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 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 everybody my name is Chris and I am an alcoholic live from Joe Hawk Hall on Saturday night uh this is this really is an absolute pleasure for me I uh you know to be to be asked to come down here is you know it when when Mark called me up and said hey I want you to come down and do a workshop speak uh I’m like you know I couldn’t believe Mark Mark’s been a hero of mine for uh since 94 or five uh when when I first got a hold of some of the workshop tapes and to be able to come down here is really really great um on or around December 28th 1989 the grace of God separated me from alcohol um it was it was a brutal period of time for me um willingness only born of desperation uh shoved me toward what I thought was my only possible hope the only plan that was out there and that was to uh to go back to Alcoholics Anonymous I did that uh with a fervor and through a course of events and uh being exposed to some uh really wonderful people uh I haven’t I haven’t seen the need to uh to take a drink since that day I’m very very grateful grateful for that I want to want to start U start my story at the beginning uh I was born at a very early age uh one of the uh one of my first memories okay here’s one of my first memories um I remember my mother came up to me I’m about five and she said uh Chris kindergarten starts today you’re going to kindergarten and I’m like what and she’s like yeah you’re going to really like this I’m taking you to kindergarten get dressed I I get dressed I don’t know I don’t know really know what’s going on she throws me in a car she drives me across town uh she parks at the top of this hill she opens up the door and she says see you later and I remember walk I remember getting out of the car she drives away and I’m standing up on top of this hill looking down at the school and the kids kids are already down there they’re running around they’re playing tag and kickball they’ve already like like they’ve already made friends with each other there’s already peer groups started I’m standing up there on top of the hill going oh you there’s something wrong here this is not a good idea you know I I I was filled with self-centered fear I was thinking know what if they don’t accept me what if I get beat up what you know what what if they ostracize me I’m worried about all this stuff I’m five I I I but I you know I know enough that I need to go do this deal so I act as if everything’s okay inside me I’m freaking out I act as if everything’s okay inside me and I walk down and I start the kindergarten thing okay now what I remember of school what I remember of the first six or seven years of school it’s really not pretty I I mean I was not having a good time I was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people I was never comfortable with myself or my environment I was always worried about what you were thinking about me I was you know I always had this anxiety and you know there would be like uh there would be like an oral report where I’d have to get up in front of the class and I’d cut school that day then I’d cut three days after that just in case there’s a makeup I mean you know I just I was just freaking out and I was acting as if everything was okay cuz you had to be cool you know what I mean so I was acting as if everything was okay and it was it was traumatic for me you know I was looking at you guys and I was thinking how do you do it how are you like okay with this whole thing you know I’m like freaking out but I can’t tell anybody so I get to about seventh grade or something like that I’ve got a couple of friends and we decide that we’re going to cut School we’re going to go back to my mother’s house and we’re going to get drunk okay this sounded like a really cool thing to do we could brag about it at school the next day you know it was like you know it was like dangerous and on the outside a little bit and uh that attracted me so um so that’s what we did we went back to to my mother’s house we cut school and I didn’t know anything about drinking at this period of time the only the only Expos I don’t come from an alcoholic family you know people that that do you know God bless you you you understood probably more than I did uh the only thing I knew about drinking was the John Wayne movies you you remember the John Wayne movies hey bust through the saloon doors he’d go bartender whiskey and the bartender pour a big water glass of whiskey out he’d drink like the whole glass down grab the bottle go back to the table shoot somebody in a little while you know and uh so that’s what I did I poured these big water glasses of Four Roses Canadian whiskey you know to this day I have like a pavlovian response to this if I smelled that four roses forget it here here’s what happened let let me first tell you what happened to the two guys I was drinking with they never became alcoholic as far as I know they never became problem drinkers what they did was they drank about 2third of their glass and they had had enough you ever drink with people that have enough isn’t that annoying no thanks I’ve had enough are you crazy let’s go to the city you know I mean that’s the way I drank it’s only 1: in the morning you know you can get to work still uh they had had enough and they sat back and they watched the show because here’s what I did I drank my whole glass the rest of their glass the rest of the bottle and I went into my first blackout any blackout drinkers in here whoa that’s the most amount of hands I’ve ever seen Mark that is dis it’s disconcerting to be a blackout Drinker isn’t it I mean you know you you ask your buddies by the way uh last night was fun wasn’t it uh you know what what what did we