I Was Mr. AA on the Outside and Gasping for Air on the Inside – AA Speaker – Chris P.
AA speaker Chris P. shares his story of 17 years of daily drinking, a fatal car crash, prison, and discovering real powerlessness through the steps and spiritual awakening in recovery.
Chris P. spent 17 years drinking a fifth of vodka daily while building a successful corporate career—on the outside, he looked picture-perfect. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through the moment his double life collapsed in a blackout car crash that killed another person, his terrifying early sobriety, his discovery of genuine powerlessness through the steps, and how working with his sponsor and the spiritual principles of AA became the only thing that saved his life in prison and beyond.
AA speaker Chris P. describes 17 years of alcoholic drinking while maintaining a high-achieving corporate facade, culminating in a fatal blackout drunk-driving crash in 1999. After multiple failed rehab attempts, he hit genuine powerlessness, worked the steps quickly with a sponsor, and experienced a spiritual awakening that carried him through 6+ years in prison and into long-term sobriety. He talks about fear, resentment inventory, acceptance, the role of service work in recovery, and how looking back at where God has placed him reveals his amends for the death he caused.
Episode Summary
Chris P. was the guy who had it all figured out on the surface. MBA, management consulting career, apartment in the city, all the trappings of success that small New Jersey towns like Westfield promise if you follow the rules. But underneath was a daily drinker from age 18—by his mid-thirties, he was consuming a fifth of vodka every single day, using alcohol to medicate his sexuality, his sense of not fitting, his loneliness. For years, he pulled it off. He went to bars just to stop the shaking. He drank before bed, drank before work, drank through everything. The disease progressed exactly as it does.
When his boss finally confronted him in 1998 about his drinking, something broke open. He went to Carrier Clinic, got sober for three months, then moved to Hoboken—a city with more bars per square mile than anywhere else—and relapsed almost immediately. For the next year, he was in and out of meetings, learning all the right things to say at AA, sounding like he knew what he was doing. On the inside, he was a complete wreck, holding his breath, waiting to gasp for air.
The defining moment came in September 1999. Drinking daily, working from home, completely non-functional, Chris got in his car with a half-pint of vodka to drive to Carrier Clinic for detox. At mile marker one, still 49 miles away, he plowed head-on into another car in a complete blackout. He killed a woman instantly—a counselor who worked at the clinic. He has no memory of the crash. When police told him what happened, his life as he knew it ended.
What follows is the raw account of 15 months of hell: mental wards, detoxes, rehabs, suicide attempts, Ambien and vodka combinations that nearly killed him twice. After 28 days at Sunrise House, he got on a train in Lafayette, got off in Hoboken, and didn’t make it five minutes before going to a bar. Completely without defense. That’s when he truly understood what powerlessness meant.
Somehow he ended up at Honesty House, where he met a commitment group from here—guys who talked about AA the way it’s written in the Big Book. Real AA. He got close with another member and one night asked for help. They sat him down and asked him direct questions: Are you an alcoholic? Prove it. Do you believe you’re powerless? Can you get yourself out of this? Can you believe in a power greater than yourself? Within minutes, he was on his knees saying the Third Step prayer. That seed planted.
His sponsor then took him through Steps 4 through 8 in a matter of weeks. For the first time in his life, Chris understood himself—what his role was in his feelings, his emotions, his resentments. He grasped that resentments are poison. Most critically, he learned what fear actually means. Not just scary movies or knives—the thousand forms of fear that connect to every emotion and action. That understanding became foundational to everything.
But fear took over again in July 2000. Terrified of prison, terrified of never being with someone again, he ran to New York with the intention to buy heroin at the Chelsea Hotel and die. In another blackout, wandering the Village, he literally bumped into an ex-partner. That person found his sponsor’s number in his pocket and somehow got him out. His sponsor, along with others, came to the Chelsea Hotel and “kidnapped” him. They took him to Pottersville, and he slept it off. That was his last drink. July 9th, 2000.
What happened next was spiritual stepping stones—people placed in his life to guide him. A priest named Father McKenna at a recovery facility told him, “Tiger, God loves you and I love you and you’re going to be all right.” Something about the way he said it made Chris believe. He stopped fighting, stopped swimming against the tide. He surrendered. That’s when he understood he wasn’t in charge of his life—somebody else was.
He went to prison facing a seven-to-nine sentence for vehicular homicide. Inside, working the program was difficult—the system treated AA as a privilege, not a way of life. But he built his foundation on the Big Book and letters his sponsor sent him constantly—snippets on acceptance, awareness, letting go. His sponsor didn’t just say “hang in there, buddy.” He fueled Chris’s spiritual growth by sending exactly what he needed to hear, multiple times a week, for two and a half years. That’s unconditional love in the program.
Coming out, Chris fought taking a job at Integrity House—a recovery-focused organization. His plan was to be a paralegal, to save the world his way. But God had other ideas. He became a manager there, working with people in addiction recovery, helping them find hope. He makes a quarter of what he made as a consultant. He works longer hours. But he says he’s never been happier. Because service work—doing unto others—gets him out of himself and toward the real amends he needs to make.
