Charlie P. - AA Speaker - Abstinence from alcohol vs. Recovery - THE M2 THE ROCK SHOW - Michael Molthan

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Charlie, Katie, and Chris are all gonna get a chance
to share a little bit of their story here tonight.
We're gonna probably speak around forty minutes each or so
we're gonna take a quick little break in between, and
then we'd like to welcome you all back tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
We're starting here at nine o'clock and.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
We're gonna go all the way till the afternoon, and
we welcome you all back, and we have a nice
little lunch provided tomorrow too. So I haven't a Charlie
is gonna start out tonight, and I haven't had a
chance to hear Charlie before, but we had a very nice, fun,
exciting right back, so I'm sure you will be in
for a very nice, nice, interesting talk. So if you

(00:34):
all help me, welcome Charlie.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Wow, I've been meaning to read that book. Hi, everybody,
I'm Charlie Parker. I'm a grateful recovered alcoholic boy. Am
I glad to be here. We'll talk a little bit
about that, But it could have gone either way. Hi,

(01:20):
We've just spent an hour and a half at the
border and that was a It was my fault and
it wasn't bad for me. The last time I was
at the border, I got arrested. So an hour and
a half was pretty good time for except for Chris
was still working on breakfast. About three o'clock he started
getting a little grumpy. But it's a lot. I'm just

(01:43):
we're real happy to be here. My sobriety day is
March twenty second of nineteen eighty five, and that is
the most important thing ever happened in my life. My
home group is the primary Purpose group in Austin, Texas,
and we would welcome you if you find yourself off
in Austin, Texas on a Tuesday night, come see us.
We think it's a terrific meeting. We usually have about

(02:06):
one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy five
people on Tuesday night studying the Big Book, line by line,
word by word. We've been doing it. We're in our
we just had our fourth anniversary and we're on our
third path through the book. We're at a step we're
going to roll into. We just did the hour this
week and we're going to do six and seven next week,
so you know that's how far we are into our

(02:28):
third past. So it's really been fun and I love
the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous. I love the Fellowship of
Alcoholics Anonymous, and I love anytime I get a chance
to get up and talk about what we do here
in AI and what's happened to us and stuff. I
want to thank Ron for asking us to come up here.
It's a real honor. I mean, as Chris and I

(02:50):
had the same sponsor, and Chris was with Mark a
lot longer than I was, but the four years that
I spent with him. I haven't made it through a
talk yet talking about Mark since he died, but it
was a very formative four years for me. And we

(03:11):
missed Mark a great deal. But Chris was supposed to
do this thing with Mark, and those are big shoes
to fill, so they brought both of us. You know,
I still don't know if we can do it, but
I you know, I miss Mark. I love Mark, and
you know, we but Ron asked us to come up here,
and then and then Marcus picked us up at the

(03:33):
air at the airport, I don't think he knew what
he was getting into, but he did a fine job
of driving us up here. And you know, thank god
he was in a rental car because when I look
back and they were pulling his back seat out and
had a gown a creepy crawley underneath it, and they
ripping the dash out. You know, I'm like, I'm glad
you came in a rental, Marcus. You know that's a

(03:56):
welcome to Charlie Parker. You know, I don't want now
was that six twenty by that clock? What does it
say right now? Six twenty five? Katie's really worried about
how long I'm gonna go tonight. I uh, you know,
she's got forty minutes, and I got forty minutes. But

(04:16):
you know, in Texas, with community property law the way
I see it, we got eighty minutes between us, you know,
So I really hope we get to hear from Katie tonight.
I uh. The last time Katie was speaking in uh
in Vancouver one time and we and I'm gonna try

(04:38):
to give the shortest version this story I've ever given.
But she was speaking in Vancouver, I don't know, a
year ago, a little over a year ago, and we
got we got to the airport and they wouldn't let
her get on with a little plastic card. They said
you have to drive across with that. So I'm thinking, think, think,
and I go, well, flash to Seattle. It's only like
an hour from Seattle to Vancouver. Right, well, it's like

(04:59):
a were our death march from from Seattle to Vancouver.
But we driving. When we get to the border, this
is the first time I ever had it on me.
I pull out my passport in this groovy little leather
case that I carried in because I'm a big deal,
you know. And uh, and I hand the lady in
my case in the little booth and she pulls it

(05:20):
out of the case and she holds it up and
she looks at the document page and she goes, you're
handing me a past a Korean passport with your picture
in it. And I go, what you know? And and
that's when it all started, you know, I mean, it's

(05:40):
she slams that window shut, like you know, they surround
us like swat team. Uh. They pull us out of
the car. You know. They're badgering me with questions. I
don't know what to, you know, I don't know whether
I answer this question or listen to that question. And
at one point the guy goes, your story is weak,
and I'm like, oh it, damn sure? Is I mean

