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Source: Chris R – BOX OF CHOCOLATES – 2026-03-19.m4a File: chris-r-box-of-chocolates-2026-03-19.mp3 Duration: 00:44:34
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Thank you. My name is Chris R. from Ingram, Texas, and I am delighted to be here, folks. It's, uh, I hadn't been on here in ages. I hadn't, uh, all of a sudden there was a work deal that was on every Thursday night, and so I had to make a decision, you know, what are you going to do? You're going to do work or, anyway, so I had plenty of time to tell them that, you know, they could get somebody to replace me, uh, which was cool that I could do this. I didn't have time to go put a suit and tie on, you know, a little coat and tie so I look nice, so I apologize if y'all find that disrespectful, um, too bad, so sad. Anyway, the best I could do. I, uh, God, I got to tell you guys, I love Zooms, and, uh, I remember Box of Chocolates was one of the first Zooms I got onto in the middle of COVID when all this stuff started coming down the pike, bunch of you little familiar faces on here, and, uh, I just, uh, God, I, in fact, I just texted my brother and told him I was going to be talking on Box, and he, you know, he said some things I don't want to share with y'all, you know, he's jealous, but, uh, golly, who knew? I mean, my home group is Ingram Solution Group in Ingram, Texas. I mean, we meet twice a week, Monday and Wednesday to do a little big book study. We talk about the literature, and a big old crowd of folks, and I'm just so delighted to be able to be a part of that, but, you know, the other nights when I'm not speaking and, you know, doing that group, I'll pop on one of these little Zooms, and I just, I absolutely love, I've got some favorites where they've gotten really organized now. It was kind of crazy early on, but, uh, I just, I love them. I get to see my little buddies from all over the world, and, um, I just, you know, and I can talk in my underwear. I mean, what the heck? It's just nobody knows, and unless you forget to get up, well, good. I think, um, I'm pretty blessed, folks. I, anytime I want to share this, and I'm watching that clock closer than you smokers, so I'm just saying, I'm, you know, I'm gonna be good. Uh, I had, um, uh, anytime I get the chance to share, guys, I want to make sure I get a chance to say this at the beginning, and y'all hear me. Those of you that heard me speak before, you've all heard me say it. I'm going to share my experience. My experience absolutely may be different than your experience, so just, you know, it's okay, and everybody's got their own story, and, uh, mine happens to be, you know, mine, and I'm just, I'm not going to make anything up for it. I'm just going to share it, and, uh, I, uh, I have such a great life, guys. I was, was one of those guys, I spent seven years sitting in Alcoholics Anonymous dying. Um, I, I literally spent seven years in AA and never picked up a 30-day chip. I mean, I'm a meeting-making fool, but I, that's all I was doing, and, uh, you know, I, I watched so many people out there have the same experience in, uh, uh, as I had, and, uh, I finally, um, things changed, and I landed in a room full of people that understood what the beat book was, and, uh, my life changed, and changed quick, and I'm just, I'm, I'm awful blessed with that, and, um, I got to tell you, I'm, I'm right, live, right in Ingram, Texas. I'm right on the Guadalupe River. If I could look out my window, I wish I could turn the camera around and show you. I, right up here, that's where the big flood, y'all remember the, hearing about the flood, 4th of July in Texas, and that was, yeah, we watched it come up our driveway. I've never seen anything like it, and, um, they've got it all. They're still working on the lake out here, but they, they, you know, redone the roads, and all the little houses that got washed away. They, you know, steady building up in there, but it's, uh, was right out there on that river out there, about five miles downstream, where I took my first drink of Boone's Farm apple wine, and, um, all you old hippies are smiling. Y'all are the only ones that ever smiled. Nobody ever, you know, it's a nasty tasting stuff, guys. I'm just saying, but it's okay. It was 1971. It was the, uh, the month and year that Bill Wilson passed away. Uh, I took my first drink, uh, January 1971, and I, I never forget it. A buddy of mine had stolen a bottle of Boone's Farm, and, uh, a little, you know, like a water bottle full, not a big old bottle, and, but we went down the river and leaned up against one of those big old 700-year-old cypress trees, and, um, it's still there. I checked to make sure that cypress tree didn't get washed away. Thousands of others did, but it's still there. It's leaning a lot, but it's still there. Leaned up against that tree, and we drank it, and, um, he drank a couple of sips of it, and said he'd take that. It didn't taste good to him, and he said, I'm not going to drink any more of that, and I said, okay, well, let me make sure I understand. You don't want, I'm going to drink it, so just, I just want to make sure, and he said, no, you can have it. He, he turned around and headed back across the road to his house, and, uh, I sat there and drank that
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little bottle by myself, and, uh, guys, I, you hear every speaker out there say the same thing. I just, and your families, people that are not alcoholics, they don't understand this, but, but it changed me. I didn't get drunk. I didn't go rob a liquor store. I didn't go crazy or anything. I just got right inside. I got comfortable in my skin, and, um, you know, I mean, I remember walking back in the house, and mom was in her studio. She's an artist, and she was painting, and she looked over at me. She said, what, what are you smiling about? Nothing. You know, I mean, I'm, I'm good, and, uh, I just made a commitment that I'm going to try that again soon, and, um, you know, it was my senior year in high school was coming up, and, you know, we get, we get, it's okay. Football games, just go out afterwards, go to the property. My pops would buy us a keg of beer, for heaven's sakes. At least I know what you're drinking, you know, and, um, it's okay. You know, we weren't getting in trouble. We were staying out, you know, we'd get a little, little overzealous sometimes, but holding it together, pretty good. I need to say it. Uh, Pops was an alcoholic, and he was the nicest, kindest, gentlest man I ever knew in my life. He was a sweetheart, hardest working guy. I just, just, I still miss him. He was just such a wonderful man, and, uh, uh, you can look at both sides of my family tree, and alcoholics are everywhere, so there's a big old genetic predisposition. My twin brother and I caught the bullet, and, uh, we were alcoholics. I got two sisters that have never had a problem with alcohol or drugs. My older sister can smoke a little pot, and, you know, just, just be okay, you know, everything's okay. My little sister got sick one time, said, I'm never doing that again, and she never did. She still drinks a little bit, occasionally, she'll have a, but it's funny, you know, she just won't, no, I'm starting to feel it, and she'll stop, and I was like, I don't understand, you know, she must have been adopted.
