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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. My name's Chris Rmer. I'm very grateful, grateful, recovered alcoholic.

There's just nothing to do in Fort Lauderdale on a Thursday night, is there? This got to be a slow night for recovery and love. This freaks me out.

Brian called me a year ago. I I book out a year, year and a half or so. Brian call said, "Would you would you could you come on a Thursday night?" I said, "Yeah, absolutely." I mean, I do lots of these, you know, 200 people, man.

This is going to be ro ge sweet. I walked in about 5:00. I came in.

Karen picked me up and we came in and walked through the kitchen. You know, they have these big buckets full of spaghetti and I was like, "Who are y'all feeding?" The homeless. I mean, I Oh my gosh, I never saw so much food.

Thanks uh Brian for asking me to do this. Anybody that had anything to do with coming up with the money and all that. And uh I I appreciate the car you bought me and the hooker and all that.

Somebody somebody said one time he says, "Gosh, you must make a lot of money with all your speaking engagements." I says, "Oh my gosh, it just freaks me out what people think." Anyway, the uh and Karen picked me up and and she's promised she's going to take me back in the morning. So, this is this is good. All the little cooker bees.

I mean, that's usually where I'm at. And uh I'm sitting here just grinding my teeth watching this thing come together. We do a little fundraiser every year for our little AA club in in Ingram is called the Outpost.

It's a little little AA place over there. Y'all can come see it. Some I don't know why in the hell you want to, but you you're more than welcome to if you wanted to, but you come see us and we do this little fundraiser, you know, like 200 people show up, you know, and I and I work for days getting it all.

Oh my gosh, these guys, you know, they what a cool place this is. And you guys to be c congratulated for all the little worker bees that uh that did this. I um I'm watching the clock closer than y'all are because I know y'all been sitting here a long time.

Your butts are sore and I don't I don't want to I'm perfectly capable once I get going of talking all night about recovery. I I I no I I love I love recovery and I I love AA. I uh I uh my my life has been so enhanced by the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I I have learned more about life from men and women in this in this fellowship than you can shake a stick at. But I got to tell you, I owe my life uh to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And uh I know some of y'all don't know what the difference is u because you went to a crappy treatment center, but I I got to say this.

I know the pants are next. I know. I the uh I nearly died getting Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I I I and I nearly died once I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. And some of y'all I know a lot of y'all have heard CDs of mine and tapes and stuff and I and I'm so glad you came anyway. And uh and I I know some of you have not heard me and and I just need to tell you because I I believe it's it's my life has just been easier since I started doing this.

I I'm I'm going to be in England next week and I'm going to say the same thing uh before I talk and I I'll be in El Paso, Texas the weekend after that. And I'll I'll say the same thing. I I I love this fellowship and anybody that says they're a member of this fellowship or any other 12step fellowship, I got to tell you I I love you and if I could help you in any way, let me know.

I I I believe that alcoholism is a is a is a fatal progressive illness. And I and I'm a big book thumper. And if you happen to be sitting in this room and you and you believe this is some kind of a self-help program and meeting makers make it, um you're you're going to just hate this talk.

>> And I think you probably should just uh get up and give your seat away to some little thumper out there and you can go out there and smoke with the rest of them. I I don't know what to tell you. I'm I'm not here to fight with anybody.

I don't want to argue with anybody. I work for a treatment center. I'm in the trench.

I watch people die of this disease every day. You know, back when I got sober in 1887, back when I first I don't look that old, do I? In in ' 87, 1987.

And then I started in AA in early 80s, but we used to watch people die in our rooms. They'd come in shaky, rattle, and roll, and grandma seizure dead. And you know, treatment centers have taken away that.

And and I it's nice because our clubs stay a lot tidier without people puking everywhere. But you know the the uh but it also removed the sense of urgency and and I still I still experience a sense of urgency about this. I got to tell you I know the room is full of people that are the real McCoy.

We also have a bunch of you little imposttors in here that we call little disco drunks. You're hard drinkers, moderate drinkers. You don't need AA.

You're welcome. But you didn't need a spiritual experience to get sober. My book says if you can get sober because you want to or because you need to, you're not an alcoholic.

You can grind your teeth on that all you want. The problem is what's happened is we've taken the very clear message that could save the ones that needed the spiritual experience and watered it down to such a place so that everybody stays comfortable. There are no musts in AA.

>> Sister Sister said it. Yeah, I I believe there are a few musts and I believe there's certain things that you need to do in order to get well. But anyway, nobody bothered to tell me that for a long time.

So, I just get I get kind of crazy with the mixed messages sometimes. And uh we know this works. I was sitting there watching CNN this afternoon.

I was returning a bunch of phone calls in the hotel room and CNN's on the the the idiot in the place out in California that's got the book for $24.95 and he can help with alcohol alcoholic and drug addiction cure, you know, and you buy this book and you can get well. Listen, I got to tell you, I've read the book. There's hard drinkers that could really benefit from this book.

If you're an alcoholic, it'll kill you. And I hope somebody sends him a copy of this. We got too many people killing alcoholics and addicts trying to be cute and clever.

