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Source: Chris C – From Coshocton, Ohio – Date Unknown.mp3 File: chris-c-from-coshocton-ohio-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:07:01
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I would like to thank my warm up act, Dolly, where did she go, there she is, I'm like yeah, I'm like keep going, keep going, get them fired up. My name is Chris C. and I'm a recovered alcoholic. I never ever bring my phone up on the podium with me, but I did tonight and there's a reason for that and it's because something that Dolly mentioned and she told the bed story, right, and she was talking about the difference between men and women, right, and how we roll and we'll all pile into a room and of course now I just lost it, but one of my sponsees couldn't make it this weekend because she was working and she's a road dog, she travels all the time with us and she's always rooming with the gang that's back here on the road too and everything and I said I'm really going to miss you, I feel like there's a piece missing without you coming this weekend.
She said I so wish I could too and I could really use it, not just the conference but the love and fellowship and above all I just need to cuddle with somebody. So that is the difference between men and women when they stay in a hotel room, okay, because she, you know, it's just what we do, it's absolutely what we do. I just had a note here because I just don't want to forget to thank anybody, I just want to thank Dolly for sure and thank Dolly and thank Chris and thank Carol and whoever is on the committee, I'm not sure, who all is on this committee still, are you all in here?
Okay, maybe not, all right, whoop, whoop, so I just want to thank anybody that has had any part to do with this, it's really, that's an awesome thing and I'm really, I'm absolutely delighted to be here for a number of reasons and first and foremost is that I know without question where I stand here tonight, I'm standing on sacred ground, I don't take this lightly, I hope we have fun tonight, I hope we have a good time, I hope we laugh, maybe we'll cry but what I know for a fact is, is that the prayer before the meeting is just let one suffering alcoholic hear me.
I'm not expecting to have 200 people hear the message, I just want one and what I know for a fact without question because I've talked to people that it's happened to, it's that lives have literally been saved in this room and so I would like to thank the people that have put on this conference because I know how much hard work it is, I've been here, done that, I know what's going on and so I want to thank you for letting me stand here on this sacred ground in Alcoholics Anonymous and be a part of it and besides that, I always love a good party on Friday night, so yeah, I'm real happy to be here and I'm delighted to see the people that are speaking tonight, I've heard, is it Jennifer, I think that's, I wasn't sure if you went by Jennifer or Jen and I just met Holly, haven't heard her, I do have to share, since we're talking honesty, you know, Dolly was talking about, we got to be honest up here, right?
Your Saturday night speaker and I go back a little bit, I shared a bed with her a few years ago, it was Hugh Hefner's bed, we were in Hugh's bed together and I'm not making this up, now granted, it was an AA conference and an old retired playboy mansion but they let us in and yes, me and your Saturday night speaker and two or three men and a couple other women, we're all in bed together, so that's what we do at these things but yeah, see, just have an open mind guys, you're going to have a lot of fun but there's another reason that I'm really delighted to be here and that is absolutely because I know that a woman that lived the way that I lived, that did the things that I did, that ran with the people I ran with, doesn't wind up in a beautiful facility like this in Painesville, Ohio on a Friday night with 200 women that have open hearts and open minds and open souls.
A woman like me winds up in an unmarked grave somewhere and absolutely nobody's looking for anymore because you see, the truth of my drinking is, when I'm out there and I'm ripping and roaring and I'm running through lives and I'm tearing down structures all around me, when I disappear from somebody's life, there's absolutely nobody saying, oh gosh, what happened to Chris?
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Where did she go?
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We must go find her. You know, they're saying things like, thank God that's over. Thank God she can't hurt us anymore. Thank God she can't hurt our children anymore but you see, that's why I know I'm on sacred ground because instead of winding up in that unmarked grave somewhere with absolutely nobody looking for me, I was blessed with a seat in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous on October 29th of 1994 by a higher power that at that time I didn't even believe in.
And that's an important part of my message because if you're sitting in here tonight and you're feeling that struggle or you're wondering what you believe or if you believe, what I can promise you is that I've been there. I was telling Chris, I get this pocket of agnosticism before I speak every time and it sounds like this when I'm in the bathroom peeing for the 75th time because that's what I do when I'm nervous and I'm a middle-aged woman and so I'm in there again and the voice says, you know what, God ain't coming tonight.
You're on your own. God's in Bosnia with the starving children. He's busy. You know, and I'm in there going, you know, because I have come to believe in the time that I've been here that self-reliance fails me every time. So thank goodness though some ladies prayed me up before I got here and I truly believe it'll be all right. But what I want you to know is I don't have 24 years of wisdom to impart on you.
I don't even have 24 years of knowledge really. I am, without a doubt, I am not a sage on a stage, okay? I am just here to walk with you shoulder and shoulder and to share your experience or to share my experience with all of you tonight because that is the best thing that I have to offer. It is not, you know, some, I'm not going to take this book and tear it apart. It's not a big book workshop. I'm just going to share my experience.
And I want to stand up here and the truth be told, I want to stand up here and be the crown princess of Alcoholics Anonymous. I want to put on my little tiara and my sash and come out and go, ladies, if you just do it this way, all will be well. But you know what? That's not the truth of who I am. And at 24 years away from my last drink, I am more strongly sponsored than I have ever been in all of my sobriety.
And what I can tell you is there's some very good reasons for that. And some of the reasons are not only was my drinking absolutely messy, but so has my recovery been. It is not just been a walk in the park. I want to stand up here and tell you how I did everything perfect. I have never one day been unwilling in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, but I have spent many days incapable because I was not connected to the necessary power that allows me to act, feel, think, believe exactly how a woman that is filled up with the spirit does.
Like I said, I've never once been unwilling, but I have been incapable. There have been times in the last 24 years, by no one's fault other than my own, that I have stayed sober on fierce grace alone. And if you don't know what fierce grace is, there's a couple different kinds of grace. There's that grace that goes, yes, I just got the parking place in front of Target, you know, and it feels good, and it feels yummy, and all is well, or something really good happens.
And then there's that fierce grace where everything's dark, everything's black, you're laying on the floor, your arms behind your back, and you're screaming, Uncle, but there's something inside of you because somebody in one of these rooms has said something, and you're laying on that floor just hanging on to that very thin thread, that thin reed that says, yes, I can do this one more day. And that has been the story of my recovery.
