Working the Steps and Spiritual Experience – Blueprint for Recovery Big Book Study Weekend – Part 3 of 5 – Chris R.

Howdy. My name is Chris Raymer. I'm a recovered alcoholic. Let me get organized. Guys, it's great to see you. I'm excited about doing this weekend. I love this venue. It's close. Everybody always sits in the back. Even if you've never heard me speak, you sit in the Back. I don't understand all these seats up front. Nobody says Rumor has it that I spit occasionally, so I guess that's probably what it is. I'm honored to be here. Y'all live in a gorgeous place. And I've got to, as always, thank the cats that pulled the strings to get me here, Jules and anybody else on the committee. And Malcolm picked me up at the airport and drove me around town and fed me. And just thanks. You know, it used to be, and I say this often, you could get a speaker in for a couple hundred bucks and it's just an expensive deal to do now. Just the flight is so expensive and I appreciate the effort and you guys spending time and money to come do this. I hope you enjoy it. I hope I hope we get something out of it. I hope by saying something this weekend that will make you think there's a circuit speaker out there that always wants to take exception with me. He says, Chris, every time somebody listens to one of your talks, you're so controversial you make them uncomfortable. And it's like, buddy, I didn't fly all the way from Texas to entertain you. You can walk out on the street and get that. I don't know what to tell you. I love Alcoholics Anonymous. I love all the 12-step fellowships. And everything I talk about is colored by the last 13 years working in a treatment center where we treat alcoholism and drug addiction. Last Gaspers, if you know what I mean. These are the cats that can't get sober anyplace else, and they always end up on our doorstep. And just watching the devastation of this disease, it's just full front in your face. It's easy for us to get sober and get in our own little groups and our own Little Lives, and we forget, we don't see the desperation. Malcolm drove me around and showed me all the sights of Vancouver a little bit while we were coming over, and we got talking about street people, and so he drove me through so we could see some. And it's like I'm glad to know that alcoholism and drug addiction is alive and well in Vancouver. Some of you guys who've been so far away from a drink and drug, you've forgotten what it's Like. And I haven't. I nearly died getting to this fellowship. I spent seven years sitting in these rooms listening to people tell their war stories and pissing and moaning about their days and could not get well. Guys, that's my story. And I'm going to tell you that's going to offend some people. What we're going to try to do, I want to give you... That's why I wanted to do this little talk first. I want to let you know who I am a little bit. Let you know a little about my story and where I come from. And then tonight we're going to take a quick break and then we'll come back and we're just going to do some first step stuff. And then tomorrow we're gonna finish up the steps. And I'm coming at these steps not from a deep analytical... I've been in step studies like this. I've be in workshops, weekends where we split hairs and dissected words and I'm not gonna do that this weekend. I think that is wonderful. But the problem that we have in our fellowship today is not that we don't have enough people understanding the intricacies of this program. We have too many people out there that don't understand this program at all. I want to come at this from how do you take a newcomer through the steps? What are the high points that we should absolutely hit so that we can work with newcomers and be effective? I've got an 84-page four-step guide sitting on my desk at work. I leave it there just so I can stay pissed, you know what I mean? And you know, for somebody that's sober 10 years in the program and wants to go back through the work again and wantsto get deeper and learn more about themselves, I mean, how cool of an exercise would that be? But some little guy coming in just coming apart at the seams and doesn't know if he can ever wake up without the obsession of alcohol kicking his butt and we're going to drop this on his desk? I don't think so. You all with us? The steps... Y'all don't mind if I take this off, do you? You don't find it funny? You wouldn't mind it if I took this off the... You would mind, trust me. the steps initially were were designed or outlined to be worked rapidly i don't know why that's so controversial all you got to do is pick up any aa sanctioned literature and they talk about the early guys in alcoholics anonymous working the steps quickly and yet we've got entire fellowships out there telling people to take their time to work the steps i don'T understand where that comes from now i want to say this before i get into this It's like I introduce myself. My name is Chris Schramer. I'm a recovered alcoholic. I am. If you want to continue to be recovering, bop till you drop. I'm not going to split hairs with you on that. The book tells me to introduce myself as a man who's recovered. I haven't obsessed about alcohol in 19 years. What kind of hope am I going to give the newcomer if I stand up here and say, I'm still struggling with the obsession to drink? who wants that i i certainly don't and i know that offends some people you know we were talking the other day i gotta watch my clock because i don't the people that get cranky with talk i speak a lot out in public and those little cds that that they're doing back here travel like wildfire you know i mean truly i mean the the streets of texas are littered with them You know, they're on the Internet and the people download them and they listen to this stuff. And it's just I don't want to I don'T WANT TO MAKE ANYBODY CRANKY. I DON'T KNOW WHY I GET PEGGED AS THE CONTROVERSIAL SPEAKER. I'M COMING STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BIG BOOK. But but the guy can stand up there and tell you to don't work with anybody for the first year you're sober and virtually kill the newcomer with that information. but he's not controversial. You all follow me? My sponsor always said, how's it working for you? And we're going to talk a lot about that this weekend. If going to a bunch of open discussion meetings and not working the steps and not work with any alcoholics is working for ya and you're staying sober and you happy, joyous, and free, bop till you drop. God damn, this is good. Have a nice life. I get thousands of emails, thousands of e-mails from people who have had the same experience as me in our fellowship. I've watched... Malcolm and I were talking at lunch this afternoon about the number of people we know with long-term sobriety that have lost it ten years plus. I've got a guy in my group