Only with Vigilance

ONLY WITH VIGILANCE – The Book

Ronald Parks — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:12:34 +0000

Finally, after two years, my book is done. For anyone that is interested, it can be bought at LuLu.com. In a few weeks it should be available at Amazon.com.

SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!!

Ronald Parks — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:30:39 +0000

For whatever reason, in the last couple of months, I’ve been hearing people share the above statement in reference to their early recovery. Guy with five years clean says, “They don’t do it now, but back when I first got clean, recovery was more hard core. I was told to ‘Sit down and shut up’.” Woman with 10 years clean, “Oh yeah, I was told to sit down and shut up. If we want to know how to use, we’ll ask you.” Members with 15 and 20 years clean share the same thing. (How often do newcomers actually stand to share? Most are too afraid to raise their hands, let alone stand up and be the center of attention. How do you tell some one to sit down if they are already sitting down?)

I must say, I’m coming up on 23 years clean (Thanks God) and in all this time and a few thousand meetings later, I have NEVER, EVER heard someone say this. Years ago, when I would hear some one share about being told that, I would think, “Man, I must really be burnt out. I don’t remember people saying that.” So, as the years go by and I have an idea of my ability to remember things, I sure as hell don’t remember anyone talking like that. I have heard on occasion people sharing, “Take the cotton out of your ears and stick it in your mouth.” But never a nasty, “Sit down and shut the fuck up.”

And truthfully, if anybody had said that to me in early recovery, I probably would have picked up a chair, thrown it at them and said, “Fuck you, I’m outta here.” I would have continued on in my active addiction and died. Or at least been in jail for assaulting an asshole in a recovery meeting.

While I’m going off on this tangent, I have a suggestion for old timers – “Sit down and shut the fuck up.” What the hell is with standing in front of meetings to chair? I hear the craziest excuses for standing at the chairperson’s seat (hhhmmm – CHAIRperson, chair. Do you see where I’m going with this?). “Stand for something or fall for anything.” “I’m so short.” ‘Can ya hear me back there?” etc, etc. And what is with sharing for 50 minutes or more? I was at a meeting the other night and the chairperson, with 9 years clean, who stood, shared for 45 minutes. To be followed by only two other people – one with 12 years and the other with 14 years. All three shared about the importance of helping the newcomer. How the hell can you help a newcomer if you don’t allow them the opportunity to share? What is your prblem and how can we help? They don’t get a chance to share what ails them.

I think in my next post I’ll talk about ‘Round Robins, Chairperson’s responsibility and calling out’.

THANK GOD FOR THE NEWCOMER and the magic wand

Ronald Parks — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:34:50 +0000

After my home group on Saturday night, we had a Group Conscience to elect our new Trusted Servants for the next six months. Just about everyone in the home group was given a position. We even make up positions so members can feel a part of instead of apart from. Later that night, when I got home, there were messages on my answering machine. One of my home group members insisted that I call him back right away. When I called him, he said he needed to vent and he went on to talk about the voting and this person and that. I figured he just needed to vent about losing a trusted servant position to a new comer. I told him not to take it personally. That a GC is what it is.

Early Sunday morning this same guy calls me back saying he needs to vent. I start thinking to myself, “Is this guy fucked up or something, that he doesn’t remember calling me last night to vent?” Well, he started venting and in the course of his tirade, he starts to take my inventory. Telling me that he doesn’t understand how some one with over twenty years clean can vote for a newcomer for that position and what kind of example to my sponsees am I? I started getting pissed and felt the need to justify to this hoodle head my actions but he wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise. Finally I had to tell him that this conversation wasn’t going anywhere and if he has a problem with me or what I do, I suggest he stay away from me. Goodbye, hang up.

I wish hanging up would hang up the conversation that was going on in my head the rest of the day. I could not shake his comments. I allowed this guy to live rent free in my head all day to the point that it gave me a headache. Not only did he live rent free, I was paying for all his utilities.

By Sunday night, I needed a meeting bad. So I go and my agitation grows when I get there and the secretary, for whatever reason, didn’t get a chairperson. So she asks this guy who I’ve heard quite a bit share, to chair. Then, he talks for about 40 minutes and I’m going crazy in my head and wanted to leave and go elsewhere. Then the miracle happened five minutes before I left – a newcomer shared.

I had heard this girl before share about her struggles at a halfway house and about being on methadone and her home group asking her not to share and that she can’t hold a trusted servants position (Methadone and recovery is a whole separate blog – ‘…only requirement, a desire to stop…’). Anyway, before I go off on that tangent, she shared Sunday night about the problems she is having with the house manager, that she’s being treated like shit by this person. She then made the statement, “I wish someone would wave a magic wand and make this person change towards me.”

