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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Hi everybody. My name is Chris.

I am an alcoholic. >> It's always a pleasure and an honor to be asked to do something like an acts of recovery. Um, a lot of enthusiastic people show up at these events and enthusiasm is something that is a it's a grand quality to have when you're uh when you're struggling your way into recovery.

Uh, enthusiasm can keep you going. Uh, get you through the rough spots. Want to thank the other uh the other speakers.

Uh, I I related so much to to all of them. I'm going to have to I'm going to have to sound redundant because there's so many similar experiences that I've had. But my uh my topic today is being rocketed into the fourth dimension.

Uh for me to cover that, I'm going to have to talk about the three Chris dimensions that I was in prior to to being rocketed into the fourth dimension. And they they they became quite grim uh toward the end. Um, like I said, I I am an I am an alcoholic.

Um, my first drink, I went into a blackout. Uh, I trashed the house as I was about 12. And I experienced the things that you experience uh when you're alcoholic and you drink.

I experienced the phenomenon of craving, which is uh when when you put one drink in your body, it asks for the second drink and the second drink demands the third and the third insists on the fourth. Uh, that's what happened to me the first time I started to drink. And I got to tell you, that's not what was happening to the two guys I was drinking with.

They could have, you know, one and a half and they were fine. Uh, that's that was never my experience. Um, they also didn't go into a blackout uh like I did.

So, from the very very get-go, I had uh I had an abnormal reaction to alcohol. But there was something that it did for me. Uh, you know, I wanna I want to go back a little bit because this is this is one of the Chris dimensions.

Uh, which is, uh, I'll tell you a little story. Uh, one of the first memories that I can really remember that's indelibly etched into my mind is the day my mother came up to me and said, uh, get your stuff together. It's first day of kindergarten.

Okay. And I'm like, what? you know, she says like, "You're I'm taking you in the car across town.

You're going to kindergarten." You know, I'm a little confused about all this stuff. But I get in the car and she drives me across town and I I can remember this like it was yesterday. She parks on the top of this hill and down the hill toward the bottom of the hill was a school and there's all these kids playing kickball and tag.

They're all running around. They're already friends and everything, right? She lets me out of the car, closes the door, drives away.

And I'm standing there up on the hill looking down the hill feeling like a dick. You know what I mean? Like like I'm I'm like, you know, what if they don't like me?

You know, what if I do something stupid? Uh, you know, what if they make fun of me? And, you know, I mean, just just horrible anxiety and self-centered fear.

And, you know, obviously there's something wrong with me because they're all they're all friends already and everything, right? So, I know there's something wrong with me. So, so I go u I go I know I know I just have to do it.

I I gotta I gotta pull myself together. I gotta be cool, you know. I gotta go do the kindergarten thing.

And so, you know, I walked down the hill and and I and I started uh I started the the kindergarten thing, you know, with all that anxiety and that self-centered fear. Can I can I tell you what would have really helped? A pint of vodka.

You know what I mean? A pint of vodka. I'd have been I'd have been doing that kindergarten stuff, you know?

I'd have been the kindergarten kid. Oh, I'd have been the funniest kid. And you know, you know what I mean?

Cuz that's what that's what alcohol did for me. My problem was I didn't have any alcohol and the drinking age was at that time was 21. Okay, I was five.

That was a big problem. I because I couldn't get I couldn't get any alcohol. So, so I went through like the next like seven years of school with that same self-centered fear, that same like like you know like I was afraid to do oral reports in front of the class, you know, I was always just just burdened with the this this overwhelming uh worry about what you're going to think about me, you know.

And then I discovered alcohol that day with my two buddies and I went into the black blackout and I learned about projectile vomiting and and and I you know I woke up in a field not knowing how I got there now and I was ill. You know that first real drunk where you just you're you poison yourself and you you have to stay horizontal for like 48 hours and and you know that's what I did. But but let me tell you the you know I slowly started to forget how ill it had made me.

But I very very distinctly remember and was able to hold on to the memory of what the alcohol did for me. It got rid of that fear that self-conscious always just you know just anxious all the time. I was never comfortable with myself or my environment.

I just never was. And for the first time in my life after like drink number two, I was good, you know. I mean, I could step out and I had no problems.

So, from that moment forward, um, I started to become preoccupied with alcohol. started to become preoccupied with where I was going to get it, you know, uh uh where I was going to drink it, who I was going to drink it with, where was the money coming from, what was it going to be, you know, and I got real real preoccupied with that. And I didn't become a daily drinker at age 12, but I became a weekend drinker.

And you know, slowly the weekends would uh you know, you'd do a Wednesday here and there and then a Tuesday and a Monday and a Thursday. And and you know that happened slowly over the course of time. But I I started to use alcohol with a very very specific purpose.

The purpose was to improve my spiritual condition, my emotional condition. I was not okay. Okay?

I was not okay. I was holding it together because you had to be cool, but I was not okay. And when I drank for brief periods of time, I I was okay.

So I was using it strategically. Now what you know what happened was um alcoholism I guess like recovery can be can be aggressive and quick or it can it can be slow. It can be the of the educational variety or you know uh and what happened with me was I drank for about 20 years.

You know, I love it when uh when when people come up and and talk about uh being able to get into Alcoholics, Alcoholics Anonymous at a at an early age. I would have qualified for a AA at 12 because I showed all the signs of alcoholism, the blackout, you know, the preoccupation, the phenomenon of craving. But you how do you know how do you know what you don't know?

How you know h I I I was stubborn. I was irresponsible, you know. I was emotionally sensitive.

I I didn't like authority. If somebody told me to go left, I'd automatically go right. Even if there was a cliff there, you know what I mean?

I It was It was just something that I just didn't want any advice. No, you know, it's okay. I got it.

You know, so so I held on. I held on like an idiot for like 20 years. And you got to understand the first time I drank at age 12, I went into a blackout and it got worse after that.

