Chris R. The Recovered Way of Life - AA Speaker - 12-Step Alcoholism Recovery - THE M2 THE ROCK SHOW - Michael Molthan

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Oh, he was a great vine, not a fan. My
name is Chris Gramer. Are very grateful recovered alcoholic. I
am honored to be here. How cool is this? I
gotta thank Joey for asking us. And this is a

(00:34):
cough drop. I need to put this someplace from me.
I'll have it on my coat here before you know what.
I am. How cool it is to be here. I
traveling NonStop and just was able to squeeze this in.
I'm sorry I missed Steve earlier and Mel. I've had
a chance to hear Mel a few times. In fact,
I've shared the podium with him a couple of times.
I'm sure he doesn't remember, but that's okay. That was

(00:59):
It was a memorable for me. I just absolutely to
be around somebody that's been around this long and knows
the history and knows exactly what it's just. He's singing
this song, you know, and he's talking about the message
that we were given and how people wonder. I think
sometimes why I get so passionate about this, folks, I
nearly died getting here. I something he said earlier and

(01:21):
something I've heard others speak. There's so many ways to
get to alcoholics. Anonymous to get to narcotics anonymous, any
of the twelve Step fellowships. There's so many ways to
get here, and you know, the court system we get
a whole bunch, and and treatment centers send us a
whole bunch, and just the street sends us a bunch.
And I don't know. We all get here in a
little different, little different avenues. But there's a percentage of

(01:45):
people that are what the book calls real alcoholics. I'll
give you this and stop doing the comparisons real drug addicts.
There's there's a lot of people out there that drink
a lot that are not alcoholic. You can just because
you drink a lot doesn't mean that you're one of us.

(02:05):
And the book spends the first sixty pages so explaining
what this is. And so I'm not trying to be
controversial up here at all or anything of that nature.
I'm just saying there's lots of ways to get here,
and lots of lots of ways to find sobriety. I
just I messed around this for a long time and
almost died, and when I finally got here, I don't
think anything different other than that it was God's hand

(02:28):
on this whole process, because I landed in.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
A room full of people that understood.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
That this was about more than a fellowship. That the fellowship,
albeit was wonderful, it was not much for the real
alcoholic unless you connected it with the program. So and
the program was written down for us in a thing
called a big book. I apologize for my facetiousness about

(02:55):
some of our literature, but it can confused the but
Jesus out of newcomer, some of this stuff is so
watered down, so middle of the road, and you may
be able to stay sober that way. I'll say this
and move on. I was talking a guy out in
the lobby and he said, you know, and I hear
this a lot, a lot. I'm not I'm not. You know.

(03:16):
I first heard you talk a bunch of years ago,
and you know, and you you offended me, and you
made me mad when I heard you speak, and and
I'm so sorry for that. I just and there was
a time when I wasn't doing what I'm doing now,
which is a bit of qualifying I for anybody that
I've ever stepped on, I want to publicly make amends
to now because I'm not trying to be heavy handed.

(03:38):
And I'm not trying to to tell anybody how to
do this. I'm I'm trying to share my my, my experience,
not Joey's experience. You know, my wonderful wife's here, Patty,
and I'm not trying to share her experience. I'm this is,
this is what happened to me, and you.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Can agree with it or not.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
If you don't, that's fine too. I still love you,
and I hope we get to see each other, you know,
downstream someplace maybe like at Denny's and we can visit
and have a coffee.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
And I hope you never darkened the door.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
But aa meet and again.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Okay, so.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
I had to get it in, y'all know I'm kidding,
of course, I hope I see you. I love you
to death, and I just that's the way. But about
five years sober, I got a guy named Mark Houston.
He just had passed away this year, and is who
Joey was talking about. This cat started sponsoring me and
I ended up working for a treatment center where he worked,

(04:38):
and he sponsored me for seventeen years. And in fact,
I was speaking in Montana this year and when he
had got word, Patty called us that he had passed away,
and a few months later, five months to be exact,
I ended up going to work for the place where
he worked. So I'm saying that because because from my perspective,
I get this chance to see people die from this

(05:00):
every day. It's not like, you know, people come and
go in AA. I mean, this is in the industry
that I'm in. We get to watch people die from
this illness, and I understand, what, how how narrow this
path can be. Sometimes I watch a lot of people
come into our fellowships and through these hospitals and through
treatment centers, our little recovery center, and they look up

(05:22):
on the walls and they see the twelve steps on there.
They're coming out of detox, you know, the adavans wearing off,
and they start to you know, hit the ground running
a little bit, and they start looking at us. Says,
oh shit, oh no, no, not another AA deal. You know,
I mean I did AA. You know it, I did
A for it just doesn't work, you know. And my

(05:42):
heart goes out to them, because I know it. It
does work when you do it. Most of these people
that I end up sitting down and talking to, we
find out that they did AA. Okay, they did one
part of a three part deal. The whole package, Recovery
Unity Service is what we're supposed to be about. The
Big Book explains, it talks about it. But they came

(06:03):
to one part the fellowship. They went to ninety meetings
in ninety days and hot damn and they relapsed.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
It's like, oh my gosh, what did you think was
gonna happen?

Speaker 1 (06:10):
You know, That's why I get cranky with people with
the mixed messages that we carry, because you won't find
ninety meetings in ninety days anywhere in this literature. You
won't find any place in this book says that you've
got to go to a meeting every day. You won't
find Just go to meetings and don't drink. Because a
friend of mine in London, I was reading his little
blog This Lives this last week. It says he says,

(06:32):
one thing I can guarantee you, you will drink again
and you will not be able to make a meeting.
If you think for a second that you can do,
let me put it another way. If you can do that,
just go to a meeting and don't drink. How cool
is that you don't have to do the tho little

(06:53):
pesky steps and you don't have to work with those
stupid slobbing drunks. And oh my gosh, how cool is that?
And some of you are laughing and some of you
are not because you still believe that you can do that.
And I'm here to tell you if you can, I
love yall, rock on, But that's not the message that
we're supposed to be carrying to the newcomer.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
If you could put the plug in the jug and.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
Just not drink on your own power, you're not an alcoholic.
I don't know what you are, but you're not an alcoholic.
Didn't say you weren't welcome. You are welcome. I guess.
Let me tell you a little bit about my story.

