Why Just Going to Meetings Almost Killed Me: AA Speaker – Chris R. – Scottsdale, AZ
AA speaker Chris R. from Texas explains why 7 years of just going to meetings without working steps led to relapse and near suicide before finding real recovery.
Chris R., a recovered alcoholic from Texas speaking in Scottsdale, spent seven years in AA meetings without working the steps or finding a sponsor who would take him through the Big Book. In this AA speaker meeting, he shares how “just going to meetings” led him to multiple relapses and a suicide attempt before he finally encountered old-timers who showed him how to actually work the program and experience the spiritual awakening described in the literature.
This AA speaker meeting features Chris R. discussing his seven-year struggle attending meetings without proper step work, leading to continued relapses and a suicide attempt. He explains how treatment centers and watered-down AA messages failed him until he found sponsors who taught him to work the steps quickly using the Big Book. The recovery speaker emphasizes that meetings alone don’t create sobriety – spiritual awakening through step work and sponsoring others does.
Episode Summary
Chris R. opens this powerful share with his characteristic blend of humor and brutal honesty, immediately addressing the elephant in the room – he was recently fired from his job in the treatment center industry after years of service. But his real message cuts much deeper than workplace woes. This is the story of a man who spent seven years in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous without getting sober, and how that experience nearly killed him.
Growing up in the Texas Hill Country with an alcoholic father, Chris got the “genetic bullet” that would define his relationship with alcohol from his very first drink – Boone’s Farm Apple Wine under a cypress tree in 1971. While his drinking buddy spit it out as too sweet, Chris finished the bottle and realized “for the first time why my dad drank like my dad drank.” He would spend the next 18 years chasing that feeling of being “right” in his own skin.
His descent follows a familiar pattern – from functional alcoholic to geographical cures, multiple detoxes, therapy, and eventually a marriage that couldn’t survive his untreated alcoholism. But what makes Chris’s story unique is his devastating critique of how AA meetings had become divorced from the actual program of recovery outlined in the Big Book. He paints a vivid picture of sitting in discussion meetings for seven years, hearing war stories and complaints about daily life, while never once being taken through the steps or shown how to have a spiritual experience.
The turning point came on a cold Thursday night in 1987 when Chris, bankrupt and broken at 35, sat on his apartment floor opening hot check notices. After seven years of trying therapy, treatment, and meetings, he was done. He went to his medicine cabinet, swallowed pills in a suicide attempt, and heard a voice say “Don’t do this. Go back to AA.” That voice, which he describes as clear and unmistakable, saved his life.
The next Friday the 13th, detoxing and reluctant, Chris walked into a Big Book meeting he’d avoided for years. A 19-year-old girl with one year of sobriety grabbed his belt loop and said “Sit down, cowboy, you’re not going anywhere.” That simple act of service – keeping him in his seat – began his real recovery. The chairperson asked people to share “how their lives had changed as a result of working the 12 steps” rather than telling war stories, and Chris finally heard what he’d been missing for seven years.
After the meeting, an old-timer with a beat-up, duct-taped Big Book approached him. Instead of offering platitudes, he asked one direct question: “Are you done? Are you ready to do this?” When Chris said yes, the man took five minutes to properly qualify him as an alcoholic using the book’s description of the phenomenon of craving and mental obsession. For the first time in seven years, someone gave Chris a case of alcoholism rather than just a desire to stop drinking.
The transformation was swift and thorough. These AA sponsors who understood carrying the message picked Chris up the next day, took him through a Third Step prayer, explained how that step obligated him to help newcomers, and sent him home with a notebook to begin his Fourth Step resentment inventory. Within two weeks, he had a completed Fourth Step and was learning the disciplines of daily inventory and prayer.
Chris’s message becomes particularly pointed when he discusses what he sees as the watering down of AA’s spiritual message. He traces this dilution to the Hughes Act of 1971, which opened treatment centers nationwide and brought people into the fellowship who weren’t necessarily alcoholics – “hard drinkers and moderate drinkers and fruit cakes and nut cases and people that were lonely.” While grateful these treatment centers helped real alcoholics, he argues they also muddied AA’s clear spiritual message with therapeutic approaches and the idea that “just going to meetings” was sufficient.
