The Passing of a Steward

Very sad day indeed.

"Understanding these Traditions comes slowly over a period of time. We pick up information as we talk to members and visit various groups. It usually isn’t until we get involved with service that someone points out that “personal recovery depends on NA unity,” and that unity depends on how well we follow our Traditions. The Twelve Traditions of NA are not negotiable. They are the guidelines that keep our Fellowship alive and free."

This statement on the back of the Twelve Traditions always brought to mind John Pries and also my old friend Gary. John epitomized some things for me, dedication to service of the greater good, progress not perfection. Anyone that knew him, certainly knew he was by less than perfect. An addicts words can often teach a lot, but if you want to know the real story; then just watch us. Our actions tell the rest of the story. 


Just because we get clean doesn't mean we are perfect or to be placed upon a pedestal. It doesn't mean we read each piece of daily literature everyday and pray or meditate perfectly everyday to achieve our good addict gold star. We are a tight community and we see, we hear and we know what subtleties go on in each others lives. Lets face it, we all know what I'm trying to say. In life as in death we all have what seems a big bag of bullshit. But if we were to spread it out over our tenure of recovery; most of us will see its outweighed and over shadowed by the amount of time spent listening, sharing, being of service, keeping a meeting open, progressing and perpetuating the fellowship in its growth and as always showing a newcomer that with a minute and hour and a day clean the world is our oyster.

Our recovery is mirrored like everyday life, our circle of friends will change, some will come and some will go. Hopefully we can still see them and share a coffee and catch up and show genuine interest in one another. Perhaps we glance over a memory and share a laugh at our frailties or past shortcomings and part ways with a hug and say Thank God we're not there anymore. What's not said, is the "how" we're not there anymore.

We're not there anymore because we walked through the door shy, void of self and shell of a human being often not knowing a soul and feeling like we were an outcast in this big room of people that stared at us. We got a hug or several, we were introduced to members that some whose name we'll never remember. John was not one of those people. In the midst of what seemed like a living doom, surrounded by our shame, fear, guilt, degradation John seemed oddly excited and genuinely happy for us. For me I thought he a fucking crazy person, who is this happy to see me at my god awful worst with no sense of self and alone feeling its me against the world.

John wasn't crazy. He knew, he shared that in this vulnerable place there wasn't anywhere for the addict to go but up. Whichever higher power we choose, he/she had removed everything from our lives and cleaned our canvas so we could start a beautiful journey called recover and paint a lasting picture as evidence for those to come behind us. John was like many of us, he was a hustler. There are many of us that John hustled on the streets and even more that he hustled in NA. He hustled us in speaking at a meeting, giving a ride to a newcomer, I've even seen John hustle someone that relapsed and back into NA to go on and live a very successful life.

I was young in recovery and worked for Victor and John got word about my prowess for computers, the internet and websites. He hustled me into the Free State region as a consultant for what we now have as our regions website. I was still trying to figure out what the fuck I was doing in this life of recovery, barely had any self-confidence or worth. Yet this guy saw me as a valued asset. He showed me what those words on the back of the 12 Traditions meant. The service to the greater good of NA, ensures and solidifies that my ability to remain clean depends upon service. 


I've been to workshops, conventions and anniversaries all over MD, DC and PA. Through John, I'd meet knew people. Like many of you, John was more than willing to share the history and stories of the person you've just met. How he/she made it through this or that event, persevered and stayed clean. How he/she helped Jimmy K or other founders in our country create, develop and build a movement we all now know as Narcotics Anonymous. John will always be the most learned resource of people and history of Narcotics Anonymous.

I originally got clean in 1994 in Joliet, Illinois. NA wasn't as strong and not a lot of predecessors with so much as 2 years clean. Like many addicts in that area we migrated to the other fellowship for stability, structure and mostly to save our lives. John understood this move. A lot of people discounted the other fellowship as NA purist often do. I suppose that's their choice. My sponsorship family in Joliet was directly tied to the founders of that fellowship. We celebrated anniversaries with the wives and children of the founders and the history and value of service to our fellow man/woman was always very important to the success of the inverted pyramid. It takes a great many working collectively to ensure that one member can stay clean.