The only reason that I am still here, it's because of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of phone calls that I have answered and that I have made of women that not only stood behind these podiums, but stood in the doorway, that stood at meetings, that talked not only about their messy drinking, but they talked about their messy recovery. It's the same women that I've talked to over thousands of gallons of bad AA coffee that talked not only about their messy drinking, but about their messy recovery.
You know, it is those women that have carried the message to me that when I thought I was
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absolutely losing my mind, they shared to me what alcoholism really is and that consumption of liquor was just a symptom of what was wrong with me and that my main problem centered right in my mind. And so what I have to do is I am the type of alcoholic that you just take alcohol out of my system, I don't get better. I get radically worse. And you see what happens. I can do that in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I can be at seven meetings a week. I can be reading how it works. I can be doing all these things that look like everything is going all great and graced and wonderful. And I can be sitting there and what happens if I'm not living in the daily disciplines that are outlined in our program of action, for me, this type of alcoholic, what happens to me is I slowly start to unravel and before I know it, sobriety becomes unbearable while taking up a seat in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And there's a thing that happens. You see, I was 10 years sober sitting in these meetings and this is why I am so radically honest behind the podium is because I was sitting there 10 years away from my last drink feeling all these feelings, considering taking my own life, thinking about all of these things and all I heard behind the podium was people saying, I got the hymn, I got the house, I got all the great stuff, I got my kids back, I got the Maserati, I got the job I always wanted, I got this and ain't sobriety great?
And I'm at home with a handgun thinking it's not so great for me. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I felt, I believed I was doing everything that you told me to do. I understand now that wasn't exactly the case. But what happened to me is that women carried the message to me and what they did is they've brought me real solutions that treat alcoholism of my type and that is the real service to me at this point in Alcoholics Anonymous.
The real service to me, if you hear nothing else, is not standing behind this podium. I truly believe in the power of this podium. I believe what happens behind here. But for me, the real service is at 3 o'clock in the morning when the phone rings and there's another suffering woman on the other end who is sincerely after a solution. Am I willing to suit up and show up then? It's back in my hometown where, you know, I've got some spons, I have sponsies and grandsponsies here tonight and Becky can attest to this back in Cushocton.
The only solution the women get almost in our town is don't drink no matter what and go to 90 meetings in 90 days. And we bury people way too often. And people will often, you'll hear them saying, oh, they just didn't want it bad enough. And can I offer for everyone's consideration, maybe they didn't have a sufficient substitute. And maybe they were an alcoholic of my type. And so for me, the real service for me in Alcoholics Anonymous is not behind this podium.
It's in my living room at a crazy little big book study that we did that is just the crazy as bunch of women. When they say you normally would not mix, they mean it, right? And it's like, it's the craziest bunch of women and we lovingly refer to ourselves as the wenches in the trenches because there is nowhere else, there's nowhere in Alcoholics Anonymous we're not willing to go. You know, and that wenches in the trenches, it's not a little clique.
It's not a little club. It's not a little thing. In fact, we are arms wide open. You say you want help, you say you want what we have, we're like, come here, baby. Come on in. You know, you get the newcomer that comes into the meeting and they're smelling of alcohol and they're all crazy, I'll tell you what, our job is to say, come here, baby, you sit over here by me. We don't shoot our wounded in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I just truly, I'm not sure which one of these waters is mine. I hope it's this one. What? But what I can tell you is that we are, like I said, we did steel on steel for a while. We've done all kinds of things. And what it does, it's opened us up and I just love the theme for tonight about being spiritually guided. And that's truly the way I think this thing works. I didn't always feel that way.
Alcoholism reared its ugly head for the first time when I was about four years old, according to family legend. And what happened was, my mom and dad gave my brother and I a little glass of cold duck champagne on Christmas Eve to knock us out so they could do what they needed to do. My brother, who was four years older, he drank that and he went into bed. Alcohol had the desired effect and he drank.
Alcohol had the desired effect and he dreamt of sugar plums all night long.
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Family legend states that little Christy appeared in the doorway approximately 17 times that night asking for more juice. So, was I born alcoholic? Did I become alcoholic? The evidence appears to be that maybe I came out of the chute that way, but I just don't know. But I started drinking at about 11 years old. I ran around with five other girls. They called us the six-pack, should have been a premonition.
But we would con some guy into buying us a six-pack of beer and we'd each get a beer. My girlfriends, they'd be having a normal reaction to alcohol. They'd be halfway through their beer, they'd be getting giggly, they'd be getting flirty. I would get this sense of ease and comfort that I couldn't describe then, but all I knew it was that, man, everything started unwinding. I started feeling okay. I started feeling good.
And then terror would zoom right in right after it, because I knew what was in that single can was going to run out. And so what I would do is there was a girlfriend of mine, and let's just say she was real friendly with the boys at an early age. And so I would run over to her and I'd be like, Jerry, honey, I said, you see Bobby over there in the corner? He thinks you're cute. And she would be like, ooh, yeah.
And then I'd run over to Bobby and I'd say, Bobby, you see Jerry over there? And he'd be like, yes, I do. And I'd say, she thinks you're cute. And then the two of them would hook up together and go into the closet and play seven minutes in heaven or whatever it was we did back in the 70s, and I'd drink the rest of their beer. So the truth is, at 11 years old, I'm pimping out my girlfriends for alcohol.
That's just who I am, and that's just what I do. And so then I would try and drink, and I just couldn't get enough. And what happened to me at 14, I had my first experience with as much alcohol as I could put into my system. And what happened to me that night is I found the higher power I didn't know I was even looking for. Because, you see, I'd always had that feeling that we hear people talk about all the time.
I always felt like I wasn't smart enough, rich enough, pretty enough, athletic enough, whatever it was I saw in you, I just couldn't measure up. And then there was this other voice that would always say, what do you mean you're not enough? You're too much. People are always telling you, you're too loud, you're too rowdy, you're too desperate, you're too needy, you're too emotional, you're too angry, you're too violent, you're too bitter.