(07:34):
I am, and I'm watching the clock because I know
we've been going for a bit and sta of y'all
are gonna need to peep pretty quick, so I'm watching.
I'm paying attention. I I was raised down up in Kerville, Texas,
up in the hills. Actually was born out in Odessa, Texas.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
We were oil filled trash.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
My father published a drilling magazine up in the up
of the hills. He was a printer forever and a
wonderful man. He was an alcoholic and he's passed away
now he's He was a good It was a situational
kind of a drunk. I mean, he's a periodic, it
was what we call it. But he could stay sober
for long periods of time, dry anyway, and then something
would set him off and he would just and he'd.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
Be off to the stupid racist for a while.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
And had all the symptoms of what we call untreated alcoholism.
And my mother's not. She's a little social drinker. She
had a glass of wine tonight at five o'clock. Excuse me,
I know that because she's had a glass of white
wine at five o'clock ever since. I can remember a
glass of white wine unless it tastes kind of funky.

(08:33):
I've seen her at holidays before, with the big laugh
at our families.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
She'll drink it.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
She's a little bit of a connoisseur, I think, and
she'll take a little sip like that, and if it's good,
she'll finish drinking. If it's not, she slides it across
the table. I said, Mom, that thing had a cork
in it. Come on, that's good stuff, And she said,
she says it just tastes a bit off, you know,
and she'd slide it across the table and she wouldn't
touch another dry like. I mean, I'm thinking back in
my drinking days, guys, I drank nineteen years. I mean,

(08:56):
you know, a bit, a bit off. Never once did
I describe aut this stuff tastes like crap, drunk, gung,
gung gung, and I just I care it's a bit off.
My good gosh, Big book. Big Book says we drink

(09:18):
for the effect produced by the by the alcohol, and
that's I don't care what it tastes like. I don't
care what it tastes like as long as it gets
the job done. I mean, that's that's one. It starts
to separate, though, those that are the that are and
are not Bill Wilson in his literature, I digress that second.
But he talks a lot, and specifically, he keeps using
the term over and over. Or one of our earlier
speakers introduced themselves as a real alcoholic, man, I can

(09:41):
I'm thank you, because there's nothing wrong with that. Bill
Wilson spends pages trying to trying to explain that there's
a difference between a real alcoholic and the little disco drunk.
He didn't quite use the little disco drunk. That term
hadn't come come alive yet. But that's somebody that can
qu on their own, but the real alcoholic won't be

(10:02):
able to do that.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
And it also tells us that we're supposed to.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
Introduce ourselves as recovered alcoholics unless you're not recovered and
then down, Oh my gosh, I was. I was in Austin.
When I moved to Austin to take over this new position.
Patty got me a little garage apartment over there, you know,
and I started looking. I've been I'm a I'm so spoiled.

(10:26):
I've got this home group called the Outpost up in
Ingram and it's a it's a little little club that
we built up in there, and it's a little big
book comper Heaven.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
And I'm so spoiled, you know.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
You you walk in and it's all thumpers and we're
all That's all we do is study the Big Book.
And so I went to Austin, Texas, and I started
looking for a new group, because I mean I got
to I got to find a home group. It's too
far to go back to my old one. And so
I got to fight, and I introduced myself in a meeting.
My name is Chris Ramer, and I'm I'm a very
grateful recovered alcoholic. And there was about twenty people in there.
In their heads it looked like a scene from the
Exorcist there, you know, they all it's like all the

(10:56):
treatment center babies. You know, you you you. Oh my gosh, guys,
when the obsession to use goes away, you're as recovered
as you're gonna get. Just like my friend Mel said,
good gosh, I'm my god, I'm fighting some character defects.

(11:18):
I've been fighting for twenty three years. Oh my god,
I'm still a bozo something. I'm still a lousy example
of this what this thing is all about sometimes, you know.
But I gotta tell you, guys, my testimony from the podium,
as I haven't wanted to drink once in twenty three years.
Why why in the heck would I want to stand
up here and paint a picture that I'm still sick.

(11:39):
I'm not. And that's what the book says. Introduce yourself
to the new Man as a person who has recovered.
Why is that so controversial? Why to so many people?
I mean, we're so rigid in this program. You newcomers,
you need to be open minded. But as old geezers
that have been sober thirty years, we can we just
be as rigid, so rigidial brain. You know. My counselor

(12:03):
at Hazelton said, we will always be recovering. Wow, okay,
rock on, Okay. My therapist said that. My sponsor said,
what does the big books say? Just a thought. I'm
just saying, people say, why do you hit this so hard?

(12:23):
You make people uncomfortable. I'm not trying to make anybody uncomfortable.
I agree with exactly what's been said here from the
other speakers today. Guys, we've got one game. This is
what we have to offer the newcomer that's coming through
the door. Again, I've worked in this industry for a
gazillion years, and these folks, buddy, they're all waiting.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
For a new pill.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
You know, when are they going to come up with
a pill that will fix this problem? I don't know.
I'm telling you now, there's nothing in the pipeline that
would that will work. There's there's there's dozens of pills
that will help with the craving. The first piece of
this illness, this phenomena called craving. There's lots of things
that can help with that, and some of these medications.
We don't have a single thing called an anti obsession pill.

(13:02):
You know that appealing when you haven't been drinking for
about a week and you go like this has got him.
I gotta have a drink.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
There's not a pill to fix that.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
There's one thing that will fix that. It's it's called booze,
so yeah, or a klonopin that'll do it too. Oh
my gosh, don't get me started on the medications. There's
nothing out there. Guys. AA is the only game in town.
The Twelve Steps. That's what it's about. So I don't
want that message watered down, all right. I tell you

(13:31):
my dad moved us to the Hill Country as soon
as he could get out of out of West Texas,
and he continued to drink for on and off. There's
no abuse in our family. He was just a nice,
quiet drunk. And my twin brother and I, some of
y'all know myers, he and I got to be good
drinking buddies and we gosh, thank God for alcohol in

(13:52):
high school. I got in nineteen seventy one January, the
month that Bill Wilson, our co founder, passed away, I
took my first drink of Boone's Farm apple wine. And
I'm sure Bill would have approved. And I was a
little kid that needed to drink so bad it wasn't
even funny. Y'all understand I lost this eye on a
rock fight when I was eleven. I don't say it
often from the podium, but uh uh I could have

(14:14):
used a shot of vodka at eleven. I gotta tell you,
I'm convinced if I'd had a shot of vodka, I
had have two eyes today, uh, because it would fix
the problem. And I was so irritable, wrestless and discontent,
I just I went out and started the rock fight.
I mean, good gosh, you just got to excite this
thing somehow, and and uh, I was off to the races.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Boys.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
I got in the food business, not because I was
particularly good at a cook or whatever, but I thought
those guys in whites back there with all that fire
looked pretty cool, and they were obviously getting laid a lot,
and so I wanted to be that. But they would
all they could also drink. I could all the you know,
it was just standard procedure. It's hot back there, you
couldn't possibly get drunk because because you sweat. So let
me assure you that that was a rumor, a vicious rumor.