The message is so mixed mixed. It's so watered down. In certain spots of the country, certain spots of the world, you couldn't hear the solution if you if your life depended on it.

Even our own AA literature has a tendency to water the message down with some of this other We got this book in 1935 and then we seem to have published a thousand other pieces of literature that contradict the book. Any of you guys like living sober? Me neither.

Me neither. But why do we allow it to continue to be published in our own fellowship? It's a piece of crap.

It's comments like that that will keep me from speaking at the AA world. It's up near my hometown and y'all are all welcome. And then no, you can't stay with me.

Oh my gosh. I uh I got sober uh finally up in North Texas, but I man I floundered around with this thing for a long time. I I grew up in the Hill Country.

Uh and uh my father was a was a was a a a drinker, was an alcoholic and uh uh my twin brother and I caught the genetic bullet. I've got a little sister that's never had a problem and she's a sweetheart and a half sister that's just as nice as I saw her drinking a little glass of wine at Christmas and and she just smiled and just swirled it around and just played with it for an hour and I just drives me. Are you going to drink that?

Cuz you're making me nervous. I It's free and there's plenty of it. Drink up.

I I I she was raised in the same family I was raised and and it's like everybody wants to still we're hearing less and less of it this victim stuff blaming people but we're I think more and more people in the studies that have come out lately I mean this is genetic folks this is this is no different than being allergic to a food and and some of you guys in here that are trying to still blame mommy and daddy for not potty training you right for your alcoholism you need to get a new line cuz it's not going to work for you much longer people are turning on you know they're not laughing with you now. They're laughing at you. Nobody likes a victim.

I got to tell you guys, this is genetic. I mean, it's just like, come on. Did Did our external circumstance exacerbate the problem?

You're dead right. Oh, absolutely. That's why I'm a biggest fan of therapy.

You can you can throw a stick at. That's why I'm a great fan of good sponsorship that can help us walk through that stuff. But let's stop blaming my external stuff for why I drink too much.

This is not some kind of self-help program. I want to tell you right now, folks, unapologetically, I'm going to say from the podium, this is a spiritual program of action. >> Period.

>> You don't have to believe to be a part of this, but you're not going to get much out of it if you don't. And something you'll follow. You should see some of your faces.

Looks like you just got slapped. Guys, the program is as open and roomy as you can be. And I need to say that right off the bat.

You can believe in Mr. Mcoo if you want, but you're going to believe in something other than yourself in order to get well from this thing. And I got to say this, somebody asked me the other day, I don't care how you work the steps.

I'm a big book thumper from hell. And I I and I believe the I think the closer that we adhere to the big book, that's what we're supposed to do. Y'all follow?

The better the results of that. But you know guys, if your sponsors got you doing it this way or that way or which it, I don't care, just do it. The biggest problem that we have in our fellowships today, in all of our fellowships, is that we're allowing people to take their time to work the steps.

Now, if you're a a wonderful individual in this fellowship, and the best information that you can give to the newcomer advice is slow down, take your time. You didn't get sick overnight, you're not going to get well overnight, you need to shut up. >> >> cuz we're we're burying people that you've helped every day.

I don't know what to tell you. There's a race. Now, listen.

Here it is. Listen, cuz I get emails from all over the world. Here you here.

I I'm going to get something from this crowd. I can guarantee you. My sponsor had me do one step a year and I'm still over 30 years.

Rock on. I'm so glad it worked for you, >> loser. But the other cat that's the real alcoholic guys or the real what?

He's not going to be able to stay sober that long. When the obsession to use comes back, what do we do? >> We drink.

We're not going to think through the drink. We're not going to remember our Gorski relapse workbook grid and go to We're not We're just going to go to the crack house and stop and buy a bottle of booze and go home. I mean I I want I God the real McCoy.

Bill Wilson in in the big book over and over he talks about the real alcoholic. The real alcoholic. I hear people at meetings all the time want to dismiss that.

What's this real alcoholic? I'm an alcoholic if I say I'm an alcoholic. You can call yourself a duck for all I care but it doesn't mean that you're a duck.

Y'all follow. You got to have certain symptoms to be a duck. I I I tell you feathers and web feet are one of them.

You got to have certain symptoms to be an alcoholic. Let me tell you what they are. You've got to have a physical different that differentiates us from normal people.

This physical allergy that the book talks about called craving. Can you guarantee me how much you're going to drink every time you drink? Or sometimes when you start, does it get away from you and do you just drink until you till you Yeah.

puke straight up? Yeah. And then you may control it and hold it together for a short period of time, maybe for weeks and months.

And then there'll come another time you'll be out in the backyard puking straight up. Dig, we got a craving going on here. My first wife used to say, "Jesus, you just seem to be so thirsty all the time." Cuz I like Coca-Cola, but I've never drank a 12-pack in an afternoon, not once.

There's a craving, something that kicks in with the alcohol. Okay. So, you combine that with this thing called a mental obsession.