You know what I mean? My drinking get because over any considerable period of time, uh, you know, your drinking will get worse. Your alcoholism will get worse.

It's not going to get better. And so, you know, I I was stumbling my way through through school. And I come from I come from a period of time where uh uh it was the late 60s, early 70s when I was starting to drink.

So, you know, there was there was a lot of, you know, non-conference approved substances around. Uh, and uh and and I parttook. I will I'll let you know that.

You know, you could have a pill in your hand and I'd grab it and I'd eat it and then I'd go, "What was that?" You know, could have been a birth control pill or something. You know what I mean? I just didn't care.

I, you know, I WANTED OUT. I WANTED OUT. You know what I MEAN?

I'M CHECKING OUT. THIS IS JUST TOO THIS IS TOO MUCH. the sobriety stuff, it's untenable.

And uh and I would do I would do whatever you could do. You know, I remember the I remember the quaude epidemic of 1972 in my in my in my school. This guy brings in a big sack a roar 714 quaudes.

If anybody doesn't know what they are, you take a quaude, it's like drinking two six packs of beer in 5 seconds, you know. So this guy brings this big sack of quaudes in. And you know, he had got them way late the night before.

He he'd never done them. And so we we go, "Oh, quaudes. Great.

You know what are they and how many do you take?" And the guy goes, "I don't know, three or four." So So before first period, about 50 of us ate like three or four quaudes before school. I'll just put it this way. The ambulance was back and forth all day long.

And um and it got to third period and I was walking down the hall hanging on to the lockers. And I and I figured, you know, I got to I GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE. I'M GOING TO MAKE A BREAK FOR IT.

RIGHT. So So I see the exit sign and I start heading for it and and I bust through the doors and I start heading for the woods. Okay.

Now, not not really thinking that the whole 400 win can watch me out the windows of their classrooms. And they ca, you know, they came up to me the the next day and they said, "Chris, it was absolutely hysterical watching, you know, it took you it took you it took you something like five minutes to go 100 yards." You know, I was like I mean I really I thought I was hauling ass, too. Uh, another thing another thing I did with another thing I did with quite with a with a with a degree of regularity was was total cars.

Uh, I totaled nine cars in drunken blackouts. I've been thrown out the front window, the passenger window. I even came out I even came through laying on the trunk of of the car I was driving one time.

I've been thrown through the back window. That was that was crazy. The car spun around, hit a bridge abutman, and I was thrown out.

I I'm looking up at the stars, you know, and like, WHOA, you know, this isn't good. And uh and what do you do? You know, like when what's the first reaction if you're an alcoholic?

I'm going home, right? I'm going home. SO I GET BACK in the car.

It's got three flat tires. There's not a window left in it. It's bent like a boomerang.

Okay. And the drive shaft is flapping the frame. So I'm h, you know, I'M GOING GO WHACKA BAM, WHACKING A BAM.

Like about 2 miles an hour and I go right by a cop taking radar. Okay. much to his consternation.

>> He didn't even have to pull me over. He like walked me over, you know, and uh he reaches through the window and he starts SHAKING ME LIKE, "WHERE DID YOU HAVE THAT ACCIDENT?" I'M LIKE, "WHAT ACCIDENT, OFFICER? GLASSES FLYING OUT OF my hair like cops are always hassling me." And he goes, "Uh" he goes, "Where you going?" I GO, "I'M GOING HOME." HE GOES, "WELL, WHERE'S HOME?" I go, "Basking Ridge." He goes, "THAT'S 28 MILES.

ARE YOU NUTS? You got no tires." You know, so once more, I get hassled by the cops and uh and I That's That was my That was my first uh DWI. Let me skip to my last DWI.

Okay, you're going to love this. Supposedly, I cross a double yellow. You know how that is, right?

Uh supposedly I cross the double yellow and I get pulled over and you know I roll down a window and the and the cop goes license, registration, insurance card. So I'm reaching over into the glove compartment. I'm I'm toasted.

Okay, I'm as drunk as a goat and I'm you know and it's it's just you know I'm fumbling like five minutes, right? Finally I just give up and I scoop up the entire contents of the glove box and you hand it to the cop. There's like maps and homes and you know tissues and a flashlight was in there, you know, and uh remember I told you cops were always hassling me, right?

So So he he he you know he he does some sobriety thing like he looks in my eyes and you know they're they like don't even move or something. So he takes me to the police station to do the the sobriety test stuff. Has anyone in here ever been filmed, you know, while doing a sobriety test?

Okay. Yeah. You know, listen, don't ever watch those.

Okay. I'm warning you right now. You're going to need therapy if you do.

You know, the next morning, hazy recollection. You remember hazy recollections of certain things? I I go, you know, I nailed the ABCs in that test.

I'm going to hire a lawyer and I'm going to fight this. So, that's what I did. I hired I hired a $1,500 lawyer, real high price lawyer for, you know, 1983 or whatever.

Hire this lawyer and uh we're going to fight this, right? So, the first thing we do is we go to the police station to to, you know, watch the video. We need to we need to check this out.

And the cop that gave the video to the lawyer was sniggering. He's like, that was not a good sign. uh you know they must have been watching it during break you know for like the last six months you know this like it's like a bad Jerry Springer episode but but anyway we put we he puts it in he puts it in the and all of a sudden the TV lights up and there I am.

I was horrified. Okay. I mean if you've ever seen yourself that you know you're it's it's disturbing to see yourself in that in that kind of a state.

And we get, you know, we we get to the ABCs. And I did nail the ABCs. You know how I nailed them?

Like this. A I'm going. Now, this whole time, the $1,500 lawyer is, you know, he's very, very professional.

Okay. He's he's, you know, professional. And And there's parts in it where I'm hanging on to the wall while I'm I'm walking the line.

You know, they make you walk. I'm hanging on to the wall. You know, I It's just horrible.