And then what happened to me is I would walk into a room full of people like this, and I literally believed I could read your mind by looking in your eyes and I knew what you were thinking about me. And what you were thinking about me was never nice, right? But you didn't know that I knew what you were thinking about me because I'd walk into a room like this, hi, how's it going? What's happening? Yeah, isn't it great to be alive? Yeah, wow!
And it wasn't that there was anything happy, joyous, and free inside of me. It was that somewhere along the lines I got this crazy idea, if you saw how dark and how black and how broken it was inside of me, you'd recoil in horror and you'd run right out that door. And there was only one thing worse to me than being in a room with all of you and what you're thinking about me, and that was being in a room alone with me and what I'm thinking about me.
Because see, what you guys think about me might be mean, it might be hurtful, it might even be devastating, but what I think about me is deadly because that's what I'm going to act on. And at 14 years old I finally had as much alcohol as I could possibly put into my system and what happened that night was suddenly that not enough became just enough, that too much came right down to just enough, and that night for the first time ever I could look you straight in the eyes and I could care less what you thought about me.
And so what I did was I went on a 20-year pilgrimage to recapture the bliss that I felt in that very first night. And if you're an alcoholic of my type, you know exactly what happened. I never quite got there again. I would almost get to that feeling and I couldn't get there and I'd slide back and leave claw marks in everybody and everything around me. Or I'd zoom right through it into consequences.
I was that girl that drank, got drunk, threw up. Drank, got drunk, got locked up. Drank, got drunk, you know. Something was always happening. But you see, I didn't have a problem with any of that. The only problem that I had with alcohol is that it wore off because when alcohol wore off, all that madness in my head would start again. And so what I did was I started trying to search for something that would give me on a permanent basis what alcohol gave me on a temporary basis.
Every door that was marked no by society's standards, I'd run to it, I'd throw the door open, I'd jump in and try it. And absolutely nothing was doing it for me.
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Somewhere along the lines, I get this crazy idea that relationships would fix me. Now, you know, I don't know where I got that, right? You know, and I'm ripping and roaring through lives and I'm taking guys down by the age of 14 years old. It was a gift. You know, and it just, I'm like, I'm the girl that's running in, you know, I am drinking in these bars on Ohio State campus and I'm running out the back doors of them getting raided at 15 years old.
I'm doing whatever it is I need to do to get whatever it is I need to get. And so I start taking that same thing into relationships. And, you know, I had a lot of opportunities in my life, like a lot of alcoholics that are in here. When I was 17 years old, I wrote and actually had produced a public service campaign for PBS television. And I don't tell you that to say, oh, look how great I am. I tell you that to tell you what I did with that.
And what I find the most humorous about that, the public service campaign I wrote at 17 was called Think We, Not Me. Huh. Selfishness, self-centeredness is the root of my problem. I was already trying to find a solution to it from an outside source. And so what happened was I got this, and because of it, I got an internship at the largest advertising agency in the eastern half of the United States, and I would have been set for life.
And then I found out this internship was unpaid, and I turned it down for when the summer I graduated, when I was 17 years old, and I went back to the local discount store, rearranging plastic shoes, making about $2.20 an hour. And that's what I do when opportunities are given to me. When I was 18, I had a cousin that was a corporate attorney for Cincinnati Reds and Boeing Aircraft, and he said, Chris, why don't you come down to Cincinnati?
He said, the way you love to argue, you'd make a great attorney. I said, all right, well, that sounds like maybe that would be a plan. And so what I did was never quite made it into school in Cincinnati because I got down there and my cousin found out that I was a lot better at breaking the law than I was studying it, and he asked me to leave Cincinnati. You see, I get opportunities, and then I burn the structure right down around me.
But like I said, I was trying. I thought the right relationship would fix me. I had never been in the right relationship. I had never even witnessed the right relationship, right? You know, you shake my family tree and bottles fall out. It's like there are no happy marriages. There are not things going on like that. And so I just kept trying. And what I would do is I would hook up with different people, and by the time I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous at 33 years old, I had been married and divorced three times.
And when I got into Alcoholics Anonymous, I tried it one more time to see how bad I was at it, and I was early. There's a reason that they tell you not to get in a serious relationship early in sobriety. We don't have enough time to talk about that, but if you'd like to talk afterwards, all I can tell you is that I have come to believe we attract what we are, not what we want. And that's exactly what I did.
You know, my sick was attracted to his sick, and two sicks don't make a well. And I did find out, though, that I had been right all along. It would be the right relationship that would fix me. I just had the wrong partner. You see, through the work and the grace of women like are sitting in this room tonight, I found out that my number one partner had to be a power greater than human aid. But I'm still running through lives.
It took me a while to get to that point, and the last guy that I brought into my active alcoholic pit of insanity was a really successful businessman. You see, I bought society's lie that said, if you just get the hem and the house and the stuff and the cars, that'll fix what's broken inside of you. And you see, I could suit up and show up for a while. I could always do it for a while, and that's exactly what I did.
And we'd go to these business cocktail parties, and I'd do what I did tonight. You know, I'd try and put on a nice dress, do my hair, fix my makeup a little bit. I was still living under this illusion, like our book talks about, that I could drink like a normal person. I had absolutely no idea. I'm already dying of untreated alcoholism. Now, I'm no stranger to alcoholism. I grew up with it. My mother died from the DTs when I was four years sober.
But you see, the delusion, it's not the denial. I don't ever see the word denial in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's a delusion where I truly can't tell the true from the false. Growing up as a child, I would grab my mom's alcohol, pour it down the sink, cursing her, throwing fists at my own mother, and then go out and party with my friends because I was different. I was not the same as her.
I was not drinking like her. We were different.
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And that's how strong the delusion is for me. And so what happened was I got into this, and I'd show up at these business cocktail parties. I'm full of self-centered fear and self-pity. I can't sip and socialize like a normal person. And so the only thing I have to do, the only solution I have in my toolkit is what's behind the bar. And so I go over there, and I get a little plastic cup that somebody fills full of ice and waves their liquor bottle over the top of it.
The fumes that fall in, they call it a drink. And I have no other tool in my toolkit. So I put it up to my lips. It fumes into my system, and what happens is it kicks off an allergy that I don't even know. It kicks off a phenomenon of craving that I don't even know I have. And what happens is as soon as I get that into my system, it's like somebody threw a match on gasoline, and before I know it, I'm in the parking lot doing things with my husband's co-workers I shouldn't be doing to get what I need to get.
