Full Transcript

That was pretty good though, wasn’t it? Too bad about you Carl, that’s tomorrow night, you won’t, yeah, I mean beat that, yeah. My name is Chris Raymer, I’m a very grateful, recovered alcoholic. I am delighted to be here, I got to tell you, he’s coming in. There’s three of them up here, I don’t know what they’re doing, this one? This one? He knows me well, he knows I’m not very technical kind of a guy, don’t you know?

It’s so good to see so many of y’all in here tonight, I got to tell you, I’m still, we’re starting to travel again since COVID kind of heading off stage left and getting this, it still overwhelms me to look at a whole room full of people, you know, and I’m the only guy in the airport with a mask on, you know, I’m still paying attention to what I do. It’s been two years without a sniffle, so long after COVID’s gone, I’m still going to wear the damn mask, you know?

It’s working for me, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m delighted to be here, and y’all are, this is one well-organized conference, and the good news, I mean, come on, they did a hell of a job, and the good news is I don’t have to talk and then run for an airplane, I get a chance to be around all weekend, which means I get a chance to visit with y’all and get to catch up on some old friends, and jeez, I can’t wait, it’s good.

There’s some old guys in here, I can’t wait so we can get together and talk about our prostates and stuff, it’s just, it’s just, yeah, all you little young guys, keep laughing, it’s coming, it’s coming, God, I got, thank all the damn committee, there’s a billion of them, and I want to just, Bob and Andrew was, I mean, perfect, he picked me up, that’s a successful host, if they pick you up and get you back to the airport, it’s about as good as it gets, Brenda, Susan, Dave, everybody, God dang it, it’s just, thank you so much, and I get to do a little workshop tomorrow afternoon at three, yeah, and so I get another shot at ya, and that’ll be fun, and we got some other great speakers this weekend, friends of mine, and I’m looking forward to listening to them.

I want to real quick, and I’m watching the clock closer than y’all are, folks, so I won’t go long, but as always, any time I share from the podium, guys, I don’t care if I’m talking at a big old conference or a little AA group in some little town in Texas, I’m here to do one thing, and that’s just to share my experience, my experience, y’all get that? Can y’all see me over there? Hi guys, bye guys, I can’t see them.

I think sometimes people think this is a prop, I really, I can’t see out of this eye, don’t come up here and tap me on the shoulder, I’ll smack ya. I’m here to share my experience, guys, and I learned over the years to say that, is my experience may be different than your experience, and one of the cool things I know after being sober for a few years, there’s that phone, is that everybody’s had a little different experience, and I’m not up here gonna tell you, not today or in the workshop I do tomorrow, how to do this, guys, I’m just here to share my experience, and if you can learn anything from that, or glean anything from it, you’re more than welcome to it, guys, I’m not, if you’re sitting next to your sponsor, and I say something that your sponsor doesn’t agree with, your sponsor’s right, and I’m wrong.

I share my story from a perspective, y’all understand that word, perspective, it’s kind of from where I stand, my experience was real simple, I spent seven years sitting in Alcoholics Anonymous, damn near dying, not being able to stay sober, and a lot of people can relate to that, because they’ve had the same experience, and I also worked 28 years in the treatment I do work for an alumni department, I call alumni, I just do clerical work, that’s all I’ve done, I’m not smart enough to be a counselor, and I’ve absolutely enjoyed it, but I cannot tell you how many people over the years, thousands of them, who’ve come through, and they come out of detox, and they’ve got little banana pudding all over their face, and they all look kinda banged up, and oh my God, bless their little hearts, and they come up and they look around, and we start talking, and he says, oh man, no, not the 12 steps, he says, I’ve tried AA, it doesn’t work, and I get to talk to them for a few minutes, and find out they did exactly what I did for seven years, I’ll say this, and it’s the only thing

[00:05:03]

I’m gonna say all night, controversial, I promise you, it’s the only thing I’m gonna try to, yeah, the drug addicts are never gonna hurt Alcoholics Anonymous, it’s the hard drinkers that are gonna do it, it’s the hard drinkers that are gonna do it, they don’t have to work the steps, all they can do is go to meetings, and everything’s just fine, all you gotta do, meeting, meeting, meeting, go to more meetings, you can’t stay sober, double up on your meetings, I’ve been looking in this book for a whole bunch of years, I can’t find that anywhere, but I’m still looking, so we’ll see, it’s gotta be in there, cause everybody talks about it, I’m not knocking meetings, I’m just saying, y’all understand, see where I’m going, you should see the room, some of y’all are laughing, hey, and some of you guys are already going like this, I love you, oh my gosh, my twin brother says, hi, I’ve got an identical twin brother, Myers, y’all know him, he said, tell you how he knows a bunch of y’all in the audience, we were born out in Odessa, Texas, my father was a printer, and my mom was a world famous artist, she was something else, and raised in a pretty idyllic home, I’ve got a little sister and an older sister, and they’ve never had a problem with alcohol, and my twin brother and I caught the bullet, same little eggy, y’all got it, it’s a little graphic, here’s a little eggy, here’s a little spermy, oh, I’m coming to get you, some of you guys are still convinced that your alcoholism was causal, something happened to cause you to be an alcoholic, it probably didn’t help it, didn’t cause it, genetics folks, I’ve got the books, I can show you, read it, it’s understood, and my father was the nicest, sweetest guy, you listen to some of these speakers out here from the podium, they’re raised by a pack of wolves, underneath the city in the sewer, we weren’t, guys, looking back in hindsight, we didn’t have a lot of money, but I never went to school with dirty clothes, and I never missed a meal, we just didn’t have a lot, my dad was the hardest working man I ever knew, he was an alcoholic, he was a periodic, and he could stay sober for long periods of time, and then something would happen, the barometric pressure would change or something, he’d come home with a six pack of slits beer, and we knew the siege was on, and he’d be pretty much drunk forever, but he never missed a day’s worth of work, ever.

