I never thought that my actions would ever
find their way to hurting my family or the people
that I loved.
And now I was faced with the very real prospect
of that and more.
I, at the time, was robbing drug dealers
because I thought, "They're never going to call the cops."
We started getting phone calls from everybody
that knew us with a lot of fear in their voice.
And we didn't know why.
There were people with machine guns and Uzis
and shotguns breaking into everybody that we knew's house
and waking them up in bed, demanding
to know where we were.
These people were armed, and they were very dangerous.
And they had a lot of money to throw around
and offered it for any information
as to where I was headed and where my family was located.
And I was running.
The man who had put the hit out on our heads,
he had been in a car accident and died himself.
And we were informed that we were safe to come home.
I started drinking real heavily.
I was ashamed of who I was.
I was ashamed of what I knew I was capable of
and what I had done all my life.
I thought an addict was someone with no willpower that
needed something, that needed to depend on somebody or something
in order to be OK.
And that wasn't me.
I was the one-man army.
I started trying on my own, very hard, to quit.
And after months of that, I almost completely
gave up because I couldn't do it.
So I went to the bishop, and he gave me the ARP,
the addiction recovery program manual.
I learned a great deal.
But again, I thought I could do it on my own.
Then he mentioned that there were group meetings where
people like me met together and shared each other's struggles.
It's very hard to describe the empathy, the love, the honesty,
the humility that you feel when you walk into that group.
They've all been there to one degree or another.
So I got through the first three steps fairly well on my own.
I got to step 4.
I had no problem sitting there and listing every fault
that I had, but I didn't know what to do with that.
But going through it again with the sponsor
was quite different because they emphasize
not just your weaknesses, but also your strengths.
And that was hard, because I didn't want to see the good.
I accepted and I knew the bad.
The fourth step helped me to see the good that was always there.
There was a lot of good.
It was just hidden and buried underneath substances
and habits and years of guilt, years of shame.
I learned that I needed my God.
I learned that I needed my brothers and sisters around me.
And every time I think that it can't get any better, it does.
It keeps getting better.
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