Or I'm in the basement of the venue doing things with his boss that I shouldn't be doing to get what I need to get. Or I leave the venue altogether. And one of the stories was I left the venue. We were at a hotel over in Columbus, and I met some people in a bar that had been down the street, and they just happened to have a tour bus, and I felt the need to get on it. And so three days later, I walk into the kitchen, and my husband is sitting there.
Now I understand sufficiently upset. I just lost something up here. That's what I'm doing. There it is. But I'm sufficiently upset. I find my husband, and I'm living under the delusion. Like I said, it's not denial. It's delusion. I walk in the kitchen. I'm like, what? I just ran into some friends. And he's sitting there amazed, and he can't understand how somebody can truly believe that. That's what's so hard to understand about us, because that doesn't make sense to a normal person.
You could have hooked me up to a lie detector that night. I would have passed. I truly believe the story I was telling. And then he took me to this one business cocktail party, and I was full of self-centered fear and self-pity, and had that little plastic cup in my hand and went like this, and I crushed it, and that was the night that I learned it's socially unacceptable at a business cocktail party when you crush a plastic cup and liquor runs down your arm when you go like this and lick it off.
I knew. Did you guys get that memo? I looked at my husband's face, and it was bright red. And that vein that you men have in your forehead that we women can make appear on a moment's notice, it was like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. It was like, bam, bam, bam. And I said my first ever sincere prayer that night, and it was, dear God, please let his head blow off, because I don't know how to get out of this.
That was the spiritual toolkit I brought to Alcoholics Anonymous. Let his head blow off. That was what I knew of prayer. Needless to say, I never got invited to another business cocktail party, but not only do I suffer from the illusion our book talks about, I suffer from the delusion our book talks about that says we can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if I just manage well. So I got home, and I'm like, okay, I got the hem, I got the house, I got the cars, I got the toys, I got the stuff we could possibly be missing, and all I could come up with was a child.
So that's exactly what I did was I got pregnant on purpose to fix what was broken inside of me, and I didn't know what that was. Now let me make sure you hear, I wanted that baby more than breathing. It wasn't that I set out to use a child. That was the only tools that I had. And I had seen several of you with babies, not women in Alcoholics Anonymous, but other women. And I thought, that's my solution, that's what will fix me.
And so I'm trying to go through that pregnancy and not drink. And as I told you, I'm that real alcoholic. I'm never unwilling to not drink. But man, can I be incapable without connection to the sufficient power to keep me from drinking. And so there were times during that pregnancy that I absolutely would fail, and I would just beat my head on the table wondering, how can I do this? I have everything society tells me I need to have to be okay.
I've got this baby now that I want more than anything in the face of the earth, and I don't know what's going on. And I eventually had that baby, and they laid him in my arms, and I expected to have that aha moment and the angels sing. Expected to have that aha moment and the angels sing in the skies part that I'd heard you all talk about and instead an absolute terror came over me because you see I had promised that little boy for nine months that he would not grow up the way that I did, that he would not go through the things that I had done and they put that little boy into my arms and I had never felt more powerless in my entire life and what I can tell you now that I couldn't put into words then was I had this guttural visceral feeling that said oh my
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god Chris a baby's shoulders are too tiny to carry the disease of alcoholism on much less a program of recovery what are you going to do now because you see I wanted to be a good mother I wanted to be a good mother above anything I hear it said in the rooms often and I used to say it myself that if you know better you'll do better I knew better I was incapable to do better I knew what a good mama looked like she took care of that baby that baby was number one she fed that baby she played with that baby I had watched all of you I wasn't unwilling I was incapable I went home with that little boy and I'm trying so hard to be this good mom and I'm trying so hard not to drink but I don't have a sufficient substitute and when I this little boy that I thought would work he's not a sufficient substitute you see I don't know it at that time but I am beyond human aid and so I'm just I'm losing my mind and what happens to me is when I don't have a sufficient substitute my character defects rule my life and I am I always say I'm like that little guy that used to be on the Verizon commercial that defected to sprint or somewhere like that you know and I'm like two feet behind you going can you hear me now can you hear me now can you hear me now can you hear me now can you hear me now can you hear me now I mean I am on you and you can't get away from me and when you don't meet my needs I don't back off I get more abrasive and I get more aggressive I step at you and I put demands on you and you can't meet my demands and so I spiral lower and lower and lower and I'm sinking lower and lower and learn I'm trying not to drink and I can't figure out what's wrong with me and I just must and what happened was the best that I can do without all of you as I got myself locked up in a psychiatric unit under a suicide watch with papers that said I was a threat to myself and all of society including that little boy that I brought into this world to fix me you see that's how well I do without all of you and that's why when somebody asked me to serve for Alcoholics Anonymous if at all possible I can do it I do now there are times when I can't there is a line in our big book that often isn't talked about that I think's really important especially for women to remember and there's a line that says a spiritual life that does not include one's family obligations might not be so perfect after all there are times when you need to be at the family reunion there are times when you need to be at the 95 year olds birthday there are times you know I have a beautiful little seven-year-old granddaughter that I will never miss one of her birthdays and people understand that you know that's okay but what was happening at this time is I'm just desperately trying not to drink and I'm tearing everything down around me and like I said I get locked up and they finally released me into my husband's care and he can't take living with me much longer because as I said my character defects are ruling my life I'm abrasive I'm aggressive I'm demanding I am just an absolute terror to be around and he leaves and my son that night he watches his dad pull out of the driveway and he watches his mom climb right back into the bottle I don't know if I had a conscious thought whether I was going to drink that night or not but if I would have it would have gone like this see I wasn't drinking and he still left obviously alcohol is not the problem he was and so what happened that night was I had got a couple bottles of wine I was looking for a little relief and instead what I got was a level of unmanageability such as I've never known because you see what I didn't know about alcoholism that is when it's left untreated even if we're not drinking it continues to grow I didn't pick up where I left off I picked up light years past where I had left off I had always been a ripper and a roar and a runner when I was out there drinking I was the party girl you know that just hey you want to go yes I do you know and I would just be gone and now I'm dragging this tiny little boy through the disease of alcoholism as well I'm starting out in my home bar in Kishocton Ohio and I'm coming to three days later in a tent in Pennsylvania and I'm really not sure where I last left my son I'm starting out in my home bar in Kishocton Ohio and I'm coming out of a blackout down on Ohio State campus and
[00:35:01]