do you know you ever like lose your car forget you know forget where you park your car you ask like an earth person I I need to go look for my car you need to look for your car well where did you put it I I I don’t remember what do you mean you don’t remember well blackouts blackouts are really disturbing I mean you know I’ve done some crazy things in blackouts um I got increasingly violent as I drank I remember I I don’t remember this one time I called up my boss in a blackout and threatened his life I’m going to kill you and I and I quit right now I’m in a blackout so I get dressed I go to work the next day I walk he’s like what the hell are you doing here I’m like what you threatened my life last night I did this type of you know you wake up in Topeka with one shoe you know toeka hello Topeka and because you you can’t look stupid you got to pretend that you always go to Topeka with one shoe you know oh man I I I would come to in some very very strange places uh with some very strange people and um you know it was it was it’s it’s really disturbing but anyway I went into my first blackout the very first time I drank I went into my first blackout trashed the house you know busted window made a whole did made a whole scene ended up waking up in a field you know coming to in a field like what am I doing in a field and the the the thing was was uh after that I was horribly ill do you remember your first real drunk I mean you had to be horizontal for like two days I mean you’re poisoned you’re poisoned you’re like oh like vomiting all over yourself and uh and and he here here’s the I mean I was so sick it was unbelievable if anything else would have made me that sick I never would have gone near it again if I would have ate a rudaba and got that sick I never would have go I never would have gone near a rudaba again I wouldn’t need to I wouldn’t have needed to go to a 12ep rudaba Anonymous Fellowship I wouldn’t have needed to get a rudaba eaten sponsor you know I wouldn’t have needed to get a coffee commitment I you know I would have had an adequate mental defense to not eat rutabagas here’s what alcohol did for me though and I don’t believe that it does this for non-alcoholics it may but I I don’t believe so you know that scared kindergartner that was always in me that that repressed anxious you know really worried about everything kid that was inside me when I started to drink that alcohol all of a sudden I knew a new freedom and a new happiness from that repressed anxiety all of a sudden I’m like you know like like like this is the secret elixir of life now I can finally feel like you guys now I can finally feel like I fit in I felt Larger than Life okay I was the funniest guy you you were lucky to be hanging out with me who cares what you think about me you know I mean it was a complete shift in in perception and it was a an unbelievable amount of freedom and then I learned how to projectile vomit you know but but listen the the the the part that made me so sick that memory started to fade but what didn’t fade was what alcohol did for me and from that moment I became preoccupied with alcohol I I figured I’m never drinking Four Roses again and you know I never did I started to drink things like remember Boon Farm apple wine you know I’m like 12 you know a Strawberry Hill you know Budweiser Schlitz I I mixed it up a little bit I I never drank the Canadian whiskey but but I started to plan where I was going to drink who was going to buy it cuz the drinking age was 21 I was 12 that was problematic you know but but you can always work things out you can always find a way um you know I started to figure out where I was going to drink it who it was going to be with where we were going to store I became very very preoccupied with alcohol now I come from a really smart family U my sister and brother are both college professor phds My Mother and Father F Beta Kappa you know just a just an really really uh uh smart family and the moment I started drinking things started to change with schoolwork for me okay I started to not pay much attention to that and my grades started to slip if you can imagine now you know you always see things in hindsight I I did not say to myself gez I’m becoming preoccupied with alcohol if I keep on like this you know I may not get into college of my choice I didn’t say that you know what I said things like who cares leave me alone get off my back I’m not hurting anybody but myself you know the war cry of the alcoholic you know just stay away from me in my booze okay it’s my business and I started to do things like take Wednesdays off in high school just to break up the week you know uh Hey where’s Chris today it’s Wednesday oh that’s right it’s his day off you know I mean I just I’m quickly became incredibly irresponsible now now there was this is this is the late 60s the very early 70s so guess what folks there was some non-conference approved materials around that you could get your hands on and uh believe me I partook of such things uh whatever it was I I’d eat it and then I’d ask you by the way what was that you know I mean it just I was looking for anything to get me out of me I wanted to escape the bondage of Chris like you have no idea and I was always drunker than anybody else took more drugs than anybody else I mean you know we we had some we had some real times uh back in those days I remember I remember the Basking Ridge Quaalude epidemic of 1972 now here’s what happened uh one of my really good buddies brings a big sack of quao into school he got him from his brother way late the night before he goes hey these are quals and we’re like well what are those oh they’re great you know how many do you take he goes ah three or four so like 50 of us took like three or four Quaaludes before