Today, Chris goes to about two or three meetings a week. He lives in Newark, in the neighborhood where he works. He starts every morning with the Third Step prayer, identifying his difficulties—lust, arrogance, impatience—but always his self-centeredness. He ends every day on his knees, thanking God for his sobriety and his life. He’s building a home group. He’s working a step workshop because he knows he has resentments to address.
He measures his recovery against the Promises. Is God doing things he couldn’t do for himself? Absolutely. Is the uselessness and self-pity completely gone? No—he’s still an alcoholic, which is why he needs AA. But he understands himself now. He knows what loneliness does to him and can connect the dots between feelings and actions. He’s scared about the future—retirement, money, security. Those fears tell him he needs to go back to the steps.
On making amends for the death he caused, Father McKenna told him: “Tiger, when it comes to you, you’re going to know it.” Chris dismissed it at the time. But last winter, walking home from the bus stop, it hit him like an echo: *Tiger, tiger, tiger. When you know it, it will appear.* He looked at the life he’s living now—completely opposite from where he thought he’d be—and realized: this is his amends. Working at Integrity, helping people find sobriety, staying sober himself, helping another alcoholic achieve sobriety. That’s the gift this program gave him.
Notable Quotes
On the outside, I was Mr. AA. On the inside, I was gasping for air, holding my breath and waiting to gasp for air and that air was alcohol.
It’s the first time in my life I understood what I was about on the inside out. Fear isn’t just something in a scary movie or somebody coming at you with a knife. Fear is the thousand forms of fear, and it’s paramount to my recovery.
By doing unto others, I get out of myself. And that’s why we do service in AA.
When I think of acceptance, I think of accepting a gift. My life—that’s a gift. I should not be alive right now.
Tiger, when it comes to you, you’re going to know it. And I realized that what I’m doing today is an amends I can make. My biggest amends is to stay sober and help another alcoholic achieve sobriety.
Step 3 – Surrender
Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
Spiritual Awakening
Fear & Anxiety
Sponsorship
Step 12 – Carrying the Message
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 1 – Powerlessness
- Step 3 – Surrender
- Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
- Spiritual Awakening
- Fear & Anxiety
- Sponsorship
- Step 12 – Carrying the Message
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
>> Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-sunrise.com.
Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> >> Good evening, everyone.
My name's Robert. I'm an alcoholic and and I'm also Chris. I'm an alcoholic also.
I'll explain that in a little bit later, but uh I was blessed with two first names. But um I'm a little nervous, so bear with me. Uh This is like a um a spiritual homecoming coming here.
Last time I was here was in the spring of 2000 and uh I was in a whole world of uh you know the word. Yeah, I I I have to apologize ahead of time for I'm working on my profanity, so if it slips out here and there, you just just just bear with me, but I was in a whole world of coming here and uh because of my alcoholism and what I what I failed to do about my alcoholism. And uh you know, it it over the last 8 years or so, this place has been like a beacon of hope to me and tonight is like by coming back here is um it's almost beyond words expressing how how I'm feeling right now.
I'm I'm I'm nervous, but I'm also very emotional because of uh the power that this place holds for me and a lot of the people that are here that I met 8 years ago. And uh you know, the the power of unconditional love that's contained within the rooms of AA that that that literally saved my life. And um you know, it is just such a joy to be here and it's such a blessing that that that I made it to here tonight.
Not just by train and bus and all those wonderful things, but I mean uh spiritually and emotionally and mentally and and physically. Um So, the place to start is in the beginning, I guess. I I I I was born in Westfield, New or I born in Westfield, New Jersey, middle class, no care in the world.
Um at least so I thought growing up. Um What can I say? I'm an alcoholic.
I had all the traits of an alcoholic. Not fitting in, alone in a crowd. Um hated being lonely, but hated being around people.
All all the all the golden oldies and uh you know, I had a lot of other issues that were going on in my life. Um some dealing with my sexuality. I wasn't born the right sex, apparently, or and it took me many years to deal with that and uh alcohol was the instant cure for that.
It turned me into something that I wasn't and it kept me that person for a long, long time. Um but it also brought me out of myself and um as you hear over and over and over again, it gave me the courage, it gave me the the the personality, it gave me the outgoingness, it gave me the self-confidence, it gave me absolutely everything I strived to be, but couldn't find inside myself unless I poured alcohol inside me. I got drunk for the first time at 13 on Old Man Reeves Hill and from the beginning, you know, it was it was drinking alcoholically.
I drank alcoholically every day for effect, got drunk for 17 years from the age of 18 to 35. Um Successfully, mind you, at least so I thought. And uh you know, I mean, I did all the things that you're supposed to do coming out of a town like Westfield, you know, go to college, get a job in the city, wear a suit and tie to work.
Um Go to graduate school. Get my MBA. Skyrocket through the corporate world.
Um Travel the world. You know, on the outside, I was I was a picture-perfect person. Achieving absolutely everything that you know, I always use this analogy like one of my favorite movies is The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.
Like everything is supposed to be perfect, you know. And you know, it's this it's this undercurrent of perfection that's driven into you in in towns like Westfield. I I I don't know whether I have resentments against Westfield or not, but um I still was incomplete on the inside out and I was an absolute mess on the inside out.