(06:00):
I got no story, you know. I mean, you know,
I run a few scams. I'd have a better story
than this, you know, But I mean, but you know,
long story short, it appears that someone had stolen my
passport at some point and copied it on a color
copier machine, cut that document page out. I hope I'm

(06:20):
not giving anybody on the ideas, glued that document page
into a worthless Korean passport, stuck it back in my
little leather case, stuck it back in my briefcase, and
made off with my US passport. And you know, it's
till I walk up to the Canadian border like a
dope and hand them this Korean passport. And so, I mean,

(06:42):
it took almost five months working through the United States
Senator's office to get myself another passport because I don't
have a sterling background, you know. And uh and uh
and and uh. Today was the first time we've tried
to use it since I got the new one, and
you know, I hadn't signed it yet. And and then
we get to the border and she's you want to

(07:03):
know about my arrest record, and I'm like, well, it's
not as bad as it looks, you know, you know,
most of those, most of those I was, you know,
managed to get not guilty or deferred adjudication or something.
But you know, when there's alcoholics, am I the only
one that has a sense of entitlement, you know? I mean,
you know, I mean there's a part of me he

(07:24):
wants to go come on that was that arrest was
thirty six years ago, you know, and they don't care,
you know. And uh so we were there an hour
and a half and it looked like everything was going
pretty good. And then she goes, mister Parker, come back in.
I walked back in, and she goes Korean passport. I'm like,
I was really hoping you didn't hear that part, you know,

(07:45):
And so I had to tell her the whole story.
And but anyway, we're here, and we're darn glad to
be here. I uh I. We're gonna each talk a
little bit, you know, and I'm really looking forward to
this weekend. Chris is a good random brus and he's
been one of my heroes for a long time. I mean,
you know, when I was in the middle of the
road AA, Chris spoke to me, and you know, I

(08:08):
come from a Southern Baptist background, you can just bring
it as hard as you want to a guy like me.
I I uh, I respond to that and uh and
a lot of what he was talking about. And then
you know, eventually winding up in the lineage with Mark
Houston and some of those guys, there's a lot of
good aa there. And in the past seven or eight years,
you know, we've really been finding you know, there's pockets

(08:30):
of enthusiasm all around, you know, you know, London, Ontario,
and Louisville, Kentucky, and you know, just wherever you go
with you there's there are always little It's funny because
I had just had a sponsor moved to Houston. He's
a good boy, he's one of my best guys. And
I said, get down there and go where do those
kind of annoying, a little over the top, big book

(08:51):
thumpers go, you know, And that's because that's where you're
gonna want to wind up, you know, And and they
can usually tell you. But that hadn't always been my experience.
And I hope that's a lot of what we get
a chance to talk about this, you know, because well
how many people just how many people don't have say
less than six months of sobriety excellent, okay, and how

(09:14):
many have over ten years? Wow, fantastic, fantastic. It's a
funny time in the AA. And you know, wh I'm
gonna talk a little bit about what it was like,
you know, what happened, not much though, I mean, but
we are supposed to be telling our stories tonight. And

(09:34):
I mean I literally ran right from the car and
where's my man Kevin? Yeah, he saw me in my
underwear in the bathroom, and I was like, you know,
do I pray while I'm you know, getting dressed or
you know, but you know, it's it's all good. You know,
we could still be at the border. I grew up

(09:56):
in Dallas, Texas. I grew up in a pretty normal family,
if there is such a thing, you know. I mean,
I really liked the saying that normal is a setting
on a washing machine. But it was it was normal enough.
You know. There wasn't any real obvious dysfunction in our house.
Nobody was drinking, nobody was knocking each other around. You know,

(10:17):
I've heard a lot of fifth steps over the years,
and I've heard enough to know that that I had
it pretty good growing up. I mean, it's a pretty
normal household. I grew up under the burden anybody else
grew up under the burden of potential? Anybody? Oh my god,
I mean that was like all I heard about was,
you know, why can't you live up to your potential?
Why can't you be more like you know, Charles Malear

(10:39):
across the street, you know, And I just remember thinking
it's flattering, mom, But I'm really not holding back that much,
you know. I mean, this is you're kind of getting
my best shot here, you know. But but my mother
was a first grade school teacher for forty two years,

(11:00):
and uh, I was well prepared for the first grade.
I uh uh, you know, kind of kicked us, you know,
all the way all the way up to maybe fifth grade,
you know. But but you know, it was a normal
except my sister was perfect. I had one of those
sisters that she's five years older, and she was all everything,

(11:20):
you know. She was drum major, at first chair, flute player,
national Honor Society, you name it, you know. And then
she's got this thuggish little brother. But I think it
was a lot easier to just kind of scale it
off and go the other way. But I mean I
was getting you know, all the stuff they were saying
not to do, I couldn't wait to do. And you know,

