Full Transcript

Hello, can y’all hear me? No? Can y’all hear me? Can you hear me? No? Hello? I don’t know if they can hear me or not. Hello? Can y’all hear me? Test, test, testicles. Can you hear me? I didn’t see one. I didn’t see it. Did you get it? Test, test. That’s better. Can y’all hear me? Huh? I know. I know. Joe said y’all need to be quiet. How about a moment of silence followed by that old serenity prayer?

Serenity prayer? God grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Yay. Well, well, well, I can’t believe y’all have that wound up. What’d they put in that coffee? God dang, got a bunch of little meth heads in here. I figured after that lunch we had everybody be asleep underneath the tables, but y’all are doing pretty good.

My name is Chris Raymer, very grateful recovered alcoholic. I am from Ingram, Texas. Even though it’s on my blind side, I have a watch here and I’m going to pay real close attention so I’m not going to keep you too long, maybe a little bit. It’s nice to get a chance to do the workshop stuff a little bit. We’re just going to talk about some stuff that I hold near and dear, this little topic of willing to go to any length.

It will elicit some questions. I’ve got to go ahead and just say it now, same thing I said last night when I spoke. All of y’all please remember, I’m up here to share my experience with you, and my experience may be different than your experience. Just rock on. I’ll give you a classic example of what I’m talking about. Last night I kind of hammered on the 90 meetings and 90 day folks. If I hurt your feelings, I’m sorry.

No, I mean really, because it’s never my intention to make anybody. The comment that I got today was, well, you don’t think meetings are important. I said, guys, meetings are a third of our legacy. It’s a part of the deal. I love the fellowship. I just absolutely love it. One of my absolute favorite Al-Anon quotes is, we cannot drop out of human involvement without endangering our spiritual health.

This is what I was talking about last night. When the COVID hit and all the meetings closed down, we had so many people end up relapsing because they wouldn’t get on the Zooms. They’re out there isolating by themselves. We don’t do well sitting in front of the TV feeling sorry for ourselves. We have a tendency to come up with a good reason why we can smoke pot or do something else stupid. It’s just rampant.

I don’t know. It’s not acceptable, unless you’re probably from California. Then I guess it is. Anyway. No, I’m just kidding. The part I have, guys, with the meetings is that when we put a number on it, we set people up for failure. You got it? If you’re a little college kid, you’re living in your mom’s basement, you’re not working, you’re not going to school, you need to go to a meeting every day. Shit.

Go to 120 meetings in 90 days. If you happen to be a single mom working, you all understand, with a couple of kids, there’s going to come a day that you’re not going to be able to make a meeting. And then some idiot, excuse me, I shouldn’t say that, somebody will ask you to start over because you missed a day. That’s the stuff that makes us look cultish. Remember last night I was talking about perspective.

I work in the treatment business. I’ve been around for a long time, guys. Every barb that anybody ever wants to throw at the 12-step fellowships, I get. And that’s the number one thing. It makes us look stupid. But if it’s working for you, then by all means do it. But just understand there’s a lot of people that can’t do that. Y’all groovy? Okay. 90 meetings in 90 days. I put my, look at my artwork down here.

[00:05:03]

Literally. You look up my sister, Lisa Terlaine Raymer, and M. Lewis Raymer. If you Google those names, you’re going to see some artists. I mean, this is what you get from me. Golly. Nice lady came up one time. I said that at a conference. She said, yes, but you’ve got your good looks. Thank you. That was nice. Ugly and talented. I don’t know. The bottom of that, I put my e-mail on there. By all means, y’all copy that down.

I used to print out a bunch of stuff for workshops, guys, and they just ended up all over the hotel. Some of you wanted them, some of you didn’t. And it’s just a pain. I can e-mail them to you in a heartbeat. I don’t need a long e-mail unless you want to comment and visit a little bit. But just send it, and I’ll send you the stuff that I’m going to talk about. One of the things is a little index that I came up with ages ago.

It tells you where the steps are in the book. I don’t know if any of y’all have ever noticed in the book. Some of these chapters have two or three steps in there. And so if you’re working with a little newcomer, they might get a little confused. And this will show you where the first steps, all those steps are. And Bill Wilson was pretty clear when he was doing this work. The steps are outlined in the first hundred pages.

Sixty of those pages are the first step. We’ve got a guy up at Hill Country. There’s no one step more important than the other. Hmm. I don’t know. They’re all important, guys. They really are. But without the first step, you know, you’re not going to do this work. And that’s why it’s so important. And we’ll talk about that, but I’ll send you that little index and anything else that we end up discussing.

This little topic of willing to go to any lengths is kind of near and dear to me. Some of y’all that were in here last night and you heard my story, I talked specifically about sitting in AA for seven years up in North Texas. It’s something a lot of people can relate to. There was nobody trying to be mean to me, guys, but if you want to get under my skin, ignore me. And if I’m sitting in there and I’m uncomfortable and I don’t know, I would die before I would ever ask you a question.