(14:54):
You There's been many of us. And it curled up
on a on a sack of potatoes in the walk
in Nice, and you know, I'm drunk on our butts.
But I was pretty talented at this in this food
industry business. My my twin brother was going to be
become a world famous mixologist a bartender, and and we

(15:15):
went to Houston and I got an apprenticeship program and
a big hotel there, and and we were pretty successful.
We did pretty well. We had a little apartment with
shag carpet and a couple of bean bag chairs, and
I was it was pretty good. Mid seventies, I'm in Austin,
Texas as a Sioux chef at a country club over there,
and I start seeing a doctor for some depression. Uh.

(15:37):
I see my first therapist for depression, and I'm dying,
of course. I remember the therapist said, did you drink?
And I said, well, a couple. I mean I cook
for a living. I mean we just a couple. Okay,
that's fine. We never gave these guys a straight shot.
But that was my journey for the next ten years.
I was in and out of therapist couches and uh uh,

(15:58):
and every time I go to another one, they'd give
me another pill. And that's I'm world famous for that
out there. I wow, living better chemically. You know, I
don't care what it is is that there's a pill
for it. You chop it up and snorted, it goes
just faster. You know. It's just God, I'm mighty, and
I can't kick the depression. It was to be another

(16:21):
fifteen years before I figured out, before before I read
in the Big Book that one of the main symptoms
of untreated alcoholism is depression. We have so many of
the symptoms that we treat medically, like with pills, that
are symptoms of what we call untreated alcoholism. A lot
of you guys sitting in the room, especially there's any
family members in here, still believe the lie that if

(16:42):
I'll stop drinking, if I could just put some sobriety,
I know I would be Okay. That's not true. If
you're a real alcoholic and you stop drinking, your life
will get worse, not better. A lot of shit. Can
I get a witness? Yeah? Amen. But I gotta tell
you it's amazing how many how many licensed counselors I

(17:03):
know that don't understand that, doctor's therapist, psychiatrists that don't
understand that. The society believes that the alcohol is the problem.
That's why what we do in the United States is
we you know, if you don't stop, we're gonna lock
you up. That's just the coolest thing in the world.
Thank you for doing that. I appreciate it. I'm not
saying we shouldn't do that, but I'm saying it won't
help anything. If you're a real alcoholic, you lock us up,

(17:25):
we just go crazy, We just go bit nuts, and
then you let us out. The first thing we do
is go put the fire out. We go, we go
take a drink. The Big Book says on page twenty
four is that we have lost the power of choice
and drink probably one of the most controversial things we
talk about. And I got to tell you, guys, I
could talk for an hour just about this, this idea
that we choose to drink. I gotta tell you, guys,

(17:46):
we don't choose to drink. It's a form of insanity
that takes place with real alcoholism. It's a horrible thing.
That's why people are not threatened into recovery, because because
we remember the book says, we won't remember the consequences
of even a week or a month ago. That's why
you can threaten me with loss of my kids, or
my wife, or my or my freedom. It's not gonna

(18:08):
stop me from drinking. That's what people that's so frustrating
about this illness. That's why the necessity of the thing
called a spiritual experience.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
See, you're not.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
Gonna think through this. Here's what happens to me every
time I'm of a two week wonder. I can quit
on a dime. Brother said it earlier. It's not it's
not stopping. It's the bear. It's the staying stops. It's tough,
and I can stop on a dime. I quit. I'm

(18:39):
not gonna do it anymore. I wake up with a hangover, girls, mad, whatever,
job's freaking out. I can quit, and about two weeks out,
I'm so uncomfortable, I can't stand it. It was just
the morning started out. Okay. Everybody's patting on the back.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Oh, Chris, it's so great that you're sober.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
How cool is this? And I'm thinking, godm I should
have done this years ago. You know, car got wash
and check book gut balanced. Oh my gosh, you need
to do something about this. And you know, everything's okay
and feeling a little bit better. I've joined another health club.
I'm gonna I'm gonna lose this gut. I'm gonna beef
up a little bit, you know, and I get I'm
get you know, with us, you see them coming into

(19:16):
a every time. The first few weeks, it's just gold
and everything's just great. I should have done this. They
they're sitting there looking at the cup of coffee with
tears coming and they just crying and just I'm just
just so happy. They haven't done anything. All they've done
is not drink. I'm not laughing at that. That's called
God's grace. That's what this is, the whole thing is about.
But but if you'll hurry up and work the steps

(19:36):
while you're in that spot, you'll be golden. But we
don't let them do that. We let them, We let
them sit there in that spot like that.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
And will you just easy does it?

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Think? Think, take your time running, just do it anyway
you want to, and then we then we chill out
right and then and then then the insanity returns and
they drink again, and then we just dust them off
and blame I have the little bastard. I knew he
didn't want it. I picked up more desired chips than

(20:06):
you can shake, Bud. I'm gonna tell you every time
I went in there and humbled myself to pick up
a chip, and the embarrassment of a shy guy like
me literally walking in a room full of talking to
you people. You got to know that I wanted to
get sober. You got to know I needed to get sober.
But I thought that I had the power to pull
it off if I wanted to bad enough. Nobody in
seven years of alcoholics anonymous ever explained that to me.

(20:28):
And I'm still offended by it, hurt by it, upset
about it, because I still see it today. I got
two weeks under my belt, longest I've ever had without alcohol,
and I'm coming apart at the scenes. I was okay
this morning, and at noon, I'm a little irritable, restless

(20:49):
and discontent, and three o'clock I leave the work a
little early. I'm irritated because somebody looked at me wrong,
A little sensitive. Y'all understand that, you know, slammed the
door so everybody knows that Chris Kramer has left the building.
Get in my car and drive around the freeway for
a while, grinding. This is not turned out the way
I thought. I don't know what I expected, you know,
and I might as well just, you know, pull into

(21:11):
a seven eleven, Get a seven little Doctor Pepper, you know,
I just I just need to chill. Got the radio. God,
the all they clear is crap on this radio station.
What is the matter with this place? Pull the Doctor
Pepper down and I hear the little boys that I
hear every At some point in there, you could probably
have one beer. That's what happened last time. I had

(21:37):
one beer, and then I bought a twelve pack and
then I was off to the stupid races again. I
don't want to have It's just stupid, you know.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
That's why it always starts.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
I get drunk. I don't want to play. Get the
Doctor Pepper turned around and start walking back to the
counter and get about halfway back. What are you pussy?
Stop smid stride right there by the school supplies. Y'all
know what I'm talking about. The candies one side of

(22:04):
school supplies. I stopped right there. No I'm not Ladies
looking over there? Who you talking to myself?

