September 13, 2025 • 59 mins
"At M2 The Rock, we fully respect the anonymity of all 12-step fellowships. In alignment with their traditions, we do not represent or speak on behalf of any of these groups. Our mission is to share hope, not affiliation."
About M2 THE ROCK - MICHAEL MOLTHAN:
I’m Michael Molthan, host of The M2 The Rock Show—one of the fastest-growing podcasts and shows on self-improvement, mental health, addiction recovery, and spiritual transformation. I’m so grateful you’re here.I started M2 The Rock in 2017 to bring you conversations designed to make you happier, healthier, and more healed. Through raw and unfiltered discussions with experts, celebrities, thought leaders, and athletes, we uncover new perspectives on personal growth, recovery, and overcoming life’s toughest challenges.
My Story:
What sets my journey apart is that there wasn’t just one rock bottom—there were many. From being a successful luxury homebuilder to falling into addiction, homelessness, crime, and eventually 27 mugshots and prison, my life was in absolute chaos.Addiction was my temporary escape from childhood trauma, but it only led to destruction.
It wasn’t until I hit the lowest point imaginable that I finally found true freedom, redemption, and purpose. After an unexpected early release from prison in 2017, I walked 300 miles back to Dallas to turn myself in—only to be miraculously pardoned and told to “pay it forward.”And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing ever since.My MissionI believe that rock bottom is not the end—it’s a stepping stone to something greater.
My goal is to redefine what "rock bottom" means by helping others rebuild their Spirit, Mind, and Body. On M2 The Rock, I speak openly about trauma, addiction, recovery, and the power of transformation. I don’t shy away from topics like:
✅ Trauma & Addiction – Understanding the root causes
✅ Self-Sabotage & Mental Health – Breaking negative cycles
✅ Codependency & Enabling – How relationships impact recovery
✅ 12-Step Programs & Spiritual Healing – Finding true freedom
✅ Religious Trauma & Personal Growth – Healing from past wounds
"Everyone Is An Addict."
Whether it’s substances, work, validation, or negative thinking, we all have something we struggle with.
But recovery is possible, and transformation is real.
📺 Watch my story on I AM SECOND (9-Minute Film): Watch Here
📩 To book me for speaking engagements or collaborations: Email m2@m2therock.com
🔔 Join the Movement. Subscribe to M2 The Rock and start your journey of self-improvement, healing, and purpose.
🔔 Don’t forget to LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for more powerful faith-based content!
🌎 Website: https://m2therock.com/
▶️ YouTube: @MICHAELMOLTHANM2
📸 Instagram: @m2therockshow
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-m2-the-rock-show-michael-molthan--3443849/support.
About M2 THE ROCK - MICHAEL MOLTHAN:
I’m Michael Molthan, host of The M2 The Rock Show—one of the fastest-growing podcasts and shows on self-improvement, mental health, addiction recovery, and spiritual transformation. I’m so grateful you’re here.I started M2 The Rock in 2017 to bring you conversations designed to make you happier, healthier, and more healed. Through raw and unfiltered discussions with experts, celebrities, thought leaders, and athletes, we uncover new perspectives on personal growth, recovery, and overcoming life’s toughest challenges.
My Story:
What sets my journey apart is that there wasn’t just one rock bottom—there were many. From being a successful luxury homebuilder to falling into addiction, homelessness, crime, and eventually 27 mugshots and prison, my life was in absolute chaos.Addiction was my temporary escape from childhood trauma, but it only led to destruction.
It wasn’t until I hit the lowest point imaginable that I finally found true freedom, redemption, and purpose. After an unexpected early release from prison in 2017, I walked 300 miles back to Dallas to turn myself in—only to be miraculously pardoned and told to “pay it forward.”And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing ever since.My MissionI believe that rock bottom is not the end—it’s a stepping stone to something greater.
My goal is to redefine what "rock bottom" means by helping others rebuild their Spirit, Mind, and Body. On M2 The Rock, I speak openly about trauma, addiction, recovery, and the power of transformation. I don’t shy away from topics like:
✅ Trauma & Addiction – Understanding the root causes
✅ Self-Sabotage & Mental Health – Breaking negative cycles
✅ Codependency & Enabling – How relationships impact recovery
✅ 12-Step Programs & Spiritual Healing – Finding true freedom
✅ Religious Trauma & Personal Growth – Healing from past wounds
"Everyone Is An Addict."
Whether it’s substances, work, validation, or negative thinking, we all have something we struggle with.
But recovery is possible, and transformation is real.
📺 Watch my story on I AM SECOND (9-Minute Film): Watch Here
📩 To book me for speaking engagements or collaborations: Email m2@m2therock.com
🔔 Join the Movement. Subscribe to M2 The Rock and start your journey of self-improvement, healing, and purpose.
🔔 Don’t forget to LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for more powerful faith-based content!
🌎 Website: https://m2therock.com/
▶️ YouTube: @MICHAELMOLTHANM2
📸 Instagram: @m2therockshow
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-m2-the-rock-show-michael-molthan--3443849/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Condivening everybody. My name is Chris and I am an alcoholic.
A lot of energy in this room tonight. I'm just
I'm feeling it that it's very, very loud, and you know,
everybody's everybody's having a good time.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
So I'm really really glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
This is a This is a I think it's like
a twelve week workshop that we're doing. Each week is
on a step. My friend Karen C from Morris Plains
is doing the odd number steps, and me and some
of my friends are doing the evening so we're having
a good time with it anyway.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Tonight is on step eight.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Step eight is becoming willing to try to go back
out and set right some of the damage that we've
caused out there through running our lives on self will
and being alcoholic. You know, if you're alcoholic, you're usually
gonna leave a trailer debris behind you of one kind
or another. So becoming willing, now, how do you be?
(01:00):
I'm willing to do this. I remember I remember being
in the treatment center that I signed myself into, and
I think it was like March of.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I got to the point where I really thought alcohol
was going to kill me.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So I signed myself into a treatment center.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
And I remember that was about the first time I
really saw the steps up on the wall, because they
had the shade with the steps up on the wall.
And I remember looking at becoming willing to make amends
and then you know, made direct amends to those that
I had harmed.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
And I thought, you know, first of all, I didn't understand.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Why in the world you would want to do that,
Why would that be necessary, What relevance does that have?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
How does that connect to my drinking?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
And you know, I didn't have a clue, so it
wasn't Also, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Want to do it.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I don't know about anybody else, but I I didn't
want to. I didn't want to make complete amenst everybody
at ARM I had harmed a lot of people, and
I was very ashamed.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
About about some of this stuff. I was, you know, like, uh,
listing everybody I had.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Harmed and going up and knocking on their door was
not something that I even thought I could possibly ever do.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
That was so.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Remote from anything that I thought I had the emotional
fortitude to do that.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
You know, I just put it in the back of
my mind.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
There there. You know, alcoholism is an unorthodox to illness,
so often we start to understand what it really is
as we're involved in a recovery process. You know, we
we literally catch alcoholism while we're in AA. Usually that
(02:52):
usually is what happens. I didn't understand alcoholism. I thought
that alcoholism was drinking too much. I really did. I
knew that I drank too much. I knew from the
very very early days of drinking that I drank too much.
(03:13):
An alcoholic, though, looked to me like somebody who had
drank too much for a really long period of time
and made a lot of bad choices in their life,
and usually they ended up on skid row or you know.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Dying of liver disease or something like that. You know,
I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I knew, though, that I drank a lot, and I
knew that the way I drank was not not normal.
In my early days when I started drinking, I started
drinking with a lot of non alcoholics.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I think we all do in our early days.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
You know, when we're thirteen or fifteen or eighteen or whatever,
we start drinking with whoever we start drinking with. And
again I don't know about you, But I noticed right
away that the reaction other people had the alcohol was
different than mine. I got drunk out of my mind.
Like practically every time I drank, I allowed myself to
(04:11):
be overserved. I don't know if that's everybody's experience, but
it was mine. And there were people who could seem
to handle their liquor. Instead of having twelve beers, they
would have free. Instead of you know, doing fifteen shots,
they would do two or three and they would be fine.
But that's not how I went after this thing called alcohol.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
So if you would have asked me in the early days, was.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I alcoholic, you know, I would have said, look, maybe
I have a maybe I have a drinking problem, you know,
maybe I drink too much, or maybe I party, you know.
And what happened is, over the years, I started drinking
more and more with people that drank like me, people
that partied like me, the hardcore people I went from.
I went from being in you know, regular classes and
(05:00):
my first year in high school to getting put in
the work study program, you know, the basically the program
for the morons. They kind of push you through and
graduate you without you really having to do any tests
or anything, you know, And that's that's where I was,
because by the time I really started partying, there was
(05:20):
not a lot of energy left to do, like school
work and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I just wasn't doing it, wasn't interested.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
I was the guy looking out the window waiting to
be able to go through that sign that says exit,
you know, and that couldn't be.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Soon enough for me. So I knew that I had
I had an issue with alcohol.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I knew that I drank more than other people. I
knew that I got drunk more than other people. But
you know, the red flags weren't up. I was having
fun with it. Now along along the way in my life,
(06:04):
I can date I can basically date starting to do.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Bad things with the death of my father.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
My father died three days into my twelfth birthday, and
it shattered my mother enough so that she really wasn't
present as far as.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Being able to take care of me.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
And I kind of spun out of control right around
that time, and that's when I started to get involved
in drinking, drugs, crimes, you know, getting in trouble, doing
things that were stupid and illegal. That's about the time
that that started to happen. And you know, looking back
on it, I love The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous
(06:48):
because it is such a barometer for me of where
I was, where I am today, and hopefully where I'll
be going. It talks about selfishness and self centeredness being
the root of our troubles. Now, you wouldn't have been
able to convince me that I was selfish back when
(07:09):
in the earlier days when I was drinking, because I would.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I would buy you booze if you didn't have any money,
or you know, if.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Somebody needed help, I'd go across town and help them.
I was what I saw as a very generous type
of a person, helpful person. But when you look really
closely at my life, you'll see that there's a there's
a thread of selfishness, and there's a threat of self
centeredness very very deep within within my character and within
(07:38):
my operational methodology. I would do things for you, but
I would expect things back. I would keep track of
the people who owe me, and I would never do
anything for fun and for free, just to do a
good deed, there would always have to be some kind
(07:59):
of outcome that I would be able to attach that
action too. And you know, looking at my life from
the very earliest days I was trapped in. They talk
in the Big Book about the bondage of self, the
bondage of self. What a great description that is of
(08:20):
what my real problem was.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I love the quote by Albert Einstein.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
His quote, one of the quotes that I like so
much of his is mankind's biggest delusion is that they
think there's more than.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
One of us here.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
And the alcoholic is an extreme example of someone caught
in self centeredness and self delusion. The alcoholic is like
the island, and they relate to everything outside themselves as
how it's going to affect them. There's not a lot
of self listeners. There's not a lot of true compassion
(09:03):
within the alcoholic, because the alcoholic really thinks that, you know,
this whole thing is about them, and you know, things
have to happen in a certain way. We need to
be in control of our environment. We need to know
what's going on. We have an unnatural attachment to this,
(09:25):
this self awareness that doesn't seem to really happen with
with normal people. Normal people can very easily think about
their actions and how their actions are affecting other people.
