My name is Fernando E. and I am a recovering addict.  Nothing here represents the views of anyone but my own.  I speak about my own personal struggle and recovery through the Grace of God, as I understand Him and the NA Program.

I am a living example of who is an addict! I am recovering from my spiritual, mental and emotional bankruptcy.  I am a prime illustration that those of us who do not die from the disease will go on to prisons, mental institutions or face complete demoralization as addiction progresses.  Like many of of you, I did hard time in the prison system.  As a prisoner, I became a person who most of society would rather not think about, banished from every day sight that dimly enters society's awareness.  I was a member of a "total institution" that controlled my daily existence in a way that few people in society can imagine:

"(P)rison is a complex of physical arrangements and of measures all wholly governmental, all wholly performed by agents of government, which determine the total existence of certain human beings (except perhaps in the realm of the spirit, and inevitably there as well) from sundown to sundown, sleeping, walking, speaking, silent, working, playing, viewing, eating, voiding, reading, alone, with others." E. Goffman,  Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates 1-125 (1961)

Through my painful, humiliating and humbling experience, I came to understand what personal responsibility is all about.

I would like to think that no one has ever been at the ends of demoralization, but I am sure we all have in one form or another.  Some more so than others.  For me, demoralization best describes how low I went to find the money I needed to buy my drugs of choice and to fill the voids of my life.  The pain I caused my family, friends and society is beyond forgiveness.  I seek serenity and personal healing.  Through NA, I have found a new way of life.  Through my higher power and the steps, I shall find serenity and I shall heal my emotional wounds.  

Like most addicts, I am in NA because I faced 3 disturbing realizations:

  1.  I am powerless over my addiction and my life is unmanageable;

  2.  I am not responsible for my disease, but I am responsible for my recovery.

  3.  I can no longer blame people, places and things for my addiction.  I must face my              problems and my feelings.

The first step for me was to admit that I am an addict and that my life had become unmanageable.  I had to admit to myself, to God and to another human being the disturbing reality that I have an incurable disease called addiction.  Addition, as our NA Basic Text so eloquently states, is "chronic, progressive and fatal." 

Since the age of 11, my whole life and thinking was centered around drugs in one form or another.  I lied, cheated and took things from others so I could get high.  My disease expressed itself in ways that were "anti-social and chronic", to say the least.  Drugs controlled my life until I reached bottom and found the NA Way. 

 CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY AND ANALYSIS

I remember very little of what took place in my life from the ages of 11 to 17.  From the ages of 17 to 20, I can remember only what the contributing factors were that brought me to prison.  The bits and pieces that I have managed to remember outside of those factors are so painful that I have chosen to forget them.   Part of me wants to work on many of these issues through my NA Program so I can finally gain some serenity and peace of mind; after all, there has to be emotional pain in my life before the healing can begin.  The other part urges me to let it go and start over. 

When I was in the county jail in 1987 awaiting trial, my life was so messed up that the only concern I had was where I could get my next fix, not what would happen to me if I ended up in prison.  For some reason, I thought that I could not survive without drugs in any given situation.  I was afraid. A that particular time, I went though heavy drug withdrawals.  I didn't think I would make it back to the streets or to prison alive. 

I was found guilty of crime and sent to prison for many years. When I arrived at the intake institution of the correctional system, I was in bad shape.  I was there for three weeks and those weeks where like h*ll? to me.  My mind, body and soul wanted to get high so bad that I would have done almost anything to get my self some drugs.  My safety and well being was not even a concern to me. 

I was sent to a maximum security prison. It was there I realize that I was powerless over my addiction and that my life was unmanageable.  I did not know what to do, who to talk to or where to go and ask for help.  I needed some time to think alone and sort out my life.  I did know that I could not continue to do what I was doing to myself and others.  It was at that point I made the decision to change my life.  I was tired of hurting and being hurt.  I was tired of the pain that comes with being an active addict.  So there I was, a 20 year old Chicano man, born in the United States, without any formal education, primarily speaking Spanish.  The taste of my tears had a different flavor than ever before. While I was able to taste the pain, loneliness, emptiness and desperation, I could also taste a bit of hope.