What a sweetheart. He drug us to Kerrville, Texas, it’s about 60 miles northwest of San Antonio, and when I was about 11 years old, I got hit in the eye with a rock when I was a little kid, but right after that he moved us to the hill country, and he liked water, and there’s none in Odessa, so he just moved us there, and I mean it was idyllic, we were raised right out there on the river, and perfect childhood, went to high school, and I wasn’t going to ever do no drugs, and I wasn’t going to drink, because I’m watching him, and you know how that works, but I had a friend of mine, 1971, January, the month and the year that Bill Wilson passed away, I took my first drink, Boone’s Farm apple wine.

All the old hippies in here, y’all are the only ones that ever get that. Some of you little youngins in here, on your next relapse, go find some of that shit. Don’t spill it on the carpet though, because that shit ain’t going to come out, I don’t know what’s in it. Pops was something, and I don’t know where this kid got the bottle, it was a little bottle, not that little, but it was one of the smaller bottles, and we went down to the river, and it was seven or eight o’clock at night, and leaned up against one of those big old 700 year old cypress trees, and we split that bottle, and he took a couple of sips and spit it out, and he said, this is not what I thought this was going to taste like, and I took a couple of sips and didn’t spit it out, and I said, yeah, I know, it tastes like crap.

He said, I don’t want any more of this, you can have it. I said, no, let me get this straight, because I’m going to keep it, I’m going to drink the whole thing, it’s simple. It’s the first time I’d ever had alcohol in my system enough, dad had given me sips of his beer and stuff, but this is the first time I’d had enough to change anything, and I’ve got to tell you folks, I sat down there by myself, on that river, drank that bottle, and walked back across that field, cold January night, and I understood why dad drank.

It was the first time I remember as a young adult, breathing all the way in and all the way out. Do you remember the time when you just finally got comfortable in your skin? I was a nervous little wreck. I remember my mom coming out, she had her studio out there, and there was a picnic table

[00:10:02]

outside the door, and she came out there and slid up against my blind side, and I didn’t see her jump through the door, and she said, what is wrong with you? She’d been watching me for an hour, and I’m sitting at that picnic table, miserable, 14 years old, I’m three years away from my first drink, and I’m going to die. I just felt completely useless. Some of y’all are nodding your head, you understand exactly what I’m saying.

That’s called untreated alcoholism. I was an uncomfortable little turd. Yeah, and you put alcohol in me, and I’ve got to tell you, it fixed what was wrong with me. It’s the hardest thing, a lot of people don’t understand it, because I talk to family members all the time, if she’d just quit drinking, everything would be okay. You don’t understand, if all they do is quit drinking, they’re not going to get better, they’re going to get worse.

This is why I’ve got to say, every single one of you alcoholics in here that ever screwed up your courage, and went to treatment, or walked into an AA meeting and got sober, there’s a lot of people out there that have no idea what you’re doing. What’s the big deal? They just quit doing something that was harming them. No, you don’t understand. They stopped doing the one thing that allowed them to participate in this world okay in their own skin.

Makes me want to cry when I think about it. The courage it takes to do that. Alcohol, for a period of time, worked for me. I was in the food business, I was a little busboy at a hotel, this was back before child labor laws, and they worked my skinny little butt to death, I mean to tell you. But I wanted to be a cook. I’m looking back here in the back, and they’re wearing them whites back there, looking sharp, and they’re all drinking on the job, and there was rumor that some of those people in that kitchen, back there in the kitchen, were having, can you say that from the podium?

Having sex. Guys, y’all think I’m homely now? You should have seen me at 17. Okay, I’m just saying. It was never going to happen for me. This was my one shot. Mom knew the owner, pulled some strings, and I got back there in the kitchen, and it turned out I was pretty damn good at it. I ended up becoming a professional chef, and got to drink a little bit on the job. It was pretty scary, but I did it.

I couldn’t. We went through high school, guys, it was the same thing. High school football, went to the property, built a bonfire, drank a keg of beer. There was periods of time, guys, when it worked. For some of you, progressively, it stops working pretty quick. One of the worst alcoholics I ever worked with was a 19-year-old young man. He was a sweetheart of a kid. He had had two drunk driving charges, blacked out, drank twice, blacked out both times, and got drunk driving charges.

This guy was an in-stage alcoholic at 19. Stop looking at this chronologically. You wait until you’re an old bastard like me, and then, well, no. It’s different for everybody. The problem is I can’t tell by looking at you how much longer you’ve got. I wish I could. I could get rich. You’ve got about six more years left in you before you have to stop. Hot damn. This could be a good business. My twin brother and I, we moved.

He went to school for a year, and I worked. After graduation, I went to Houston, Texas, got a job at a big old hotel up there. I’ll never forget it. We drove in from little Kerrville, Podunk, Texas to Houston, Texas in an old Volkswagen Beetle. Somewhere he got this Beetle, and on the back there was a bumper sticker. He said, Get drunk and be somebody. It was a little bumper. Got it from some bar in Texas.