I never did you know, I thought about what my
actions were going to cause me and how they were
going to affect me. So, you know, in the Big Book,
(09:47):
it basically paints the picture of the alcoholics true problem,
the true nature of the malady is this self awareness,
this self centeredness. Self seeking is our behaviors and attitudes
about what we don't have that we want. Our selfishness
is about our behaviors and attitudes about what we have
(10:09):
that we don't want to lose or share. Self centeredness
is our perspective on the world and how everything is
apart from us and how it relates to us. And
this is a sick worldview. It's part of the insanity
of alcoholism. And it's so hard to see that that's
(10:32):
part of the insanity. Alcoholism as an illness does not
allow you the dignity of an accurate self appraisal.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
It doesn't.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
If you're alcoholic and you haven't been through the steps
and you've not recovered from alcoholism, you're not gonna have
a clue how much trouble you're really in or how
deeply It affects every aspect of your life. It affects
your relationships, it affects your.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Ability to deal on any life, in any way in
your life is.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Being negatively affected by untreated alcoholism, if that's what you're experiencing.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So living this way, living like I am an island and.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I've got to move through this hostile territory and you know,
make the moves that I need to make to be
able to be okay.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
For me, what that does is that sets me up
to cause harm. It sets me up to.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Do things and behave in such a way that other people,
other institutions, are harmed.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
And that's not something that I can look very directly at.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You know, with my experience with Step eight, I've done
a number of Step eights, at least seven or eight,
and each time I do them, something from the past
comes up, something that I've missed. I remember it was
like my third or my fourth run through the steps,
and I was putting together an eight step list and
(12:05):
something brought this back to me. You know, when right
after leaving college and right after my first first marriage dissolved,
I moved into this house with a bunch of partiers.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I mean these guys were nuts.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
One of them was a quailud dealer, the other the
other guy was just a drop down blackout drinking. You know,
wild Man and I moved into this house and we
got kicked out because we were having loud, crazy parties
and the music was on ten and it was three
in the morning and it was like, you know, a
little neighbors.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
So we got thrown out. So I got a drunken.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Resentment one night because we're getting thrown out, and I
talked to everybody into trash in the house.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I mean, we trashed this house. We ripped the door,
every door in the house and.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Made a bonfire in the backyard, kicked in all the wallboards,
and I got on the roof.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
And kicked the chimney off the top of the house.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
I mean, we were just this was not unusual behavior
for us, unfortunately back in these days.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
And I had forgotten about this. We've moved we moved
out like two weeks early, and you know, that was that.
And and you know, it came to me that you know,
this is this is a harm from from my past
that I've yet to take responsibility for. And this is
like my third or my fourth run through the steps.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
So uh so again there's a there's an evolution to
uh to these steps, and there's an evolution to the
self awareness that happens.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Uh. In recovery, you become.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
More and more aware of of reality in in like
a sane way. And I understand today that any any
any unresolved or undealt with harms that I've left out
there in the universe are going to plague me in
a number of different ways. You know, this isn't unusual,
(13:56):
and it's not it's not just from alcoholics anonymous. I mean,
there's we've we've all heard of karma, good karma, bad karma.
We've all heard of you know, the Golden rule, and
you know do unto others. Uh, We've we've uh uh
you know in the New Testament, uh, Jesus says basically,
if you want to come and pray at the altar,
(14:17):
if you want to give your give your devotion at
the altar, and you have a problem with somebody, go
fix that problem before you come to the altar. You
know this, this goes back thousands of years in all
of the major religions and philosophies that this unfinished conflict,
(14:38):
unresolved conflict is something that needs to be dealt with
for spiritual growth. Now, the thing with the alcoholic is
Spiritual growth is not optional if you want to survive alcoholism.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
It's optional.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
With a lot of other people. You can be a
horse's ass for your whole life if you're not alcohol halic. However,
the alcoholic really doesn't have a lot of choice. There's
got to be some spiritual growth. Now I get into
I get into AA, I end up in AA. What
(15:14):
happened was I went to the twenty eight day treatment program.
They sent me to outpatient outpatient recommended AA.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
You know, so, okay, I'll go to AA and and
I end up in AA.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Now I end up, I end up relapsing drank for
about seven more months.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
That took me to such an unbelievably ugly.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Place in my life that suicide was getting really attractive.
It was getting so bad, and there was a little
bit of survival instinct left in me that said, go.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Go back, go back to AA, go back to AA,
you know.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
And I did, And I came back in really hoping
against hope that this would work for me, because I
gotta tell you, the alcoholic is also an extreme. We're
either better then or worse then. We're never a run
of the mill, we're never like average. You know, we're
always worse than or better than. And when I was
looking around the rooms of AA and I had just
(16:13):
come off this horrific, horrific seven months, I was judging
everybody in the room, saying, you know, these are not
people that drank like me. These are not people that
drank like me. They're talking about tennis and about having
problems with you know, this one woman was sharing this
one time. Well, you know, I bought a new house
(16:34):
and I was trying to sell my other house and
I can't say that it's fallen through, and I'm stuck
with these two houses and this is a problem, right,
And I'm thinking, how.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
The hell do you get a house? You know, I
got like seven.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Bucks, So I mean so like, you know, I'm thinking,
I'm thinking, you know, I don't know where these people
are from.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
But like I.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Drank, you know what I mean, And I drank with
a vengeance. And I was a psychopath when I was drunk,
and you know, marry two homes, you know, I got
I got nothing to do, I got nothing in common with,
you know, so I really don't think this is gonna.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Work for me, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
And uh, And of course I was I was comparing
you know, people who were sober for periods of time
with me, who was like shattered and you know, still
stinking of vodka and bourbon. So I didn't think this
AA thing would work, but uh, but I tried it.
Now now, because alcoholism is a progressive illness, that capacity
(17:41):
to be self centered is also progressive. And by the
time I came into AA, I can't even tell you
how how much I was. I would, you know, think
about myself. I would go to these meetings and I
was learning how to share, you know, like uh, in
the late eighties early nineties meetings in my area in
(18:02):
New Jersey, it was about going to meetings.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And sharing, you know, raising I'm gonna share it. Let
me tell you about my day to day. And so
I was. I was learning how to do that, you know,
and uh, I was not very good at it, uh,
but I was giving it my best shot.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
And I would go to a meeting and it would
be a gratitude meeting and I'd share on gratitude and.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Then I'd go home and the ice cube tray would
be empty. I'd been don't you no idy guys much
that I alien felly active pray? I mean you know,
I was out of my out of my mind, out
of my mind. Uh you know the ice cube tray
was empty. For God's sake, don't you know? I have
to have called dregs.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Now, you know, the alcoholic is an extreme example of
self will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Okay,
you know, the great thing about recovery is it's progressive.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
The great thing about your ability to experience.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
What Alcoholics, Anonymous and the twelve Step process has to
offer is it's it's incremental.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
You get a little bit.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
If you continue to participate in this, you continue to
move forward a little bit each day. And as as
I was, you know, my first several years, as I
was trying to move away from the selfishness and self centeredness,
I got up. I got hooked up with some people
(19:40):
who who understood the step process, understood the step process
in such a way that they understood the actual mechanics
of the steps. Again, in late eighties and early nineties AA,
there may have been meetings that were about the practice
of teaching and practicing the twelve Steps, but in my
area it was.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
About sharing or there would be uh, there would be
the typical.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Booker type of speaker meeting where you'd go to a
speaker meeting and two speakers would come in and there'd
be a leader, and you could get you could get
the knuckle heads of all time speaking at these things
because there's no qualificationery.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Anybody that signs.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Up can go speak, you know, they can be be
a non alcoholic whack could do that shows up in
the meeting and signs up and they're speaking in front
of you. You know, So this is these are the
these are the meetings that that I'm going to, And
all of a sudden, I get confronted with some people
(20:45):
who truly shared their experience, their strength, and their hope
on the twelve step recovery process. And the best word
I can describe it as actually, that's the best one
word I could use. They actually told you how to
go through the steps and what the actual mechanics.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Were, what it looks like when you do these steps.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I was so confused, And really the reason I was
confused is because I knew somewhere deep down inside that
there had to be a fundamental change in me.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I was so ill emotionally and spiritually.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
I knew that I wasn't going to be able to
make it unless there wasn't some foundational change in the
way I felt at the very least, And I saw
the steps up on the wall, and I understood that
this was a twelve step fellowship, and I also understood
that I needed to pay attention to and take these
(21:46):
steps seriously. So I started to go to step meetings,
twelve and twelve step meetings. I would say from nineteen
ninety the late part of nineteen ninety two, about nineteen
ninety two or three, I was at least going to
force meanings a week, and in the step meetings. Everybody
in here, i'm sure has been has been to step meetings.
(22:07):
If you're thinking about actually doing the step, and you're
trying to learn how to actually do the step, that's
probably the last place you want to go is a
twelve and twelve step meeting. The twelve and twelve is
an absolutely wonderful book, but it's non instructional. It's more philosophical,
(22:27):
and it's more like, you know, this is kind of
what you can expect your attitude to change like.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
And there's wonderful, wonderful, poignant of.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Understanding of the alcoholic and the alcoholic mindset. But it's
non instructional as far as doing the steps. So what
will happen is you'll go to a lot of step
meetings and think that you're doing the steps because you're
going to a lot of step meetings, and nothing could
be further the truth.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
So so I'm confused, like crazy. You know.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I remember my first sponsor basically said, okay, Chris, you know,
I guess it's time, go ahead and do a fourth step.
Go do a four step, you know, go to some
four step meetings, do a fourth step. And that was
the instruction I got from him. And what I did
was I started to read the fourth step in the
twelve and tel, look, if you're going to go through
the steps, wouldn't you pick up a step book as
(23:29):
a reference source.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Well that's the worst thing you can do. But how
do you know that? Anyway, I'm reading about the seven
deadly sins.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
I'm saying to myself, I have twelve deadly sins, and
you know, and none of it made sense to me.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
And what do I write down?
