple of months short of my 29^th birthday, and had been using drugs since I was 13. I have learned since that day that what I was using isn’t really important, but just for the record, I used pretty much everything up until the age of about 25, then specialised in heroin, crack and alcohol. I moved around the country, and left the country for about a year, thinking my peers, surroundings and the lifestyle I was mixed up in was to blame, but I always ended up in the same mess. I’ve moved 100 miles away from everyone I knew, done a bare-back withdrawal from heroin, and found a dealer 5 days later and ended up worse than I was before the move. I’ve got a job in the middle of nowhere, working the bar in a country hotel, and promptly become a raging alcoholic. Wherever I went, I was right there, waiting for me. 

I’ve done substitute medications, involving numerous community detox attempts, all of which failed (the longest I was off my meds for was about 2 weeks). I tried drug services which offered “a series of 12 CBT based interventions”. That didn’t work. Everything I tried, failed. I was always a man with a plan. But they never worked. One night, I reached the point I have since heard a lot of people talk about – the point where the drugs stopped working. I had my drugs, and was 2/3^rd of the way into a bottle of scotch. But it wasn’t working. It wasn’t blocking out the feeling of total despair, dereliction and isolation I felt. I realised I had become everything I despised in a man – a liar, and a thief who had emotionally, financially and physically assaulted my family and everyone around me. I came close to making an attempt to take my own life that night. But an intervention from a concerned neighbour stopped that. He listened to me, and suggested I get some help. I told him I’d tried, and it hadn’t worked. He asked if there wasn’t anything else out there. I actually put into a search engine on-line that night “crack heroin addiction help.” A website for a 12 Step Fellowship came up, with a list of meetings. There were meetings 5 nights a week locally. 

And so I turned up, one cold Tuesday night, at the doors of a church hall. I was terrified, if I’m honest. At one point in my using, I didn’t think I was scared of anything. At this point, I was scared of everything. But I walked in, and was greeted with a hug, and a cup of coffee, and shown to a seat. I heard laughter, and people were smiling. I wasn’t sure about “total abstinence”, and I spotted the word “God” in the 12 Steps poster on one of the walls. But to be honest, what these people were doing looked a lot better than what I’d been doing. So I gave it a go. I heard people who spoke my language, who sounded like they knew what my life was like and the way I felt, but they said there lives weren’t like that, and they didn’t feel that way anymore. They talked about a solution. I wanted that. They told me not to worry about the God thing, to keep an open mind, and listen. They talked about working steps, getting sponsors, doing service, and attending meetings. They told me that it’s a spiritual, not religious program, and I learned what that meant. 

I’d love to write that I’m 3 years clean, 12 Step recovery is infallible, everyone I’ve seen come to the rooms since has got clean and stayed clean. But sadly that’s not the way it is. It took me a while to get it- I had a few “false starts”. I wanted to do things my way for a little while – the man with a plan was back. After a stint in treatment, and subsequent relapse, last year, I finally arrived at the conclusion that what I thought I knew about life, what I wanted, and what I needed, was largely incorrect. 8 months ago I made a decision to give myself whole-heartedly to the 12 Step Fellowship I attend, to get honest, and to get humble, and to listen to, and follow the direction of, those people who’d got clean and stayed clean. I’ve got clean, and stayed clean, in the rooms of that Fellowship. I have learnt a bit of compassion for myself, and others. I am rebuilding relationships with the family I hurt so badly. I have true friends, who want nothing from me. I am coming up on 8 months clean, doing really well at college and undertaking a work based level 3 QCF in Health and Social Care, and planning to go to University next year. Not bad for a smackhead. They say at the meetings I go to “keep coming back”. I’m glad I did.

Links

http://12step.org/newcomers-guide.html  “So you think that you might be interested in or desperate for (or somewhere in-between) working a 12 step program? How do you get started?”

http://www.twelvedrawings.com/ “There are four sets of "Twelve Drawings", including The Serenity Prayer, The Steps, The Promises, and the Metaphors.”

http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/  “If your drinking is causing you problems then you have come to the right place.”

http://www.ukna.org/  “For all the information you need about Narcotics Anonymous in the UK.”

http://www.gamblersanonymous.org.uk/  Where to find meetings in your area, live chat, forums and a member’s area. For help wherever you bet.