Chris R. - AA Speaker - It is OKAY to be EXCITED about recovery! - THE M2 THE ROCK SHOW - Michael Molthan

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wonder how much pull I've got in this place. I
wonder if we could do away with those spots, We'll
see how much pull I got. I can't see him
when they start rushing the podium. I I can't see you.
I my name is Chris Raymer, and I'm a grateful
recovered alcoholic. Oh what a cool, cool deal to do this.

(00:22):
I uh speechless, tyllahassee you know this is amazing, absolutely amazing,
beautiful place, great hospitality. I've heard all week long. Well
this is our first conference. I gotta tell you, I
don't care if it's your twenty first conference. Y'all have
done a tremendous job of this. I I I just,

(00:47):
I just I am. I absolutely blown away. I absolutely
wanna uh thank uh Diz for calling me. I mean
he he called me ages ago, which was let me
schedule this thing so I can come do this. And
Lisa was on me with emails and telephone calls to
make sure I got here okay, And I mean it
was just I got to listen, gud. I got a
fruit basket in my room the size of a small Volkswagen.

(01:11):
Any y'all want to eat? Y'all didn't get enough to
eat tonight. If you come over to my room tonight.
I mean, well, food was great. That's the best countdown
I have ever ever been a part of. I've been
in a well sixteen years worth of countdowns coming to conferences,
and that was that was the I've just blown away.

(01:32):
My wife's going to be so bad that she didn't
get a chance to come. It's just nuts. But bless
you for doing it. Cool deal. I am a shy,
sensitive alcoholic and speaking from podiums is like torture for me.
Thank you so much. There is a god. I always
steel so separated when they do that. I mean a

(01:53):
lot of places they do you speak and you can't
see the people. And if I can't see the people,
I can't connect. I mean I need. Like I said,
I I do this a lot and get a chance
to speak around a bunch, and I'm so honored to
do that. It's it's very humbling. I heard some speakers
this week and refer to it, and it's it's extremely

(02:13):
humbling to be asked to be anything in alcoholics anonymous.
I I if I live to be a thousand, I
will never be able to pay my debt back to
this fellowship, and anything I can ever do for this
fellowship I want to try to do, and coming up
here is the least I could do. Give a weekend

(02:34):
to come up and visit with you, guys. I want
to I want to talk to you a little bit
about what I'm going to share. I'm gonna fight this
Michael Night. I'm sorry. Uh, it's my magnetic personality. It's
probably h y'all hear what SI I was sixteen years sober?
Did you hear the song they played when I was
getting my sick, you know, standing up for sixteen Yeah,

(02:54):
everybody wants to rule the world. I mean, I thought
I was just how I'll propos I thought that was
good described me. I guarantee you I am not a
I'm not the AA police. I am passionate about recovery.

(03:17):
There's a couple of reasons I'm overwhelmed with this passion
for this fellowship. One. I spent seven years in and
out of the rooms trying to get sober. I've heard
some people share this weekend, you know, they got sober
and everything's been great since. And that was just not
my case. I knew I had a problem with alcohol

(03:39):
and drugs from the time I was twenty years old,
twenty one years old, and I was thirty five when
I finally got sober, and that last seven years of
my drinking were spent in the rooms of alcoholics anonymous,
and I didn't get the message there. And I want
to talk a little bit about that tonight. The other
reason for my passion is I do clear work for

(04:00):
a treatment center. God sort of jerks me to the
back to the hill country. It was one of those deals,
you know. I grew up in the Hill Country and
I couldn't wait to get out. And then the twenty
years later, I hated it so bad I moved back.
You know. It was just and I've loved to be
in there. But I'm working for this hospital over there,
in this treatment center, and I get a chance. It's
a big hospital, and we get a chance to work
with about a thousand drunks a year, and I get

(04:23):
to watch a lot of people hurt, and I get
a lot to watch a lot of people get well
have spiritual experiences on a daily basis, and it's the
coolest thing to watch. I also get to talk to
these cats and doing clerical work, and I'm not a
counselor of a therapist. And I'm not up here trying
to share a bunch of knowledge with you. I'm all
I can share from this podium. Please, is my experience.
And I need to say this before I get going

(04:46):
in here, because I go pretty fast. Anything I say
that pisces you off or makes you uncomfortable, good, I think, No,
I mean that's not my intention ever. From the podium.

(05:07):
There's a I gotta say this real quick because there's
a circuit speaker up north and my brother and I
keep in touch with him. He's a good, good egg.
He's been around on the circuit speaking for a million
years and he's heard our CDs, and he's he's so grindy.
He says, you know, you should never get up from
the podium and say anything that would possibly make anybody uncomfortable.
I just I'm speechless by that. I you know, in

(05:35):
nineteen eighty seven, when I got sober, I went to
my first conference. That's why I still love to come
to conferences. I'd come to this conference if I wasn't
a speaker here. I mean, these are wonderful opportunities to
come in here and and maybe hear a little different
bent on something. That's the cool thing about Alcoholics Anonymous
is that you get sober, you have your spiritual experience,
and you recover, and then you've got a lifetime of

(05:56):
growth ahead of you, learning new things and seeing different things.
But if you know it all and everything's great in
your little life. I mean, how many times do I
talk to people from out there in AA land who have,
who have, who are burnt out, who are tired of
the program, who are I hear it all the time.
I'm just bored with AA. You know I need something else. Well,

(06:16):
maybe it's because we've stopped learning, We've stopped reaching, we've
stopped looking at things differently. I'm saying this is from
the absolute bottom of my heart. I'm not up here
telling anybody how to work their program. I mean, my
program might kill some of you, guys. I can assure
you your program would kill a whole bunch of people.

(06:37):
You dig Let me, let me make it clearer. I uh.
I understand that Alcoholics Anonymous the only requirement for membership
is a desire to stop drinking. And I understand that
a lot of people are in our fellowships who have
a desire to stop drinking. But you know, in order
to get recover, our book spends one hundred and sixty

(06:59):
four pages explaining we have to do now. If you
can do that without doing the work, then I want
to submit something to you that I'm not going to say.
You're not an alcoholic, but you might not be the
alcoholic of my variety. You know, we talked about it
this morning in Dizzey's it. Dizn't called it a terrific

(07:19):
workshop on doctor Soworth's doctor's opinion, and what a cool
thing to be to be in that room listening to
these cats with long term Sobriety picked that chapter apart
and then we talked about it. In there, there's lots
of different kinds of alcoholics. I got to tell you.
On page twenty and twenty one, it talks about modern drinkers,
hard drinkers, and the real McCoy. I don't know about
you guys, but hard drinkers, my experience shows me they