Speaker 1 (23:47):
You know? So I wrote down this life story because
that's what I had been taught in treatment. So I
put down this life story, and you know, I wrote
down some of the nasty things I had did. I
wrote down some of the things I'd never told anybody before,
because I intuitively understood that you at least have to
be confessional with some of the stuff. And I wrote
down some patterns of behavior that I had wrong, you know,
(24:09):
And I went off to do my fist step. And
it was a great experience for me because you know,
I was not Catholic. I never experienced anything that was
confessional ever in my life. I was taught I don't
know about you guys, but I was taught never admit
to anything, even if they got you on video, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So it was really the first time I was ever
honest with with anybody about this stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
And I felt that I felt a great relief. I
felt a great relief. I stopped thinking that that I
was I was a scumback.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
But it wasn't enough. Then I get Then I get
exposed to.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
These people who who understand the step process. They they
were from a haven of big bookers or something, you know,
out west, and and uh, you know, I started I
started listening to their tapes and started really studying this
stuff and h and I started to begin to understand
a little bit about how you do this, this recovery process.
(25:06):
In step one, I admit, uh, I admit powerlessness. Now,
this is something so many of us miss. Powerlessness is powerlessness,
you know, will it will admit that we're powerless over alcohol,
and then we'll tell you what we do to keep
ourselves sober. You know that's a contradiction. There's there's so
(25:30):
much misunderstanding about step one. I understand today that step
one is the allergy of the body. That's pretty easy.
The first drink always asks for the second with me,
second demands the third, the third insists on the fourth.
I get kung chu and knee walking drunk practically every
time alcohol goes into my body.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
That's an easy one. The obsession of the mind, though,
is hard for me to admit.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
It says, who among us wishes to admit complete defeat,
It says in step one and the step up, not me.
I want to be able to do something or learn
something that'll keep me sober. But the fact of the
matter is is the first fifty pages of the Big
Book paints a very bleak picture. It talks about the
(26:13):
obsession of the mind, It talks about suddenly, It talks
about no human power can keep you from picking up
the next drink or the next drug. It talks about
the inability at certain times to bring into the consciousness
the problems that alcohol has caused you in the past.
(26:36):
You are without you are without defense against the first strength.
Now to be without defense against the first drink means
you have nothing to do with when you drink again.
Yet we like to get mad at our sponsores when
they drink on us, or the treatment centers like to
kick us out, you know, if we sneak off and
(26:57):
get drunk in the middle of a treatment program. Part
of the illness is we are without defense against the
next drink or the next drug.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
And that wouldn't be so bad if.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
It wasn't for you know, the unmanageability and the unmanageability
just presents in one hundred and fifty thousand different ways,
mostly emotional, mostly spiritual, restlessness, irritability, discontent, self centered fear, resentment, shame, remorse, guilt, anxiety, depression.
(27:31):
Those are all aspects of alcoholism. Those that's how unmanageability presents.
Yet we don't. We want to think that we're depressed,
or we want to think we have anxiety disorders or whatever.
What you have is untreated alcoholism, you know, and we're
all dying from these things because we don't understand alcoholism.
(27:54):
That's the first step, and that's not good. The first
step is its customers last in and there's more Indie
coming if you get it.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
If alcoholism allows you a clear enough mind.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
To understand how much trouble you're in, which it usually doesn't,
you start to get the idea of how much trouble
you're actually in and.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Why.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
If you're trying to get life insurance and you tell
them you're an alcoholic, they'll deny you. You know, they
know the alcoholic is sixty times more likely to take
their own life than the non alcoholic.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
They know the median age of the alcoholic is in
the early fifties. You know. They know that. So it's deadly,
it's devastating.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Step two, maybe there's a way out come to believe
that there's a power. There's a power that I can
connect to that will restore me to sanity, that will
enable me to stay away from the next drink or
the next drug. I can't do it myself. That's what
the first step says. But the second step says that
(29:01):
there's a power that can be grasped. You know, so
often I deal with with people who come in who
have really negative impressions of God and religion, and you know,
just bizarre conceptions that have been built up by people
who have kindergarten mentality about spiritual matters, you know, and
(29:22):
they've they've impregnated us with these bizarre impressions of what
God looks like, and you know, you know, and and
how morality ties into it, and you know, and just
completely bizarre. You know, today I see I see God
as more of a verb than a noun. I see
(29:44):
God as more of a power, because that's what I
can experience. I can experience today, that power that keeps
me safe and protected from the next drink of the
next drug.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Can I define that?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Can I give you a list of all the attributes
and put a face on it. Not with any real confidence, No,
But I can tell you that by living spiritual uh
spirit living a spiritual life, and following spiritual directions through
the twelve steps I've been I've encountered this power at
(30:27):
a fundamentally deep level. It says in the book Alcoholics Anonymous,
the consciousness of the presence of God. You know, we
will know that we will, we will understand that God
is doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
This will be the most significant fact in our lives,
(30:49):
the book says, And that's true. That's true in my case.
I I I understand that I need to participate. I
need to participate in the spiritual life for me to
stay connected to this power.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
But I haven't had a drink. I haven't had a
drink in almost twenty two years. And that's a miracle.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
If you would have seen me in the late eighties,
you would have said, this guy's not gonna live another month.
That's how bad I was drinking. So I know that
this power is real, and I know that you can
hook into it and anyone can. And it doesn't It
doesn't take a religious attitude. What it takes is it
takes a behavioral attitude. We need to come to terms
(31:35):
with spiritual living and do them and that does not
make us lame or chumps or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
It makes us more effective people on this planet. It
really does.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
So in step three, now I need to decide, Okay,
I know I'm dead on my own.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
I'm dead.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
It's only a matter of time drinking myself to death.
Some horrific you know, misadventure is gonna happen. You know,
my liberal explodes something bad. I know, but I come
to believe that by trying to live life on spiritual terms,
I can hook into a power. If I believe that,
(32:17):
maybe that's possible. Then the next step is step three,
where I make make the decision to do that. Okay,
I got no better plans. I'm all in, you know,
show me what to do. And I did that on
like day three or day four with my first sponsor.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I went up to him. I said, Phil, I've been
in hell. I need to get out. Tell me what
to do. Those are the words I said to him
two days in. Tell me what to do.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
And I might as well have said, be very careful
about telling me what to do, because goddamn it, I'm
gonna do it, you know, so be very careful what
you tell me to do, because I am that desperate
that I'm gonna listen to you about my life, which
was already you know, alert the press, Chris is going
(33:05):
to be paying attention to somebody else's opinion.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Uh, what I learned later from from the Big Book, guys,
is it's a decision to go through the rest of
the steps. How do I live life along spiritual lines?
The steps are spirituality one oh one, a lot of it.
There are things that we should have learned in kindergarten,
but you know.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Decided not to. So, Okay, Step three, I'm in.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
I want to start developing a relationship with this power
that's keeping me sober. I want to start living life
along spiritual lines. And I'm willing. I'm willing to at
least be willing to go through the rest of the steps.
Not real happy about eight and nine, you know, not
real happy about sharing all my faults with anybody, but willing.
(33:58):
So in step four, that's my first face to face
look really.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
At what is going on with me. I have been
wrong about so much.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
My attitudes, my opinions, my outlook have been wrong and
tainted with this perverse, deep seated self centeredness that I
can't see the truth from the false. I can't really
see right from wrong. I can't really see the damage
that I'm doing you. I can't really see how selfish
(34:29):
I am until I start to look at step four.
I start going through step four, and I start to
put some of the pieces together about.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
What is wrong with me? Has anybody in here ever
been asked that question by somebody? What is wrong with you?
Are you Craig? Anybody ever been asked.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
That Although, first time you're really gonna understand what's wrong
with you is when you start looking at the fourth step.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
No matter what you think, it's, the first time.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
You're gonna really start to see what's going on with
you is when you look at the first step, fourth step,
and when you start to put a four column resentment
inventory together, when you start to do a fear inventory,
when you start to look at the harms that you've
caused other people, especially in the sex realm, the sex
harms that you've caused because alcoholics picture being terminally self
(35:25):
centered and getting in relationships, how's that gonna look. That's
gonna be like one Hindenbergen's explosion after another, probably, and
you're gonna be basing all of your actions and relationship
skills on selfishness and self centeredness.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
That ain't gonna go well. So that's an inventory that
needs to be looked at.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
That's basically nine questions, a review nine questions, and then
putting together an ideal for future relationships, future.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Future encounters, close encounters.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
With other people, and all of that needs to be
put together. And if you've done even a halfway good
job on this, you have discovered some unbelievable things about
yourself and how you have caused your own problems. If
you've done a good job with step four, you get
to a place where you no longer think your problems
(36:24):
are coming at you. You understand your problems are coming
from you. And that is a shift in perception that
is absolutely huge, because now you know whose fault it
really is. It's not those bastards, it's you. You have
co created, at best, everything that's going wrong in your life.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
At worst, you've caused it all.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
And you only see that when you do a fourth step.
As you when you get done with this four step,
the next spiritual exercise is to share with somebody. You know,
sharing it with somebody takes some of this thing out
of it. I mean, because it really is the whole mcgilla.
It's like it's like, you know, a treatise on every
(37:14):
dysfunctional thing that's ever going on in your life.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
It's it's really, you know, an almost toxic document and
Sharing it.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
With somebody, especially somebody who has some experience with this,
is a good thing because what will happen is you'll
start to see.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
That you're not so unique. You know, you're not so unique.
You've been caught up, You've.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Been driven into this by alcoholism. You probably wanted to
be a much better person than you ended up being.
This is an illness. If we're powerless, then we're being
driven into this. So where we need to start to
take response ability at this point is with the recovery process.
(38:05):
One of the promises is we don't shut the door
in the past, and we don't. We can use that
as an asset moving forward. We can use it as
a motivation to continue on the spiritual path. We can
use it to figure out an eight step list and
(38:25):
where we've done harms and start to put that list together.
But it starts to lose its sting and we start
to get some perspective. I believe a spiritual awakening. I
believe a miracle is a shift in perception. You see
things one way and then there's a profound event in
(38:45):
your life, and then you're looking at the exact same
thing with a complete different paraglasses it's a complete different perspective,
complete different perception. And that's what happens to us as
far as you know, when we go through these steps,
we go from a foundation built on selfishness and self
(39:07):
centered us to a new foundation that's built on on
compassion and spiritual values.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
And it's it's an amazing thing to have happened.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
So as we're as we're finishing up our fifth step
and we're sharing all this stuff, if we've if we've
done the best we can with it, if we've.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Truly held nothing back and really went after this step
with everything we had.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Uh, there's a whole whole series of promises that are
amazing that happen, and that moves you very quickly into
into step six, which is becoming willing to have God
remove these defects of character.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Now, think of it this way.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
If you're truly powerless, if you've been driven into this alcoholism,
into this behavior because of alcoholism, which I truly believe
to that, I truly truly I think that we're good
people that do bad things. I think sometimes we're smart
people that stupid things. We're being driven into this stuff
by alcoholism. So in step six, when We've become willing
(40:07):
to have God remove these defects of character.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
We have to admit that.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Look, if we could have changed our lives with a
couple of self help books, we would have done so
a long time ago. Anybody in here gets sober with
a whole library of self help books that didn't work.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
There's three hands and the rest of you lying good
for nothing. So God needs to remove these defects of characters.