Speaker 2 (22:11):
Don't worry about it.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Turn around, walk straight back to the counter. Open it up,
Put the doctor pepper back, next beer, Grab one. This
isn't gonna hurt. Put it back. Grab a court. If
it's gonna be one, it's gonna be a big one.

(22:35):
Grab a court. Get a little grin on my face.
Everything's okay because I'm just gonna drink this and that's
gonna be it. I've had a tough week. They're not
treating me right. It's gonna be okay. Walk up to
the counter and everything's okay. Guys, if I'd had a
gun when I walked into the place, either shot myself
or anybody else that had come near me because I'm
that uncomfortable in my skin. And now I've got a

(22:56):
cold cord in my hand standing there in front of me,
and little little creep cuts in front of me to
get his little money in order cashed. You're with us
and this guy with about forty lottery tickets and he
wants them all done up like that, and I'm sitting
there with a big grand says, you go ahead, honey,
you good luck. I hope you win that lottery. You
split it with me, lily. Yeah, And I'm just as
happy as I can be, little little little social sunbeam

(23:17):
from Jesus. Everything's just happy, happy. I have it. I
haven't even got a bit, this haven't even swallowed yet,
and I've got this in my hand and everything's oh, no,
you go ahead. I'm in no hurry, I'm in no hurry. God,
come on, guys. We don't even have to have this
stuff in our system before the power of this takes over.
Y'all understand how powerful that is? Good God a mighty
And people wonder was why can't you just stop? Because

(23:40):
it's the only thing that makes me feel okay inside.
Y'all understand that I'm not drinking to get squashed. I
hear people talk about that all the time, especially the
college aged kids. Well, that I drink to get just wasted.
I don't. I don't. I don't remember ever doing that.
I drink to get right. It looks wasted to you.
I understand, I understand, I understand that, but that's not

(24:08):
my intentions. See, my intention is to get right. Come on, guys,
you get, you get, you get squashed. That's when you
get a DWI. That's when you get fights with a girl.
That's when you get in trouble. That's when you get
in fights and stuff. You know me, I mean, god,
i'n't getting a fight just walking in a bar. My
last drinking days were in a bar called the Jolly Rogers.
Now I've had this. That's not even funny, that's just

(24:32):
that's that's Come on, guys, And I've been wearing this
pat since I was what twenty twenty twenty one, and
I'm walking into a bar with a job like a
jolly rod? How many? I mean, what do you? What
did you think was gonna happen in there? Somebody pop
up with a pirate joke and I'm I'm in your
face and then I'm on the floor. I mean, that's

(24:55):
how And it says over and over and over and
it's just, oh my gosh. But that's the kind of
replace that that would deal with me and in my
end stage alcoholism. God, can you believe that people out
there that drink a lot they don't want to be
around some of us, because we're not fun people to
be around, even when we're drinking. I don't want to
be drunk, guys. I want to be right. I want
to be comfortable to my skin. And that's what happened

(25:17):
to me when I took that drink of boons Farm
apple wine on the Guadalupe River, leaning up against one
of those big, old, seven hundred year old cypress trees,
and I drank that Boonz Farm and I mean, God,
says God, damn. This is what Pops was doing. This
is what he was trying to read this. This is good.
And I could talk to girls and I could do
things that I ordinarily didn't do, and I didn't feel
like a loser. And I went and applied for a

(25:38):
job under the influence and got the job, and I
got my driver's license under the influence, and I y'all understand,
it was okay. When alcohol works for us, folks, I
need a gleek shield. When alcohol works for us, there
is nothing better on the face of the earth. If
it would still work like that, I'd still be drinking today,

(25:58):
and so would you. Yes, it stops working. This is
progressiveness of this, This is what's so frustrating with me
and the stupid war stories is because we've got this
problem in our meetings when all we want to do
is talk about the war stories and we separate ourselves
from the people around us that maybe not are on
the same progression. You're not gonna scare anybody into these

(26:20):
rooms with war stories. Guys. Come on. I ate out
of dumpsters in Houston, Texas for a short period of time,
and I gotta tell you, I mean, I wasn't living.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
On the streets.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
I had an apartment. I just didn't have enough money
to eat, and I ate out of dumpster's. It was
just not but it was sad. My father would have
certainly been disappointed if he'd have seen that nonsense. But
I could come into these meetings and tell that. But
I don't know anybody that would ever come up and say,
oh my gosh, I started to take a drink today
and I remember Chris ate out of a dumpster and
I stopped. I just didn't. And then we laugh when

(26:48):
we go straight back in the meetings and tell it again.
I think our stories are so important. On a Friday
night speaker meeting in a twelve step call, buddy, you
better have a story, or that guy's gonna tell you
to go kiss, but he didn't want to have anything
to do with you unless he thinks you know what
we're talking about, that you've been there. See, you'd better
have a story. But in an open discussion meeting, why

(27:11):
are we telling the same stupid story again and again?
And you're free to disagree with that. I don't want
to forget where I came from. The book says you
will forget where you came from when the obsession comes back.
You will not remember my story. You won't remember your story.
And in the process of not understanding this, all you're

(27:32):
doing is driving people out of our fellowship because they
can't stand sitting on our meetings listening to these stories.
And when we were not doing that, we're trying to
fix your day. All the little junior therapists in the world.

