And I must walk among them for I can do no less than what my savior taught me by his life and by his death!
And he did leave. Right then with tears streaming down his face. He walked through that room full of people some of them twice his size. I was weeping and ashamed, my heart ached for those still suffering from addiction. I looked around the room and not a single man or woman in that place was not weeping. That little guy had destroyed the room in about four minutes flat. Even now a few years later as I replay his strong voice to write this out I find myself crying again. So powerful was the emotion and conviction of his sharing. I never saw that man again.
I have spoken with a woman who was there that night in that hall over the telephone long distance to New Zealand just last week. That little guy is still doing service. My friend, a woman with a long and admirable record of service to NA told me he is still in Christchurch, he attends various meetings at various times and he is the destroyer of denial everywhere he shares. She believes he has a gift from his Higher Power and says that she often challenges those who have no real spiritual recovery to go to his home meeting and keep going there until he shares. That man Mike, That "Southern Man" is the brother I would climb into a dumpster for without hesitation, but something tells me he wont be there through using, he'll be holding a junkies hand. And by his faith he will be fighting at battles we can't see.
See the things I have seen, Hear the things I have heard and tell me that you are ready for service without a true understanding of your own Higher Power or the spiritual truths of the 12 steps and I figure you will likely be riled when I think of the "Southern Man" and laugh in your face.
Paul D. Addict."
During 2001 in a small village on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand a zone meeting of the representatives of area groups from all over the South Pacific was conducted. A representative of the NA world service office was visiting New Zealand during this time and was invited to attend the zone long weekend gathering. This is an extract of the article subsequently printed in a popular NA news and stories circular in the United States. The article was written to those who desired to enter service for NA.
" The room was packed with men and woman of all hues and colors from the nations of the South Pacific, many powerful personalities, many giant Polynesian warriors for recovery, many woman fit to be princesses for the fellowship, the air itself was crackling with spiritual energy. It was calculated earlier that day that this zone meeting had over 400 years of collective recovery present that night in the hall with it's huge stone fireplace roaring to ward the freezing cold. Every single attendee was present. In the course of the agenda, a man stood to take his turn to speak. He was a man of small stature, no more than 120 pounds, a white man among so many brown and olive people, nothing remarkable about this guy.
- And then he spoke with an Australian accent in a powerful, charismatic voice filled with passion and often quavering close to tears and the people were taken against there will on a journey which was spoken of for the remainder of the weekend by many if not all who were there. This is some of what he said transcribed from the recording taken for the record:
"My name is Mike. I am an addict. I attend here as a representative of the Southern Men's Narcotics Anonymous Area Group, we are based in Christchurch here in New Zealand. My home meeting is one you have never heard of in a small smokey room in a shabby building in a boring suburb of Christchurch. I have no message from our area group of any significance except that we cry for the addicts that die. The message I bring you is from my heart and arrived there moments ago from my Higher Power. I would not be able to stand here were it not for the Grace of God as I understand Him. My time in recovery is sufficient for service and that is enough, what matter a measure of years? Who bloody cares. Who gives a rat's ass.
There is an addict dying in a dumpster tonight in Christchurch while we are here, comfortable and warm, well fed and safe. Surrounded by our peers in stable recovery feeling all superior and proud of ourselves. ENOUGH! How can we pat each other on the back and clap or cheer those with this many years or that many years. I no longer care for your record of years in service you make me SICK. I no longer care for your agendas, your schedules or your group literature requests. That addict cannot see to read a brochure taken from a table at a meeting he won't be attending. He is DYING. What is wrong with you people? Have you forgotten? Did you ever know our purpose? No more EXCUSES. Get up! Do something! ACT! I cannot stand here and talk statistics of meeting attendances, or listen to your sharing about the solidarity of your group or your pathetic self interest drugalogues. You DISGUST me.