It’s just to come in the rooms and I don’t know. I don’t know what to ask. I really try to pay attention to it today when I get the little newcomers and try to spend a little minute with them so they don’t just feel goofy because they’re just going to leave with their feelings hurt. I’ve seen it a thousand times. Somewhere along the line we’ve got this idea that all the newcomers coming in because they’re coming in from treatment centers.

Some of you treatment center haters out there believe this. They believe that we’re supposed to teach all that, but there’s a lot of stuff we don’t cover in treatment. We’re not there to teach the 12-step. We’re there to do a bunch of other stuff there too. Just assuming that you know what to do is an assumption. We need to start asking this question. And that’s some of the stuff that we’re going to kind of touch on.

And there’s a way to do that. I’m a competitive cyclist at a club level. I’m an old geezer, but we get out there and hammer. It’s something that I learned in Alcoholics Anonymous. I had a buddy that was cycling and he suggested I got a bike because I didn’t want to come sitting on my butt too much. And I started riding years ago. God, guys, almost 30 years ago. And every chance I get. I rode 70 miles this weekend for Easter.

And I’m awesome. I just like to say it. I just need to get that out of the way. But I remember the first time when I got a bicycle, guys, and I was going to ride with these guys from the bike shop, and we were all getting together. And there was about 15 or 20 of us out there. And I got out of my truck and I got my little bicycle and I’m all setting it up. I’m nervous as a wreck because I’ve never ridden with anybody.

I don’t know what the deal is. And this guy kept looking at me over there and he just kind of walked up next to me. It turned out it was a local doctor that was riding with us. And he kind of slid over and he said, Chris, let me ask you a question, buddy. He introduced himself and he said, Are you wearing underwear under those shorts? It seemed a bit personal to ask. A total stranger. Well, I said, of course.

I mean, I come from Ingram, Texas, but we usually wear underclothes. I mean, I don’t know. He said, Chris, you don’t wear underwear under those shorts like that. You’ll get blisters. By the time we get 20 miles out, you’ll be dying. He says, go back in there and fix that and take those babies off and come on back out and we’ll go. He was very nice about it. Quiet. He didn’t make fun. Hey, look at the little one-eyed guy.

Check it out. He’s got them tighty-whities on there. But I watch people in AA do that. I watch people in there just seem to take pleasure out of ridiculing some little newcomer that’s making a mistake. All you’ve got to do is do that one time and they won’t come back.

[00:10:01]

Oh, the alcohol will drive them back. Guys, I’ve watched thousands of people die every year from my standpoint. Maybe we just got one shot at them. Let’s try to make this as good as we can. And there’s ways to kind of broach this topic. If you look on page 58, if you’ve got your books, I’m not going to read it, but it talks about if you’re willing to go to any length and you’re ready to take certain steps.

There’s a couple of other pages in there. There may be more, but my research, over in Making Amends, when they’re talking about steps 8 and 9 on 76 and 79, they talk about are willing to go to any lengths to have a spiritual experience, willing to go to any lengths to overcome alcoholism. Bill Wilson uses this term, are you willing to go to any lengths? But we don’t tell the newcomer what that looks like.

I’ve never once sat down with a newcomer and said, are you willing to go to any lengths to get well? Yes. Never had a single one say, well, I’m not so sure. They all say yes. And they mean it. They just don’t understand what that looks like. And I think part of what we’re going to do, I’m going to send you this little list if you want it, and it’s not that long, but it’ll seem like forever for some of you, so I’m going to go through it pretty fast.

But this is what I sit down and I talk to the guys about, and we do it over a couple of days, and I just want to let them know what they’re in for. Because if you think that I’m satisfied with the fact that you’re just sitting in a meeting, I’m not. I want you to be happy. I was going to say this. I’m one of the biggest fans of therapy you can get. Even in sobriety, I’ve had a therapist several times to kind of help unknot me from certain things, and I’m just a big fan of that.

There’s an old expression that the guys in AEA used to talk to me about ages and ages ago. They used to say, you can’t learn about the light by constantly analyzing the dark. You know, if you’re on a bicycle, do I have any cyclists in here? Raise your hand. Yeah. Some of you guys need to get a life. God dang it. Four people raised their hands. I was like, oh, man. Yes, yes. Especially in the wintertime.

If you’re out there riding a bike, guys, and you’re starting to ride and you’re going, one of the first things they teach you when you’re riding is look where you want to go, not where you don’t want to go. Because your body will intuitively go to where your eyes are. That’s the way it works. If you’re going to head up and there’s a pothole, don’t stare at the pothole. You’ll go right into it. Stare at the path around it.

That’s where you’ll go. The bike will take you around, scary as can be, going down a hill. But a bike can, yeah. You all got it? We need to start looking at the good stuff, folks. We need to get to a happy spot quick. Victimize people. Get sober every day. Victims don’t. At a certain point, you’ve got to stop. The old guy that used to do the work with me early on, he didn’t sponsor me, but he was the little guru at the little group I was in.

He said, Chris, why don’t you get off the cross? We need the wood. He said it with a smile, though. You all understand? He wasn’t trying to be mean. But at a certain point, you just can’t keep rat-caging it. You can’t keep going over it. You’ve got to get to a little place where you understand that, yes, that happened. I need to move on. One of the things I’m seeing, guys, so much, and I hit it on a soapbox whenever I get a chance to, self-pity is killing us.