We, we can't, she can't possibly be from our family, but we, uh, I, I got a, Mom, uh, was good friends with a guy that owned a hotel here in town, and she got me a job early on, folks. This was before child labor laws. I guess I was about 16 when I started working in a restaurant, busboy, and by the time I was 17, I was working in the kitchen, and, uh, they didn't matter if you, if you just stay up at, you know, till 2 30 at night. It's just, okay, that's what you got to do, then you get up in the morning to go to school, and, um, I'm grateful for that experience, but, um, I, uh, I did it for a few years, and then after graduation, uh, uh, my twin brother and I decided we were going to go to move to, uh, Houston, Texas, which is about three and a half hour drive east back towards Ramona, and, uh, it's, uh, I, you know, I don't know, I never forget it. He had a Volkswagen Beetle. He, he went to one year of school over at San Angelo State, and he bought a Volkswagen Beetle, and the back of it had a bumper sticker and says, get drunk and be somebody. It's like, we're not even old enough to buy booze. Y'all understand that? We just barely have a driver's license for heaven's sake. At that time, you had to be 21 to buy booze in Texas, and, uh, but we drove to Houston, and, of course, immediately found some friends next door, some new acquaintances that were old enough to buy booze, so we were, we were set, and, of course, I was working at a big hotel there, and you could, guys, everybody in the kitchen was drinking. That's the way it was, and, um, nobody, if you got squashed and made a fool of yourself, they'd get rid of you, but as long as you're doing your job and you're showing up on time, they don't give a poot if you got a beer under the counter. They just don't care, and, uh, all that stuff about drunk chefs is true. I'm just saying. We was, we were nuts, and, um, and I got to be pretty good, guys. I was really lucky. I got into that hotel again because, you know, mom pulled some strings, and, and, um, I was able to, to do that, and, uh, we lived in a little apartment with four or five other guys.
You know how it is. Had a couple of beanbag chairs and some, you know, green shag carpet. I mean, come on. It was, it was good. Phone on the wall. You know, you had to go, okay, I'm just saying. I'm aging myself, and, um, I don't know. I stayed there for a couple years as an apprentice, and then I left and decided I wanted to go to Austin, Texas, and I had a chance to go there and, uh, work at a big old country club, and I did again there for a couple years, and it was nice as could be, folks. I mean, I was pretty good at what I did, and, and, uh, Austin was, that was back when Austin, Texas really was weird. You know, I mean, it was a party in town, and, uh, it was good, but I kind of got antsy. I don't know about y'all as alcoholics, but I always, get a little antsy. I can sit someplace for a little while, and then I got to go. You know,
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I'm figuring it's going to get better if I make a move. I can't tell you how many times I moved in the years I was drinking. I just, we call them the geographic cures, and I got to get out of Texas. I, you know, and I, you know, and I went to Atlanta, Georgia, got in a big hotel there, and, and, uh, same story, second verse. People were different, and, uh, beautiful opportunity, was there. I didn't stay in Atlanta very long. They didn't sell alcohol at all on Sundays, which they may now, guys. I don't know, but back in the day, you couldn't buy alcohol on Sundays, so if you messed around and forgot to buy it on Saturday, you were in trouble. I'm just, you know, yeah, I, I got caught with my pants down too many times on that one. I just said, no, screw it. I got, just packed up one night and headed back to Texas, and, um, started moving around again, and I got a job with a friend of mine, had a little restaurant out in Vernon, Texas, and I went out there, and, and, uh, I'm bouncing around. About the time I got to Vernon, things started causing some problem, guys. I'm isolating like a son of a gun, and I'm not really, I'm just not a really happy camper, and, um, one of the geographics, I ended up going back to Houston, Texas, an opportunity, and, uh, getting out of the restaurant business for a minute, and, and, uh, again, and the guys that I went, they were in the oil business, and the guys that I went into business with were drinking worse than I was, um, and, uh, I was there for a little while.