I'm asking for a cigarette every two. It's just it's just pathetic. You know, it's pathetic.

And you know, I'm like this. And but but here's the worst part. They they get to the end of all these tests.

They they've made their point. Okay. And um and they go, "Mr.

Shredder, we're going to we're going to turn the camera off. Is there anything you'd like to add before we turn the camera off?" And and you know, I'm a little concerned. And uh and sure enough, I look right over at the CAMERA AND I GO LIKE THIS, RIGHT?

The attorney the attorney drops to the floor in hysterics. He's like, I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THAT. IF WE HAD ANY CHANCE OF BEATING THIS, YOU BLEW IT.

I walked for 4 years on that one. You know what I mean? I was expecting Jetson mobiles when I got my license back.

But uh you know these are all the problems and you know I had problem I had problems with work. Uh anybody anybody ever have any problems with work? Your boss being a jerk?

You know how many people in here don't have bosses that are jerks? You know I mean you know it's typical. Uh I I just I came to I come from a really smart family.

My brother and sister are five are both college professor PhDs. My mother and father are five beta kappa. I graduated the second stupidest kid in in high school.

I was really preoccupied with things, you know. I was busy. I would take Wednesdays off, you know, just to break up the week.

The teacher go, "Where's Chris?" And somebody would go, "It's Wednesday." Oh, that's right. It's his day off. You know, so I wasn't applying myself, you know.

Did anybody ever tell you you had a lot of potential? You know, I'm one of the potential crowd. Uh but anyway, you know, I I went to college, you know, I had I had I had these great plans.

Anybody a good starter in here? All right, I'll give you a for I always started really well, man. I was cooking and somewhere along the line, you know, I would lose emphasis to continue with the project.

You know, I would, you know, change my mind or something. I took guitar, you know, I'm going to learn the guitar. I took three guitar lessons.

I'm going to join the Boy Scouts. I went on one camp out. Okay.

I went to college for six years. I got four credits. You know, it was just like I just, you know, I'd get to a point where I don't want to do that anymore, you know?

And so I ended up somewhere along the line becoming an electrician. And um and I was a bad one. Okay.

Uh I I electrocuted myself practically every day. It was really it was my hair sticking out. And you know, I would do I would do really bad.

You know, I'd miscalculate where to drill down in somebody's house. I remember one time, you know, I had to go down, you know, my drill got caught and there was stuff on the end of the bed. I had to go downstairs, the homeowner, and have him open up his his master bedroom closet.

There was like 20 suits all covered with plaster. One of them coiled up into the ceiling, you know, where I caught it. Oh.

Another time I This is This is so bizarre, but I swear to God it's true. I I'm I'm working in a department store. This place is called Epstein's.

It's like a Macy's or something. And we're doing the computer cash registers. So what I had to do is I had to loop data cable between cash registers.

And right out in the middle of the floor in these places are cash registers. So I'd have to drill into the floor with these with this big drill with the big augur bit. And then I'd have to climb in the ceiling and pull cable.

Well, this one day I'm doing the cash register in the lingerie section. Okay, now I'm preoccupied a little bit. You know, it's just an interesting place to be working.

And um and all of a sudden, the drill catches on a metal beam after it goes through the floor. And it's one of those old like 12 horsepower big silver drills with the bar handles with the locking trigger. You remember those?

They're like illegal now. But you know, that's what they gave. And and the trigger lock I I bear down on it when it catches.

The trigger locks and it spins me around like this. It it literally ties me up in the cord and then rips the pants right off my ass and and it finally unplugs from the wall and I'm tied to the drill with no pants going like this in the lingerie section. Okay.

Which is an issue when you have to be really cool like me, you know, and got to really stretch to to do that in that situation, you know. I mean, time and time again there there bad bad things would happen. Now, you know, I had lost a family.

I'd lost my driver's license a whole number of times. I'd lost so many jobs. You know, it's ridiculous how many careers uh I, you know, how many careers I started.

I had very few friends left. The the friends that were still with me toward the end of my drinking didn't really even have names. They were they were like they were like Greenman and Weezer, you know, they they had like they had like aliases, you know, uh and uh you know, they were all they were all dope fiend, you know, alcoholic type of friends who were, you know, really bad.

My my last my last girlfriend when I when I was drinking, I met during a prison pen pal thing that somebody had talked me into. And listen, I'm not recommending this if you're new or just coming back and and you you're lonely, you know. This uh this this did not work for me.

Uh she was like a career criminal, you know, like like do you know what what what what sociopaths are? They're people that have absolutely no remorse or guilt or or any kind, you know, they just they're just like, you know, they just can do anything and it just doesn't matter. and and I you know I end I end up moving her back up to New Jersey to live with me and mom.

Okay. Ah she always wanted to be armed, you know. I mean this was really a bad move on on on my part, you know.

It was uh it didn't didn't go well. I mean, you know, so like like like my love life is not I mean if you look at the quality of my like the the quality of my life was in the toilet toward the end the last couple years of my drinking. Here's what here's what it would look like.

I would come through in the morning wearing the clothes that I had passed out in the night before, you know, I'd go and I was a smoker, too, you So, I'd go into the bathroom and do my vomiting calisthetics, you know, and, you know, brush my teeth and then, you know, get out in the car and, you know, DRIVE TO WORK SHATTERED BECAUSE if you drink like a like a quart of whiskey or vodka, you know, the next day you're like you're ringing. You know, you're you're you're like, you know, a geer counter would go off next to you. You know, you're just like and and and I and I drive off to work.

NOW, IF I'D GET pulled over, I hadn't had a drink since like 8:00 the night before, I'd still get a DWI because it's coming out of my pores. It's coming out of my pores. You know what I mean?

So, I'd get to work and I'd had a bad electrical job, you know? And I'd go up to the boss. I go and and he'd go he go, "Oh, I want you to go here AND DO THIS AND HERE AND do that and here and do that." All right.