that just came in not long ago that was about three months away from 30 years and lost his sobriety. That's tragic. We need those cats here. We need the guys with some sobriete here. Why are they relapsing? Why are They going back out? Untreated alcoholism. See, not drinking and going to meetings doesn't treat alcoholism. It was never intended to treat alcoholismo. The 12 steps which brought about a spiritual experience was supposed to treat the alcoholism But if we don't work the 12 steps, which involves working with others, and we get loaded again, who are we to blame? Follow the thread. Because everybody wants to blame the cat that did it. That's what happens when a newcomer comes in and he falls on his butt and the best we can come up for him is well, the little beggar just didn't want it bad enough. Oh, oh, maybe that's true. You've got to want to do this to do it. Maybe that's true. Or maybe they never heard the solution. And that was my story, folks. People come up and ask me, Chris, you're exaggerating about your experience in AA. Why would I want to be a doctor? Why would you want to know how to do that? Why would i need to do that? Half the people in the hospital where i work in Kerrville, down in the hill country half the people, more than half the people there have been to AA before didn't work for them I know it works because that's how I got sober the problem is if you land in the wrong room where people are not reading out of the literature and studying the book and talking about the G word you may have a tough time getting sober if you're the real McCoy if you're the real alcoholic that the book talks about you may have a tough time getting sober that makes people uncomfortable and that's what we want to talk about this week I'm telling you guys tomorrow this is going to be short and sweet nobody's going to get butt sore listening to me talk this is very quick and concise and I'm saying it you're welcome to agree or disagree with anything I say I am no guru. I'm not here representing anybody. I'm here just to share my hope with you. It's the one thing I came to Alcoholics Anonymous completely deplete of, was hope. I didn't get sober. Well, let me tell you this. Actually, we own a house, we owned a condo in San Antonio. My wife works in San Antoneo. But I actually live in a little town called Ingram, Texas. It's about 60 miles west of San Antonio. And the little hospital where I work is six more miles up in the hills. I mean, it's like Appalachia of Texas. I mean it is – there's a lot of inbreeding going on over there. And it is nasty. One red light in the whole town and about six bars. I mean its just – it's something to see. But that's what the hill country was where I grew up. It was a drug haven. there's a ranches out there and every plane in the world was coming in there dumping off loads of dope and it was back in the 60s and 70s that was a it was mecca for the dope dealers and uh and that's all we did we learned to drink at an early age and that'S what my father was an alcoholic and and uh although we didn't know it at the time we knew he had a problem and uh and we just started drinking everybody drank and uh i'll never in my life forget my first drink which ought to be an indication if you can remember your first drink you've got a problem I can't tell you the first time I had green beans cream corn any takers? no but Boone's Farm Apple Wine buddy I remember it like it was yesterday and I drank that stuff and I was so uncomfortable in my skin I've got an identical twin brother he's sober in the program too and some of y'all know him and a nice family there's no goofy stuff going on there was no reason for me to be weird in any way. Never mind. I drank that Boone's Farm that night. I was about 17, 18 years old. It was January 1971, the month that our co-founder Bill Wilson passed away, I started drinking. And I didn't get drunk that night, I didn' t rob any liquor stores, I I didn't do anything goofy except walk back and lay down in my bed and feel comfortable in my skin for the first time in my young adult life. That stuff fixed what was wrong with me, and I knew I was on to something. I was in the food business, and they let you drink. They look the other way. As long as you show up, they don't give a rat's butt what you do. And I was pretty successful in that career. I still love to cook today. and um i uh in the early mid-70s i started experiencing some pretty deep anxiety i've always been kind of a shy kid but anxiety and depression started to plague me and the only thing that seemed to fix it was the alcohol you with us and i never made a conscious thing whoa alcohol fixes that i'm gonna drink it was never that it was just it was a lot of a self-medicating thing for these symptoms but i started seeing doctors about it and they started giving me the uh the little antidepressants that were on the market at the time to try to treat that nonsense of course i'm drinking on top of those so they worked real well and um oh jesus and um but i'm like what we call a functioning alcoholic like i'm sure a bunch of y'all in here i i'm not I'm not getting in a bunch of trouble around it. I occasionally drink too much and make an ass of myself, but I'm bummed. But I'm nicht robbing my stores or doing any weird... I'm just holding it together pretty good. And I had about a 20-year run of the drinking and drugging. Later in the late 70s, drugs entered into it. But I just was not a happy camper. By the time I was about 21, I picked up the phone book to call my first AA meeting. I knew that there was a problem with the drinking and that it was going to end up getting me in some trouble. And I didn't want to end like my dad, who is a wonderful man. But I just – I didn'T call AA, but I picked Up the Phone Book. Y'all got it? I mean, it's on my head. People that don't have a problem without alcohol don't sit around and wonder if they've got a problem with alcohol. You know, normal people, they just don't ever give it a second thought. They just, you want a drink? Let's drink. You don't want to drink? Oh, that's cool. That's what we're going to talk about some more in the first step stuff. But I'm not a happy camper. And I had a little domestic disturbance. I was living up in North Texas and I was married. I finally decided that marriage was going to fix what was wrong with me. That was a horrendous experiment. And you know how it is. I spent a lifetime trying to adjust my life and blaming everything around me for why I can't stay sober. It's the food business. That's what's getting me drunk. You with us? A lot of you little guys sitting in coming out of treatment centers, you're taught this. And I'm not saying that those things don't exacerbate the problem and make them possibly worse. You with this? But it doesn't cause it. Alcoholism and drug addiction, folks, is a genetic predisposition. You're