Clean and serene for 22 years and it feels like this year I was really tested.

First  off , living in a cold strange country for a 3rd World guy like me was the first test.  Everything so ordered, structured and prejudiced against people who did not fit in with the rest. I ertainly wasnt in the fit and had to face many hardships. No, dont ge me wrong and think I was doing something that was illegal or rebellious etc. I was there as a bonafide student and had every legal reason to be there. Just that people there are basically wary of strangers for whateer reason and judge them all the same. The point was that I was a legal, productive and responsible person there, conributing to the economy and culture there.
God gave me the guts to confront people in those situations, and I believe I came out with flyng colours.

Then to find NA meetings and find interaction with NA members was the next test . Believing that the theraputic value of one addict helping another is without parallel gave me courage.but it did not change  reality even within the Fellowship. I had many good recovery friendships but had  to work hard at it. It seems like it was my job to constantly fight the bias of many members who I sensed judged me as a person who had to prove himself in order to be trusted and accepted. After sometime that becomes a dreary routine. So took in sponsees, shared a lot and did lots of sevice.

Then the Masters degree was no joke or picnic. Bias from tutors who kept harping on first language issues and blockng the minds of students from other lands and not giving them a fair chance at coping was a very real challenge. Then again, students were much younger than me and socialising with them did not happen and makes you feel more lonely.
So I studied harder and came  top of the class.

The break up with the girlfriend was saddening, adding to the distress that was already there. I learnt in NA that the only way to cope is Pray and Meditate and it worked this time too !

The cost of living was ridiculous,,, Im now out of pocket and have to work hard to repay loans.

Then there has also been distress from lots of airtravel. I think the total airmiles I did ths year has been about 70000 miles. This is simply because I had to keep coming back home to be
with my aged mother, my teenage daughter who Id brought up as a single parent most of he life and also to attend o the business of setting up residence in my new home.
I used the NA Fellowship Principle to survive, and boy does it work. Constant networking with NA members has been the boon.

This same Principle took me through the hep.c tretment which got ver last nite. Six months of liiving hell with those burning injections and energy cutting tablets saw me face one of the greatest challenges in  my entire recovery !  The nurse specilist was kind,,Im gretful to Keely. But the hep.c. support group, was a bloody hoax, what with the constant interference of that idiot social worker who had no ue about how it felt but insisted on controlling things all the time. It was NA members that had done the treatment  and shared freely with me that  kept me effortlessly in clean time. But God knows that it was uto me to ake the emotionl, mental and spiritual efffort to sustain the support I got.

So all that said and done, I greatful that my sponsor and close NA friends saw me through another year clean,, and here I am at home, away from biting cold and miserable lonliness,
safe and secure and quite serene by The Grace Of God in m own home..

It was nice shaing with you all,,, thanks.

Im greatful that I have been informed that an addict, any addict cn lose the desire to use nd find a new way to live !

God Bless yu addicts whereve you maybe,,,, and a very Happy and Prosperous New Year to one and all !