I you know, I get in the truck. I'd get out of his driveway and I would have completely forgotten what the hell he told me to do, you know, and so I'd have to drive back in. WHAT WHAT ARE YOU DOING BACK HERE?

Uh what what do you want me to do again? YOU KNOW, GOD DAMN IT. I TOLD YOU TO WRITE THINGS DOWN.

HE'D LIKE YELL AT ME. AND LIKE this whole time, this whole time I would be swearing to God, I'm never going to drink again. You remember making those promises to yourself?

I never want to feel this bad again. I never want to feel like this again. I'm like poisoned.

I'm shattered. I can't go on like this. Today, today is the day I am going to quit drinking.

I'm not drinking today. Okay. Now, the thing is I, you know, I really meant it at like 9 in the morning.

If you would have put a lie detector on me, you know, the guy the the guy doing the polygraph would have said, "This kid's never drinking again. You're you're good." Because because I meant it, you know. But here's what would happen.

I I'd rehydrate. You know, you know how you'd have to get about a half a gallon of of uh liquid down to to rehydrate? I'd get maybe half a sandwich down at lunch and I'd start to think, you know, that position I took earlier this morning on never drinking again, that's a pretty strong position.

Never ever drinking again. That might need to be modified. And by 3:00, 3:30, you know, four o'clock is quitting time.

I will have I will have modified that decision into going and buying a quart of vodka on the way home from work. I would get home. I I I'd buy it, you know, and listen, when I showed up in front of the guy in front of the liquor store clerk, it might as well I might as well have been saying this, "HEY, HURRY UP.

HURRY UP, YOU KNOW, RING ME UP. RING ME UP. I'M SOBER.

I'M SOBER. YOU KNOW, I I I NEED HELP WITH THIS. YOU KNOW, WILL YOU HURRY UP?

THIS IS HORRIBLE. THIS IS HORRIBLE. I I NEED TO GET THAT I NEED TO GET HOME.

I NEED TO START DRINKING, YOU KNOW. GET MRS. MCGILLICUY THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY WITH HER WITH HER GODDAMN WHITE WINE.

YOU KNOW, HURRY IT UP. I mean, you know, THIS IS WHAT THIS IS WHAT I'm thinking. And as soon as I get home, as soon as I crack the top off of it, it's like this.

You know that feeling? Like, okay. All right.

And I I had I had these like 24 ouncez glasses. I throw some icingoop and I take a little bit of coke like this, you know, and I just start drinking. And literally I was I I was drinking to overcome an obsession.

You know what I mean? So I went from from if you could call it sober at like 4:15 to to knee walking, tongue chewing, not able to operate my own pants zipper drunk in about an hour and a half. You know what I mean?

And I'd be like, and then I'd start calling people on the phone or something. You know what I mean? Do you ever call people up on the phone?

>> Oh man. I'd come down the ne I'd come down the next morning. I'D SEE THE NUMBERS LIKE, "OH NO, I CALLED MARY LOU MCGILLICUY FROM THE EIGHTH GRADE.

OH NO, I CAN JUST SEE IT NOW." YOU KNOW, MARY, I love you. You know, like 2:00 in the morning, you know. OH.

SO, so what I started to do was when I started to, I knew I was going to do this. I, you know, I was powerless over drunken dialing. So, so I started cutting the phone line.

You know, I'd start to drive cut the phone line, BUT I'M AN ELECTRICIAN, RIGHT? SO, SO I'LL FIX I'LL FIX THE freaking thing. And, and it got to the POINT WHERE I TRIED TO MAKE IT HARD.

I'd cut it next to a knot hole or something, you know? But but I I' I'd cut the electrical cord off the off the vacuum cleaner and p you KNOW JUST TO PATCH IT or whatever. And then I was cutting it way up at the top OF THE HOUSE.

I'D THROW A LADDER up on the top of the house and cut the phone lines LIKE WAY UP AT THE TOP OF THE BUT I'D FIND SOME milk crate when I got drunk and I'd get up there and I'd fix it. It got so bad that I I had to call the the phone repair guy. It was like you'd pick up the phone and be like it's like I go my phone's not working, you So, he comes over and I'd never forget, he's looking, he's going, "What the hell?" He goes, "IT LOOKS LIKE SOMEBODY JUST CUT THIS PHONE LINE IN 35 places and scotch taped it back together.

I even see a vacuum cleaner line on, you know, I'm like like, "Yeah, that's what I thought it was, too." You know, cuz you got to be cool, you know? So, I mean, my life is not going great. Okay.

Do do you get some kind of a perspective about the the the three dimensions of like Chris's world? You know, like I'm about, you know, I need to be rocketed into something. You know what I mean?

This is like really bad. It It's, you know, and listen, I'm a smart guy, you know. I'm a smart guy.

I keep doing stupid things. Well, time and time again, I'm doing stupid things and and I'm I'm kind of a nice guy. I like knew that inside, but I would do really mean things to people.

It was it was it was getting to the point where I was starting to contemplate suicide. Here's a here's an important statistic. The alcoholic is 60 times more likely to take their own life by suicide than the non-alcoholic.

So be careful when you're getting life insurance and you got to check that box. Okay? H cuz they know that you know all of a sudden your premium is going to be like 14 grand a month.

But uh but anyway, my life is like hell right now. What moves me toward, you know, here's what happens with all of us. We're going to have a separation experience.

You know, the clouds of delusional parts for us to such a degree that we'll be able to see how much trouble we're really in. You know, we we'll get a quick glimpse of just how bad things have really gotten. And then we sign ourselves into Happy Hills or or you know something you know we do something you know we go to the therapist you know whatever we do we we take some kind of action because we're desperately pushed toward toward toward that because we see look this is just getting worse and worse and worse.