born that way. And that's a fact. the jury's in there have been more studies done on that than anything else around alcoholism and drug addiction and that's if that's a fact i can give you the the information to go read and look at if you want to any of you guys sitting in this room right now still wanting to blame somebody for your alcoholism get over it because it's not the truth simple again i'm going to repeat myself because i'll see some of the furrowed brows i'm not saying that your drama didn't exacerbate the problem you with me if i'm living with a beast of a woman and i'm in a terrible relationship you with us and i have lived with a few of those common sense would tell you that you would drink more wouldn't it do more dope whatever it was yeah yeah absolutely i'm not i'll give you that but it didn't cause the problem that's what's so frustrating with us i i i spent 10 years in therapy i started seeing the therapist at the same time i was getting the antidepressants and i'm seeing these therapists and i love therapy i still see a therapist today on occasion and and and love it but we would look at the issues you know well chris why did you drink well it must have been this okay well let's fix this oh hot damn good let's let's and now we'd fix that and then you'd still be drinking you with us that's where the geographical cures come in any of you guys ever move trying to stay away from alcohol and dope i mean like then we keep the moving lines in business from this it's nuts that i'd move i i i'll never forget the experiment of getting married god if you let that woman marry me i'll quit drinking i'll be a good boy and everything's going to be okay shit two weeks later we're married oh god two weeks after that i'm sitting in that garage apartment watching her shovel those cheerios in her mouth and i'm saying god if he could just kill this woman everything will be okay and she was a wonderful woman she was not the cause of the problem but I've got to blame it on something that's why our families are just crazy they get blamed for everything and it's not their fault we spent a lifetime trying to change I kept reeling in this little thread trying to figure out if I could get to the end of it. I could find out what the big booger boo is that's causing me to drink and then I could stop and thenI could drink like a normal person. Hot damn. And let me tell you something, folks. There's a bunch of professionals out there that still believe that. Otherwise, we wouldn't be talking about it nonstop. I'm not saying those things don't need to be addressed. They do. But you're going to be horribly disappointed when you keep drinking. God, if I can just get out of the food business. You know how God does it. I'm out ofthe food business God, if I could just get back in the food business. If we could just buy the house. God, If we can just sell this dog. Just buy the little ranchette. If we just sell. If we give kids. If we shoot the kids. And we do it non-stop. Trying to change our circumstances so we can be okay inside. You with us? It's one of my big soapboxes for not going into meetings and talking about our problems. Why? What purpose? so we can feel a little better? Why don't you work the 12 steps, have a spiritual experience, then God will show you what to do with those problems and you can feel really, really good. Nah, that's too hard. Let's just go to a meeting and dump. Drives me nuts. Probably the most controversial stuff I talk about from the podium is that right there. Everybody thinks it's their right to come in a meeting and talk about anything they want. Here's my story. After this little domestic disturbance, I ended up back in a counselor's office and the counselor looked over and says, Chris, I don't know about this. You're taking seven pills a day. You've been in therapy all this time. You've changed everything in your life. Buddy, you're a drunk. You need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. You don't understand. I am much more complex than that. We're so sensitive. I don't mind being a borderline schizophrenic that kind of rolls off the tongue but a drunk, an alcoholic how embarrassing is that you can't talk about that at the bar oh jeez I played the victim card a thousand times I have some nervous disorders and most women that are healthy will run but you'll get a couple of them let's talk about it and i and i thank every one of them too so i uh i ended up going to alcoholics anonymous i'll never forget my first meeting and uh and we walked walked in this room and there's a bunch of old geezers in there and they said chris do you have a problem with alcohol and i said yes i've got a half finished quarter beer in my pickup truck and you know i smell yeah i i guess so welcome sit down okay great we sat down and then the meeting we read how it works i remember that vividly didn't understand any of it but i remember reading it and uh they said well okay this is your meeting who's got the problem oh she picked me pick me johnny johnny had been was in treatment and he wasn't spending his money on dope and alcohol and so he found himself shopping too much. They'd take him out on these little excursions and he was shopping too mucho and spending too much money. All of a sudden, so we talked about switching addictions, about a shopping addiction. Of course, everybody had something to share about that. Oh, I remember doing that. Oh my God. And I just went and I go to Walmart and I just push them and I'm like a deer in a headlight here. You know, I'm jonesing like a big dog and I want to drink so bad I can taste it, but we're going to talk about shopping. And you all think this is ridiculous, but we'll do it till today. I could probably take you to 100 meetings here in Vancouver where they're doing that tonight. Well, little Johnny obviously needed to talk about that. Sure did. He should have done that in his little group at treatment. He should've done that at Denny's having coffee. Didn't need to do it in the one hour I had to recover. I don't know. I don' t know. I got up and left. Boy, that was nice. Went back, told my wife. Oh, it was a great meeting. We learned about shopping and shit, and that was good stuff. There are some great articles that Bill Wilson wrote about this, about talking about problems in meetings, folks. He gets very specific about our need to focus on the problem, our primary purpose, and not try to take on every problem that alcoholics and addicts have. It doesn't mean... See, the fellowship is so open and roomy, guys. There's plenty of time to talk about that stuff. Thank God we've got it. I learn a lot from this fellowship that I don't hear in meetings. You with us? The fellowship doesn't end when we go home tonight. The fellowship will continue. Some of y'all will go to coffee afterwards. Why you would want to stay up all night, I don't have