(27:54):
Oh I'm sober today, eight months now, and I know
I can help you with your relationship. It's like, oh,
my god, how many times you've been married? Five times?
And why don't you Why don't you keep helping me
with the one thing that we have in common is
a untreated alcoholism. Maybe you can help me with my
drinking problem relationships? Why don't you be quiet? Why don't
we go to a professionals to do that? I gotta

(28:17):
tell you, guys, I speak all.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Over the world.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
I get an opportunity to do this a lot, a lot,
And I gotta tell you, folks, this is the one
area of my talk that makes more people uncomfortable than
you can shake a stick at. And yet the Big
Book is crystal clear when it tells us to stop
fostering dependence on us and start putting dependence on God.
Why the heck does the guy I'm sponsoring need to

(28:40):
find God? Why does he need to have a spiritual
experience and get a relationship with God? If every time
he turns around, I'm telling him what to do. You
can't go out with her? Why who died and left
you king of the universe? We can't date for the
first year? Why you have to quit that job? You

(29:01):
can't Why you can't hang with those people? Why you
can't wear Why? See these guys that got me in
nineteen eighty seven knew that if they didn't get me
connected to God, I was gonna die. God tells me
what I can do and can't do. God gives me

(29:21):
the power to have the coolest life in the world.
We got too many people sitting around the rooms that
are too chicken to go live life to its fullest,
telling the newcomers what they can and can't do. That's
not sponsorship. That's a dictatorship. That's not sponsorship. A sponsor's

(29:46):
job is to show somebody how to get through the
twelve steps at a quick pace so they can have
their very own spiritual experience. And after that, let's hold
them accountable. And then we got somebody to buy us
a Hamburger down then, how cool is that? Anyway, I
ended up in North Texas and had a little domestic

(30:06):
disturbance with my first wife. And she was a nice
lady and didn't deserve to be treated the way I
treated her, and uh, I was working at a country
club up in North Texas, and anyway, to try to
save this marriage, I went to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I
had a counselor that looked at I had a big
stack of my medical papers and says old when Chris, Chris,
I don't know this little guy was. He was the

(30:28):
low He was the bottom line, basic intern of a
licensed counselor of chemical dependency counselor. And this little guy
was as nice.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
As could be.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
But he looked at my little chart, you know, on
this bipolar disorder and manic depressive and this, that and
the other. And I I got a list of things,
all with their attending medications and clinical depression. And I'm
taking seven pills a day and I'm not knocking at
any of this. Guys. I'm glad I had it. I
probably wouldn't dead, but but I had all this information
to show. Look, I'm I'm special, I'm different. He looked
at this stuff. He said, Chris, I've asked you a

(30:55):
couple of questions. I can just tell you one simple thing.
You're a drunk. You're an alcoholic, and you need to
get your skinny little butt to alcoholics anonymous. Wow. And
it was a couple of weeks later we had this
little disturbance and I said, okay, I'll go to AA
And I walked into my first meeting of alcoholics anonymous
and there was an old geezer sitting in there and he, uh,

(31:20):
I could He said, Chris, do you do you have
a problem with alcohol? I was drunk. I had a
quarter beer in the truck. I I said, yeah, yes, yes,
I got a problem, he says. He said, he said, welcome, welcome,
welcome to alcoholics anonymous, And uh, I don't know if
the steps were on the wall or not. I mean,
guys that was pitched back in that room was a
little light like the Psycho and hanging a little light

(31:43):
hanging down and it was up in his dirty loft,
and there was eyes got accustomed to the room, and
there was oh, there's three or four people in the
room along with this guy in the easy chair and
scary at best. And uh and I'm sitting there kind
of freaking out and this, and then there was other
people there and they said, well, okay, well welcome Chris. Okay,

(32:03):
so now who's got the problem? I'll never forget it?
And I started to go, where do my chop live?
Why I'm I'm an alcoholic? Does that count? No? No
no no no no no no no. Who's got the problem?
Like something you might drink over like I'm I might
drink because I'm an alcoholic. They're not buying anything. They

(32:25):
want to hear what the problem is? Y'all understand. This
makes me want to scream because I still see it
on this lady. Well, finally, Well, I'm having trouble with
my husband and he's an alcoholic. And she wasn't even alcoholic,
she was an alanin. But we sat in the meeting
and we talked about this lady's husband for an hour
and what she could possibly do to help this husband.
Oh my gosh, and I'm sitting in there, been drinking,

(32:46):
went home drunk, She says, God, I thought you went
to an AA meeting. That says I did, And I
says it was pretty cool. I says, I think those
people are gonna gonna use be able to use my
help in that place, you know, because it was seeming
seemed a little unorganized to me. And and I went
back the next day and who who's got the problem?
And some of little guys shopping and he coming from

(33:08):
a treatment center and he'd bought a poster and he
didn't want the poster and he was just wasting money.
And we talked about shopping for an hour. So you're
getting little uncomfortable because you've got that problem too, Huh.
We need to talk about that after the meeting. God
to help us. I spent seven years, guys, and we're

(33:29):
telling war stories and we're fixing your problems. And I
don't own a big book and I don't have a sponsor,
and they just keep telling me to come back. I
say this and move on, guys, I'm gonna hit it
this and then I'm out this. I had an old
guy come up one time, and he'd been sober long
time up there, and he had a big book, one

(33:49):
of those big books like some of you guys I've
seen today, has got duct tape around it because they've
actually opened the bastard, you know, and and it's ready
to go. And he had us a big book under
his arm. He said, Chris, we're going down there to Clydes.
We're gonna need some hamburger and we're gonna talk about
the steps a little bit. You're welcome to come with
us if you want to. And I'm thinking it's about
time somebody invited me to lunch. Good Heavens, And I said, well,

(34:10):
thank you so much. And I look over his shoulder
and as a lady going back by the coffee room
and she's going no. And I'm thinking, what I'm fixing
to get into something here? And I say, buddy, God,
I just remembered I got to get back to work,
but I'll go another time. And he said, buddy, we're
opening anytime you. We'll do it another time. Thank you.
He's split and I walked back to the coffee and
he says, I'm so glad I caught you. Chris. I

(34:31):
just need to tell you we're so glad to have
you here, and you just need to keep coming back.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Little brother.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
You don't need to worry about those old stupid steps
right now, right now, you just need to easy does
it and just go to meetings and everything's gonna be okay, okay,
all right. Was this lady trying to hurt me? Of
course not. She was trying to help me by watering
this down as much as you can water it down.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
She took a real.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
Alcoholic that's fixtured to cut his throat, lying to me.
If you're telling people to just go to meetings and
expect them to get well, you need to stop. If
you find that abrasive, I apologize, but we are killing

(35:15):
people that way. When when did it become okay to
not tell the newcomer how to get well? When did
we get off the page of setting a newcomer down
and explaining the twelve steps and our urgency to have
this thing called a spiritual experience. We've gotten such to

(35:37):
such a politically correct spot in most groups that I
come across, where we don't want to talk about God
and we don't want to talk about the steps. Anything
else is fair game, but don't talk about the steps,
don't talk about the spiritual experience. Well, I'm going to
taste something, folks. For anybody that's brand new in here,
let me be the first to break it to you. Alcoholics.