(07:42):
look a lot like alcoholics. The only thing that differentiates
between an alcoholic and a hard drinker is that a
hard drinker, given sufficient reason, can quit on his own,
doesn't need a spiritual experience to stop. I did. I'm
an alcoholic that could not not drink. I wanna s

(08:08):
if any of y'allud like to read this. I I
I I. I picked it up on the way out
from the hospital uh Friday, for I got on a plane.
I A lady just uh sent it to me a
month or so ago, and I've kept it in my
big book for a while. It's uh, y'all can see it.
It's it's it's a little obituary of a of an
expati of ours. He this is a good little guy.
He was back there in the early nineties in our

(08:30):
hospital and and left and states over for a short
period of time and then twisted and has been been
fighting this uh stupid disease for the last uh eight
or nine years. And I won't read it to you,
but I i'll I'll tell you in a in a
nutshell what she said, Uh JR. Was his name. He's dead.
I guess I could bust his anonymity. He he, she says,

(08:55):
one cold Sunday morning, he finally put an end to
the battle and hung himself. See alcohol didn't kill JR. Jr.
Wasn't drinking. He didn't run into something drunk. Alcohol didn't

(09:20):
kill this kid. Alcoholism killed this kid. The disease of alcoholism,
which will kill you drunk or sober. How many of
us in this room have seen friends of ours who
had long periods of dry time who finally just one
day said you know, I can't do this anymore, and

(09:40):
went out and shot themselves. More of them today are
what they're doing. Instead of shooting themselves, They're just going
to a doctor that should know better, who prescribes something
to help them ease the pain, just to bit, which
automatically triggers the phenomena called craving and sends them right
straight back to the booze yell down with what I'm at.

(10:00):
I realized it would be so much easier for me
to come up here and not ever say anything controversial,
and not saying anything that anybody would find any kind
of confusion over. But you know, for the real alcoholic
that might be sitting in this room that needs to
hear something he can sink his teeth into, my book said,
the message that can interest in alcoholics must have depth

(10:21):
and wait, and I got to take something. Folks sitting
in some meetings that I sit into, listen to you
tell me to just keep coming back, doesn't have much
depth and wait, and that's what I want to talk about.
I want to share my experience dying in Alcoholics Anonymous
for seven years Love Alcoholics Anonymous. I had a lady

(10:42):
come up after I spoke some as over in Arizona
and speaking someplace, and she comes with, how dare you
take AA's inventory? Somebody better, somebody better quick Alcoholics Anonymous. Folks,
in the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous, nineteen fifty five
and the second edition was published, we had a sixty
five to seventy five percent success rate in our fellowship.

(11:04):
Great success rates right now with all of our superior
medications and superior therapeutic techniques and superior nutrition, and with
everything we've got to offer, our success rates right now
in the United States were hovering around twenty percent. Twenty
percent not good. What's the problem? The problem is the

(11:37):
message that they were carrying in nineteen fifty five is
not the same message we're carrying today. Pretty simple, patients
come to this hospital right where I work. We get
to do a little big book with them in the morning,
and I get a chance to get to visit with
these guys and talk to them, And I got to
tell you something, Guys. The hospital I work for is

(11:58):
very expensive, and you don't get there just you know,
you woke up one day and you had a little
hangover in your family sent I mean, this is kind
of like the last house on the block for some
of these some of these cats to come to this
hospital and I get a chance to talk to them,
and a lot of them coming out of their mouth
and they do. They come into SEU or a little
special care unit where they detox, and then we've got
the twelve steps and the twelve traditions on the wall

(12:18):
and they look up there and they go, oh, no,
not again. I was hoping for all this money, we'd
get something besides AA, you know with me. And it's
like and I feel so sorry for him, and it's
like and it frustrates me because their experience in AA
was not good. See, our problem is not getting people
to come to our fellowship. Our problem is getting people

(12:39):
to stay once they're here. And I think all of us,
if we can have an open mind, we might want
to look at what we're doing in our meetings and
look at what we're saying and realizing that maybe the
message that was carried to us, is not being carried
to them. Bill Wilson wrote a lot about it in
his letters. He wrote a lot about it. Try to

(13:00):
defend our success rate. That's what I want to talk
about a little bit tonight. Guys. If you're carrying a
big book and you're in meetings and you're studying, and
you're talking to newcomers about getting well, jeez, thanks so
much for sticking. Thanks for doing that. If you're coming
into meetings to share about your day and complain about
problem dujure, Well you're welcome. But I hope you've come

(13:30):
at this little talk with an open mind. I did
I tell you that was the coolest countdown I have
ever heard in my entire life. God, that was just great.
I was raised in the Hill Country. I was born
out in West Texas, but I was raised in the

(13:51):
Hill Country and down around San Antonio, and I live
in a little town called Ingram, Texas. And it is
it is a small, dirty bred little town, and it's
like it is the worst. It's I can't describe it.
It's there's a million trailers there and you know, I
mean old, burned out ones, you know, and it's just
it's it's just a tough place to live. About four

(14:13):
or five bars in there. And anyway, it's right there
on the river and a little lake there called Ingram Lake.
And if any of you guys are ever in Texas
and you want to stop by them and come come visit,
I live in a two room rock house down right
on the river. Any y'all are all welcome, come come visit.
You can't spend the night because it ain't no place
for you to sleep that you can. You will sure
fix some coffee and then I take you to a

(14:34):
meeting and we'd be honored to have you. I I
got a new wife that I married in September. She's
in the program. And I was talking to an alandline
friend of mine earlier and she was asking how things
have been going, and I said, you know, my life
is is about as full as it gets. I used
to say it's busy because I'm I'm pretty driven. I'm
always busy at work. I've always got one hundred things

(14:56):
going with guys, it's not the truth. My life is full.
And you know, for a Catholic that spent most of
his life complaining because his life was so boring, and dull.
I've got everything I ever asked for everything. I've got
the coolest life I could ever imagine. And I'm excited
for that, and I'm excited to carry that message to
the newcomer who's hurting just like I was sixteen years ago.

(15:19):
I would be alright if I took this jacket off.
Would y'all complain about that? It's a little good. If
I start going for the shirt, stop me. It's not
a pretty sight. I drank in high school and socially.

