NA SPEAKER TAPE ~ OUSMANE D ~ North Jersey Regional Convention #7

0:00 [Applause] i'm an addict my name is usman [Music] and i have to read this when speaking at a n a meeting we should be careful to deliver a clear message of recovery by identifying ourselves as addicts recovering from the disease of addiction it is not necessary to dwell excessively on our active addiction or war stories because we all know what it was like to use we came to narcotics anonymous to stop using and we're here to share our experience strength and hope of recovery once again i'm an addict my name is usman and i want to thank almighty god from whom our blessings flow first and foremost i want to thank the convention program committee uh for giving me this opportunity uh to

0:45 share my experience strength and hope especially at home you know it's just extra special when you can if you if you if you go before a judge and a jury it's best if you can get tried by the jury of your peers and so when you share it's also a blessing when you get to share before people who who've been where you've been done what you did creep like you creeped the whole night you know you understood you don't have to guess you don't have to worry about is anything going to fall through if it doesn't get translated if anything gonna fall on the floor fall through the cracks you know so it's real nice to be here you know and again i thank god because you know um you know i grew up with a firing

1:32 brimstone version of god i don't believe in that anymore and you could just take tonight you know i know my god has a sense of humor because he asked me to come and share on this topic that's funny right there you know asking me to share on why is it so hard to let go and the reason i say that is because i'm not going to play with you you know um i don't believe in standing for non-existent virtues you know um i i have a tenth step in my life and it teaches me that you know i i now have the privilege of thinking and thinking critically you know so a lot of times when you get a topic it's it's real tempting to do just a hit and run just assume if you ask why why why is it hard to let

2:18 go you know you just assume that you can let go somebody asked you just come tell us why it's so hard if you let go as if you can and what you need to know about me is i have never been able to let go cannot let go now and it doesn't look as though i will ever be able to let go in the foreseeable future no because there's an underlying assumption in the topic why is it so hard to let go assumes you can let go when everything i know about recovery

3:03 everything tells me how listen i didn't come here to make friends and learn how to influence people i got here because i couldn't let go [Music] if i knew how to let go i wouldn't be here i kind of just let go i went along with my life i saved myself a lot of time and energy and money sitting in a lot of smoke filled rooms you know a lot of traveling i'd have just saved it all and let go that's a question for people with common sense so for real it is addicts don't have common sense that's like asking how much is two plus two radicals tell you five

3:50 i said no i don't believe you heard the question i'm talking about two plus two yeah i heard you five yeah yeah i mean i'm very serious i'm real serious when i'm speaking because the fact of the matter is [Laughter] don't ask me to to make decisions based on common sense because i don't think like that you know if that were the case the first time somebody said you know if you do dope you you might develop a problem i would have said really thanks for sharing and that would have been the end of it you know most people who do cope usually develop issues i would have said thanks for sharing and

4:37 that would have been the end of it but that kind of stuff gets me excited he says don't dwell excessively on war stories and i'm not but you need to know i come from a background where if my tight man od yeah the only thing we did say well look at that little dumb bastard little greedy sucker that's just greed you just shouldn't do drugs if you don't know what you're doing this is what we did it never dawned on us to internalize well if it does that to him it might not be present for you we look for ways to prolong stuff not

5:24 let go we looked for ways to justify what we did that's right if you had a problem with then you got a problem [Laughter] it dawned on us to let go matter of fact we ran towards danger we looked for people with the purest

6:11 poison to give our hard-earned money to and were upset if they weren't out that's not the mindset of somebody that's into letting go i wasn't in the letting go i'm an addict and as such the best thing i learned was listen what gets your attention gets you if you're an addict that's right you better off looking where you're going because you're gonna go where you're looking what you got a disease that's you know progressive incurable and fatal cunning baffling and insidious and worst of all it defies detection diagnosis and treatment so you could be all in and you don't even know it