And um over the 17 years of daily drinking, um I progressed. And at the time, I was probably weighing about 150 lb or so. And any normal person should know that if if you're able to consume two and three six-packs of beer or or a fifth of vodka and you weigh 150 lb and be able to go to sleep and not throw up and you know, that that's just not quite normal, you know.
I'll I'll look at my sister and she'll have like two martinis and be throwing up for 2 days and and and but I guess I was comfortable with the fact that I was an alcoholic. My dad's an alcoholic, his father's an alcoholic, his father's father was an alcoholic. Um my grandfather died of the disease.
My dad just stopped drinking one day. How he did it, I don't know, but usually people that finish a fifth of of um scotch a day aren't really able to just stop, but somehow he did. That that that that definitely wasn't me.
Um I knew I was an alcoholic from like age 18 and it's like I didn't even care. I almost thought it was like romantic. It was like a cool thing to do, you know.
It was it was it was I was around people like me. I was in, you know, the smell of bars, the look of bars, the feel of bars. It was absolutely fantastic.
But as my life progressed, I I really stopped going to bars. I would go to bars to get the edge off to stop the you know, the shaking and to the point where it was sliding because I couldn't even And um for about the last 10 years of my drinking, I was drinking about a fifth of vodka a day. And this was working my ass off for 12 hours, coming home at like 7:00, 8:00, drinking a fifth of vodka, going to sleep at 12:00 and doing that every single day, every single day, every single day.
And how I survived that, I don't know. They say alcoholics got livers of champions. Not everyone do, but uh by the grace of God, I don't have any liver damage.
I don't know why. I don't need to know why. Um But my life my life rapidly started spinning out of control.
'98, I got pulled aside by my boss. You know, I was on the partner track for working in management consulting. I was, you know, I was fantastic at what I was doing, you know, at least in my own mind and I didn't think anybody knew what was going on in my life.
And then out of the blue, the managing partner pulled me aside. He says, "You got a drinking problem." And it's the first time anyone ever This was I think I was 34, 35 confronted me about my drinking. And uh and it was like a dam broke.
It just burst out of me. Yes, absolutely, I got a problem with my drinking because because all of the all the bells and whistles were starting to come along with it, absences, um unexplained breaking of appendices and all the lies that went around it simply because I fell because I was too drunk to walk and making up incredible lies about stepping on my cat and how a table fell and it was terrible. It was terrible.
It was terrible and and all I did was fall down on a table and you know, But as a non-alcoholic and as a friend of mine today, he was able to see my pattern and see that I had a problem with alcohol. And they sent me on up to the Carrier Clinic for a week and I spent a week there and detoxed and I was cured and and I and I went home and I think I went to two meetings and stayed sober for about 3 months. And then made the brilliant move to move from Lawrenceville to uh Hoboken, which uh at least at some point in time had more bars per square mile than any other small city in the world or some ridiculous fact like that.
And needless to say, I think I lasted a day or two. And I spent about the next year sobering up for trips to my father's house down in North Carolina cuz he thought I was sober and then just going on these incredible tears and then stopping and then incredible tears and then stopping and going to meetings, but not getting plugged into AA and learning all the things I need to say and all the shares that sounded really cool. Like this guy really knows what he's talking about.
This guy is like Mr. AA and you know, on the inside, I'm absolutely freaking freaking all the jelly and a complete mess and just holding my breath and waiting to gasp for air and that air is alcohol because I did absolutely nothing for my recovery other than going to going to AA. And uh you know, as I'm as I'm speaking tonight, I'm sharing about how um what I've learned looking backwards through through through my successes and through my failures.
And um it's only through the past that I'm able to continue move moving forward because um it's a constant reminder of of of where I was and I and I think and sometimes I think you know I mean that's that's the basic of just about any meeting you know where you were and and and and and how you got to to where you are today and um Anyway, I'm coming to uh to like the ultimate defining moment in my in my in my life. Um I come to a point where I I couldn't even sleep anymore and I was just drinking on a daily basis and probably the worst enemy that I ever met other than alcohol was the concept of telecommuting and working from home because I was working from home and all I was doing was drinking and sitting by my laptop and pretending like I was working. And eventually it took about a month before that just completely destroyed me where I ceased to function.
So anyway, on a um in September of '99, I was on my way to I decided to get in the car with a half pint of vodka for one last road road roadie for uh you know before you go to the detox. And uh I was on my way to Carrier Clinic driving from Hoboken and uh I got about 49 of the 50 miles and at mile marker one left I I I plowed head into a into an automobile that contained a counselor that worked at the Carrier Clinic killing her instantly. And um complete blackout.
And I dreamt about it twice. I don't remember any of it. Um and as far as I can I was concerned at that point in time my life ceased to exist.
I no longer existed. I no longer deserve to exist. I no longer um deserve to walk the face of this earth and how I'm alive today is God's grace.
And I mean a for a whole number of reasons I never wear seat belts. I wore a seat belt. Um my car was infinitely worse.
