For me, and if there are any others like me, there is a one-word answer to what’s in it for me is, loudly and clearly, “EVERYTHING!” Everything that I have today, including the ability to breathe in followed by out on a regular basis, I owe to finally discovering that there is a Power greater than I and It does not judge or punish. All It does is LOVE ME and want nothing but the best for me and mine.
When I came into this amazing program, I was physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually bankrupt. I had been emptied of any and all self-respect and the ability to like, let alone love, myself and/or others. Where was this God that is talked about in churches and media that was supposed to help me when I begged, pleaded, and bargained with whenever I was in a mess? How was a God who I was told was going to get me for whatever I had just said or done and send me to Hell supposed to be this loving, helping, non-judgmental Power and I would then find myself even deeper into the pits of self-destruction? Who was this God who I believed had turned His back on me and then begged me on Sunday to up my ante to the church for this or that fund by talking through the preacher?
I came into the program believing that there was probably a God but just not for me. I came into this program pretty much thinking that it was a last resort to get some peace and quickly discovered that there was a lot of life that I had been completely missing. I was shot once and, while having a life after death experience, was afraid to talk about it because I thought that I was just probably hallucinating again. Such were my twisted thoughts during my time in the madness.
My Higher Power was working for me and I was not ready to understand that He was. I stayed in the madness for several years after the shooting but was beginning to think that there may be something more for me but that I just could not understand it yet. I wondered how long my “luck” could hold up. After the shooting, I did not fear death anymore but I did fear living because what I was doing was existing, not living in the full meaning of the term.
When I first attended what soon became my Home Group, The Brightmoor Group in NW Detroit, I was approached by a group of about 6 men, several of who I had recognized as ones I had fought with and arrested before. I immediately put my back to the wall and said “Bring it on” and prepared to fight again. These ugly, tough thugs just said “Just sit down, shut up, and listen for a change, Red” and, for a reason that I did not understand at that time, I just sat down, shut up, and listened for a change. They did not ask me why I was there or anything because they did not want to hear anything that I had to say at that time.
They told me their stories and how they were happier people than they had ever been and that, if I said and did the same things that they did, I could do the same. Now, I knew that I was not hearing words that had been learned in a book or school, but describing what experiences that they had and this let me know that it just might be there for me, too. I decided then and there that I would do anything to get it. They told me that, if I had a problem believing some of what they were saying, all I had to do was “Fake it till I made it. So that is just what I did. This was going contrary to what I had been believing for so long.
When I came into this amazing program, I was physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually bankrupt. I had been emptied of any and all self-respect and the ability to like, let alone love, myself and/or others. Where was this God that is talked about in churches and media that was supposed to help me when I begged, pleaded, and bargained with whenever I was in a mess? How was a God who I was told was going to get me for whatever I had just said or done and send me to Hell supposed to be this loving, helping, non-judgmental Power and I would then find myself even deeper into the pits of self-destruction? Who was this God who I believed had turned His back on me and then begged me on Sunday to up my ante to the church for this or that fund by talking through the preacher? It’s amazing what we can see when we change how we look at things. What’s in it for me? EVERYTHING!