first period okay by third period I’m walking down the hall hanging under the lockers like this finally I go I got to make a break for it okay this is too much and I see the exit right and boom I go through the exit now what I don’t realize is the whole 400 Wing is watching me they love this they said Chris it took you 15 minutes to go 100 yards you know I I find I make it out I make it outside now you know I had a lot of fun in the early days with some of this some of this drinking and drugging but very very quickly there there came problems there came problems and I would minimize the problems but but they started to become uh I crashed a lot of cars uh I totaled nine cars in drunken blackouts got three DWIs I mean you know some some of these some of these accidents were unbelievable I remember allowing myself to become over served at this one bar and I’m leaving the bar and the car spins around on some black ice and hits a bridge AB butman going backwards I get thrown out the back window and I come to I’m looking up at the stars I’m laying on the trunk with my feet still in the car I’m you know laying on the truck and I’m going hm this is this isn’t good um I I should probably get out of here now the car was bent like a boomerang there wasn’t a window left in it it had three flat tires and the drive shaft was slapping the frame where am I going to what am I going to do what do we do we go home right we try to head home so I get in the car and I’m going about a mile and a half an hour down the road whack bam whack bam with this car and I go by cops given radar I can still see the guy I mean he didn’t even pull me over he like walked me over you know what I mean and he reaches he reaches through the window and he starts shaking me where’ you have that accident I’m like what accident officer I got glass sticking out of my head I don’t know about you guys but the cops were always hassling me he goes where are you going I go home he goes where’s that I go Bas your R he goes That’s 28 month what are you thinking you got no tires leave me alone DWI number one uh another time I’m in Florida and uh I’m I’m doing qu luds and whiskey again which if you’re new we don’t recommend you drive on that it’s it didn’t work for me I misjudged the trajectory going across traffic and got T-boned you know on like a Highway rolled me down the road I come to and I’m laying on the the roof of the car cuz the car is upside down and my shoes had been knocked off this is another important warning sign if you’re ever in an accident and your shoes have been knocked off that’s it’s probably a pretty bad accident but people are looking in like is he dead is he dead I crawl out of the car and uh I had been thrown through the passenger window and then thrown back into the car now I had glass sticking out of my head really bad and I mean this was a head wound it was bleed I was bleeding like a stuck Pig I mean covered with blood and I’m you know I’m standing there like talking talking to people and they’re looking at be like this guy’s crazy and uh the cops come up I grab a bystander I say listen call my call my call my wife and tell her I’m heading to the hospital the ambulance is coming and everything and the cops are like you know we’re going to give you a blood test when uh you get to the hospital so I’m like all right Officer I only had one you know you’re not an alcoholic if you admit admit to more than one when they pull you over I just had one I get to the hospital I’m in the emergency room they wheel me in the cops are coming they wheel me in and and then they don’t pay attention to me so I’m laying on the gurnie I’m looking around I’m I’m getting out of here so I jump up off the gurnie I bust through the eem the emergency room doors through the waiting room now people are like horrified because I’m like covered with heading out I bust through the doors and I’m heading for the woods meanwhile in comes in comes my wife her sister and her sister’s boyfriend driving this way I see him and I start heading for him I dive through the window onto their lap and go you got to get me out of here they want my blood they’re like okay now here’s here’s how good the alcoholic is I talk him in to taking me back to the party I was at okay and and she and my wife did Dr me off I go back in the party a couple of biker chicks are yanking the glass out of my head with pliers you know I’m wondering why she wants to leave me you know what’s the matter with you uh another here’s my here’s my last last DUI I’m drive another evening I’m allowed to be over served I’m on my way home and supposedly I crossed a double yellow you know how this is supposedly I get pulled over now the cop comes to the knocks in the window says license registration insurance card and I’m like okay and I am so drunk I open up the glove I’m fumbling in the glove compartment for like five minutes I’m so finally I just grabed the entire contents of the glove compartment because I can’t do and I just hand it to them you know maps and Combs and pens and tissues and everything you know the cops are always hassling me now he goes get out of the car gives me the sobriety test I remember very little of this cuz I was just about in a blackout but I remember nailing the ABCs okay I get take I get taken to to uh to jail you know booked everything now the next morning I remember nailing the ABCs so I get a lawyer okay $1,500 lawyer we’re going to go there we’re going to fight this the first thing to do I don’t know if they still do this around here but they videotaped me up at the police station doing all the sobriety tests now I remember getting the ABCs now I’m here with a lawyer he’s he’s in a three-piece suit you know $1,500 worth he’s you know professional as hell we go up and we ask for the