John and I would discuss how Jimmy K went to the other fellowship. How he (with a humble heart) asked if he could start NA and use the other fellowships steps, traditions and format to help serve those in Narcotics Anonymous. I was young in NA, and had this wealth of knowledge and I felt validated by John's excitement of our conversation. Many of you know that feeling. Our lives could be a solid shit storm, a total wreck, just getting clean and little to no self-esteem. Yet John would introduce us to another member as if we were royalty from another country, he would impart to this member a bit of our story through his introduction to ensure we were looked after, held up and welcomed into the process.

Let's face it, at that moment hearing John tell someone about your situation may have seemed a bit embarrassing. Then again, to that point most of what we had done to ourselves culminated in the only feelings we had left; embarrassment and shame. Little did I/we know, that one last shot of embarrassment across the bow of our unsteady and seemingly sinking ship; was ironically the same thing to right our vessel. In that sense of feeling like I/we were an exposed nerve, it needed that one last shot to sail us through the stormy seas of emotion, fear of the unknown and provide humility and grace to accept this new way of life.

My life is an open book, some of you have seen me through failed jobs, numerous relationships, lots of bad ideas and some rather good ones. Fortunately for me, I am not the sum of your thoughts of me. John is no goddamned different than you or I.

In the end that judgement cast upon us means so very very little. In recovery there is only one thing perfect we can do, just don't use. Through whatever any of us has been through, good, bad and ugly if we just stay clean; we can experience that promise of freedom. No matter if you've weathered the storm by sticking and staying, or you've relapsed one or ten thousand times; like many John shared the message. "Just keep coming back."

Many places in our text we read about death and or the death of an addict. I looked through today, upon hearing of John's passing. Hoping to find comfort and solace. Tucked in the middle of the book on page 201 I found what I was looking for, its the middle paragraph. "I chose a home group and committed myself to that group. I took a service commitment. I opened the meeting space, cleaned the floors there and got it ready for the meeting. Today, I am still a part of that same home group. It is a place where people can find me, and I know that I can find my friends there too. I have a sponsor, and I work steps. But most importantly, I KEEP COMING BACK NO MATTER WHAT."

No matter the amount of years clean I have, I still remain a rather deeply private person. It speaks to the core of who I am. I suppose we all possess this, some like me; maybe more than others. I could hardly have this conversation in public and learning to write has offered great relief in times of pain, illness and is as cathartic as is intended in our program to measure, see and grow in this new way of life. If you wanted to find John, you looked no further than Live and Let Live on Sunday nights. As in the literature, he was there like a fixture and so were his friends. There may always be another empty chair where John used to sit, but I doubt that any that know him will ever attend that meeting and cross the threshold without thinking about him. 

My job has me traveling through most of the year and I've always looked forward to coming home after a tour and seeing my friends. John would asked about my clients and what they were like, was I able to hit meetings on the road or if I contacted one of his many friends in this state or that state along my travels. I could care less about the notoriety of my clients, I wanted to talk about you and what's been going on in your world. I just got home and I knew John wasn't well. I'd hoped to see him for that brief encounter one last time, offer support, thanks and an awkward man hug for laughs.
John and I were not close friends and we only talked in chance meetings for a few moments. After a certain point I suppose we all see the newcomer and their continued tenure being clean and coming around. They get jobs, cars, houses and families and a life worth living. We understand we are all susceptible to relapse but there comes a point one feels relatively certain that someone will make it and or be "okay." This leads us to that cyclical friendship thing we go through. Rest assured, there will and has been that place in our hearts for that person. John will hold that place as will many of you in my heart.

As I said, John and I shared a fondness for the other fellowship and the reverent gratitude they bestowed upon Jimmy K. for allowing us a program of inclusiveness to save our lives. I'd like to think that reverent gratitude was honored by guys like John. I will close with this, its a passage that speaks volumes and epitomizes this path. You purist may get a wild hair in your ass and frankly I don't care. Its something that I shared with John. So call your sponsor and deal with it that way.
"We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man (or woman) who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.

Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.

May God bless you and keep you - until then."

As with many of you, today there is a whole in my heart and looming sadness. In the balance there is peace for me in having met John Pries. Known as the Mayor to a lot of us.... No matter his trials, tribulations or his shortcomings he is a human being and goddmaned dedicated steward to Narcotics Anonymous.  

His legacy is service and for that I'm grateful.

Rest easy John. Yes sir, you have fought the good fight, you have finished your race and you have kept the faith. May your God bless and keep you until we meet again.

Thank you brother.