It's the most controversial stuff that we talk about. This thing called a mental obsession. On page 24, it says, "We have lost the power of choice in drink." You with us?

These patients, they come to the hospitals and I'm in the industry and I mean, I'm around it all the time. They said, you know, if you go to like the beginner, the little primary group, and they start to explain the disease concept to you, you know, alcoholism and drug addiction is a disease and you're not a bad person. You're a sick person.

And here's what And then and you start to feel a little bit better about this. Oh, you mean it's not? Oh, well, it's like there's nothing like you with this.

And then you go to your first group and they say, "Well, now so Chris, tell me why you drink." Good. Cuz I'm an alcoholic. Oh, well, yeah, I know that.

But tell me why you drink. You follow? Absolute rubbish.

Absolute crap. If I knew why I drank, folks, I'd change it. That's what I spent 10 years in therapy trying to do.

And that's what I spent my first seven years in AA trying to do was change my external world so there would be nothing for me to drink over. How frustrating for some of us that are the real McCoys and you've got some idiot in the meeting saying that they've got you got a choice whether you're going to drink or not. I got up this morning.

I was in Houston, Texas last Saturday in a in a 10:00 meeting and a guy in the back said, "I got up this morning and I chose not to drink." Did you? No kidding. Well, I got up and uh and chose to stay on the spiritual path.

Does that count? But that's not what he said. He said he can choose to drink.

If you can choose to drink and choose not to drink, you're not one of us. Period. >> I get caught in these mental blank spots.

This is what the book is talk trying to talk about. You'd be surprised how many people out there don't understand that. This is why alcoholics die, folks.

Our judicial system in the United States is built around punishment. You with me? You keep drinking until we put you in jail a few times and then you wake up one day and say, "I don't want to do that anymore." And you know what you do?

If you're a hard drinker, a problem drinker, you put the plug in the drug and you're done. Period. Bye-bye.

Now, what do we do? We get the third DWI and go to jail and then get back out and bring some more. Y'all understand?

Talking to a friend of mine, high school friend of mine that I went to school with at the saw. He's working at the little mini market there where I work. I mean in the little town where I'm at and I saw him.

I said, "Buddy, how you doing?" I says, "I heard you had some trouble." He said, "Yeah, I went went to jail for my third DWI." And I said, "Buddy, listen. Three blocks from here is our AA club. Why don't you come to meetings with us?

It's like he was my childhood friend. Come to meetings with us." He says, "No, I figured out the problem. My solution is right out there.

He's got a bicycle chained up against the the the Buddy, you're going to freeze your butt off. What do you mean? I'm going to tell you, you ain't going to get laid like that.

That's a fact. I don't know what to tell you. Makes perfect sense to him.

He didn't have a drinking problem. He's got a driving problem. I went to Houston and was in an apprenticeship program.

I was a cook for a long time and did pretty well and holding it together. I was like so many of you guys in this room that I talked to and I know a bunch of you for years in here. Thanks for coming.

But I I a lot of us in here are what we call functioning alcoholics. We got nipped. We got the disease didn't progress far enough to drop us in the toilet at a real young age.

Some of you guys I've seen and you just look like geez you're not even shaving yet. You're already in trouble with this. I like man you got screwed.

I mean, literally, a lot of us old geysers had a little period of time where it actually worked for us, you know, we got to enjoy it a little while. And but I got to tell you, for most of us, that enjoyment period was pretty small, you know, and it's like, it works and it's great. We had this little workbook at the at the hospital where I work.

And one of the questions is, did alcohol and drugs work for you? And everybody looks around, they think it's a trick question. They say, no.

On top of being an alcoholic and addict, you're a liar. Of course it worked for you. Why in the heck would you have put up with so much crap to get it?

Unbelievable. We have a period where it works and then we have a period where it works but it's a pain in the butt and then we have a period like the book talks about where it's just a pain in the butt. You with us?

And that's where a lot of us end up coming to AA the first time or going to try to take treatment because it's just it's it stops being fun. I mean, people just think we're partying our butts off. But, you know, endstage alcoholism and drug addiction is pretty tragic to watch.

It's just it's just not. You really don't want to and you can't not do it. And you're in the grips of a fatal illness.

And uh and it offends me when people want to try to portray it like some kind of behavioral problem. It's just not. And um I uh was trying to save a marriage in early 80s.

I I got married, moved to Denton, Texas trying to save uh um myself and and I was drinking and and it was not going well and um I ended up going to to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and uh there was an old geyzer in there and and uh I think he was old. I couldn't see him. There was one light in the room and he was in an easy chair laid back.

I thought he was dead. You know these bulbs that come down like like psycho, you know, you know the deal and that's exact. And he was in there and he said, "I walked in and I it was like pitch dark except for this one bulb down there, you know." And he says, she said, "Do you have a desire to stay sober?" And yes, he said, "Welcome." That was it.

That was the extent of my qualifying for the next seven years. Jesus, we're so concerned about membership. What about qualifying somebody and find out if they're really dying of a fatal progressive illness called alcoholism?

What a gift we can give the newcomer. What a gift. No, we're too busy worried about membership.