I have no idea, but we were going to do that, buddy. I’ve got to tell you. When we were so young, you couldn’t buy beer at the time. At 18, you had to be 21 back in the day. We’d always find somebody to buy us booze. Like I said, it worked okay for a long time. I’ll tell you what happened. Depression started kicking my butt. One of the number one symptoms of untreated alcoholism is depression. So many people come to treatment, I have clinical depression.

Most of you don’t. Most of you, what you have is untreated alcoholism. It’ll come up and bloom like a flower. If you just lay the booze down, it’ll get worse. That’s what we’ve got to do. That’s why Bill Wilson said we have a spiritual disease. That spiritual malady, once it’s overcome, we straighten out physically and mentally. Who knew? Anyway, I started making these things called geographics. Any of you all ever move trying to fix a…

If I could just get everything… How many times have I done that? If I could just get that job, everything would be okay. You get that job. If I could just get that girl to go out with me, everything… If I could just kill that girl, everything would be okay. If we could just get married… I’m changing all my outsides, and I’m trying to fix it up. I’m moving. God, I’m moving. I still own a pickup today, guys, because you never know when you might need to move.

I’m just saying. 34 years…

[00:15:02]

know. And guys, I went to Austin, Texas. That was an experiment that didn’t work too well. Who knew they drank in Austin, Texas? Home of the armadillo back in the day. And I was there for two years and went to Omni International Hotels in Atlanta, Georgia. I couldn’t stay in Atlanta nine months. They didn’t sell booze on Sunday. That is alcohol abuse. That is not. They may now, but back in the day they didn’t. And I came back to Texas and did wheat harvest up in Vernon, Texas and worked in a little restaurant. The deal is I’m pretty good at what I do. And it was one of those deals in the food business. They didn’t give two poops if you drank on the job. As long as you showed up and did a good job, they would let you. A lot of you restaurant workers know exactly what I’m saying, back in the day. And somewhere along the line, we started adding some living better chemically, we used to say, with diet pills, things to make you go faster in the kitchens. If you’re working twelve hours a day, guys, and you’re drinking from five o’clock in the morning, you need some assistance. Yeah. I know we’ve got a bunch of little opiate addicts in here. I’ve never understood that drug, ever. This doesn’t look fun to me. Scratch, scratch, scratch.

I want to stay up all night and work on a toaster. I think I’ve got it figured out now. One of my geographics, I moved back to Houston, Texas and I got a partnership in a little barbecue restaurant. And there was this girl that was working where my brother was a bartender. She was a cocktail waitress there and she was a sweetheart. And I somehow talked her into marrying me. My brother had left and gone up to North Texas and I followed him.

I went up to North Texas to be closer to him and bought my first little house. This was in the early 80s, guys. Y’all remember Miami Vice? Feel the love. Every time I hear that song I get a little tingly. We all thought, I mean, guys, people that didn’t do drugs were doing drugs then. That’s just all there is to it. Everybody thought they were drug runners and it was so stupid. That’s all I’m talking about, drugs. But I started mixing some of those outside issues with the alcohol and it was the same stuff. I’ll never forget.

It was just like my mom did when I was 14. My wife came out on our brand new little house there and I’ve got a semi-new pickup truck in the parking lot and a new wife and I’m sitting on the front porch and I’m miserable. She said, what’s wrong with you? And I’m just not a happy camper. I keep thinking that something can change out there, I’m going to be okay. I’ve watched thousands and thousands of people come to treatment and they all expect the same thing. If I could just get out of this bad relationship, everything would be okay. You probably need to get out of that bad relationship, but it’s not going to be okay. That’s not going to fix the alcoholism. I came home one night working with a guy and he was, I don’t know, we’d been drinking all day long. Anyway, I come home and we had a little push and match. I come from a family where we don’t do that. There’s just none of this physical stuff in my family. We just weren’t, and I remember what the fight was about when I pushed her and it scared her to death and it freaked me out. She asked me to leave and I did and came back a few hours later and we had the discussion. She knew I was drinking, she had no idea how much. She didn’t know about those outside issues and we had the conversation. I can’t share this story, guys, it can vary what I talk about any given evening, but I can’t not say this. When I looked her in the face that night, mortified that I had done that, and promised her that I was never going to touch another drop of alcohol again, I meant it with every fiber in my body. With tears in my eyes, I promised her and I poured the booze out and I got rid of the dope. I’m done.

I get so unbelievably tired of listening to people in Alcoholics Anonymous paint pictures that we’re some kind of goofy bunch of people. If an alcoholic’s mouth is moving, he’s lying. You know, not true. Not true. I’ve watched a lot of people come in, guys, and you know that they mean business. They’re hurt. They’re banged up. What I didn’t understand is that I didn’t have the power to manage the decision to stay stopped. So many people out there believe if you really want to stop, if you really need to stop, you’ll be able to stop.

That is absolute craziness. Those hard drinkers we were talking about that’s killing Alcoholics Anonymous, those people, they can. The real alcoholic is not going to be able to do that based on desire. Bill Wilson talks about it three places in the book. Read bottom of page 20, top of page 21. Moderate drinkers. Hard drinkers. But what about the real alcoholic?