(11:42):
and I was always They used to talk about high
IQ and stuff like that. When you say that to
a self centered alcoholic, budding alcoholic, what I hear is
a free pass, you know, and you're not gonna have
to do anything. And you get a free pass. And
you know, a lot of us in the room know
that a high IQ or whatever they called it back then,

(12:05):
I'll get you a front row seat and alcoholics anonymous.
You know, it won't do much to keep you sober,
but it's but you know, I'm going through all this stuff,
and you know, whatever happened in my in my growing up,
I know a lot of it. It's funny. A lot
of us get to AA and we try to figure

(12:26):
out why am I an alcoholic? You know what happened
to me to make me an alcoholic? And none of
that stuff made me an alcoholic. None of the stuff
that happened to me growing up, none of the stuff
that didn't happen to me growing up had had to
do with me being an alcoholic. And I like to
talk about it. We hope to talk about it. Something
this weekend but I spent a lot of time in

(12:50):
the program of Alcoholics anonymous, even raising my hands saying
my name is Charlie. I'm an alcoholic. And I had
no idea what it meant, you know, I just I
knew that I drank all the time, and I drank
every day, and everybody, my mother used to shake her
finger at me and go, you drink. She had a
way of moving, just the finger and she'd go, you'd
drink every day. And I remember thinking, everybody I know

(13:16):
drinks every day. Mom, you know, I mean you well,
I learned a lot more about that later, but I
didn't really know what it meant to be alcoholic. I
knew I had problems because of drinking. I'd been in
a lot of trouble because of drinking. I'd lost the
jobs and the cars and the girlfriends and that sort
of thing. But that some of that stuff, you know,
what happens to people that aren't alcoholic, And I mean,

(13:36):
it happens to people that drink a lot. And so
you know what is it? I mean, because I started
drinking pretty young, and you know, on page thirty it
says we learned that we had to fully conceive to
our innermal selves that we were alcoholic. It says it's
the first step in recovery. Well, if I'm gonna there's

(13:56):
a lot going on in that sentis. That's what I
love about the primary purpose GREL format is that breaking
it down and looking at what it really means. And
when I say fully concede to my innermost self that
I'm an alcoholic, first of all, I best know what
it means to be alcoholic if I'm gonna fully concede
to it, and not just up here in my head,

(14:17):
what does it really mean to be alcoholic? You know?
And I really didn't know. I started drinking when I
was sixteen years old. You know, it's funny. I'm fifty
three years old. I've been sober twenty five years. Katie's
got five months on me. She'll never let me live
it down, you know. Yeah, Katie and I have quite

(14:40):
a history. I hope to talk about that. The other
thing I got to warn you if we're gonna be
here all weekend, I got a little scatter brain working
up here, you know, And sometimes my brain is We
talked about ADHD on the way here with Ron. But
whatever it is. Sometimes when I say I'm gonna get
back to that later. That means this isn't the right
time to talk about in the talk. But when I

(15:02):
tell you we're going to come back to it later,
we're probably not coming back, you know, about a five
percent chance we're going to pull it back around. I'm
always so excited when I pull it back. But I
used to think that sixteen was really early to get

(15:24):
started drinking, you know, And now it's not even young
to stop at sixteen, you know. I mean, you know,
we got people coming in, you know, and I'm not
busting on anybody, you know, much love for the young
people and alcoholics anonymous. I didn't start drinking until I
was sixteen, though, and I probably didn't need this program

(15:44):
until I was about seventeen, you know. So I really
I had a little while where it was going pretty good,
and by by seventeen, I was way way way into
outside substances and outside issues. And Ron said, this isn't
officially an AA meeting, but I just my training is

(16:05):
not to talk about outside issues in AA meetings. But
let's just say I had deep, deep, deep experience with
outside issues. You you know, there was to my knowledge,
I didn't miss anything that was available when I was
qualifying for this program. And you know, and it's funny,

(16:26):
this isn't everybody's story in AA. And it'd be real
macho to stand up here and say that I drank
a fifth of whiskey from the time I was sixteen
until I sobered up at twenty eight. That wouldn't be true.
But what I can tell you, and this isn't true
for everybody in alcoholics Anonymous, A lot of people held
it together a lot better than I did. But for me,
I never turned down the opportunity to get loaded one time,

(16:49):
under any circumstances, under any conditions. There never one time.
There was never one time where I went, oh, gee, thanks,
but it's you know, it's my mom's birthday or something
like that. I just, I mean, I didn't have it,
you know. But I started somewhere around seventeen, eighteen years old.
I crossed some kind of an invisible line. And I

(17:09):
don't know when it was. I think that's why we
call it an invisible line. But you know I crossed.
I lost the power of choice and control somewhere around
that age. And you know, the book talks on page
forty four, but if when you honestly want to. You
find you cannot quit entirely, or if when you start
drinking you have little control over the amount you take,

(17:31):
you're probably alcoholic. That's one of only really a couple
of places in the book where it diagnoses alcoholism. But
I'm i my, you know. In the Doctor's Opinion, it
says men and women drink essentially because they like the
effect produced by alcohol. Any argument on that one, you know?