And mine mine was a situation happened at work. It it it it shamed me you know like like I could lose my family. I could lose my driver's license, you know, but being shamed was just something I I just couldn't take anymore.

So, I so I I signed myself in uh to a rehab in my area. Uh 28-day program, you know, when I got sober, you couldn't shake a stick without hitting the 28-day programs. They were everywhere, you know.

Uh as soon as managed care came in in '92, 600 of them closed up in like one month in America, but they were everywhere, you know, and I signed myself into this place and and I I I got to tell you, I wanted to separate from alcohol. I was desperate to separate from alcohol, okay? I wanted to stop like more than anybody.

Uh and and so I signed myself into this place and I started to do the things that they asked me to do. Now I've I've had the opportunity to begin to work in uh in in with with revolving around professional alcoholism and drug treatment and and I I'm starting to really know what the hell is going on with that stuff. And this place that that I got signed into was no great shakes.

Okay. I didn't have one counsel, one meeting with one personal meeting with my counselor. What what they would do is show show us father Martin movies and put us in group.

Anybody ever been in group? Is that fun? They put you around a big circle and you each get to talk about how lousy your day is.

OH, MY DAY IS REALLY, REALLY LOUSY. AND EVERY once in a while, somebody would like hog the group time and I'd be I'd get I'd get pissed. I'd have a resent.

Shut up. WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP? I'M TIRED OF HEARING IT.

JUST SHUT UP. I WANT TO SHARE. You know, and and you'd wait until you got your turn and he'd tell everybody how awful everything is.

And you know, listen, let me tell you what I know about alcoholism today. Trying to treat alcoholism with group is like trying to stop a semi with a cobweb. Okay?

You're you're going to you're going to a gunfight at the OK Corral with a Swiss Army knife. All right? It's not going to work.

So, I did group and uh and I got out of there. I got out of there and here's what they told me. They go, "You might want to go to AA.

You might want to get a sponsor. You want you might want to get a home group. Blah, blah, blah.

You have to come back to outpatient." It's like, "Okay, I'll do the outpatient." So, guess what? Outpatient is. Okay.

So, I'm paying $85 a night to listen to the to this you know, that I can't stand talk about how screwed up his family is. I wanted him to die. I DID.

WHY DON'T YOU JUST DRINK, YOU KNOW? SO YOU GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE, YOU KNOW? I MEAN, AND I'M PAYING $85.

I'm going to two AA meetings a week and I'm two outpatients. What more do you people want? Okay.

I mean, my god, you know, this is prime time TV night, you know? I mean, what more do you want? Paying money, you know?

And I'm going to AA like it's a castor oil treatment, you know what I mean? I'm begrudgingly going in there. And you got to understand, I still got the scared kindergartener all over me, okay?

I don't feel comfortable in the meetings. Oh, Chris, would you like to share? No, but I'm going to kill you after the meeting for suggesting it.

You know, thank you very much. I You know, you're going to be looking for tires. Oh, I was, you know, I was a nut.

BUT I THOUGHT I I thought I was addressing my alcoholism. I'm doing what they told me to do. Okay.

I'm doing what they told me to do. One day I'm on my way to an AA meeting and the thought crosses my mind, Chris, you've been sober almost 90 days. You know what?

You don't even really remember what it's like to be drunk. It's been so long. I'll bet if you bought a a gallon of vodka and drank it, it would make you feel so bad that number one, you'd remember what it's like to be drunk cuz some idiot said, "If you can't remember your last drunk, you haven't had it." You know?

So, I I took that literally. Uh, and number two, and number two, I would rush back into AA and I'd be the AA kid, you know? I mean, I, you know, I wasn't mixing well, you know.

I thought that I', I thought that I'd do the things that I needed to do. So, so I drank a gallon of vodka to better improve my sobriety. Okay.

Can I tell you that was a miscalculation? Um, three drinks into it, I GO, "OH MY GOD, what have I done? I've opened up the cage door of the beast, and the beast is going to move ME AROUND LIKE A PUPPET, YOU KNOW, FOR THE NEXT 6 months or however long, I'm I'm dead.

Why did I do this?" Now, let me ask you something. Was I insane? Did the alcohol make me insane?

My insanity came from a place of sobriety. My insanity came from a place of unreovered alcoholism. All I was doing was showing up.

You go to a bunch of PTA meetings, it doesn't make you a parent. You know what I mean? I'm going to a bunch of AA meetings.

You know, you sit in a chicken coop, you're not going to become a chicken. So, I wasn't I wasn't doing what you needed to do. Now, like 5 months later, you know, I come out of this and I've just threatened my entire family with a 38 caliber handgun.

You know, I was going to kill them all. You know how you know how it is. And um it was Christmas, you know, and and uh I was going to kill him and uh that didn't go well.

Um and and it talks about in a vision for you pitiful and incomprehensible demoraliz demoralization, terror, frustration, bewilderment, and despair. You'll wish for the end, you know. You will wish for the end.

And and I did. I I remember I started to go through the DTS. Anybody in here get the DTS ever?

Oh, yeah. That's fun, isn't it? Oh, boy.

Doing the fish flop, you know, completely insane. um you want to talk about terror. So anyway, um I come, you know, I I I come out of I'm like detoxing and there's there's animals running around the room and there's maggots all over me and I'm hearing marching bands and there's big animals like shaking the house to get in, you know, and and I remember looking up at the ceiling and a big demon came out of the ceiling to eat my face.

Okay, this big big ASS DEMON, YOU KNOW, AND I I remember just looking UP AND I GO, "GOD, HELP ME." AND IT WAS IT WAS IT was a it was a a cry of help. It was what it was is I now can see that the level of humility that that cry of help came from. You know, God hears those prayers when you come from that kind of a place of powerlessness and that kind of a place of humility.

