So my name’s Kel, I’m a very grateful recovered addict. My sobriety date is the 15th of April 2021 and it was actually the 13th of April 2021 that I’d logged on to my first meeting of Cocaine Anonymous. Prior to that I’d lived the full life of addiction.
I managed to accomplish some great things in active addiction. However, addiction just started to rip me apart in all areas of my life. I just couldn’t stop using when I did not want to.
I tried everything else that life has to offer, drug addiction services, mindfulness courses, weekend retreats. I tried all of the things, all well-meaning people. I learned some great stuff doing all those things.
I walked out of every single one of them and used. It got to the point for me where I just felt utterly, utterly hopeless. I despised the human being that I’d become.
I was coming home to my baby daughter, wasted. And I just, it got to the point where I really started to flirt with the thoughts associated. I couldn’t live the life that I was living anymore and I did not want to put my family through it anymore.
That was the hardest thing for me, coming home every night and just breaking their hearts over and over and over and over again. And I’m waking up the next morning and the decision already being made somewhere on a different level that I could control, that I had to go and get the gear. For me, at the very end, it had got like that.
I knew when I woke up, I’m going to get it. There’s nothing that I can do about it. And I became like the third person in my life.
I wasn’t even a copilot anymore. I was watching myself just destroy my life. And about six months prior to going on to my first meeting, while doing a counselling course, my counsellor told me that there’s a thing called Cocaine Anonymous and that we didn’t have it in Ireland.
Now it was in Ireland, it just wasn’t across the border into the north of Ireland. But in the north of Ireland at that point in time, well still now, if I search Google, it brings me to Google UK. So on that meeting with her, when I searched Cocaine Anonymous, it brought me to the Google UK website and we got the phone number.
Now I never made the call until six months later. And in those six or eight months it was, I literally spiralled completely and utterly out of control. I came home one night, the mortgage company were taking the house off me.
I came home and my partner was packing her and my daughter’s bags for the third time. I was a suicidal mess. I had enough cocaine and I was hoping it was going to kill me.
And I just sniffed it all, just kept sniffing, hoping it was going to kill me. And a half a bottle of brandy, I knocked that into me. And on the table was a laptop, the notepad that I was taking notes down in while I was doing the counselling course, and my late father’s paddy cap.
And I remember looking at my father’s paddy cap, he died when I was 15, and saying, look, if there’s something there, please just come and get me. I can’t do this anymore. Please come and get me.
And my attention switched to the notepad. I flicked open the notepad and it opened up on the page. It said, Cocaine Anonymous UK, help me.
I called that phone number and it was just coming. I was still in lockdown and the girl directed me to the Tuesday evening Gloucester meeting of Cocaine Anonymous. And that meeting’s still now my home group.
And I logged on to that meeting. A kid from West Belfast who had just sniffed enough cocaine to kill him. I was in a mnemonic state.
And on that meeting, modem to modem, I felt that there was a bit of hope here because the people there were talking or putting in the words how I felt in a way that I simply could not articulate. And I knew these guys are the first people who I’ve ever spoke to who know what they’re talking about in regards to the actual experience as our literature says. And more importantly, they displayed hope, faith and courage.
And they were three luxuries that I had long since experienced. And I could see it. I could feel it.
And the next morning, the guy called me. He gave me some directions. And I was very overwhelmed.
And I went back to my dealer and I scored again. And I used that gear to get back to the house. And then I called that man back again.
And I said, I will do anything that you ask me to do. Tell me what I need to do. I can’t carry on like this.
And that was on the 14th of April, 2021. And I went to another online meeting that night. And the next morning, I started my first ever sober day, 15th of April, 2021.
I was five years sober two days ago. And I was given a list of meetings to go to. You’re going to like every day.
That’s the meetings that you have to do every day for seven days. If you want to do other online meetings, knock yourself out, but be at the meetings. I lived the type of recovery I got was very sort of like in a militant way.