(15:39):
I heard Carl say something this afternoon. It was very telling,
and I don't think enough people really really discuss it
from the podium or in our meetings. Alcoholism and drug addiction,
I believe is genetic, and all the information that we
have points to that, and I believe I was born alcoholic.
I'm down with that. But it's progressive and many of
us the disease progresses it different levels. And there's a

(16:01):
lot of us that had long periods of time when
we drank socially without getting in a whole heck of
a lot of trouble, and it wasn't until later in
our life that things really started piling up. I know
some young adults at sixteen years old that are full
blown alcoholic. They can't even they start to drink, get
in the car and get a DWI. I mean, the
diseases progressed so fast in them it's not even blessed.
I'm sorry you missed out, you know, because my treat

(16:23):
is I had some years. I had some period of
time when drinking was quite a doable thing. I was
in the food business, and we drank in the kitchen,
and we drank before work and after work. And I
never got fired from a job. And I was very
good at what I did, and I wasn't going to
jail and doing a bunch of crazy stuff. I tell
you what I was doing from the time I was

(16:43):
about twenty one twenty two years old, I was doing
two things to try to treat this thing. What I
know now was the spiritual malady, this internal condition that
alcoholics and addicts are born with and carry with them
through their life. Excuse me, snuck up on me. I
I have a little depth perception problem here. The the

(17:07):
the two things I did was one, I did a
lot of geographical moves. I mean, I was in the
food business, so I could travel around a lot everybody
everywhere needs cooks, and and and I was good at
what I did, and and so I could go anywhere
I wanted and get his job. And I and I
did that because I always believed that the problems it
was just real easy. You know. You you mess up
a relationship here and and you know, trash a bunch

(17:28):
of friendships over here, and just packed your truck up
and moved the next town, and you can do it
again there, you know. But I kept thinking it was
always going to be better down the road. But one
of the things I was doing on those all all
those geographics, is I was seeing therapists. I was seeing
counselors because, buddy, I'm gonna tell you something. I had
a h absolute diagnosed depressive disorder. I was the book

(17:51):
talks about having other ailments, and I got to tell you,
I was diagnosed with a whole bunch of that stuff.
Depression was huge in my life. And I was diagnosed
with bipolar stuff and manic depression. And I mean they
had me on every kind of medication and you could
shake a stick at it. There were periods of my
life through the eighties where I was on so many
meds and drinking so heavily on top of those meds.

(18:13):
I mean, really, I don't even remember most of the eighties.
I mean, that's honest, spot. There was a whole decade
there that I just don't remember. I got XM in
my little pickup truck back back in Ingram, you know,
and I listened to the eighties channel because every once
in a while I hear a song it's like, oh shit,
I remember that, you know, It's like it'll jog sub
memory because I was so zonked out on all of

(18:35):
these meds. I mean, there's a lot of doctors that
tried to help me, a lot of therapists that tried
to help me. You down with this about early eighties.
Sometime early eighties, I was married, I know that. And
I'd got married, of course, not for the reasons necessary

(18:57):
of love, although I loved her, she was a sweetheart.
But I was convinced that if I would just grow up, mature,
set some roots finally to start doing the responsible thing,
that I could get well. You know, I mean, I
know none of y'all have ever married. Trying to do that.
You know, this will fix us, Let's have kids, you know,
It's like, well, no, don't you know. But I'm trying

(19:18):
everything external. Can y'all get downe what I'm saying. You know,
I'm in the food business, and there's times that I'm
making a ton of money. I'm big chef, big hotel,
making good whip. And then there was times in the
seventies and eighties when I was eating out of dumpster's literally,
and it's like it's like this, these roller coaster rides
that I go on. And of course I've always got
something to blame, you know. I mean when I meet

(19:39):
when I'm in a chef, big shot hotel, it's I'm
doing pretty good. When I'm eating out of dumpster's. You
people are killing me out here. You know, y'all are
causing me all these headaches, and it's like we're driving people.
I've always got somebody to blame for why I can't
be happy. Bill Wilson describes the spiritual malady as this, folks,
this is alcoholism. Forget the drinking for a minute. This
is alcoholism. The spiritual malady irritable, restless, and discontent. Think

(20:04):
about it. See if that applies to you. Depressed, bored, anxious,
trouble in personal relationships, trouble making a living. That's got
nothing to do with making money making a living. What
are you doing with the money you got spending it? Yeah,
credit cards all maxed out? Uh huh, hot checks, uh huh.

(20:27):
Trouble making a living, no sense of direction? You're with us,
no sense of direction. We call it add today they're
going to medicate it. I'm down with that, you know.
But what it is is the symptom of the spiritual malady.
There's a great line in the book, what's this codependency stuff?
I mean, the therapists have made a heyday with that,
But the book talks about this constant need of approval

(20:48):
from others. Well, that was me, buddy. You were in
my life at least if you and I went out,
once you follow me, I'm going home. I'm naming our children.
You know, we're in a hostage situation instantly. I mean,
it's just it's because and then if you said, no, Chris,

(21:08):
I'm not ready to settle down and have babies, you
know what you know, then now I'm now I'm a stalker.
You know. He's like, I'm you know, as I was
on the I was the original I was a poster boy.
For Stalker's anonymous. That's a fact. I unbelievable, because how
dare you not want me? You know, because if you
don't want me, I'm not complete. I'm always looking for
some woman to make me whole. That's why I hated

(21:28):
to go go to these weddings. They're probably doing it
back there, you know. They take the two candles and
they blow them both out, and then they light one candle.
Where we were two, now we were one. That is
absolute rubbish, absolute rubbish. And some I've just pissed off

(21:49):
half the women in here. I don't know. I don't
know whether. I don't know how to break this to
you folks, But each and every one of us gets
a cool life to go have a great time in
you know, and if somebody wants to come along for
the ride, how cool is that? And if they don't,
how cool is that? It's just God, it's great to
be sober. I tell you, how can I put this?

(22:11):
The spiritual malady? There was one line on page fifty
two that says we were unhappy, and that summed up
my life. Had twenty years of drinking, and if you
could sum it up, it was I was unhappy and
I was unhappy. Guys. I'm gonna tell you something, even
when things were going good, when things are going bad,
and that's what drives me crazy because I spent so
many years in therapy trying to talk about all the
bad stuff that was happening to me dig and then

(22:34):
when things would good, we're talking about all the good
things that are making me drink. It's like it's a
no win situation. How many of you guys out there?
I do this every time I talk. How many of
you guys out there drinking drug? When life was great,
everything was super Let the record show every hands up?
How many of you drank? But everything was absolute crap?