Man, I knew I was I I knew this thing was going to eat my face off, you know, and I and I JUST SAID, "GOD, PLEASE GET ME SOBER OR KILL ME, YOU KNOW. I CAN'T I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE." AND, you know, I haven't had I haven't had a drink uh since since that demon. I went back into Alcoholics Anonymous.

I knew the Happy Hills was not going to do it for me, you know. I didn't want any more goo. Uh I'd had plenty of that.

Thank you. Oh god. Hey, you you wonder where the closed-minded discussion meetings come from that that there are are around, you know, where do you think they came from when there was 7,000 uh uh rehabs everywhere and they were they were flowing everybody toward us.

Oh, let's let's let's put a big circle around and talk and talk about our day. We can do group. Oh, anyway, not that I judge.

Uh, nothing. I don't I don't mean to cast dispersions. You know, if that's what your home group is like, you know, that's what it should be like.

It's probably good. Oh god. But anyway, anyway, I headed back into Alcoholics Anonymous and and you know, I went back in with a 1976 Ford Granada with white walls and no clutch and no muffler and no heater, you know, and no parking brake and it had orange paint inexplicably, you know, strewn throughout the passenger compartment.

Never remembered how that got there, you know. And I struggle off to to my to my first meeting and and uh and here here's what happened. I get into the meeting and I sit out and you got to understand, I mean, the scared kindergartener is owning me and I'm sitting there, you know, and all of a sudden somebody taps me on the shoulder and hands me a stepbook.

So, okay, I grab the stepbook and they go, "They're reading from step 12 on page 112 or whatever, right?" And I look and I go, "They're I figure it out. They're reading a paragraph or two and they're coming down the row at me, you know. I'M LIKE, "NO." YOU KNOW, SO I GET up and I leave this, you know, I I was going to have TO READ FROM A BOOK.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND? So I'm outside on the stoop and I'm having a cigarette and I'm thinking, "Oh man, this is too much. This aged.

Oh, this is way too much. I don't think I can take it. I don't think I can do it.

So, uh, so this guy, I'll never forget him. God bless him. He, you know, I found out later he only had like six days himself, but he sees me leaving.

He comes out. His name was Jorge. And, and he comes out and he he lights up a cigarette, too.

And he goes, "Hey, my name's Jorge. How you doing? You what's your deal?" And I said something to him like this.

Oh, relapses. It was Steven back trying to get her. No clutch.

It was horrible. Get him. and and he goes uh he goes, "Well, why don't you come on back into the meeting with me?" And I go, "Well, there's a meeting tomorrow night.

There's a meeting tomorrow night that I'm going to go back into." AND HE GOES, "NO, NO, COME ON. Let's go inside." All right. And uh he knew what tomorrow meant.

This guy, even if he had six days, he knew what tomorrow meant. So, so I I don't want to cause a scene. So So I go in with him and I sit down.

We sit down right in the second row and and I'm sitting there like this, you know, and and he leans over to him and he goes, "Okay, now raise your hand and tell everybody you're coming back." I'm like, "What's it meaning TOMORROW NIGHT?" EVERYBODY RAISES THEIR HAND. EVERYBODY'S COMING back tomorrow night. He goes, "No, raise your hand." He starts to get loud.

So now listen, this is bad because people are starting to look at me, okay? Any minute they're going to be thinking at me. I got to shut this guy up.

So, never seen this happen before, never seen it after. I shoot my hand up right in the middle of somebody sharing. Okay, this this person's sharing about their day or something.

And I I raise my hand and and the leader is like perplexed. The leader, the leader shuts the person up who's sharing and calls on me because, you know, they can see that this is this is some kind of big deal. So, I was pretty profound, you know.

I did it I did it kind of like this. real with animals and running around with thank you. And the room was just as quiet as can be.

Okay. And then all of a sudden, EVERYBODY STARTS GOING, "YAY!" THEY'RE LIKE CHEERING, "YAY!" AND u I took it as acceptance. Okay, I now know what it really is.

And it's like, YOU PATHETIC BASTARD. OH MY GOD. I THOUGHT MY DAY WAS BAD.

THANK YOU SO MUCH. OH, MY PROBLEMS ARE LIKE NOTHING, YOU KNOW? But but I took it as I took it as acceptance.

And uh and here's what it was. There was like a wall of fear, that kindergarter wall of fear, you know? I couldn't get I couldn't go down the hill and play with the other kids.

Raising my hand and telling everybody I was coming back knocked a big chunk of that down. And for the first time in my life, I felt a little hope. I may I may be able to survive this thing called alcoholism because it was checking me out.

Now rocketed into a fourth dimension of reality. Okay. I was rocketed into a fellowship tenable sobriety because I didn't know any better.

This was this was North Jersey 1988. Okay. the every single speaker that came up here talked about the actual mechanics, the actual working of the 12 steps.

That's the recovery process. Okay. During this period of time, there was what I will describe as the oral tradition version of AA.

And that's where everybody sits around in a circle like group and and they share things LIKE MY HAR MY SPONSOR HARVEY Gerbal Feather used TO SAY UNDERNEATH EVERY SKIRT'S A SLIT. THANK YOU. You know, so there's like a whole line of oneliners, YOU KNOW, LITTLE CLICHES, YOU KNOW, little wisdom sayings.

And if you're new, you're like, "WHAT THE HELL? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?" UPSIDE DOWN THINKS, YOU KNOW, EASY DOES WHAT? WHAT DOES EASY DO?

FIRST THINGS FIRST, YOU KNOW WHAT? WHAT DO YOU THINK I DO? SEVENTH THINGS FIRST.

WHAT DO you What does that mean? Kid, YOU GOT TO HANG ON. WELL, HOW DO YOU do that?

YOU LET GO. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? ALL RIGHT.

Are you out of your mind? THIS IS WHAT AA WAS LIKE in North Jersey at that time. SO, SO I'M GOING TO MEETINGS like a some Okay.

