A Fond Remembrance of My Good Friend Roy K.
I would like to share my memories of Roy K., who was perhaps second only to my father in influencing my life for the better.
Dying Sober
I had just arrived at the Nashville airport when I got a voicemail from Jim. The message was “I just got back from the doctor and he told me I have six months to live.” Jim was dead within two weeks. After receiving the message, I immediately called him. I told him how much I loved him and how he was always the brother I never felt I really had.
Sobriety and the Sea of Relativism
Today the world is adrift on a sea of rapidly shifting mores. Change is accelerating at an unprecedented rate. The last eighty years have surpassed the rate of change of the last eight thousand, and the last thirty have probably surpassed it all. Every aspect of our lives and sexual thinking are affected.
Spotlight on Sponsorship
My sobriety date is January 1, 1991. The longer I am sober, the more I need a meeting because I am close to a relapse. Why, you may ask? Well, there are a lot of new people, but not a lot of people with long-term recovery. That tells me that I am closer than ever to relapse. What I have been doing has been working for me, so I keep doing it.
‘His Sanity Returned and He Thanked God’
Recently my sponsor in another 12-Step program pointed out a sentence in the Big Book that I hadn’t paid special attention to before. It comes in Chapter 11, A Vision For You. The reading has to do, in part, with events surrounding a business trip by Bill W., the co-founder of AA, when he was just six months sober.
Acquiring the Solution
I believe that Steps One and Two are by far the hardest Steps, because they require no work—only belief and conviction born out of suffering. I was deluded about my understanding of Steps One and Two for many years. I hadn’t suffered enough, I hadn’t believed enough, and my conviction to change was weak.
From Guru to Grateful
As a teenager, I was pushed into treatment. I learned about Twelve Step programs there and worked my way through Step Five, but it was only the barest of beginnings and I really didn’t understand how the Steps worked. I loved the program, the history, the meetings, the instant friends everywhere, and the fellowship. I took on many service jobs. My understanding of recovery was to go to lots of meetings, participate in the fellowship, and have fun.
I Don’t Have to Know
I suffer from a sort of hyper-vigilance. Something in me wants to identify and define every object, every person, every angle and surface in my physical environment. My ears are open; my eyes are taking in the very texture of things around me. This drive to know everything that’s going on around me could be a useful trait if I were Batman and dwelt in Gotham City.
I Have No Control Over My Dreams
In early recovery, sexual dreams were a new and scary experience. Prior to sobriety, I had only experienced one “wet dream.” It occurred early in what turned out to be eleven and half years of celibacy. The only SA program literature available at the time seemed to indicate that these dreams were a loss of sobriety, so I re-set my sobriety date each time one occurred.
Step Eight: Made a List and Became Willing
Although I have discovered a number of people I had harmed who did not appear in my Fourth Step, the list of people against whom I held resentments was an excellent place to begin. I had to remember that in the Eighth Step I was merely making the list.