I moved back to Kerrville, where I grew up, and I moved back to Houston on one of those geographics. This is the early 80s by now, folks, early 80s. I'm, uh, I go back, and I, and I get this, uh, job, and a bunch of us went in together and bought a little barbecue restaurant, uh, in, uh, in Houston, and, uh, it was a little, I mean, it was a cool little deal. I've never worked so hard in all my life, but it was, uh, it was fun to be there, and, uh, we were, we were doing, uh, uh, we were doing okay, and, uh, again, I'm running the place, so I can drink any, anytime I want, and I'm, I'm just, I'm drinking a little bit more. That's the way it was. Early on, when this illness starts to progress, guys, you know, you could, I can drink, there were times I could drink a couple of beers and go home, go to bed. It wasn't just blackout drinker and all that. As, as the illness progresses, you're less and less likely to be able to do that, and I'm drinking too much, and I'm stepping on some people, and, uh, this is the, uh, I don't know. This is the early 80s, and, uh, y'all can argue with me if you want to, guys, but everybody in the United States was doing cocaine in the early 80s. I, I'm just saying. Miami Vice was on. Your grandmother was drinking, snorting cocaine in the early 80s. I guarantee you, going to those little party, you know, weddings, and everybody would do a little bumpy poo, and I don't know, and we were messing with some of those outside issues, and, and, uh, half the people in the food business were, and I'm doing the best I could. I got married.
Uh, I found this little girl that was working in a bar that my brother was working at, and, uh, she was as nice as could be. She was a sweetheart, and, um, I drug her up to North Texas. Mine just left and went up to North Texas to be closer to my father, who was, uh, getting older and needed some, some help up there, and so he went up there, and I, and I followed him and got a job at a big old country club in, uh, North Texas, and I don't know. I'm not okay. This, um, I'm, uh, I'm just starting to drink too much, and, um, it's a problem, and she's concerned about my drinking, and she's also concerned about me not being happy. I don't know if any of y'all can relate, but at a certain point in your drinking, it was like, when I first started drinking, I got happy, and as the illness progressed, I could, I could drink, and I was still not happy.
You know, depression is one of the number one symptoms of untreated alcoholism, and I'm just, I'm miserable, and she's asking me, what are you, what's wrong with you? We got a brand new little house, you know, and, and everything on the outside looks like everything's good, and, and I'm just miserable, and, uh, I, I honestly don't know, and, um, I gotta tell you, I, uh, I came home one night, uh, I'd been drinking with one of the, one of the chefs at that country club, and, and, uh, he was a sweetheart, and we'd been doing some of that outside issue stuff, too, a little bumpy, and I, I, uh, I came home. I don't remember what the fight was about. I just don't, and, um, nor do I want to know, but it was stupid, and, uh, we ended up having a pushing match, and, um, I come from this family, like the front row of the Baptist church, we don't do pushing matches, you know, I, I, God, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, guys, I just, you know, I didn't hit her, but I, I got in her face, and we just don't do that, and that was mortified. She asked me to leave, and I did, and I came back a few hours later, sobered up a little bit, and she let me back in the house, and.
sobered up a little bit. She let me back in the house and we had the talk, and the talk was real
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simple. You shut up and listen. She said, if you want to stay married to me, you're going to have to stop drinking. And guys, I remember in that dark little room, I remember leaning over with tears in my eyes and hugged her little neck. I promised her, I said, I'll never do it again. And I meant it with every fiber of my body. Guys, everybody, everybody's always wanting to, oh, alcoholic's mouth moving, he's lying. We're all liars and horse thieves. We're not.
There's some of those out there, folks. That's not us. When I promised her that I wasn't going to drink anymore, I meant it. I could have passed a polygraph. And a week and a half later, I drank a beer with the boss. I'm patting myself on the back because I didn't get drunk, you know, and that wasn't my deal with her. My deal was her that I wasn't going to drink. And she smelled it on me and that was it. We had a conversation. She packed her stuff. She started moving. And I stayed there up in North Texas. And we got divorced. I don't know, guys, I started going to Alcoholics Anonymous when I promised her that I wasn't going to drink anymore. I went to AA. And I got to tell you guys, this is part that makes you sweat sometimes. I just I'm not taking a shot at AA.
I loved AA. They were the nicest people you'd ever come across. But in the groups I was going to, who knew that groups were different? But the groups that I was going to, they weren't a big book in the place. You know, they read how it works. You know, we read the traditions, blah, blah. And then we go around and same stuff. If you'd come back in as a newcomer, they'd say, OK, well, we have a newcomer coming back. Let's tell Chris how we got here. And they're going to go around and tell their damn stupid war stories one more time. OK.
