Now that Roy has passed, it is incumbent on all of us to carry on his primary emphasis on recovery from Lust. Unlike other “S” fellowships, where the emphasis is on the powerlessness over acting out, we in SA emphasize our powerlessness over lust.
In July 1985, a man loaned me a copy of an earlier version of the White Book. I read it twice in two weeks. My mind was numbed by remnants of the lust drug, and I couldn’t take in a lot of it. But what I remember is the tremendous feeling of hope I felt after decades of misery and failure.
I first met Roy—at a distance—when I attended my first international convention in Oklahoma City in December 1985. I had about four months of sobriety back then. Someone pointed Roy out to me but I did not formally introduce myself.
The first I heard of Roy’s death was from a message on my voicemail. I felt a sudden and deep sadness to hear of his passing. For the past 25 and a half years, my life and my recovery have been interwoven with Roy’s. I was first introduced to the concept of sobriety through the SA brochure that he had written.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