(22:56):
Sam hands up? So could it possibly be that Bill
Wilson meant what he said in this book that our
troubles of our own making, and that it's all internal,
not external. Could it possibly be that alcoholism hasn't got
a I can't cuss and hear either. Okay, I almost
let it out. Could it possibly be that alcoholism hasn't

(23:19):
got a dad gun thing to do with your external world? Buddies?
If I say anything controversial from the podium, that's it.
Because there's a bunch of you in this room. I
can guarantee that are holding onto that external stuff is
an absolute trunk card. Just throw down. Why you can't
get sober, I got news for you. You can't get

(23:42):
sober because you won't do the same thing. Every speaker
we've heard this weekend is telling you to do finish
the steps. Early eighties, I'm married, were living up in Denton, Texas,
and I've got a job over and at a country
club over there, and not doing well. Folks. The drinking

(24:06):
is progressing to a point where I'm having trouble and
I get in a little domestic disturbance at home and
the cops come, and I'm sitting out on the curb
cooling off, and the cops leave and walk back inside
and begged that woman to forgive me for treating her
like garbage. And I'm mortified, you know, because my dad
and mom my father was an alcoholic, but you know,

(24:30):
we just didn't weren't raised to treat other people with
disrespect like that. And I ran her through the ringer
and I apologize, and she looked at me. She said, Chris,
do you believe that this has got something to do
with the fact that you were drunk out of your mind.
Do you believe it's got something to do with the
fact that you've done enough cocaine to choke a horse? Yeah?
Do you love me? Yeah? Will you stop? Yeah? Now listen, guys,

(25:00):
because y'all need to hear this. I meant it. Diz
was talking about it earlier. I've seen the archives with
Doctor Bob's site. There's two places in doctor Bob's Bible
where he did a blood oath swearing off booze. I mean,
do you think doctor Bob was just blowing smoke up
somebody's butt. He meant it. He didn't have the power
to pull it off. And I meant it that night

(25:22):
when I told her that I wasn't going to stop.
The book on page thirty four, says he said, let
me read it to you real quick, because because it's
one of the best things in the book, especially when
you're working with a newcomer to qualify them and find
out if they really even need to be here or not.
For those who are unable to drink moderately, the question
is how to stop altogether. We're assuming, of course, that
the reader desires to stop. Now that's an assumption, isn't it.

(25:46):
How many of us have ever sat down and working
with a guy and then it realized two weeks into it,
this kind of doesn't even kind of want to stop.
He just wants the heat to go away. Whether such
a person can quit upon a non spiritual basis depends
upon the extent to which it is already lost the
power to choose whether he's gonna drink or not. This
is the baffling feature of alcoholithm as we know it,
This utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how

(26:08):
great the necessity or the wish. And folks, I gotta
tell you, in the early eighties, I wanted to get sober.
I needed to get sober, and I made a commitment
to get sober. I just didn't have the power necessary
to pull it off. And that's the most frustrating place
in the world to be, to want to do the
right thing and not be able to do it. Some

(26:28):
of y'all feel a little tension in your gut. That's
called a first step experience. It is what the words
in the first step mean. So clearly we admitted we
were powerless over alcohol. I kept waiting, guys for things
to get bad enough for me to quit. I shoved
my wife. That's plenty bad enough for me. Was it

(26:49):
enough for me to stop? No? It states over two weeks,
went out after work one night, had a couple of
beers of the boys came back home. No problem. I
hadn't gotten drunk. But you see, my deal with Karen
was that I wasn't going to drink any more. Period.
My deal with Karen wasn't that I wasn't going to

(27:09):
get drunk anymore. Two weeks it took me to forget
the promise I'd made to her. She packed and moved
to Houston, and I moved into a room with my
little sister. Thank God for family. Bless you guys for
sticking with us. Later was to live with my brother
nineteen eighty seven. I'm working with that brother because I

(27:31):
can't cook anymore, and we own a book bindary up
in Louisville, Texas. He owns it and I was working
in the warehouse with him. And one cold night up
and Louisville, Texas, I drove home and picked up a
stack of return checks out of the mailbox and drove

(27:53):
up to my little apartment that I had all by myself,
with a couple of stinky ferrets and opened those return checks,
finished about a half a six pack of beer, and
I said, this is it. I am so done, and
I walked to the medicine cabinet, I got a bottle
of pills and tried to commit suicide. Got an identical

(28:13):
twin brother that I love more than anything in the world.
I got a family that was so supportive and so
cool to me, and all I can do is check out, folks.
I'll say, there's nothing in me that wanted to die
that night. Can y'all get down with that. Some of

(28:35):
y'all in here that have tried to commit suicide, you
know exactly what I'm talking about. There's nothing romantic about it.
There's nothing. I just was sick and tired of feeling
the way I was feeling. Our family members, you know,
they don't understand. They think everything we do we do
in a blackout, that we just don't remember the things
we do. Maybe when I'm doing it, I'm not remembering it.
I'm gonna tell you something. At three o'clock in the morning,
I've got I've got twenty twenty hindsight, buddy, and I

(28:59):
can remember every thing I said and did, and the
looks on their faces and I promise you I'm not
gonna do it again, And in the next day I
do it again. Folks, that's called insanity. I've heard people
up here this weekend referring to that as denial. I'm

(29:19):
gonna tell you something. The Big Book never uses the
word denial. Denial is a watered down word. We're dealing
with insanity. That's what alcoholism is. It's a form of
insanity coupled with a physical allergy that makes me lose
control once I start. But why can't I Why can't

(29:39):
I remember that? Why do is it that I always
start again? I got guys that they're in the hill country,
they speaking, and you know the ever meeting you go
to with them and so, and if you don't drink
the first one, you won't get drunk. No shit, what
why didn't I think of that? God almighty, twenty years

(30:00):
and it's done. That's like a V eight moment. It's like,
what could have had a V I just don't drink
the first window, you knuckleheads. That's what the book. He
spends twenty pages trying to explain. That's the problem. The
main problem centers in our mind rather than our body.
Why is it that I go back and do it again.
That's the insanity of the first drink. That's why the

(30:22):
book says, from the doctor's opinion what we were talking about,
that only a spiritual experience is gonna fix that. You're
with me up to this point. I heard a voice
that night that says, Chris, don't do it. I've taken
the pills and I blank the alcohol. I'm looking. I've
got a bathroom mirror, you know, with a medicine cabinet there,
and I'm looking at this, and I'm looking at myself,

(30:42):
and I've taken the pills, and I'm looking and I
hear this voice behind me, and I look around to
see who's it's Chris, don't do it, go back to AA.
And I'm arguing with his voice. I live in an efficiency, folks.
I can see the entire apartment from that window, that mirror.
Then nobody in there. I need to tell you, I

(31:04):
don't think i've ever shared this from the podium. I
did look under the bed, you know, somebody, Chris, don't
do it. Go back to AA. I said, I'm not
gonna do it. I hate AA. Why Liz was talking
about it earlier today in my first AA meeting I

(31:25):
went into and I walked up the steps of this
meeting down in Denton, Texas, and walked in and it
was pitch dark. And there's one old geezer. I mean,
this guy's old. I haven't seen it. I mean old.
You're with me, y'all know exactly the kind I'm talking about.
He's got it. He's laying back in an easy chair.
I thought he was dead. And he walked in and

(31:45):
he says, welcome, he says, he says, do you have
a problem with alcohol? There's one light in the room.
I can hardly see where I'm at. My eyes are trying.
I mean, I've been in guys, little old strip beer
joints that we used to go to. You know that
we're a lot lighter than this AA meeting, you know.
And I walk in and I get adjusted, and I
realized there's three other people in the room and this
one old geezer and he says, do you have a
problem with alcohol? I'm drunk. Yeah, I guess I do. Welcome,

(32:13):
Thank you. Sit down there, you go, sit down. That
was it. We proceeded to talk about some lady's problem
she was having with her husband and the kids and
talked about babysitters for a while and got up, did
Lord's prayer? Keep coming back? It works if you work it.
Walk back down those stairs, walked out to my trucks.
What was that I know about babysitters? Now got my quarter? Beer,

(32:44):
gung gun gun drank well, went home, told her I
went to an AA meeting. Seven years there were no
Big Book studies. There were no literature based meetings. There
were only the Bane of Alcoholics, anonymous open discussion meetings.