[00:20:02]

He continues to separate us, folks. Just because you drink a lot doesn’t mean you’re an alcoholic. If you can just quit, walk away from it, then do it. I kept thinking I could. A week and a half later I came home. The chef had asked me to go over the function sheets for the next week and I drank a beer with him and came home patting myself on the back because I didn’t get drunk. My deal with her wasn’t that I wasn’t going to come home drunk. My deal with her was that I wasn’t going to touch another drop. And that was the end of that.

And I continued to go to Alcoholics Anonymous for the next seven years. Loved it. Don’t anyone think that I’m taking a shot at those people or Alcoholics Anonymous? They were the finest bunch of people in the world. There was none of these in the meetings I was going to. As a newcomer, folks, we assume that the newcomer knows the questions to ask. We’re going to talk about that some tomorrow. But the newcomer doesn’t know. The meeting I was going to, a few blocks over, there was a big book meeting where I could have gotten some help. But I’m going to the meetings where they’re doing two things. Trying to scare the bejesus out of each of us. Y’all follow? Just to scare our stories so that’ll stop us from drinking. And, you know, meeting makers make it. Ninety meetings in ninety days. Okay.

Oh, God. I said it at Founders Day this year. If I could click my fingers and make that happen, ninety meetings in ninety days would go away. Fly away. Makes us look stupid. And I keep telling people to do it, guys. I’m just saying. You can go to a hundred and twenty meetings a night. It’s the same stuff. It won’t stop. It will fix the problem. I’m going to a zillion meetings, guys. And I’m walking in. I’m scared to death. And I’m sitting by myself. And they go around the rooms and start telling me how many people they chopped up and put in plastic bags and how many drunk driving charges they had. I’m the guy that never missed the days we were at the work. Y’all follow? But they’re going to go around and say, well, you think that’s something? I’ve had eight DWIs. You think that’s bad?

I’ve had… Oh, God. And I’m just like, God damn it. I’m not like these people. There’s no chapter in the back of the book called End the Scare. You know? You’re not going to scare anybody. I don’t care how bad the story is. We need our story, folks. The story is on a Friday night. That’s what we’re doing tonight. I’m going to tell you a little bit about my story. It’s important. In a twelve-step call, I’m going to sit down and talk to you about getting sober. I need to tell you a little bit about my story so that you know I know what I’m talking about. That’s the beginning. Then we need to tell them how to get well. And some of y’all are sitting in great groups where they do that and you’re going, what’s the big deal? We all do that. No, we don’t. I speak all over the world.

Let me tell you. They don’t. If you’re going to a meeting, you’re having a successful day. Seven years in, I’m working for my twin brother. I can’t cook anymore. I’m too sick. I’ve got kidney damage and liver damage. I’m on seven prescription medications a day. These are all legitimate psychiatric disorders. Y’all follow? I’m not doctor shopping like a bunch of you losers in here. These are all… These are legit, don’t you know?

I’m on all these medications. I came home after work and picked up a 12-pack of Black Label beer. $2.90 a 12-pack. Nothing but the best for Chris Ramer. I went in and opened a stack of return checks. I check my mail at least once a month to make sure. There’s a big old stack of return. I’m going to have to go to my sister-in-law and borrow some money to cover the checks. I’ve ruined it again. Guys, I’m living in a town I don’t want to be in. I’m working at a job I’m no good at. I’m grateful for it, but I’m terrible at it. There’s no girl in my life. I’m just not a happy camper. I get up to the medicine cabinet and take a couple of bottles of pills out and try to commit suicide. I heard a voice that night that said, don’t do this, go back to AA. It’s so funny. I’ve heard… I get hundreds of emails from people all over the world that heard the same voice. Sometimes it was a woman’s voice. Sometimes it was a man’s voice. Guys, I believe that we’re spiritually protected. I believe there’s an intervention that happens to some of us, like every freaking one of us. I aborted that attempt. I heard that voice that says, go back to AA. I’m arguing.

There’s two little stinky ferrets in there. I’m kicking the cage. I’m thinking it’s the ferrets talking. I’m just like, what? This voice just keeps going, go back to AA. I don’t want to go back to AA. I’ve been in AA for seven years. I picked up more desire chips than you can shake it… I mean, you can make a vest out of the desire chips I’ve picked up over the years. Every time I come back from a relapse, yeah, here he comes again.

I knew that little one-eyed guy wasn’t ready. Okay. There’s a… on page 155, it said, I was talking about Dr. Bob in A Vision for You, painfully aware of being somehow abnormal,

[00:25:01]

the man did not fully realize what it meant to be alcoholic. See, that was it, guys. I’ve been calling myself an alcoholic for seven years. I don’t have a problem in the world with that. I’ll dovetail in there. I’m an alcoholic. Okay. I couldn’t have told you at seven years in the fellowship what it was to be an alcoholic. I didn’t own a big book. I’d never had a sponsor. I’m going to take responsibility for that. But, I mean, somewhere along the line, I think maybe somebody, she might have pointed out, maybe you want to work the steps. We’ve still got people out there killing people, telling them to work them slow. This is not a race. Take your time. When you get ready, the steps will work you.