Guys, I don't have any problem against war stories. I just wish we would use a little discernment. There's just you can't scare an alcoholic into recovery. The problem is that those stories gave me all the ammunition I needed to tell you and be clear in my head that I was not a real alcoholic. I called myself an alcoholic so I could go to the meeting, but I didn't think I was an alcoholic because I'm not doing the crazy stuff that y'all are doing. Remember, I told you Pops was the hardest working man I ever knew. I got his work ethics, folks, and I'm not late to work and I'm not I mean, I'm not getting in trouble. I'm not being arrested. I'm not robbing liquor stores. I'm not running around naked. Once I did, but not as a usual thing, I didn't do it.
And so we we went off to the yeah. And I'd sit in there, listen to your story and then leave, listen to your story, give the next anyway. Guys, I got to tell you, it's. I've got this vented memory and I've some of y'all have heard me speak and I talk about it, but it's just it's classic. I. I've seen so many people have the same experience, we'd finish our meetings and we'd go out in the parking lot and afterwards, you know, we'd say the Lord's Prayer and we'd go out to the parking lot, everybody be over there talking to each other about where they're going to go to dinner and and I'd be sitting there by myself. Now, guys, I am an unusually shy person anyway. I'm just I know some of y'all that know me know exactly. I'll jump around up here on on stage, but I'm on a one on one because of just even without a black eyepatch, folks, I'm shy.
And I just I'm sitting up there and everybody's talking about where they're going to go to eat and I'm sitting there by myself and pretty soon they're leaving in two and threes and cars are leaving the parking lot and I look around and there I am. I'm sitting there smoking a butt and walk out to my pickup truck and look around. I'm the only one in the parking lot. I'm kind of leaning up against it. The guy comes out and looks at me, gives me one of these little head shakes and turns the lights off in the parking lot. And I am one more time.
I just picked up a desire chip. And I'm going to get in my pickup truck and I'm going to go down to that little grocery store two blocks down and I'm going to buy me a six pack of Lone Star beer. Okay. Okay. Guys, alcoholics don't choose to drink. We've lost the power of choice and drink. Unless I get well, I'm going to keep drinking. The big book says what is 27 places in the big book. It uses the word approach. We're supposed to approach that newcomer. I'm just saying, guys, I got kind of ignored. You know, keep coming back. All they're doing is focusing on the meetings.
When you go to enough meetings, you come back and, well, you need to double up on your meetings. Why? I just went to 60. I mean, come on. No. Nowhere in the big book says, guys, that if you just go to meetings, you'll stay sober. Some of us do. But if the illness has progressed very far, you're not going to. That's why Bill Wilson says you need a spiritual experience as a result of working the steps. Anyway, I spent a bunch of years doing that in and out, in and out, in and out. I came home one night after work. I'm working for my twin brother. I can't cook anymore. I can't. I just I don't have it in me. And I'm
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physically kind of banged up from the alcohol. And I thank God my brother hired me to work in a book bindery. That's all I can say. I'd have been in trouble. I live in a little raggedy apartment and I've got a couple of stinky little ferrets and, you know, some plants and that's it. I'm I'm OK. A little black and white TV in there. And I have no address book. My days of drinking in bars are over, folks. I'm drinking by myself. That's all. And I'm kind of sad. And I picked up a stack of return checks in the mailbox and went up to my little apartment, opened them and realized I'd bounced the rent check again and I'm going to have to go to my sister in law, Alonda, and I'm going to have to borrow some money from her to pay my rent. And and she's going to lend it to me. I mean, they took care of me. That's OK. Buyers is drinking, too. But I mean, they all understood.
Bless their hearts. And. I just can't, you know, and I just I've made up a little mind that I stack the bills around and I fed the little ferrets. I have a bag of cat food and went to the medicine cabinet, took a couple of bottles of pills and and tried to commit suicide. I've got a psychiatrist in Dallas, folks. I'm on seven prescription medications a day. Every time I go, they diagnose me with something else. You know, turned out after I got sober, I found out I didn't have any psychiatric disorders. What I had was untreated alcoholism.
That it looks a lot. The depression, the anxiety, all of this looks like something. And I'm not knocking the dock. I'm not just guys. There's people in there have to be on lots of medications, more power to them. But my story was I didn't have to. Anyway, I lay down the bed, tried to die, and I heard a voice that night and said, don't do this, go back to A.A. And I'm arguing with a voice. I mean, I can remember the conversation, that dark little apartment. I could hear the ferrets next to me chattering. And I just like, you know, I I've tried a it doesn't work.
I wish I had a nickel for every alcoholic I ever heard say that. You know, somebody calls me on the phone and I go over to check on them. No, I tried. It didn't work. They did the same thing I did. They went to a bunch of meetings and that's all they did. OK. I made myself sick that night. Luckily, it worked because the next morning I came to and I was still alive and I made an absolute commitment that I was going to go back to A.A.
I go back to see my buddies up in North Texas where I've been going and a piece of equipment broke down in that bindery and it it set us back a half a day's worth of work. So basically I had to stay longer. Usually I'd get off about three o'clock and this one I had to I had to work until almost six o'clock and I was too it was too late to go to that meeting that I used to go to. So I went to a meeting that somebody had showed me before. They said it was a big book meeting. I didn't know what that was. I didn't own a big book. Why go? And I I drove over to it was like three blocks from the book bindery. And it was between me and the Kentucky Fried Chicken in my apartment. I'm just saying I'm ready to go. I'm detoxing. I'm just OK. Well, I'm going to stop by and let everybody know I'm coming back to A.A. and so y'all can relax and and then I'm going to get the hell out of there and go go home.