(33:11):
Who's got the problem? Ooh ooh, I do? I do?
Pick me? Pick me? Who's got? After all, if you
have a problem and you don't talk about it, you'll
leave with the problem. Makes good sense to me. Let's
talk about your problem. What is this? A process? Group?

(33:36):
Big Book says that we set aside one night a
week for the newcomer to come share their problems. I
think that's a great idea. Let's do that, and then
we can take the thousands of other open discussion meetings
and turn them into literature based meetings so we can
finally start learning something about what this spiritual experience is
all about. Just a thought, just a thought. I'm setting

(33:57):
in these meetings, and I'm listening to these stuff, NonStop, flining,
non stop problems. And then when we finished with the problems,
especially if there's a newcomer in, we start up with
the war stories. Well, we have a newcomer in the room,
why don't we talk about how we got here? Good
idea book says that we've got a story to tell,

(34:18):
and we should tell it. You know where. It tells
us to tell it from the podium and in a
twelve step call. But I'm not in a twelve step call.
I'm sitting in the meeting. I'm here. Well, let's tell
another round of stories. And they started over here and

(34:42):
I'm looking and says Jesus, we've got all of this
to go. You with me, Well, I had a DWI,
lost six jobs. I've never had a DBI, and I
have never been fired from a job. Checked. Well, I
beat my wife and I threatened that check. I've had

(35:05):
seventy deby eyes and went to the federal fin intention.
Shit's you are a loser? Check check y'all with me.
I've said this from a thousand podiums, folks, this is no.
By the time we get over here, everybody's in the
little one upman ship. We've got a mass murdering child molester,
you know, and I'm over here going check check, check,
check check. You know, It's like, this does not apply

(35:26):
to me. We didn't. All we did was talk about
a bunch of drama that takes place when we drink.
But I couldn't relate. Do y'all understand what qualifying the
newcomer means? Qualifying the newcomer means. Let's find out if
it's Voso that's walked in our door even needs to
be here or not. Let's find out if he if
he needs to be a narcotics anonymous or our sister
Fellowship of Cocaine Anonymous. Let's find out. Let's let's let's

(35:47):
find out if he's really suffering from the allergy we
talked about in the doctor's opinion and the mental obsession.
Let's let's talk to him a bit about that. Why
is it that we think that we can scare a
newcomer into recovery by telling our stories? You guys get
grindy about this when I start talking about this from
the podium. I'm not saying our stories are not important,
Big Book says on page seventeen, It's one of the

(36:10):
element of the powerful cement that binds us together. Our stories,
our experience, that's what we have to share. But guys,
let me tell you this. If all I've got to
do is share my story with a newcomer, shame on me.
I've got one hundred and sixty four pages of the
absolute best instruction for living has ever been written. I

(36:36):
know everybody's got a problem. I got problems. My question
is tonight, does anybody have a solution? Can anybody share
with that newcomer this elusive commodity called hope? Because I
got to tell you, my book says on page twenty four,
I'm not even going to remember the consequences of a
week or a month ago when the mental obsession returns

(36:58):
for me, I'm not gonna remember my dwiyes, much less
your stupid dwiyes. So why is it that we insist
on spending so much time in our meetings telling these
war stories? Why because that's what we were taught to do.
Treatment centers taught us how to do that, Our groups
taught us how to do that. I'm all I'm asking
you to do, is this. Why don't you consider, just
consider for a minute. That each group's autonomous and they

(37:20):
can set their formats up any way they want to.
We did in Ingram. We got a format in our
meetings that is quite simple, quite true. We're not here
as a dumping ground for your troubles. Please feel free
to visit with us before or after the meetings if
you just need to talk. But during the meeting, we're
gonna talk about the topic being presented out of their
one hundred and sixty four pages by our chairperson. I

(37:40):
know for a fact that three meetings a week that
I go to in my home group, we're gonna discuss
the literature and how it applies to us today. Pretty
cool stuff. Guys, when they come to my hospital, when
they come to our little hospital over in Hunt, first
thing out of their mouth is they say. I said, buddy,
I know Alcoholics Anonymous works because I got sober and

(38:02):
Alcoholics Anonymous. When I got time for me to get sober,
there was no treatment center for me to go to.
I had no money, I had no insurance. I didn't
have nothing but a six hundred dollars pickup truck. I
asked these guys, I said, buddy, I know AA works
because I got sober, and I know thousands of people
out there that are sober today, millions of us in
this fellowship. You're down with that? How come you don't stay?

(38:24):
How come you didn't stay? You know what they tell me,
war stories and people whining about their problems. Come on, guys,
I've done it, You've done it. I'm not taking anybody's inventory.
I'm saying, if you think that's gonna get somebody in
these rooms, you might need to reconsider where we're at.

(38:46):
Let me tell you the rest of my story, my experience.
I aborted that suicide attempt that night. I was freaked
out about that voice, and a moment of clarity, knew
that I'd want to die. Next morning, I went to
see a doctor to help me detox, and that night,

(39:08):
at six o'clock detoxing, I went to an AA meeting.
It was up in Lewisville, Texas, and I'd been I'd
seen it before, guy had driven me by it a
couple of nights. I'd had a blackout one night and
the guy that had picked me up and says, Chris,
let me take you to a meeting, and two I
was too freaked out to go, but I knew where
the meeting was. And I walked in the back door
of this eight o'clock meeting. It's dark outside, cold up

(39:30):
at November, November thirteenth. It was a Friday, the thirteenth,
nineteen eighty seven. It's pretty cool in Vegas. Thirteen's my
lucky number. That's what can I say. Recovered alcoholics can
go anywhere they want to, folks, even Vegas. I could
not believe when I walked in that room. I'll never
forget walking in. It was one of those low, those