Paying our debt

Morning ya'll! There are, as with that morning fifteen years ago just so many words to say. As articulate and broad a vocabulary that I possess, I have felt the same now in this last few days as I did that morning on Greenspring Avenue. There are so many things to say, so many words of expression I could use to to write a pathway of emotions from 8:45am September 11, 2001 until this day fifteen years later. Billy Price and I sat in that kitchen drinking coffee in panic, disbelief and horrified. All I have is the same aching in my belly and my soul as I did that day. It hasn't gone away, I'm not sure I have such an expectation of this feeling ever leaving me until I pass. My friends, each of us has our story of that fateful day and it will carry with us until only God knows when. 
For fifteen years, we've read and watched television programs, movies and documentaries on this subject. Many of us like me, not directly involved with the Trade Center, Pentagon or Shanksville have learned the names of those that played important roles in saving lives at the towers the Pentagon and those aboard flight 93 that chose the valor of what it means to be an American to make the ultimate sacrifice and take back from these vermin what belongs to us as Americans. I cannot fathom, the range of emotion and then the grasp on the situation at hand an how important it was to take back control of that plane. I'd imagine that none of those passengers knew that "They" of themselves possessed such capability, or meaning for which their actions must mean until it was time to make that call. Just the thought of such a thing still stirs an ache in my gut that I don't think will ever leave me.

The names of those people that tried to get everyone out of the towers, they are etched in our collective brain as a country. Those that rushed in when so many were running out and lastly those of flight 93. I had no intention of writing on the subject this morning with my cigarettes and coffee. Hell at best, I only chose to change my profile picture in solidarity and remembrance of that day fifteen years ago. I suppose as individuals our singular stories may not mean much paled in comparison to those loved ones and families that lost friends and family on September 11th, 2001. But in purpose for the greater good, our singular and individual stories of what we were doing, where we were and with whom on that day make up a collective as a country; as a people of the United States of America. Tell your story, remind yourself, tell your friends, your family and those you love. In going through my memories and recalling my story, it becomes my realization that this awful aching in my gut not only won't go away, the horror of seeing people jump to their deaths is etched indelibly in my mind and soul. In writing this, its my realization that this aching in my gut isn't just mine. It has become in totality the aching heart of us, a nation that looked on in horror, disgust, grief and anger that someone hates us for our way of life enough to take our mothers, fathers, brothers, sister, sons and daughters and grandchildren. Innocent lives that on that day were used as pawns from someone with 7th century religious ideology to attempt to tear us apart.

It didn't work! We are a nation of individuals with freedoms and liberties in the design of the pursuit of happiness who seek that freedom and justice for all. But what they have done was not tear us apart in as much as they had hoped, they did not bring us to our knees as was their goal. Instead, we over those moments on the television screen, or radio speakers; began to oppose they're objective. We are Americans, we did not bow, we did not rest on our knees and certainly we did not come apart. If you don't think so, well okay. I'll just ask you to recall your pain, your horror and all of your emotions of that and subsequent days. I'll ask you to recall the moment you switched on your television or your radio and you saw or heard the President of the United States of America; jump up on that fire truck in New York City. When with a bullhorn he empathized and encouraged those on site to continue to do America's work and find our people. Most poignantly, I'll ask you to recall your feelings, thoughts and emotions as he told those there and us as Americans. "I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon". 




Remember what it is you felt when you saw or heard that? I do, that was the feeling of being no longer individual but becoming part of a collective and for the greater good. That was the moment when their ideology failed them, when our civic pride emerged and we became again a people. We became what we had always been, barring those moments of horror. We are the United States of America and we are Americans. So amidst the recollection of your thoughts, your memories of this day fifteen years ago; along with the grass cutting, football watching and whatever the daily business of life has you doing on this day.... Take some time to breath, to put into effort the thought of that ache in your belly. Take that time to honor your duty as an American, that just of that virtue we are standing tall, we are proud and we are a collective of individuals known simply to some as Americans. Those names, those images and most importantly those lives lost on this day fifteen years ago come with a cost, a debt that we can never repay fully. It is after all, a continued balance of our collective soul and individualism that we must commit to honor; and that debtor is the aching in mine, yours and our belly.

It won't soon leave us, so no matter where you were, who you were with, how near or far from New York, Washington or Shanksville, tell your story, share your thoughts with one another, make good on your debt of honor and gratitude. Be the voice of those who leaped, rushed into the building when those were coming out, be the voice of those who for fifteen years have stood an eternal watch of our freedom, our liberty and our pursuit of happiness. We speak for them in our stories and thus WE NEVER FORGET.