I know people don’t like hearing their words, but it was perfect for me. It’s exactly what I needed. And when I thought I went to the online meetings, lockdown was coming to an end.
I got through my steps. I was absolutely let up. I’d met all these friends over in England, and I connected with a fellowship across the border in the south of Ireland.
And I met another guy, and we decided, you know what, let’s start a meeting here. Let’s start a face-to-face meeting. And we started a meeting in a city called Ballymena, just about an hour north of Belfast.
I’d seen my year of service, how the guy came into that meeting. And he was coming to that meeting. It was our only face-to-face meeting, and he was doing online meetings every other day.
He started the second meeting in Armagh. And then I left that meeting in Ballymena and started the first Belfast meeting. And from that, the meeting I started in Belfast is in the centre of Belfast.
And again, doing that meeting, I’m still doing the online meetings every other day because I had nothing else. But from that meeting sprang off the west Belfast, the south Belfast, the north Belfast, the east Belfast, the Carrickfergus, the Derry, the Donegal, the Armagh second, the Coleraine, and the Sunday morning Leinardown meeting. And Leinardown is the estate that I live in.
I grew up in an estate called Leinardown. A member who came to our meeting started that meeting. And we’ve now got 17 meetings, including two H&I meetings, three online meetings, and the rest face-to-face meetings in the north of Ireland now.
And that’s all happened in the last few days. I’ve had the privilege of watching all these people coming in and getting as many face-to-face and online meetings as I can and connecting with people all around the world. And you know, for me, the online thing, it’s allowed me to connect with people in a great set of friend of mine uses the Global Village.
And you’re that friend, of course. I’ve connected with people all around the world. And not just has it allowed me to find the 12 steps, but it’s allowed me to find a platform where I can learn the literature around the 12 traditions and have people who can educate me and direct me on how to apply those 12 traditions in our growing fellowship here in the north.
And I’ve also moved on. We’re trying to learn the concepts and other things. And I’ve got connected with so many people around the world.
I simply would not have been able to if I didn’t have online meetings. I would not have it if we didn’t (8:01) have an online community. I don’t know how much time I’ve got left there.
So yeah, like having those connections, being able to learn them things and then me having this drive, I’m one of the guys who came in and got that fire lit up underneath him. And it hasn’t went out for me. It simply hasn’t went out because I honestly believe that I’m only scratching the surface of Cocaine Anonymous and I can see this fellowship raising up around me.
And I’m so happy that I can continually dig in into Cocaine Anonymous through our literature, through online meetings, through online workshops, service workshops, and continue to learn where I can go back to my home groups and help it to grow. Like in my personal life, it’s absolutely skyrocketed as well. I’m rebuilding my business.
I’m still in crazy amounts of debt. But when I get into recovery, it was mathematically impossible for me to get out of debt in the rest of my life. I’ve had five years in recovery.
If I have another five years, the way I’ve had my first five years, (9:06) I’ll be well debt free. And I’ve had the luxury as well of being able to be there for my family and financially support my family. I don’t mind paying those debts off.
I’ve been on holidays every year. I’ve got our house decorated. I’ve got material things to say.
I’d give all of that stuff away for the feeling that I get when my baby daughter puts her arms (9:30) around me now. Because we talk about all-night meetings, modem to modem. The literature is the same.
The steps are the same. The actions that we’ll have to take are the same. And when we can use another person’s story, regardless of how they’re translating that story to us or what platform they’re translating that story to us, and they’re helping to give the directions on how I can implement those actions in my life, the promises come out exactly the same.
To say that I’m part of life at last, having my baby daughter look up at me and see the love in her eyes, it’s the most beautiful thing that I’ve ever experienced. When my baby daughter was born and I was in the depths of active addiction, I was so consumed with fear. I couldn’t let that love in.
I couldn’t even recognize it. And that’s not what it’s like for me anymore, thanks to Cocaine Anonymous and everything that it has to offer, in all ways that it has to offer.