any idea. It's already past my bedtime, so what the heck? The fellowship never ends. We talk about that stuff nonstop. But my soapbox is for an hour, why can't we talk about the 12 steps? Why can't мы talk aboutthe literature so that we can help the newcomer get well? I didn't stay sober learning about the little Johnny Shopping problem. Singleness of purpose. We're here to talk about our problems with alcohol, period. I've said this a gazillion times I don't know about here in Vancouver or in Texas, we adhere to that singleness of purpose pretty quick. Mark comes in and starts talking about crack cocaine, we'll shut him down in a heartbeat excuse me, this is an AA meeting alcohol, okay you with us? some of y'all agree with that? I do hundreds of fellowships out there to talk about any specific addiction you've got and hey we happen to talk about our problems with alcohol we don't have a problem stopping somebody to do that but the very next person that shares wants to talk abou her divorce one more time now why in the hell is that different than crack cocaine that 19 year old kid sitting back in the back has never been married what the hell is he going to get out of this meeting you'll follow me god sitting in the meeting listening to somebody bitch about their weed eater for an hour it freaks me out And we want to say it's okay in the guise of love and tolerance. Oh, just let him talk. But we forgot about the 19-year-old kid that wants to go drink. Alcoholics Anonymous was never intended, not ever intended to be a therapy group. It was intended to me a spiritual program of action. What's the solution? It's the spiritual experience. Talking about that weed eater is not going to get this guy sober. Maybe you disagree. When we weren't talking about the weed eater, we were listening to some old geezer try to scare the newcomers in the rooms with a stupid war story. See how many fingers I got up? That's where you're supposed to use your war stories. In a 12-step call and from this podium. So, in a meeting, what's the point? Read Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers. Some of y'all are grinding your teeth over this shit because you think that's what this is about. We go to the meetings and talk about our past and we remember it. We keep it green. Oh, please. I'm fixing to show you in the next hour why that won't happen. I'm fixin' to show ya. Fixin', did they say that up here? That's a Texas expression. Fixin' t'do it. Guys, I'm not knocking your war story Page 17 says It's one of the main things that we need In order to identify with a newcomer That's why singleness of purpose is so important We go into a meeting You with us? A guy sitting back at the restaurant out there And he's drunk We sit up next to him We can't go start talking to him about God and the steps He's going to think you're crazy Or kick your butt One or the other Maybe both We don't do that We go sit down with him And tell him about our times When we were sitting in a restaurant Making an ass of ourselves and buddy, guess what happened to me? And then you talk to him about what happened and you tell him your story. Get him comfortable from a podium. It's fascinating to sit in speaker meetings and listen to people tell their stories and what they got through and how they recovered from this thing. Wonderful. But why is it if we're going to a meeting and we've been in the same meeting week after week after weak we're listening to the same people over and over andover tell the same stupid story. Read Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers and it says point blank. We didn't tell our war stories in meetings. We all knew how to drink. We talked about recovery, how to get well. Guys, that's why we can't keep the young adults in our meetings. We're too busy trying to scare them into these rooms. You've got to stop. They're not going to believe it. And I'll say this. Piss off the part I haven't already pissed off. It's one of the reasons we can'T keep women in our fellowships. Alcoholics Anonymous right now, today Is desperately in need of women Who stick in the trench With a big book under their arm Helping other women get sober And women come in And they get tired of listening To this old hairy-legged boy Tell how bad it got Seen it a thousand times Nice little businesswoman comes in Noon meeting Everybody's eating a little ham sandwich You know, trying to get cranking You know And sits down Oh, we have a newcomer here And she's freaked out She doesn't know if she needs to be there or not She got a little DWI and they said, come to meetings. She's got her little sheet in her hand. She's gotta get signed and she doesn't know. Oh, let's tell her how we got here and sure as shit, everybody starts going around in the corner telling how they got here. She'll never be able to identify because you won't talk about what's going on inside the internal discomfort, the spiritual malady that got you here to begin with. All you're gonna do is talk about the stupid drama. How many of you have heard this stuff? You sit in meetings and listen and this guy starts talking about his DWI And this guy said, well, you think that's bad? I've had two DWIs. You think that'S bad? I've Had six DWIs This poor lady She's just screeching down on the chair You know, she just doesn't know what to do By the time you get around To the other side of the room We've got a child-molesting Mass murderer back here You know You think I'm kidding And we wonder why she doesn't come back How does she feel comfortable In a room like that? Where's the spirituality? Where's The excitement? Where's THE passion? We never pulled her with a vision We try to scare her into the rooms. I'm in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous for seven years. I will go in spurts. I'll go to 90 meetings in 90 days, 100 meetings in 30 days. You with me? And then I'll just leave disgusted. I can't relate. I wake up every day and the obsession to drink is with me. And I can'T resist it. I can stay sober for short periods of time. But the further away I get from that drink, when I set it down and I get detoxed, the further way I get, the worse my internal condition gets. And my head will eventually tell me it's time to take a drink. And I go drink. I tried the church. I tried their medications. I tried therapy. I've sat naked in sweat lodges. I've been roughed. I've had crystals. I had colonics one time. That was going to fix me. They do that in Vancouver? I bet you do. My complexion cleared up, though. It was pretty... But I never stopped drinking. Everybody that was trying to help me... Guys, I've got to say, don't misunderstand me. I loved those people in those early meetings. There wasn't one person there that was trying to hurt me. They were trying to tell me the way that they knew to help as a result of piss-poor sponsorship, they thought they were doing me a service. And then they weren't. And I split. 