It’s just killing us. I look at the charts of the patients that come to where I work, and I talk to the people that I’m sponsoring, and I just absolutely cannot believe the things that we’ve been through. Listen to the speakers this weekend and some of the things that we’ve survived. I heard a family member one time talking about, you know, you alcoholics are just weak. The strongest people I’ve ever known.

Alcoholics. What we did on any given day would kill a normal person. Just survival. Oh, my God, guys, we’re awesome. And it’s just an honor to be here and to be in a room full of people like that. If we’re allowing our membership, guys we’re sponsoring, to stay in that morass, we’re doing them a disservice because they’ll drop through the cracks. And we don’t want that to happen. First thing I’m going to ask these little guys to do is be qualified.

I’ve got a little first step quick guide through the steps. Quick Guide through the steps. I can send to you real quick. It’s just real simple.

[00:15:01]

It shows you the page numbers and little bullet points to hit. I know a lot of people when they start working with a newcomer, they sit down, we’re going to start on the title page and we’re going to start reading. Well, okay, but it may take you, it’s 60 pages is the first step. It may take you several months to get there. Well, you ain’t going to stay sober through that. Some of you may. Hard drinkers that you are. Okay, I’m just, I’m, but the real alcoholics are going to struggle like that. So what we’re going to try to do is get you through this as quick as possible. The guys in 1987 after that suicide attempt sat down with me and 30 minutes later I finally understood what it was to be an alcoholic.

I left that little first meeting with tears in my eyes because I finally understood. I didn’t have all those damn psychiatric disorders. It turned out I had untreated alcoholism and I finally understood what it meant. When you start connecting the drama to the symptoms, it’s the thing that ties us all together in here. Can you all get that? I don’t want to spend a bunch of time on it, but y’all look around this room. We’ve got some fine-looking people in here, buddy. We’ve got a couple of butt-ugly ones, that’s a fact. But for the most part, no, come on guys, I mean look at this. Young, old, black, white, gay, straight, Yankees, oh my God, every, I mean we got a, the thing that ties us together is these symptoms.

We are identical. Y’all see this little guy on the left-hand side? This is world-famous issue man. Y’all see how I wear a little button on him? Yeah, he’s issue man. You can go online and look at him, but this is him. He’s looking particularly handsome today, isn’t he? Yeah. You see that little dark spot inside? That’s the alcoholism. That’s where the disease lives. That’s alcoholism. We’re born that way. If you want the references to the books around genetics around this stuff, holler at me and I can send them to you. You got to get to a place. The little X’s on the outside are the issues. That’s the stuff that everybody wants to blame for their alcoholism. Guys, don’t take me out of context. I am not thinking that, I’m not saying that that’s not important, that that didn’t make a difference. It exacerbated your alcoholism, it made it tougher. I would never stand up here and say something so stupid.

Y’all got that? It’s important. It didn’t cause it. Alcoholism is not causal. You have to have a predisposition to it in order for it to happen. Y’all groovy? No goofy stuff in my family. No trauma, no nothing. My twin brother and I caught the bullet. I got two sisters that didn’t. Genetics. I get my bad posture and my high cholesterol from my dad. Got it? Genetics. I didn’t get it because I was potty trained backwards. I know, some of you are not laughing. I know. Stick with your story. It’s working for you. Go ahead.

But I spent, guys, all those years trying to change all those X’s. If I could just get out of the city and move to the country, I’d be okay. If I could just get out of the country and move back to Houston, if I could just get married, if I could just shoot that woman, if I could just get a job at the country club, if I could just buy that little barbeque restaurant, everything. Everybody in here believes it’ll be better if I could just get someplace else. The truth is, guess who shows up? Yeah. And it didn’t matter how much money I had in my pocket, I was still uncomfortable inside. And the only thing that fixed that was alcohol. Y’all groovy? Best news I can tell anybody in here, especially you little new guys, nothing on the outside has to change for you to be okay. Only person that’s got to change is us. Me. Pretty much heaven. My guys, I’m going to sit down with them that first meeting and I’m going to qualify them. I’m not going to say, I’ll meet you tomorrow.

I’m going to sit down with them. If I don’t have time, I’m not going to work with it. I’m going to sit down and I’m going to spend that 30 minutes with you and I’m going to help you figure out once and for all, are you an alcoholic? Are you a drug addict? Are you a combination of both? Because if you’re just a little drug addict, I got a fellowship called Drug Addicts Anonymous I want to introduce you to. I want you to be in a, I’m not saying you’re not welcome in AA. I’m saying I want you to know what you are. Most of the little dope fiends I work with end up relapsing on alcohol. Underneath the garden variety little alkies waiting to be born, you know? And you lay the dope down and all of a sudden, you know, I’m not, most of the alcoholics that I work with, so many of them end up relapsing around prescription medication. You take the alcohol and drugs away from me folks, I get worse not better. Can y’all get that? Everybody out there, family members, there’s so many people even in our own fellowship that believe, if I just can stop drinking, everything will be okay. But we’re not. Look at your own experience. I lay the booze down and I got to tell you,

[00:20:01]

a few weeks later, I am irritable, restless, and discontent. And all this internal stuff starts to come back. Read the bedevilments on page 52. When you’ve got some time, read the center of the page of the bedevilments. Fear, trouble in personal relationships, unable to make a living, low self-esteem. Y’all got it? Yeah, the misery and depression comes back. This is sober. Or dry. Not drinking. What we’ve got to do is recover. What we’ve got to do is get connected spiritually and that stuff goes away. And we start feeling good again. That’s where we want you guys. We don’t want you just not drinking today.