(17:52):
I mean I've always felt like that was a little understated,
you know. I mean I like banana pudding, you know,
but I loved the effect produced by alcohol. You know.
I mean I didn't just burn my whole world to
the ground over something. I just kind of dig a
little bit, you know. I mean it did something for

(18:12):
me that I didn't even know I needed. It solved
a It relieved a problem that I didn't even know
I had, you know. And I've been carrying around a
feeling of difference in separation and a little bit less
than since since about the fifth grade. And you know
that to me, that's as close as I've ever been
able to come to describing the spiritual malady. Is that

(18:33):
that feeling of separation, that hole, that you hear so
many people on alcoholics and holmans talk about but and
when the first time I drank, it did something for that.
And you know, I remember thinking immediately, we are going
to do this a lot, you know, and and and
you know, and I started paying a tremendous price for it,
but I was kept trying to make it work like

(18:55):
it did when I was eighteen nineteen years old, you know.
And I mean it started getting you know, you go
for all long time and it's good, and then you
start having it's pretty good, but some negative stuff and
then lots of negative stuff, and then it's just kind
of all negative towards the end. But in my delusional mind,
I'm still thinking it one day it's gonna be like
it was when I was eighteen nineteen years old again,

(19:15):
you know, and I had that mix where it was
just right, and I would always overshoot the mark a
little bit, you know, and wreck the car and stuff,
you know. And Aya it was the first place I'd
ever been around people that drank like I drank and
understood what drinking did for me. Because when my mother
would say, you know, you drink too much, I would

(19:39):
have even been able to formulate it in words, but
I would have said, you know, look, mom, I can
see from where you're sitting, it probably looks like I
drink a lot, you know, And maybe I do, you know.
And sometimes I overshoot the mark and I wreck the
car and I lose the girlfriend, or I get thrown
in jail, or I spend the whole paycheck or something
like that. But if you understood what drinking does for me,

(20:02):
you wouldn't be saying stupid crap to me, like, you know,
like you need to stop drinking, Because at some level
I knew drinking, you know, was my solution. You know.
It looked like my problem, but it was. It was
what I was using to treat my problem. It started
getting really sloppy there for a while. One night, I

(20:23):
left the bar in a blackout and I'd had five
Long Island teas and uh, that is that a universal drink?
A Long Island? Okay, well that's a lot and uh
And there was a crash and I could see a
fender sticking up. My field division was only about this big.
I could see a fender sticking up, and we're still rolling.

(20:45):
So I've kept my foot on the gas and I
drove around the corner and jumped out, grabbed my shoes
and I'm running back to the bar to report the
car stolen. And uh, you know, obviously there's been a
car theft, and uh and and this is not an
extraordinary night, you know, this is just Charlie roling, you know.

(21:06):
And and so I called it in the next morning,
they call me and they go, mister Parker, you're gonna
have to come take a polygraph test before you get
your car back. And I said, well, why is that
and they said, well, it was involved in an accident before. Oh,
I forgot this piece of the story. As I'm running
back to the bar with my shoes in my hand,
across the street are two cops standing out there in

(21:28):
the street, and I can remember their flashlight tinkling off
all this glass that's in the street. And in my
altered state, I still remember thinking, my god, they got
here fast, you know, I mean, how did they get
here so fast? And when they called me and I said,
you're gonna have to take a polygraph test, I said
why and they said it was in an accident before
it was reported. Still, and I said really, and they

(21:50):
said yeah, they ran into a parked police car, and
I remember thinking that explains how they got there so fast,
you know, because I'd been a little foggy on you know,
how they I mean, they were there like that, you know.

(22:10):
And uh but I mean norm Alfie used to talk
about how our lives were saved and changed by seconds
and inches, and I had a lot of stories like
that where my you know, the Canadian border could have said,
oh hell no, you know, I mean, if they'd have
seen a record of what I should have been arrested for,

(22:31):
because it was like that all the time. I mean,
it was just you know, getting out of a deal.
And if those two cops had been standing there when
I rolled down the street, you know, I could still
be in jail, you know, for running over a couple
of cops. But you know, I started losing the choice
of the power of choice and control somewhere along the line.
I could choose whether or not I was going to

(22:53):
get loaded, and I couldn't control how much I was
going to drink when I started drinking. Now we're getting
into the definition of alcoholic. You know. There's turns out
there's two things that make me alcoholic. One is what
happens to me when I drink it, and one is
what happens to me when I don't drink it, And
other than that, I got a pretty good handle on drinking.