I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in a three week Drug and Alcohol Education Program.  This program got me started in the right direction.  Right after completing this program, I got involved in AA.  Because my issues where deeper than just alcohol, I started a campaign to establish a NA Group at the maximum security prison.  World Services Office (WSO) had provided me with an address to write and to ask for assistance.  Unfortunately,  I was unable to get the  prison superintendent to support my attempts to bring NA into the prison and more importantly, I was unable to get a response from that particular Wisconsin Area (no names to protect innocent people) at that time (we are talking about in the early 1990's).  Believe it or not, I had many important people supporting my goal including two state senators and a U.S. Senator.  In addition to the NA Area Service address, WSO sent me a NA Basic text.  As soon as I received the NA Basic text. I started working on my NA recovery, and along with my strong desire to stop using and my goal to becoming a productive, law-abiding, and tax-paying citizen kept me going and got me where I am today.

While incarcerated in the maximum security prison, I went back to school and earned my High School Diploma, an Auto Servicing Mechanics Vocational Diploma, a Graphic Arts Diploma, Basic computer science certification and a Diploma as a Paralegal/Legal Assistant in Specialized Areas of the Law: Legal Research and Litigation through Southern Career Institute. SCI offered this course through correspondence and I was interest in this valuable career.  I was tired of being trash and I wanted to do something with my life.  My desire, hard dedication and thousands of hours that I put into my dreams have been paying off. 

I spent several years in a maximum security prison.  I worked my NA Program on my own.  I read the NA Basic Text and the steps but I was unable to work them while I was there.  Not because I couldn't but because I was afraid of them and there was no one I could talk to.  The programs such as the Rational Behavior Therapy, DV and one-on one counseling and the Self Help group help got over my fears. 

Some years later, I was transferred to a medium security institution.  In that institution, I was introduced to my first NA Group. I was excited because I had been looking forward to the day in which I would be able to work more in depth with NA.  I worked my program to the best of my ability, but soon I found out that most of the inmates go to NA not because they want to change, but because they want to look good for the parole board and the program review committee.  This part discouraged me a bit, but it did not stop me from growing in my recovery.  I participated in NA and I went back to school to earn a Diploma in Horticulture from the Fox Vally Technical College. 

About a year later, I was transferred to another medium security institution.  While there, I attended a few meetings and stopped going to the NA group because it was counterproductive to my recovery.  The issues being discussed in many instances were not reasonably related to any recovery goal and I did not sense any sincerity much less spirituality.  The group was composed of individuals who wanted to hear themselves rather than addicts looking for the NA Way.  I did not sense any honesty.  The most discouraging part of all, is that most of the prisoners have been going to NA for quite sometime;however, none of them had a concept of what NA is all about.  Most of them have not even read the NA Basic Text.  It has always been available in every correctional institution that I have served time. 

During my time there, inter alia, I participated in the Living Skills Class, the Foundry Vocational Training, the Anger Management Counseling and some college classes.  Again, my desire to stop using, my honesty, my progressive, simplistic, idealistic dreams and program were working for me.  Why? Because I was doing it for myself.

A couple years later, I was transferred to another medium security institution.  I attended the NA meetings being held there.  The group was small but there were some men who were interested in their recovery.  I also attended college and earned a Diploma in Small Business Training from the Moraine Park Technical College along with some extra college credits.  I also completed the Cognitive Thinking Intervention Program Phase I and II.

Finally, I was transferred to a minimum security center where I found the NA group that I have been looking for.  A group of people that are real with themselves and that are looking for a new way of life.  While I will always be skeptical about inmates (even though I was one myself), I will always give any one the benefit of the doubt.  After all, as the NA Basic Text clearly states, "the ultimate weapon for recovery is the recovering addict.  We in NA concentrate on recovery and feelings not what we have done in the past." 

I felt blessed at that minimum security center.  I met many recovering addicts who were inmates themselves and others who have supported the idea of bringing the NA message to the addict that still suffers into the institutions.  I believe in the clear NA message. 

The people that I met from the NA community were and are unbelievably serious about their recovery and th services that they offer as part of their recovery.  Their integrity and honesty is to be commended.