His bicycle story provides a powerful metaphor for what real recovery requires. Describing a grueling 100-mile ride in freezing conditions, he explains how the stronger riders pulled the weaker ones, how they stopped for anyone who fell, and how they finished together as a team. Years later, when new riders asked about that legendary ride, the veterans would say “You wouldn’t understand – you didn’t do it with us.” This, Chris argues, is what separates those who work the steps with sponsors from those who just attend meetings.
The talk builds to his central thesis: alcohol isn’t the problem, alcoholism is. If you just stop drinking without addressing the spiritual malady, you’ll gradually go insane as “the pain of staying sober gradually outweighs the benefits.” He’s seen too many people with long-term sobriety relapse because they stopped doing step work and service. Every relapse with over 10 years he’s encountered had one thing in common – they weren’t sponsoring anyone.
Chris challenges the room to get “in the trenches” – to sponsor newcomers, chair meetings, and carry a clear message based on the Big Book rather than personal opinions or therapy-speak. He describes the incredible transformation that happens when you sit across from someone who’s never heard of AA and give them real hope that they can recover quickly, just like the early members did.
The connection to AA speaker talks on step work and resentment inventory runs throughout Chris’s message, as he emphasizes how quickly the steps can be completed when properly guided. His story mirrors that of Don P.’s talk about coming to be changed, both men discovering that mere sobriety without spiritual awakening isn’t enough.
Two weeks after beginning the work with his sponsors, sitting on his truck tailgate, Chris realized the obsession to drink had been lifted. In 23 years since, it has never returned. But he’s quick to point out that he can’t live off that spiritual experience from decades ago – he needs current spiritual connection through daily step work and helping others.
Chris concludes with gratitude for the old-timers who stay active and the women who continue sponsoring newcomers, noting that the number one email he receives worldwide is from women who can’t find sponsors willing to actually take them through the steps. His message is clear: AA works when you do it as outlined in the Big Book, with proper sponsorship and step work, not when you just warm a chair and hope for the best.
Notable Quotes
If you’re a real alcoholic, you’re not going to stay sober going to a bunch of meetings. If that’s all you do and you’re the real McCoy, you’re going to gradually go insane.
Alcohol is not the problem. Alcoholism’s the problem. If alcohol was the problem and you quit drinking, your life would be better. The problem is most of us end up offing ourselves in sobriety than we do out there drinking and drugging.
Are you done? Are you ready to do this? We’re going to show you how to live life a day at a time. This is not about staying sober – we’re going to show you how to do this if you want to do this.
I can’t live off a spiritual experience I had 23 years ago. I got to have a current spiritual experience.
The problem is not drinking one day at a time. The problem is staying spiritually awake one day at a time.
Sponsorship
Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
Fellowship & Meetings
Hitting Bottom
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Full Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
See, it's not that the phone rings, it's just that those ringtones are so goofy. It's like, oh my gosh, it just freaks me out. My name's Chris Kramer. I'm a very grateful recovered alcoholic. And I probably look like some kind of a ghost here. It's bad enough I've got to wear an eye patch, but I've got the stage lighting to go with it. We may levitate out of here before this is all over.
I listen. Thanks to whoever had anything to do with me getting here. Thanks for doing it. I love Phoenix. I started speaking out here about fifteen years ago and I've had the opportunity to do it a few times. Yes, I know it's hot, but it's a dry heat. I know. I've heard it all. The architecture is gorgeous and I've got to tell you, the people are the absolute nicest. So thanks for letting me come out here.
Some of the AA groups that I talk at, the fellowships that I'm in, they're not as good-looking as this bunch. I mean, it's a surprise to some of you. Even the ugly people are good-looking. I don't know. This is great. But this podium is a lot like something we would do in Ingram, Texas. What can I say? I'm delighted to be here. Chris and the Posies picked me up at the airport and got me here, and they're going to take me back in the morning. I wish I could stay all weekend. I've got a job interview tomorrow night. I've got to go.