(23:13):
But h but the thing that happens to me when
I drink it is it triggers that phenomenon of craving.
When I take a drink, I can't guarantee when I'm
going to stop or how it's going to go with
any predictable and then it goes on further, you know,
to say in the book talks a whole lot about that,
The first twenty three pages of the book and most
of the Doctor's Opinion talks about that physical craving that triggers.

(23:35):
But then it says, and that wouldn't mean anything if
I didn't ever take the first drink. And that's that
second part, is that I get so miserable when I'm
not drinking, then I'm going to drink again. And you know,
so when we talk about recovering from a hopeless condition
of mind and body, the way that rolls out when
it gets fully developed in a guy like me is

(23:56):
I'm so uncomfortable when I stay sober or when I
try My problem. Wasn't that I couldn't stop drinking. I
couldn't stop starting. Every time I stop drinking, I'd eventually
start drinking again. And the weird thing about it, that
thing about that phenomena craving. Every time I ever took
that first drink that triggered that phenomenon of craving, I

(24:20):
was stone cold sober. That's kind of one of the
baffling parts of alcoholism is I make the craziest decision
in my life, the decision to take another run at it,
even though I have zero evidence to prove that this
is gonna go well. I make that decision stone cold sober,
because I get so uncomfortable not drinking, you know, So

(24:44):
when you get stuck in that cycle. The book calls
it the terrible cycle, and the way it rolls out
for a guy like me is, once it's fully developed
in a guy like me, I'm gonna drink until I
have to stop, and then I'm gonna stop until I
have to And that's the terrible cycle that the book
talks about. And it goes down so for the new

(25:05):
guys in the room. If you don't take anything away
other than what it means to be an alcoholic in
the nature of alcoholism. That is huge because when I
when that's fully established in a guy like me, my
first job in step one, when I'm working with a
new guy, and we'll talk about this a lot tomorrow,
is to give this guy a fatal dose of alcoholism.

(25:25):
I need to understand in here that on my own power,
I got no shot, period, absolutely no shot. But when
I talk about the power of choice and control, I
like to talk about the pawn shops because I loved

(25:46):
pawn shops. I mean, I just I love the whole theory,
the whole you know, I mean, the whole equation of
it was just so pure. You know that. I mean,
you would walk in there and and say, you know,
here's my shotgun. Well, I should also say that another
big key to this is that well I'll get to
that in a second. But but you never walk in

(26:10):
and hand them the shotgun and they go, good god man,
what are you going to do with this money? You know?
Or weren't you just here this morning? Or you know,
it's something like that. You know, it never happens. You know,
you hand them the deer rifle and they give you
the money, and as you go and you come back
with the coin collection, and you can, well, the only
problem with this equation and you had ninety days to

(26:32):
get everything out of the pawn shop, you know, before
they sold it. The only one problem with this equation,
I should say, is I didn't known very much stuff,
so I was always pawning stuff that didn't belong to me.
Katie thinks it's an important part of the police car
story to say that it was my mother's car. I uh,
that I wrecked. I wrecked every car my mother ever owned,

(26:54):
and I was I was so poorly treated as a
child growing up that I finally ran away from home
for good at the age of twenty seven. I mean,
I mean, I'm not kidding. Never went back. I mean
I had some apartments in there, but I'd always wind

(27:16):
up back on their couch, you know. And I was
real hard on my folks, and so there's a lot
of their stuff that I'm pawning. And you know, when
we talk about when we talk about the loss of
choice and control, are there any elenis here? Okay? All right, Well,
I want to say in advance, there's parts of the
story that we know aren't funny. I mean, some of

(27:39):
it I have to tell it like it's a joke,
because the level of powerlessness that we walk around with
is devastating. And I didn't know when I got here,
why when I would promise people that I'm not going

(27:59):
to do this any more, I'd keep doing it, you know.
And and well, so with this pawn shop thing, you know,
drunks make good plans. We make just brilliant plans, and
they work right up till they don't work anymore, you know.
And and and the plan with UH, with this was
I had three months to get everything out of the
pawn shop, and you know, and then you could kind

(28:19):
of roll again. And I could usually pull a scam
every three months to get everything, except for this one night,
I got an insurance claim and uh, and I just
stopped in for a couple of drinks. I didn't know
that by stopping in there, I was triggering a phenomenon
of craven and that I had no control over what
was about to happen. But what happened was I was
a blackout drinker. A lot Katie wasn't. I was, but

(28:45):
this was a five day blackout. Five days. Don't remember
anything except for one incident where a friend of mine
got cut. Other than that, I don't remember anything in
uh in the rest of that five days. And I
came out of this blackout and I had eight dollars
and all those pawn tickets. And you know those mornings

(29:06):
where you just go, oh no, you know, oh, you know,
if you're an alcoholic and you're sitting in this room,
you know those mornings you know where you just go,
I shot my wad, you know. I put everything I
had into getting that other little scam, and now I've
blown the money, and what are we going to do now?