And guys, just again, y'all heard me talk about this a thousand times. Some of you. But I just I parked in the back so nobody could see that I was coming back to A.A. You know, this is anonymous. My mom used to laugh. She said, God, I really screwed up. I put you on the prayer list of every church in North Texas. I said, thanks, mom. She said, I even called the Catholics like, oh, my God, she was this is a good Baptist woman. Now, come on. She was serious when she did this. It may have worked because I got sober. I walked in the back door of that A.A.
meeting and the chairperson had seen me up in North Texas and he said, God, Chris, welcome back. Come over here and sit. And I got real self-conscious. And I said, no, guys, listen, I just want to let you know I'm coming back and I'm detoxing. I'll see y'all Monday. And it was Friday, Friday the 13th. That was my sober day, 1987. And I started to turn around. This little girl got between me and the door. Literally, I stepped on her toe. She had her finger in my belt loop. She said, sit down, cowboy. You're not going anywhere. She pulled me sideways into a chair.
Six foot tables. Remember back in the day, some of you older guys and big old ashtrays on the table just will act. I mean, good God, it was it's one that we all didn't die. You know, everybody in
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there, even if you didn't smoke, your secondhand smoke was going to get you. And they sent me down in a chair and she just she looked. She said, you know, I got me a cup of coffee and I said, OK, I'm going to sit for a minute because I know it's going to come. The chairperson is going to chair and he says, Chris is coming back. Let's tell Chris how we got here. And they're going to tell me they're not their stupid war stories again. And if they had done that, folks, I'd have died for me. They did. I looked up at the wall where the steps and the traditions were. He looked back at me and he looked back up on the wall again. He said, let's go around and share how our lives have changed as a result of working the steps. What the what? Oh, OK. And they went around and they.
I still remember her name. She's sitting catty corner across from me. She was about a year sober, a year and a few months sober, and she held up her car keys and was jingling them up at the table. She said she just got her a brand new car and I just been turned down two weeks before a five hundred dollar car loan to buy an old, newer old pickup. And they turned me down because my credit was so bad. And she got a brand new car out there. And the guy next to her started a little landscape business. He was all excited about making some money and paying some bills.
And and I'm going, look, this is good. They're all doing it, guys. They're all going around. Lady at the end of the table had gone back to art school. I was thirty five when I got sober, folks. And she was she was in her 40s, but she'd gone back and got her art degree. She was all excited about going back to school. The guy next to me kept tapping me on the shoulder. Just drives me crazy when somebody I can't see out of that. I don't tap me on the shoulder.
I'll stab you with. He dropped his billfold on the table, the little Polaroid pictures of his kids fall out. And he's sitting there with tears in his eyes talking little a boy, little a girl on a campus. And they made some little babies. And oh, my God. And they're just excited as hell about their new little life. Guys. At the end of the meeting, they asked anybody in the room wanted to stay sober one day at a time, and I picked up my last desire chip. It's in the closet right back there. That's like. I didn't even think this was going to work in the man in the moon.
But. On the way out that night, these old cowboys stopped me. And one of them was this blue collar worker named Wayne. He was just a hard working guy. The other guy was was an oil guy, and he had a big old Stetson on, you know, follow a big old belt buckle about the size of a dinner plate. You know, if you don't think of any stereotypical Texan picture you've ever seen, that was this guy. His name was J.R. He's been dead a million years, or I would tell you it was. But golly, he had a Cadillac in a parking lot with bullhorns on the front. Everybody I get emails guys from all over the world, but you're making that up.
I'm not. I'm not. But he got stopped and kind of stood between the door. He said, Chris, sit with us for a few minutes and see if we can help you figure out why you can't stay sober. I said, didn't I tell you I got a psychiatrist? I've been to IOP. I've been to treatment. I'm, you know, I got a lot of professionals trying to help me stay sober. And now this old cowboy wants to help me. Makes me want to cry.
He said, where's your big book? And I said, I don't have a big book. He said, they got me one. They got a closet over there and opened it up. And they got me one. I still got it. And he says, Chris, just sit. This won't take 20 minutes. Sit with us. We'll, let's see if we can figure out what they did was they looked at the doctor's opinion. They cherry picked it and they picked a couple of little, little, little passages in there where it talked about the phenomenon called craving. And they talked about the little mental obsession from 23 to 43. We didn't start reading on the title page, folks. A lot of people, y'all do it.
At the beginning of this, guys, it's like triage. If I don't stop bleeding, I'm going to die. And these guys knew if I didn't identify. We got to find out what the problem is before we can get to the solution. I think my problem is her. She won't, you know, I think the problem is the job. I think the problem is every, everybody has a problem. Everybody has a problem. I think the problem is the job. I think the problem is every everybody.