What the… what does that even mean? What does that even mean? I don’t understand. God. Read the book. I walked in the back door of this AA meeting. I’d never been to this place before, but I was running late. A piece of equipment broke at work, and I had to stay late. I went to this meeting. An old guy in AA had showed it to me. He said it was a big book meeting. I didn’t know what that was, but I went. I went in the back door, and it was real, just laughing like we were all night long tonight. It was funny. God dang it, they were all laughing. It was back in the day we could smoke in meetings. You’d open the back door, and the smoke would billow out. We ruined it for you young guys. If we could have gone to a meeting and smoked one cigarette, like in an hour, we’d still be smoking in those meetings. We had like seven cigarettes in our mouths. Now they’re vaping. I mean literally. I sponsor a guy who’s got a… we always laugh about it. You can’t even see him out there smoking. He’s got this… if you have to hold your vape with two hands, it’s too big. These little tattooed legs sticking out of his mouth. I don’t know what that means.

Sticking out of the cloud. I don’t know why nobody wants to talk to me. They can’t see you. God bless you. I walked in and immediately got real self-conscious, guys. I’m the shyest guy in the room. Y’all think not, but those of you in here know me know it’s the truth. I got in and got real self-conscious, and I’m starting to walk back out. The chairperson had seen me at North Texas. Chris, come up here and sit with me. I said, no, no, no.

I got to go, guys. I just let y’all know I’m coming back to AA so y’all can rest tonight. I started to head out the door, and this little girl got between me and the door and hooked her finger in my belt loop. She said, sit down, cowboy. You’re not going anywhere. She’s about 18, 19 years old. Her sponsor was across the way and couldn’t get to me. She saw that I was leaving, and she said, get him. We got too many sponsors out there. It’s been way too much time as far as I’m concerned. Don’t even talk to those boys for a year. The boys didn’t get them drunk. I’m just saying. Don’t get me started. I’m not going to. She stopped and I get emails from all over. I got an email the other day from Europe, from Germany, and I said, you know, in Germany, men sponsor men and women sponsor women. That’s cool.

That’s great. This little girl didn’t sponsor me. She stopped me from leaving the room. I asked her to sponsor me, in full disclosure. She said, yeah, right, and got me another cup of coffee, which I immediately spilled. I’m shaking. I’m detoxing in this meeting. If the chairperson looked up on the wall, guys, I swear to God, I hear people all the time, I can’t remember my first meeting. I remember my meetings, guys. This one in particular, I’ll never forget it. The chairperson says, listen, we’ve got a newcomer coming back and been around a long time. Why don’t we go around and tell how our lives have changed as a result of working the steps? Guys, you all understand? Because I’m ready for this. I know what they’re going to do, the chairperson. We’ve got a newcomer coming back. Let’s tell Chris how we got here. Oh, shit, let me guess, you drank too much. Am I close? Quit. Little girl, Catty Corner, they started it, and she pulled up a cup of keys. She’s been sober a little better than a year, and she had a little car keys, and she’s ringing them up. She’s just like, oh, my God, I got a brand new car outside. I’d just been, two weeks earlier, turned down for a car loan for an old beat-up pickup truck. I was trying to borrow $500. No, no way. Y’all, yeah, because that’s where my credit is. This little girl’s got a brand new car. The guy next to her started a little landscape business. Had a little checkbook with him, and he was all excited about making some money for a change. I’ve been living from paycheck to paycheck all my adult life.

Damn.

[00:30:01]

Lady at the end of the table, she was in her 40s, I was 35 when I got sober. She was in her 40s and she’d gone back to art school. She had a little sketch pad, you know, and she was sketching some art. And she just, I’m a big art fan. I’m completely talentless, but I just, I love art. And I’m thinking, how cool is this? And the guy next to me tapped me on the shoulder. It scared me to death. And he had a billfold and he opened it up.

Y’all remember Polaroids? Can y’all say that? Polaroid. It’s like payphone. Can you say payphone? Can you say, Chris, you’re too damn old. I know. Had Polaroid pictures of these little rat kids. And he opened them up like this. And this little guy had tears in his eyes and he’s talking. Little AA guy, AA boy meets AA girl on AA campus. Y’all got it? They got married and had a couple little kids. And he’s on there with this big grin on his face showing me these pictures.

Yeah. And I’m less than 24 hours away from a suicide attempt. And they gave me the one thing that I needed more than anything, which was hope. Right. Yeah. I got, you know, I get, I pass my emails out like candy. You know, I want to stay in touch with you guys. And there’s always somebody in there. You know, Chris, you think all meetings should be like a pep rally. Yeah, pretty much. If you need therapy, I got a list of some great therapists out there, trained professionals that can help you.

Y’all got it? I’m not saying we can’t help people. I sponsor a sea of men. We go after the meeting. We sit down and we start talking about what’s going on. I’ve got some experience. Not much, but I’ve got some. That’s what we do, folks. This nonsense of sitting in meetings trying to scare people into recovery. There’s people that won’t come back. God damn, well, sit in there and listen to all them war stories.

It just made me thirsty. I got you. I got you. After the meeting was over, they asked me if I wanted to stay sober a day at a time. And I said absolutely. And I’m heading out the door and these two old guys got me in. This is a 6 o’clock meeting, so it’s 7 o’clock. It’s time for dinner. They’ve got family. They’ve been going home, but they’re going to sit with me for a few minutes. Bill Wilson talks about work and self-sacrifice for others.

Y’all follow? They’re going to stay after and try to help me. Chris, let’s see if we can figure out why you can’t stay sober. We’ve watched you for years do this. And I’m a little indignant because I have the best psychiatrist in Dallas, Texas, on retainer. Y’all follow? And now these old country… Y’all think I’m making this up. Picture in your mind the stereotypical Texan. Brown khaki pants, white snap, pearl t-shirt.