(29:26):
And I would have to go to my father and say, Dad,
if we act now, this is the part that I said,
we know, isn't funny. I'd say, if we act now,
I can get you a really good deal on all
of your stuff, you know. But if we wait till tomorrow,

(29:50):
it's strictly retail, you know. And so the point of
this story is when we talk about the loss of choice.
And this was in Dallas, Texas. I grew up in Dallas.
I live in Austin, Texas now. And we would get
in the car and it wasn't like You're just going

(30:11):
to go to the pawn shop. It was, you know,
we had to get in the car. In Dallas is
a big, sprawling, spread out city, not an urban vertical
type city. It's like l I A. And then it's
real wide and low. And so it wasn't We're just
going to go to the pawn shop. It's like, we
got to go around Garland Road and get your deer rifle,
and we got to go to Buckner Boulevard and get

(30:32):
the shotgun. And then your coin collections out on East
Grant and then the metal detectors are on Bell Line Road,
and the sterling silver's over in Oak Cliff, and we
got to go to Garland. So it was all day
in the car with me and my dad and all
this shame, you know, just it's all over you, you know,

(30:53):
And I mean I knew enough to know that this
wasn't right. My dad was a good man, nobody he
was giving him his stuff and here I am, you know,
out there pawning it. The reason the story is important
about loss of choice and control is because when we
would be riding in that car, I would be saying, Dad,

(31:14):
I swear to God, I will never do this again.
And if I was lying to that guy, I damn
sure didn't know it because it felt like I meant
it with every fiber of my band that I will
never ever do this again. I'll never put you through
this again. You know, I don't ever want to be

(31:35):
like this again. What I didn't know was that I
didn't have the power to make good on that promise.
By telling him I wasn't going to do this again,
I might as well have been promising him that I
was going to flap my arms and fly up around
the back of the room and come back and land
at this podium. Because I did not have the power
to make good on that promise. That's what we're talking

(31:57):
about when we were talking about the loss of choice
and control. If you're a guy that, if you're a
person that can make up your mind to stop drinking
and pull it off, you don't even belong in the
program of alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics anonymous is for people like
me that swear to God this time I mean business,
and I drink again, because within two or three days

(32:19):
I'd hit the back door of his house like a
cat burglar, and he'd be off and again. And my
dad and I made the reunds of the pawn shops
three times before I eventually sobered. Ug well, okay, I
still got a little time. So that's what we're talking

(32:39):
about when we talk about, you know, the loss of
choice and control and a hopeless condition of mind and body.
Is that I get so uncomfortable when I try to
stay sober that I'm going to drink again eventually, restless, irritable,
and discontent. You know. The Doctor's Opinion that does a
brilliant job of laying this stuff out in the first
forty three pages of the Big Book, and the Doctor's
Opinion are pretty mu devoted to step one because we're

(33:02):
not going anywhere until I got that in here, not
up here, but in in here where I go, My god,
what if I am a garden variety alcoholic? What if
I The way you're describing this stuff is explaining a
lot of stuff that I've never been able to explain before.
You know, like when people would say, why'd you start

(33:24):
drinking again? I gave them the only answer any of
us have, which is what I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know. I just that's what I do. You know?
And uh, well now I know, but I mean I
tell you, it still doesn't make your family feel a
lot better, you know, if they go why did you
start drinking? And go, Well, it's like this, mom, I

(33:46):
have a spiritual malady. And it's it's it's driven driven
by one hundred forms of fear, of self illusion and
self seeking and self pity, you know, and and uh,
and it creates a mental obsession in me that makes
me powerless over the first drink. And when I take
the first drink, that makes me powerless over the second.
And Mom, I actually have a hopeless condition of mind

(34:06):
and body. And I you know, that's why I ponded
your television set, you know, you know, but it amn
sure helped me to know it, you know, because until
we have this common problem, we're not gonna be interested
in the common solution. And we all get here a

(34:27):
little unique, and a lot of us as newcomers. I
used to think that I could break this dell down
for the new guy and we'd all get it and
lock elbows and trudge the road of happy destiny together.
I forgot that most of us are sitting there going,
I don't have it like that. I don't have it
like you got it. If I had it like you've
got it, i'd work your stupid little twelve step thing
or whatever it is. But I mean, I think when