videotape and the cop is sniggering when he hands us the tape he’s like like this now now he puts in the tape and I’m horrified okay I’m has anybody in here ever seen your s taped like really drunk oh you need like therapy after that now did I nail the ABCs I sure did here’s how I nailed them and and then there then there’s me walking the line and I got I got my arms on the wall he’s like you know Mr schroer please take your arms off the wall while you’re walking the line I’m like I’m every 5 seconds I’m asking for a cigarette I was horrified and this whole time this whole time the the attorney is like you know very very professional I’m like hiding my head in shame then comes the end and the and the and the cop goes uh Mr Schroeder but before we turn the camera off is there anything you’d like to add I look at the camera and I go like this like the attorney just loses it he’s like he go I’ve never see anything like that if you ever had any chance at all of being this oh oh so I’m I’m like oh my God so I’m like I guess we got to ple this one huh yeah so I get another te you know the cops are always hassling me now you know these things are happening to me like like I you know I got to tell you one thing after another problem after problem after problem after problem after problem now somewhere along the line I I become an electrician okay I you know I came to and recover and I was an electrician I was a really bad one too because you know it takes some some intelligence or else you start fires and you you know you get get electrocuted I was every day I was getting electrocuted my hair was like constantly you know some of the things I did I I remember this one time the people I worked with just couldn’t stand me because I was just so lame I you I couldn’t remember things and I’d always be shaking they don’t like electricians that are shaking you know these people now I I remember this one time I’m working with a guy and I had done I had done a bunch of heroin the night before and a lot of whiskey which is something else we don’t recommend uh and and and and I had you know how you’re dehydrated in the morning and you got to rehydrate well this morning I got a half a gallon of grape drink you know just you know I rehydrated up and I off to work I go and I’m sitting there and I’m putting an electrical panel on somebody’s house And my partner’s like over here messing in the truck and all of a sudden it’s like I’m like oh and I’ve got experience with this right I have about 7.2 seconds to get somewhere cuz I am going to be very very sick so I figure what am I going to do I don’t want this guy to see me so I know what I’ll do I’ll tear around the back of the house so I tear around the back of house I just make it around the back of the house and who it’s like a fire hydrant who purple vomit I like stuck over this house just stuck over this house now I thought I was alone okay now I look over and about this far away is a family from a neighboring house on a deck a mother a father and three kids have nice tea and you could tell they were related cuz they all had the same look on their face they were like oh you know Mommy Mommy is a purple puke monst from momy you know now you got to act cool right I mean you don’t want to look stupid you know so I get the hose and you know washing yeah this always happens I mean uh another time I swear this is true this is bizarre I’m working as a maintenance electrician in a department store place was called Epstein it was like a Macy’s or a bamburgers or something and uh they were putting in the computer cash registers at this time so you had to Loop data cable around this is the mid 80s or something and so I had this big drill it was one of those big huge steel like four horsepower with the with the bar handles and the Locking trigger and I’m drilling with a big augur bit with an extension down into the floor to drop the cable into the ceiling below and I’m in the lingerie department okay so I’m preoccupied if you can imagine like you know lingerie all of a sudden the thing hits a beam and and catches boom and it grabs me and it starts spinning me around like this it’s the drill spins me around ties me up into drill and then rips the pants off my ass and it finally finally it unplugs from the wall and I’m tied to a drill like this with no pants in the lingerie section you know all these women are like you know again you got to act cool you don’t want to look stupid you yeah this drill always does this another time another time I’m wiring a kitchen Edition for for some people you know wiring a kitchen Edition and I’m running the subpanel fee for everything in the kitchen down into the basement and I tie it into the wrong to the wrong panel the wrong junction box what I tie it into is the timer meter junction box for the hot water heater now if anybody knows what that is it goes off at 8:00 in the morning and goes on at 8 at night so I leave the job and their kitchen doesn’t come on until 8:00 at night they call my boss and they go hey you know we eat at 6 this isn’t going to work for us I was I was always always getting in a lot of trouble always electrocuting myself uh you know it was it was a mess now you know I had I had friends that didn’t even have names toward the end of my drinking they they had like they were called like bean and Weezer and and green man and you know these were like guys that were just like they had their own parole officers and they were like you know aliases and stuff and the these are these are like my buddies to toward toward the end toward the end of my drinking you know and talking about talking about like relationships with women I I mean I wasn’t I wasn’t hitting on all cylinders with this the last girlfriend I had when I was drinking I met through a