They are too much for me.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
I cannot decide not to be selfish anymore and have
that last more than fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
It's not in my nature.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
It takes way, a way greater power than myself for
these defects of character to be mastered. So I've become
willing to let God remove these defects of character. And
in step seven, I humbly and an attitude of humility.
An attitude of humility basically is I believe humility is
(41:07):
an accurate self appraisal. I believe humility is understanding my
position in all this. And if I understand that these
character defects like my alcoholism are too much for me
in single handed combat, I can go to God or
the power.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
In an attitude of humility. I'm beaten, I have surrendered.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Please take these character effects from me, and you say
the seventh step prayer, and I believe that prayers are answered.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
I have.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
My experience with character defects being removed is yeah, there's
a whole bunch of them that get removed.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Yes, my whole.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Deportment shouts that I am no longer as selfish and
self centered as I used to be.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
I have the actual capacity.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Today to think of other people before myself, which is
a wholesale miracle. You know, I truly believe that that
that uh, that that change did not originate within me.
It's it's not something that I achieved out of a
sense of virtue. It's something that has happened by my
(42:16):
cooperation to live a spiritual life. And it's almost a
byproduct of my cooperation to live a spiritual life. So
I humbly ask God to remove these shortcomings. Holding nothing back. Now,
I'm looking at step eight, which is which is tonight's topic.
Became willing to make amends to those that I had harmed.
(42:40):
Now the best possible atmosphere for the removal of character
defects that are robbing you of all the quality that
your life could have the best possible spiritual atmas sphere
(43:00):
for the removal of those defects of character is to
humbly become willing to make amends and to actually go
out and make amends for where those uh, those harm uh,
those actions your selfish access have caused harm. Now, I
like to keep the two disciplines separate. There's the discipline
(43:21):
of becoming willing and doing the list, and then there's
the discipline of actually going out and making amends. And
those really are two separate disciplines, and I like to
keep them separate.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
For one reason. We have the capacity to edit are
a step list.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
We can be putting a list together, and we can
be deciding who we're going to make amends to and
who we're not going to make amends to, and make
sure that the people we're not going to.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Make amends to don't get on the list.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
That's something that I think a majority of alcoholics have experienced,
who've who've tackled these steps. Not everybody, but probably a majority.
Now here's why you want to keep the disciplines separate.
If you do the a step the way it's supposed
(44:11):
to be done, you will put down everyone on that list.
You'll put down every creditor, You'll put down everyone that
you had serious turbulence with in your life. You'll put
down every single person that you're aware of at the
time that you've caused harm to, or every institution, because
that's the discipline. And if you don't edit ahead. And
(44:34):
the reason why I think that that should be done
is I think the willingness to do certain amends comes
with experience. In other words, there may be people on
your A step list that you are not. You don't
have the spiritual fortitude right here and right now to
(44:54):
be able to do that amens.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
And that's fine. Good friend of mine came to me
one time.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
He had about sixty a mens on cards and he said,
he said, Chris, you know, I'm good with most of this,
but there's a card in here I want to talk
to you about.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
He goes, there's a card in here, and.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
I want you to know as soon as you need
to know right away that I am not going to
make amends to this guy. Now, this individual had armed
somebody in his family in a very profound way, and
he had.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Had the person prosecuted.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
It was a mess, okay, And this person ended up
on his A step cards and he said, I am
never going to make amends to this person, just so
you know, I'll do I'll do what I can do here,
but I'm never going to make amends this person. Well
what happened was he did fifty nine amends out of
sixty and this one card started to burn, started to
(45:56):
burn him, and he came over me at my house
and he said, you know, you.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Got to help me with this. I know now I've
got to do this amends and you need to help me.
I'm willing, I just don't know how to do it.
And we talked about it.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
And he actually went out and made that amends and
he completed his sixty amends and the.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Guy has never been the same since. That willingness that
they talk about in step eight.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Sometimes it's got to come with the experience of doing
the ones that you're willing.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
There are going to be amends that you're willing to
do right away. I for one, this is what you know.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
There's people who have different opinions. I, for one, believe
that you should do the ones that you're willing to do.
And with that experience, what happens is you become willing
to do the ones that you were unwilling to do.
Each step, each step gives you the power to do
the next step. Each action that we take allows us
(46:57):
to go a little bit further into this spiritual life.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
In the step book, there's a saying.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
The hoop that you have to jump through is larger
than you think. You know, when we're looking at these
steps from the ground floor, they can seem daunting, they
can seem impossible.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
I'll never be able to do that.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
But you need to know that there's nothing in those
steps that, if done correctly, will hurt you. And there's
nothing in those steps that will be impossible for you
if you just remain willing and open minded. Now forgiveness.
(47:37):
Forgiveness is a big thing with step eight. There was
a shift. I told you about the shift that happened
to me in the fourth step. All of a sudden,
I realized that my problems were of my own making.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
I was an example of.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
Self will run riot though I didn't think so. And
I stepped on the toes of my fellows and they
retaliated seemingly without provocation. And I start to understand that
I've caused this big mess in my life. With that
understanding comes a lot of forgiveness because I no longer
(48:13):
see people and the universe is hostile to me.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
I see my.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Relationship with people in the universe as being defective because
I'm alcoholic and I'm living my life based on self
centered fear. So that makes it easier for me to
start to forgive some people because I don't see them
as aggressors anymore.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
I see them as you know, unwilling bit players.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Really in my life, you know, most of the time,
I'm the one that dragged him in anyway. And if
it's if it's family, you know, I so totally abused
my relationship with every family member. It was amazing that
they had anything to do with me, you know. Around
the time, at the end of my drinking, so I
(49:03):
started to shift my perspective. I started to look at
things differently, and that's where a lot of a lot
of forgiveness comes in. If you want to have a
quality of life, if you want to understand serenity, if
you want to have peace, you have to deal with
forgiving everything. Now, forgiveness does not necessarily mean tolerance. You
(49:33):
acceptance does not necessarily mean tolerance. There's certain things that
we do not have to tolerate. However, we need to
accept them, and we need to forgive the people. We
need to be able to forgive the people because if
we don't, if we don't, it's going to be a backlash.
Our unwillingness to forgive is going to turn around and
(49:56):
poison and corrode our own spirituality. And it's our spirituality
is what is going to keep us alive. It's what's
going to keep us on this.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
Planet without dying an alcoholic death.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Look, being an alcoholic, your statistical chances are really bad
for your survival. You'd be better off having any other
type of cancer or heart disease than you would having alcoholism.
Because alcoholism, there's a high, high, high percentage of people
who die from alcoholism. If we pay attention to this stuff,
(50:35):
if we engage in it, and we stay consistent with it,
we can die with alcoholism instead of from alcoholism.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
And I don't know about anybody else.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
But you know, I was not a good person towards
the end, and what I've learned of alcoholism is this progressive.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
My alcoholism is way worse.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
Now than it was twenty one years ago when I
quit it has been progressing waiting for a drink.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
If I picked up a drink tomorrow, most likely I.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Would be rocketed into an incredibly dark place, an incredibly violent,
insane dark place. And I don't want to end my
existence on this planet that way. I don't think that's
what God wants from me. So I need to take
look at it this way. If you have diabetes, it's
(51:32):
your responsibility to take insulin and watch your diet. If
you don't, diabetes will kill you. If you have hypertension,
or if you've got really serious kidney problems and you
need dialysis, it's your responsibility to get the dialysis. You
(51:54):
can't say, well, there's you know, the football game on tonight,
I'll do dialysis tomorrow. No, you need to take responsibility
for it on a day to day basis. Well with alcoholism,
because it's an unorthodox illness and the treatment is unorthodox,
and there's a level of delusion that we don't think
(52:14):
we're really sick. What happens is we forget to pay
attention to the treatment, to the participated patient and the
treatment of our alcoholism, and we'll start to back away
from meetings. We'll well we'll not pay a lot of
attention to the twelve steps. We'll see that we don't
have to work with other people, that we don't have
to do service commitments.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
We can get away with it.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
You know, tonight I can get away with you know,
it's just sitting at home and watching TV. And this
will build up, and what will happen is we will relapse.
The American Medical Society in the in the DSM four,
which is the newest, latest, and greatest diagnostic manual for
(52:56):
diseases and illnesses that doctors use, alcohol is defined as
a chronically relapsing condition. My particular understanding and relapse is
drinking again. But that's not necessarily the way a lot
of doctors will look at it.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
They'll they'll look.
Speaker 1 (53:15):
At anxiety attacks, emotional disturbances, depression. They'll see that as
a relapse of alcoholism because the person isn't treating treating
the alcoholism the right way, and they'll prescribe for you
or whatever. But if the doctors see alcoholism as a
chronically relapsing condition, you can bet that there's a high
(53:37):
percentage of people that come into AA or try to
stay sober they can't or.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Don't I love the way.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Bill Wilson says that there are people who cannot or
will not give themselves to this simple program. Don't don't
kid yourselves. Giving yourself to the Simple Program is making
amends to the people or institutions who you've caused harm to,
setting right the wrong. Don't kid yourself and think that
(54:06):
giving yourself to the Simple program is going to meetings.
Meetings do not treat alcoholism. They create a tentative sobriety,
and the next step from meetings is a recovery program.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
The twelve Steps.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
If you just come in and sit in meetings and
you've been here one hundred years and everything is fine,
you don't even.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Qualify as an alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
If you look at the description of the book Alcoholics Anonymous,
it basically ensures that if all you're gonna do is
go to meetings, you're gonna drink again if you read
the black part of the book. So don't kid yourself
that this is something that can be treated like going
to the rotary club. I made that mistake early on.
(54:57):
I was showing up in meetings. I was doing like
it was castor oil treatment. I don't like it, but
I'm gonna show up and I was going to outpatient,
I was going to AA, and on the way to
an AA meeting one night, I concluded.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
That it'd be a good idea to buy a gallon
of vodka and drinking.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
And it was the craziest thought that ever went through
my mind because it created seven months of a living hell.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
And I was a meeting maker. I was going outpatient
and I was a meeting maker. That didn't make it.
Speaker 1 (55:31):
So when I came back in, I intuitively understood there
had to be something deeper and more profound here for
me to be able to stay sober and to survive.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
And I found that it's right.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Up on the wall at every meeting, and we read
it at every meeting how it works. And still I'll
go to a meeting. It's more rare today, but still
I'll go to a meeting and somebody will raise their hand.