We want you happy. And if you’re not, see me. Let’s keep visiting. We want to make sure you get in the right room. Second one is we want you to be willing, I’m going to ask you if you’re willing to take the steps quickly. Everybody, this is not a race. Yes, it is. Last night I was mentioning that great article that that guy wrote. He’s an author down in Florida. Great little article. Talks about this transformational event that takes place, calls that spiritual experience. But he uses this analogy of this window, and I’ve used it a thousand times up here from the podiums, but this is what happens to all of us. You put the plug in the jug and stop drinking. You follow? I’m just not going to drink one day at a time. Okay, that’s fine. Rock on. But gradually what happens is that window is closing. And then when it closes, you’re going to come undone. Because the pain of not drinking one day at a time will outweigh the benefits in your head. The mental obsession comes back and you get loaded. Guys, what’s going to get you loaded is not some trigger out there. What’s going to get you loaded is your head saying it’s perfectly okay for me to drink. We’ve spent an entire industry out there trying to help put you in a situation where you’re not going to be around it. It’s just nuts. You can’t keep an alcoholic away from alcohol. My book says three places any attempt to shield you from temptation is destined to fail. Uses different verbiage every time, but it’s exactly what he’s trying to say.

Quit. Do I think you need to go to maybe transitional living after treatment to stay in a neutral situation? Absolutely. I’m not knocking this, guys. Early sobriety, pay attention. If listening to Led Zeppelin makes you think about drinking, then don’t listen to Led Zeppelin for a while. If you’re going to tell me that the rest of my life I can’t listen to Led Zeppelin, bite me. That’s not going to happen. When that window closes, you’re sunk. Y’all follow?

We’ve done it a thousand times. You’ll pick up again. We’ve got to get you on some rock solid ground so those ten step promises come into play in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. Y’all groovy? It happens by working them quick. I don’t know where some of these other fellowships got. They took our steps and then they put their own spin on it. We’re going to take a year to work the steps. Guys, if you can take a year to work the steps and stay sober, you’re not an alcoholic. If you are, you’re going to be one miserable buckaroo. I got to tell you. No. We can get you through it quicker.

Willing to attend specific meetings early on. The guys I sponsor, what I want to try to do is get them involved in some literature based meetings. They can go to some open discussion where we talk about your dead cat for a while. I don’t have a problem with that. But if they make a steady diet of those dead cat meetings, then what’s going to happen is they don’t get the information that they need. We’re in a wonderful time in our country. We have so many literature based meetings. There was a time back in the 90s, guys, where we had very few. Houston, Texas had about 1,500 meetings a week and there was like 20 of those, maybe 15 of those, were literature based meetings. 12 and 12 meetings and big book meetings.

Of course, it’s not like that today. We have a bunch of literature based meetings. It’s pretty cool. Anything except living sober. We don’t want to go to those meetings. I know, I feel the love. I want you to be willing to focus on just the big book until we get the steps done. There’s a lot of literature out there, folks, and you can get a little tangled up. If you’re trying to sponsor somebody, some of you all have tried it with the 12 and 12 and the big book, it gets really confusing. Bill wrote the 12 and 12 about 11 years after they wrote the big book. He’s under heavy psychiatric care at the time. A lot of additional thoughts that he did. I love the 12 and 12. I’m a big fan, especially around the traditions.

Some of his other stuff around the steps is spectacular, but it will confuse the daylights out of you about the time you get in the fourth step. He starts talking about asset list and all this other happy horse stuff. It’ll confuse you. Some of you all just look like I slapped

[00:25:02]