If you have a desire to quit drinking, you're a member. Thank you. Put a dollar in a basket, buy a book.

We went around the room that night and introduced ourselves and there was some people in there and there's a lady in there whose husband drank and the husband wasn't there but the wife was there and she wanted to talk about her husband's drinking. So we spent an hour talking about that and I left and I thought Benny I'm glad I'm not in that household because the boy that guy's a real McCoy you with me and I went back down and opened a quart of beer I'd started before I went to the meeting and I finished it off and I went on home and I was to do that for the next seven years in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous. Every time my butt would come unraveled I'd go back into AA and they would give me the same stuff.

We would do two things. I'm not going to blavorver it tonight. Most of y'all know how I feel about open discussing meetings.

We're going to do two things in our meetings. This is I'm going to tell you it turns out from from from a minor survey here is that that's the most controversial thing I say from the podium. That's the thing that pisses the most people off because you love open discussion meetings.

You love coming and talking about your day. I'm so I'm so cool with that. I just do we have to do it seven days a week?

That's all I'm asking. The the newcomer needs a place to come talk about their day. I agree with that.

The book suggests one day a week. Huh, what a concept. I'll give you three.

How's that? I mean, we can take four and do it our way, which is to study the literature. You think we're going to get a chance to do that?

Nope. Because we're too busy listening to your stupid war story or listen to you talk about your bad day. Come on, guys.

We just talked about this. We just talked about the little brother just read it before. We have some things called traditions.

What's our primary purpose? >> The the traditions don't say to stay sober. The traditions say our primary purpose is to carry the message to the alcoholic who's still suffering.

What's the message we're supposed to carry? >> 12 steps. >> 12 steps.

It's not our experience, strength, and hope. That's what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to share my experience, strength, and hope with you.

No, that's not your primary purpose. You can grind your teeth if you want. I'm an AA for seven years and nobody will say, "Hey, you little arrogant piss ant.

Why don't you work the 12 steps?" No, they didn't do that. All they did with me was keep coming back. And I and I get to listen to all the little the little How many of you guys have ever sat in a meeting and and and and watch some of the elders in the group get in a pissing contest in the meeting?

Well, my my sponsor said, "Be fearless and thorough from the very start." This guy's rolling his eyes back over here. Hey, listen. We didn't get sick overnight.

We're not going to get well overnight. Easy does it. Take it out.

They always take it out of context. Isn't that's not what they're talking about. You with me?

Rush through the steps. Take your time to work the steps. You can't work with anybody till you've been sober a year.

First days of convolescence, my book says you better be working with somebody if you're going to get out of your head and stay well. >> What? What?

I don't know what to do. I Don't worry about this God step. You better have a spiritual experience.

What do I do? We We were given the solution. It's called the 12 steps.

It's called the big book of parts anonymous. The instructions were listed in here. If we do if we do this, this thing called a spiritual experience is guaranteed to happen.

The obsession to use is going to go away no matter what your circumstances, and you're going to be on some solid ground. Why would anybody in this fellowship think it was okay to tell somebody differently than that? Who in the hell died and left you king of the universe that you could rewrite the program adlib because it sounds better coming out of your funny mouth?

Feel pretty strong about it, Chris? Yeah, I do. Come on, guys.

I'm in AA for seven years. Everybody wants to take exception with that. Oh, surely somebody told you.

No, they didn't. They hugged my neck and told me to keep coming back. And I don't think a single person in those rooms in seven years ever, not one of them wanted to hurt me.

Not one of them tried to hurt me. They were so afraid of hurting my sensitive little feelings that they wouldn't tell me the truth. What have we got to sell, buddies?

What do we What do we got to sell in this in this in this in this fellowship in this program is the 12 steps and the necessary spiritual experience. And if we're not going to talk about that in our meetings, why are we here? AA is not therapy.

We got the traditions that tell us that we have a singleness of purpose. The singleness of purpose is help the alcoholic in the room stay sober. You with us?

I've said this from a thousand ponies. You you can go into any any group in Texas when we watch that singleness of purpose. You get one of the little crackheads come in there and start talking about the pipe and all that and somebody will excuse me.

This is alcoholics anonymous. We have singleness of purpose here. They'll shut him down in a heartbeat and listen and have every right to do it.

Okay, nobody wants to argue that. And then the next person starts to share. Well, listen, my grandkid, let me tell you what he did.

And and we're going to listen for 20 minutes about your grandkid that I know you love. Well, you tell me the difference. The 20-year-old kid in the back that's drinking himself spitless that came in here to try to get well.

You with me? We're not going to talk about the dope, but we're going to talk about your grandkid. Oh, he can really relate to that.

>> >> We app we applaud and then we go straight back to our meetings and don't change the formats and continue to allow it until until the cows come home. >> Well, we need a place to share. Yeah, we do.

It's called a picnic table out front. I don't know. I can't get sober.

And uh and I leave AA. I promise I'm never going to go back. And I I'm seeing a therapist and in fact, I'm seeing a bunch of them for a 10-year period.

