Title of Tip: Watch Out for Number One
Name: Vincent Hillman, 62
Description: If you have been strung out on drugs, that most likely comes from a position of not really loving yourself. That’s what I had to learn because from 1983 to 1989, I was the biggest crackhead. I would scare you if you wanted to get high with me. I wouldn’t just smoke 20-cent pieces. I would say, “Oh, I just bought an eight-ball. Me and you are going to smoke. We’re going to smoke until it’s gone.” I would put another lump on the fire and burn it down. People would say, “Homie, you’re going to kill yourself, and I don’t want to be around to watch you die.” It was then I realized I did not love myself. It was then I realized you’ve got to watch out for number one, and I don’t mean that in a selfish way. The old saying rings true: You can’t give what you don’t have. If you don’t have the resources for yourself, how can you be a blessing to other people? You’ve got to build yourself up by realizing the experiences you went through have prepared you to give. For instance, my mother, father, brother, and sister all died a year after each other. Even their spouses were asking me, “How are you staying sane after all that death you have seen?” But my parents prepared me to be ready for the unexpected, and life is going to throw curveballs at you. So if you’ve got yourself ready, when the worst happens, you have a buffer against that because you knew it would come. And when it comes, it might be a bummer, but you’re kind of ready for it because you had the resources. You’ve got to have yourself ready emotionally, mentally, and physically for yourself to be a blessing to others. Do you feel good? Do you feel free? Do you feel happy? You’ve got to let yourself and allow yourself to be satisfied.
I did research, and back in the early 1300s and 1400s, people would torture you if you looked too happy. They would call you a witch and think you were under a spell. And if you did not have a body odor, you were considered a witch. They would go to your house and persecute you because you did not stink like everyone else. And they would tell on you and say, “I’ve seen her taking a bath two times a week,” and you would get charged with that seditious act. People did not believe in being happy. Now, it’s important to be happy; you owe it to yourself to love yourself, to not feel weighed down, so you can get to a point and say, “Hey, I’m all right; I’m not all that bad.”
Instructions: Get a job or do anything to make money to get the resources YOU need. No matter how old you are, you always have time to get it together as long as you are alive and breathing. You can bless everybody else once you have built enough resources and can pay your bills. One day, I was sitting in the house getting high, and I said, “I bet you hate yourself so much you won’t even look in the mirror and admit all the wrong crap you have done in your life because it makes you ashamed.” So, I literally did it. I cussed myself out, looking at my reflection in the mirror, saying, “You did this, you’ve done that; you defied your parents; you stole this, you stole that; you know you’re not a good person.” At the end of it, I realized there are people in the world who have done way worse than me. I’m not that bad after all. Let yourself know that you are human and will make mistakes. There’s nothing wrong with being born poor, but what’s wrong is staying poor. So you’ve got to learn to love yourself by telling yourself you are not all that bad; you are a good person. There have been worse people on the planet than you—Genghis Khan, Hitler. So don’t be so hard on yourself.
Learning: My little sister died before I did. As an older brother, I had no business outliving her. My sister was 42 when she died but lived a full life. Once she graduated high school, she got a job and saved money. She had enough resources for herself to give to others. She would go to Washington Park in Cincinnati and give blankets, hamburgers, hot dogs, turkey, and chicken to the homeless people. She would minister and even baptize them in the Ohio River. She was not rich, but because she always gave, people would bless her with incredible things. She gave this guy, an Air Force pilot and homeless, something to eat and a blanket, and the news got around. The guy’s cousin bought her a $250,000 house. You get the resources to bless people and end up with bigger blessings. I learned that from my sister. My sister was very young, but she was wise beyond her years. I think that’s one of the reasons she died at a young age because there was nothing left for her to do.
Story: One night, my girl got tired of my reckless behavior. It was 1983, in the middle of January, with snow on the ground. She walked out and left me in the house by myself. I realized then that, you know what, you don’t love yourself. And instead of going on a corrective path, the devil joined in. This dude I never met before comes over and leaves me a whole key of motherfucking pure-ass cocaine. He tells me some dude told him to bring it over. I had never seen this guy a day in my life. I took this crack and tried to smoke it all. I had a vision that night. I smoked a quarter pound of cocaine and didn’t die. That’s when I said, “Alright, something’s wrong. I ought to be dead. My wife left me; my kids left me. I deserve to die. Take this away from me.” And as soon as I said that, I heard this voice say, “You hit that pipe one more time; that’s the last thing you’re ever going to do.” So I threw all that crap down the garbage disposal and threw my pipes in the garbage can in the alley.
I was so high I walked from Burnet Avenue in just my blue jeans, barefooted, and no shirt on. There were four inches of snow on the ground. I realized right then: You don’t love yourself. Knock it off. You are made better than this. You are broke. You are poor. You ain’t got no resources. I immediately cut all that dumb crap out. I started telling myself, I ain’t that bad. Then, I quit beating myself up. Years later, I got a job at a restaurant, and everything flipped over when I started getting resources for myself. All of a sudden, I got a brand-new truck. I got remarried. I’m living in a house. I’m paying a mortgage. I’m getting all of these blessings because I gained resources for myself.