1987, fast forward, I can't cook anymore. I'm working for my twin brother up in North Texas. He owns a book bindery and I'm doing manual labor in his shop and glad to have the job, folks. They co-signed a little note for an apartment for me or I'd be right on the street just like some of these cats I saw this afternoon. And I'm grateful for the work but I'm miserable inside. I'm dying. And I picked up a stack of return checks in my mailbox and went up to my little apartment and sat on the floor and opened them. Cold, overcast night in North Texas. And I, November 13th, 1987. And I got up, went to the medicine cabinet and took a couple of bottle of pills and tried to commit suicide. I knew I was going to have to go to my sister-in-law the next day and borrow the money to pay for those return checks. And one more time, I'm 35 years old and I've bankrupted another account. Folks, my father raised a good kid, but I am not that kid. I'm not a good employee. I'm Not a Good Employer. I'm NOT a Good Boyfriend or Husband. My intentions are wonderful. but I can't seem to pull it off. And I'm full of shame and I'm fully guilty and guilt and I am absolutely hopeless. About the time those pills hit my stomach, I heard a voice that said, Chris, don't do this. Go back to AA. And I heard the voice a couple of times that night and it scared me to death. I'm looking for the voice in this apartment. I mean, it's like, it's that loud. And I made myself sick. I said, yeah, but I'm arguing with a voice. I don't want to go back to AA. If the voice had said, Chris, shave your head and become a minister to the Africans, I mean, I would have got my visa. I mean I would've gone. I mean and I would of done whatever. Go back to AAA? I mean that seems a bit drastic. I've done that. You know what I mean? I lay down on the bed, passed out, came to the next morning, luckily still alive, hung over from hell and heard the voice one more time. Chris, don't do this. Go back to AA. And I went and found a doctor that morning, went to work. I had to go to work without, I mean, I had the, I was in the hospital. had to work and uh six o'clock that night i went to a meeting that i'd never been to before i knew where it was because the guide showed me where it Was one time he also said this is where the big book thumpers hang out and i made a mental note as i'm thanking him for showing me that i will never darken that door you know this is a little much for me and um but i was running late i was i was hung at work and i couldn't get to the other meetings that i knew and uh i went to this meeting. Walked in the back door and there was a... They were laughing their butts off, folks. Y'all need to remember, this is like 19 years ago. I mean, I look rough now. You should have seen me 19 years before. And I had about 30-40 pounds on me and it's all right here in the front. I got kidney damage and liver damage and I'm dying. I am certifiably crazy, folks! I mean I hear voices on any given day. You know, it's constant arguments. Littlest decisions to be made I can't make because it just throws me into a tailspin. And there's a line in the book that talks about that. I mean, our problems pile up on us and they become astonishingly difficult to solve. I mean I walk in and I just can't decide. Do I need to go pee first or feed the ferrets? I'm like a rat caught in a can. And I walk In and everybody's laughing and I'm so self-conscious. I mean you'd think spending most of my adult life walking around with a black eye patch you'd get over being self-conscious. You walk in the room and everybody notices you. It's just that's the way it is. My patch usually stayed perpetually crooked back then. It looked like I wore a big earmuff, you know, and was content. It looked pretty cruddy. And I had a big old full beard down here and I just... A little old girl about 19 years old got between me and the door because I started to back out. They were laughing. I knew they were laughing at me. They weren't. They were excited about their life But I was so self-confident. And this little girl, you know how it is when a newcomer walks in? We had one in our meeting last night at the outpost in Ingram. And we had one walk in and I remember that discomfort walking in. You don't know anybody. You don'T know where you can sit. You DON'T know... That was me. And I walked in andI was uncomfortable. This little old girl got between me and the door and hooked her finger in my belt loop and said, Sit down, cowboy. And pulled me down in a chair next to her. I mean, Jesus, the courage of that kid. If she'd have been off in some little young adult meeting, I'd have Been Dead, there's no question. She just sat right there and patted my little leg and just got me a cup of coffee and laughed when I spilled it and got me another cup of copy and didn't laugh so much when I spelled it the second time. Came back with a roll of paper towels. I mean I was detoxing. Y'all understand this? My treatment was over. I couldn't go back to treatment. There was no money, no insurance, and nobody was going to lend me anything else. I mean, I was done with all of that. And I'm detoxing. They went around the room that night, and they all shared vignettes of their life. The chairperson was very explicit, not like, this is your meeting. Share whatever the hell you want to share. He said very specific. Chris has been around the fellowship for years. He knows how to drink. We've watched him. He doesn't need to hear your story, quote unquote. He needs to hear how your life is different as a result of working these 12 steps. I went, I set up on my end and I said, yeah, that's exactly what I need to hear. And guys, those people shared with me like nobody else in the world can, like only people in Alcoholics Anonymous can. They didn't talk about little sunbeams for Jesus, folks. They talked about stuff that I, in my condition, could understand, Like getting your credit cards back. Getting a job that pays good money. Getting a decent relationship. Having kids, going back to school. I mean, stuff that I had just given up completely on, they shared that stuff with me about what happened to them as a result of working the steps. At the end of the meeting, I mean I was pretty pumped. Maybe this is different. Maybe I'm on to something here. I'm seven years in AA and don't have a big book. why nobody ever told me to get a big book i didn't even know where you bought one no i didn t i was going around to walk the daltons and all the booksellers and i need a big book that's how big a book do you need oh shit i don't know i didn' t know the book was called alcoholics anonymous y'all think i'm making that up i'm telling you it's not we assume that the newcomer knows the newcomer doesn't know jack that's the truth he's a he's black screen old geezer came up had a