I listen, I've got to tell you real quick and get it out of the way. Some of you are asking, but I got canned about three weeks ago. I got terminated. And my old sponsor, Mark, y'all are laughing. Y'all, trust me, it's fine. My old sponsor said, "Bro, you ain't lived until you've been fired in sobriety." And I did the same thing. I said, "Yeah, right. Okay. It's no big deal." But I owe amends to every guy I've ever worked with. I mean, I've worked with hundreds of men and I've been on the phone with a lot of people around the world. I get to speak and they lose their job and they call me, and it's the same stuff comes out of my mouth. You know, "God's got something better for you" and all this. And I'm so sorry. I make a public amends to every one of you because you've got to come up with something better than that.
You don't understand. I just lost my job. Is it like it is? It's always a catastrophe when it's happened to you. Other than that, it's just no big deal, you know?
I'm delighted to be here. Let me do my little ten-second disclaimer. I'm going to get seasick before this podium's over. We're going to fix it for you, Sandy, tomorrow night. Those will be nice and steady for you to hold on to. But I'll just sit here and sway back and forth. That's okay. [laughter] It's a pirate thing.
I'll go ahead and say it now before you all start. If I hear one more pirate joke, I don't know. I want the good. It's better. Ain't it nice to have a man around the house?
I got sober in 1987, folks, after years of messing with this thing trying to get well. I'm going to tell you some about that in the hour. I started traveling around a little bit speaking from the podium. Not necessarily because I was too witty, but some of the stuff that I talk about rings real true with some people, especially these little chronic relapsers that have tried a thousand times to get sober.
What I want to do tonight is the same as I always do—share a little bit of my story with you. It's my experience. And y'all look around this room, guys. We've got lots of different people coming from lots of different avenues here. The chance of you having the same experience as me—that's one of the things that drives me crazy in AA. Sit around the rooms long enough and you'll hear somebody tell your story. I'm not trying to be controversial and I'm not trying to pick a fight with anybody. I'm a big book thumper. Finally, in 1987, somebody understood the traditions and they understood that the meeting formats could actually change. You mean something besides an open discussion meeting where you come and talk about your horrible day? Oh my God. [applause]
And in four days I'll be in Denmark and I'll say the same thing and I'll get the same applause. And we'll go straight back into the meetings and continue to do it. It drives me crazy. I just want to scream. But some of you in here really like those meetings. And if you can just go to ninety meetings in ninety days and you can stay sober and never work a step, how cool is that? Rock on. I think that's cool. But it's just not my experience.
So I'm going to share a different experience from a little big book thumper perspective. And if you're a little meeting maker kind of knucklehead, I hope you go away soon. But we're going to have a good time. Just understand I'm coming from a little different spot than you are.
It's amazing to me how many times when we're speaking out there that people want to take exception with the big book thumpers' perspective. I introduce myself on the podium, and I always have, because my sponsor told me and he showed me in the book. You should. After the obsession to drink leaves, you should start introducing yourself as a recovered alcoholic. But thanks to treatment centers, we've got all these little recovering alcoholics hanging in there. My question is, when are you going to get well? We could use your help in the trench, you know. We're going to talk some about that, but it's my experience. You don't have to agree with everything I say, and that's just okay. I don't want to talk about it after the meeting. Just go away. I used to say that, and they usually come up and try to explain to me why we're always going to be recovering and we're always going to be sick. I don't know why, because my counselor had—oh my gosh.
I was raised up in Kerrville, Texas. Ingram, Texas, down in the Hill Country. We're about sixty miles west of San Antonio. A lot of you guys that drove to the International Conference drove right through my town. And didn't notice it, did you? It's that impressive. It's just nothing going on there. And except it's all dried up now. I guarantee you we're in the middle of a drought.
My father was an alcoholic. He's passed away long ago. He was the nicest man you'd ever want to come across. He was one of these periodics. He could stay sober for long periods of time, and then something—barometric pressure would change or something—he'd be off. Wonderful guy. My mom's a professional artist and still around today. We had a wonderful family. Good Baptist upbringing and no goofy stuff going on. But my twin brother and I got the genetic bullet.