6:57 oh yeah you don't even see it coming god [Music] that's why i go to meetings that's why i keep coming back because i'm never going to reach a point where i'm recovered up with an e.d well i'm a power greater than myself where i don't fit the literature and i can say i've arrived i know how to let go you just let go no no i'm sharing seriously because people running around here talking some crazy [ __ ] kyle you just need to stop just let it go

7:44 [Laughter] and you sitting in the bleachers right couldn't be me then we're going to see how quickly you let go [Applause] do you believe all good sharon so-and-so you heard about good sharing so-and-so what they're all caught up that's what we do we like getting caught up

8:30 love it love being trapped by instant gratification you want to talk about letting go all the peace and serenity that i've enjoyed in recovery has not been because i've been able to fool myself into believing that i could let go my thinking doesn't even think in terms of letting go my feelings don't feel let go my feelings say that was good give me some more and the best you're going to get out of me is a whole bunch of justification rationalization explanation

9:17 and just try to explain it away that's what i do when i get caught up i'm caught up and it's only through the grace of god that anything else happens and i want to tell you something else i'm under no illusions after what will happen to me that's what it says always about the drugs yes sir you know i mean i tell joe blow average city an employer or somebody census taker or somebody doing a survey or a study public service type of undertaking do you use drugs no i don't do not how long have you not used drugs oh

10:02 almost nine years now and they can walk with that yeah yeah but i'm here with you and it ain't about trying to stand up here and saying it ain't about the drugs i still have drug dreams i know exactly what'll happen to me if i stop making meetings i'm under no illusions i still get like like michelle's shared upset when i see somebody not because what's going on on a deep level is i'm jealous [Music] you walk down broad market you see people all double over yeah look like they enjoying themselves

10:48 to me [Laughter] and and i get mad everybody no hell no nothing funny you need to make but what's going on on a deep level is i'm jealous cause i can't do that when i get real honest that's what's going on i can't do it because i don't know what happened to me i know what happened i can't believe in spooky stuff non-existent stuff like just once [Music] a little bit such thing as a little bit i don't want it all you know so one of

11:33 the things about this topic is you know uh i can't afford to be in denial you know if if if you see me struggling it's because i'm in denial [Music] you know i'll be in denial as to whether or not there's even a problem in the first place i always need eyes and ears around me i need you to tell me if i have a problem because nine times out of ten it's not going to look like a problem to me especially if i get a good feeling from it oh no who thinks that's lovely yes sir everything's fine how you doing fine crazy is all outdoors but i'm fine

12:18 because i'm getting a good feeling [Music] so if i engage in a letting go process one of the things about it is this i can't afford to engage my thinking in my field if i want to have any hope whatsoever of getting away from something that's bad for me because i told you nonsense makes good sense to me a lot of times i'm dead wrong thinking i'm dead right all right and just because something is bad for me in and of itself won't be persuasive so i need people to let me know what's going on to pull me out of denial because i can slide into denial don't even know i'm lying to myself i did that for so many years

13:04 you see trying to convince myself to believe in things like gritty willpower sheer determination i'm all right i can do this like control isn't like control is possible because i suggested to myself you ever suggest to yourself how you gonna manage some insanity [Music] planned managed insanity on thursdays on the weekends you know that's insanity me trying to plan that insanity is the most insane thing that you could think of you know and sometimes sometimes uh the struggle is not because i'm in

13:50 denial it's because i'm in refusal all right you know i can't let go because i ain't trying to let go i had a sponsor running around talking about i don't understand i understand i just can't get it you never will get it as long as it's got you how you gonna get it if it's got you it's impossible you know so this this letting go process is deep and i need to touch on the fact that we definitely are talking about a process you know it takes a process for me to

14:35 even realize there's a problem you know because a lot of times even if i'm not in denial and even if you point something out to me doesn't mean that i'm going to be willing ready didn't know just to do it right so to speak one for the road one for posterity [Music] yeah it's hard to let something go when you got reservations because see when you talk about letting go i'm talking about letting go i ain't talking about let go pick it up let it go pick it up let it go pick it up let it go pick it up let it go