(35:59):
Anonymous is unapologetically, unapologetically about God. This is about a
spiritual experience. It It is sure not about religion. It
is absolutely everything to do with a thing called a
spiritual experience. And if you're the real McCoy, that's your

(36:21):
gonna be your salvation.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Buddies.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
We're not gonna jam this down in anybody's throat. What
you believe is between you and and and your sponsor
and and and what God has lays on your heart.
I mean, I don't know where God's gonna take you.
I just know that if you're dependent on another person
to keep you sober, you're gonna be so disappointed. It's
not even funny.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
If you're the real McCoy.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
I'm not knocking that other people can't help us. God,
I've learned. Patty and I were talking about it the
other day. How many how many people we know in
this fellowship that we can reach out and touch to solve,
to help us understand any problem we're going through. The
Fellowship has blessed us so much. But the Fellowship can't
remove the obsession to dream. Please let me say it again.

(37:06):
The Fellowship cannot remove the obsession to drink. And if
the obsession to drink doesn't leave you, if the tenth
Step promises on page eighty four and eighty five don't
come true in your life that position of neutrality, then
the next thing that comes along the line you're gonna
drink over, you're gonna be Can I say it triggered?

(37:27):
Oh my god, there's no such thing as a trigger.
There was once he was a horse. He's dead, but
he was a good horse. I uh, seven years in

(37:48):
and out of Alt Fox Anonymous and couldn't get sober.
Every time I would show my budd again, I'd come
back to AA and it would be the same thing.
I would come in and I would pick up another
desire chip I would hang around your rooms for a
few weeks until the pain of not drinking one stupid
day at a time would would would drive me back
out the room. My head would say I could take
a couple of drinks, or eat some pills, or do
some of the other outside stuff, and I would do that,

(38:10):
and the craving would kick in and I would be
off to the races again. I'm working for my twin
brother up in North Texas. It's nineteen eighty seven, and
I pick up a stack of return checks one cold
November night, and not like this cold, but cold, and
I'm and I picked up those stacks of return checks

(38:31):
and went into my apartment, sat on the floor. My
furniture's gone. There's a couple of ferrets and I'm looking
at them and they're looking at me. And I opened
those return checks and the rent check's gone, and I
realized that I'm I've bankrupted another checking account. Guys, I'm
thirty five years old and I've owned two businesses and
I've got about two hundred dollars or so, I thought

(38:51):
in the bank. That's how well I'm doing. I've got
a six hundred dollars pickup. I'm driving I'm thinking I'm
the Donald Trump of North Texas, you know, because I
own a business. Actually, my twin brother owned it, and
they kept me on out of the generosity of their hearts,
for Heaven's sakes, and I'm knowing that I'm going to
have to go to my sister in law, bless her heart,
and ask her for some money to bail me out
one more time. Insurance has gone. There's no more going

(39:13):
back to treatment, there's no more therapy, there's no more
nothing for me. I've tried AA. I've set naked and
sweat lodges. I've been in churches built like teepees. I've
been dipped, dunk, neotered, spade, I've I've tried everything. I've
done positive affirmations and for the I've got a. I've
stood in front of thousands of mirrors and lied to myself.

(39:35):
I I got up and went to the medicine cabinet
and pulled down a couple of bottles of pills, and
with tears in my eyes, but I need to say
some relief. I hate those pills. No fanfare, no note,
fed the ferrets and took those pills. And about the

(39:57):
time those pills hit my stomach. I heard a voice
that said, don't do this, go back to AA. Not
a thought, not a consideration, just I heard a voice.
Somebody asked me not longer. Was it a man's voice
or a woman's voice. I thought this was a trick question.
I don't know. Let me think for me. It was
a man's voice, don't do this, go back to AA.

(40:18):
And I made myself sick. I heard it a couple
of times. I made myself sick, and I heard the
voice one more time and I, uh, jeez. I lay
down the side of the bed you know how you
do one leg off and conked out. And I woke
up the next morning, heard that voice one last time,
and I went to work, and at lunch I went
into a doctor that had been trying to get me
to go to alcoholics anonymous for years, and he gave

(40:40):
me some doggie downers to detox. And at six o'clock
that night, I was running late and I said I'd
go to this meeting. And somebody had showed me this
meeting in Louisville. It's not there anymore. It was a
little big book thumb for meeting, and he showed me
one night. He said Chris, let's go into this meeting.
And I was drunk and I couldn't go. I couldn't
muster up the courage to go. And he said, buddy,

(41:00):
if you ever want to go, go because it's it's
this is a big book place. This all they do
is study the work in there, and they'll help you
get through this work. And I remember making a mental note,
You're not gonna get laid in that room, so forget it.
And I'm I'm not gonna go back. And I want
to get well. Guys, y'all understand that, but I don't
want to land in a room full of zealots. People
hear me talk like this from the podium and I
think I'm doing this in an AA meeting. I'm not.

(41:21):
I'm just I'm not at all. I'm just quiet and
straightforward as I can be in an AA meeting. I'm
not trying there to preach to anybody. I got your
captive here, but I got it. I went to that meeting.
It was too late to go to this other meeting
i'd gone to before. And at six o'clock is getting dark,
and I walked in the back door of this meeting.
Some of y'all have heard me say this a million times.
But I walked in and it was one of those

(41:42):
shotgun meetings, and everybody in there was smoking. Is back
in the day we could smoke in meetings.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
Guys out there freezing your butt up.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
The real smokers have already got up and gone. Y'all
know that, don't you. And I'm hurrying up. And it's
just I walked in and I didn't like the smoke,
and there somebody was laughing real loud over there, and
I got really conscious, and I you know, I got
about forty pounds right here, guys, and I just a
big kiddy damage and liver damage. And I got a

(42:09):
big old beard and hair down to my shoulders. I
think I look cool, and I look like a street bum.
And I've got one of those old food of the
loom t shirts on and this is November, you'll hear me.
And I got a little ragley coat on through the
loom T shirt, all stained from the sweat. And I
working in this warehouse and I old dirty Levi's I
hadn't changed in days, And I mean, I am a mess.
And I walk in and I'm so self conscious, and

(42:30):
I'm detoxing, and I and my little head says, you
need to do this like Sunday, come back a couple
of days detox first thing, come back. And about the
time I took a step back, I actually walked back
on this little girl's foot. She swears she didn't come
up on my blind side. I think she did anyway,
But I gotta tell it because I told it from

(42:51):
every podium I've ever talked about. This little girl hooked
her finger in my belt loop and she said, sit down, cowboy,
you're not going anywhere. Her sponsor had been across the
room and seen me turn around like I was going
to leave, and she said get him. Gave her the
high sign, and she did what we're supposed to do
in AA. She got me. It didn't matter that she
was younger than me, and thanked God that she wasn't

(43:11):
off in some little specialty meeting with all her own
She was just a little responsible member. I'm not knocking that.
I'm just saying at the time that this little nineteen
year old girl had been off in some young adult
meeting talking about young adult things. You had a different
speaker tonight. There wasn't any Harry leg boys getting between
me and the door. This little girl stopped me from leaving. Wow.