Harm me if you wish. But first you will bloody well LISTEN to me. How many more will die? In New Zealand? In Samoa? In Tonga? In the States? In alleys, institutions, jails, hospitals everywhere? What will it take to save one life? Talk, talk, talk the talk. Have YOU got the courage to walk the walk? Are you ready to crawl into the sewers of your city? The gutters overflow with despair. The world simply does not CARE! If we can't care there is nothing left except despair, loss, death, destruction. You are the people, the warriors, the soldiers, the Whanau (family), the Tipuna (ancestors), the Mothers, Fathers, Brothers, Sisters of the broken. If you are not there I PROMISE you nobody effective will be there.
The duty of care is YOURS! The law won't restore a teenage girls stolen innocence while she prostitutes her body for a fix. The hospital cannot detox the spiritual bankruptcy of the failed thirty something year old businessman whose nose is rotting off while he squanders his shareholders money on cocaine to ease the pain of his childhood shame. The church will not ever be able to restore the dignity of the working man from a church family who has fallen into poverty and despair because he simply is an alien among the upright and escapes his pathetic reality with acid. The man barely more than a boy who tears his very skin of while he waits for a robbery victim to pass by him, so he can get another gram or two of the meth that owns his soul, is not going to be rescued by the lady social worker with the big boobs people.
I WILL GO. I am only one man. But I will go. You see, we come from there, we speak that language, we know the devastation, the pain, the despair, the deepest cuts, the rawest wounds of the heart, the soul, the mind, the body we are THEM ALL. We are the lost. We are the fallen. We are the only slim hope and chance for the addict who is in fact OURSELVES. Deny it? Go ahead, denial, denial, denial, denial, I spit on denial. I tell you through faith you are vanquished denial. I know you denial, you no longer have a hold over me. I absolutely dare you to tell me my GOD is wrong. And I'll cry for you when in your pitiful sad denial you use again and I'll hear the story, the sad, sad story about how many from the fellowship went to your funeral and how they cried for the loss.
I've been to too bloody MANY funerals. I can no longer stand about idly while the Marae (community or sacred place) fills with the people dressed in black waiting for a chance to throw a handful of dirt on YOUR coffin. I've had an absolute guts full. I will walk among them. I will go to them, and I must walk among them, for I can do no less than what my SAVIOR taught me by his life and by his death. If I do not, I will surely die empty, broken, lonely, wasted. A pathetic addict with a pathetic service position who served a pathetic NOTHING. I have a spiritual command to ACT. I'm going now to find that dumpster, that addict. Whatever it takes and never any less. I will crawl in there with my brother, my mirror image and I'll tell him I am him and I know it hurts and I know all is lost. And I'll sit in rotting filth until he is ready to rise up. And GOD will be there with us, I know it, I promise you he WILL BE THERE. Goodbye, ka kite ano. (goodbye)"
And he did leave. Right then with tears streaming down his face. He walked through that room full of people some of them twice his size. I was weeping and ashamed, my heart ached for those still suffering from addiction. I looked around the room and not a single man or woman in that place was not weeping. That little guy had destroyed the room in about four minutes flat. Even now a few years later as I replay his strong voice to write this out I find myself crying again. So powerful was the emotion and conviction of his sharing. I never saw that man again.
I have spoken with a woman who was there that night in that hall over the telephone long distance to New Zealand just last week. That little guy is still doing service. My friend, a woman with a long and admirable record of service to NA told me he is still in Christchurch, he attends various meetings at various times and he is the destroyer of denial everywhere he shares. She believes he has a gift from his Higher Power and says that she often challenges those who have no real spiritual recovery to go to his home meeting and keep going there until he shares. That man Mike, That "Southern Man" is the brother I would climb into a dumpster for without hesitation, but something tells me he wont be there through using, he'll be holding a junkies hand. And by his faith he will be fighting at battles we can't see.
See the things I have seen, Hear the things I have heard and tell me that you are ready for service without a true understanding of your own Higher Power or the spiritual truths of the 12 steps and I figure you will likely be riled when I think of the "Southern Man" and laugh in your face.
Paul D. Addict."