15:23 you understand what i'm saying i'm talking about i'm talking about being the same person friday that you were monday i mean if you let it go monday being that same person friday no matter how many times it comes around you know that's it i let that go [Laughter] [Applause] but when we talking about letting go we're talking about letting go on a deep level

16:09 and it is real dangerous for any addict to convince themselves that they of their own accord have the power to do that i've always had a lot of help in any area where there's been any improvement in my life you know first of all this is not an odd topic it's a wee topic you know if you want to really get past something you better get some help and the first step is that the foundation is built when you ask for help you know when you share honestly look you know what man i am caught up that's right i'm caught up

16:55 then help is possible you know i'm addicted in this area with no sugar coating you know i'm caught up tell you tell you tell your tight people your crew network look here i'm caught up because sometimes you can after after a while see those caught up situations coming and then and then the question is then what you're going to do now if you stick around here and do some step work you will learn certain things about you like your flavor your predisposition you like that does it yeah you learn your flavor

17:40 you know what i'm saying because most times when one person is steady giving another person some preaching judging and moralizing advice about what they could should and would do with respect to this person here and what they would do if they were in that position it's only because that's not their flavor it's easy to tell somebody to walk away from chocolate when you're in the vanilla or vice versa [Applause] it's real easy you just need to stop that it couldn't be me yeah yeah but that's cause that's not your flavor inquiring minds want to see what happens when your flavor dries up

18:28 [Laughter] something you get a good feeling from now like tomorrow i got to work i probably won't get back here right and uh so i've been talking about it because i will don't feed my way back here because i like conventions and and i have a habit of doing what i like and then doing damage control after the fact [Music] let the chips fall when they met

19:17 later for the obligations and the commitments and this that and the other you see michelle was talking about desire like they talk about in the third tradition but and it works hard and why it says you need more than desire you need desire plus commitment just some principles you got to commit to practicing certain principles if you ever want to get to making some advancements commit to being the person you say you're going to be and doing the things you say you're going to do [Music] period point blank game over case closed despite my feelings and what i think because i think this convention is a lovely place to be and i feel like i should be here

20:07 i mean i feel it intensely and if i feed into my feelings and if i feed into what i think i'll be here and y'all see me tomorrow you don't be saying i thought you had to work like you know how it is what i'm saying about that if y'all see me here tomorrow i'm wrong something wrong i will only appear to be recovering go ahead watch that because sometimes you can appear to be recovering and you're moving in the wrong direction you're just around recovery you're not really down with recovery because you're going to be being in the first place

20:54 because recovery will be having your monkey as it were that's where recovery is for you that particular day so what you're doing there well that's the convention you know and hey you get to a point where that doesn't cut it [Music] you get to a point where you got to realize that vanity is a big part of our insanity you know and it ain't about just running around looking good and and being seen and all of that all the time 24 7. you got to do the right thing be where you're supposed to be and show up for life you know i want to talk about letting go of resentments i want them people

21:42 that absolutely loves a resentment you know i'm like a good resentment you know what i'm saying that you can kind of nurture and take care of and let grow over the years and everything like that you know and and and i'm sharing that because i ran into a joke that i had to resent and i couldn't even remember what the resentment was but i was just so much in the habit of having it and somebody made the mistake because what happened was a person came up and i said this month you get that little stink look look on your face like somebody fought it you know yeah boy and somebody was wrong he said

22:28 well what they do to you what they do to me they do to me so i don't know but it was [ __ ] up whatever they did was messed up so what i'm saying is this you know i was put in touch with the fact that look the first time somebody does something messed up to you you know you might you might be angry for a minute but depending on where you are in your recovery you know it says in the literature the program teaches us the spirit of forgiveness where there's been a wrong and the spirit of forgiveness is deep because it doesn't necessarily mean you turn on the cheek it just means there's a lot of things that comes under the rubric of the spirit of forgiveness you