Speaker 2 (55:54):
I don't know how it works. It just works. You
mean you don't know how it works. We read how
it works at every meeting. How it works is how
it works. It's how it works. Some crazy reason, we
came up with this idea that going to ninety and
ninety is a treatment for alcoholism. Trust me, it's not.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
The next step after step eight is obviously step nine,
and then we have ten, eleven, and twelve at the
end of this thing. If we go to the last
chapter in the book, we see that what we need
to do is we need to have a life based
on service, love and service. Doctor Bob had this pegged.
(56:41):
He went through the steps in a matter of days
and was on service the rest of his life.
Speaker 2 (56:46):
And he had it pegged. He had a great, great
recovery of this guy. All he was about was.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
Taking other people through the steps. That's what he did
on a daily basis. He took you through the steps.
Meetings were optional to him, the steps were essential. And
he did that for another fifteen years until he died.
From thirty five to fifty he worked with thousands of alcoholics.
(57:13):
If you do the math, it was two or three
a day or something like that that this guy worked
with being a service.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
We need to all of a sudden have more more of.
Speaker 1 (57:28):
A desire to help other people than to put ourselves first.
Says in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, that we relapsed because
we failed to enlarge and perfect our spiritual life through
work and self sacrifice for others. That's where it tells
us why we relapse, because we failed to participate in
(57:51):
our spiritual life, and we failed to work for others
and place their welfare ahead of our own. When I
first walked into AA, I had no clue I was
going to need to do that. I really thought I
was gonna end up drinking a lot of coffee and
sitting in a lot of church basements, you know, talking
(58:12):
about God. And I didn't understand any of this. Today
I've got experience with this. I'm incredibly happy to be
where I am today. I've got a pretty remarkable life.
You know, in the last couple of years, there's been
ups and downs and sideways is and you know, stuff
that would have killed me. You know, when I was drinking,
(58:34):
I couldn't stand change when I was drinking all I've
moved about five times. I married a wonderful woman and
in a new marriage, you know, new job, you know,
back and forth between states, running all over the country,
doing crazy things, you know, getting involved with just people
(58:55):
all over the country, doing wacky recovery stuff.
Speaker 2 (58:59):
And I gotta tell you, you know, I wouldn't trade
it for the world. I am.
Speaker 1 (59:04):
I truly now understand it. When I first walked into
AA and heard somebody raise their hands say I'm a
grateful alcoholic, I was like, oh, brother, here's a grateful alcoholic.
I'll let me slash the tires of your car in
the meeting and then watch you find them all flat,
and see how gratefully you are after the meeting, You bastard,
you lose it. I'm on the other side of that now,
(59:30):
and I understand at a very very deep level what
a grateful alcoholic is, and I'm one of them. Thank
you very much for being here.
Condivening everybody. My name is Chris and I am an alcoholic.
A lot of energy in this room tonight. I'm just
I'm feeling it that it's very, very loud, and you know,
everybody's everybody's having a good time.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
So I'm really really glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
This is a This is a I think it's like
a twelve week workshop that we're doing. Each week is
on a step. My friend Karen C from Morris Plains
is doing the odd number steps, and me and some
of my friends are doing the evening so we're having
a good time with it anyway.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Tonight is on step eight.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Step eight is becoming willing to try to go back
out and set right some of the damage that we've
caused out there through running our lives on self will
and being alcoholic. You know, if you're alcoholic, you're usually
gonna leave a trailer debris behind you of one kind
or another. So becoming willing, now, how do you be?
(01:00):
I'm willing to do this. I remember I remember being
in the treatment center that I signed myself into, and
I think it was like March of.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I got to the point where I really thought alcohol
was going to kill me.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So I signed myself into a treatment center.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
And I remember that was about the first time I
really saw the steps up on the wall, because they
had the shade with the steps up on the wall.
And I remember looking at becoming willing to make amends
and then you know, made direct amends to those that
I had harmed.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
And I thought, you know, first of all, I didn't understand.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Why in the world you would want to do that,
Why would that be necessary, What relevance does that have?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
How does that connect to my drinking?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
And you know, I didn't have a clue, so it
wasn't Also, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Want to do it.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I don't know about anybody else, but I I didn't
want to. I didn't want to make complete amenst everybody
at ARM I had harmed a lot of people, and
I was very ashamed.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
About about some of this stuff. I was, you know, like, uh,
listing everybody I had.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Harmed and going up and knocking on their door was
not something that I even thought I could possibly ever do.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
That was so.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Remote from anything that I thought I had the emotional
fortitude to do that.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
You know, I just put it in the back of
my mind.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
There there. You know, alcoholism is an unorthodox to illness,
so often we start to understand what it really is
as we're involved in a recovery process. You know, we
we literally catch alcoholism while we're in AA. Usually that
(02:52):
usually is what happens. I didn't understand alcoholism. I thought
that alcoholism was drinking too much. I really did. I
knew that I drank too much. I knew from the
very very early days of drinking that I drank too much.
(03:13):
An alcoholic, though, looked to me like somebody who had
drank too much for a really long period of time
and made a lot of bad choices in their life,
and usually they ended up on skid row or you know.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Dying of liver disease or something like that. You know,
I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I knew, though, that I drank a lot, and I
knew that the way I drank was not not normal.
In my early days when I started drinking, I started
drinking with a lot of non alcoholics.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I think we all do in our early days.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
You know, when we're thirteen or fifteen or eighteen or whatever,
we start drinking with whoever we start drinking with. And
again I don't know about you, But I noticed right
away that the reaction other people had the alcohol was
different than mine. I got drunk out of my mind.
Like practically every time I drank, I allowed myself to
(04:11):
be overserved. I don't know if that's everybody's experience, but
it was mine. And there were people who could seem
to handle their liquor. Instead of having twelve beers, they
would have free. Instead of you know, doing fifteen shots,
they would do two or three and they would be fine.
But that's not how I went after this thing called alcohol.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
So if you would have asked me in the early days, was.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I alcoholic, you know, I would have said, look, maybe
I have a maybe I have a drinking problem, you know,
maybe I drink too much, or maybe I party, you know.
And what happened is, over the years, I started drinking
more and more with people that drank like me, people
that partied like me, the hardcore people I went from.
I went from being in you know, regular classes and
(05:00):
my first year in high school to getting put in
the work study program, you know, the basically the program
for the morons. They kind of push you through and
graduate you without you really having to do any tests
or anything, you know, And that's that's where I was,
because by the time I really started partying, there was
(05:20):
not a lot of energy left to do, like school
work and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I just wasn't doing it, wasn't interested.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
I was the guy looking out the window waiting to
be able to go through that sign that says exit,
you know, and that couldn't be.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Soon enough for me. So I knew that I had
I had an issue with alcohol.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I knew that I drank more than other people. I
knew that I got drunk more than other people. But
you know, the red flags weren't up. I was having
fun with it. Now along along the way in my life,
(06:04):
I can date I can basically date starting to do.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Bad things with the death of my father.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
My father died three days into my twelfth birthday, and
it shattered my mother enough so that she really wasn't
present as far as.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Being able to take care of me.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
And I kind of spun out of control right around
that time, and that's when I started to get involved
in drinking, drugs, crimes, you know, getting in trouble, doing
things that were stupid and illegal. That's about the time
that that started to happen. And you know, looking back
on it, I love The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous
(06:48):
because it is such a barometer for me of where
I was, where I am today, and hopefully where I'll
be going. It talks about selfishness and self centeredness being
the root of our troubles. Now, you wouldn't have been
able to convince me that I was selfish back when
(07:09):
in the earlier days when I was drinking, because I would.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I would buy you booze if you didn't have any money,
or you know, if.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Somebody needed help, I'd go across town and help them.
I was what I saw as a very generous type
of a person, helpful person. But when you look really
closely at my life, you'll see that there's a there's
a thread of selfishness, and there's a threat of self
centeredness very very deep within within my character and within
(07:38):
my operational methodology. I would do things for you, but
I would expect things back. I would keep track of
the people who owe me, and I would never do
anything for fun and for free, just to do a
good deed, there would always have to be some kind
(07:59):
of outcome that I would be able to attach that
action too. And you know, looking at my life from
the very earliest days I was trapped in. They talk
in the Big Book about the bondage of self, the
bondage of self. What a great description that is of
(08:20):
what my real problem was.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I love the quote by Albert Einstein.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
His quote, one of the quotes that I like so
much of his is mankind's biggest delusion is that they
think there's more than.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
One of us here.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
And the alcoholic is an extreme example of someone caught
in self centeredness and self delusion. The alcoholic is like
the island, and they relate to everything outside themselves as
how it's going to affect them. There's not a lot
of self listeners. There's not a lot of true compassion
(09:03):
within the alcoholic, because the alcoholic really thinks that, you know,
this whole thing is about them, and you know, things
have to happen in a certain way. We need to
be in control of our environment. We need to know
what's going on. We have an unnatural attachment to this,
(09:25):
this self awareness that doesn't seem to really happen with
with normal people. Normal people can very easily think about
their actions and how their actions are affecting other people.
I never did you know, I thought about what my
actions were going to cause me and how they were
going to affect me. So, you know, in the Big Book,
(09:47):
it basically paints the picture of the alcoholics true problem,
the true nature of the malady is this self awareness,
this self centeredness. Self seeking is our behaviors and attitudes
about what we don't have that we want. Our selfishness
is about our behaviors and attitudes about what we have
(10:09):
that we don't want to lose or share. Self centeredness
is our perspective on the world and how everything is
apart from us and how it relates to us. And
this is a sick worldview. It's part of the insanity
of alcoholism. And it's so hard to see that that's
(10:32):
part of the insanity. Alcoholism as an illness does not
allow you the dignity of an accurate self appraisal.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
It doesn't.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
If you're alcoholic and you haven't been through the steps
and you've not recovered from alcoholism, you're not gonna have
a clue how much trouble you're really in or how
deeply It affects every aspect of your life. It affects
your relationships, it affects your.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Ability to deal on any life, in any way in
your life is.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Being negatively affected by untreated alcoholism, if that's what you're experiencing.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So living this way, living like I am an island and.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I've got to move through this hostile territory and you know,
make the moves that I need to make to be
able to be okay.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
For me, what that does is that sets me up
to cause harm. It sets me up to.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Do things and behave in such a way that other people,
other institutions, are harmed.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
And that's not something that I can look very directly at.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You know, with my experience with Step eight, I've done
a number of Step eights, at least seven or eight,
and each time I do them, something from the past
comes up, something that I've missed. I remember it was
like my third or my fourth run through the steps,
and I was putting together an eight step list and
(12:05):
something brought this back to me. You know, when right
after leaving college and right after my first first marriage dissolved,
I moved into this house with a bunch of partiers.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I mean these guys were nuts.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
One of them was a quailud dealer, the other the
other guy was just a drop down blackout drinking. You know,
wild Man and I moved into this house and we
got kicked out because we were having loud, crazy parties
and the music was on ten and it was three
in the morning and it was like, you know, a
little neighbors.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
So we got thrown out. So I got a drunken.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Resentment one night because we're getting thrown out, and I
talked to everybody into trash in the house.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I mean, we trashed this house. We ripped the door,
every door in the house and.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Made a bonfire in the backyard, kicked in all the wallboards,
and I got on the roof.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
And kicked the chimney off the top of the house.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
I mean, we were just this was not unusual behavior
for us, unfortunately back in these days.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
And I had forgotten about this. We've moved we moved
out like two weeks early, and you know, that was that.