Um Anyway, they they they they they broke the news to me in uh in uh Montgomery police station. And he's saying you got a DWI and you got to driving on the wrong side. I'm thinking please please God please God please God.
And he said and and and and you killed someone and it was it was it's like slow motion today and that was that was uh little over 7 years ago almost 8 years ago. And um I spent the next 15 months living pure hell. And um for the first like from like September to February of 2000 I mean I was going in and out of mental wards.
I was going in and out of uh uh uh detoxes. I was going in and out of uh rehabs. You know, I mean it was it was uh emergency squad was called twice.
I learned that Ambien and a fifth of vodka don't mix very well. And you know, I mean some I make light of this a little bit because I can today because I've lived through this and uh you know, it helps me cope. And it helps me it helps me realize that it's not the end of the world.
So I hope nobody thinks I'm like a you know, some kind of ghoul if I joke about drinking Ambien and vodka but that's and the fact that it you know, was in a whisker of killing me and I was on two separate occasions. But again, God's grace I'm not dead. And um I remember I spent 28 days in Sunrise House.
And I was I thought I was starting to get a grip of it and I hadn't invited God into my life yet. And I hadn't embraced any of the first three steps. And uh I got on the train in Lafayette and got off in Hoboken.
Still living in Hoboken. Still not a good move. Um I didn't make it 5 minutes off the train.
With every intention in the world with every reason in the world not to drink. You just killed someone because of alcohol. Because of my alcoholism I just killed someone.
And yet I was without a defense against drinking. Completely. And I look back on that today and boy if that isn't a if that isn't a definition of powerlessness if that doesn't factor into into into me getting a real strong understanding of what powerless means to me and what alcohol and my powerlessness over alcohol means then you know, I don't I don't know what I'm doing sitting up here.
And I can say that today but I couldn't say that at the time. Somehow again by God's grace I ended up in this place that I don't even think exists anymore. It's uh it's it's Honesty House in uh God, where is it?
Gillette or Sterling or something like that. Anyway, I I met all the crew Charlie Stuckey and Bob Bieser and God bless Bob Bieser. Um Mind you all all the legal wranglings was going around and I had I had a seven with an 85 sentence hanging over my head which means I was going to do 6 years.
And looking backwards I could have taken a plea and probably gotten 5 years and but I I I look back and for everything that's happened in my life there's a reason for it. And um and the reason was getting from that journey from getting pulled out of that car all the way through to today. And by meeting people and by by by having things introduced to my life that has fundamentally spiritually emotionally changed my life and changed the way I think about life today.
Anyway, um I remember it was it was probably this is going to sound real corny and all that but it was it was like a really nice spring day and it was like some meeting was coming in and this gigantic flatbed truck came pulling in and on the back it looked like a bunch of hillbillies that were riding in. And it was the uh it was the commitment for the night. I don't know whether it was associated with this group or not but uh but it was close cuz a lot of the members uh were members here as well and and it was like it was like a hoedown type meeting and they come in and they you know, they bum rushed the place and they came in downstairs and started talking about this thing called AA.
Really talking about this thing called AA. You know, in its most pure sense as it's written in the big book as it's instructed to follow in the big book the Coke book the instructions to get sober. And it started sinking in and you know, I I I started getting close with some of the guys.
We'd come to this meeting every once in a while. And I was a complete freaking mess. I had no idea fear capital F E A R um skinny white boys from Westfield don't go to prison and I'm going to prison and you know, I mean it's I'm going to get killed.
I'm going to get raped. I'm going to get I'm But but oddly enough the most frightening thing about me was um I was scared I was never going to come back who I was which is true but I was most scared about losing all the values that my parents taught inside of me. You know, the good the good the golden rules and all that good stuff that's that was buried buried buried but in there and I was I was real real frightened that I was going to come out to be some some some cold hard angry hating individual with no hope with no faith and that really scared the out of me.
And um I started getting close with uh with Chris S and I said I need some help. It was one night here at a meeting somewhere back there or down there somewhere around there. He said come on.
He said you're not going to the meeting you're coming downstairs with me. I came downstairs. I'm like what did I get myself into?
And him and I think it was Dave the pilot we figured out just a little while ago. I don't think he's around anymore here. I think Chris said he lives in Dallas.
But they basically said so you're an alcoholic. I said yeah. They said prove it.
I said well, I lasted less than 5 minutes coming out of a 28-day rehab and went right to the bar. He said all right, that's a good start. I said well, I I killed someone in a in a car crash in a blackout.
He said that's that's and and I continued to drink afterwards and they said that's that's an even better start. Do you do you believe that you're powerless over alcohol? I said absolutely.
He said can you get this out of can you get yourself out of this that you're in right now? Can you get yourself to have faith to get your emotions under control to get your get your mental state in order? I said absolutely not.
That's why I keep ending up on suicide watch in the mental ward and why I keep ending up in rehabs and coming out and drinking in less than 5 minutes and and why I want to kill myself and why I don't deserve to live. Of course I can't deal with that myself. He says do you believe somebody else can?
Do you believe in a power greater than yourself? I said I believe in God. He says okay, you've completed the second step.