(43:32):
And she got me a roll of paper towels and
cleaned up my almos spelt coffee. And the chairperson took
charge of the meeting. Oh my god, guys, the problem
in our fellowship is not is not personalities. The problem
in our fellowship is stupid meeting formats that haven't been
changed in forty years, where we allow people to talk

(43:55):
about their day. And this person there was a meeting
format there to it. And this person saw me, knew
that he had seen me up in North Texas before,
knew that I didn't need to be fixed, and I
didn't need to be scared. What I needed was hope.
They said, let's go around and share how our lives
have changed as results of working the steps. And I

(44:16):
remember he laughed and he said, and that means if
you haven't worked the steps, pass wow wow wow. And
they went around a room and they talked about working
the twelve steps, and they talked briefly about how their

(44:36):
lives had changed, and about going back to school and
starting businesses and being married and buying cars. And lady
at the one side had a little new car keys,
and you know, just just the miracles that happened to us.
And they didn't talk from some spiritual mountain talk. They
talked about getting their credit cards back. And I swear
to God, there was a lady in there that said,
man says, I got a car out there. She said, Chris,

(44:56):
it's got a he's got a jack and a spare
and an insurance and the cars all at the same time.
And I remember, and I remember looking at her like,
you are you shitting me? You know, is like, and
we were laughing about this. But at the end of
the deal, I picked up a chip and everybody hugged me,
and this old geezer came up with a big book
and he said one more time, he says, He said, Chris,

(45:18):
I just got to ask you one question, just one question,
because the book asked me to ask you this. And
I said, buddy, that's okay, go ahead. He said, are
you done, because we're not here to mess with you
if you're not. He didn't say we're going to help
you stay sober one day at a time. He didn't
say that. He said, we're going to show you how

(45:39):
to live life, one day at a time, and you
don't have a cool a clue how to do that,
and we want to show you. If you're willing to
do this, we'll sit with you and we'll work you
through the steps pretty quick, and we'll guarantee you a
spiritual experience and your life will change. And oh, by
the way, you won't ever drink again. Well, you want
to talk about hope? Said absolutely. And the next day

(46:01):
they were on my doorstep knocking, shit not you know,
It's nine o'clock Saturday morning. I'm running around looking for
my patch. Who in the hell's out outside my door,
you know? And they knew I wasn't going to come back.
They knew I'd talk myself out of it, give me
a couple of days to get my feet on the ground,
just enough to go crazy again. They knocked on the
door and one of the little guys had come picked

(46:23):
me up and says, my sponsor said, I was supposed
to take you back to the meeting. Wow, okay. And
I got dressed and we went to the meeting and
we got on the knees in the back room and
we did a third step prayer. My sponsor was at
the time. He explained to me that the third step
was going to obligate me to go share hope with newcomers,
just like they had shared with me. He said. The

(46:46):
third step was about obligating me to share hope with
the newcomer, just like they had done with me. Didn't
have anything to do with the rest of my life
or Jesus or religion or anything. It had to do
with my responsibility for the next drunk. We got up,

(47:12):
we went got some lunch, and came back and they
bought That was pretty cool. We came back and they
gave me a notebook. He pulled a notebook out of
his car in a truck. He pulled it out and says, Chris,
it's time, buddy. At six o'clock to night. We'll see
at the meeting. But while you're home detoxing, because that's
what you're doing and I'm coming apart, he says, why
don't you start working on your fourth step? Day two.

(47:33):
I'm working on a four step, and people in here
saitting I could never have done that. I know you couldn't.
If I hadn't, I would have died. I'd been in
AA seven years. It had not worked one step, and
these guys knew that the race was going. My disease

(47:55):
was progressing at warp speed, and if I didn't get
some relief quick, I was not going to be well.
He didn't ask me to write the All American novel.
He didn't say you've got to have at least three
thousand names on that old inventory. He said, just start
writing the names of the people you're pissed at. Can
you start that way? And I said yes, and your
name's going on there and he laughed just like that,

(48:16):
and that was the rest, and that hit rest, and
that's what we did. We got cranking with that. Two
weeks later, I've got a completed four step. They're showing
me the disciplines of ten to eleven. They're talking to
me about prayer and meditation you'll follow. And I'm sitting
on the tailgeddo my truck, and I've had a spiritual experience.
Those guys in the first month of my sobriety at
that group there in North Texas started allowing me to
work with others. They started showing me how to chair meetings,

(48:38):
how to make coffee. It wasn't any of this crap.
You got to sit on your button stewing your own
juices for six months before you can sponsor somebody. Thank god,
the old timers knew better than that. They said, buddy,
you've got to come with us, and you've got to
get going with this.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
Guys.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
Let me tell you something real quick before I get
out of here. If sitting around the room talking about
my bad day would make me feel as good as
walking into an AA club and watching a little guy
that I've been sponsoring turn around and start sponsoring somebody else,
and listen to the stuff come out of his mouth
and the miracle in front of me of how this
thing is carried from one drunk to another. If sitting

(49:12):
around talking about my cat would make me feel is
fulfilled and is rich and his sober as listening to
my little brother get on his knees with a newcomer
and do a third step just like he'd done with me,
I'd shut up. I'd never speak from another podium. The
problem is that we got so many people sitting around
ilcoholics anonymous today, not doing anything except going to meetings.