You guys can argue this until the cows come home, but this genetic predisposition is pretty real. Some of us get it and some of us don't. And there's some of you in here that believe it's about the bad thing that happened to you. I'm sure that exacerbated the problem, but it didn't cause you to be an alcoholic. It caused you to be a hard drinker. But alcoholism is a little illness all in its own.
Folks got people out there want to argue whether this is a disease or not. I don't know. Why don't you take it up with the American Medical Association? They seem to be pretty clear that this is a disease. I watch people die of this illness every week. I work in the treatment center field and have for a million years. Until about three or four weeks ago. [applause] I have a long time. I've worked in that industry.
I get really upset. I'm like a mother bear around Alcoholics Anonymous in these hospitals because I've heard every bad thing that's ever been said about Alcoholics Anonymous in the treatment center. I mean, these guys will come into treatment, down in the little detox unit, and about the time they start clearing the Ativan, you know, [laughter] their little eyes look—you know, they're getting better because they start noticing women if the guys are in there. You know, they spent the last three days in a fetal position crying, begging for help. And now all of a sudden they've got their sunglasses on, everything's cool now, checking out the babes. Ativan's wearing off and they look up on the wall and they go, "Oh, man, there are steps on the wall. This is an AA place. I thought for this kind of money we'd be doing something different." Yeah, I know. [clears throat]
A lot of places out there, you know, I go pet chickens and whatever. I don't care what you do, but guys, we've got some experience out there that shows the twelve steps work. Alcoholics Anonymous works when you actually do it. They always look up after that and it's, "Oh, you know, I went to AA. I tried that. It didn't work." No. What you did was go to a bunch of meetings. See, if you're a real alcoholic, you're not going to stay sober going to a bunch of meetings. If that's all you do and you're the real McCoy—I mean, that in itself is so controversial. People ask you to leave the podium. "Well, meetings are what keeps us sober." I think last time I looked, it was God that kept me sober. Maybe I'm wrong. [applause]
If we had another thirty minutes, I'd soapbox this because at some point we were a spiritual program of action and we turned into this self-help program where the meetings were the big focus. I'm not knocking meetings. I still go to a bunch of meetings a week as I can. But we sure separate a lot of people by making that the focus. "Just don't drink. Go to meetings and everything will be okay." My experience is if you just don't drink and you're a real alcoholic and all you do is go to meetings, you're going to gradually go insane. The pain of staying sober will gradually outweigh the benefits. And one day down the road—for Chris Kramer, it's about two weeks with me. It's about two weeks. And I hear this little voice saying about two weeks sober. "Oh my God." And I hear this little voice that says, "You could probably have one beer because I'm nuts and I'm coming apart. Everything you're doing is pissing me off and I don't know what it's about. You seemed like a good idea a few years ago, but now, you know, it's everybody else's fault." And yeah, y'all understand this.
See, guys, I've got to say this and get it out of the way. Alcohol is not the problem. For Chris Kramer, it's not. I've been detoxed so many times. I know the protocol. Alcohol is not the problem. Alcoholism's the problem. Y'all with us on that one? You can hear it. It's the same thing. No, it's not. Because if alcohol is the problem and you quit drinking, your life's going to be better. Everything's just happy, joy, and free. The problem is that most of us end up offing ourselves in sobriety in dry time than we do out there drinking and drugging. It becomes painful. It's progressive in nature, folks.
For some of us, we could put lots of dry time together just like I'm talking about with my dad. He could do it for long periods of time. Given sufficient reason, some of the women I've seen in this room can stay sober. I can stay sober for periods of time. And then this crazy insane word—I start arguing with myself on the way to work why it's okay for me to eat a handful of pills. As long as I don't drink, everything's okay, you know? Maybe smoke a little pot because I didn't say anything about that. And now we're off to the stupid. I've got to have something inside to fix what's wrong with me.