He said get down on your knees. I said okay and I got down on my knees with the three of us or two of them and me, and we said the third step prayer. And Here's where I get real emotional.
Because uh that um that seed that was planted was planted. And you know, I wish I could say that everything was was happy-go-lucky after that. Um it wasn't.
But Chris proceeded to take me through my through the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth step over the next couple of weeks. And thank God he did. Because I'm going away to prison.
I don't know what my life is going to be like. But for the first time in my life I understood what my life what what I was about on the inside out. And by doing a I almost look at it's like triage.
And and I know today I got I got I got I got I got to work through the step. I got to I got to do another fourth step. I know I do.
Um but it uh it got me to understand the concept of what's my role in any given situation, what's my role in any feeling, what's my role in any emotion. And it got me to understand why I have resentments and what resentments are all about. And how resentments are just pure poison.
And more importantly and most importantly to my recovery today, it it taught me about the word fear. And how fear is paramount to my understanding my fears the thousand forms of fears is paramount to my recovery. Cuz I never understood fear.
I saw I thought it as something you know either you see in a scary movie or somebody coming at you with a knife. And and and by truly grasping the concept of fear and how it links to my emotions um I started my journey of self-knowledge and self-learning and and self-growth and and and and spiritual development. And I wish I could say everything was was was was picture-perfect, but on in in in in July of 2000, I I split on Rusty's house because that fear took me over, that fear of going to prison, that fear of never being with someone again.
And I only learned this recently. I always thought it was just my fear of prison, but it was fear that I was going to have I wasn't going to have sex in a long time. So I ran off to New York.
And I I was reading this crazy book about the history of punk rock and it was glamorizing heroin use. And I've never done heroin in my life. And uh fear it again consumed me so much to the point where I I went to New York with the sole intention of of just cashing in.
I was going to buy I didn't even know how to I was going to buy buy some heroin. I was going to shoot up and I was going to die. And I checked into the Chelsea Hotel.
But uh I mean, it was like the thing to do, you know? I read this punk rock book and it was they were all seeming to be going to the Chelsea Hotel to die. And you know, like any good alcoholic, I'm I'm going to be glamorous in my death, you know, or so I thought.
But again my alcoholism got in the way. And I quickly went into another blackout somewhere between Summit and New York. Anyway, this is this is the start of my spiritual story.
Somehow, someway I was wandering around the village in a complete blackout. And I ran into my ex-partner. I had no business being in there.
Literally bumped into him in a blackout. And he knew my whole story. You you know, I learned this all afterwards, second-hand.
I feel I've like spent a lot of my life reliving history by through other people telling me what the I I did in my life. But anyway, this is supposedly how it went that I bumped into him and and and somehow he got out of his handcuffs at the Chelsea Hotel. He took me to the Chelsea Hotel.
Somehow found Chris S's number in my pocket. And uh >> >> Sure enough, the next morning I don't even know I think it was a Sunday, maybe a Saturday. It was a Sunday.
The door comes busting in. And Chris comes in and Mary Beth comes in and T comes in and and they says you're coming to Bernardsville. I'm like, what the are you talking about?
Get away from me. I'm here to die, man. I'm going to die.
I'm going to end this. I'm going to not feel this anymore. And sure enough, they kidnapped me and took me to Pottersville.
And I slept it off. And that was my last drink. That was July 9th, 2000.
And that was the first time that I've actually seen God demonstrated in my life that he's got me. I never quite believed it. I believed in God, but I didn't believe in all this stuff that he's got me.
And uh you know, over over the next seven or seven or so years there were these little spiritual stepping stones which are people in my life that I met that geared me and guided me. Um I went to this place called Reflections up in Hackensack and was introduced to the paint patron saint of uh of AA in Bergen County, Father Father McKenna. God rest his soul.
Um and this is when I had my spiritual awakening in a diner in Dumont New Jersey. And he just looked at me. He said he said, Chris Actually, he said tiger.
His words were he always uses the words tiger. He says, tiger and this is straight-up drunken priest that grew up in Newark, you know? I mean tiger you know, God loves you and I love you and you're going to be all right.
And I don't know why. I don't know how. But I believed him.
And it went from my head to my toes and I believed him. And I stopped fighting. I stopped swimming against the tide.
I surrendered. You know, you hear all the analogies of of the director and the actor or the you know the the coach and the player or I I I started getting at that point in time after coming at getting dragged out of the city and and almost dead again. And somehow, someway ending up alive again.
Um that I'm not in charge of my life. That somebody else is in charge of my life. And from that point on although a very difficult journey but between really getting an understanding and working you know doing a a thorough at least I thought at the time fourth step as best I could given the fact it was fresh in my mind that I had just killed someone, it was fresh in my mind I'm going to prison.
But also you know, fully embracing the spiritual aspects of this program I was all right, you know? And I was scared to death, but I but I did it. And I made it.
And I and I met Sister Corina while I was in prison who taught me other aspects about my spirituality. And I met Father Schultz. And you know, all the while I'm getting these I'm getting these letters while I'm locked up.
No hi, how you doing? No hope you're well. Hang in there, buddy, you know?