you. I don’t know what to tell you guys. Oh my God. This is our basic text. This is what we should be doing, I think. Bill Wilson said it. There was a letter in 1942. It says, our chief responsibility to the newcomer is an adequate presentation of the program. We’ve got a big sign in my AA group in my little club where we are. We’ve got a big sign on the wall that says that. Our chief responsibility to the newcomer is an adequate presentation of the program. Let’s get him through the step first. Yeah. Yeah. I want you to be, when I sit down with my little guy, I want them to be completely honest. We were laughing earlier with Carl. Guys, I realize some of us have a little problem with that. It’s the dishonesty stuff in our lives that causes trouble. The dishonesty over here will screw me up over here. I’m not going to be the arbiter. You’re cheating on your wife. Okay, but at least let’s get honest about it. Let’s not pretend it’s not happening. Sex checks. I’m doing some shyster deals over here financially. Okay, but understand, that stuff will block you from the sunlight of the spirit. Well, it will block you faster than fear. I don’t know of anything that will block you faster than fear, but that’s what happens when you’re doing dishonest stuff. The deal is when we stop drinking, folks, we’re going to get to a little place really quick where my insides absolutely have to match my outsides. This is why we watch so many people come into our fellowship and not stay sober, because they’re living this dual life. They come in there, Mr. AA, and then out there they’re doing all kinds of weird, goofy stuff. Did you all get that, guys? My insides have got to match my outside. That was one of the coolest things when I finally got sober, was I finally got to look myself in the mirror and realized who I was. This is who you get, guys. I am as authentic as I can. I’m finally who Chris Reimer was supposed to be, and it comes from working the steps. Part of that honesty, folks. There’s a little exercise that I came up with a bunch of years ago. Parts of it came from a really good little book called Cancer is a Turning Point. Basically, it was a series of questions that asked us specifically about what makes us happy in our life, with the idea, again, that if you can get happy, whatever happens in the future, maybe you live long, maybe you don’t, but you’re going to spend the last days of your life at least happy, doing what you’re supposed to be doing. The sad part is that there’s so many of us in this room that are not doing that. I’m working with a guy right now who’s older than I am. He’s like, God dang, I wish I had a college degree. Why don’t you go back to college? Well, God dang, Chris, I’d be 80 years old by the time I graduated. Uh-huh. You’re going to be 80 years anyway. You’ll have a degree or you won’t. It’s time to go do some stuff, folks. It’s time to be true to yourself. It’s amazing to me how many people I see in Alcoholics Anonymous, just absolutely miserable. At least I’m not drinking. Really? Okay, yeah, let me buy you the first one. I mean, oh my God.

No. I just, yeah. This is the best ride in town, guys. It’s time for us to go start writing some books and painting some pictures and doing some music and doing some cool stuff that we want to do. You’re in a bad relationship? Get a better one. Good God. It’s not like we don’t have a replacement pod waiting. Go get you a rich one. Oh my God. I want my guys to be willing to be open-minded about anonymity. It’s okay, guys, to tell folks in recovery your last name. I could hit this for an hour and I’m just not. I’m just going to pay attention to the time. But Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob wrote a lot about it. Dr. Bob said, point blank, he said, you can practice above the tradition or you can practice below the tradition. The idea, of course, is that he never intended for us to be anonymous in our own group. If you want to be anonymous in the group, that’s perfectly okay. The traditions tell us we are. But you don’t have to be. You need to at least let somebody in the group know who you are, first and last name.

I was about six months sober and one of the guys that 12-stepped me that night, that stopped me afterwards and showed me about first and last name, he said, I’m going to be anonymous.

[00:30:02]

And we finished up like that and we went down to the hospital. They’re in Louisville, Texas. We went down there to see him after the deal. And we all got in there and went to the emergency room. We’re here to see Wayne. And she says, OK, sir. Wayne who? Wayne G. Guys, I understand when they wrote the Tradition Guide, when we started doing this work 85 years ago, I understand the stigma around being an alcoholic was pretty thick.

I understand the anonymity, guys. Twenty-two million people in this country have substance use disorders. Everybody in the bloody place knows somebody that’s banged up around alcohol and drugs. Let me see, I got, let’s see, number 10, turn off your phone. But you all understand, the wife got there, we got in to get to see Wayne and it was perfectly OK. But you all can get that. At a public level, I am all for the traditions, guys, I am.

In a room full of my friends, I will always use my last name. I want you to be able to track me down if you need me. Just that simple. I’ve always done that. Out there, you all follow, I’m talking to an impaired, I mean, I don’t know, I talk to probation officers in churches. My name is Chris R. I’m a recovered alcoholic. If I’m going to use the word Alcoholics Anonymous in the same context as my name, it’s going to be with a last initial.

You all groovy? I’m OK with that. In my own group, though, I don’t want to be that anonymous guy. I want you to know who I am. I’ll never forget the first little girl that called me from Canada one time. I’d done a little talk up there in Edmonton. She called and she tracked my number down through information. This was ages ago. And tracked me down. She said, you know, maybe do you think you could help me?

And I knew a bunch of people in Edmonton. I hooked her up in a heartbeat. She calls all the time. Bless her little heart. She’s a sweetheart. She’s still sober. She was in trouble and needed help. And she couldn’t have found that help if I hadn’t used my last name. Just throw it out there, guys. I just want my guys to be able to understand that. But I absolutely want you to be not anonymous with your doctors or your dentists.

Or your families. I cannot tell you. The prescription medication stuff is just rampant out there. You’re not working the steps. You’re irritable, restless, and discontent. You go to the doctor and they start prescribing benzos like it’s candy. Okay, that’s fine. But you’re going to struggle staying sober on that if you’re the real McCoy. You need to let them know that you’re in recovery. No harm, no foul.

I literally have family members that come to treatment where we are and they say, well, we’d rather our son not tell the rest of the family that he’s in recovery. Well, why don’t you just set the little kid up for a big old failure right off the top? Let’s keep it a secret. Marty Mann said one of the biggest problems that we have in recovery out there trying to help people is stigma. He said stigma, stigma, stigma.