Y’all follow? Stetson, belt buckle about the size of a dinner plate. Got it? Cadillac in the parking lot with bullhorns on the front. The guy’s name was J.R. Y’all think I’m making this up? No. And I’m indignant. And you’re going to show me why I can’t stay sober. I’ve been to treatment, buddy. I know my triggers. Oh, my God. Trigger’s dead. He’s a horse. Stop. My book talks about being in a position of neutrality, safe and protected.

I can go wherever I want to go, folks. I feel so much better having said that. Anyway. They sat down with me and they opened the title page of the book and they showed me the page where it said you can recover from alcoholism. You can. And they said, Chris, if you work these steps with us, we’re going to get you a sponsor. We’ll help you pick one. And we’re going to get you in there. If you work these steps at a quick pace, I guarantee you that obsession to use will leave you and you can finally get on some solid ground.

And they opened the page. I’ve got a little handout I can send you all if you all want it. It’s a quick little first step guide. And these guys opened it up and they spent about 20 minutes with me showing me in the big book on the first 40 pages what it was to be an alcoholic. Again, I didn’t know what it was to be an alcoholic. I didn’t understand. If you’d have asked me what the symptoms of alcoholism was, I couldn’t have told you.

Anything past you drink too much. But there’s some specific symptoms that you’ve got to have in order to qualify. Physical craving, mental obsession. And they showed that to me. We didn’t start at the title page and read. God, help us. It just takes too long. It’s a race, folks. There’s a great author down in Florida that talks about this little window of opportunity. I can send you the article if you want.

Email me. This little window of opportunity. You guys come in here with a head of steam, right? You get your feet on the ground and you get feeling a little bit better

[00:35:01]

and start eating and, you know, pretty good. Then you start getting happy. You make the mistake of laughing in a meeting. Some old bastard leans over to somebody else and says, Yeah, I know. Look at that pink cloud she’s on. It’s called God’s grace. That’s what we’re here for. I’ll never forget the first time I laughed. I mean laughed. Good God. But the window’s closing. And while we sit and discuss the intricacies of this forward to the second edition, it’s slamming shut.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t read the literature, folks. All of my guys do. We’re going to talk about it tomorrow at 3. Everybody should. But, guys, this is triage. We’ve got to stop the bleeding. And the sooner we get through this work, the better it’s going to be. If you look at the archive stuff, guys, nobody took longer than a few weeks to work the steps. Nobody. When success rates, 75% success rates in the second edition, we’re going straight through the ceiling.

Nope. It’s nothing like that today. Nothing. Because we go too slow. We’ve got too many well-meaning people that want to slow everybody down. I don’t even let my people even start working the steps until they’re sober a year. Well, hot damn, okay. The next day, I came back, and they showed me how to make a pot of coffee. First time I’d ever made a pot of coffee. Y’all follow? Yeah. I said, Chris, we need some help around here.

Let me show you how to make a pot of coffee. And they did. We went to the 10 o’clock meeting in the morning, and we chased some people out of the back, and they said, okay, Chris. And they talked about the little third-step prayer for a second, and about three of us got on our knees, and we did a little third-step prayer. I got up, and they bought me a little plate of Mexican food. Actually, it was a big plate of Mexican food.

And they gave me a notebook, and they said, Chris, why don’t you start listening to people, institutions, and principles you’re pissed at? Four-step. Two weeks later, I’ve got a completed four-step, ready to do a fifth-step. And I’m sitting on the tailgate of my truck in North Texas, and it dawns on me. It’s Friday night, and I’ve just finished, left the meeting, and I’ve got a pocket with some money in it, payday.

I’m surrounded by liquor stores. My drug dealer lives in the apartment complex where I live, with my couches. And I’m sitting there thinking, you know, I don’t want a drink. I’m done. Guys, I hadn’t thought about taking a drink in 34 years. I’m a guy that could not not drink. Well, you think I just finally wore God down? Can you all see this? You can go to all the meetings you want to, folks, but until you get off your butt and start doing this work, you’re not going to get the same results.

I was arguing with a guy today in the airport. He was calling me on the phone. He said, I don’t know why I can’t get this. Because you won’t do this. You won’t do the work. You think, if you’re just around us, that you’re going to get well. You can put some time together, folks, but it’s not going to be the quality time that you’re looking for. I want to recover. I want to get free. Old Mark Houston used to say it.

How free do you want to be? One day at a time. Struggling. Seconds at a time. Oh, my God, no. Is that what we’re talking about? I’m sorry. This is for keeps. Man, I want you to experience that. Let me tell you real quick what happened. Two weeks in, let’s see, when I had that little experience sitting on the tailgate of my truck, and that next week I was at a meeting, and that old guy, one of the guys that had stopped me that night, leaving the room, had come up, and he said, Chris, we’ve got a group conscience next week, and we’re seriously considering nominating you for chairman of the cleanup committee.

I’ll never forget. And I had my desire chip in my pocket, and I pulled it out. I said, hey, remember me, the most important person here, like the newcomer? I’m not your maid. I don’t understand what you’re doing. No, I’m not remotely interested. He said, well, okay, would you come to the group conscience anyway? I’d never, ten years, seven years in AA, I’d never been to a group conscience. I said, well, sure, I’d be glad to.