For me, part of the road to recovery, includes honesty, integrity and love.  Without these components, there can not be any serious recovery in mind.  I must be open to suggestions and willing to try the NA way.  I have learn to treat people with respect and dignity. This interpretation of integrity, honesty, love and those components that go along with them, I gather from the reading of JUST FOR TODAY! As I said, I work my program.  I interpret the readings the best way I can.  The key to success is simplicity!  Keep things simple and work your program. 

The NA Program has given me a new way of life.  I have been participating in NA for  years.  To be a member of NA, there is only one requirement; that, is, "the desire to stop using!"

I do not desire to go back to the same places, people and activities that I used to be associated with when I was using.  As our NA Basic Text states: "Old friends, places and ideas are often a threat to our recovery.  We need to change our playmates, playgrounds and playthings."  This is exactly what I did.  I chose a new way of life; that is, the NA Way!

The road to recovery has not been easy for me. Nevertheless, it gets easier as times goes by.  Today I have a choice.  Today I choose not to use.  Today I choose to live a clean, meaningful and enjoyable day.  The NA way is a miracle and if you are sincere in your program, it will work for you as it has been working for me and as it has worked for thousands of addicts.  Otherwise, you will end in a prison, mental institution or death.  If you do not believe that addiction possesses a threat to our well being, read the following scientific facts: 

FACTS ABOUT ADDICTION AND CRIME 

According to Joseph A. Califano Jr., founder and president of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse located at Columbia University in New York City, Drug and Alcohol abuse and addiction are implicated in the crimes and incarceration of 80 percent-some 1.4 million-of the 1.7 million men and women in U.S. prisons.  1.4 million inmates violated drug or alcohol laws, or were "high" at the time they committed their crimes, or stole property to buy drugs or have a history of drug and alcohol abuse and addiction-or had some combination of these characteristics.  Among these prisoners are parents of 2.4 million children, many of them minors. 

One of every 144 American adults is in prison for a crime in which drugs and alcohol were involved. Due largely to alcohol and drug addiction, the rate of incarceration for American adults was 868 per 100,000 in 1996, compared with less than 100 per 100,000 for most European countries and 47 per 100,000 for Japan.  While today's 130,000 female inmates constitute only 7.7 percent of the prison population, their numbers are rising at twice the rate of increase for male inmates.  Drugs and alcohol have also been part  of the lives of 80 percent of these women.

PRISON RACIAL MAKE UP 

Blacks, 11 percent of the adult population, comprise 46 percent of state prisons, 30 percent federal prisons and 42 percent of all prisoners.  Hispanics, nine percent of the adult population, comprise 16 percent of state, 28 percent of Federal and 17 percent of all prisoners.  Incarcerated in 1996 were 744,678 blacks, 289,956 Hispanics and 619, 138 whites.

The commune denominator among the above inmates is not race or ethic back ground.  It is drug abuse and addiction.  The proportion of state inmates who have a history of regular drug use is essentially the same regardless of race or ethic background: 61 percent of blacks, 65 percent of Hispanics, and 63 percent of whites. 

Criminal recidivism is very much a function of drug and alcohol abuse. 

CONCLUSION 

As a recovering addict, I am now able to distinguish between religion and spirituality.  Religion is for those individuals who are afraid of going to hell.  A spiritual program like NA is for those addicts like myself who already have been to hell.  Our spiritual program, if worked diligently, will keep us away from empty, painful and destructive world of addiction, known as hell.  As a recovering addict, my primary purpose is to stay clean and to carry the message to the addict who still suffers.  The new comer is the most important person at any meeting, because we can only keep what we have by giving it away. 

I did not want to be a statistic any more.  I am not a victim of the circumstances; I am a victim of my own making.  As such, I have the power to change the direction of my life.  NA has done for me.  NA is my spiritual foundation that keeps me going.  May God as you understand Him, guide your life and brings you the spiritual power, through NA to free you from the world of destruction.   You do not need to go through what I went through.  You do have a choice between life or death.  It is your choice. 

In conclusion, if you do not learn anything from this brief story of my life, than you are not ready to change.   The whole point of this personal sharing is that recovery is possible.   The Narcotics Anonymous Program works if you work it.  I now live a productive life style.   

Cordially,

Fernando E.