And there it was – I thought, ‘There is no magic wand. Just keep coming back and work the steps and YOU will change’. Instead of kicking the guys ass who pissed me off, I need to kick myself in the ass for forgetting the simplicity of early recovery. I asked the guy to vacate the premises, that he could no longer live rent free in my head. I do that by replacing my negative thoughts with thoughts of God and to ask myself, what step do I need to revisit to make this ok?

So again, I would like to thank the newcomer and as far as that magic wand goes – pick up a Basic Text and start working the steps.

NEW BLOG AT WP

Ronald Parks — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:50:07 +0000

Writing about my daily life and on the history that I write at work, became a little too much and confusing. So what I did was to separate the two by creating another blog – this one. It is called Only with Vigilance and will be about my life and recovery. The other one, called Water and Me will be about my work. This was a lot of work to switch the two out and keep most of what I wrote intact. But here it is.

GOD’S WILL

Ronald Parks — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:46:42 +0000

While re-writing my early journals, I came across this entry:

May 25, 1987: Work, FTW group. Big Dave secretary. A girl named Debbie chaired. She was really good being that she only has 6 months in. It was supposed to be an anniversary but the guy who was celebrating didn’t show up. I think that is pretty fucking ignorant but to tell the truth, I felt really good at this meeting. Debbie talked for a while and then she threw it out. The topic was ‘God’s Will’. Wayne talked first and he hit on some things. Then Jamie talked. He said that last week, he fell off a building 30’ and landed on his head. He didn’t get hurt. He said at first he was numb and thought that he was paralyzed, but then he was alright. He talked about God’s Will. Now that I sit here and write these things, it makes me really think. I don’t know about what, but whatever is happening, is really good. Especially about what Debbie said. She said she was at Leakin Park, at the chapel there, with Dave, talking about herbs (They use to have a yearly herb festival there). It started to rain so they went inside. When she sat down, somebody told her not to sit in that pew because it was broken, so she sat at the altar. That quick, somebody sat down where she was at and the chapel was hit by lightning. The guy who sat where she had been, was struck. Dave put the fire out on the guy with his hands, then people tried to revive him. My mom said she read in the paper that he died. Talk about God’s Will. Well. I’m going to pray now and then go to bed.

God’s will is a funny thing and at 22 years clean, I still don’t know what His will for me is. I guess that is OK, because if I knew, there would be no reason to have faith. I could just go through life believing everything I do is God’s will and it doesn’t matter.

I read somewhere a description of God’s will – “Everything that I have no control over, is God’s will. Everything that I do have control over, is my will.

I know what I believe isn’t God’s will for me - to shoot dope any more, to rob and cheat, to be angry and hate and those sort of things that keep me sick. That’s my will and it will kill me.

SPEAKING OF GODZILLA

Ronald Parks — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:44:41 +0000

I know I flubbed the lyrics in my last post, so here they are. The inmate who sang this all night, didn’t know the lyrics either. Just try to imagine some stoned out dude repeating this over and over all night long!!

With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound
He pulls the spitting high tension wires down

Helpless people on a subway train
Scream bug-eyed as he looks in on them

He picks up a bus and he throws it back down
As he wades through the buildings toward the center of town

Oh no, they say hes got to go
Go go godzilla, yeah
Oh no, there goes tokyo
Go go godzilla, yeah

History shows again and again
How nature points up the folly of men
Godzilla!

JAIL 1975 – 1977

Ronald Parks — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:41:29 +0000

One of the earliest writings that I found about my life was from when I was in jail in 1975. It wasn’t so much of a daily journal as it was a biography of my life up until that point. I have most of the letters that I wrote to people while in prison but I haven’t had a chance to go thru them yet. They will tell the story of my daily existence while there.

Here’s what my daily journal would have been like if I wrote one:

It would read something like this:

Day 161: “Woke up to the sound of one of the gay boys on the bottom tier screaming. I guess his cell mate woke up with a hard on or something. Scratched my Johnson, took a leak, went to chow. Some yo stabbed a skin head in the eye with a spoon. Everyone put on lock-down, didn’t get to eat. Back in the cell, took a crap (god I hate taking a dump right next to where I sleep). Did some exercises, read a Louis L’Amour book. Only got a ½ hour out of my cell today. No lunch, still on lock-down. Dinner. Six skin heads beat the crap out of some black guy (not same one from this morning). Back on lock-down. Stupid fucks. Hope the commissary guy comes around so I can get something to eat.”

Day 162: “Didn’t sleep good. Some asshole was singing, ‘Oh no, lord you got to go, go Godzilla’ all night. (I hate the newbie’s who come in here, especially if they’re still stoned). Got up, scratched my Johnson. Went to chow. Same old shit – grits, burnt eggs and cereal. Stupid shit serving the grits told me he liked me. Told him I’d like to stab him in the fucking eye with a spoon. Guard grabbed me and thru me in lock up for the day. Shit, this place will be the end of me yet.”