prison pen pal thing which you know somebody I knew had gone to prison and and met her and oh she was a sweet girl and everything and I started writing to her and she was like a career criminal okay she was like a career she’d spent like 20 years in prison you know for really crazy violent crimes oh I love you you know like so she ends up moving in with me and Mom okay cuz I’m living with my mother uh they didn’t get along uh if you can imagine uh got really involved with a lot of serious one of one of these times like because I was drinking so much alcohol I really was detoxing every morning I was a heavy duty daily blackout drinker so I’d get up in the morning you know and I’d be like anxious I’d be like you know like noises and things I mean just really on edge and I remember I went to my doctor one day and I said Doctor you know I’m just I’m always nervous you I really got a lot of stress and he goes you know I think he put He put his uh his stethoscope on my heart and my heart was going he goes oh you’ve got you’ve got uh you’ve got a protracted mitro valve that’s leading to hypertension and anxiety and blah blah blah I’m like yeah and he goes well I go what do you got for that Doc and he goes well we’ve got this new drug called xanx so I go well what kind of miges you got that in doc I’ll take the big ones you know and uh you know so all of a sudden I I start eating xanaxs like candy I mean you know I’m doubling up the prescription I’m weighing them in my hand I’m not taking two I’m like and washing them down with whiskey big letters on there no alcohol it’s like bigger than the Xanax no alcohol that’s doesn’t mean me you know for amateurs so so I remember I remember allowing myself to be overmedicated this one time and uh you know actually what it was was it was like a suicide attempt it really was I had gotten to the point where you know I’m eating a whole bottle and I ate the whole bottle of Xanax when I was really drunk and uh not only did I wake up the next day but I decided to go to work now not much to my boss’s chrin what happened was you know I I made it out to the road where the guy was picking me up he goes man Chris you know go back inside you know what I mean yeah you should know what you know go back I’m go to work well I end up getting to work and uh you know there’s there’s the window where my boss was and I remember walking Serpentine up up to the you know it took me like 10 minutes I’m like walking he’s like go Dam it take him home you know he like shamed me in front of my tearce you know go home it was just it was just insane I was I was suffering from so many things now um what really got my attention what really got my attention and this is just this is just crazy but the first thing that got my attention was I was at work and the guy who was in charge of me was a 19-year-old kid I’m 33 Okay and the boss puts a 19-year-old in charge of me I mean that’s that’s how much responsibility I was able to handle and I was putting a ground screw in an outlet box on the ceiling and I was shaking so bad that I just kept dropping the screw I I could not do it I mean I was shaking so bad and this kid was looking at me like this like you pathetic good for nothing no account loser okay cuz I could hear him thinking at you you know when you’re detoxing you can hear people think at you and I knew what he was thinking and I just couldn’t take it anymore so I signed myself in to a place that I I had gone to actually to get one of my licenses back for a DUI I went to like some outpatient thing I went drunk every single night to the outpatient much to the counselor Chagrin and I would I would critique the father Martin movies while I was doing that anybody seen any father Martin movies well as soon as the movie would’ be done i’ uh Chris do you have a comment father Martin doesn’t know anything about you know and I’d go off and on oh thank you for that comment you know it was just horrible but I I heard that there was a place to go if you were in real trouble so that shamed me so bad that out now I’d lost my family my driver license three times a million cars I mean you know I every car I had was like a $100 car it was you know you know what I mean it was like Hey fictitious plates and you know bold tires no insurance no registration because I was busy and every once in a while I’d like I’d like run into like a late model BMW you know i’ crash into it or something and I’d be really pissed at him for having an expensive car I’d go up and I’d say what are you thinking buying a $20,000 car you know how much trouble this is going to be now I get $100 cars I crash in my Throne way I get another one and they usually weren’t real happy to you know have me share that wisdom with them you know they weren’t very understanding uh but anyway you know I go to this I go to this uh this this rehab and I sign myself in and you know I’m looking back on it for many years I thought you know it was a good place it was not a a good place that they did not do right by me I don’t know whether they didn’t know what they were doing or they did you know they didn’t have the funing I don’t know but it was really really inadequate because it just didn’t it didn’t offer me anything even close to a solution couple of suggestions get out of here go to out go to out patient you know get out of here and uh uh but I really really wanted to stay separated from alcohol I ended up relapsing I talked about that a little bit today it led to about a 5 Monon period of the worst drinking I ever had I I’ll tell you what a typical day would be here’s a typical day I would come two in the morning in the clothes I was wearing the night before just wreaking a vodka or Bourbon and you know I get oh time for work you know i’ go into the bathroom I do my