(49:35):
And I'm not knocking that if it's working for you,
But my heart goes out to the cats who are
sitting around these fellowships, in these rooms for years and
their bone powdered dry. Here's what we're starting to see
by the thousands coming into our treatment centers. We're starting
to see people old timers twenty thirty, forty years of
sobriety losing that sobriety coming back in through treatment again

(49:58):
because they've stopped doing the one thing that Bill Wilson
said would keep us sober, guaranteed to keep us sober.
These guys that got around me in nineteen eighty seven
understood that page fourteen and fifteen were my pages, and
they explained that if I didn't work with others, this
book says you're going to grow spiritually by working with others.
I says, how is working with an old drunk sitting

(50:18):
there at the coffee shop talking to him about the
twelve steps going to keep me sober? Nobody seems to
know this. I don't know if I know it anymore.
I'm twenty three years sober.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
I don't know if I've got this figured out.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
I just know that when I do it, the selfish
and self centeredness that has ruined me and choked me
all my life goes away, and I start, for a minute,
start to feel useful, and in that condition, I've never
once wanted to take a drink. This idea that you
have to be sober for a period of time before

(50:50):
you can go find you a protege to work with
must be smashed. We gotta somehow, gotta somehow get away
from this idea that there's a stopwatch on this and
then if you finally reach a year, then you can
go sponsor somebody. Guys, you're not gonna get in trouble

(51:11):
with this. How can you screw this up? This is
a train wreck already, But y'all agreed, you can't make
this any worse than it already is because you're not.
Because here's what you're not gonna do. If I'm sponsoring,
and here's what you're not gonna do. You're not gonna
go run their life. You're not gonna tell them what
they can and can't do. What you're gonna do is
show them how to get through this work at a
pretty good cliff. You're gonna sit there and listen to

(51:33):
their third step prayer. You're gonna show them how to
do a fourth step, listen to their fifth step, talk
to them about their character defects. Y'all understand this. It's
real simple. Help them organize their amends, get them out there,
hold them accountable around this prayer and meditation, and then
you're gonna poke a stick at them. And when the
newcomer comes in, he's gonna look at you, and you're
gonna look at him, and you're gonna say, buddy, I'm
not gonna wait another five seconds. If you don't get him,

(51:55):
I'm gonna get him. And then he'll get his little
butt up there. And as he's walking towards the door,
he'll be looking behind he's like, what do I do?
Do the same thing I did with you.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
Love him, teach him real quick.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
I gotta go. I gotta a guy in my sponsorship lineage,
guy in Paul Martin. He's passed away a long time.
His sponsor was Paul Stanley, a little one of the
original guys. Wrote a book in a little h One
of the stories in the back of the book truth Freedney.
That's that's wh my sponsorship linage comes from doctor Bob
and that's this is this this guy. But he wrote

(52:35):
this article and Paul used to talk NonStop about it.
Is one of the things that he said. He says
AA's twelve steps, or a group of principles spiritually in
their nature, which, if practice is a way of life,
can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer
to become happily and usefully whole. AA is of itself
sufficient AA of itself, It's sufficient. I'm not knocking any

(53:07):
other disciplines. You want to add some therapy, great, you
want to go to the gym, gray, you want to
go to church, great. Our experience around the drinking is
that AA worked is sufficient. If you're just going to meetings,
you're not in AA. I'm not trying to beat anything

(53:30):
but kind here. Please, no, I'm not. I'm telling you
for an absolute fact, we don't talk about it enough,
and when people relapse, then we're blaming it on everything
else under the sun. And alcoholics anonymous is what takes
the run of it. If you work the twelve steps,
you will have a guaranteed spiritual experience. I'm not saying

(53:52):
that we need to be heavy handed with this and
go into meetings and beat people up with this message.
I'm saying that we need to change our meeting formats.
Consider possibly that the message that was carried out of
this book is the message that we're supposed to be
carrying to the newcomer that comes to the door. If
the guy's been sitting in these meetings for a couple
of months and he hasn't even started the steps, whose
fault is that, buddies, it's our fault. It's alcoholics Anonymous's fault.

(54:18):
The good news is, if you'll get busy and get
in the trench with us, you'll see exactly what this
is about. The book talks about it shoulder to shoulder
carrying this message. Walking into this room tonight and seeing
I can't tell you how many of you I've met
over the years up here, up in this area, and
the friends that we have in these rooms. And we're
not friends because we're all sober. We're friends because we

(54:39):
have a common journey that we're all trying in our
own way to carry the message. And that's the way
I want to end it. I want to explain to
you guys real quick where I'm coming from. We don't
need another Chris Raymer. You guys don't need to go
beat people up. I've got the market on that. Each
of you, in your own way, your kindness, your gentleness,

(55:00):
as long as you're carrying the message, the same message
of the book. In your way, you will reach people
that I will never be able to touch, that I
will offend, that I will scare. That's why we need you.
We don't need you to be me. We need you
to be you. You intellectuals that can explain this stuff
and the minutia of this split thing.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
Thank you for sticking.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
For every old geezer in here from mel On down
that have come in these rooms and stayed, thank you
from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. I think
I've got it figured out how to stay so over
twenty three years. Just had my twenty third birthday out
in West Texas and I out camping. I don't have

(55:42):
a clue how this twenty fourth year is coming. You know,
some things are kind of different in the twenty fourth year.
I don't know what that's about, you know, thank you
for sticking. I got to say this for every woman
in this room that stayed. God, the responsibilities and the
pressure we put on you women, it blows me away.
All we want you to come to meetings, but you
also get a job, raise the kid, and take care
of the husband and take it. It's like no wonder,

(56:03):
But there's a bunch of you in here that continue
to make room for women to sponsor and not just
to sit around and talk about where the best place
to buy fragrance is, but how to finish a fourth step? No,
and we've got it. I'm telling you. The number one
email I get from around the country is that where
can I find good women to work with? And Buddy,
I dalla, I've got to hug a whole bunch of
you in this room. I know you're here. Thank you

(56:24):
for sticking, for every young adult that's come into this
room and hadn't been run off by some stupid idiot
trying to scare you in here with a war story.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
Thank you for sticking.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Thank you for understanding your place in this fellowship. Guys,
I said it before. Good God, we come into these
rooms and everybody wants to talk about the damage we did. Godly,
just think about the simple act of not drinking today.
How many people were affected by that? If you stay sober,
arm yourself with the facts, and can stand in a

(56:55):
room and talk passionately about your life and share your
experience with the newcomers coming in the door, how many
thousands of people do you think will be impacted by
your sobriety. It's an honor to know every one of you.
Thank you, M.

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Chris R. The Recovered Way of Life - AA Speaker - 12-Step Alcoholism Recovery

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