Day 163: “Another restless night. Took me out of lock up and back to my cell about 2am. At least I got to eat in lock up. Too much drama at breakfast, so I skipped it. Exercise, read then sleep.”

That pretty much summed up my life in jail. I was twenty years old and in the Maryland penitentiary at the time. It’s memories like these that make me grateful I’m in recovery. At just a couple months clean, I remember hearing this girl share at a meeting that she was grateful she was an addict. It took a while to understand what she meant, but I too am grateful to be an addict. As messed up as my life has been while using (and even before), it is all that has happened to me, that brought me to the rooms of NA and my life has become what it is today. Life has never been better.

Thank you God and thank you NA.

Only With Vigilance

Ronald Parks — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:23:40 +0000

“We keep what we have, only with vigilance.”

This has got to be my most all time favorite saying in recovery. I even have it tattooed on my arm. Got it as a 20 years clean reminder of what it takes to get 20 years clean. Over the years it has taken on different meanings for me. Early in recovery, it was nothing more than part of the readings at an N.A. meeting – an introduction to the 12 Traditions. The Traditions stayed at the forefront of my recovery early on. Most of the people I met where into some sort of service work and I wanted what they had, so I got involved and learned about the Traditions. Later, as life happens, which is usually the case in most recovering addicts lives, I drifted away from doing so much service work. But I knew that if I didn’t stay vigilant, I would loose all that I had. Vigilance for me today is always trusting in God, talking to other addicts (one addict helping another) and reminding myself about recovery in one form or another.

“Live and Let Live”

To live my life while allowing others to live theirs. Not so easy. Mostly I want to be able to live my life as I see fit and you should live your life as I see fit. Actually, I’m starting to get pretty good at accepting people as they are and when the occasion arises that I have trouble accepting them, I stay away from them. I sometimes have trouble with people not accepting me as I am, especially people that I’ve known for awhile.

When I first came up on my one year anniversary, people kept telling me, “You’ve got to celebrate.” “You have to.” Through my self centered fear I would respond to them, “There are no must in NA and I don’t have to celebrate.” Some people would just keep nagging me every time they seen me. When I came up on 20 years clean, I saw one of those people again and when she found out my anniversary date, she said, “You’ve got to celebrate.” I just thought about when I had a year clean and how inadaquate I felt, but then I dismissed the thoughts. I didn’t allow her to live rent free in my head during the whole meeting like I use to. That was until she took it upon herself to share at the meeting about how ‘Oldtimers’ should celebrate, it’s their NA duty (?) to do that for the newcomer. After the meeting she approached me and said, “Nothing personal, but I really think you should celebrate.” I replied to her, “Nothing personal but, one of my favorite sayings from these meetings is ‘Live and Let Live’. She looked at me nastily and said, “What the F…, are you telling me to mind my own business?” “Yes”

After 20 years of people telling me I’ve got to celebrate, I’ve had enough. People, live your life as you want and allow me to live mine.

Self Promotion

Ronald Parks — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:19:23 +0000

Well, here it is! After a year of working on it, I finally finished. I actually completed this book last week but it took LULU a couple days to send me a copy. It came in yesterdays mail. This is my first attempt to write something and it was truly no easy task. My grammar isn’t the greatest and my Technical Writing teacher from college told me I write in ‘Tarzan speak’. I read soooo many grammar and style books in the course of my writing, my head started to spin. What made this the hardest was, I used the personal journals and notes from engineers and inspectors from back in the late 1930s. These guys kept really good notes, not only on the progress of building the tunnel, but also on the daily life issues at the work-sites. There were four on this project. But, their writing was terrible – not only the grammar, but the actually writing. One day they would write in script, which was hard to decipher, then they would print for a couple days. Matching up their print with script, I finally was able to decode most of the stuff.

I’m really glad I finally got this book done. When I received it in the mail yesterday, it was a rush – kinda like using drugs. You get that $55 pack of heroin and your heart starts racing in anticipation. Then you fire it up and your done. You move onto that next rush. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not going to go shoot some dope just because I wrote a book. I was just trying to compare how I felt when I received it.

It felt pretty good! Now I’m debating writing a book on my life in addiction and recovery, or to start a new water history book. Believe it or not, starting in 1792 and continuing thru today, there’s a lot of water history in Baltimore.

Cancun then Snow!!!!

Ronald Parks — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:17:07 +0000

Here I am on Saturday, at Chitzen Itza, Mexico. It was 85 degrees out. When I left Cancun on Sunday, it was 82. Got back to Baltimore and it was 39 degrees. Right now it is snowing and has been all day. That is so depressing. My wife is a travel agent so we get to go to far off exotic lands a lot. We stayed there for four days at the Riu Palace. They upgraded us from a room to a suite which was sweet.