I'm surrounded by guns and weapons and all kinds of illegal substances and I have absolutely no idea who the people are that I'm with and one more time I'm not sure where my son is and you see I would have told you when I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous that I was not a child abuser I am I left him with people he shouldn't be left with and I got this idea somewhere along the lines that okay a good mom like I said I'm always willing to be the right person the good person a good mom tucks her baby in bed and so my son's bedroom was on the second floor of our house and I would go to work if I could make it to work that day and I would go I'm not gonna drink today I'm not gonna drink today I'm not gonna drink today and by four o'clock in the afternoon I'd be like I'll just have a couple beers I'll just have a couple beers and by six o'clock I'd be I'll just have a 12-pack and by seven o'clock I'd be okay I just got to maintain until I can get him to sleep and then I can drink till I pass out and so I would be in the bag and I would grab him by the little hand and I would go to take him up the stairs to tuck him in bed and I was so unstable and so drunk and I would just pull him right back down those steps and I would try again and we'd just tumble right back down those steps you see the level of selfishness and self-centeredness when it comes to our children is mind-blowing and through the inventory process that is what led me to believe how powerless I am that those would have never been willing choices I would have never treated my child that way and you know there was one day we were out and I it was nine o'clock in the morning and I'm like okay good moms play ball with their kid and I have the last beer I dug out of the lettuce crisper in a cup because I don't want the neighbors to see me drinking right and my three-year-old boy threw the ball and knocked it over and what my son saw next was his mama scooping the dirt and the rocks and the filth off of that concrete stoop trying to get enough of that beer back into that cup and taking it up to my hands and shaking as if my life depended on it and what I know tonight ladies is it did because I was dying of untreated alcoholism and my son just watched that happen and then the day came where I had been partying all night long and the next morning and I needed more alcohol and I put my son in the car and we went to the beer wine stop on the other side of town and I came back and I went to crack a beer open and one more time I couldn't remember if I brought my child back an absolute panic ran through me and this time it was for more than one reason it was for several reasons the panic that ran through me was because I loved that child more than breathing and I couldn't believe one more time I had done this and also because his father had said Chris this is it if there's one more incident with you I'm taking him and you say I had long since quit caring about me but I still cared about that little boy and I knew somewhere down deep inside the only reason I was even still alive was that child and so I began running through the house and I'm running through the house and I'm screaming I'm yelling I'm tearing things down and I'm cussing and I'm breaking stuff and I'm screaming Lee Lee Lee where are you Lee are you here Lee are you here and I'm crying and I'm screaming and I run into the living room and there I see my son playing with his little Hot Wheels and he does this and goes back to playing you see it wasn't the bruises on his body that got me to call you it wasn't the look of terror on his face that got me to call you it wasn't the fact that many nights now I didn't have enough money because I couldn't make it to work to feed both him and this overwhelming craving to drink this absolute necessity to put the very substance into my body that I no longer even wanted to put in there what got me to call you was that that child looked up at me completely unaffected he had began to accept the unacceptable and that to me was unacceptable he was growing up exactly how I had promised him he wouldn't and I turned to the kitchen because you see I have no other solution so I turned to the kitchen to get that beer out of the fridge and I see a business camp card on my countertop and it was from a guy his name was Jerry Jay he had stopped me in broad daylight on Main Street and our little tiny town one day and he said Chris he said your skin is gray your eyes are yellow you're 30 pounds heavier than you were a year ago you're dying of chronic alcoholism and if you want some help I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and we can help you and he handed me his business card and on the front it had his name and phone number on the back it had the crisis hotline you see Jerry didn't wait for me to show up at his door he saw me and he
[00:40:05]
reached out his hand and that day I went to get that beer and I saw that business card on the kitchen counter that I had thrown in my alcoholic arrogance a few months before thinking what do I need this for delusion not denial incapable not unwilling and I looked at that business card and I looked at the fridge and I looked at my son the business card the fridge my son the business card the fridge my son the business card the fridge my son seemed like it went on for hours I was at that jumping-off point where I couldn't imagine a life with or without alcohol and you know what I didn't know what Jerry had to offer and I opened the fridge and I grabbed a beer and I poured half of it down and do you know what happened it gave me the courage to pick up the phone and use that number on the business card and that's another reason that when a woman walks into a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous or a man in my hometown smelling of alcohol I don't tell them to come back when they haven't been drinking I tell them to come in and to have a seat and we're glad they're there now if they're acting a fool like I did when I was drinking then I have a job I have responsibility to grab another person and walk him outside and get him the help that they need but I picked up the phone and I called Jerry and I said Jerry this is Chris and I think I need some help and he said are you ready to quit drinking I said Jerry I've tried to quit drinking for 20 years I can't quit drinking I want to quit suffering though and thank God that was enough for him thank God he did not expect me to have some false bravado that said yes I'll never drink again you see Jerry understood that I didn't know what you had to offer and he said well let me ask you two things sweetie he said when you're drinking can you control how much you take in I said all Jerry I never knew him how much I'm gonna drink I said I never even know where I'm gonna wind up I don't know what state I'm gonna come to in and he said okay he said what happens when you don't drink I said all I can think about is drinking he said welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous baby you just qualified for a seat in our rooms and Jerry 12 stepped me into my first meeting I loved absolutely loved what I saw and that wasn't that you're all happy joyous and free it was that there were about 30 people in the room and they all appeared to be men I was shopping for my next ex-husband at my first AA meeting and as I said I got him okay but the age of miracles is amongst us because he's a really good member of Alcoholics Anonymous now too and almost every Sunday morning we sit across the table from each other at a big book meeting every Sunday in our town but I walked into this meeting and I'm just like oh my gosh I'm just freaking out you know and then all of a sudden I see her and she's way up in front but she appears to be a hundred twelve years old so I wrote her off as competition right but she comes scurrying up to me and she's like hi I'm Mary Kay and I'll be your sponsor and I have no idea what a sponsor is but I'm afraid to ask cuz right I want you to like me that's more important than anything else right and then she says to me oh yes I'm so glad we're here God has done so much to save my life and I'm looking at her I'm thinking I'm so glad that's working for you honey and you've little blue haired thin-lipped organ player at the local Catholic Church I'm sure God's working for you but you don't know about me you know and then she starts talking about you know this program of action and I have absolutely no idea what she's talking about but I'm afraid to ask I know now that's no different than if we pull out of here tomorrow and I get shot in the chest in a drive-by shooting and I walk into the local ER with my hands over the bullet wound and I say to the triage nurse excuse me but I got a little scratch on my chest could somebody come take a look at it she's gonna go yeah go ahead and sit out in our waiting room and three hours later they're gonna find me bled out in their waiting room and is it their fault absolutely not I didn't tell them the true nature of my wounds and that's exactly what I started doing in AA I started taking fake it to you make it to an art form I became a spiritual parasite I would listen to what you said about your God at a meeting and I'd memorize it and then I'd spit it back at you at the next AA meeting I went down to the local Christian bookstore and got a greeting card with the Lord's Prayer on it and it was like at the end of the meetings I you could tell I could only memorize about one line a week I'd be like our Father who art in heaven oh yeah and then the next
[00:45:00]
And I just went, but I wanted so much to be a part of, but what I didn't understand then is I had, I have a disease that, I have an illness that is so deadly that it doesn't just require belief in God, it doesn't even just require faith in God, it requires a direct experience with God. And you see I wasn't telling anybody the truth. And so I am living from meeting to meeting to meeting because that's the only time that I can breathe.
