“I was on a beach with hundreds of seagulls and pelicans. In the morning, they’d rise up and fly. The pelicans were so beautiful, and I’d feel lifted up. Several times in my mind I’d think I’d already died and gone to heaven with the birds.
“The pains in my body became unbearable, and my ankles were swelling. One morning, I just lay down and said, ‘Okay I’m ready.’ I knew I was dying.
“And then the obsession to drink hit me. I looked at the ocean and thought it was vodka. I crawled down to the edge to get a drink and crawled back up. I don’t know how long this went on, but as I was lying there, suddenly there was stillness. I mentally saw the universe as pure, vibrating light. I spiritually experienced it.
“All knowledge was open to me. I saw that everything was perfect in its changing form. Most people don’t know that. They have to wake up. The vibrations, like 10,000 volts of electricity, went through my body. Love and joy went through me, and I was awake for the first time in my life.
“My body began to heal, and after another two weeks I packed my stuff and walked back into the world. I now knew that my life was no longer mine. I was a channel to give away God’s love.”
After listening to Flobird’s story, I experienced an amazing insight. I knew I had found something I had been looking for all my life. Even though I had no words to describe it, a feeling entered my heart that I wanted what this person had.
From that day on, Flobird considered herself a beachcomber, and the ocean became her beloved friend. In twelve-step meetings, she always talked about the birds: “Look at the birds. They live in the moment, taking no thought for their lives, food, or where they will lay their heads.” That’s how Florence (her birth name) got the nickname “Flobird.”
Flobird gave her life completely to God. She frequently said, “I’m sure of God and He is sure of me.” When she walked away from her house in Riverside, she gave up all of her worldly possessions. She asked for nothing from her husband or society; she told us that she totally trusted that “God would provide wherever He guides.”
This is how Flobird entered my life that eventful morning in 1968. She had been living and helping out at a recovery halfway house for alcoholics and addicts in Kaneohe, which was about forty miles from the North Shore of Oahu. That morning, as usual, she had been meditating and writing in her journal. Faith can be a conditional thing, but by now Flobird had learned that if she surrendered fully, the direction would come. She was told to go to the North Shore, where she was spiritually guided to the vacant, fully furnished four-bedroom house on the beach. She reached above the door and found the key.
Daring to follow her heart, Flobird moved in. When the realtor arrived the next day to show the house, he discovered Flobird and asked what she was doing there. “God told me to come here,” she said. “Can you please have the electricity turned on?”
Needless to say, it was turned on, and Flobird lived in this house for about six months. This was my introduction to the modern-day miracle, an event that was to become a common experience over the next ten years that Flobird was in my life.
When I met her I was incredibly lost in the world of addiction. The using and despair had left me on autopilot, traveling in circles. But I was also seeking a better way of life by learning how to meditate and become more spiritual. The deep feelings of separation, fear of life, and complete emptiness were so strong inside of me. All I could do was take more drugs in an attempt to fill an emptiness that couldn’t be filled by anything outside of me. No amount of drugs, my wife, a baby, money, sex—nothing worked. The despair and the feeling that I didn’t belong anywhere now dominated all of my thoughts and actions.
My talks with Flobird were the first time I had ever heard anything said about a twelve-step recovery program. It was difficult for me to understand her because I had never thought of myself as an addict. After all, everyone I hung out with used alcohol and drugs the way I did. Our ever-present misery just seemed to be another facet of the lifestyle, almost like a tattoo that symbolizes what gang or tribe you belong to.
In February 1968, Flobird started one of the first twelve-step meetings on the North Shore. It was held at the beach house and attended mostly by recovering addicts from Honolulu. I was about to take another step on my journey of self-discovery.
I was afraid to go to the first meeting, but I did walk back and forth on the tree-covered lane to and from the beach, gazing into Flobird’s living room window each time I walked by. I was unable to walk into a house full of people I didn’t know. Even people I did know would have been too scary. Fear dominated my life.
Somehow, I made it to the second meeting at the beach house. I heard people say they felt at home at their first twelve-step meeting because they had heard others talk openly about how obsessively they drank and used drugs. They identified with those stories and came back. That wasn’t what brought me back. At my first meeting, someone talked about feeling like a misfit in a world where everyone else had it all together. This was the first time I had ever heard anyone verbalize feelings of separation, the same feelings that had been an overwhelming part of my life since that day I was dropped off at kindergarten. I had never heard those words spoken. I had never heard another verbalize and make that pain, and its underlying fear, real. I was finally beginning to wake up from the bad dream.
Never before had I heard people talk so honestly about their feelings. It was entirely new for me to be with a group of people who openly shared their innermost emotions. Once I was able to start sharing, I experienced a great sense of relief. Any initial awkwardness was soon swept away by the understanding and love of the other addicts I had found sitting in that circle. It was my first experience of the miracle that takes place when we express what is inside of us. I found out early on that if I shared my pains and fears at a meeting, they were lessened by the time I left; and if I shared the joy and fulfillment I felt, I’d have more of it when I left. It’s called a giveaway program.
So, the miracle began the day Flobird appeared and when I began attending meetings. I realized I was an addict and the Twelve Steps could be my spiritual path. Although I didn’t stay clean from my first meeting, a spark of hope had entered my heart. Something strongly told me to fan that flame, to guard this precious gift. This was the beginning of a three-year journey that would eventually take me to my bottom, a place of overwhelming hopelessness that all addicts must visit in order to be open to receive the gift of willingness in our lives.
The next three years proved to be a true initiation leading me to my spiritual path. Following this course required a deep surrender of my life. I had to get out of my own way so grace could penetrate my deep-rooted walls of denial. This required committed spiritual practice, at times, through enormous upheavals in my life. Hitting bottom on drugs was my gift; this painful experience was what it took for me to begin the awakening of my spirit within.
When we find ourselves in deep pain or crisis situations, we can be led in a new direction. It’s like walking through a door and discovering that all we thought familiar has fallen away. Then the way we perceive life changes profoundly. Life and its many changes can be a movement toward the Divine.
After six months in that North Shore beach house, which became known has the “God house,” Flobird once again received direct guidance from her Higher Power during meditation. These messages often came in the form of “Prepare to leave this place,” sometimes even indicating where she should go. Other directives told her to “Pack up your stuff and walk out the door.” This time she was told, “Head for Maui.”
During those six months, I went to a lot of meetings and let go of much denial about my addiction, but