They showed me the symptoms of alcoholism. They asked me the questions on the top of page 44. I put my email in there on the way out the door and you guys can email me if you want, and I'll send it to you. It's a little cherry pick just the way they did me to help the newcomer understand his truth quickly. The Newcomer, Understand His Truth, Quickly, It Just Takes Too Long, Guys, To Do It The Other Way, I Mean, The Speed At Which We Do This, Early Guys In Alcoholics Anonymous, If
[00:30:04]
You Read The History, And I'm A Big History Buff, Nobody Took Longer Than A Few Days To Work The Steps, Nobody Took Longer Than A Few Days, It Wasn't This Long Drawn Out, Ridiculous, We're Going To Take A Year To Work The Steps, Guys, You Can Study This The Rest Of Your Life, Every Time We Go Back Through The Book With Big Book, I See Things That I Didn't Read, You Know, Really, It's Work, It's The Bite, I Love It, But Early On, Guys, I'm Trying To Stop Bleeding, I Just, I Called Myself An Alcoholic For Seven Years, I Didn't Anymore Believe It, And Those Two Questions On The Top Of Page 44, Cinched It For Me, They Talked About Choice And Control, And I Was Like, And Why He Would Put The Symptoms Of Alcoholism In A Chapter Called Chapter To The Agnostics, I Mean, Even If I Was Reading, I Would Have Skipped It, Because I'm Not An Agnostic, Anyway, It's There On The Top Paragraph, And I Just, I Just Like, They Said, Chris, Come In The Morning, We're Going To Get Started On This Work, Okay, And I Said, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, And I Went Home, And I'll Never Forget Driving Home, And I Look At Myself In The Rearview Mirror, And The Tears Coming Down My Cheeks, Guys, I'm Crying Again, I Said, I Can't Believe I Finally Know What's Wrong With Me, I Didn't Have All Those Other Disorders, What I Had Was Untreated Alcoholism, It Was A Sense Of Relief Knowing Finally What Was Wrong With Me, For Heaven Sakes, If You Got To Have A Fatal Progressive Illness, Let's Hope That You Have Alcoholism, Because You Can Recover From That Without Question, I Never Knew Anybody That Did It That Didn't Recover, Anyway, I Got Out There The Next Morning, Got Back Up In There, And They Showed Me How To Make A Pot Of Coffee, And We Went In The Room, Went To A Meeting, And Afterwards, We Went In The Back Room, And Those Old Cowboy Guys Were With Me, And We Got On Our Knees, And Did A Third Step Prayer, They Explained The Prayer To Me, And We Did A Third Step, And Then We Went To Lunch, That Was On A Saturday, And We Went To Eat Some Mexican Food, And Came Back, And They Gave Me A Little Notebook, And They Said, Here, Let's Show You How To Start This Fourth Step, Guys, Two Weeks In, I've Got A Completed Before Step, Ready To Do A Fifth Step, When My Sponsor Gets Back In Town, They Picked Me A Sponsor, Folks, Old Hippie Guy, And, Oh, My Gosh, I Just, And I'm Sitting There Two Weeks In, And I'm Sitting On The Tailgate Of My Truck, And I'm Surrounded By Liquor Stores, And Just Places To Buy Booze, And All This, And I'm Just, I Don't Want To Drink, It's A Friday, And I Got Money In My Pocket, I Got Paid, And I'm Done, The Obsessions Gone, I Get Emails Again From All Over The World, People, You Can't, You Can't Recover That Quick, Yes, You Can, I Watch Thousands Of People Have Spiritual Experiences, And That Obsession Leaves Like That, Bill Wilson's In Detox On His Ninth Day, When The Obsession Lifted From Him, And We Got People Killing People Out There, Telling Them, This Is Gonna Take A While, How Long Is It Gonna Take You To Work The Steps, I Mean, I Don't Know What To Tell You, You Gonna Take Nine Months, Maybe It'll Take You Nine Months To Have That Spiritual Experience, But You're Guaranteed To Have It If You Do It, Guys, Let Me Tell You, They Got Me Busy, I'm Making Amends, And I'll Never Forget The Day I Picked Up The Phone And Called A Credit Card Company I Owed Money To, And Worked My First Deal, It Was Pretty Cool, I'll Never Forget, I Hung Up That Phone And Absolutely Knew That I Was Gonna Stay In The Program Of Alcoholics Anonymous, I Finally Felt Responsible As An Adult, Thank God Nobody Said, You Can't Make Amends Till You're A Year Sober, I Hear That Crap Out There Too, It's Just, Why Do People Pull This Stuff Out Of Their Butt, Why Don't We Just Go About What The Literature Is Saying, I'm Just Saying, Just A Thought, I Gotta Tell You Real Quick, One Of Those Old Guys Got Ahold Of Me And Said, After The Meeting One Night And Said, Chris, This Is The Third Weekend, He Said, Next Week We Got Our Group Conscience On Wednesday Night, Why Don't You Come See Us On Wednesday Night, Stay Late, We'll Go To The Group Conscience And We're Gonna, Several Of Us