Every time I go to another therapist, they give me another pill. And um it's not bad. You can ride it for a while.

And uh I'm working for my brother up in North Texas and thank God for family. And u they've got me co my sister-in-law cosigned for a little apartment for me in in Lewisville, Texas. And uh I pick up a stack of return checks one night and um I go up to my little apartment by myself and the depression's kicking my butt.

Big Book talks about a thing called a we've got a two-part illness, the physical and the mental. But underneath it all is this thing called the spiritual malady. The spiritual malady and untreated alcoholism and unmanageability are all the same.

And that's what ties us all together. the the little 19-year-old kid in the back and the 90-year-old geyser and the black person and the gay person and the Yankee and it doesn't make any difference. All of us when we get down inside and start talking about what's going on inside, we can all relate.

And that's the thing that we don't seem to talk enough about. We talk about the drama, but we don't talk about what's I'm dying of untreated alcoholism and I'm drinking. People think that going to meetings and not drinking will treat that.

I'm going to tell you something, folks. It won't. And I watch a lot of people dry for years, walk out in the backyard and shoot themselves because they're so uncomfortable in their skin.

We're seeing an epidemic in this country of people relapsing after long periods of sobriety because they go to a doctor just simply because they feel so lousy inside because they've stopped working the 12 steps. Y'all understand? The same disease that brought them to our fellowship 17 years before, the disease is is killing them now because they stopped doing the work.

In the hospital where I work, the we have this influx of old geysers coming back in. Good sobriety. Five years, seven years, 10 years, 15 years.

We just had a guy leave with 22 years of sobriety. Every single one of them that comes back in, I ask him the same question. Hey buddy, let me ask you a question.

How many people were you sponsored when you relapsed? None. Excuse me.

My my book right up in the very front says you cannot survive the certain trials and low spots ahead unless you work with others. Who in the hell do you think you are? 15 years ago when I started at that hospital, we would maybe get one or two of those people in community a month.

And I bet you we've got 15, 20 people in there right now that had 10 years or more and lost it. Most of those around a prescription pad where they went to a doctor to get something to treat that internal discomfort. You follow?

>> I could hit this for an hour, folks, and piss everybody off. I'm not going to. I'm just telling you, we're watching we're watching an epidemic with the prescription pads and people thinking that it's okay to do that.

Well, at least I'm not drinking one day at a time. Yeah, but you can't eat breakfast because you're so loaded on sleep medications. What do you What do you call that?

I'll tell you what I call it crappy sobriety. I'll tell you what I call it dishonest sobriety. I have a sleep disorder.

No, you don't. You have a conscience that's driving you crazy because you're not working the steps anymore and you're not taking care of a night's 10th step and 11th step on a regular basis. Y'all down with that?

>> Well, I wish you could stand up here and watch how many of you got uncomfortable. I don't care. I don't care.

Good. It's It's worth the trip over here to make some of you uncomfortable. Get off dead center.

I'm taking seven pills a day and I am dying. You follow? The depression so thick is choking me and I can't figure out what's wrong and they can't figure out what's wrong.

And the anxieties and the fear with me and I picked up those return checks and I went to the back and uh I laid them on the counter and I fed the ferrets and I went to the medicine cabinet and I took a couple of bottles of pills out and tried to commit suicide. I'm just I'm done, guys. I've done everything I could possibly do.

I tried AA. It didn't work. You follow didn't work the steps.

But I tried meetings. That's all you told me to do. Meeting makers make it.

I tried the church. Didn't work. I tried therapy.

It didn't work. I tried colonics. Did I'm going to tell you that your complexion would absolutely glow.

I heard a voice about the time I got those pills in my stomach. I heard a voice as I swallowed those pills. I heard a voice that said, "Don't do this.

Go back to AA." And I uh and I'm arguing with a voice cuz I don't want to do this. I am sick and tired of this. I'm not I ain't going anywhere.

I have a sex change. I'll consider that. But I'm not going back to AA.

If I have to listen to one more stupid war story, I'm going to puke. Don't do this. Go back to AA.

Three times that night, I laid down on the bed. I made myself sick. I laid down.

Next morning, I heard the voice one last time and I got up and I called the doctor and I went to work and I got some doggy downers at lunch and I'm detoxing at work and I uh and I promised I'd go back to AA. I years before some guy 12step meet and um and he showed me where this meeting was. It was a little nest of big book thumpers.

wasn't a very popular meeting at the time. Y'all follow. It wasn't a dis, you know, every city's got the disco, the big pickup place where all the people get dressed up and come down and strut their stuff and this wasn't that place.

This was and and but and I wasn't going to go cuz he said, "Don't go in there unless you're unless you're you want to learn about the book, unless you want to seek a power greater than yourself because these guys don't mess around." And so I was like, but I was running late and I was feeling pretty sick and it was on my way home and so I stopped at this meeting and I walked in the back door and sure enough everybody in the place had a big book on their lap, you know, long hall and everybody was smoking, six or seven cigarettes sticking out of their mouth and I tell you smokers, we ruined it for the new guys. I'm so sorry. We we sure did.