glasses like this and looking over him like this he says chris buddy welcome back thank you so much for being here he says listen let me ask you a question because we want to spend some time with you in this book um are you done i mean have you had all this fun you want? Are you done? Well, you know, one day at a time. He said, yeah, that's what I thought. He got his coffee and left. See, I've been around AA. I know all your one-liners. Big Book says that we live life one dayatatime, folks. It says to qualify the newcomer in asking a very committed question. Are you done? Are you ready to get sober? For keeps. I know I have a daily reprieve based on the maintenance of my spiritual condition. Daily means every day. It starts with a commitment. It's the problem in our fellowship today. We've stopped qualifying the newcomer. we spend an inordinate amount of time working with people that are not ready to stop and I'm going to tell you folks in subsequent literature they talk about one day at a time I don't want to work with somebody that just wants to stay sober today because when the shit starts to hit the fan they're going to run keep coming back that's what I did for seven years and it brought me to a suicide attempt at our group we don't say keep coming back, we say stay Stay, we need you The hard part's over You walked in the room You picked up a chip The embarrassment is over Now we're going to show you How to work the 12 steps rapidly So that you can have A necessary spiritual experience And never have to obsess About alcohol and drugs again You can recover There's a lot of hope And that's what that guy Shared with me that night I went back and asked him To ask me again And he did And I said yes, I'm ready And he said good And he hugged me like a big bear. They followed me home that night. I didn't know that. I was mortified. The next morning, they were on my doorstep knocking. How did you find me? How do you know where I live? Oh, we followed you home last night. What they did is they knew I was detoxing and they were worried about me. They didn't want to... They just followed me Home. One of the old geezers got one of his little guys. his sponsor said go get the guy and bring him back to a meeting and that's what the guy was doing he wouldn't leave until i got i tried to dust him oh buddy i'm i'm detoxing like a big dog you know i'm starting to you know how we are when we're detoxing with a bunch of whiners and oh i don't feel good and he said yeah i know i remember feeling that way yeah yeah yeah get your patch let's go and uh some shit i did and i went back up we went to a 10 o'clock meeting and And we went in the back and they opened it up and the guys opened the big book and he qualified me. It took ten minutes for him to qualify me to find out if I was in the right room or not. And then we got on our knees and we did a third step prayer. Boom. We went, got some lunch and came back and he gave me some notebook paper, a little notebook, and said let's start working on that old fourth step. Day two. Detoxing. You with me? i didn't finish that fourth step real quick it took me a few weeks but i got started on it that day they gave me the instructions of the first piece we're going to talk about that tomorrow how you can get somebody into this thing it's not this long drawn out process that we make it it's just not and i've been in aa for seven years never worked any of the steps i'm there two days and i'm already working on a fourth step and i feel pretty good about myself i'm starting to participate. Two weeks later, I've got a completed fourth step. I have seen some truth about me and my victim life. And I've seen some ways that I can make those things right. I'm not even on that step, but I'm already seeing ahead that this could work. And I'm sitting on the tailgate of that truck and it dawns on me as I look around at the liquor stores surrounding me and my dope dealer lives in the apartment complex where I live. and there ain't nobody in my apartment but a couple of stinky ferrets. It dawns on me that the obsession to drink has been removed. I don't want to drink. Not I'm afraid I'm going to drink, I just... What happened? I'll tell you exactly what happened. The miracle that is AA took place in my life just like I've watched it happen in thousands of other people's lives. I'm nothing special. but because i got willing to do some things i didn't want to do and had some good instruction the miracle took place that was 19 years ago guys i've been through some rough times in those 19 years and i assure you that not once did i want to drink i wanted to jump off a bridge y'all can relate to that but i didn'T want to DRINK and i DIDN'T want a drug and those moments that you had the other night. You know what I'm saying? The rat, gone. That's what a recovered alcoholic looks like, folks. And that's the hope we need to be sharing with the newcomer. This is a lifelong process. You didn't get sick overnight, you're not going to get well overnight. Shut up. those guys had me working with others the first weeks i was there i couldn't sponsor because i hadn't been through the steps we'll talk about that more tomorrow on the 12-step stuff but they had meworking with other drunks just like the little girl did with me that night taking care of me nursing me making sure i was i was heading to the light they had me doing that from day one folks and i didn't want to do any of that chris help us answer the phone answer your own phones Don't you remember me? I'm the most important person here. I've just been here three or four days. Let me get my feet on the ground. See, the difference was that these people understood what Alcoholics Anonymous was about. They had experiences with God and they wanted me to have it. They loved me enough to tell me the truth. And they were very, very, sehr unkernelig über meine sehnsüchtigen kleinen Gefühle. You want to get well or not. Because you guys, you're not going to get well doing it your way. You can't. Everybody wants to... This is an individual program. We work it the best way we can. That's not true. That's what this book says. It's a very specific outlined process. It's got some latitude. But it's very specific what we need to do to bring about this thing called a spiritual experience. That's been my experience. that's what I want to share with y'all this week. You can customize this just about any way you want. Each of us in our own way, the book says, are going to carry this message. Some of you are goingto carry it very gently and some of youare going to be a horse's butt like me and be a little more forceful with it. Whatever works for you in your own way you're going to learn to carrythis message effectively. But it's got to be the same message. Can y' all get down with that? The 19-year-old kid in the back that's jonesing, he gets sober. He's going to carry the