Have you ever watched people in Alcoholics Anonymous, some of you guys—old-timers in here that have been around for a little while—have you ever watched people end up? They laid the booze down and now all of a sudden they're picking up all this other stuff. "Well, you know, we gained three hundred pounds or we're hooked up to internet porn or we're doing—oh my God, the lottery, the scratch-off tickets, you know. Oh my God, why is it that we take our focus onto—" Some of y'all got real uncomfortable when I started talking about that stuff, but I'm looking for something to fix what's wrong with me. And what I'm trying to fix is untreated alcoholism. Does that make sense?
My first attempt at alcohol—thanks, Dad. My first attempt at Alcoholics Anonymous was in the early eighties, folks. That's my stick. That's my deal. I spent seven years in Alcoholics Anonymous and nobody was talking about any of that. I left Kerrville. I left the Hill Country. Fast forward to the story. I went to Houston, Texas. I wanted to be a cook. In January 1971—the month that Bill Wilson passed away—I took my first drink. It was Boone Farm Apple Wine. And can you feel the love in here? I mean, come on. Like I said, I don't know what's in that. I don't think it's ever seen a grape, but it's pretty. It's the only thing I ever drank that got prettier when it was coming back up. It's like lime green. Try it. Never mind. No, no.
I'm sitting up next to one of them big old cypress trees and we drank this Boone Farm. I've told the story a gazillion times. I'm with a little buddy of mine and he looked at me and he drank it and he spit it out. He says, "That's too sweet. I just can't drink it." And he said, "I'm going home." And I said, "So, let me get this straight. You don't want me to save you any of this. You're done with this bottle. Is that correct?" "Yes." And I finished it. It was a little bottle. It wasn't one of those big bottles. And I didn't get drunk. I didn't get squashed. I didn't rob liquor stores. I didn't take my clothes off. I didn't do anything that I hear you guys talk about. Y'all, I got up and walked across this field in this big old full moon up here in the Hill Country and realized for the first time why my dad drank like my dad drank. He wasn't so far off base. And I was going to spend the next eighteen years trying to get back to there.
Y'all understand? We used to do it in cooking. You'd have a couple of beers. Guys, I don't want to get drunk. When I get drunk, I do stupid stuff. I fight with people that I love dearly. What I want to do is get right. And every alcoholic that's ever drank knows exactly what I'm talking about. You talk to people that don't know what they're talking about. They come into treatment. "Why do you drink?" "I drink to get shitfaced." Man, that's a lie. That's not true. Unless you're seventeen years old, eighteen, maybe. But as you get some responsibilities, I don't want to get squashed. I want to get comfortable in my skin. And I can tell you exactly how many drinks I've got to get to get there.
The problem is this phenomenal craving that Dr. Silkworth in the front of the book does such a masterful job explaining starts to kick in. And now all of a sudden I start missing the target just a bit, and occasionally I will overdrink and it gets to be pretty nasty. And that's the problem when we first start drinking. Everything's just the coolest. It's so great. Listen, when alcohol was working for me, I got to tell you, I've said it from the podium. You couldn't touch me. John Travolta had nothing on me. I'm drinking through the seventies. I got me a pair of high heels just like never before. Y'all wouldn't understand how cool I was when it was working.
And that's the problem. If it was still working, we'd all still be doing what we're doing. But the progression of the stuff is: you do it and it's fun and it's okay for a while. As it gets worse, it's still fun, but there's some problems to be dealt with. That's when a lot of people start coming to treatment. You do it long enough, it's hell on earth. You don't want to drink, but you can't not drink. And that's the realization when you're standing in front of the mirror and realize that the deal's up. That you can't not do it and all the excuses in the world are running thin. That's real alcoholism, folks. That's why we drink our livers up. That's why we drink and lose our babies, our kids. That's why we lose our jobs. That's why we're not having fun doing that.
Let me tell you, this is just a hypothesis of mine based on a lot of research from a lot of people. But this is what I believe happened. The water started to get muddy around the eighties and the nineties. We had a pretty clear message for a long period of time. Bill Wilson in his absolute wisdom wrote this stuff down in the big book and got real clear about the spiritual program of action. He says over and over that perhaps a spiritual solution to the problem would work for you. And he talks about this God thing. He talks unapologetically about this spiritual experience that we're supposed to have.