(34:48):
I get out of here, I can still tweak this
deal a little bit and make it work. You know.
I know it looks bad right now because I'm in
detoks and stuff, but but I really, you know, it's
not as bad as it looks. I got this, you know,
and and and and that's what we will ride into
the graveyard. The book talks about, you know, it's it's

(35:10):
present in us a long time before most of us
suspect it. But there's something that happens on that day
when I have that what I what we call a
step one experience, where all of a sudden, I go,
hold on just a minute. What you're saying is explaining
a lot of stuff I've never been Because Clancy likes
to say, if you gave every one of us a

(35:31):
flagged the way when we're coming new all of our
flags would say the same thing. It'd say, you don't understand.
My case is different, you know. But there's something that
happens when all of a sudden, I go, what if
I'm just a garden variety alcoholic, you know, then the
common solution becomes available to me and we can get
something done. You know, So when we're doing the steps

(35:55):
the stuff tomorrow, we're going to break it down into
the problem, the solution, and the program of action. There
are three critical things. But you know, I'm not going
to be interested in the solution to a problem I
don't think I have. Does that make sense? It'd be
like going to PTA meetings when I don't have any children.
You know, It's just why would I do that? You know.

(36:18):
But but but the moment that I really think I'm
one of y'all, this deal gets gets really interesting. You know.
There's a friend of mine likes to say that I
know two things about AA that I didn't know when
I got here, and that is that I was in
a lot more trouble than I thought I was when

(36:39):
I got here. And the other is that AA had
a lot bigger answer than I was giving them credit for.
You know, I really thought I had a little bit
of a problem and maybe we could just tweak things
just a little bit and it'd be all right. But
AA's got a big answer for a huge problem. And

(37:00):
you know, one of the things I hope we get
around to talking about, you know, is that my first
pass in AA, I didn't understand the problem. I h
I really, I really thought the problem was alcohol. And
I went through a sponsor with a sponsor and we
went through the steps, and I mean, it's funny. When

(37:21):
I read the book, I like to look for things
that I agree with anybody, I guess I'm the only
one like that, right, you know. I like to read
and look for things that I already agree about, you know.
And that's why we work so much with the set
aside prayer, because sometimes, you know, I'll just say, help
me set aside everything I think I know about this
stuff and let me see the truth, because otherwise I'll
sit there and go, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah,

(37:41):
oh yeah, I got that underlying and highlighted. You know,
you can't, you know, you know you can't, you know.
But when I do the little set aside prayer, all
of a sudden, stuff starts showing up, and I can
see things, you know, outside of what I already Otherwise,
I'm just looking for stuff that I already agree with,
you know. I'm looking for evidence that I I'm already right,
you know, and I can't. We're not going anywhere like

(38:04):
that but I spent I've got a few minutes left
to say. I spent quite a few years in AA
acting like the problem was alcohol. I didn't know it.
I didn't know that I was in Fellowship based Alcoholics Anonymous.
I didn't know that I was the middle of the road.
I didn't know that I was, uh, you know, had

(38:24):
a misunderstanding of the steps, you know what I call
I didn't. I spent a good deal of time in
untreated alcoholism and didn't know it. And it's funny. I
have a problem sometimes with judging people really harshly for
not knowing something that I learned about thirty minutes ago.
You know, And I know that that happens in Texas.

(38:44):
I'm sure it doesn't happen in Canada. But but you know,
I'll get a new understanding of this stuff and next thing,
you know, I'm going did you hear him in the meeting?
For God's sakes? You know, I mean he's killing newcomers,
you know. But but but I mean, I spent a
lot of time in this stuff, and my first pass
through the Steps, I really thought that the problem was

(39:05):
alcohol and God's gonna help me with it. I wasn't
really down with God. But then I did an inventory.
You know, one of the big problems that I see,
and we'll talk about this a lot more tomorrow, is
if taking a guy right from are you willing to
believe to getting him on his knees and doing a
third step prayer. I had no idea what that huge
body of work that takes place on pages sixty to

(39:26):
sixty three. There's no way I'm gonna have time to
talk about this tonight. Well we'll try to talk about tomorrow,
but I well, just to fast forward it turned, you know,
and when I had a plane crash in two thousand
and three where we crashed into the water at night
and out on eastern Long Island and had to escape
from an underwater plane and we're on seeing then and

(39:48):
everything it was, and it was it was very dramatic.
I mean, it's now aural high tower story, but it
was pretty pretty during traumatic dramatic, you know. And I
started looking at things a lot differently, and I realized
that seventeen years of sobriety, I was so self centered
that I couldn't even really be involved in a conversation
with anybody. I just I mean, because I didn't care,

(40:09):
you know, I mean, I you know, I would have
to force myself to go, how are the kids? You know? Yeah,
and act like I give a flip about the answer,
you know, because I got me on me like that,
you know. And and and and so I'm when I'm