23:13 might just practice some acceptance or that person is some sicker than others and move on you know or you might just understand rather than trying to be understood or you might just surrender quietly all of that's within the spirit of forgiveness you know what i'm saying but even if you can't quite bring yourself on the spot because i'm not standing here saying that i necessarily can i just read this you got good memories but i'm saying even if you can't kind of bring yourself to on the spot apply that and let's say you you get a resentment you know after the first time you experience it you can no longer blame that person for that feeling

24:00 so all the years and every time you run across that person after that let's say they smack this [ __ ] out of you just for example trying to think of something that would make you mad a person just smacked it left a hand print on inside yourself today that would upset you right right but now every time you see that person after that and you remember that smack on your face that's on you that's like you smacking yourself you making yourself refill and resense that same episode over and over again so now if you're a person like me who do you really have to blame for resenting that person every time you see first of all ain't even necessarily the same person they don't got better

24:47 you don't want stuck you know so so i'm real grateful for this program you know because see this program through these principles tells me that i need to uh get a god of my understanding and that's a wonderful thing because with that with doing that some real good things happen once you get a god in your life you get a gift known as generosity of spirit it's what you get you start developing a relationship with a god in your life and you will get generosity of spirit which is what you need to practice spiritual principles you see with generosity of spirit

25:35 you can practice patience and tolerance and love and all the different spiritual principles we talk about in recovery right they say when you when you when you know god k-n-o-w you know peace k-n-o-w peace when you have no god you know god then you have inno peace right so with coming to try to get closer to the creator comes the gift of generosity of spirit and when you have that generosity of spirit you can afford to overlook certain things you can afford to practice some patience and tolerance for some forbearance and on the flip side that's why it's hard to let go

26:22 if you don't have a god in your life you can't let go of nothing most of my struggles with letting go come when i'm not spiritually centered and grounded why i struggle in those instances is because i can't afford to let go if i don't have generosity of spirit then by simple deduction what i'm really buying into is scarcity lack limitation deprivation poverty consciousness so i want to hold on to anything that i can no matter what it is whether it's physical mental

27:08 emotional or what have you some understanding today when i see somebody engage in drunk behavior i'm looking at somebody that in their mind can't afford to practice spiritual presence they don't have a god in their life so you have no generosity of spirit so they therefore can't afford to do the right thing and why don't that patient person just practice a little patience in their mind they can't afford to just like before i came here and got a rapport with the god of my understanding i want what i want when i wanted it that's right they say uh patience is the opposite of addiction right so before i got here i had no patience

27:56 because i was a straight up addict active addict right and i don't want to sound like i'm sharing about the thrilling days of yesteryear i'm trying to share topically and currently too and if you're really listening to me you'll understand what i'm talking about because i'm talking about this in a fluid context because this stuff comes and goes [Laughter] i'm being very serious because when i'm not connected i don't have any patience because my mind tells me i can't afford to be patient when i'm not spiritually connected i'm

28:41 intolerant because in my mind i cannot afford to tolerate your [ __ ] [Laughter] yeah and then the arguments come up at home arguments come up on the job arguments come up with my kids because i don't believe i've slid from generosity of spirit into lack limitation scarcity deprivation and poverty consciousness right and now i just don't have time for your [ __ ] now you need to listen to me one time because i don't have time to keep repeating myself because i have no patience right i don't have time to keep repeating myself i want to tell you this one time i want you to get it right get with it

29:27 right now and do it now like i see so so i'm understanding the day that if i really want any any any hope in terms of um letting go i need to get connected up to the proper juice like i started out sharing in the beginning from where all blessings flow from if i want to shop at really letting go and uh just for the day i recommend anybody who's really interested in this topic read page 112 and 339. it's some real deep stuff on those two pages i don't have my literature with me now

30:12 but i can paraphrase for you uh they're talking about step six and seven right and um it says uh something to the effect that uh you know um we're powered just as powerless over our defensive character as we were over our addiction and uh if we really want to get better we humbly surrender and ask god to do for us what we cannot do and we wait and that's the key language and we wait [Laughter]