vomiting calisthetics you know I’d brush my teeth and i’ find my way down to the car the $100 car I’d try to make my I make my way to work all the while swearing to God I’m never going to drink again I didn’t I never wanted to feel like again you know what those they’re not even hangovers they’re they’re more like uh they’re more like you know you’re dying you know it’s not a hang over you like dying and I would be swearing I’m never ever going to drink again and what would happen is I’d rehydrate you know with a half a gallon or something for lunch I’d get maybe half a sandwich down and I’d start to feel just a little bit human and I would say to myself you know that decision I made earlier about never ever drinking again that’s pretty extreme as a matter of fact I’m going to have to modify that decision today and I and I would Zoom to the liquor store right out of work I’d buy I’d buy a a quart and I’d just start drinking and I would do this whole thing and and I drank with such a Vengeance that in about two hours I I was tongue chewing knee walking not able to operate my own pants zipper drunk in about two hours you ever been that drunk hey and this was cutting down on my social life you know I mean you can’t you can’t do much when you drink that much now what happens is Christmas at the schroers 1989 I’m drinking my mother’s there my brother and sister come home nieces and nephews cats I mean the whole deal uh the Christmas tree is decorated there’s presents you know there’s a fire the Christmas you know stockings are hung by the chimney with care you know the whole thing everybody’s home for Christmas and I get a resentment and I got really pissed off and I start walking around the house with a 38 caliber handgun saying I’m going to kill all of you I’m going to kill every one of you that’s not the festive mood that they were looking for I can tell you so what they did was they picked up and they took their Christmas elsewhere um I came to you know you know this was a multi-day blackout it was just horrible I I was as shattered as I’ve ever been I remember I remember staggering into the kitchen and seeing a pile of vodka bottles like this in the sink I didn’t even remember buying them I mean I must have been gone for a I must have been out for days and and I started to go into these unbelievable DTS I mean hallucinating VI you know violently uh going into convulsions I was hearing things there was little animals running around there was maggots all over me there was big animals scratching on the house to come in I remember laying down on a couch you like this and a demon came out of the ceiling like one of those monotor type demons like with a bullhead and the big horns and he was coming out of the ceiling to eat my face I swear you know and I go God help me I mean I cried out from the depths of my soul God help me I’m telling you when you cry out with that kind of desperation there’s something ad hears I haven’t had a drink since I cried out to keep that demon from eating my face okay what happened was I was so shattered I I couldn’t even leave the house for a couple of days I couldn’t sleep I’m coming out of it and I know I know that that you know going back to the 28 day thing is not really what I need to do I need to get back to Alcoholic Anonymous cuz I had tried AA but I hadn’t participated I had sat in the seat but I hadn’t done any of the deal and I just felt inside that that’s that’s really my only hope now I had a 19 uh a 1976 Ford Granada with white walls no heater no clutch no emergency break no heater core it’s December and because it has no clutch I have to find a flat meeting to go to so I look so I look in the meeting book and I find a flat meeting and it’s in Morristown and I remember driving to this meeting now because there’s no muffler or clutch there was a little hill going up into the church parking lot okay and 150 people are having cigarettes out on the porch all my new peers and I have to gun this thing to get up a tiny little Hill like this about a mile and a half an hour you know and they’re all looking like this must be a new guy you know I go into that meeting you got to understand I’m shattered I haven’t slept in about 4 days I’m there out of desperation I sit down in a chair and all of a sudden somebody hands me a step book and goes they’re reading from the step 12 and I look down the row and they’re reading paragraphs one after the other and they’re coming for me okay I like Panic I’m going to have to read from a book so I freak out and I go outside I mean I there’s no way I mean that’s just too much they want me to read I mean that’s how shattered I was and I’m having a cigarette out on the stoop thinking yeah I don’t think I can do this you know this is just too much I don’t think I’m going to you know it was one of those thing those seconds and inches moments where it could have gone either way and this guy named Jorge comes outside he saw me leap and he goes up to me and he goes kid What’s your deal Rel demons har things running around really really bad and he goes well why don’t you come on back in the me meeting with me and I oh there’s a meeting tomorrow night that I’m going to go to you know there meeting tomorrow night he goes no he know he knew what tomorrow meant so he grabed me by the arm he goes no come on back in the meeting you know so I didn’t want to make a scene so I went back in the meeting and and we sat down in the second row and I’m I’m sitting there and they’re done sharing they’re done reading now and now they’re sharing so I’m I’m sitting there you know like this like totally totally freaking and he leans over to me and he goes now raise your hand and tell everybody coming back and I’m like oh this is a meeting tomorrow night and everybody raises her