And it's all Chris is sending me all this stuff. It's just these snippets of AA stuff. And Emmet Fox stuff.
And stuff on acceptance and stuff on awareness and stuff on letting go and stuff on I'm like, can you give me a little hey, how you doing, buddy? Or something, you know? And he did this almost like four or five times a day.
Or sorry, a week. For a period of about two and a half years. And this is what I mean by unconditional love of AA.
Chris didn't know me other than just being an alcoholic and and and doing a fourth step or fifth step with him right right in his Cherokee in the back parking lot there. Um but he um he was fueling my fueling my spiritual growth by by by constantly feeding in the stuff that I needed to be hearing. And it's not easy working a program in prison.
Um in fact, it's damn difficult. A, they see AA as a privilege and not a not a right and not a they see it as a program and not a way of life. And I did I I spent time in three different prisons.
The last prison I was in was Bayside and it was a penitentiary and it was a real shitty place. They uh they kill people down in Bayside. And um they had like a 9-month waiting list to get into AA.
And then you'd go for like eight weeks once a week and then it was over and you get a certificate, you know? And it's like they just don't get it. And so I learned to have a lot of meetings sitting on my bunk with the big book and stuff that Chris sent me and stuff that other people sent me.
And I really start you know, really really built my foundation and and and and and really built a strong connection. And everything was great, you know. Um but the closer I got to home that conscious contact with God, that pipeline got narrower and narrower and narrower and narrower.
And God wasn't done for me yet. I I had this plan, my plan. My intentions of how I'm going to run the rest of my life.
I became a hotshot jailhouse attorney. Um I was good at it. I smoked Marlboros the whole time while I was locked up.
And I was going to become a paralegal and save the world. And I was going to come out of uh halfway house and move right into an apartment. And I'm on my way doing it, I end up in this place called Port House in Newark.
And uh it's part of uh mother ship uh integrity, the mother of all therapeutic communities. And I'm about 2 weeks in the port, I'm about 2 months away from starting working, getting a job, starting my life over again when all of a sudden I get called in the director's office and he says um we got a problem. I'm like he says you're not supposed to be here.
I'm like oh. He said don't worry, don't worry, you're not going back to prison. I said where am I going?
He said you're in the wrong place. I said what do you mean I'm in the wrong place? He said um you're supposed to be across the park.
And I'm fuming right now. I said what the is across the park? He says Integrity House.
I said oh no. And I'm kicking and screaming all the way there. So anyway, I did my little 6 months there and just just before I was supposed to if nothing else integrity taught me to just put put step on the brake and slow down.
You know, I don't have the answers. I don't have the answers. But God had another trick, you know, along with switching me over just to Integrity House.
Um about a week before I was supposed to leave one of the directors there, Bob Bob Biscotti, came screaming out. He goes he goes Robert Robert Robert Robert. God's speaking to you.
I said what are you talking about? He said they got a job opening here. You'll be a manager of administration.
I said I can't be a manager of administration a place like Integrity. I still got a state number. He says no, you can.
This is Integrity. We do whatever the hell we want to do at Integrity. So sure enough, I took a job.
And I'm first meeting I went to, I'm I moved over to Port House. I had 6 more months to do. First meeting I went to was with the Department of Corrections at Talbot Hall where I just come from.
It's an assessment center. I said to I work for the president. I said I can't go back there.
I said I'm still a state inmate. He said just don't tell anyone. I said what are you talking about?
And and this is the crazy world I live in right now. And again, this is my spiritual connection. God I I I fully believe this.
God put me there. God put me there. Not to become a paralegal in some sleazy law firm, no offense if there's any lawyers in the um in the audience.
But taking my addiction, taking my my my my experience and taking the God the gifts that God gave me that I was good at in the business world and applying it. You know, I've never been happier in my life. I can't figure out.
I'm making a quarter of what I used to, but it's not about the money. I work more hours than I did as a management consultant. It's not about that.
It's it's it's it's it's about the two the biggest lesson that I learned in prison. And this ties directly into the into into why we do service in AA. Is by doing unto others, I get out of myself.
And I did a lot you know, I learned that while I was in prison. I mean about people that can't read or people that can't put a sentence together or people that just and by doing things for other people, I'm working towards this terrible beast of addiction. And all the cashes and prizes that come with it, the criminality, the deaths, the murders, the overdoses.
For a wonderful organization where where where it's an open book for me where I want to take this. And I mean that is so freaking cool right now, you know. And and it's and it's it's it's all about uh you know, the spiritual fulfillment I have.
And uh you know, I I But it's not my recovery. A lot of people at at at work in Integrity, they use Integrity as a recovery. They see it, you know, somebody who's who's who's who's kicking a 10-day 10-bag a day habit walking in the door just sick as hell and and they and that's all they need to stay sober.
That's not all I needed. When I got out of Port House, I went into an Oxford House. The last place I wanted to be after living in group quarters for the last 7 years straight was living in a house with another bunch of guys.
But I knew I had to because I knew I was I knew where I was coming from. I knew I had a whole new bucket full of resentments. I knew I was still an alcoholic.