And, of course, you all know the rest of the story. I went to them, there was about 30 people in there that unanimously voted me in as chairman of the cleanup committee. I know, I was disgusted. I was going to punish them forever. I was not a happy camper. That big old applaud, you know, AA guys, this is so good. I went in after they were cleaning up and putting the stuff away,

[00:40:02]

and I went over there, and I asked the guy, I said, okay, listen, if I’m chairman, I need a list of my committee members so that I can organize a cleaning rotation. Guys, I’ve been in the food business for years. I know how to do this. I’ve got this handled, you know. The guy spit coffee clear across the kitchen. He said, Chris, there’s no committee. You’re the janitor at this group, okay? I was thinking maybe a small office in the corner or something like that.

Oh, man. I stayed away for two days. I was going to punish them big time. I was not going to. It was a Friday. My brother hadn’t gotten sober yet, but he was fixing to get that way, and he let me off. At 1 o’clock, I got the keys. They threw me the keys that night, and I went in there, and I let myself in this club, and I locked myself in, and I went in there, and I cleaned that place like a big dog.

Guys, I’m going to tell you. Tables, measured chairs, vacuum, you all understand? What is it about AA club bathrooms? What? It’s like an Exxon station in there. What is it? Look, this is good. This is a Kleenex, right? Or like a paper towel. Like when you drop it like that. Oh, my God. Put it in the trash can. See how that works? Very good. Okay. A bunch of slobs. I cleaned that place, and that bathroom was sparkling.

You all following that brown stuff in them coffee pots? I know how to clean that stuff. I got it all cleaned up. I’m sitting back there in the back. It’s 5.30. I got a pot of coffee made, ready to go, and the meeting starts at 6, and I hear somebody shuffling in the kitchen and walking down the deal. You could hear this, ladies. This was the old matriarch of the group, and she was a sweetheart. She was about this tall.

She was about 140 years old when I got sober. I don’t know. She looked like a little question mark. Just as cute as could be. And she had them little slippers on, and she slides in on that linoleum, and she’s squealing in the kitchen. And I’m going like, whoa, what? And she goes around. I could hear her in the bathroom. She let out a gasp, just like, oh, my God. And I could hear her slide back around, and she looks around into the meeting room where I’m at, and she says, did you clean this place?

If I’d had a tie, you know, I’d have straightened it. I’m in my little Frugal Loom t-shirt, soaking wet. You know, it’s just us in the place. I said, yes, ma’am. And she walked around behind me. I’ve told it a thousand times. She walked around behind me and got her little bony arm around my neck and gave me a little back hug. I can still feel her voice right here on my cheek. She said, boy, we need you.

Guys, do you have any idea how long it had been since anybody had said, we need you? We need you to put your hand behind your back, please, sir. I remember one, we need you not to call here anymore, boy. Okay. And all of a sudden, yeah. Guys, I was fortunate enough to land in a room full of men and women, old and young, that understood what this was about. There wasn’t a bunch of people sitting around grinding their teeth telling us what we couldn’t do.

You can’t date. You can’t do this. You can’t do that. There was none of that crap. They were telling us, buddy, jump in there. My sponsor told me straight, point blank. He says, Chris, you’re doing good. We got you on your amends. It’s time to start working with others for sure. Get in there. Do your service work with the club here. If somebody is stupid enough to ask you to sponsor them, you say yes.

And then call me because your life is fixing to change forever. A couple of weeks later, a guy asked me. He was a cook, worked down at the Waffle House. Holy moly. And I got to go down there and talk to him. Did the same thing I’ve done a thousand times since. A little bonding, a little storytelling, visiting a little bit, and then we started talking about doing the work. Pretty cool. It will change you.

Bill Wilson says it’s the foundation stone of our recovery, service. There’s this thing that happens to us from day one. It’s the spiritual warfare. This is not about religion or anything, guys, but I believe there’s a dark side and a light side, and I believe there’s this constant yin and yang thing. There’s a voice in my head, even today, that will tell me I’m not good enough to help. I’m not good enough to do this.

I’m not good enough to do this. I’m not worthy enough to do that. We’re our own worst enemies. You’d think it would stop once you stop drinking, but it doesn’t. That spiritual warfare, my old sponsor used to talk about it a long

[00:45:05]

time. It’s like, you, that’s the voice telling you that you can’t help anybody. And if you’ve got somebody in your group that backs it up, especially if they’ve got some sobriety, you won’t be ready to sponsor. Had a guy come up in New Orleans one time, big mountain of a guy, he comes up and says, we don’t let anybody sponsor until they’re five years sober here in New Orleans. Well, I know a lot of sober people in AA in New Orleans, but that’s not the truth. But in his own group, that was standard procedure. Okay, but that’s not in the Big Book. My book says in those first days of convalescence, the bottom of page 129 if you want to hold me to it, bottom of page 129 says in those first days of convalescence, nothing will so much help you stay sober as intensive work with another alcoholic. During those first days of convalescence, if you read the history, I can send you some history sites, you read them, that’s what they all did. Bill Wilson started, went back to Towns Hospital after he got sober immediately and started working with other alcoholics. That’s why he was, there was no AA meetings to go to, no 90 and 90. Y’all understand? He, it was working with others is what kept him sober. He got together with Bill Wilson, with, excuse me, with Dr. Bob in six months later. He’s still sober, but he’s on shaky ground. He knows he needs an alcoholic to work with. He’s going through some rough times.