Want To Nominate You For Chairman Of The Cleanup Committee, Guys, I Am So Not Interested In Your Cleanup Committee, Because I'm In A Food Business Before, I Know How To Clean A Kitchen, I Do, I'm A Cleaning Fool, But I'm Not Interested, I'm The Most Important Person Here, Remember, I Got My Little Desire Chip And They Said, Yeah, We'll Come Anyway And I Did And Yeah, I Hadn't Been In That Room Ten Minutes And They Nominated Me As Chairman Of The Cleanup Committee, Voted Me In, I Was Not Happy, I Looked Over That Guy After The Meeting And He Was Cleaning Up The Kitchen, He Looked Over Like That, You Know, He Was Laughing And I Said, Golly, Listen, If I'm Gonna Do This, You Gotta Help Me Out Here, Give Me A List Of The Other Committee Members
[00:35:01]
So I Can Contact Them And We Can Set Up A Cleaning Rotation For The Club, He Spit Coffee In The Sink And Just Like, Oh My God, He Said, There's No Committee, Chris, You're The Janitor At This Group, He Showed Me Where The Vacuum Cleaner Was And The Cleaning Supplies And Held The Keys And Handed Them To Me, I'm Three Weeks Over And They Gave Me The Keys To The Club, Guys, These Old Timers, God Bless Them, They Knew That If I Didn't Get Busy, I Wasn't Gonna Stay, They Used To Say, You Find A Job In AA, You'll Stay, You Don't, You Won't, You'll Sit And Do What I Did For Seven Years, You'll Just Get Bored, I Stayed Away For A Couple Of Days, I Was Gonna Punish Them And I Came Back In On A Friday And Myers Let Me Off Work Early And It Was, I Don't Know, I Locked Myself In That Club About One O'Clock And Started Cleaning That Place And Guys, I Cleaned That Club Like A Big Dog, It Had Never Been Cleaned Better, You Know, I Waxed That Linoleum In The Front And Vacuumed That Carpet And Set Those Chairs Up With A Ruler And Cleaned Those Old Filthy Bathrooms Like Exxon Stations Back There, What Is This, Come On, I Don't Know What About AA Club Bathrooms, It's Just Terrible, All That Brown Coffee Stuff In The Pots And I Cleaned All That Stuff Out And I'm Sitting Back In, It's 530, Meeting Starts At Six, I've Made A Pot Of Coffee Ready For The Folks To Start Coming In And I'm Sitting There In That Table In The Back, Same Room Where I Picked Up My Little Desire Chip And I Hear Somebody Coming In The Front Door Who's Got Keys, Okay, Because I Forgot To Unlock The Door And It Was The Matriarch Of The Group, I Could Hear Her Sliding In The Room, She's About Two Feet Tall, Come On, Guys, She Was 140 Years Old, This Lady Was So Old It Wasn't Even Funny And She's In There, She Looked Like A Little Question Mark, A Little Bump Back And She's Sliding Into The Room And She Starts Squealing In The Kitchen And She Walks Around In The Bathroom And She's Like, Oh My God, She Looks Around The Corner, She Said, Did You Clean This Place And I'm Sitting Here In My Little Soaking Wet Through The Loom T-Shirt, I'm Old, Yes, Ma'am, I Told It A Million Times, I Wanna Cry Every Time I Tell It, She Walked Around Behind Me, Got A Little Boney Arm Around My Neck, I'm Sitting At That Table, She Gave Me A Little Back Hug And I Can Still Feel Her Voice On My Cheek, She Said, Boy, We Need You Here, I Had Tried To Commit Suicide Three Weeks Earlier Because I Felt Useless, Not Because I Was Drunk, Read The Bedevilments On Page 52, Guys, In The Middle Paragraph, It Explains Exactly How We Feel When We're Not Drinking, I Mean, Just A Feeling Of Uselessness, Yeah, That's Me And For The First Time, All Of A Sudden, I Found A Place In Alcoholics Anonymous, They Created A Monster, You Couldn't Walk Into That Club, I Was There Five Years, I Couldn't Tell You What Color Your Eyes Were But I Could Tell You What Kind Of Shoes You Were Wearing Because I'm Checking Them, If You Got Mud On Them Shoes, I'm Gonna Eat Your Ass And You're Gonna Go Back Out And Clean Those, No, I Mean, But I Had A Job And It Continued When I Moved To The Hill Country, In Five Years Sober, I Was There When My Father Passed Away And I Just, You Know, There Was Enough, I Just, It Was Time To Come Back Home And I Got A Job Down Here, Got A Little Career Started And Working In The Industry But I've Got So Many Little AA Guys, This Little Recovery Mecca Down Here In Texas, There's Treatment Centers All Around Us And So Many Halfway Houses And Sober Livings And It's The Bomb, You Know, It's Not, I've Been To Groups Where There's No Newcomers, You Know, We Don't Like Them Newcomers Here, Oh, Okay, I Do, It's By Working With Them Little Newcomers That We Get To Stay Sober, It's Pretty Cool Folks And My Life's Never Been The Same, I Just Gotta Say Real Quick Before I Let You Go, I, A Lot Of Places In The Book, Bill Wilson Refers To The, You Know, The Spiritual Malady, Spiritual