message, the same message as the 40-year old sober guy is up here. There is no difference. We don't have new AA and old AA. It's all the same. I've heard that from podiums. I've had counselors and therapists in treatment centers espouse that crap. And we're killing them by the thousands with it. We're killing them by their thousands. I want to read you something real quick. In a conference approved literature called Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age somebody just sent this to me and I thought it was so good, so appropriate. It's on page 119 in AA Comes of Age. Observers have overlooked one very unusual condition in Alcoholics Anonymous. Unless each AA member follows to the best of his ability our suggested 12 steps of recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant. drunkenness and disintegration are not penalties inflicted by people in authority they are the results of personal disobedience to spiritual principles it's cause and effect I keep putting crap out in the universe I'm going to keep getting it back I mean if nothing changes, nothing changes it's so simple a lot of you all are nodding your head and yet we insist on allowing this potpourri in AA of take what you want and leave the rest. I sponsor lots of guys, buddies, lots of guys. I believe in strong sponsorship. I believe in hands-on sponsorship. I don't believe in taking people through the steps slowly. I don' t believe that our job is to raise our sponsees. My job with you is to qualify you first, teach you, show you about the 12 steps and the 12 traditions and the12 concepts, get you involved in service and then hold you accountable after that. With me? Then go on to the next one. Then go onto the next one. You with us? He has a spiritual experience and gets connected to God and in daily meditation God starts to tell him what to do. That's how it was intended. We come to our fellowship like this is the answer to everything. I mean, it always kills me when we go to an open disgusting meeting and the guys in Iceland call them dark tunnel meetings where you go in and there's no light at the end. We go to these open discussion meetings, right? And somebody's having a relationship problem. I want to talk about my own relationship. You're going to a collection of people who have a history of the worst relationships on earth. Could you give me some advice on relationships? And when we finish that, can you talk to me about money? Oh my God, it just takes my breath away. Anyway, all that to say, what we're going to do tonight, we'll take a little break and what we are going to do, we're gonna do a little first step stuff tonight. It's one of my all-time favorite topics. When I finally figured out what this thing was about, when somebody finally qualified me and I understood that I had a fatal illness, it propelled me through the work. And it changed my attitude towards everything. And I am so grateful and will always be for those old men and women in that room who helped me see my truth, who slowed me down long enough, who cared enough to spend time with me to show me what was in that literature. And it takes effort. You know, a lot of people don't want to take the effort with a newcomer. I don't have time. Why don't you just say you don't Have Time? That's cool. Flip them to somebody else. It's bottom line. And then tomorrow what we're going to end up doing is spending some time in the rest of these steps. And as always, guys, in these breaks, if you want to catch me, come up and we can visit. I'll be glad to answer questions. I'm going to repeat myself. You are so free to agree or disagree. I'm no guru. If you can't reconcile it with what's in the book, I suggest you forget it anyway. You'll follow us on that one? I'm a firm believer in what the literature says, and I think it's pretty... No, I don't think it'S pretty. I think IT's downright arrogant of us to think we've got this figured out in another way. I work in the treatment center field, folks, and everybody's waiting for the government or the hospitals, the doctors, somebody to figure out a solution to alcoholism and drug addiction. There's not one. If there was, I'd be here telling you about it. The solution is Alcoholics Anonymous for Alcoholics. And that's a fact. It's the only fellowship that's ever worked. The problem is that the message has been so absolutely watered down. If we had another hour, I could explain how that happened. You could sum it up in two words. Treatment centers. And in defense of those wonderful people who continue to work in that field, it was Alcoholics Anonymous who stood here with our arms folded and allowed it to happen. And it's a cry in shame. Pockets all over the world, folks. People picking up this book again and starting to study the literature and they're having spiritual experiences. I get emails all day long from people who have long-term sobriety dying in Alcoholics Anonymous who finally reworked the steps, had their own spiritual experience again and are excited about their lives one more time. And that's what we need to do, folks. The spiritual path is where we need to be. And I realize that goes down sideways with some of you. And I'm sorry. I love you enough. I want you to think. I want us this week to talk about this stuff. If you've got some bones to pick, you've gotta choice. You can come up and find me in a group or wait after this is over and we can talk about it. Or you can take my business card and then e-mail me like the coward you are because I don't type so well. And I need to warn everybody, I'm in my last week. I'm addicted to nicotine, and I smoke cigars and I dip continually. And next week I'm quitting. and I'm already irritable, restless, and discontent. And I haven't even stopped yet. So take that with a grain of salt. This is going to be fun. I'm honored to be here, guys, and I'll see you all in about 15-20 minutes. Thank you. Welcome. them? I can't believe they came back. This is good. Yeah, no kidding. Bless you. For anybody that just came in, my name's Chris Raymer, recovered alcoholic. Great conversation with some of y'all, I'm choosing my words carefully tonight. Because I learned a long time ago, actually it was after a Cocaine Anonymous talk I did in 2000. It's not what you say, it's how you say it that sometimes can be offensive. And y'ALL understand my passion in this. And it's just, don't... I'll try to be as calm as I can. and I'll try not to speak in tongues tonight. I don't want anybody to get freaked out. But it's okay to sit in this room and question something I've said because it makes you feel uncomfortable. I never had any real spiritual growth when everything was just going the way I wanted it and everything was juste... You know what I'm saying? And sometimes it took somebody to say something to me. It was not long ago, it's been a while back, a girl that I got sober