everybody says they’re coming back and she’s like no raise your hand he’s starting to get loud now and you know he’s starting to get loud now people are looking my way okay you know what’s going to happen next they’re going to be thinking at me right so finally I just I just Panic you know I can’t shut this guy up and I raised my hand right in the middle of somebody sharing I’ve never seen this happen before or since right in the middle of somebody sharing I raised my hand and the the person cheering the meeting is a little confused and shuts the person up who’s talking and calls on me and I said something profound like this demons horrible relap terrible unbelievable thank you and it’s really quiet okay and then all of a sudden they all of a sudden the whole room goes yay like this now you know I took that as acceptance back then you know I now know that it’s oh man that guy’s pathetic I feel so good Oh I thought I had problems thank you oh you know I I know that that’s what it is now but but I I took it I took it his acceptance and uh and there was a wall of fear between me and being able to engage in alcoholic synonymous I just did I was just I had too much anxiety I had too much of that self-centered fear I just couldn’t do it you know it was too much to deal with and by raising my hand and saying I was coming back I knocked a bit of that wall of fear down you know this Jorge guy saved my life I learned later he had like seven days himself you know I couldn’t I couldn’t believe it so I started to go to meetings I I got myself a sponsor he told me go every single night and I just I just I’m going to like a million a million meetings uh I’m doing whatever they asked me to do I was a secretary here I was a Treasurer over here you know I was a no-show GSR here because that’s what you do in New Jersey uh you know I I was driving people from you know treatment to the me I was doing everything I was doing everything now here’s the thing that that scared kindergartner he was still all over me that that just that repressed you know always worrying really a really attached to you know what you thought of me and you know just really o overly shy and over L sensitive and this this went on for about a year and it was it was getting to the point where you know it it was getting to the point where sobriety was becoming untenable that’s what happens to a lot of us who don’t engage in the recovery process sobriety becomes untenable and we can’t take it after a while here’s what here’s what I believe I believe that if you don’t put enough into the 12-step process you don’t get enough power back from the 12-step process to be able to stay and what happens is you either relapse while you’re going to meetings or you leave meetings and relapse then that’s that’s what happens from my experience and my experience working with others there has to be a level of participation sufficient to to get back enough power to be able to stay I didn’t understand any of this stuff at this period of time but what I was doing was I was buying a lot of tapes and I got I I talked a little bit about this today I got exposed to uh some serious uh recovery tapes and what they did was they changed my life they talked about the actual spiritual Mechanicals of a recovery process you a lot of people were talking about the steps and philosophizing about the steps and reading them and they’re up on the wall and you know oh yeah 12-step program you he is a 12-step program did you ever do the steps well no you know and and there was a lot of that going on these specific tapes showed me uh as clearly as I had ever seen the actual answer the actual recovery process and I started to do that and I only started to listen to these tapes and actually put it into application because I had what’s known as a sober bottom uh there comes a period of time in all of our lives where we’re we’re we’re thrown a bunch of challenges what my challenge was is is I met God’s will for me in the rooms you know she was exactly what God wanted for me okay and um and I fell completely in love with her and we started to do our Dance of Death you know two dingling trying to make a bell and and and what happened was she wasn’t as interested in this relationship as I was and and she basically told me to go pound and and I and you know I was not in the spiritual State of Mind to be able to handle this really well and I remember I remember going over to my sponsor’s house and I never did this before I knocked on his door I go and I couldn’t even talk and he knew something was wrong so he goes come on in Chris and uh um what happened was he he asked me he goes do you pray I’m like no and he goes well Chris from now when I want you to do is in the morning I want you to get on your knees I I want you to say a prayer to God to show you the strength and direction to get through the day sober and at night I want you to get on your knees and and and thank God and okay so I started to do that and I started to listen to these tapes again which I had a big resentment to now what happened what happened in my life uh from that period of time on is ba is basically this well I was uh I was unbelievably selfish like going to a lot of meetings you know I’m going to a lot of meetings and I’m doing this and I’m doing that but you know I’m not really I’m not really helping others there’s there’s a place in the book Alcoholics Anonymous that explains why we relapse we we have a million excuses but it basically it basically says in the big book that we relapse because we failed to perfect and enlarge our spiritual condition through work and S self-sacrifice for others I wasn’t working in self-sacrificing for my other for others and I wasn’t working on my spiritual condition I start to do these steps and all of a