And over the years, what we've done is we've managed to water that all down because we don't want to offend anybody. This is so not about religion. He was so open about this. You can believe in whatever you want to believe in. But you've got to believe in something bigger than yourself. And for anybody to say the opposite of that just kind of smacks against what Bill Wilson was writing in the book.
In 1971, there was a piece of legislation called the Hughes Act that came down the pike which allowed treatment centers to open on every street corner. There were like seven-elevens. Every hospital in the country had a detox wing. And on the surface, that was a good thing because so many of us got well in those in that era thanks to those treatment centers. But what happened was, in order to keep those beds open, what we had to do is we had to cast that big net out. And we didn't care if you were an alcoholic or an addict or not. If you kind of looked like one and you had good insurance, back in the eighties, it didn't matter if you had good insurance or not. If you had any insurance, it would pay like slot machines. It would pay. So we'd scoop you up. We scooped up real alcoholics and real drug addicts. I'm glad we got them in treatment. We also picked up hard drinkers and moderate drinkers and fruitcakes and nut cases and nut jobs and people that were lonely and didn't have anybody to talk to. And we—the problem is a lot of those knuckleheads are still here. They're the ones with their wonderful—"Listen, I don't. When you decide you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, you'll just quit. Just put the plug in the jug and everything will be okay. Rock on." I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. I'm going to put the plug in the jug. My problem is I have a mental insanity called this power of choice that I've lost.
On page twenty-four, it tells me that I'm going to pull the plug back out even when I don't want to. But because you can put the plug in the jug, you think I should be able to put the plug in the jug on my own power. Does that make sense?
From 1935, when Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob got together, till 1976—thirty-six years—we had our first five hundred thousand members of Alcoholics Anonymous. From 1971 to 1976—five years—we got another five hundred thousand into our fellowship. You know where all those people came? Right into our fellowship via the treatment centers. I'm not knocking that. How cool that was. But the problem is that the messages got so damn watered down because of all of that. Everybody putting their own spin on it. I'm not knocking any of that. If it worked for you, great. I'm not complaining about that. I'm just saying you've got to be careful because if your message is different than what's in the big book, you're confusing folks. [applause]
In the early nineties, the last stat I looked at, we had over forty percent of all the hospital beds in the United States were psychiatric or alcohol and drug-related beds. Can y'all imagine that? I mean, there's just not that many drunks in the United States. There's just not. This is where the problem, I believe, lied.
I was in Houston in an apprenticeship program and doing real well. This old boy came up—one of the executive chefs I worked for—and he said, "Chris, we've got a food and beverage director's job opening up, and you're showing some great talent here. But we're a little concerned about your drinking." And I said, "Well, we all drink in the kitchen." And he said, "Yeah, but you take it a step further. I'm not—there's not a bunch of drama with my drinking, folks. Y'all understand? It's just perfectly normal to come at the end of the shift and I'll be passed out in the walk-in quietly sitting on a case of lettuce." [laughter]
"Mind my own business. Y'all okay." He said, "Chris, if you can stop." And this is one of my first indicators that there was a problem because all I had to do to get this food and beverage director's job was to not drink or at minimum reel it in some. And I couldn't pull it off. I started seeing counselors and therapists at that point and started going to treatment. I spent ten years in therapy, and I'm grateful for every bit of it. If there's any therapists in here, you've got a special crown in heaven for putting up with our crap.
But one of the cool things about seeing some of these therapists back in those days of the eighties and nineties was that you get lots of medication around that. And if I can't drink, I'm a real fan of medication. I'm taking seven pills a day—all doctor-prescribed medications. I'm not up here to knock any of that. I'm just saying come on, guys. I'm not a whack job. I'm a garden-variety textbook untreated alcoholic who needs a spiritual experience in order to recover.
What I ended up doing was getting way overly medicated. I mean, guys, in my last days of drinking, I could pee green. I mean, it was just like I would glow in the dark. I'm taking so many meds. A lot of these pills that you guys, some of you, I did test studies on. So oh my gosh.