And and you know, it came to me that you know,
this is this is a harm from from my past
that I've yet to take responsibility for. And this is
like my third or my fourth run through the steps.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
So uh so again there's a there's an evolution to
uh to these steps, and there's an evolution to the
self awareness that happens.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Uh. In recovery, you become.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
More and more aware of of reality in in like
a sane way. And I understand today that any any
any unresolved or undealt with harms that I've left out
there in the universe are going to plague me in
a number of different ways. You know, this isn't unusual,
(13:56):
and it's not it's not just from alcoholics anonymous. I mean,
there's we've we've all heard of karma, good karma, bad karma.
We've all heard of you know, the Golden rule, and
you know do unto others. Uh, We've we've uh uh
you know in the New Testament, uh, Jesus says basically,
if you want to come and pray at the altar,
(14:17):
if you want to give your give your devotion at
the altar, and you have a problem with somebody, go
fix that problem before you come to the altar. You
know this, this goes back thousands of years in all
of the major religions and philosophies that this unfinished conflict,
(14:38):
unresolved conflict is something that needs to be dealt with
for spiritual growth. Now, the thing with the alcoholic is
Spiritual growth is not optional if you want to survive alcoholism.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
It's optional.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
With a lot of other people. You can be a
horse's ass for your whole life if you're not alcohol halic. However,
the alcoholic really doesn't have a lot of choice. There's
got to be some spiritual growth. Now I get into
I get into AA, I end up in AA. What
(15:14):
happened was I went to the twenty eight day treatment program.
They sent me to outpatient outpatient recommended AA.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
You know, so, okay, I'll go to AA and and
I end up in AA.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Now I end up, I end up relapsing drank for
about seven more months.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
That took me to such an unbelievably ugly.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Place in my life that suicide was getting really attractive.
It was getting so bad, and there was a little
bit of survival instinct left in me that said, go.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Go back, go back to AA, go back to AA,
you know.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
And I did, And I came back in really hoping
against hope that this would work for me, because I
gotta tell you, the alcoholic is also an extreme. We're
either better then or worse then. We're never a run
of the mill, we're never like average. You know, we're
always worse than or better than. And when I was
looking around the rooms of AA and I had just
(16:13):
come off this horrific, horrific seven months, I was judging
everybody in the room, saying, you know, these are not
people that drank like me. These are not people that
drank like me. They're talking about tennis and about having
problems with you know, this one woman was sharing this
one time. Well, you know, I bought a new house
(16:34):
and I was trying to sell my other house and
I can't say that it's fallen through, and I'm stuck
with these two houses and this is a problem, right,
And I'm thinking, how.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
The hell do you get a house? You know, I
got like seven.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Bucks, So I mean so like, you know, I'm thinking,
I'm thinking, you know, I don't know where these people
are from.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
But like I.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Drank, you know what I mean, And I drank with
a vengeance. And I was a psychopath when I was drunk,
and you know, marry two homes, you know, I got
I got nothing to do, I got nothing in common with,
you know, so I really don't think this is gonna.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Work for me, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
And uh, And of course I was I was comparing
you know, people who were sober for periods of time
with me, who was like shattered and you know, still
stinking of vodka and bourbon. So I didn't think this
AA thing would work, but uh, but I tried it.
Now now, because alcoholism is a progressive illness, that capacity
(17:41):
to be self centered is also progressive. And by the
time I came into AA, I can't even tell you
how how much I was. I would, you know, think
about myself. I would go to these meetings and I
was learning how to share, you know, like uh, in
the late eighties early nineties meetings in my area in
(18:02):
New Jersey, it was about going to meetings.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And sharing, you know, raising I'm gonna share it. Let
me tell you about my day to day. And so
I was. I was learning how to do that, you know,
and uh, I was not very good at it, uh,
but I was giving it my best shot.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
And I would go to a meeting and it would
be a gratitude meeting and I'd share on gratitude and.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Then I'd go home and the ice cube tray would
be empty. I'd been don't you no idy guys much
that I alien felly active pray? I mean you know,
I was out of my out of my mind, out
of my mind. Uh you know the ice cube tray
was empty. For God's sake, don't you know? I have
to have called dregs.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Now, you know, the alcoholic is an extreme example of
self will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Okay,
you know, the great thing about recovery is it's progressive.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
The great thing about your ability to experience.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
What Alcoholics, Anonymous and the twelve Step process has to
offer is it's it's incremental.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
You get a little bit.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
If you continue to participate in this, you continue to
move forward a little bit each day. And as as
I was, you know, my first several years, as I
was trying to move away from the selfishness and self centeredness,
I got up. I got hooked up with some people
(19:40):
who who understood the step process, understood the step process
in such a way that they understood the actual mechanics
of the steps. Again, in late eighties and early nineties AA,
there may have been meetings that were about the practice
of teaching and practicing the twelve Steps, but in my
area it was.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
About sharing or there would be uh, there would be
the typical.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Booker type of speaker meeting where you'd go to a
speaker meeting and two speakers would come in and there'd
be a leader, and you could get you could get
the knuckle heads of all time speaking at these things
because there's no qualificationery.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Anybody that signs.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Up can go speak, you know, they can be be
a non alcoholic whack could do that shows up in
the meeting and signs up and they're speaking in front
of you. You know, So this is these are the
these are the meetings that that I'm going to, And
all of a sudden, I get confronted with some people
(20:45):
who truly shared their experience, their strength, and their hope
on the twelve step recovery process. And the best word
I can describe it as actually, that's the best one
word I could use. They actually told you how to
go through the steps and what the actual mechanics.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Were, what it looks like when you do these steps.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I was so confused, And really the reason I was
confused is because I knew somewhere deep down inside that
there had to be a fundamental change in me.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I was so ill emotionally and spiritually.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
I knew that I wasn't going to be able to
make it unless there wasn't some foundational change in the
way I felt at the very least, And I saw
the steps up on the wall, and I understood that
this was a twelve step fellowship, and I also understood
that I needed to pay attention to and take these
(21:46):
steps seriously. So I started to go to step meetings,
twelve and twelve step meetings. I would say from nineteen
ninety the late part of nineteen ninety two, about nineteen
ninety two or three, I was at least going to
force meanings a week, and in the step meetings. Everybody
in here, i'm sure has been has been to step meetings.
(22:07):
If you're thinking about actually doing the step, and you're
trying to learn how to actually do the step, that's
probably the last place you want to go is a
twelve and twelve step meeting. The twelve and twelve is
an absolutely wonderful book, but it's non instructional. It's more philosophical,
(22:27):
and it's more like, you know, this is kind of
what you can expect your attitude to change like.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
And there's wonderful, wonderful, poignant of.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Understanding of the alcoholic and the alcoholic mindset. But it's
non instructional as far as doing the steps. So what
will happen is you'll go to a lot of step
meetings and think that you're doing the steps because you're
going to a lot of step meetings, and nothing could
be further the truth.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
So so I'm confused, like crazy. You know.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I remember my first sponsor basically said, okay, Chris, you know,
I guess it's time, go ahead and do a fourth step.
Go do a four step, you know, go to some
four step meetings, do a fourth step. And that was
the instruction I got from him. And what I did
was I started to read the fourth step in the
twelve and tel, look, if you're going to go through
the steps, wouldn't you pick up a step book as
(23:29):
a reference source.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Well that's the worst thing you can do. But how
do you know that? Anyway, I'm reading about the seven
deadly sins.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
I'm saying to myself, I have twelve deadly sins, and
you know, and none of it made sense to me.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
And what do I write down?
Speaker 1 (23:47):
You know? So I wrote down this life story because
that's what I had been taught in treatment. So I
put down this life story, and you know, I wrote
down some of the nasty things I had did. I
wrote down some of the things I'd never told anybody before,
because I intuitively understood that you at least have to
be confessional with some of the stuff. And I wrote
down some patterns of behavior that I had wrong, you know,
(24:09):
And I went off to do my fist step. And
it was a great experience for me because you know,
I was not Catholic. I never experienced anything that was
confessional ever in my life. I was taught I don't
know about you guys, but I was taught never admit
to anything, even if they got you on video, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So it was really the first time I was ever
honest with with anybody about this stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
And I felt that I felt a great relief. I
felt a great relief. I stopped thinking that that I
was I was a scumback.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
But it wasn't enough. Then I get Then I get
exposed to.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
These people who who understand the step process. They they
were from a haven of big bookers or something, you know,
out west, and and uh, you know, I started I
started listening to their tapes and started really studying this
stuff and h and I started to begin to understand
a little bit about how you do this, this recovery process.
(25:06):
In step one, I admit, uh, I admit powerlessness. Now,
this is something so many of us miss. Powerlessness is powerlessness,
you know, will it will admit that we're powerless over alcohol,
and then we'll tell you what we do to keep
ourselves sober. You know that's a contradiction. There's there's so
(25:30):
much misunderstanding about step one. I understand today that step
one is the allergy of the body. That's pretty easy.
The first drink always asks for the second with me,
second demands the third, the third insists on the fourth.
I get kung chu and knee walking drunk practically every
time alcohol goes into my body.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
That's an easy one. The obsession of the mind, though,
is hard for me to admit.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
It says, who among us wishes to admit complete defeat,
It says in step one and the step up, not me.
I want to be able to do something or learn
something that'll keep me sober. But the fact of the
matter is is the first fifty pages of the Big
Book paints a very bleak picture. It talks about the
(26:13):
obsession of the mind, It talks about suddenly, It talks
about no human power can keep you from picking up
the next drink or the next drug. It talks about
the inability at certain times to bring into the consciousness
the problems that alcohol has caused you in the past.
(26:36):
You are without you are without defense against the first strength.
Now to be without defense against the first drink means
you have nothing to do with when you drink again.
Yet we like to get mad at our sponsores when
they drink on us, or the treatment centers like to
kick us out, you know, if we sneak off and
(26:57):
get drunk in the middle of a treatment program. Part
of the illness is we are without defense against the
next drink or the next drug.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
And that wouldn't be so bad if.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
It wasn't for you know, the unmanageability and the unmanageability
just presents in one hundred and fifty thousand different ways,
mostly emotional, mostly spiritual, restlessness, irritability, discontent, self centered fear, resentment, shame, remorse, guilt, anxiety, depression.
(27:31):
Those are all aspects of alcoholism. Those that's how unmanageability presents.