(40:29):
when I'm reading the book, and I come across that
line now where it says the first instep three, where
it says the first requirement is that we be convinced
that any life run on self will can hardly be
a success. I was like, where did that come from?
I mean, because not only was I not convinced of that,

(40:50):
that line had never touched me. I mean, and when
so when he rolled when I talk about this huge
the book takes a huge right turn on page sixty,
and I missed it for a long long time in
the fellowship as a sober member of alcoholics anonymous, and
I didn't know what the real problem was. So when
it talks about selfishness, self centeredness is the root of

(41:11):
our problem, above everything, we got to get rid of
this selfishness. I mean, it's you know, that's where Mark
Houston just lit us on fire, and I really wish
he could be here this weekend to talk to you
about it. But I mean this level of, you know,
seeing now that the problem never really was alcohol, That
alcohol was what I found that would soothe the pain

(41:34):
of a life based completely on self centeredness. And it
always reminds me. I'll try to close with it. But
I'm a Dallas Cowboy fan. I'm sure I can't believe
that I didn't expect that, But but I spent twenty
years going to Dallas Cowboys games and sitting you know,

(41:55):
and I love the I've loved him since I was
a kid, since they were good, you know, and we've
died a thousand deaths since trag when I retired, But
you know, I'd always go to these Cowboy games. And
then a couple of years ago, I had this sponsee
that says, hey, you know, it goes, my family's got
a skybox at Texas Stadium. He goes, you want to

(42:16):
go watch the Philadelphia game and a skyboxer? It absolutely
And we go. We drive up there, and we park
in this a little private parking lot, and we go
in through this private entrance and you go up this
civilized a little escalator and you go into a civilized
little hallway, and it's a whole real quiet, and you know,

(42:36):
you go into the room and they're bringing buckets of
ice and trays of cookies and stuff. And I didn't
know whether to be excited about being in a skybox
or be pissed about sitting in the cheap seats for
twenty years. But that's the way my experience was with
alcoholics Anonymous. I spent seventeen years in AA thinking I

(42:58):
was doing AA, and I find out later that there's
people doing it at a whole other level that I'd
never even dreamed of, you know, And so I mean,
that's what we get so excited about coming and talking about.
You know, I had no idea if I'd have died
in that plane crash on July twentieth of two thousand
and three, I would have missed it. I almost missed it. Anyway.

(43:19):
If you'd come to me at seventeen years of sobriety
and said, Charlie, what is going to change your life
and set you on fire? Is the program of alcoholics Anonymous,
right out of the Big Book, I would have told
you were crazy. Because I'd been in AA for a
long time. I thought I knew what AA had to
offer me, you know, So the experience that we've had

(43:45):
over the past seven or eight years, my god, I
mean I didn't even I had no idea it was there.
And you know, now, you know, Katy will try to
talk about it. She's a lot more centered and focused
than I am. But but you know, she sponsors about
twenty five girl so I'm sponsoring about fifteen guys. We're
going out to the She goes to the women's treatment
I go to the men's treatment center. We have a

(44:06):
She has a Monday night meeting at the house with
her girls. I have a Thursday night meeting at the
house with my guys that Mark Houston came to every
Thursday night for four years. I mean he never there
was never one time where he walked in that house,
and I took it for granted. Every time he'd walk
in there, I knew, this is really awesome, you know,
to have Mark coming into the house every Thursday night.
And the best AA I've ever been involved him was

(44:28):
sitting at that kitchen table with ten or twelve of us,
you know, sitting there talking about AA. You know, the
depth and the level of the understanding of the book,
and you know, it's just like the first time I
was ever around Mark is just like what book is
he reading from? You know? I mean, because I mean
I'm seeing stuff that I it sounds like it's coming
from a book I've never read before. So I'm really

(44:52):
excited to be here. I love the program of Alcoholics
Anonymous and h you know, I just, I mean, I'm
really anxious saying this is the short I've actually just
ran right from the car to the podium, So I'm
really looking forward to sitting down here and what Katie's
got to say. Katie and I were we have a
very interesting history. We were littermates in AA. We both

(45:15):
came in, we both came in at the same time,
and we were like brother and sister for twenty years.
She was like my kid's sister, and she was married
the whole time, and her husband passed away and we
became a couple about seven years ago, and we've been
married less than nine months. But she's the best thing

(45:36):
that's ever happened to me, and she really works a
rock solid AA program, and I'm looking forward to hearing
her talking. And I just we're real happy to be here,
and thanks for listening to

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Charlie P. - AA Speaker - Abstinence from alcohol vs. Recovery

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Charlie P. - AA Speaker - Abstinence from alcohol vs. Recovery