If you need, y’all get a chance to go to Akron, do it. There’s, in the Mayflower Hotel, you can actually get there in the lobby and you can see exactly where, where that decision made. I’m going to go drink or I’m going to go work with a drunk. And hook and crook, they hook him up with Henrietta Seiberling. They’ve got the original chairs that Bill and Bob sat in back in Henrietta Seiberling’s gate lodge now. And I got to tell you, I’m a pushover for that stuff. Not long ago, I went to Akron for Founder’s Day and it gives, after Founder’s Day, I got to do a deal for the inner group and got a chance to go in there and just stand right there where Bill and Bob got together. Holy sh…

And because one old cowboy gave a poot in 1987 and stayed after and opened the big book and showed me what I needed to do, I’m sober today and been able to help a few guys along the way. Guys, I got to tell you, it’s been a crazy couple of years. Who knew that this COVID thing was going to go on as long as it did? I have never seen, in all of my years, I have never seen more double-digit sobriety lost. We got a hospital full of people with long-term sobriety that lost it because they wouldn’t get on Zooms.

I’m not going to do that. You can’t bond with people on Zooms. Yes, you can. But it’s the same thing. You can’t pop on a Zoom and just be quiet and turn your camera off. Well, I went to a meeting. No, you didn’t. No, you didn’t. You were ironing. In your boxers. But you get on and you start laughing and talking and visiting with the folks and you get people all over. Would I rather do this? Hell yes. I’d love to be in person. Get a chance to see you and hug your neck.

It’s been crazy. But it put a lot of things in focus and I’ll end with this. It puts a lot of things in focus with me especially. This idea. The noose around your neck as an old person that’s been around and got some sobriety is. Y’all follow? I got this. And the truth of the matter is a daily reprieve based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. The truth is I need you more today than I did back there.

At least as much. I got to have some people around me guys. I’m not real social. There’s not. You don’t have to be real social. The hardest thing I did when I got sober was allow you into my life. Was to go sit at the big table. Was to speak up. I can hide. But you can’t stay sober that way. You got to have some folks around you that are going to help you stay on the path. And if anything I’ve seen here lately guys I’ll let you go.

We got to encourage all the little newcomers to get busy folks. You find a job in AA and you’ll stay. Get on one of these committees. I guarantee you’ll stay sober. You know you get get in your group. Be the literature guy. Get out there and read. There’s opportunities for all of us. Some of us are better sponsors than others. I got that. But some of you are so organized you could do some of that. I couldn’t do some of the stuff these guys on this committee have done.

It just drives me crazy. Each of us has a job. If you’ll be quiet long enough in your prayer and meditation God will start showing you what you need to do. I don’t want to sound like a preacher up here folks but I’m telling you our lives are guided. The intuitiveness as you get quiet and I don’t care if you’re two weeks sober or 50 years sober. God’s trying to scream direction at you.

[00:50:01]

If you think for a second that it’s okay to sit in AA and be miserable you’ve missed something here because that’s not what this is about. And I’m not saying life is easy folks. Life’s a bear. But I got to tell you self-pity will kill you. So if you get in here and you get in the trench with us and help us dig help us carry the message. Stop underestimating how you can help. I used to have it figured out. I knew the people that were going to be good orators and good people that were going to be able.

I don’t know. I got to say it. We’re doing the Lord’s Prayer. This is right before COVID shut us down in Texas. We were doing the Lord’s Prayer and afterwards over like that. I’m looking at this little guy across the room and he keeps eyeballing me. Y’all know how you can sense when somebody’s looking at you? And he’s staring at me. I don’t see well but I can see that. And I asked. Patty and I go to meetings together and she’s sitting right next to me and I says is that little long-haired guy is he looking at me?

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Y’all know that theme. Y’all have heard me talk about this. Y’all know that theme in Jaws? Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. And he’s coming. He’s coming in hot. He’s pushing and shoving and weaving and wobbling. He’s coming straight for me. I says God dang it. I’m busy. I don’t have time to sponsor another guy. I can’t possibly squeeze another one in. He’s coming. Patty says okay well you handle it.

And she’s laughing and she zigs off like that. This little guy comes right up to me like that. He pushes me out of the way. He’s got his elbow up and literally pushes me out of the way to get to this little crazy guy I sponsor right behind me. I’d shared in a meeting and this little guy had shared. He slung some pretty good stuff in the meeting. He was doing pretty good. Y’all know this little guy I’m talking about. Big mohawk. Tattoos everywhere. Piercings. Big ears.

I don’t know what the. I don’t know what. Just you didn’t want to get near him in a thunderstorm that’s for sure. He looks like a little space alien you know like this. But he’s kicking butt. He’s doing great. This guy pushes me out of the way and then I’m looking at Patty and says what the. What happened. What’s wrong with what I said. You know that guy didn’t want this old bastard to sponsor him.

He wanted this kid to sponsor him. That’s how it works. Man don’t. If you think for a second that you have any idea who God’s going to use to help you. You’re probably wrong. You keep an open mind because I guarantee you’re going to find some people out there that could change your life. Keep an open mind. You won’t see it coming. I’ll just say this and go. Every one of you in here. Bless you. Thank you for the sticking around. All you little newcomers in here. Thanks for coming. Because I got to tell you. We need every single one of you. The tidal wave that’s coming after this COVID stuff and all these people relapsing. They’re all coming back in.

I’ve never seen as many people coming into AA now as I’ve ever seen in all my years of sobriety. And they don’t need somebody to pat them on the ass and tell them to keep coming back. They need somebody to grab all of them and show them what a big book is. Y’all good? All right. We’ll see you later. Thanks.