I started moving around a bunch. I did a bunch of geographicals. I finally got married. A counselor told me, "Chris, you need to set some roots down. You get married, you'd stay sober. How'd that work for you?" And I finally found a girl that believed that, you know? I mean, she was a helper. She was a nice lady and she married me. It was terrible what I did to this woman. I was just never there. We moved up to North Texas to be closer to my family. I moved her away from her family so I could be close to my family because I'm the one that's having trouble staying sober and we need all the support around me we can possibly get.
But my twin brother, of course, was my best drinking buddy anyway. He got sober a few months after I did. Thank God. But I was up in North Texas and I got a job at a country club and everything's going to be okay. Guys, I don't know. Y'all remember the progression of this illness, how it gradually got bad and then like at a certain point it was like those Roadrunner cartoons, you know, where the little guy drops off the cliff at the bottom. You know, that was like my drinking. It was okay for a while. It was holding it together pretty good and then it got really, really bad.
I used to drink a case of beer and go to work. I mean, I just—that's just so did a lot of you. [laughter] Come on, guys. "I drive better when I'm drunk." I know. And there was a point, you know, you just—we could hold mass quantities of alcohol. But what happens in end-stage alcoholism, some of y'all can relate to this, is that you can't metabolize the stuff like you used to. So less and less will get you more and more in trouble, if y'all know what I mean. [laughter]
Now I've got two drinks in me and I'm slurring my words. And that's where a lot of people end up saying, "I think I need AA because I don't know why I can't drink like I used to be able to." You with us, guys? It's end-stage alcoholism. You're dying. Your body's shutting down. Pay attention.
I had a little domestic disturbance with this woman and we ended up late that night. She said, "Chris, you know, what was this about?" And I said, "I was drunk and I'm loaded on some other outside issues and I'm just a mess." And she said, "You want this to work or not?" And I looked at her in the face and I told her that I would quit drinking. Just like I'd told that executive chef that I loved and respected so much. With tears in my eyes—and I get so sick and tired of hearing people laugh from the podium. You know, if an alcoholic's mouth's moving, he's lying. That's not true. And it's disrespectful. That's not true. When I looked her in the face and told her I was going to quit, I meant every fiber in my body. I'm done. I'm not enjoying this. It's taken the one thing I love the most away. I'm done. I didn't understand that I didn't have the power to manage that decision, but the decision was made in good faith.
It drives me crazy when a newcomer comes into a meeting and he picks up a chip and he's all embarrassed and we sit there and we talk to him and a few weeks later he's gone and somebody leans over. "Well, I just knew the little bastard didn't want it. I knew he didn't want it bad enough." What? Whoa. My question to you is, did we tell him how to get well or did we just tell him to keep coming back? [applause]
I went to an AA meeting that night and the next day I went to my first AA meeting in the early eighties. I walked up these old steps in this old building downtown Denton. This old geyser sitting in an easy chair—you know, one of those lounger things, you know, when you lay back and had one light hanging down in the middle of this room. I mean, y'all seen that scene in Psycho? Y'all think I'm making this up. People email me. "You just described that exactly." He sat up in that easy chair and—I like, it freaked me out. This old guy says, "Do you have a desire not to drink today?" I hope to kiss a pig. Absolutely. [laughter] "I've got a half-finished court in the truck. Does that count? I mean, I'm in—but I want to stop."
That's what he asked me. What he was doing is qualifying me for membership in Alcoholics Anonymous, which is what he should have done. But in the next seven years, nobody qualified me with the illness of alcoholism. Period. Nobody ever found out if I was the real deal or not. As long as I had a desire not to drink today, I could come in the rooms. I'm not saying that we're making a wrong choice by doing that. I'm saying that's all he did for me. Make sense?
I'm sitting in the room, of course, and I didn't stay sober. I went home that night and I said, "Boy, it was fascinating in that meeting. Fascinating. You would not believe some of the crazy people we have living in this town with us right now." And I'm so glad that most of those people are sober today because I mean, they're scary, you know, because I got to hear all about how many people you chopped up and how many—oh my God, it was just an amazing thing. And I opened a beer in the refrigerator. She said, "What are you doing?" And I said, "Well, after that, I mean, I need at least a beer, you know?"