We’ve got to stop that nonsense, folks. We’ve got to come out loud and proud. This is the best show in town. I mean, come on. I am so not embarrassed about being a part of y’all. The little guys I sponsor, they’re going to be willing to take a service commitment. I mean now. We talked about it last night. In those first days of convalescence, nothing will so much help you stay sober as intensive work with other alcoholics.

You’re going to go make coffee. You’re going to get on a committee. You’re going to do something. One of my guys right now is the butt guy. He’s picking up cigarette butts outside because that’s what I do. Somebody’s got to do it. There’s places in this country we can’t meet ever again because of the cigarette butts. I don’t know what it is about that. We go out there and pick them up. That’s what we do.

It’s service work, folks. Anything to do to get you out of your little head. You don’t have to wait until you’re five years sober to start doing service work. It’s ridiculous. Just try to be helpful. Think it works. Willing to stay accountable in all three parts. Can y’all see that circle triangle, that lousy job of the circle triangle I drew up there? Bill Wilson saw this circle triangle in Norway in 1950.

I’ll send you the letter. It’s torturous history. He saw it in Norway, thought it would be a good sign. We have a physical, craving, mental, and spiritual illness, three-part illness, and there’s a three-part solution. He brought it, said this would be great. He promoted it, brought it to the membership in 1955. We voted on it and voted it in as circle triangle. By 1957, it was on all of our conference-approved literature.

Right on the title page of the book is where it was.

[00:35:03]

I’ve got my little rubber stamp up here with the circle triangle. If you’ve got your book and you want me to stamp it for you, I will. Or you can just draw it up there. It’s just where it used to be. This is the way to stay in all three parts of this program, folks. This is a touchstone. I don’t need to sit down and listen to your tenth step every goddamn night, eleventh step. All I’ve got to do is sit down with you and ask you these questions.

Where are you at in recovery? Recovery is the 12 steps. Those old guys, when they finally got me, they said, Chris, tell us what this is about. What’s that recovery thing? I said, it’s the 12 steps. He said, have you worked the 12 steps? I said, I’m working the steps to the best of my ability. That means no. What’s unity? I said, it’s the meetings. He said, well, there you go. You go into meetings.

Meeting makers make it. They gave me a little check on that one. What’s service? And he X’d it. I said, well, goddang, let me ask the question. I mean, just let me answer it. He said, Chris, how many people are you sponsoring? Seven years in Alcoholics Anonymous, how many people have you sponsored? None. How many service commitments have you taken? None. How many pots of coffee have you made? None.

Thus the X. You’ve got a three-part illness, and you’re in exactly one part, and you wonder why you can’t stay sober. Guys, I can tell you, sitting up here right now, I could name you a dozen names in AA that I could name you right now that have relapsed. And every time one of them relapsed, circuit speakers. I’m sure Carl knows a bunch of them. And every time one of them relapses, it’s the same stuff.

Everybody wants to start pouring a picture of why they relapsed. I guarantee you why they relapsed. It’s the same reason that we relapsed. We get out of balance in those three parts. You stay in all three parts of that leg, and you will stay sober. It doesn’t mean your life’s got to go perfect, folks. It doesn’t mean that at all. It just means if I’m still going to meetings, and I’m working my steps, I’m doing my prayer and meditation in the morning, I’m doing the things I’m supposed to be doing, and I’m active service, I’m trying to help that little knucklehead out there, I can walk through that stuff with grace and dignity and come out the other side.

Sitting in this room with some of my good friends that are feeling a little poorly these days. And they’re going to walk straight through that crap, come out the other side, smelling like a rose. Because they’re in all three parts of the program. It’s not that complicated. But when I get one of my expansees, and I’m sitting down, and I’m going to start asking them these questions, I want them to give me the answers.

Make sense? I’ve got two of my guys right now, two of my best friends on earth that I sponsor that have relapsed. Both of them stopped coming to meetings. Too busy. And there you go. They want to blame everything else. It’s got nothing to do with that. It’s got to do with we stopped doing what we were supposed to be doing to stay well. Circle triangle. Save my life. Be willing to learn about the traditions.

Guys, I’ve got to tell you, it’s just important to understand what that’s about. And I think a lot of folks don’t cover that. You know, we kind of plug it as, oh, it’s just something you can do later on. My guys, we’re going to do that right off the bat. Because I want them to understand what that’s about. And it goes with this literature, too. I don’t know if any of you all saw the literature rack.

It came down here. When you walk in the door and they have that table full of beautiful AA literature and stuff. It’s amazing to me how few people have ever read any of that literature. They’ve got the big book. Back in the day, those old timers you used to get with me, and they said, Chris, what are you reading? I said, well, the big book. That was the right answer, wasn’t it? You know, the big book of alcoholics and all.

He said, yeah, what else are you reading? There’s a whole bunch of other. They show me all of this. Look at this, Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers. Have you ever read that? Snag that little book. It will give you a little historic perspective of where we came from. Grapevine’s got some great art. There’s some killer stuff out there that you’re not going to get from the big book. Snag it. I just think it’s so important.