I'm going to I'm going to like 12 meetings a week. You know, YOU KNOW, I'M A SECRETARY HERE. I'M A TREASURER THERE.

I'M MAKING COFFEE OVER HERE. In North Jersey, you have these things called no-show GSR commitments, you know. So, I was doing that.

I was driving the boobies from the hatch, you know, to the meeting. I was doing it going out to THE DINER. I'M LIKE I'm the fellowship dude.

I'm like I'm the pope of the fellowship. Okay. But guess what?

Guess who was still living in me? That scared kindergartener. Okay.

I still had anxiety. I still had remorse. I felt restless, irritable, discontented, pissed off most of the time, okay?

REAL GUILTY AND REMORSEFUL AND FILLED WITH SHAME, you know, and and anxiety and sense of IMPENDING DOOM, BUT I'M GOING TO MEETINGS, OKAY? And how YOU DOING, CHRIS? GREAT.

You know, I mean, you can't really tell them. Well, I'M HAVING THESE FANTASIES ABOUT KILLING myself and you know other people too, you know, and and you know, I want to kill you. You know, HOW ARE YOU DOING?

I mean, you can't tell them. You can't can't be honest. They'd lock you up if you told them the truth, you know.

So, I'm great, fine, doing well. You know, I was like I was like the TENSION IN A GARAGE DOOR SPRING, YOU KNOW, READY TO BREAK, you know, and and one of these and one of my buddies, I'll never forget it. Radio Shack Mike handed me a set of tapes this one time, okay?

And there were set of tapes from a couple of guys from Arkansas who were doing a big book study. Now, he'd given me some tapes prior to that, so I was a little bit wary. He gave me some affirmation tapes.

Yeah. You ever do affirmation tapes like in early sobriety? I tried it.

Okay, I don't recommend it for anybody. You're supposed to stand in front of the mirror and do something like this. You're supposed to say this 30 times or until you believe it.

Chris, you're a wonderful guy. Chris, you're a WONDERFUL GUY. CHRIS, I'M A SCUMBAG.

YOU KNOW, it's never going to work. Okay, those things work on non-alcoholics. Stay away from them.

Anyway, uh so these are the tapes. So I, you know, I'm kind of skeptical, but I got a long ride to work. You know, I got my license back.

So, I start putting these in and these are the Arkansas Big Book guys, okay? And the first thing that happens to me is I get a resentment. What the hell are they talking about?

This isn't this isn't the way we do it in New Jersey, you know, but I start to listen. And listen, the truth will haunt you if you're an alcoholic. If somebody tells you the truth, it's going to haunt you.

First, you know, first stage of truth getting pissed at whoever's told it to you. Okay? you know, you know, it's it's like anger, bewilderment, acceptance, despair, you know, what, however that works.

But when somebody tells you the truth, you know, first thing I did was I got resentful. Ah, they're from Arkansas. We do more thinking before 9:00 in New Jersey than they do in Arkansas.

But the fact of the matter was was these people these people saved my life. I didn't I was not hearing this in the meetings. What they had was they had an understanding of the mechanics, the actual mechanics of the recovery process.

You know, I I read the I read the big book like it was the Da Vinci Code. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Done.

And then it collected dust. Okay. It's a basic text of our fellowship.

What do you What do you do with a textbook? You got to study it. You got to do the problems.

You got to do the exercises. You know, that's what you need to do with a textbook. Imagine going Imagine going to calculus class and never reading the book or doing the problems.

You just go there to share about calculus. Oh yeah, calculus is great. I like calculus.

I'm grateful that there's calculus. You know, you're never going to get past any of the problems. OR IT'S LIKE OR IT'S LIKE GOING TO THE AIRPORT and then sitting in the terminal and talk about flying.

Yeah. Flying. Flying's great.

Yeah, there goes a big one now. And you never get on the plane. You know that's what's happening in Alcoholics Anonymous today.

Oh, you're in AA? Yeah. Oh, it's a 12step fellowship.

You ever do the steps? No. What?

You know, and that's WHAT THAT'S WHAT WAS happening in North Jersey. Now, this is what this is what Joe and Charlie exposed me to. They exposed me to the actual practical mechanics of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And what I did was I put it aside for a while while I dealt with my resentment. But some things happened in my life where I had a sober bottom. Anybody ever have like a sober bottom?

You know, you go in the barrel, like three terrible things go wrong at the same time and you're like, and uh and that happened to me. And I just remember being desperate, being desperate to feel good, to feel okay. That's why I drank.

But I knew drinking was going to take me right back to the that demon in the ceiling. I just knew I couldn't do that. And but but I was like unreovered.

I was like, you know, just shattered. Just in in so much trouble, emotional pain like you wouldn't well like you would believe. I don't think I don't think people outside of this room can can get near that kind of loneliness and emotional pain that we can.

But I got to that spot at about a year and a half sober. And it was either put a bullet through my head, drink a gallon of vodka, or do something. I didn't know what.

I took these tapes back out and I started listening to them and I opened up a big book next to them and when it said we put these people down in black and white, I put them down in black and white. I did the inventories to the best of my ability at that time, which wasn't really great because I wasn't really being guided. I was learning from the steps.

But I did I did a fear inventory. I did a harms to others emphasis on sex. I did the I did the the four column resentment inventory.

I really looked at where was I selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and afraid. I started to look at all all this stuff. Uh and you know I started to move on through the steps to the best of my ability.

Now something very significant started to happen to me during this process. Back to the scared kindergartener. All of a sudden he started to heal.

All of a sudden I started to feel okay about myself. All of a sudden, I was started to not care as much about what I thought you thought about me. Okay?

I started to heal emotionally and spiritually with the work from these steps. And you know, you get to the steps the first time and you know the first thing you want to do when you go back to the AA MEETING AGAIN, WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME? ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?

