Kevin's Story - Kevin S (room on the broom read aloud txt) 📗

every mistake you can make and stay clean, not sober, for any length of time.
When I was finally committed to Detox for three months, I came to believe my drinking and life was out of control. When I came out of high school, my goal in life was not, homeless street drunk. I had given this living stuff my best shot, and ended up here, committed by family and doctors.
I decided that maybe I should take some advice and direction.

Step 2 Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Now this step gave me a lot of trouble until I straightened some things out in my mind. Like most new people I thought they were talking about GOD. I’m an agnostic, which I define as, The universe runs too smoothly to be a complete accident, But I KNOW I don’t know how it works and I really don’t think you do either. And not just you, I don’t think any organized religion has THE right answer. In fact I find it very arrogant for anyone to claim they understand the will of God. I know my mind is incapable of that feat.
But I’m a practical type of person. I really like cause and effect. I have trouble with things based on faith.
But being a practical person I could see some cause and effect , especially when it hit me in the face. This time around I kept going to meetings; I started to listen to the similarities instead of the differences. I heard people telling how they had been feeling as bad as I did. And by quitting drinking and doing the steps they now had lives worth living.
Well I wanted some of that; I wanted to feel that life might be worth the effort. These people were smiling and laughing, what did they know that I didn’t. Because, at the time I did not want to live. I was giving this living crap one more try, because my daughter still wanted me to be her daddy. So these people knew something I didn’t, and I believe knowledge is power.
These people had more power than I did, that made them a power greater than me, and for the most part they seemed some what sane. Maybe they could restore me to sanity. You only have to hit me with a brick a few times before I get the message. I should listen and follow their advice; these crazy people seemed to care about each other. They didn’t ask you to earn their love and care. And that was a completely new idea, up until now I felt I had to earn everything, anyone “gave” me.
So I took the second step.

Step 3 Made the decision to turn or will and our lives over to God as we understood him.
Another hard step for me at first. God I didn’t understand at all. Just a couple of months ago I took my last breath. Everyone said I should not be alive, and I agreed. So why was I still alive, I had been stabbed in the chest thirteen times, I shouldn’t be. People kept telling me God had a plan for me, my will to live was stronger than my pain. There must be a reason God kept you alive. I just kept telling them, okay, maybe. I had no idea, and still don’t.
I settled the issue in my mind by giving up, trying to answer the question.
I decided to just go with the flow, and try and not worry if there was a greater plan for me. I decided to just keep trying to do the next right thing. And the next right thing and be all most anything. Early on it was getting up cleaning my self up, and doing what ever I was supposed to do. In treatment it meant going to groups and really trying to participate. To be honest with
the group and especially myself. It meant to go to meetings and really trying to share. It meant gong to my shrink and having the guts to really open up and let another human see who I really was. This was terrifying. I had never really trusted anyone for as long as I could remember. But to give sobriety an honest try I had to do it. And in my book an honest try means giving it your best effort. When ever I was unsure as to what the next right thing was, I asked some people I trusted and felt knew what they were talking about.
When there was no one to ask, I would sit as quite as my mind would let me and try to listen to that little voice we all have in our heads. That voice our parents tried to instill in us. We know right from wrong, and if we really listen to that voice and try to do our best by ourselves and others, we don’t go to far wrong.
Now my whole recovery program can be stated in just a few words. I’m just a guy who is trying to do the next right thing. And if that little voice comes from God well, fine, I don’t care. I am going to give this living stuff my best shot. I’m going to do the next right thing what ever that means at the time, especially when it come to others.

I was afraid that Kevin couldn’t give a sincere account of going through the steps of the AA program, a process I found essential. I was also afraid he was losing his momentum for this entire project. I expressed these notions, and he replied:


Hi Letty
No not at all, I very much want to continue. Have been very busy of late. I'll work on the rest of the steps and have something for you very soon. I have been asked to speak to 140 nursing students tomorrow am; that will be the biggest crowd yet.
I have been through all the steps Letty. I never really had a normal sponsor. I did have about four people I would ask for advice.
I did the fourth and fifth step with a shrink. It tool me a very long time to open up. but it was that or die. It took about a year after I sobered up to find a reason to live.
The511 Alano Society owns the building that the AA groups meet in. AA is not allowed to own property, so the Alano society holds the building in trust.
I was asked to be on the board for my people skills, I was a care taker at the club. I knew most everyone. At the next election I was reelected and voted VP.When the then President resigned, I became the Pres. And at the last election I was reelected. Not too bad for a homeless street drunk. The board sent me to a leadership conference, put on by a state wide organization for 12 step clubhouses state wide. They asked me a couple of months later if I would become part of the steering committee. So I'm also on that as well; we laid down the by-laws for the new Wisconsin association of 12 step clubhouses. They did ask if I might be interesting in running for that board, I turned that down in no time.
Well it's time for me to crawl in for the night, remember I work third shift.
Thanks again
Kevin

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Notes on Michele
I met Michele in 1984. I first noticed her at work. I was a supervisor at a big factory. Michele was working in the department next to mine. The factory made many different types of seasonal products. I was making swimming pools, the ones blue ones with the cartoons inside, and her department made coolers and surfboards out of Styrofoam.
I had been recently been dumped, by another black woman. It seemed as if she was more interested in my money and what I could do for her and her child. When I moved form Wisconsin to Virginia, Child support lost track of me for a few months, so I had some extra income, temporarily. But when they caught up with me, which I knew was going to happen, her interest in me faded away quickly. I found myself very lonely and hurt; I didn’t understand what had happened until later.
Which brings me back to Michele; she worked in plain view of my department. She was a good looking black woman, about 5’ 7” around 135 pounds with coco colored skin, and use to wear these stretch jeans. There seemed to be a lot of bending and stretching involved in the operation of her machine. Before long I had a great deal of interest in just who she might be.
After watching for about three weeks I finally screwed up my courage to talk to her. There was some danger in this because it was the south and I was a supervisor. I at least wasn’t her supervisor. I made some silly comment about the hat she was wearing. I told her I liked it , I didn’t, but it did break the ice .We talked about nothing for about five minutes . I then asked if she would care to have a beer with me after work. So we drank a couple of beers in my car, I worked the evening shift and you couldn’t buy beer after work so I kept some in a cooler in my car. We seemed to hit it off.
I was so lonely that I just sort of dumped everything on her. I didn’t have anyone else to talk to. I found out much later that my becoming interested in her was a well planned out maneuver. She had been trying to attract my attention. My dumping my sad sob story scared her at first. She later said, she thought I might be more than a little crazy. But when I didn’t do anything else crazy, she decided to give me another chance.
I found out about three dates into it that she was living in a battered women’s shelter. I can’t really remember just how it came about. But after about three weeks, I was helping her move into a real dump; it was furnished in early junk. We finished hauling her stuff into her new place, and retired to my place for the night. Some where in that night I said you should just move in here, that I really didn’t like the neighborhood and the condition of her place. Before I really knew what was happening she was all moved in. It seemed awful fast but things were moving fast in her life and she needed to get out of the shelter.
Things were really good for a little while; it was more than a bit like a honeymoon. But about a month later, things started to get strange. She had called into work saying she was sick. She wasn’t sick when I left,. I started work earlier than. she did.. When I got home that night my place was all torn up. Throw rugs pulled up, the cushions on the couch thrown about the room. I had no clue what had happened. She explained that she had called in to go out with some of her friends, and the room was torn up because she had been looking for an ear ring, and didn’t have time to put the place back together. I bought it, but it just didn’t set well. The next Thursday night she didn’t come home from work, she rolled in about