I’m willing to take some suggestions about meeting etiquette. It’s important with the guys because I want to try to help them. Most of the little guys I sponsor are also little dope fiends, and I want them to go into meetings, and I want them to be accepted, and they’re not going to if they go in there and introduce themselves with two illnesses. Stop. When I go to AA, I introduce myself as a recovered alcoholic.

When I go to Drug Addicts Anonymous, I introduce myself as a recovered drug addict. Nobody in AA gives two poots that you’re a drug addict. My old sponsor used to say, Chris, I heard you introduce yourself as a drug alcoholic addict the other night in a meeting. He said, are you a good sign painter? I said, well, look at my right. No, I’m a shitty sign painter.

[00:40:00]

Well, why don’t you introduce yourself that way? I said, nobody cares about that. Exactly. Exactly. One illness. Y’all understand, it’s just real simple, but the little guys come in there, and they start doing it, and some old guy comes over there and shoots a bullet at them, and it’s like, we need to teach that. Dress appropriately. Pay attention. Y’all follow? It’s just little simple stuff. Drop some money in the basket.

I’m watching that clock close. You know my deal with the money in the basket is this. Alcoholics Anonymous needs your money. Back in the day, big books were cheaper. They’re expensive now. Y’all understand? Rent is through the ceiling for those of us that have groups. This money, we have expenses to take care of, and we need that money. I don’t do it for that, guys. I want my guys to start putting a dollar in the basket just so that they’ll feel a part of this.

I’ve got to say it. Christians had it figured out. It’s a little thing called tithing. Some of you guys spiritually. Guys, y’all need to understand. It ain’t my money anyway. I’m blessed. Because of Alcoholics Anonymous, I don’t owe a soul, and I’ve got plenty of money in the bank. I don’t make a lot, but I’ve got everything I need. I have a beautiful life. So if I want to contribute to somebody, and I want to help some little guy, yeah.

At the International in 2010, we were driving in San Antonio. We were taking a bunch of our friends from out of that country to go eat some Mexican food over on the south side. There’s a place down there where you stop at this stoplight to take a left to go back to where the restaurant is. There’s a bridge down there, and there’s little homeless guys that live down underneath that bridge. There’s a little guy that’s been down there for years.

Patty calls this little guy. He’s her guy. So every time we stop there, go to that restaurant, going down there, we stop. She says, oh, shit, my guy’s down there. He’s coming up. He says, you got any money? I give her a $5 bill. She rolls the window down, talks to the little guy at the light, and gives him the $5. These people from the other countries, I don’t know why you do that. He’s just going to buy booze.

Well, one, he’s not an alcoholic. He’s a little mental guy. Y’all follow? And the second thing is, it’s none of your fucking business who we give our money to. We didn’t give him the money for him. We gave him the money for us. You put the good stuff back out there, folks, you’re going to get it back. I can’t tell you how many people I know in Alcoholics Anonymous living paycheck to paycheck. I mean, just butt pull.

You’re so tight, you squeak. Loosen up a little bit and start putting some dollar in the basket. I know it’s tough. Instead of buying a $4 energy drink, buy a $2 energy drink. Drop the other $2 in the basket. Your life will get better quick, I got to tell you that. Trust me, if it doesn’t, just holler back at me. I got a couple more real quick. I want you to be willing to look at this health and exercise.

You guys that have talked earlier, talk about it. Chet was talking about it last night. God, it’s just so important. The big book refers to it. This stuff about health. I’m going to stop drinking and we think everything is going to fix up. Guys, when I got sober, I hadn’t been to a dentist but once in 30 years. Y’all follow? And I’d been doing some of that GoFast stuff and my little teeth were a mess.

You have a tendency to grind them when you’re working on that toaster in the middle of the night. I’m just telling you. Get this stuff fixed up. But health, go to the doctor and start taking some vitamins. Bill Wilson did a great paper. If any of y’all have never read it, some of you old archivists in here, Bill Wilson did a deal deal on vitamin B12 deficiencies. All these years later, they’ve done studies that show that depression, there’s a bunch of truth to what Bill Wilson was researching back in the 40s and 50s when he wrote that paper.

There’s a lot of us in there that don’t have clinical depression. What we have is vitamin B deficiency. So you take some methylated vitamin B and all of a sudden your mood shifts. A lot of us start taking fish oil. You don’t think fish oil will help. You’ve got this little muddy brain you’re trying to detox. Start fish oil. There’s some stuff that you can take that’s legit. Pay attention to it. Exercise is just so important.

Guys, I’m going to tell you. Nothing will clear your head faster than getting up there and getting your heart rate up. It’s not just about buffing up and looking good. You can’t all look like me. What the hell? But you can try.

[00:45:00]

But I think it matters. And I’ve watched a lot of guys and they come in there and all banged up from sitting around just abusing their bodies and they come in and they start this focus. It’s worth a gym membership. It’s worth getting out and walking on the river trail. It’s worth getting up and moving. Get that heart rate up a little bit and all of a sudden start to, that depression that you’ve been fighting for years, you might find is alleviated.