And u and I'm walking in and they're laughing and you know how self the the term is hypervigilant. Have y'all ever heard that? is like I am so in tune with what you think about me.

The following is like it's called selfish and self-centered to the core is what it's called. That's what the big book calls it. And um that was my big deal for years.

I'm suffering from depression. No, it just sounds better than I'm full of self-pity. Y'all understand?

My problem was self-pity. It wasn't the Okay, so I um I walked into this deal and everybody's laughing and I you I wish I could do a proper visual. I've tried to I just I I got a bunch of weight on me.

It's all kidney damage and liver damage and I'm I'm I'm and I'm yellow. I mean, I'm not hair down to here and a big full beard. I mean, I and I and of course this patch which is never on straight, you know, it's always kind of crooked and you don't know if it's a patch or an ear muff, you know.

I used to be so sad. I couldn't get laid back in those days with two pockets of cocaine. I don't know how to explain to you how bad I I still look bad now, but I mean anyway, they uh they're laughing just like we're doing in here now and they're all having a good time and I'm feeling all of a sudden really self-conscious and I'm in about 10 feet and I stop and I says, "I can't do this.

I'm I need to go home and and detox a while and I'll go back later." You know what I'm saying? One more time, I'm going to set myself off. The promises I made to God the night before have just gone out the window.

Bye-bye. And I I start to back out and this little girl got between me and the door and stuck her finger in my belt open. She said, "Sit down, cowboy." And I talked to a bunch of you in the night that remind me of her.

I mean, little 19-year-old girl. And um you know how God was. If it had been you, I'd just whip your butt and left.

You know, some guy I mean, I might have died, too. I mean, I But a little 19-year-old girl. I mean, take your breath away.

What What She wasn't off in some little young adult meeting talking about young adult things, you know? She was in mainstream AA trying to help another drunk. Makes me want to cry thinking about it.

She grabbed me and she sat me down in a chair and I'm just kind of looking at him. They got some paper towels and started cleaning up my spilled coffee, which immediately did y'all. And they went around the room that night.

The chairperson took charge of the meeting. What a concept. You got a guy sitting in a meeting that's reeks of alcohol and is it and looks like death warmed over and obviously in the throws of detox and and we're not going to do a a little Sunday for Jesus meeting.

We're going to we're going to talk about how our lives have changed as a result of working the steps. Now, that was a quote from the chairperson. Not.

Tell us about how you got here. Oh, God. Please don't do that.

I've spent seven years in here listening how you got here. I don't care. I want a show of hands in here.

Everybody talks about you got to find somebody you identify with. Let me ask you a question. How many oneeyed people in this room eat out of dumpster?

Ate out of dumpsters. Anybody in here? One.

Rock on, brother. Where where were you 21 years ago when I needed you? >> Come on.

Y'all understand this from the podium. Tell that story. Absolutely.

Out there with a one-on-one on a 12step call. You better be armed with that story if you're going to help anybody. Y'all follow.

But guys, we're in a meeting. We're here. We got the little guys.

They're in detox. They're coming into our meetings. They don't need to hear another stupid story.

They need to hear some solution. >> >> These guys got a hold of me and wouldn't let me go. And I mean, they went around the room and they shared stuff uh uh that I could understand.

They talked about getting their credit cards back. They talked about getting married. They talked about buying a house.

You'll follow, guys. All of my stuff was gone. I'm done.

I'm I'm less than 24 hours away from a suicide attempt. Those people in that room gave me the one thing that I needed worse than anything, and that was hope. You'll follow?

They they they collectively 20 or 30 40 people in that room pulled their heads out of their butt and stopped worrying about their day and started worrying about my day. We play lip service to this newcomers, the the most important person. But you're not going to stop your stupid domino game when the little new guy comes in the door to go over and introduce yourself.

We have a tendency in our meetings to get real clickish. >> I'm guilty. We got to remember what this is about.

And those people took me under their wings and they said, "Buddy, come on." And I guarantee you, they pulled me with a vision. At the end of a meeting, the old geyser asked me if I was ready to stay sober for good and for all. >> Wow.

>> He didn't say, "Let's stay sober one day at a time." He says, "I can show you how to not drink for the rest of your life." >> Permanent sobriety. >> And it clicked. >> Click.

Y'all follow? >> Power greater than myself. He hugged my neck that night.

They followed me home to make sure I made it. And the next day, they followed me back to the meeting to make sure I made it. And we went to a 10:00 meeting in the morning and visited a little bit.

And after after that, we went in the back room and they asked me if I had a problem with God. And I said no. And they finished qualifying me.

They made sure that I was a real McCoy as an alcoholic. I qualified for a bunch of fellowships and they qualified me. control and choice, those two words.

And uh we got on our knees and did a third step prayer. >> And I got up and felt different. And we went to lunch and came back and they gave me a notebook and they said, "Buddy, let's start working on that old fourstep." And I said, "Well, I don't know.

It seems kind of complicated." He said, "I don't worry about it. I'll show you how to do it. We're going to do it a column at a time.