I'm sitting on Friday nights surrounded by a hundred little old men that used to play cards at a local clubhouse and I would sit in the corner and I would just sit there for hours when I didn't have my son. And they would just walk by and look at me once in a while and I would just sit there because I was afraid to go home. I was afraid to be alone. And so I'm just losing my mind on what happened to me four years away from my last drink, like I said, take and fake it till you make it to an art form.
I found myself on my bedroom floor wrapped in a purple robe soaked in my own sweat, shaken worse than I'd ever shook coming off of any drunk with a handgun ready to eat a bullet. Because you see an alcoholic of my type without a sufficient substitute, quite often it doesn't matter whether you have four years sober, 15 years sober, or 50 years sober. What I have found to be true is that many of us commit the ultimate sacrifice and you can decide if that's whether you drink again or you take your own life.
I've seen it so many times. And luckily that Jerry guy one more time did not wait for me to call them. He noticed I had been missing from a few meetings and he had called me and that was before caller ID. And I'm laying there with a handgun, purple robe ready to end it and the phone rings. All I can tell you is divine grace caused me to reach out and go. And this is how I answer the phone in the middle of a suicide attempt.
Hello. Hi. And he's like, hi, this is Jerry and I'm like, hi, Jerry, how are you? And he's like, how you doing, Chris? And let me tell you, when they ask it that way, they already know. And so what happened was Jerry said, you know what, Chris, you've been missing from a few meetings. I'm glad I got you because there's a woman coming in from about 40 miles away and she's coming to pick you up and you're going to get real and you're going to get honest.
She's taking you to your first ever women's meeting. And she did. She came in, she picked me up. She went and I went to the women's meeting, vomited all over their table. They talked to me about things that I had never heard in the meetings that I was going to. Now the woman that was my first sponsor, beautiful, beautiful woman, but these women were talking about the program of action that was outlined in this book.
These women were talking about how they had started on the title page. These women were talking about how they, you know, when it asked a question, they would answer it and all these things. And I'm like, wow. And I took it back home. There were three other women that were suffering like I was in the rooms in my hometown by that time. I said, ladies, what do we have to lose? They say if we do everything it says in this book, we can have what they have.
And they were really happy. And so we got together for two, three, four hours at a time at each other's house and we'd open that book. It asked us a question. We'd answer it. It told us to pray. We prayed to a God that none of us were really sure we believed in. It told us to write. We wrote. And it told us to share. We shared. Now we had no idea what we were doing, but what my experience is, is when willingness and action come together, God's grace literally erupts.
Because that is almost 21 years ago and three out of the four of us have maintained continuous sobriety in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And we were the biggest bucket of sick you ever laid eyes on, so don't think you can't do it. There was literally a fist fight in my driveway one night over what it said in the book. So… But I started getting real active in Alcoholics Anonymous and I fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous.
I started running around, started doing all kinds of things. And about ten years away from my last drink, there was a guy that brought a big book study to a neighboring town about 20 miles from me and I had never gone through a Sunlight of the Spirit big book study. And so I started going to this thing and I absolutely fell in love with the book. I fell in love with all of you again and I fell in love with him.
So that is the guy who we lovingly refer to as Bobalicious back home. And so I got even more active then. I started running around. I started going to conferences. I had never been to conferences. I had never done things like that. And I went for the first time ever to a workshop at Lake Milton, Ohio. And there was a guy there and his name was Ed Mutum and he's in the big meeting in the sky now. And I remember I'm sitting there in this workshop and I'm looking at him and all of a sudden I'm seeing something.
And all I can tell you is it was a spiritual experience because what I see is I'm looking directly in his eyes and I'm seeing God. Now I know it's God.
[00:50:00]
And I had told this lady just a few years before I can't believe in things I can't see. And all of a sudden I'm seeing it and I start to cry and I'm not a pretty crier, okay. I got snot bubbles pouring out of my nose, you know. My son calls me the hyena crier, I'm like, you know, and I go running up to him and I'm like, Ed, I see God in you, I see God in you. And he wrapped his big giant hands around my little tiny ones and he said, Chris, the only thing you see in me is a direct reflection of what already lives in you.
And right then that hole that was where my soul belonged, the wind blew through, I had a spiritual experience. I not only felt a sensation but I heard a sound that went, whoosh, and I felt something in my chest close up. And it has never opened again all the way. And I would love to tell you it's never opened at all but that would not be the truth. You see, I started getting really active in Alcoholics Anonymous.