(39:51):
little narrow rooms, you know, the low ceiling, and everybody
in there smoking. That's before everybody got politically correct and
we don't smoke in meetings anymore. But you know, it's
just everybody was smoking, and everybody had a big book
in their hands. And I walked in, I said, and
I remember thinking, God, I says, I've been to a
gazillion meetings and the one meeting I have to go
to tonight is a big book thumper, a nest of them,
you know, and it's like, I have got a chance,

(40:13):
you know, unbelievable. And I walked in and it was
a little nineteen year old girl that got between me
and the door, and she hooked her finger in my beltload.
She said, sit down, cowboy. It was just fixing to
start and she said sit down, cowboy, and I looked
at you know, I mean, guys, I got one of
these gentle ben You know, there's just big, burly beard,

(40:35):
and I weigh about forty pounds more than I weigh now,
and my pasts was perpetually crooked. You know what I mean.
It's like, I mean, I'm not a happy camper. You know,
Liz was talking about being angry. I was just crazy.
I was just I just I was so full of fear.
I just wanted to keep everybody away. And here's this
little good looking nineteen year old girl putting her finger
in my beltload telling me to sit down. I said, buddy,

(40:57):
I'm gonna sit down and then I'm gonna eat your
head off. You know what are you doing? And it's
like I turned. It turned out later a sponsor put
to get in because I was going to walk out.
I didn't want to go to a big book meeting
with me. I want to go to one of those
pissing and moaning meetings so I can talk about how
bad I feel, maybe get a little sympathy. Maybe if
I'm lucky, get a date. Okay, so uh, I gotta

(41:24):
check my clock make sure I'm not I uh. I
sat out and listened to that meeting, and the chairperson
had seen me up in North Texas a million years ago.
He had about ten years of sobriety then, and I
assumed to be sponsored was in that room, although I
didn't know it then at the time, and a bunch
of nice people, a lot of them i'd seen up
in North Texas before in my years around the Fellowship,

(41:44):
and they all welcomed me. And in this meeting, he said, Chris,
we're gonna talk about first step tonight. What we're not
gonna do is tell a bunch of war stories, because
we know you've heard it all anyway, so we're what
we're gonna do is I ask everybody just to share
a little bit about the miracles that are taking place
in their life as a result of working the steps.
I said, back down, you know, it said, you know
this is gonna be good. This is I can't wait

(42:07):
to hear this. You're gonna tell me how all the
miracles are happening, and everything's just happy happened I'm gonna
tell you some folks, that's exactly what they did. And
they went around the room and they started sharing little vignettes.
No long winded drug logs, no no, no, no, no.
Just one. Lady had got her kids back, relationship, guy
got his credit card back. Guy got a new car,

(42:29):
held up his keys. I got a new I mean,
this is stuff that little little, skinny, one eyed guy
like me could get his sink his teeth into. You
know what I mean. I'll never forget how absolutely happy
I was when I finally got a car that had
an inspection sticker, tags and a spare all at the
same time. I mean, to drive legal. I mean, that
was the coolest thing. And there's a guy in there
talking about that, and I feel like, I said, now,

(42:49):
this is stuff that I can understand. This is stuff
I could get my teeth into. The old timer. After
the meeting, old guys came up and guys, he said, Christian,
are you ready to stay sober? Are you are you done?
Are you finished for good? I said, well, you you know,

(43:13):
w one day at a time. He was not amused.
He got his coffee and walked out of the room.
I walked after him. He said, Chris, you know enough
about this fellowship to be absolutely dangerous to yourself and
everybody around you. Book says we live life one day
at a time. I know we stay sobered a day

(43:35):
at a time, but it starts with a commitment. Do
you want a different life? Are you willing to go
to any link to have the necessary spiritual experience that
we're gonna talk about? Guys, I just hung my head
and said, yes. A lot of y'all think well, if

(43:56):
somebody had talked to me like that when I got
to the Fellowship, I'd have died. Well. I don't know
what to say. He didn't say it out of hate
or anger. He wasn't mad at me. He loved me.

(44:17):
He loved me enough to stop lying to me. He
loved me enough to tell me the truth. You're gonna
die if you don't get this thing. You are the
real McCoy. You are the person on page twenty one.
You are dying of a fatal progressive illness. There was
passionate in his voice. There was love in his voice.

(44:40):
He didn't slap me on the back of hand me
a stupid newcomer packet and say keep coming back. He says,
we're gonna work these twelve steps. And I went home
that night for the first time in seven years, with
some hope in my heart that something could be different.
And the next morning they were on my doorstep to
take me back to that AA meeting. After that AA meeting,

(45:02):
at ten o'clock in the morning, we got up, we
went to the back room. They explained alcoholism to me,
the physical allergy, the mental obsession, and the spiritual malady,
and we got on our knees and did a third
step prayer. It was about six of us back there.
We went up, got some Mexican food, came back, and
this guy sat down with a notebook showed me how

(45:22):
to work a fourth step. You know with me, I've
been in AA for seven years that never worked a
single step. Well, Chris, you just didn't want it. Why
is it that we always put the responsibility back on
the newcomer, Well, they just don't want it. Nobody ever
in seven years had taken me under their wing like

(45:43):
that and says I'm going to show you how to
do this work. Two weeks after that day, two weeks
after that Friday night, I'd walked in I had a
completed fourth step, ready to do a fifth step. I'm
already doing volunteer work in the club. They got me
making coffee. They got me answering the stupid telephones down there.

(46:03):
You're with us. They created a monster. You know, nobody
could text that phone for six months because that was
my phone, big and I'm answered, I'm answering it close.
You know. They gave me a job in Alcoholics Anonymous,
and that's why I stayed. They didn't wait for me
to get comfortable and stay. They made me get a
job and then I'd get comfortable. Can y'all get down
with that? How many of y'all to night? When you

(46:25):
walked in here, first thing you did was get a
cup of coffee and get something in your hand, and
so you could get comfortable. You're with us, That's that's
exactly what we do. And aa you just let one
of us just kind of walk around, We're gonna leave
because we don't feel a part of those guys had
got sponsored the old school way. I drove home that night,

(46:48):
two weeks after I tried to commit suicide. I drove
home and pulled the tailgate down on my pickup truck.
In North Texas. There and in the parking lot where
I took all those pills and pulled the tailgate down
and sat down I would in any hurry. I was.
It was pretty cool night, and they were playing some
great songs on that little AM radio that I had
in that pickup truck, and I was just sitting there,
kind of digging it, and I looking around, and I
realized there's a seven eleven, and I stop and go

(47:09):
in a circle case all there's a little grocery stores
all so the corner one twenty one and a corporate
drive in Lewisville, Texas. And there's a there's a grocery
store where I got ah I can cast checks and stuff,
and there there's a there's a restaurant where I got
a tab. My cocaine dealer outside Issue lives in the
apartment complex where I live. And I sat on the