YOU KNOW, so so I became like, you know, a big book evangelist for A WHILE. LET'S SEE THE ANSWER TO THE B, YOU KNOW, and uh cuz that's what usually happens when you when you find the recovery process. You're anxious to let these these idiots know that are still doing group.

Um so, but a even more significant thing happened even more significant thing happened for me. I had been sponsoring around this time because you give good share and you can get sponses, okay? You can have your head up your butt, but if you give good share, you'll get some sponses.

So, I was towing around, you know, a crew of guys and they were drinking on me. You ever have sponsies drink on you? Make you look bad?

You know what I mean? Somebody will come up to you and they'll go, "Is Harry yours? Do you know he's drinking and he's hitting on the new women?" "Yeah, Harry's mine.

I'll talk to him, you know. So, I had a bunch of these losers that I was sponsoring. And uh and I said, you know, I'm going to do something desperate.

I'm going to bring them over my house and we're going to go through the Big Book just like the Joe and Charlie tapes. Now, let me tell you something. You want to really learn something?

Teach it. That is the absolute best way to learn anything. Become a teacher of what you want to learn.

I'm starting to take all these guys through the big book, you know, line by line, exercise by exercise. And and here's here's here's what I found that was very very significant. Out of out of the people that have gone through the book with me, there's many hundreds by this time.

The people who did the fourth and fifth step, fifth step holding nothing back, did the eight and nine, made all their amends to the best of their ability except when to do so would injure them or others. And then started to work with other alcoholics living in 10, 11, and 12. Every single one of those guys is still in AA.

Every single one of those guys is still working with people. And the quality of their life is out the roof. They have been rocketed into the fourth dimension of reality.

You want to get rocketed into the fourth dimen dimension of re reality? It it it's easy and it works. It works for every single person that tries it.

Each one of the spiritual exercises in the book Alcoholics Anonymous has a result, a spiritual result, a set of promises or uh or a consequence. Okay? There's some promises in the book that are negative promises, too.

But if you follow to the best of your ability uh the recovery process that's outlined in the book, you can experience a little bit of uh the fourth dimension. One of the things it asks in the big book is ask yourself what the spiritual concepts mean to you. The great thing about Alcoholics Anonymous is we do not want to pin all kinds of attributes on your higher power.

We don't want to tell you what kind of a higher higher power to have. We we don't want to get involved in that. that needs to be personal.

You need to really buy into that. So, you need to develop it yourself. Uh we will tell you this that if you don't get a higher power, you're going to die.

We'll tell you that. But we're not going to paint the picture of your higher power. You know, now when you go through the steps of Alcohol Anonymous, you get a conscious contact with a higher power.

Once you have a conscious contact with a higher power, you start to develop an intuitive sixth sense. The sixth sense where you really already know the answer. An unreovered alcoholic already knows the answer.

He just does the opposite anyway. You know what I mean? You don't want to talk to your sponsor about it because he'll tell you to do the right thing.

You know what I mean? When you start to get contact with a higher power, what you start to do is you start to develop that six sense that that intuition. Uh intuition basically is knowing without conscious thought and you start to follow that intuition.

You start to live in the realm of the spirit in that way. And here's what happens. I I can tell you from my own personal experience, things get better.

Okay? Now, I'm not saying we don't go through rough times. I'm not saying we don't get put in the barrel or have our challenges.

We do. But how we respond to them changes. Life is a struggle.

Okay? Every day we struggle with this thing called life. But when we get to a point where we're recovered, we can engage in the struggle of life without struggling.

Does that make any sense? >> I've had some challenges like you wouldn't even believe. And I've been cool with them.

And by being cool with them, I can be appropriate and the most productive and the most support to that problem that I can be without it being about me. Like when I was drinking and I'd have to go to a funeral, THE GUY DIED ON ME. I GOT TO GET DRESSED UP.

YOU KNOW WHAT I mean? Like it's it's a different Here's what here's what rocketed into the fourth dimensional reality really is. As alcoholics, we built a foundation, a life system foundation built on selfishness and self-centeredness, okay?

It's all about us. We are a planet unto ourselves and everybody else is just a satellite orbiting us. And you know, how how they benefit us is is how often we get involved with them.

You know, what are you going to do for me? So, we we're like alone. We're separate and we're selfish and we're self-centered.

That's that's what we built the foundation of our lives on. The p the perceptions that we have when we go through the work of Alcoholics Anonymous, we shift our perception from one of selfishness and self-centerness to one of love and service. Now, the crazy thing is is that if you want to really be happy, you would think that the more selfish you are, the more happy you would be, right?

That's not that's not true. The more you live in the in the uh the realm of love and service, the happier you are. That's something I missed in kindergarten.

You know what I mean? When they told you to share and not hit and all those, you forgot. I didn't pay attention that day or something.

I was I was always daydreaming. But these are spiritual principles that have been around a billion years. What Alcoholics Anonymous is is it's it's spiritual living 101.

Our problem is alcoholism. The solution to alcoholism is spiritual living. You start to live spiritually, spiritual things will happen to you.

You start to act in a positive way, positive things are going to happen to you. It's cause and effect. It's the way the universe works.

You the universe is actually a very very generous place. You know, I thought I was on the battlefield like every minute of the day. You know, they're out to GET ME THOSE BASTARDS.

YOU KNOW, it's not that way. It's not that way. The universe is a very, very generous place.

It's a shift in perception is what the fourth dimension of reality is. You know, if you're new or you're coming back and uh you know, you've been having problems with personal relationships and you've been having trouble at work and your family doesn't understand you and seems like the cops are really vindictive. You've got good motives.

you always end up just kind of doing something stupid, you know, and but alcohol is not really really your problem. You know, your your case is different, you know, if if if you're that way here tonight, welcome. Okay, that's the requirement for membership.

It really is being different. I had a great time down here today. Uh thank thank you all for uh for hanging in here.

>> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message. Until next time, have a great day.