I'm going all over the place. I'm going everywhere. I'm, you know, speaking, I'm sharing, I'm serving, I'm sponsoring, I'm doing everything. And imagine my dismay when at about 16 years sober all of a sudden I'm starting to find myself in collision with everyone and everything around me. And I'm an active member in Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm carrying the message. I'm trying to do everything right and I can't figure out what's going on.
I got the perfect him. I got the perfect house. I got the perfect job. Now granted the job I'm not qualified for at all, okay, I am a high school graduate that doesn't know a dandelion from a daisy and I am now because I interview so well and I interviewed while in untreated alcoholism. I am now the director of a non-profit botanical garden. That's how well I can BS when I'm in that space, okay. And you know what I can tell you tonight, you can ask this row of girls, right, back here what you see is what you get now out of me.
I am very real, very raw, very honest. But so what happens to me is I start to unravel and so I think, okay, all right, I know what this is. I just need more God. I just need to do a better 11th step. That's all it can be, you know. See, you don't have to convince me I have a problem. I know I have a problem. Things are going rough. They aren't going well. You have to convince me I don't have a solution at this point in my sobriety.
And so I'm running around so what I do is I start taking spiritual trainings because that's what I need. I need more God, right. Now they're not just regular spiritual trainings. They're spiritual teacher trainings because once I get done I can come back and share with all of you, right. That is that reemergence of ego that starts coming back. And so what I can tell you is at 17 years sober, I became mentally, emotionally, physically, and financially and spiritually bankrupt.
I spent 100% of my meager life savings on spiritual studies and I found myself one more time on the bedroom floor face down wondering what's wrong with me, what could possibly be happening. And I can't figure out what's wrong. And so what happened was Bob, God bless him, he came home one day and he had this set of CDs in his hand and he said, here Chris, you know, like somebody's going to bite you.
He was like, you might want to listen to these, you know. And I'm in that lovely place of untreated alcoholism. I'm like, why, what, what's on there, you know. And he's like, really, you might want to hear this. So I threw him on the counter one more time and then the day I was in enough pain again I stuck him in. And what happened, it was a woman named Katie Parker from Austin, Texas. And all of a sudden on this set of CDs and I am 17 years sober at this point, she gets on the CD and she says, when I was 17 years sober, I was dying of untreated alcoholism in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.
She began to talk about living in the bedevilments. Her words jumped off the CD and right into my heart. She began talking about having problems in personal relationships, couldn't make a living, prayed to misery and depression, all the things that I was going through. You see, I'm trying to fix this, what I think is an 11th step problem. You know, and I'm thinking if I just buy one more purple scarf at TJ Maxx or another Buddhist statue, everything's going to be okay.
And now this woman is on this CD and all of a sudden I hear her talking about the third step in a way I had never heard. And I get this gut punch that says, oh my God, Chris, you don't have an 11th step issue. You have a third step issue. You don't need more God. God is always God. God is always big enough. You need less, Chris. And then I realized, okay, maybe you don't have a, you have, you don't have an 11th step
[00:55:05]
issue, you have a third step issue. And then I realized it was hiding behind 12th step commitments that made me look like everything was okay that was completely masking a level of unmanageability such as I had never known. And here I am one more time, 17 years sober, back at step one wondering how I got here. And what I can tell you is I did what you had taught me in the very beginning. I became willing to go to any lengths.
I picked up the phone and called a people, a couple people in AA and we are better than the FBI when it comes to finding somebody. I'm like, hey, I need this Katie P's phone number in Austin, Texas. Within about 60 seconds, I had her home phone number, her cell phone number, her husband's cell phone number, and this other cell phone number that we're really not sure who that belonged to. So, and so the first day I call her, I'm like, hi, Katie, this is Chris.
I know we've never met him from Ohio, but I'd really like to talk to you. And she didn't call me back the next day, so I called her. Hi, Katie, this is Chris from Ohio, I'd really like to talk to you, thank you. Day three, hi, Katie, this is Chris again, I would really like to talk to you. She claims by day seven of me stalker calling her, it sounded like this, Katie, this is Chris from Ohio and I'm going to die if you don't call me back.
Now I don't know if I sounded like that, but she was the really, you know, sober one at the time, so it's quite possible. And then on day eight, she calls me back and she says, hi, Chris, this is Katie B. Parker, I got all your calls. I just want you to know, honey, I was out of the country and didn't have cell service. And she said, I knew one of two things, you were either as desperate as the dying could be or you were bat crap crazy and I figured one phone call, we could figure that out, let's talk.
And so that's exactly what we did. I was desperate enough, I was not offended. And so that's exactly what I did, what we did and what I can tell you to speed that up is that in a very short time in less than 30 days, long distance from Kishocton, Ohio to Austin, Texas, we went through all 12 steps. And at 17 and a half years for the first time ever, I was 100% current on my amends, I did everything she told me to do.
There were times when I took my lunch break at 9.30 in the morning because that was the only time that she could talk and I had a flexible schedule right then. There was a time where the only time she could talk was 11 o'clock Texas time which was midnight Ohio time. I went to bed at 8 o'clock, set my alarm for three hours so I could get some sleep, got up and did the work that she wanted me to do.
And what I can tell you is what happened to me at the end of that was I had a spiritual awakening such as I had never known. I was rocketed into that fourth dimension of existence that I thought you guys all lied about and I got lit up and all of the sudden my relationships all began to heal, everything beautiful started happening and I got on fire. But it was on fire for a whole another reason, it had nothing to do with me looking good, with me being somebody in Alcoholics Anonymous, with me, I knew I finally had a message of depth and weight and had been given the power to help.
And I grabbed that just on fire torch. I am not the God, I am not the healer, I don't sober up anybody in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, my only job is to either stand by the door or if that woman is down deep in that dark hole where she can't even see the sunlight of the spirit, my job is to take that torch, climb down in with her in one step at a time, help walk her out. And I have been blessed beyond my wildest dreams.
Are we doing okay on time guys? Okay, I thought we were, I'll get it wrapped up here soon. But I have been blessed beyond my wildest dreams since that time. But what I can tell you is that I take the spiritual disciplines of Alcoholics Anonymous at a whole different way now. There I do not go a day without living in the spiritual disciplines of Alcoholics Anonymous, especially 10, 11, and 12, because Katie got me so current and she taught me how to do a step 10 in a way I had never known, nobody had ever explained that to me, and I stay consistently constantly current with this woman.