(47:31):
tailgate of that truck in that cold, perfectly still air
up in North Texas that night watched that big full
moon come up and cried like a baby because somehow, guys,
in the first two weeks I was in this fellowship,
the obsession to drink lifted and never returned. Since book

(47:57):
says it'll happen soon after you're ready to meet a
few simple requirements. And that was me sitting there this
afternoon before the rain came out, there on the park
bench in front of another nice place where we were
up in front of the Devil Tree, and you know,
quiet by myself, looking at the vendors over there and

(48:18):
looking at those great big trees and all that moss
on them, and feeling that wonderful humidity. And I just like,
I know y'all hate the humidity. I love it. I'm
from Texas and we need all that humidity we can get.
And I just sitting there just watching people I know
in the fellowship and you guys laughing and joking and
just out how cool of a life do we get

(48:41):
to lead? The obsession to drink and drug absolutely gone, folks.
That's what the book calls freedom. That's what the book
calls power. Like a power's the dilemma, how are we
going to find some power? That's what the book is about.
And folks, some of you I don't know real well,

(49:01):
some of you know I know real well. I'm gonna
tell you something. Everybody in here needs some power. We
need some power in our lives. Folks, not just around
the drinking and drugging. Power in our lives to do
the cool things we always wanted to go do. Power
to have a decent relationship, power to go make some money,
power to do some artistic things that we want to do.

(49:21):
Watching these guys, these DJ guys, just months of sobriety
out there kicking butt, taking names. That's what this is about.
This is not so we can put a robe on
and go up and heal and pray for everybody. This
is about so we can get out there in mainstream
life and go kick butt. My life started sixteen years ago,

(49:42):
and I want you to have that life. Alcoholics Anonymous

(50:03):
was the answer to a lot of prayer, folks, for alcoholics.
We had no solution, and we got this solution and
it works and over the years, and I work for
a treatment center and I'm honored to do that. But
I'm gonna tell you something, folks, a lot of people
have taken the clear message of hope and the Big
Book and they've added their own opinions and their stupid ideas,
and they've taken a perfectly good program and they've turned

(50:23):
it into some kind of a self help program. I mean,
I see this all the time. If you look up
the Big Book in Hazelton's catalog, it's under self help Guys.
Could anything be further from the truth. Alcoholics Anonymous is
not a self help program. It is a spiritual program
of action. I mean, I hear people in meetings all
the time Christian talks too much about God. Tonight. Sorry,

(50:49):
I don't know what to tell you. We've got one
solution and it's God, but we're not gonna talk about
it in our meetings. Folks. We need to be sharing
that hope with a newcomer. We need to be talking
about our spiritual experiences. We need to be talking about
the cool stuff that's going on. We need to spend
a little more time. I've said this from a million podiums.
The people that I have around me, or what I

(51:10):
call spiritual mentors. Diz is a spiritual mentor some other
friends that I've met this weekend, Mikey, y'all are spiritual
mentors for people that are pulling people with a vision
of how cool life can be. Thank you for doing that.
The speakers that we heard this weekend were spiritual mentors.
We need a few more spiritual mentors. Folks and a
few less junior therapists. We need a few less junior

(51:36):
lawyers and junior doctors. I'm here to share my experience,
and I don't have experience with relationships. I'm not here
to share that our primary purpose we read it tonight,
so gracefully we read it tonight. Our fifth tradition tells
us point blank, we have one primary purpose, one primary purpose,
and that's to help the alcohol it gets over, to

(51:58):
carry the message of hope to the newcomer. That's it.
Can we also help them with their other problems? I
think so? I mean, how many times in my sixteen
years of sobriety have I been blessed by sitting down
at coffee with somebody like Lisa talking about dating? You know,
when I was single, that was like, it was a
cool thing. I probably should have gone to somebody else

(52:20):
besides Lisa and talk about dating. But I don't know,
you know, I don't know. Years ago, I was married
to a woman and bless her and love her to
death still today, and she's an angel. But we just
were not ment together. But involved in that was was
a step son. He was five years old when we
got married, and I didn't know anything about kids. The

(52:40):
only thing I knew about kids is that you need
to spank them often and then they'll be good, you know.
And it's like, I don't know nothing about kids, and
and but who showed me about kids? The men and
women in this fellowship, who showed me how to balance
my check book, how to get my credit cards back,
how to get the irs off my butt? Who showed

(53:00):
me that, Who showed me how to grow up at
thirty five years old? Y'all did not during my meeting,
though y'all did it before and after. During the meeting,
you showed me how to stay sober one day at
a time. Thank God for those people. I want to

(53:24):
read something to you real quick. I'll let you out.
I've read this some of you guys that have picked
up CDs of mine around the countryside along the roads,

(53:46):
you know, and you stop and fix it flat, and
one of my CDs is laying there. You probably picked
it up and put it in the dim. People that
are working the steps that are excited about this program,
love Chris Raymer. People that are walking the middle of
the road, you know, straddling the fence. It won't commit
in and out picking up a million desire chips. They
hate Chris Kramer. Make them too uncomfortable. They told me

(54:11):
in eighty seven. They said, Chris, if you want to
get sober, folks, if you want to get sober, work
the steps because it'll work one hundred percent guaranteed success
rate if you do the work. Work the twelve steps.
They asked me that night, because Chris, are you worried
to work the steps? I said, well, I'll work them
to the best of my ability. You know, I've always
got a one liner for him, you know, they said, Chris, No,
that's not what we ask Are you ready to go
to any link? Yeah. Two weeks later, I'm sober. I'm kicking.

(54:41):
But some of y'all that have heard some of those
cities have heard me about the litigations coming through this country.
This thing called separation of church and state is real,
you know, down with that of church and state, which
means that a lot of our companies are trying to

(55:03):
pull God out of their formats. A lot of our
you know, are we just don't talk about God in
functions where states are involved. You'll down with that. A
lot of the facilities in the United States right now
state funded facilities. I was just back in I was
in England not long ago. They got state funded treatment there,
I mean just on demand. In Iceland when I was
there a couple of years ago, it's state funded. I mean,

(55:24):
you can go to treatment a million times if you
want to. In the United States, it's not quite that easy.
And the few treatment centers that we have in this country,
a lot of y'all know what I'm talking about. We
need them because there's so many of us coming through
through through the pipeline. The problem is is that a
lot of these facilities now because of their they're getting
state funding or not being able to do the twelve
steps anymore, because all because of the God. Think we

(55:45):
can't talk about the spiritual experience. I mean, this is
very real. We just had another big treatment center in
Dallas closed down a couple of months ago. Its treating
lots of people. Now they're not treating anybody because they
can't talk about God. Well, where do you think these
people are coming? Where do you think they're gonna Huh,
They're going to walk into your club here in Tallahassee
looking for the answer. Thank God for that. This little

(56:15):
story I got off the Internet years ago, and I
read it. It's lots of functions, and I'm I'm gonna
read it again. Some of y'all have heard it and
bear with me, but it kind of sums up this talk.
It's called a drunk fellow in the hole. I'm gonna
try to get through it without crying. How's that? A

(56:37):
drunk fell in the hole and couldn't get out. A
businessman went by. The drunk called out for help. The
businessman threw him some money and told him to get
himself a ladder, But the drunk could not find a
ladder and the hole he was in. A doctor walked by.
The drunk said help, I can't get out. The doctor

(57:00):
gave him drugs and said take this, it will relieve
the pain. The drunk said thanks, but when the pills
ran out, he was still in the hole. A renowned
psychiatrist rode by him heard the drunk crying for help.
He stopped and said, how did you get there? Were
you born? There? Were you put there by your parents?