Yet we don't. We want to think that we're depressed,
or we want to think we have anxiety disorders or whatever.
What you have is untreated alcoholism, you know, and we're
all dying from these things because we don't understand alcoholism.
(27:54):
That's the first step, and that's not good. The first
step is its customers last in and there's more Indie
coming if you get it.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
If alcoholism allows you a clear enough mind.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
To understand how much trouble you're in, which it usually doesn't,
you start to get the idea of how much trouble
you're actually in and.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Why.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
If you're trying to get life insurance and you tell
them you're an alcoholic, they'll deny you. You know, they
know the alcoholic is sixty times more likely to take
their own life than the non alcoholic.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
They know the median age of the alcoholic is in
the early fifties. You know. They know that. So it's deadly,
it's devastating.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Step two, maybe there's a way out come to believe
that there's a power. There's a power that I can
connect to that will restore me to sanity, that will
enable me to stay away from the next drink or
the next drug. I can't do it myself. That's what
the first step says. But the second step says that
(29:01):
there's a power that can be grasped. You know, so
often I deal with with people who come in who
have really negative impressions of God and religion, and you know,
just bizarre conceptions that have been built up by people
who have kindergarten mentality about spiritual matters, you know, and
(29:22):
they've they've impregnated us with these bizarre impressions of what
God looks like, and you know, you know, and and
how morality ties into it, and you know, and just
completely bizarre. You know, today I see I see God
as more of a verb than a noun. I see
(29:44):
God as more of a power, because that's what I
can experience. I can experience today, that power that keeps
me safe and protected from the next drink of the
next drug.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Can I define that?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Can I give you a list of all the attributes
and put a face on it. Not with any real confidence, No,
But I can tell you that by living spiritual uh
spirit living a spiritual life, and following spiritual directions through
the twelve steps I've been I've encountered this power at
(30:27):
a fundamentally deep level. It says in the book Alcoholics Anonymous,
the consciousness of the presence of God. You know, we
will know that we will, we will understand that God
is doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
This will be the most significant fact in our lives,
(30:49):
the book says, And that's true. That's true in my case.
I I I understand that I need to participate. I
need to participate in the spiritual life for me to
stay connected to this power.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
But I haven't had a drink. I haven't had a
drink in almost twenty two years. And that's a miracle.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
If you would have seen me in the late eighties,
you would have said, this guy's not gonna live another month.
That's how bad I was drinking. So I know that
this power is real, and I know that you can
hook into it and anyone can. And it doesn't It
doesn't take a religious attitude. What it takes is it
takes a behavioral attitude. We need to come to terms
(31:35):
with spiritual living and do them and that does not
make us lame or chumps or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
It makes us more effective people on this planet. It
really does.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
So in step three, now I need to decide, Okay,
I know I'm dead on my own.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
I'm dead.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
It's only a matter of time drinking myself to death.
Some horrific you know, misadventure is gonna happen. You know,
my liberal explodes something bad. I know, but I come
to believe that by trying to live life on spiritual terms,
I can hook into a power. If I believe that,
(32:17):
maybe that's possible. Then the next step is step three,
where I make make the decision to do that. Okay,
I got no better plans. I'm all in, you know,
show me what to do. And I did that on
like day three or day four with my first sponsor.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I went up to him. I said, Phil, I've been
in hell. I need to get out. Tell me what
to do. Those are the words I said to him
two days in. Tell me what to do.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
And I might as well have said, be very careful
about telling me what to do, because goddamn it, I'm
gonna do it, you know, so be very careful what
you tell me to do, because I am that desperate
that I'm gonna listen to you about my life, which
was already you know, alert the press, Chris is going
(33:05):
to be paying attention to somebody else's opinion.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Uh, what I learned later from from the Big Book, guys,
is it's a decision to go through the rest of
the steps. How do I live life along spiritual lines?
The steps are spirituality one oh one, a lot of it.
There are things that we should have learned in kindergarten,
but you know.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Decided not to. So, Okay, Step three, I'm in.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
I want to start developing a relationship with this power
that's keeping me sober. I want to start living life
along spiritual lines. And I'm willing. I'm willing to at
least be willing to go through the rest of the steps.
Not real happy about eight and nine, you know, not
real happy about sharing all my faults with anybody, but willing.
(33:58):
So in step four, that's my first face to face
look really.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
At what is going on with me. I have been
wrong about so much.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
My attitudes, my opinions, my outlook have been wrong and
tainted with this perverse, deep seated self centeredness that I
can't see the truth from the false. I can't really
see right from wrong. I can't really see the damage
that I'm doing you. I can't really see how selfish
(34:29):
I am until I start to look at step four.
I start going through step four, and I start to
put some of the pieces together about.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
What is wrong with me? Has anybody in here ever
been asked that question by somebody? What is wrong with you?
Are you Craig? Anybody ever been asked.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
That Although, first time you're really gonna understand what's wrong
with you is when you start looking at the fourth step.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
No matter what you think, it's, the first time.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
You're gonna really start to see what's going on with
you is when you look at the first step, fourth step,
and when you start to put a four column resentment
inventory together, when you start to do a fear inventory,
when you start to look at the harms that you've
caused other people, especially in the sex realm, the sex
harms that you've caused because alcoholics picture being terminally self
(35:25):
centered and getting in relationships, how's that gonna look. That's
gonna be like one Hindenbergen's explosion after another, probably, and
you're gonna be basing all of your actions and relationship
skills on selfishness and self centeredness.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
That ain't gonna go well. So that's an inventory that
needs to be looked at.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
That's basically nine questions, a review nine questions, and then
putting together an ideal for future relationships, future.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Future encounters, close encounters.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
With other people, and all of that needs to be
put together. And if you've done even a halfway good
job on this, you have discovered some unbelievable things about
yourself and how you have caused your own problems. If
you've done a good job with step four, you get
to a place where you no longer think your problems
(36:24):
are coming at you. You understand your problems are coming
from you. And that is a shift in perception that
is absolutely huge, because now you know whose fault it
really is. It's not those bastards, it's you. You have
co created, at best, everything that's going wrong in your life.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
At worst, you've caused it all.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
And you only see that when you do a fourth step.
As you when you get done with this four step,
the next spiritual exercise is to share with somebody. You know,
sharing it with somebody takes some of this thing out
of it. I mean, because it really is the whole mcgilla.
It's like it's like, you know, a treatise on every
(37:14):
dysfunctional thing that's ever going on in your life.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
It's it's really, you know, an almost toxic document and
Sharing it.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
With somebody, especially somebody who has some experience with this,
is a good thing because what will happen is you'll
start to see.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
That you're not so unique. You know, you're not so unique.
You've been caught up, You've.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Been driven into this by alcoholism. You probably wanted to
be a much better person than you ended up being.
This is an illness. If we're powerless, then we're being
driven into this. So where we need to start to
take response ability at this point is with the recovery process.
(38:05):
One of the promises is we don't shut the door
in the past, and we don't. We can use that
as an asset moving forward. We can use it as
a motivation to continue on the spiritual path. We can
use it to figure out an eight step list and
(38:25):
where we've done harms and start to put that list together.
But it starts to lose its sting and we start
to get some perspective. I believe a spiritual awakening. I
believe a miracle is a shift in perception. You see
things one way and then there's a profound event in
(38:45):
your life, and then you're looking at the exact same
thing with a complete different paraglasses it's a complete different perspective,
complete different perception. And that's what happens to us as
far as you know, when we go through these steps,
we go from a foundation built on selfishness and self
(39:07):
centered us to a new foundation that's built on on
compassion and spiritual values.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
And it's it's an amazing thing to have happened.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
So as we're as we're finishing up our fifth step
and we're sharing all this stuff, if we've if we've
done the best we can with it, if we've.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Truly held nothing back and really went after this step
with everything we had.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Uh, there's a whole whole series of promises that are
amazing that happen, and that moves you very quickly into
into step six, which is becoming willing to have God
remove these defects of character.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Now, think of it this way.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
If you're truly powerless, if you've been driven into this alcoholism,
into this behavior because of alcoholism, which I truly believe
to that, I truly truly I think that we're good
people that do bad things. I think sometimes we're smart
people that stupid things. We're being driven into this stuff
by alcoholism. So in step six, when We've become willing
(40:07):
to have God remove these defects of character.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
We have to admit that.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Look, if we could have changed our lives with a
couple of self help books, we would have done so
a long time ago. Anybody in here gets sober with
a whole library of self help books that didn't work.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
There's three hands and the rest of you lying good
for nothing. So God needs to remove these defects of characters.
They are too much for me.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
I cannot decide not to be selfish anymore and have
that last more than fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
It's not in my nature.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
It takes way, a way greater power than myself for
these defects of character to be mastered. So I've become
willing to let God remove these defects of character. And
in step seven, I humbly and an attitude of humility.
An attitude of humility basically is I believe humility is
(41:07):
an accurate self appraisal. I believe humility is understanding my
position in all this. And if I understand that these
character defects like my alcoholism are too much for me
in single handed combat, I can go to God or
the power.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
In an attitude of humility. I'm beaten, I have surrendered.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Please take these character effects from me, and you say
the seventh step prayer, and I believe that prayers are answered.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
I have.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
My experience with character defects being removed is yeah, there's
a whole bunch of them that get removed.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Yes, my whole.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Deportment shouts that I am no longer as selfish and
self centered as I used to be.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
I have the actual capacity.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Today to think of other people before myself, which is
a wholesale miracle. You know, I truly believe that that
that uh, that that change did not originate within me.
It's it's not something that I achieved out of a
sense of virtue. It's something that has happened by my
(42:16):
cooperation to live a spiritual life. And it's almost a
byproduct of my cooperation to live a spiritual life. So
I humbly ask God to remove these shortcomings. Holding nothing back. Now,
I'm looking at step eight, which is which is tonight's topic.
Became willing to make amends to those that I had harmed.
(42:40):
Now the best possible atmosphere for the removal of character
defects that are robbing you of all the quality that
your life could have the best possible spiritual atmas sphere
(43:00):
for the removal of those defects of character is to
humbly become willing to make amends and to actually go
out and make amends for where those uh, those harm uh,
those actions your selfish access have caused harm. Now, I
like to keep the two disciplines separate. There's the discipline
(43:21):
of becoming willing and doing the list, and then there's
the discipline of actually going out and making amends. And
those really are two separate disciplines, and I like to
keep them separate.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
For one reason. We have the capacity to edit are
a step list.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
We can be putting a list together, and we can
be deciding who we're going to make amends to and
who we're not going to make amends to, and make
sure that the people we're not going to.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Make amends to don't get on the list.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
That's something that I think a majority of alcoholics have experienced,
who've who've tackled these steps. Not everybody, but probably a majority.
Now here's why you want to keep the disciplines separate.