I knew that I was powerless over over alcohol. I knew that I had to surround myself with sober people. I knew that I had to plug myself into AA again.
I knew that I had to, you know, do all I mean I hadn't had a drink in 7 years or 6 years or something along those lines. But I knew I had to at least do 90 90 meetings in 90 days because I had to. I had to do that to stay sober because prison, excuse my language, prison your mind up in many ways and I'm still finding out after, you know, being out almost 14 months, 15 months.
And I didn't want to take the chance of drinking again. So I spent about 6 months and a half in a in a in an Oxford House in Montclair. Montclair's got some great meetings, you know.
There's more meetings in Montclair than there are in the city of Newark, which is a tragedy. And um and I got plugged in and and I got got right back on, you know, on the horse, the AA horse. And um and I started developing my my my real program where I can choose to go to meetings.
And um it's funny. Now now I live in Ironbound. I I I I I I moved down to Newark.
I figured I'm I'm working with the city and I'm working with Integrity trying to, you know, save the world or save Newark and all that stuff. I might as well live in it. Um and I absolutely love it.
And on the train right up here I was thinking, you know, about how I run a perfect program. At least in my intentions, you know. If I followed all of my intentions, my program would be outstanding.
But intentions are not action and uh you know, I I'm here tonight by happenstance again, you know. I sent a uh I sent a Christmas card to Chris. You know, just just for the hell of it.
And then about 2 weeks ago he sent me an email. He said well, why don't you come speak here? I'm thinking all right, sure.
He says how's next week? I'm like all right, fine. Um when I'm asked, I do.
And my program today I I'm on the 25 bus every morning. And at home when when when it's not not during the weekday. I start my day off with the third step prayer every single day.
Every single day. Because I need a daily reminder to start my day off that I'm my own worst enemy. That all of my difficulties are causing all of my difficulties.
And that I need help to take away these difficulties. And each day is different. It's cool, you know, it's like identify the like, you know, three or four or five difficulties of the day, you know, that I've been struggling with over the, you know, is it lust or is it is it arrogance?
Or uh is it is it is it um impatience? It's always my self-centeredness. It's always my selfishness.
I was thinking um starting off today I I was I was going to say about, you know, like when you're going to speak you want to say, you know, like really cool stuff, you know, especially in the in the Burnouts Anonymous group. And and while we had that little moment there, I was thinking about help me not say anything self-serving because that's that's not what this is about. That's my that's my ego talking and my ego's an MFer, you know.
And my ego gets me in trouble and my ego paints a picture of who I am that I really am not. And things I should be doing that I really shouldn't be doing. Because I know.
And that's why I say the third step prayer every morning. And if nothing else that helps me on a daily basis with my program. I conclude the day on my knees.
And I conclude the day thanking God for everything that he's given to me. First and foremost, my sobriety. And my life.
And um I don't go to a meeting every day. I'd love to go to a meeting every day. Um developing a new uh home group at the Barrow Mansion in Jersey City.
Which is a pretty cool group. Um I'm starting to go on commitments again. And what's funny is the the odd side of living in Newark is that I'm living amongst a lot of integrities.
We call them student members. Cuz clients is so clinical and we're all about love and And I find like my Saturday morning ritual is always bumping into one or two or three. Sometimes they're drunk and sometimes they're not.
Sometimes they're struggling, sometimes they're not. But that's another big part of my program is to work with as many other alcoholics as I can. And again, that's the selflessness that this program is about.
About helping someone else find that beacon of light, of hope, of faith that other people have helped me find by sharing the message. And one of the greatest gifts also I learned while I was locked up was was the whole concept of acceptance. And uh Chris, I think you sent about 300 different things on acceptance.
And I was at a meeting couple Saturdays ago and this guy put it so eloquently and so simply. You know, you always say, "Well, I got to accept the fact this is I'm in the here and I'm in the now and today, you know, this is what it's all about." You know, this is where God put me. That's acceptance.
And this guy put it, he says, "What's what's the word to accept something? When you accept something, you receive something." And the way he put it, he says, "When I think of acceptance, I think of accepting a gift." And I was like, "Wow." And I started going over all the gifts that are in my life today. My life.
That's a gift. I shouldn't be alive right now. I should not be alive right now.
Not only for suicidally drinking for 17 years. Not only for the car wreck. Not only for um these alcoholically passive reach out for help suicide attempts that I've come to learn are commonplace because people that seek and receive help still have a number of life burning inside them.
And I I learned that today by looking backwards, you know? Or the gifts of of of employment or of where I am at 15 months coming out of prison. On a daily basis, I walk down Broad Street in Newark.
I mean, and and integrity is in the hood. I mean, it is straight up in the hood. The paper guy across the street's dealing The bloods around the corner are dealing crack and heroin.
There's drive-bys usually once a month within a within a two-block radius. And these are usually filled with so many people without hope and so many of them that are coming out of prison without anything to cling on to. And you know, with the Department of Corrections not providing something that's free readily.
You know, because of security issues. And having the gift of AA in my life is is is unbelievable. Um it's a new found new found freedom.