30:57 because you can go through this process humbly or arrogantly and sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference when i'm in an arrogant mode i can manage to convince myself that i can let go i spot this about myself i'm going to root it out right now and that's going to be about the end of that i don't like the way you're treating me you on permanent knockoff and it doesn't work like that that's arrogant you know that's arrogant that's me saying i'm gonna humbly go to god

31:42 in one breath and then the next next breath saying that i can do what it was that i humbly went to him to do you know so on page 112 it says that you know i humbly go to god and i wait and on 339 it says the more we struggle with letting go the more deeply entrenched it gets because you can't pick up one end of the pen without picking up the other you convince yourself that uh yeah see i'm over that you see them i don't mess with them i don't mess with them no more you know and and but in convincing

32:28 yourself you don't mess with him you're messing with them you understand what i'm saying just running around all day yeah right how you and what's i don't mess with him when all along the more deeply entrenched it's becoming all the while i'm convincing myself that's over i ain't i don't [ __ ] around not me i'm still dealing with the same thing same cake different icing i'm just approaching it from the other end

33:14 you could pick this pin up from the yellow tip you can pick it up from the black tip you're still picking it up so you know great care has to be used when one convinces themselves that they've let something go that's right you know you have to be really really careful you know it says uh on 339 uh nowhere in steps six and seven does it say that because we get in touch with something that we don't like that there's a kind thing we can do about it that's right that's our literature talking that ain't my stuff i said wow what yeah think about that just cause you get in

34:00 touch don't mean nothing you ain't got no juice at all you better get humble and pray to god and wait that's right and work in god's time instead of yours and work in god's manner instead of yours because you think you you you you making some progress and you you hustling backwards hustling backwards and i understand that from my own experience my life has taught me that i have had that experience where i thought i'm over that that's right yeah buddy i'm so glad too get a little dap a little taste a little wink little

34:46 smile a little anything and it's just like yesterday right you ever work on something for days weeks months years and run around shame like shakespeare talk about that that's it get a little hit and it's off right it's on all over again you know so i'm understanding today this is a deep dive you know because just because i can see something that you know i want to work with doesn't mean anything i'm going to share my uncle joe's story i'm going to shut it down you can be in recovery thinking you're living by the grace of

35:32 god and all along be living by the grace of your disease convinced that you're living by the grace of god because this disease that we have is so insidious it is so treacherous that you can know you can be all caught up and not [Music] you can think you're living by the grace of god and you're living by the grace of your disease you just caught up in a different way [Music] you know what i'm saying [Music] your disease is just transformed on you

36:18 and you can't see it but it's working that's why they say even during long periods of abstinence your disease is progressing now what do you make of that statement what i said i ain't using almost nine years so what your disease is working and growing and ready for you ain't going nowhere it's right there with you and it is more sophisticated than ever you are dealing now you know new cars come out a little early you're dealing with the 1998 version of your disease and smile it's got new stuff for you you know

37:04 new appointments in it new gadgets and stuff you better read the manual so you think you're living by the grace of god and you're living by so anyway back to uncle joe he's to take me fishing i i hate fishing today because he used to drag me out in the middle of the night the weak wake park i can share this for real here cause i'm home it was weak wake park wasn't like no big lake [Laughter] oh no oh no you're laughing but back in the day you used to go get these little dinghies get your fishing thing off

37:51 right that was big stuff to us that's about as much boat as we was gonna get and we had real fishing poles and stuff anyway we used to go out in a weekway park in the middle of the night and i was young and scared worried about killer monsters jumping about the water because it's pitch black now right and it's me and uncle joe and his favorite sausage sandwiches right they were good too but anyway we out there right and my thinking told me that the whole idea here is to get the fish out of the water into the boat that's why you go fishing right you're going to catch some fish right so we get out in the boat and uncle joe would promptly proceed to go to sleep