sudden um all of a sudden I start to recover from alcoholism now um there’s a difference between sobriety and Recovery it’s a there’s a huge difference sobriety I I I really think is just abstinence from alcohol just not drinking and you want to get sober you can punch a cop and it’ll happen really quick but recovery recovery is that shift in perspective that the healing of that kindergarten who is so tortured the healing of the emotional states the the spiritual States all the disturbance that’s going on in your life recovery is a shift recovery is a shift toward recovery uh recovery is a shift toward healing of all those things and I started to personally experience it through the step process now over the course of time I was sponsoring people uh anybody that gives good share in the rooms sometimes can get sponsores now I didn’t know my ass from a hole in the ground but people were saying Chris would you sponsor me you sounded pretty good and I was saying yeah sure you know here give me a call before you drink I mean I didn’t know what to do and U A lot of times these sponsor were drinking on me now I’m involved I’m involved in the recovery process and now my a lot of my sponses are drinking on me does anybody in here ever had sponses drink on you really makes you look bad doesn’t it you know this Harry yours do you know he’s drinking and he’s hitting on the women and he’s borrowing money yeah Harry’s mine you know I had a lot of these guys so I figured you know what the hell I’m going to get them over my house and I’m going to have them experience what I’ve been experiencing with an open big book and a pen in my hand and doing these spiritual exercises so let me tell you what you want to learn something teach it it’s a great way to really learn so I start teaching from the big book I don’t know that much I’ve heard some tapes but I start teaching from the big book and guess what very very significant the people who actually did the fourth and fifth step actually went out and made amends every single one of those guys is still sober they’re card carrying AA member and good standing they’re working with others and their quality of life is out the roof the people who didn’t do that stuff and didn’t stay consistent with the spiritual processes they’re gone I don’t know if they’re drinking or not but they didn’t get enough power back from the 12 step Fellowship to be able to stay they’re gone so I learned something very very significant through working with others the solution the treatment for alcoholism the spiritual process what is my life like today uh just this just this year I’m just going to name some of the highlights of this year being asked to speak here is certainly one of the great highlights I mean I you know it would be like if you were a physicist and Albert Einstein said I’d like you to do a lecture on physics at Princeton for me you know having Mark asked me to do this unbelievable uh I was I’ve been asked to be a board member of the National Council on alcoholism I I got I I’m a board member of C4 Recovery Solutions and I’ve been asked to do an amazing project that involves people worldwide carrying uh uh carrying information out to whoever needs it of best practices for Addictive illness processes we’re talking sex addiction gambling everything I’m I’m interviewing the the best of the best and it’s just it’s unbelievable that I get to do that for a living you know I’ve bought a house I remember in my first five years people would share like yeah I bought a house and then I bought another house now I can’t sell my other house I got real problems like how do you get a house you know what I mean I got like five bucks I you know I I bought a house uh you know I I you know I I drive some nice cars I’ve I’ve got some great friends you know what I mean uh you know I I met somebody in AA and a boy met girl on AA campus and trouble soon followed you know and this is the longest I’ve ever been in a relationship 13 years that’s a world record uh I’ve got I I was able to start a home group there there’s a promise in the book Alcoholic Anonymous that says you you can create the fellowship you crave I’ve done that with the Burnsville spiritual Awakenings group this group has become very very influential many many things that have happened at Burnsville have gone online and influenced other groups around the world uh you know unbelievable unbelievable thing I’ve just was asked a couple of weeks ago to moderate a political debate with senators and congressmen talking you know putting them on the on putting them on noticed that there’s a constituency of people out there in recovery that are going to want to know how you feel about certain issues revolving around people in recovery you know Insurance reform Etc you know me uh putting senators and Congress you know you gotta that’s just unbelievable that’s unbelievable I was living with Mom you know what I mean uh I was just a commencement speaker at drug court they want me to be the commencement speaker speaker at all these drug court graduations you know you know these are all these are Judges and prosecutors they’re calling me up hey you want to help me out I got to tell you that’s not what was happening in the80s you know I was avoiding them prosecut now now I’ve got I’ve got like five friends who are prosecutors for guys you know I could go on and on and on all night long all I all I want to do is tell you I swear to you there is unbelievable things in front of you sometimes they’re not going to be the most comfortable things in the world but I got to tell you the journey is worth every single moment every single effort put your recovery first and you’ll have a chance to get it all that’s all I got thanks 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