I stayed sober a couple of weeks and she came home after work one day and I'd drank a couple of beers on the way home and she smelled it and packed her stuff and left. I would spend the next five years drinking, blaming her.
I went to work for my twin brother up in North Texas. He owned a book bindery. I couldn't work in the field anymore. I couldn't cook anymore. I couldn't stand that long. My hands are shaking too bad to hold a knife. And Myers used to laugh. He'd get on the intercom. He said, "Cancel Chris's surgeries for the day." You know, because I'd be back there shaking so bad.
In 1987, on a cold Thursday night, I'll never forget it. I went home about three o'clock and stopped and bought a twelve-pack of beer and went into my little apartment. I picked up the stack of returned checks. I get my mail once a month just to make sure I get it, you know, because it's depressing. And I've got some hot checks in there. Back in the day they put checks in individual envelopes so you could sit there and open them individually. It's like Christmas, you know. You could open—you got six hot checks, you'd have six envelopes in there. Remember those days? I don't know if they still do it, but oh my God.
I sat there on the floor and I opened those checks up and here I am, thirty-five years old, and I've bankrupted another checking account. I'm going to have to go to my sister-in-law and—come on, guys. My drinking and drugging career. I'm what they call a functioning alcoholic. Y'all will follow. I'm not losing jobs because I'm drinking. I'm quitting a gazillion jobs because I'm drinking. I would be at a penthouse one month and two months later I'm in a garage apartment in the Heights in Houston eating out of dumpsters. Not for a long period of time. Food's not bad. You, if you don't mind fighting a cat for it, it's not bad.
My wife Patty asked me, "Why do you hate cats so much?" I tell her, "Until you sat in a hot dumpster in the middle of the night looking for food and have a cat jump out at you, you don't know what fear is." Somebody came up after some place I was speaking. They said, "Oh, but they're God's creatures, too." [laughter] I've never gotten that. Well, guys, I don't know what to tell you.
I'm sitting on the floor of my little apartment and I just—I can't do this. I'm humiliated and I'm taking all these medications and I don't have money to pay for them. I was just done. I don't know. Some of y'all have gotten to that spot. I'm done. I've tried AA. I've tried therapy. I've tried treatment. I've sat naked in sweat lodges. I even did colonics one time. Come on, guys. No, you've got to want to get sober bad to do that. I mean, I got to tell you this. I never stayed sober one day, but my complexion was something else. I got to tell you, very peaked. Really nice.
I got up from the floor and went to the medicine cabinet, took a couple bottles of pills and tried to commit suicide. Absolutely nothing romantic about it. I was just done. It wasn't that I was hurting that night any more than I was hurting any other night. I was so banged up. I just got tired of letting people down. I've let myself down a million times, but I can't tell you I'm going to stay sober and watch your face again when I relapse.
This is why I keep doing these from the podium, even though some of you get grindy with me. That I know the answer. I know the solution. I've been in Alcoholics Anonymous for seven years. Y'all find this incredulous. I know because you may come from a group where they talk solution, but I'm in a group where there's not a big book in the place and the only thing that you know about the steps is what you can read up on the wall and nobody talks about them. They talk about their day. They tell war stories. I mean, that's what we do with a newcomer. "Whoa, Chris is coming back. Let's tell him how we got here." And then I get to hear all of your damn war stories. How many DWIs you got? The stuff that you should have been telling me in a twelve-step call. Now you're telling me as general fodder in an AA meeting.
I'm just saying I'm just saying there's nothing wrong with our stories. You better have one if you're going to be effective in this program. You better have a good one. You with us? Friday night from the podium, you better have one. And then in that twelve-step call, you need to tell him some stories just what the book says. But why is it that we think it's perfectly okay to go in and waste our hour during the day—maybe the only meeting we get a chance to see this guy—to tell him one more story?
I listen. [applause] Stick with me until I get to the end of this because I want you to understand what I