38:38 i think this a [ __ ] it's bad enough you got me out here i'm young i'm scared it's dark i'm worried about the gila monsters [Music] what kind of help you gonna be right and then when we would get a nibble and i thought he should really get excited and i wake i said i'll go choke you gonna be uncle joe okay wake up wake up and i said wake up we got a nibble and he'd wake up and he said boy you see that little latch on the side of the pole just hit that latch and get a fish some line get a fish some line boy and he'd go back to sleep so what kind of fishing is that you know fish going all in the other direction and everything you see michael joe knew

39:25 what the fish didn't know because see the fish thought that because he could jump about the water you know do his fish thing and show off and turn left and right he's doing his first thing you know he's still thinking he living by the grace of god but uncle joe knew that he was living by the grace of uncle joe cause he was hooked see and as long as he was hooked it didn't matter where he went because it was just a question of when uncle joe got ready to reel it in the only issues left was whether it was going to be fried or bacon whatever you see what i'm saying those are the only issues left [ __ ] think he's living happy joyous and

40:11 free but he's living by the grace of uncle joe and i'm i'm telling this story for a reason because for a long time i was in the rooms of narcotics anonymous thinking i'm living by the grace of god and i'm living by the grace of my disease it was only real providence or something that my disease no listen to me because you can be open without a drug that's what i'm trying to share here you can be gone with no substance and gone is gone

40:56 if you suffer from the disease of addiction if you suffer from the disease of addiction which is a sick pathological relationship to any minor mood altering experience with life damage and consequences gone is gone my disease don't care how it gets me hooked i'm living by the grace of my disease in the rooms of narcotics anonymous right accumulating clean time right got the recovering attic look but meanwhile back at the ranch i'm still hooked by the disease uncle joe had a what you call a bait box and and then he said this is where i said what's in there he said that's

41:42 listen to the language he said this is where i keep my lures i said what's a lure he said well allure is what you use to attract the fish you lure the fish so you gotta have different lures because you got different kind of fish you got your plain old dumbass all right fish you just old dumb fish you know you catch them then you throw them back and you catch them again with the same worm now we can laugh about that because we identify so well having bought garbage dropped right

42:27 haven't bought garbage and going right back to the same spot and bought more garbage just old dumbass fishing well maybe it wasn't acceptance for you maybe you had a dead-end relationship nowhere you knew it was over long time ago you were just waiting for another shoe to drop but you knew you knew it was over you knew you was hit you knew it was over because you just old dumbass fish choker look at that same little wormy out there

43:12 and there you go you know or instead of a worm maybe the fish is a little more sophisticated so you use a fruit fly so instead of the substance maybe you get hooked up on money property and prestige [Music] that's right maybe you get hooked up on shop till you drop maybe you will get hooked up on food i had the nerve to open up a restaurant same addict that could never deal drugs wonder why i'm gonna open up a restaurant and i gained about 30 pounds in record time i was my best customer

44:03 you see you see because i have to you have to give it to taste test i taste tested 30 pounds up on his ass just like that bang bang because i wasn't looking at the way in which my disease could shift on me i wasn't looking at the fact that how i could be hooked once again you know so so in closing you know why is it so hard to let go is a deep topic you know and it bears a serious thought by each and every one of us you know because none of us can afford to be in the least bit confused

44:49 as to whether or not we have juice in that area that's right the best thing to understand is that i don't let go of anything you help me get a daily reprieve this is what i get i get a daily reprieve from anything that causes me harm because the fact that it causes me harm in and of itself is not sufficient enough to keep me from reaching forward that's not going to get it all right the fact that it's dangerous poisonous lethal no good for me

45:34 can end me up in jail none of that impresses me [Laughter] matter of fact it excites me because my past is that i used to like going up in the spot with operation pressure point and clean sweep on [Music] i got an extra special satisfaction from getting in and getting out

46:26 and i would enjoy that just as much if not more than the high itself so i have to understand my real nature you know and i have to understand you know that i have to analyze things just a little bit more than the next person because what works for them might not work for me i'm like my name is [Applause] maybe please thank michelle usman once again for sharing [Applause] will somebody please reach us for today