(57:23):
Tell me about yourself. It'll alleviate your sense of loneliness.
So the drunk talked with them for about an hour.
Then the psychiatrist had to leave, but he said he'd
be back next week. The drunk thanked him, but he
was still in the hole. A priest came by, and
the drunk called for help. The priest gave him a

(57:44):
Bible and said, I'll say a prayer for you. He
got down on his knees and prayed for the drunk
and then left. The drunk was very grateful he read
the Bible, but he was still stuck in the hole.
A recovered alcoholic happened to be passing by, and the

(58:05):
drunk cried out, Hey, help me, I'm stuck in this hole.
Right away, the recovered alcoholic jumped in the hole with him.
The drunk said, what are you doing now? We're both
stuck here, But the recovered alcoholics said, it's okay. I've
been here before. I know the way out. Can y'all

(58:37):
get downe with what I'm saying. I don't have much education,
I have very few talents. I am but ugly. I
can't dance. I don't have a lot going for me.

(59:01):
I'm not down on myself. I'm just telling you the truth.
It's the way the colt the cabbage. But I know
this because I was in that hole and I know
what I had to do to get out, and I
know how to share that with a newcomer. And I
feel as an absolute sense of responsibility for giving that
message back to the newcomer. That is my responsibility. I

(59:24):
want to say this and closed up here. You look
around these rooms. Whoever was on the decorating committee. You mean,
you guys, somebody spent a lot of money and time
going through these archival pictures and doing this Doctor Silkworth
and Bill and Lewis and the cats. I mean, you know,
I mean, look at look at look at the Look
at the the folks that are looking over our shoulders tonight.
Look at the legacy that they left. Look at the

(59:47):
Look at the the things they went through so that
we could get together in two thousand and four in
Tallahassee and drink it a lot of great coffee and
eat a lot of food and laughing, joke and dance
and have a great life. Can you not I don't

(01:00:07):
care if you're thirty four years sober or three days sober.
Can you not feel a responsibility? Can you not feel
just a little pressure here to stop worrying about your petty,
selfish stuff for just a few minutes to look around
the room and see if there's somebody over there still hurting,

(01:00:28):
because it's by helping them that you'll get the power
to help yourself. It's by getting out of yourself for
a few minutes that you will absolutely be lifted to
a place where you will understand what it's like to
be truly happy in this world. That feeling will not

(01:00:48):
come by sitting in a meeting, Folks. That feeling will
not come by by going to a conference and sitting.
That feeling comes by knowing that you've got some men
and women in your life who you are rapidly taking
through the twelve steps, just like these cats did. Bill
Wilson was in Town's Hospital nine days in Town's Hospital

(01:01:09):
when he had his barnbirding spiritual experience. Carl and Diz
touched on it earlier, y'all need to and Don touched
on it Friday night. Y'all got to understand he was
working the twelve steps in treatment when he had his
barnburning spiritual experience. Doctor Bob a couple of weeks to
get sober. Bill d number three a couple of weeks,

(01:01:30):
two or three weeks to finish the work out, there
actively working with newcomers, and we come in these meetings
and sit around for six months and don't get a
sponsor and don't go do any of the twelve step work.
And they're sitting there on the sidelines watching everybody else
do the work. And then we wonder, while we're so miserable,
what did you think was gonna happen? You think you're
gonna catch this thing called sobriety by drinking the coffee,

(01:01:52):
and that one day God's just gonna gonna bless you
with sobriety. Book says the price has got to be paid.
It means the defeat of selfish and self siteredness. We
need everyone to get in the trenches. I've said this
from a million podiums. I'll shut up. We need every
woman in this place to have a spiritual experience and

(01:02:13):
to understand their responsibility is to stay in this fellowship
and help other women get sober. The toughest thing I
do in my job is to try to find contact
people out here in the real world for women coming
out of that treatment center. Oh there's a lot of
women that want to talk about this, that and the other,
but to show them how to get out of the hole.
There's very few, and the ones that are here are

(01:02:36):
so overworked it's not even funny. Everybody gets a chance, folks,
to stand for something. Let's finish the commitment that we made.
To finish the commitment that we made means that we're
going to actively go out and start working with other
alcoholics and addicts in the other fellowships with the addicts.

(01:02:59):
You do that, your life will be so amazingly full.
You walk into a clubhouse one night and a girl
or a guy you're a sponsor, and I'll be sitting
over there in a corner with a big book open,
and he'll have a newcomer collar. You know. Come here, everybody,
we got to talk. And they'll be jamming this book
and talking about the miracles, and that little guy will
look like a deer in a headlight and he'll be

(01:03:20):
catching on to this thing. And you'll get to see
what this circle triangle. You'll get to see what this
wholeness is all about. Bill Wilson carried the message to
doctor Bob Ebbie had carried it to him, Roland had
carried it to him. They carried it to the first
one hundred, first one hundred had carried it to us.

(01:03:43):
Don Smith carried it to me. Bobby Ewing carried it
to me. Carrie Davis carried it to me. At least
I can do is turn around and try to carry
it to somebody else. That's not an option, it's not

(01:04:05):
a choice. That's a requirement. That's a requirement. We need
you in the trench. We got enough people on the
sideline playing cards. We got enough people isolated in little

(01:04:30):
private meetings where they're discussing their day. We need you
in the trench. When the treatment center pulls up with
fifteen wet, sloppy patients walking through the door, we need
you their armed with big books and literature to show
them how to get out. And I know for a
fact that so many of you have met this weekend

(01:04:50):
are doing just that. And I gotta tell you, I
am so honored to know you and so blessed to
have you a part of this fellowship that I love
so much. The rest of you come along for the
ride is the absolute coolest. Thank you so much for
having me, blessure you

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Chris R. - AA Speaker - It is OKAY to be EXCITED about recovery!

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