It’s more complicated than that. Maybe it is. Don’t get me started. You can’t come to treatment. You’re not in treatment five seconds and they’ve got an antidepressant stuck up your butt. Okay, I’m not knocking that. I’m just saying most of us don’t need that. Most of us just need to start taking care of our bodies. It’s that simple. I can send you the articles. But just from my experience, anecdotally, it’s an amazing deal when you start moving.

We’re not meant to sit constantly. Yeah. Other deal I’ve got real quick, guys, this willingness to sit through my boring talks about AA history because they’re coming. I’m just telling you, they are. I don’t think that we can do. I was fortunate that I had sponsorship lineage, sponsorship that talked to me about the history. Of course, I’m so blessed because of the Zoom now. You can pop on. There’s some Zoom meetings on Tuesday nights at eight o’clock that’s pretty spectacular.

I can give you a list of websites where they have these Zooms or history sites, and you can get on there and you can listen to some of this history stuff. Every mistake that you could possibly make, Bill and those first 100 made. We got it made, compared. Look back at the history though. I got to tell you, to sit at the Wilson house and sleep in the bedroom that Bill Wilson slept in. Go out there and be in the little house where he grew up.

Walk a mile and a half up to the hill and see his grave. Go to Long Branch in New Jersey. Go out there and look at Dr. Silkworth’s grave. Little unassuming tombstone there. Dr. Bob at Dr. Bob’s house. Guys, these people made every mistake in the world, and they kept doing it. What would have happened if Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob had gotten sober? He said, boy, this is so good. We’re sober. Okay, we’ll see you.

Bye-bye now. But they didn’t. They had this idea, let’s go ahead and carry this message. There’s a little knucklehead that was up in Cleveland, and got him Larry Jewell that was really sick. He was an alcoholic, but he was sick, had some other health problems. They had to get out of that cold climate. The folks in Alcoholics Anonymous collected some money and got him a train ticket to Houston, Texas.

He was a newspaper guy. He went to Houston and started writing some articles for the Houston paper about Alcoholics Anonymous. They were the first brochures that AA had were written by Larry Jewell. He came, y’all understand, they gave him a big book. He’d never been to a single meeting. He sat there and got sober, started working the steps, and he got to Houston and started meetings there in Houston.

And he went up the east side and went over to Austin and then Kerrville where I live. His sponsees brought meetings over there. I was saying it last night. Don’t think for a second that you have any idea how God’s going to use you. You suit up and show up with a willing heart to make a difference. My prayer every day when I wake up is, God show me somebody I can help. Just one is fine. You never know.

God will take what you’ve got and work with it. And you’ll be changed forever. I’ll end with this. You come to the Outpost Recovery Club where we have our meetings at Ingram Solution. There’s a big circle triangle like this, only cooler, behind the podium and one of our members carved it out of wood. It’s just gorgeous. Pictures of Bill and Dr. Bob on the wall. I’ve seen this a hundred times. I’m leaving, I’m fixing to close the PA off.

It’s after a meeting and I look back in the main room and there’s one of my little guys, he’s in there. He’s a couple of months sober and he’s working with a newcomer in there. We were laughing about it last night. He’s giving this guy a hard time. Where’s your highlighter? I told you when we sit down with a book, I want you to have a highlighter here. He’s eating his butt the same way I did him two months ago.

We’re laughing our butts off and here he is. He’s got him a little new guy and he’s over there got him around the neck. But you see, this is how it works. Because Bill and Bob got together and said let’s put something together. Maybe we could help some alcoholics. And those first hundred people got together and they came up with a big book and they went through all of this craziness.

[00:50:05]

Now I’m sitting in this AA group where I’ve watched hundreds and hundreds of people get sober. And here I am watching my little guy and he’s got him a little protege and I’m watching him get sober. Guys, it’s a legacy. It’s just one alcoholic to another alcoholic. That’s the way this works. But I say it again, that spiritual warfare that’s in your little head that continues to tell you that you’re worthless and you can’t help anybody because you’re not sober long enough, especially if it’s being reiterated by some well-meaning person behind you, you’re not ready for that.

I’ll tell you when you’re ready to sponsor. No, now. That’s how you learn. If you want to learn about sex, what’s the quickest way? You want to read a book or you want to have sex? It’s a hypothetical question. I probably could have come up with a better analogy than that. But on the cuff, I’m just saying. I remember the first time I had sex, I said, God, they left out a bunch of stuff. Oh, buddy, get in there, jump in, and it’s uncomfortable.

That’s why it takes a village. That’s why I always get my email and my phone number out there if anybody wants it. And I know you guys are doing it back to me. Guys, anything that comes down my life, there’s somebody in AA I know that I can call to get some guidance. I don’t care what life throws at me. I can get the help I need. And that’s what this is about, buddy. Talking about a family, you better believe it.

I don’t know what I’d do without you. William James had one of my favorite quotes. Bill talks about him several times in the big book. He’s a great author. Real complicated writer, but great, great stuff. Act as if what you do makes a difference. Why? Because it does. Perfect. Thank y’all, guys.