Malady, Untreated Alcoholism And It's All The Same Thing And, You Know, The Solution Bottom On Page 129 Talks About Working With Others In Those First Days Of Convalescence, Nothing Will Help You Stay Sober Is Intensive Work With Other Alcoholics, Build Up And Build Story Talks About Work And Self-Sacrifice For Others, That's How We Stay Sober, That's How We Grow Spiritually, The Book Says And They Showed Me That And I Mean, It's The Same Stuff, But I've Got This Little Thing In The Head Telling Me, You Know, I Hear It All The Time, I Can't Help Anybody, I Can't Even Help Myself, Okay, Stop, It's The Dark Side Giving You Some Info, Just That's Stupid And I Know It's Scary, But If You'll Do It, You'll Start Seeing What I Found Out Early On Was That I Had No Idea Who God Was Going To Use To Help Me,
[00:40:03]
Did I Think For A Second That This Old Cowboy Was Going To Help Me In 1987? I Wouldn't Give Him The Time Of Day, But Here It Is, He Stayed After, Instead Of Going Home To Have Dinner, He Stayed After And Helped Me Understand What Was In That Big Book. And I Think I Can't Help And How Many People Have I Been Able To Help? If Any Of Y'All Think That You Have Any Idea Who It Is, Who God Is Going To Use To Help You, You're Probably Wrong, Sometimes It's That Old Guru In The Corner And Sometimes It's That Brand New Little Guy That Just Came In, Just 100 Miles An Hour, All Excited About Recovery, It Ends Up Helping You More Than You Ever Helped Him, It's Just, I Don't Know, It's Just, That's The Way It Works Guys, That's What Love And AA Is All About, My Mama Used To Say It, She Said, I Wish We Could Find That Kind Of Love In Our Churches, I Wish We Could Find That Kind Of Love In Our Churches, Yeah, Yeah, Guys, That's What It's About, Love Is Not About Sitting There Smiling, I Love You, I Love You, Love Is About Sacrifice, That's What We Do Guys, Go Out Of Our Way To Help That Little Newcomer Or Help That Little Old Timer That's In A Tough Spot, I Tried To Call A Little Friend Of Mine, He Struggled So Hard To Get Sober And He Finally Got Some Time Under His Belt, But He's Got Some Situations And Just, He's Got Just Some Relationship Problems And He's Just, He's So Distracted, It's Not Even Funny And I Texted Him And Called Him This Week, I Finally Just Tracked Him Down Today, I Just Made A Point And Finally Got In Touch With Him And Told Him That We Were Here And That We'd Be Just, Alright, It's Not My Place To Go After Him, Yeah, It Is, If I Think He's In Trouble, I'm Going To Go Get Him, He'd Do The Same For Me When He Was On The Page, He Hadn't Drunk Yet Guys, But He's, I'm Going To, We're Going To Reel Him In, I Hope I Get To See Him This Weekend And We've Set Up A Time That We're Going To Meet, Maybe We Can, I Don't Know Guys, The Outside Chance That I Might Be Able To Help, It's Worth The Effort, My Life Is Blessed Folks, I Haven't Thought About Taking A Drink In 38 Years, This Is The Little Guy That Could Not Not Drink And I Got A Bunch Of People On Here That I Call My Friends, Literally That I, I've Got An Address Book That's Got Hundreds And Hundreds And Hundreds Of Names, Thank God For Dropbox, Now Follow All People In Recovery, People All Over The World, Carol's In There, Ramona's In There, You Know, Steven And Ed Are In There, Some Of You Little Knuckleheads, It's Yeah, God Life's Good And All We Got To Do Is Show Up And Remember Where The Solution Is Right Here And If I Can Ever Help Any Of Y'All, Y'All Get In Touch With Me, I'm Going To Put My Email In There And I'll Send You That Little First Step Guide Thing And Help You If You Want It, I Sure Do Appreciate Y'All Letting Me Come, Thank Y'All.
Thank You So Much For Joining Us Tonight, Well You Never Know What You're Going To Get, You'll Just Have To Keep Coming Back, We Surely Hope To See You Here Next Thursday, Our Special Guest Is Theory Up From Yonkers, New York, If You Like This Meeting, Please Do As Bill Wilson Always Said, Pass It On, You Can Help Others Right From Your Computer Or Phone And Tell Them About The Special Meeting, Everyone Is Invited To Hang Out With Us Afterwards In The Meeting After The Meeting, The Board, Chris Do You Have Any Closing Comments, Would You Please Leave Us Out With A Reading Or Prayer Of Your Choice? Well, Today Especially This Little Serenity Prayer, Let's Do That Because I Mean, I Think It's Just So Important To Remember, You Know, On A Daily Basis, Kind Of Where We're At, Let's Do That.
God, Grant Me The Serenity To Accept The Things I Cannot Change, The Courage To Change The Things I Can And The Wisdom To Know The Difference. Yay. All Right, Everyone Can Unmute And Thank Chris. Thank You, Chris. That Was Great. Thank You, Chris. Thank Y'All.