I honestly wish that God would communicate with us through those “Burning Bush” types of experiences, but alas, I’ve never met anyone who has had even one of them. Instead, it seems as if God works in far more “subtle ways” to connect with each of us, which I’ve come to recognize a lot more when I’m not so distracted in life. Recently, I had a conversation with one of my sponsees in recovery about this very thing while doing our work on Step Two (“Came to believe a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity”), which during it, I quickly discovered they had no idea what I meant. To help them better understand, I opted to share my very first encounter with what I believed to be one of God’s “subtle ways” of communicating, and after doing so, I noticed it cleared up the confusion, which is why I decided it might be best to share this story in a blog entry as well, so here goes…
In the summer of 1991, I returned home to Poughkeepsie, NY, after my Freshman year in college had ended, to get a job, earn a little money, and party most of it away with some high school buddies. On my first night back, I met a guy at a small get-together that I immediately became enamored with. For anonymity purposes, I’ll be referring to him from here on out as “C”.
After that evening, I began spending pretty much every night with “C” getting drunk and stoned. We soon became inseparable, except when I was working at my job, which was at Rite-Aid. As the days passed deeper into the summer, I found myself regularly hanging around his group of friends, most of whom were drug dealers. Eventually, I became one too, only to appease the “apple of my eye”, that being “C”. This went on until about the beginning of August, when I started having anxiety about the life I was living. Somewhere deep within me, I knew what I was doing was wrong on so many levels and the last thing I wanted was to get arrested and mess up the rest of my life by getting a felony under my belt.
When I finally came to the realization that I needed to cut “C” out of my life, I had become quite unrecognizable from that innocent kid who had entered the summer two months prior. I now sported a flat-top that was approximately 6 to 8 inches high, had lines in my eyebrows and hair, constantly talked in slang and cuss words, stole merchandise frequently from stores, carried a weapon around my ankle, wore eight gold rings on my fingers, and only went by the name “A.D.” I had definitely done all I could to remove the image of being a “Mama’s Boy”, but deep down I wasn’t happy with myself on who I’d become, which is the main reason why I decided to tell “C” I didn’t want to hang out anymore.
So, when I ultimately did just that on a warm August night, and told “C” I was going to lay low until I went back to college in a few weeks, he asked if I could spend one last evening with him to celebrate my going away. I said ok and as I got ready to hang out with him the one last time, I looked at my gold rings on my dresser and decided I didn’t feel like wearing them that night. That was until an overpowering voice or urge within me suddenly told me I NEEDED to wear them. It was a rather odd and pushy type of feeling, but I obliged and put the eight rings on, not thinking any more about it, and sped out the door to head downtown to the spot where I was supposed to meet “C”. On my way, I picked up a fresh pack of Newport’s to smoke, and a 40-oz of St. Ides Malt Liquor, the two things I used to do every night with utter frequency alongside “C”.
As I stood on this porch, waiting for “C” to show up, a black car with dark, tinted windows pulled up and several guys emerged from within it. One of them walked up to me and asked if I was “A.D.” and whether I knew where “T” was, who was actually one of the dealer friends I regularly hung out with. After telling them I was indeed “A.D.” and that I hadn’t seen “T” in a week or so, they retreated temporarily to the trunk of their vehicle, which I didn’t think anything of.
Then quite abruptly from behind, I felt a set of hands reach up under my arms and pull me up over the porch I was standing on and then onto the ground. From there it all went foggy, until I came to and found myself in the backseat of my car with “C” driving towards the hospital. I was covered in blood and couldn’t see out of one of my eyes. I also noticed the rings on my hands were gone before I blacked out again.
I spent the next week recuperating at home after a brief hospital stay where I got a number of stitches. When I finally was able to see out of both of my eyes again, I headed to the home of a person I knew through “C” who was not necessarily his friend but seemed to always know everything going on. As soon as he laid eyes on me, he shook his head and was actually surprised I had left the safe confines of my cushy suburban home in light of what happened. When I told him, I didn’t really know what happened, his immediate response was, “Isn’t it obvious, you got jumped!” Of course, I knew that much and asked him to elaborate a little more if he could. He responded by saying, “It’s a good thing you were wearing all your gold rings that night, because they planned on killing you with the guns they had in the trunk of their vehicle but decided that taking your rings and giving you a good beating was enough retribution for being associated to “T”. Sadly, I also found out before I went back home that day, that “C” had watched all this happen and had set me up, all because he had been so pissed off that I was done dealing and hanging out with him.
It’s been well over 26 years since then, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget this experience. If I hadn’t listen to that urge to wear my gold rings that night when I really didn’t want to, I wouldn’t be alive right now.
So where did that urge come from on that early August evening in the summer of 1991?
Was it God speaking to me through my Spirit in one of those “subtle ways”.
I leave that for all of you to ponder, but in the end, I think you already know what I’ve chosen to believe…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
