I got notice that Buddy K of San Francisco died yesterday after a
protracted struggle with Hep C.
Buddy was my first friend in NA, we met the very week I got clean and he pretty much held my hand through the following months of early recovery, and I'm not sure I would be around today if it were not for him. We didn't remain close friends over the long haul, but I've not forgotten how important he has been to my recovery.
Buddy loved and lived NA to the fullest; he was one of our pivotal Old-timers who helped write our BT, and instead of me trying to paint a picture of him, I will just post here what he himself wrote last year
Here is his story (unedited):
Resentment and Gratitude, Anger and Forgiveness
Buddy K, March 2004
My clean date is 15 September 1976. Which was the first meeting of the Hope
Without Dope Gay (Open to All) group of Narcotics Anonymous in San Francisco. After many years of working the Steps, meetings and Spiritual Development, it seems to me that I should have freedom from resentments and anger, but, in my experience, no such luck. So I need to work the program on a daily basis to maintain some level of recovery. Fortunately, this is possible.
I have a spiritual life. I pray at night before I go to sleep: "thank you for this day, forgive me, watch over me as I sleep, be with all the sick and suffering addicts in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous and all the ones not here yet." I pray in the morning when I wake up, "thank you for this day, take my will and my life, guide me in my recovery, show me how to live."
I work the Steps of Narcotics Anonymous as a program of recovery. I have formally worked the Steps several times. I need to work them again. I look at my life and my decisions and actions in the light of the 12 Steps of Narcotics Anonymous. What I mean is, often at night, while I lay in bed, I go over my day with help from the 12 Steps.
I love the literature of Narcotics Anonymous. I think that our new Sponsorship book is just wonderful! I love our Basic Text. I can pick up our Basic Text and start reading on any page and I receive the message of Recovery.
I was born in 1945. My mother had a substance abuse problem and we had an inappropriate relationship. I grew up in a chaotic family. I felt arrogance and shame. When I got loaded, I felt better. My dad came home every winter and we became friends, but in the spring he left for work. I understand now about "abandonment issues", but for many years in recovery, I had no idea, not a clue.
When I was 14, I told my folks that I was "queer" and they freaked out and sent me to a psychiatrist who put me in a mental hospital and gave me shock treatments, which were the standard treatment for homosexuality at that time. The shock treatments failed, I am still "queer". But I left that hospital, with a cold heart, in anger and resentment and fear. For the next fifteen years, I got loaded, had sex and moved on. I never stayed in one place for long. I never stayed with one man for long. I thought that every relationship was a bookkeeping problem: how can I get what I want without giving much in return.
I tried to join the Marine Corps during Viet Nam but they wouldn't let me in so I joined up with the Navy MSTS (Military Sea Transport Service) and I worked in the engine room of ships that took bombs and ammunition to Viet Nam. I was introduced to opium in Viet Nam. Opium healed me. When I returned from Viet Nam, I had a real monkey on my back and, in San Francisco, in the early 1970s, I tried everything to chase the nod I got from Opium, but nothing worked.
Years passed and I got in more and more trouble. Finally, I tried recovery, and it took about a year before I was able to stay clean, one day at a time.
During the winter of 1976-1977, San Francisco was preparing to host the 7th
World Convention of Narcotics Anonymous for the fall of 1977. The Convention
Committee railroaded me into being chair of the hospitality committee (I was
two or three months clean at the time) and my job was to get volunteers to
staff the hospitality room on two-hour shifts from Thursday until Sunday.
We went all over Northern California to publicize the World Convention
and I introduced myself to NA members and asked if they would do a two hour
stint in the hospitality room. Everyone said "yes"! I filled up my roster
with NA members from San Jose and Oakland and the Peninsula, as well as Santa
Rosa and Stockton and Fresno!
At the 7th World Convention, Jimmy K and Greg P and others from Southern
California, as well as Bo S from Georgia talked about writing our Basic Text. We formed a literature committee and started to pass around what we were writing. In Northern California, we started a newsletter, "The Mainline", and we published some of the early drafts of various sections of our Basic Text. In the fall of 1979, we had the first World Literature Conference in Wichita, Kansas. Bob Bergh gave me $400 (I was broke, no job, etc) and I flew off to Wichita for the conference. It was held at the NA Club in Wichita, "Ash House".
Some of the difficulties about the writing of our Basic Text included the belief of most people that "addicts can't write", and another opinion, often expressed, "Why do you addicts have to rewrite the Big Book, isn't the Big Book good enough for you?". At the Wichita Literature Conference, during the first meeting, there were maybe 10 or 15 of us in the meeting room and after the Serenity Prayer, Bo walked over to a closet, opened the door and pulled out a steamer trunk into the middle of the room. He opened the trunk and picked up handfuls of written material and gave them to each one of us.
When I saw these pages and pages of material for our Basic Text, I
knew that we had a book, a book of our own, a book written by addicts for
addicts, "so that no addict never need die without first having heard about
recovery in Narcotics Anonymous."
One of the fellows I met, Mac McD from San Jose (now Santa Rosa) spoke at the Friday night All Groups meeting at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. You've all heard Mac's story! He talked about getting out of Viet Nam and being sent to a psychiatric hospital where they gave him shock treatments. Except, for Mac the shock treatments were like a carnival ride and he wanted more! When Mac told his story, I was able to see my experience from a different point of view. What for me had always been a memory associated with shame and embarrassment, was for Mac, a joyride! As a result, I was able to start talking about some of the stuff in my life that I had held
secret and my recovery began to develop. Mac's NA pitch saved my life; I love you
Mac. So I asked Mac to be my sponsor and I have learned a lot from him. We
both worked on the Northern California Regional Service Committee. We went
down to the World Service Conference together.
All the years have passed and I still love to hear Mac share about "pounding
the the treatment room door, demanding some more juice!" Then HIV struck hard and most of my friends got sick and died. It was a terrible time. I lost a couple partners and many many friends. I shut down and withdrew. I was angry and ungrateful and resentful, but God still carried me, even when I was in the worst place. I went to meetings but I did not participate. I didn't talk to newcomers, I didn't do H&I, I didn't volunteer for any service commitments. I didn't even attend NA Conventions.
I just closed down and hung on. Then the darkness slowly passed and I
felt better. I started to participate again, I got some sponsees, I asked Mac
to sponsor me again. Now for the last few years I feel like I am alive
again.
I am grateful.
Mac taught me about forgiveness. If I am unwilling to forgive others, how
can I ask forgiveness of them? If I am unwilling to forgive others, how can
I forgive myself? So I travel through the 12 Steps as a journey in forgiveness. I am powerless over my resentments, my anger, my bitterness and belligerence; so I forgive everyone who has ever harmed me. I want to be restored to sanity from the insanity of my guilt, remorse, shame and regret, so I ask forgiveness from everyone I have harmed. I make a decision to turn my will and life over to God, and I ask God to forgive me. God, please forgive me for every dumb and stupid thing I have ever done.
Well, that's God's job! That's what God does best! God forgives. God forgives.
I pray for the willingness to learn my truth and to speak my truth. I pray
for the courage to do the right thing, to keep my commitments. I pray for
power to carry out God's will. I try to carry the message to the addict who
still suffers--often that addict who still suffers is me, so I forgive me.
Buddy, I forgive you for every dumb and stupid thing you have ever
done. I forgive me. I forgive me. I am forgiven.
The promise is freedom, the message is hope. Take my will and my life, guide
me in my recovery, show me how to live.