Just go list the people that you hate. Can you do that?" I think I can do that. I think I can do that.

Two weeks later, I've got a completed fourth step, ready to do a fifth step. These guys are teaching me how to pray and meditate. They're teaching me how to take a daily inventory on 10step stuff.

Dig. I'm sitting on the tailgate of my truck, and it dawns on me the obsession of drink is lifted. Those guys had me busy from sun up to sun down at that little AA club.

You'll follow Chris, we got a newcomer here. Just so happens we got an opening on the cleanup committee. Oh, no.

No. I No. I see this desire chip, buddy.

I am the most important person here. Remember I told you guys I'd have been around AA for seven years. I was dangerous.

I knew every oneliner, every way to get out of something I knew how to do. Y'all follow? They wouldn't let me do that.

They grabbed hold of me and said, "Buddy, we come on, let's go." And they had me doing that. They had me answering the phones. They had me busy.

It's still my advice today with the guys I sponsor. You find a job in AA and you'll stay sober. If you're sitting in AA for a period of time and you haven't found a job yet, I'm gonna tell you this.

You're not going to stay around. You're not going to stick because you'll begin to think this is about you. >> And it's not.

It's about the cat that's going to miss that miss the whole deal unless you go get it. Said on that tailgate with tears in my eyes because I knew that the obsession had gone. For the first time in my adult life, I didn't want to dope.

I didn't want to drink alcohol. I didn't want to put anything in my system that changed the way I felt. Two weeks in, been a for seven years.

Never once lost the obsession. Why? I never got off my butt and did anything except go to a stupid meeting.

Worst piece of advice that we can give to any newcomer is 90 meetings in 90 days. If that's the best you can muster, shut up. What?

Why don't you just tell them the truth? Tell them I don't have time to mess with you, but this guy over here will. And then leave.

I don't know where that crap came from, but it's not AA. It's not in the book. We got too many people in this room, folks, that have lives, that that are busy, that have kids, that have jobs, they can't be in a meeting every damn day.

Some of us retired people can do that. Some of us people that are set up that we go to 120 meetings in 90 days for God's sakes if you want to. But I'm telling you, if you're coming to this fellowship and you think the meetings are going to fix you, you're wrong.

They're not. You may stay sober for a while, but you're not going to get the peace and the power that we're talking about. And that's what I want.

I see too many people in AA miserable. But at least I'm not drinking one day at a time. Oh jeez.

Rock on. Don't you all smell more? These guys had me do the work quick and they showed me how to start sponsored other people.

They didn't turn me loose. They taught me how to teach. Y'all understand that?

They and they stood right there with me. You're brand new and you need to know something about this. Let's let's let's let you chair a meeting.

We're not going to turn them loose and 40 people in a meeting and this brand new little, you know, 30-day sober person chair. I'm going to sit right there with you and I'm going to show you how to chair. How in the hell are they going to learn if we don't show them?

You with us? Somebody comes up and ask them to sponsor, they're up to the ninth step. They can take somebody up to the ninth step.

Stop telling people they can't work with newcomers. There's a window. I got to say this and wrap this down.

There's a window of opportunity out there, folks. There's a guy down here in Florida someplace, a guy named William White. He he wrote some great stuff.

Slaying the Dragon was one of the books he wrote. Great piece of literature. And this guy, I'd love to hug his neck sometimes, but he he wrote this.

He talks about this window of opportunity. Now, in AA, we call it the pink cloud. you little knuckleheads come in here and you get excited about how many of y'all remember that you got here and it's like god damn I didn't have to do anything and I feel great you know and it's like and it's like okay but we make fun of it and call it a pink cloud but what it is is God's grace and there's a thing with all of us we're going to have this little window of opportunity when things start clicking and we start feeling better and this is the time we're supposed to finish the work not sit on our ass and we miss the opportunity.

So, we wait till they the obsession comes back and it's kicking their butt and then we tell them it's time to do a forep. It's too late then. They're not going to do it.

in 19 65 66 my father was drinking himself spitless and we lived in a pretty tense environment there for a while but be nice family there's a lot of love there I've got an identical twin brother and I'm sitting out on the on the back porch we have a picnic table out there where pops used to drink and I'm out by myself in a big old full moon out on Boat Creek Road. That's as country as it gets. And um and I'm sitting there and it's dark and I'll never forget sitting there crying and uh because nobody's around.

You know, we live in one of those houses where there's three people in every bedroom and it's just this there's no privacy. And I but I'm out there by myself in that beautiful hill country air and and I and I'm crying because I I feel so worthless. Um, everybody's planning where they're going to go to college and what they're going to do when they grow up.

And and I just feel so empty. You with me? I'm 14 years old.

I'm not going to have a drink for three more years. And the first thought of suicide crosses my mind. I'll never forget it.

Summer, full moon. I would be better dead. This is not normal.

Welcome to untreated alcoholism. At 17, I finally found some booze that saved my life. Fast forward 1987.