If you do the a step the way it's supposed
(44:11):
to be done, you will put down everyone on that list.
You'll put down every creditor, You'll put down everyone that
you had serious turbulence with in your life. You'll put
down every single person that you're aware of at the
time that you've caused harm to, or every institution, because
that's the discipline. And if you don't edit ahead. And
(44:34):
the reason why I think that that should be done
is I think the willingness to do certain amends comes
with experience. In other words, there may be people on
your A step list that you are not. You don't
have the spiritual fortitude right here and right now to
(44:54):
be able to do that amens.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
And that's fine. Good friend of mine came to me
one time.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
He had about sixty a mens on cards and he said,
he said, Chris, you know, I'm good with most of this,
but there's a card in here I want to talk
to you about.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
He goes, there's a card in here, and.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
I want you to know as soon as you need
to know right away that I am not going to
make amends to this guy. Now, this individual had armed
somebody in his family in a very profound way, and
he had.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Had the person prosecuted.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
It was a mess, okay, And this person ended up
on his A step cards and he said, I am
never going to make amends to this person, just so
you know, I'll do I'll do what I can do here,
but I'm never going to make amends this person. Well
what happened was he did fifty nine amends out of
sixty and this one card started to burn, started to
(45:56):
burn him, and he came over me at my house
and he said, you know, you.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Got to help me with this. I know now I've
got to do this amends and you need to help me.
I'm willing, I just don't know how to do it.
And we talked about it.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
And he actually went out and made that amends and
he completed his sixty amends and the.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Guy has never been the same since. That willingness that
they talk about in step eight.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Sometimes it's got to come with the experience of doing
the ones that you're willing.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
There are going to be amends that you're willing to
do right away. I for one, this is what you know.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
There's people who have different opinions. I, for one, believe
that you should do the ones that you're willing to do.
And with that experience, what happens is you become willing
to do the ones that you were unwilling to do.
Each step, each step gives you the power to do
the next step. Each action that we take allows us
(46:57):
to go a little bit further into this spiritual life.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
In the step book, there's a saying.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
The hoop that you have to jump through is larger
than you think. You know, when we're looking at these
steps from the ground floor, they can seem daunting, they
can seem impossible.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
I'll never be able to do that.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
But you need to know that there's nothing in those
steps that, if done correctly, will hurt you. And there's
nothing in those steps that will be impossible for you
if you just remain willing and open minded. Now forgiveness.
(47:37):
Forgiveness is a big thing with step eight. There was
a shift. I told you about the shift that happened
to me in the fourth step. All of a sudden,
I realized that my problems were of my own making.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
I was an example of.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
Self will run riot though I didn't think so. And
I stepped on the toes of my fellows and they
retaliated seemingly without provocation. And I start to understand that
I've caused this big mess in my life. With that
understanding comes a lot of forgiveness because I no longer
(48:13):
see people and the universe is hostile to me.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
I see my.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Relationship with people in the universe as being defective because
I'm alcoholic and I'm living my life based on self
centered fear. So that makes it easier for me to
start to forgive some people because I don't see them
as aggressors anymore.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
I see them as you know, unwilling bit players.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Really in my life, you know, most of the time,
I'm the one that dragged him in anyway. And if
it's if it's family, you know, I so totally abused
my relationship with every family member. It was amazing that
they had anything to do with me, you know. Around
the time, at the end of my drinking, so I
(49:03):
started to shift my perspective. I started to look at
things differently, and that's where a lot of a lot
of forgiveness comes in. If you want to have a
quality of life, if you want to understand serenity, if
you want to have peace, you have to deal with
forgiving everything. Now, forgiveness does not necessarily mean tolerance. You
(49:33):
acceptance does not necessarily mean tolerance. There's certain things that
we do not have to tolerate. However, we need to
accept them, and we need to forgive the people. We
need to be able to forgive the people because if
we don't, if we don't, it's going to be a backlash.
Our unwillingness to forgive is going to turn around and
(49:56):
poison and corrode our own spirituality. And it's our spirituality
is what is going to keep us alive. It's what's
going to keep us on this.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
Planet without dying an alcoholic death.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Look, being an alcoholic, your statistical chances are really bad
for your survival. You'd be better off having any other
type of cancer or heart disease than you would having alcoholism.
Because alcoholism, there's a high, high, high percentage of people
who die from alcoholism. If we pay attention to this stuff,
(50:35):
if we engage in it, and we stay consistent with it,
we can die with alcoholism instead of from alcoholism.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
And I don't know about anybody else.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
But you know, I was not a good person towards
the end, and what I've learned of alcoholism is this progressive.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
My alcoholism is way worse.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
Now than it was twenty one years ago when I
quit it has been progressing waiting for a drink.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
If I picked up a drink tomorrow, most likely I.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Would be rocketed into an incredibly dark place, an incredibly violent,
insane dark place. And I don't want to end my
existence on this planet that way. I don't think that's
what God wants from me. So I need to take
look at it this way. If you have diabetes, it's
(51:32):
your responsibility to take insulin and watch your diet. If
you don't, diabetes will kill you. If you have hypertension,
or if you've got really serious kidney problems and you
need dialysis, it's your responsibility to get the dialysis. You
(51:54):
can't say, well, there's you know, the football game on tonight,
I'll do dialysis tomorrow. No, you need to take responsibility
for it on a day to day basis. Well with alcoholism,
because it's an unorthodox illness and the treatment is unorthodox,
and there's a level of delusion that we don't think
(52:14):
we're really sick. What happens is we forget to pay
attention to the treatment, to the participated patient and the
treatment of our alcoholism, and we'll start to back away
from meetings. We'll well we'll not pay a lot of
attention to the twelve steps. We'll see that we don't
have to work with other people, that we don't have
to do service commitments.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
We can get away with it.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
You know, tonight I can get away with you know,
it's just sitting at home and watching TV. And this
will build up, and what will happen is we will relapse.
The American Medical Society in the in the DSM four,
which is the newest, latest, and greatest diagnostic manual for
(52:56):
diseases and illnesses that doctors use, alcohol is defined as
a chronically relapsing condition. My particular understanding and relapse is
drinking again. But that's not necessarily the way a lot
of doctors will look at it.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
They'll they'll look.
Speaker 1 (53:15):
At anxiety attacks, emotional disturbances, depression. They'll see that as
a relapse of alcoholism because the person isn't treating treating
the alcoholism the right way, and they'll prescribe for you
or whatever. But if the doctors see alcoholism as a
chronically relapsing condition, you can bet that there's a high
(53:37):
percentage of people that come into AA or try to
stay sober they can't or.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Don't I love the way.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Bill Wilson says that there are people who cannot or
will not give themselves to this simple program. Don't don't
kid yourselves. Giving yourself to the Simple Program is making
amends to the people or institutions who you've caused harm to,
setting right the wrong. Don't kid yourself and think that
(54:06):
giving yourself to the Simple program is going to meetings.
Meetings do not treat alcoholism. They create a tentative sobriety,
and the next step from meetings is a recovery program.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
The twelve Steps.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
If you just come in and sit in meetings and
you've been here one hundred years and everything is fine,
you don't even.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Qualify as an alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
If you look at the description of the book Alcoholics Anonymous,
it basically ensures that if all you're gonna do is
go to meetings, you're gonna drink again if you read
the black part of the book. So don't kid yourself
that this is something that can be treated like going
to the rotary club. I made that mistake early on.
(54:57):
I was showing up in meetings. I was doing like
it was castor oil treatment. I don't like it, but
I'm gonna show up and I was going to outpatient,
I was going to AA, and on the way to
an AA meeting one night, I concluded.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
That it'd be a good idea to buy a gallon
of vodka and drinking.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
And it was the craziest thought that ever went through
my mind because it created seven months of a living hell.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
And I was a meeting maker. I was going outpatient
and I was a meeting maker. That didn't make it.
Speaker 1 (55:31):
So when I came back in, I intuitively understood there
had to be something deeper and more profound here for
me to be able to stay sober and to survive.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
And I found that it's right.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Up on the wall at every meeting, and we read
it at every meeting how it works. And still I'll
go to a meeting. It's more rare today, but still
I'll go to a meeting and somebody will raise their hand.
Speaker 2 (55:54):
I don't know how it works. It just works. You
mean you don't know how it works. We read how
it works at every meeting. How it works is how
it works. It's how it works. Some crazy reason, we
came up with this idea that going to ninety and
ninety is a treatment for alcoholism. Trust me, it's not.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
The next step after step eight is obviously step nine,
and then we have ten, eleven, and twelve at the
end of this thing. If we go to the last
chapter in the book, we see that what we need
to do is we need to have a life based
on service, love and service. Doctor Bob had this pegged.
(56:41):
He went through the steps in a matter of days
and was on service the rest of his life.
Speaker 2 (56:46):
And he had it pegged. He had a great, great
recovery of this guy. All he was about was.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
Taking other people through the steps. That's what he did
on a daily basis. He took you through the steps.
Meetings were optional to him, the steps were essential. And
he did that for another fifteen years until he died.
From thirty five to fifty he worked with thousands of alcoholics.
(57:13):
If you do the math, it was two or three
a day or something like that that this guy worked
with being a service.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
We need to all of a sudden have more more of.
Speaker 1 (57:28):
A desire to help other people than to put ourselves first.
Says in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, that we relapsed because
we failed to enlarge and perfect our spiritual life through
work and self sacrifice for others. That's where it tells
us why we relapse, because we failed to participate in
(57:51):
our spiritual life, and we failed to work for others
and place their welfare ahead of our own. When I
first walked into AA, I had no clue I was
going to need to do that. I really thought I
was gonna end up drinking a lot of coffee and
sitting in a lot of church basements, you know, talking
(58:12):
about God. And I didn't understand any of this. Today
I've got experience with this. I'm incredibly happy to be
where I am today. I've got a pretty remarkable life.
You know, in the last couple of years, there's been
ups and downs and sideways is and you know, stuff
that would have killed me. You know, when I was drinking,
(58:34):
I couldn't stand change when I was drinking all I've
moved about five times. I married a wonderful woman and
in a new marriage, you know, new job, you know,
back and forth between states, running all over the country,
doing crazy things, you know, getting involved with just people
(58:55):
all over the country, doing wacky recovery stuff.
Speaker 2 (58:59):
And I gotta tell you, you know, I wouldn't trade
it for the world. I am.
Speaker 1 (59:04):
I truly now understand it. When I first walked into
AA and heard somebody raise their hands say I'm a
grateful alcoholic, I was like, oh, brother, here's a grateful alcoholic.
I'll let me slash the tires of your car in
the meeting and then watch you find them all flat,
and see how gratefully you are after the meeting, You bastard,
you lose it. I'm on the other side of that now,
(59:30):
and I understand at a very very deep level what
a grateful alcoholic is, and I'm one of them. Thank
you very much for being here.
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