As I said, I am more strongly sponsored now than I have ever been. And the blessings started piling on my life, things started just becoming amazing. And the job that I wasn't qualified for at all, I was sitting on that job on a Tuesday afternoon and got a phone call from one of the local schools, which is what I had done before, and it was the principal and he said, what are you doing Chris? And it was the principal and he said, what are you doing, Chris?
I said, well, I'm at work. And he said, can you come see me? I said, no, I have a guy in the woods with a chainsaw. I can't come right now. And he said, well, how about tomorrow afternoon? I said, well, can I ask why?
[01:00:00]
And he goes, I'd like to offer you a job. I had never met the man. And I wound up getting a job back in the field that I had left when I was happily and usefully whole. And what I can tell you is my life doesn't look perfect. I want you to know I am happier, more joyous, and more free than I have ever been. But that does not equate with perfect. Do I deserve this life? I don't know if I do. My book says that God wants me to be happy, joyous, and free.
So I believe I do. But what I know for a fact is my father deserved the daughter that he got before he passed. My son deserved the mother that all of you have turned me into. My employer deserves the employee that they got. My sponsees deserve the sponsor that they get. And Bob Alicious deserves the partner that he gets. You guys, what you have done through the process of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, you have turned me into a woman that on some days I don't even recognize.
But does that mean I'm perfect? Absolutely not. But what I have learned is that my mistakes become my lessons. My lessons become my experience. My experience becomes my strength. And if I share that strength with you, either from behind this podium or one on one over a cup of coffee, then maybe it might just become your hope. And is that not why we're all here tonight? It's just for a little bit more hope.
And I try and practice these principles in all my affairs and carry this message to other suffering alcoholics. And I'm going to finish up with just a couple of things on that 12th step. What I have learned, too, is that sometimes the best 12th step that I can do is just a good 11th step. You may reject my suggestions. You may even refuse my love. But what I know for an absolute fact is you are defenseless against my prayers.
And that's one of the reasons I try and look around the room. Because I want to see each and every face. Because when I go back tonight and hit my knees, that's when you'll get the best that Chris C. has to offer, is when I'm one on one alone with my creator. And I am in prayer for everyone. And I try and practice these principles in all of my affairs. And part of that was with my father. And he had been harmed the most by my alcoholism.
And so one of the things that I tried to do is I had found out he had been the youngest of four children. He had never had a birthday party. And he grew up in the Depression. And so every year on his birthday, I would try and do something nice for him. And this one year, one of you people asked me to come share on his birthday. And I said, you know, I don't know if I can do that or not. Let me ask dad first.
And he's in early stages Alzheimer's. So let me make sure that it's OK with him. And so that's exactly what I did, was I called dad on a lucid day. I said, daddy, somebody wants me to go share on your birthday. What do you want me to do? And without missing a beat, my dad said, how about dinner and a meeting, honey? I said, all right. That's what we'll do. And you see, the people at that meeting had read the same big book that I read.
One woman there knew that my dad had never had a birthday party. And we walked into that meeting. And you guys had made a sheet cake for my dad this big that said, happy birthday, Phil. You all had pointy little birthday hats on. There were birthday cups, birthday plates, birthday napkins. And my 90-year-old dad walked in and went, oh! He was five again. It was that birthday party he had never had.
And I was just overwhelmed. And my heart busted open. I'm like, oh my god, I can hardly take this. And then it happened. I don't know what it is about alcoholic women and really old men. But you all start coming up to him in your too-tight blue jeans and your low-cut shirts. And you start slithering around my 90-year-old father, wrapping your bodies around him, going, happy birthday, Phil. And here's my dad.
And I'm in the corner going, ugh, ugh, ugh. Because is there nothing worse than thinking about your parent that way, right? Yeah. And so luckily, it was time for the meeting. So I go up there and I speak. And I come back down. And my dad, the woman walks up to my dad. And she says, so, Phil, what do you think of your shiny little penny now? And my dad, without missing a beat, says, Penny, hell, that girl's a quarter.
And I'm like, yes! Because I knew how much a quarter was worth in the Depression. And then I'm going to fast forward to two years later. My dad had lost his battle with Alzheimer's. He had crossed over to the great mystery. And I'm sitting in my home group. And I'm sad because I'm a human being. And I'm missing my dad. You see, it's his birthday. And the tears are coming down my face. But I've got some peace because all of you have turned me into a spiritual being.
And I kicked my shoes off during the meeting. And I got to slide my shoes back on. And I feel something in the toe of my shoe. Now, the way my mind works, it doesn't say, oh, there's a pebble in your shoe, Chris. My mind says, oh my god, there's a poisonous spider
[01:05:00]
in the bottom of your shoe. It's going to bite your foot. You're going to die on your dad's birthday. And you guys told me, don't listen to that voice, that she lies. And so instead, I pick up my shoe. And I reach in. And what I pull out two years to the exact day, two years to the exact hour, and quite possibly two years to the exact minute was this. And it was the shiniest quarter I had ever seen.
And you can come up with how it got off the AA table, under the table, end of the toe of my pointed shoe. But I know exactly how it got there. It got there through the grace and the power of a loving God that when I first walked in here to Alcoholics Anonymous, there was absolutely nothing any one of you could do to convince me that that God existed. And a few short 24 hours later, there's absolutely nothing you could do to convince me that God doesn't exist.
So thank you, Alcoholics Anonymous. I not only owe you my life, I owe you everyone's life that I care about. And there are a couple people about 700 miles west from here that I care dearly for. And one of them is a little blue-eyed blonde. And she is my seven-year-old granddaughter. And my son always says, mama, it's bad enough that she looks like you, but does she have to act like you? So I would like to ask you and Alcoholics Anonymous to please save that little blue-eyed blonde a seat.
Please keep Alcoholics Anonymous as strong and powerful and beautiful it is it is. And please keep women's events like this going so that when she walks into AA, it doesn't take her 17 years to find the power and the message that I have finally found in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank you for letting me be here. Thank you. Thank you.