I just come back in. I'm getting sober and I've got my pins on the ground pretty good and I got a few months in and I'm over at this other group and I'm helping this old geyser wash cups at the end of a meeting and he's an old guy. He's like some of the guys he he must have had 30 years then.

I don't know how he was old. I never intended to get this old. Y'all understand that?

Yes. >> Oh jeez. And you old guys that didn't tell me about this hair stuff.

Now listen, I got to tell you, this hair is growing out of the side of my ear like this. Look, when were you going to tell me about this like a like a damned antenna? This O'zer was up there.

His guy, his name is ML, and he's the nicest guy you'd ever want to see. This guy's, you know, like I said, 30 years and he's washing cups and up up there and everybody else is downstairs and they're smoking and chasing women and and I and I'm up here. I'm I'm fascinated with these old guys and they're he's talking to me about the archives and about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and I can't I can't get enough of this stuff and I'm just talking.

He turns around like this and he takes his little glasses off and he wipes them and I see that he's got tears in his eyes. I said, "Buddy, what's wrong?" He says, "Chris, I just got to tell you." I says, "I I I haven't told you this before now, and I've been negligent, but I got to tell you point blank." I said, "Buddy, it's so good to have you here with us, and I got to tell you, we need you in Alcoholics Anonymous. We need you at this group.

We need you in AA. Told this story a thousand times." Now listen, we need you is light years different from Keep coming back. It works if you work it.

Because I'm going to end with this and I'm going to tell you now point blank. Please, I know I come across as preachy with some people and I apologize. It's not my intention, but I am passionate about recovery.

And I'm telling you what I've seen in my 21 years of sobriety. I've seen that my perception that some of us were going to be very strong 12sters and some of us were not was crap. My perception was so skewed that that I believed that only a few of us could could affect other people.

What I got to see when I got here and stayed was that it took every person in the room to make this thing work. That everybody's not going to hear it from me. They're not going to hear it from the little white person in the back.

They're not going to hear it from there. But there's somebody in this room that's going to hear it from you. And we got too many people sitting on their butts waiting for this miracle to take place.

You you you come to these meetings to be to be helped. What you need to understand is that you're here to help. Everybody, nobody gets let off the hook.

You're 16. Thank you. Thank you for staying because we got another 16year-old coming your way.

You're an old geyser and you're picking up chips and you're wondering if it worth. Yes, it is. Because you got a bunch of us behind that don't have a clue what it's Guys, I know how to stay sober 21 years.

Anybody want to know how to do it? I'll help you stay sober 21 years. I don't have a clue how to stay sober in 22 years.

Number one email I get from all over the world is women looking for women sponsors. There are lots of sober women in AA. There are very few women that understand the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

They can tell you the best place to buy scented candles at Bed Bath and Beyond. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but they have a little problem telling you how to get off a forstep and make the amend so you'll stop being a victim and having the same dang relationships over and over.

Does that make sense, guys? every everybody in the place gets to help. Cuz here's why.

I'll I'll end with it. Here's why. Because every single one of us, look at look at the past.

Look around this room. There's there's over a thousand people in this room. Look at the past that brought us all here together today.

Oh my god. The the stuff. Some of us got the we got here through treatment centers.

We got some of us just walked it off the street. But regardless, the history that brought us here, >> the internal condition stuff, yes, we can all identify with that. But that that story, that identification piece is what makes this thing so great.

It's what makes this thing so You think you can't help anybody? How can I help anybody? I can't even help myself.

Oh my god. Y'all understand that? That is ridiculous.

What? Because you aren't with the stories about yourself and the information in this book, you can change somebody's life. Go find you somebody to sponsor.

Get your butt over to one of these halfway houses or recovery houses and listen to a fistep and get involved in somebody else's life. And I guarantee you, you'll have a whole hell of a lot less on your plate to worry about >> cuz that's how God works it. You give and God takes care of your stuff.

That's what this circle around this whole thing is about. That's what it's about. We don't have enough people in the trenches, folks.

We got a lot of people sitting on the sidelines taking shots. >> You with us? >> You'll hear it tonight.

Go to any Denny's within a 10 milei radius of this place and somebody will be in there taking our inventory. Well, I don't know about that little one guy. I don't know why he's so hot, heavy, and all hot and bothered.

People say, "Well, you shouldn't care." I do care because I don't want to air. But but but but I've seen the miracle. I've seen how it goes.

You aa the connection and all of a sudden two people are sober. Not one stupid day at a time for keeps. And we'll take a tide on this thing, folks.

I'm I'm honored to be in an industry where we try to help get people sober. But treatment is about discovery. Treatment will help you get your feet on some solid ground.

It'll detox you. But that's not what recovery is. Recovery is out here.

We need to take our meetings back. We need to change our formats. We need to do some literature-based meetings.

And I got to tell you guys, I always got cards and pass them out. And you guys use emails. If I can ever help you carry that message in any way, if I can help you, give you some literature, show you in the book with the stuff I'm talking about, man, let's stay together.

That's the that's the coolest thing about this fellowship. I love every single one of you. Thanks for letting me do this.

>> >> 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.