You know, I measure my life today by the promises, you know, usually I look at the promises as See, I'm like a business process guy management consultant. I need structure and methodologies and charts and all this stuff and I need metrics, you know, and my prom the promises are metrics for me, you know? Has God been doing things for me that I couldn't do for myself?
I'm I'm sitting right here tonight. He sure is, you know? Is that feeling of uselessness and self-pity gone away?
Not completely. I'm an alcoholic, you know, that's why I need AA. You know?
And the beauty of my where I'm at in my program today is I know I I I I really understand myself. I understand loneliness and how it makes me feel and how it causes me to do other actions that may not be the most sober actions in the world. But I can connect the dots between the feelings and the actions and I also am learning to put different actions in that are more positive.
You know? And and I understand the concept of fear. I'm scared to death of the future right now.
I'm scared to death that I'm not going to have a retirement account, you know, which my lawyer's driving around in I'm scared to death of living check to check at 65. All of these financial insecurities. And all of these new feelings that are arising in me today are telling me that uh I need to go back to the steps.
And um I learned a couple weeks ago they're doing a step workshop which is a I just found is I thought was and now I confirmed is a derivative of a lot of the work that's come out of here with Barefoot Bill and in Hoboken and I'm going to plug my ass right back in there again. And um because I need to. Cuz I know I got a whole backpack full of resentments I got to get rid of.
And what's beautiful by doing an eighth step before I went away to prison is you got a lot of time in prison, you know? And I I I made a lot of amends through letters. Of amends that people most normally wrote back and said, "You don't owe me an apology.
Just come out alive. Just come out whole and don't drink again and that's your amends." You know, all these family members that that spent their entire lives of raising up their the the the Parkinson name excuse excuse me for using my last name, but it doesn't matter. I was all over the front page of every newspaper after that crash anyway, so as I was talking before the meeting, my anonymity was broken a long time ago.
Um Thinking that I destroyed the reputation of members of my family. That's such a bunch of BS, you know? But in my own mind it was an embarrassment that I had that I had to take care of so I could face them again on two feet.
And I and I took care of a whole bunch of resentments, but I got a whole lot more to do and new ones, too, you know? And you know, you hear this all the time, it's a process. It is a process and it's a process that stops the moment I stop taking action in my recovery and stop addressing it on a daily basis.
And if nothing else, and I'm not suggesting this as a as a course of action. You know, I go to about three meetings a week, two meetings a week. I'd like to go to more.
But my fear's got me dealing with another ism, the workaholism and we'll get there, you know, I'd rather be a workaholic right now than an active workaholic than an active alcoholic. And I'll get there. Probably, you know, right about before I'm going to die, but you know, but that's the process, you know?
And uh I'm going to I'm going to close with something that Father McKenna gave me. And uh That man, he started the recovery mass up in uh Cloister. An incredible uh spiritual event that that still goes on every month.
And that man made it up to about a month before I was released and died of brain cancer and that really really crushed me. Um But he said He said actually I'm going to leave with two things. He said, "Tiger, why you I said I said He said, "If you ever lose sight of of your spirituality, if you go into the the religious scripts and texts, a lot of times it talks about the back of God.
He says, 'Look backwards and look at all the different places that you've made it through and all the different situations and all the different really annoying situations that came into your life that nudged your life just a little bit or a little bit or put you in touch with the right person at the right time when I absolutely positively needed it.' He says, "That's that's going to fuel your spirituality and that's going to keep you going to the next day." And uh And and the last thing I'm going to close with is um I said, "Father McKenna, how do I ever make amends for killing someone?" And he looked at me as you can tell, tiger is his favorite endearing word. He said, "Tiger, when it comes to you, you're going to know it." And I'm like, "What is this guy talking about?" And this was back in 2000. And and this past winter I was walking home from the bus stop in Montclair.
And I don't know why, but this came into my mind. And it was like it was like a movie, you know, like an echo chamber, you know, like tiger tiger tiger. When you know it, it will appear.
And I'm like, "Where did this come from?" And a light went on and I looked at the life that I'm living right now and where I'm working and what I'm doing, which is completely polar opposite of where I thought I was going to be, where I wanted to be, where I knew I was supposed to be. And I said, "Holy shit." Huge son of a gun, man. And I realized that that, you know, what I'm doing today is is is an amends that I can make, you know, to Roslyn Feinstein, the woman's name that I killed.
And I know I got to make other amends to that. I can't because of because of parole stipulations. But I will.
And um my biggest amends is is to stay sober and, you know, to help another alcoholic achieve sobriety. I mean, that's that's that's the bottom line today. And that's the gift that this program has given to me.
And uh I uh I hope I was able to share a message of of hope and faith and and recovery and hopefully it was rooted enough in the history of AA for this group. This is a tough uh tough group, but I had great teachers. And again, this place is a beacon of hope and these rooms, you know, are just so full of unconditional love, of one alcoholic helping another.
And I'm here today and I'm alive today because of that unconditional love of of one alcoholic helping another. And that's what it's all about, you know. We're not perfect, and that's why we have each other.
And uh you know, I thank God for the opportunity to share tonight. And uh hopefully I brought you a good message. But uh thank you for letting me share.
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