with goes to my home group down there in the hill country and I'd said something at a meeting and it was inappropriate. In my attempt to be funny, I'd say something that was a little off color and I shouldn't have said it. And she brought it to my attention. Now, I didn't want to hear that. I didn' t like it. I thought she was out of line. Doesn't she know who she's talking to? But as I'm driving home, I'm realizing that's what this is all about. It's about spiritual growth. And all of us are going to make mistakes and all of our lives and all the rest of us are going on the same path. They're rather territorial about their program, I find. I've talked about it from lots of podiums. You say something, well, my sponsor says this. well it's cool not knocking anybody's sponsor what if my counselor said this you know coming out of treatment well my what does the big book say this is the the bs sifter right here guys this is literature we were given this is supposed to be the message we're supposed to be carrying and anything else you want to add on to it i think is wonderful but let's don't dilute the message in the process. This message was intended for the real alcoholic. That in itself grinds people. I was at a meeting not long ago in San Antonio and we were talking about, we were reading on page 20 and 21 in the book. Some of y'all got your books you can look to. Bill Wilson, two or three places in the book three places he talks about the different kinds of drinkers and on page 20 and 21 he talks about the moderate drinker. You with us? Moderate drinker can give this crap up anytime he wants. He can take it or leave it alone. How many of y'all know moderate drinkers? Some of y'll are married to them. They freak me out. I was in Oregon last weekend and I was on the plane going over and this nice little lady was sitting next to me and she ordered a glass of wine and she sipped it, a couple of sips like that, sat it down, started reading her book and that was it. You with us? A stewardess came by and said, do you want another wine? And she says, no. You can take this. In fact, it's hot. Given sufficient reason, the vino is hot. Can you leave it alone? I don't care if there's a dead roach floating in it. Flip that little beggar out and drink it. That's a moderate drinker. Y'all with us on that one? Okay, next paragraph it says, but what about the hard drinker? This cat may start off as a moderate drinking, hard drinkers, big, hard drinkered. But given sufficient reason, this cat can quit, can stop or moderate is what it says. I shared the podium years ago with some geezer down in the valley of Texas that had 30 years of sobriety. And his story was he woke up one day and decided to stop drinking and he put the plug in the jug and hadn't had a drink since. Given good reason, you're tired of waking up with a damn headache, can you stop? On your own power, can you stopped? Stop means stop. I'm a master at stopping for short periods of time, guys. If she's good-looking enough, three months one time. I've stayed sober for weeks just to piss you off. But I can't stay stopped. That's the problem. We have an entire industry in the States worldwide called relapse prevention all based around the fact that we can't stop. You with us? Okay, hard drinker. That's what that guy was. He didn't need a spiritual experience. The book says on page 34, if you can stop on a non-spiritual basis, if you haven't lost the power of choice, you're not one of us. You with us? Next paragraph. I've got little stickers at the stores. It says, I'm the person on page 21. This is the paragraph. But what about the real alcoholic? May have been a moderate drinker, hard drinkers, may affect his health, May even die a few years before his time. You with us? But the real alcoholic is not going to be able to stop what the book talks about. This guy in San Antonio at that meeting, he says, What's all this talk about the real alcoholics? I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous if I say I am. You with me? Completely different subject. Completely different topic. Okay, you can call yourself a chicken if you want to. I don't care. It doesn't mean you're a chicken. if you say you're a member of this fellowship you're welcome thank you for being here I guess the question the question buddies is why would you want to be here the book Bill Wilson over and over talks about the real alcoholic the person that's dying of this fatal progressive illness and those are the cats that I'm talking to if you can quit on your own don't need the steps I've said it before you're welcome just don't sponsor anybody that's because wow because how are you going to sponsor well god damn it i said just quit i quit you can you can do the same oh it just i want to show you something can y'all see this writing up here it's kind of kind of like um in 1955 when this book went into its second printing. It was published in 1939. In 1955, second edition talks about, we had a success rate in the United States of 75%. 50% got right off the bat, few relapses. By the time all the dust settled, 75%. You with us? Right now, I know in Dallas and Houston, the larger cities in Texas, we've got a successrate that hovers around 8%. Alcoholics Anonymous may argue that statistic. The stuff we're looking at doesn't show that. About 8% stand sober a year. So why in 1955 were there better success rates than there are now? We've got better medications, better therapeutic techniques, better detox protocol, better everything. Much stronger understanding of the disease. We can paint a much clearer picture of what the disease is with alcoholism and drug addiction. Why is our success rate so low? Water down. Some little brother said, it's watered down. We stopped reading the big book, folks. We stopped talking about the literature. I talked to an old geezer not long ago up in Michigan who had it pegged pretty clearly. The fellowship as a whole pulled away from this book. They had a private beef with Bill Wilson in the big books and they said, we're not going to do that anymore. We're just going to get together, talk about our stuff and you know, the cats that got sober are the cats who weren't even real alcoholics. Yeah? there's a small percentage of us but between 10 and 15% that are genetically wired alcoholic and addict at this particular point guys being addicted to alcohol truly is no different than being allergic to certain foods it's a genetic predisposition you're with us? who's allergic to something in here? what are you allergic to? huh? Oh, that's specific. Lots of stuff. Penicillin? Penicilin. But I'm not allergic to penicillин. I can... What's up with you? No, I don't... Maybe she was potty trained wrong as a child. Perhaps we need to look at some deeper issues. Come on, guys. If you eat shellfish and they make you sick, what do we do? We stay away from the shellfish. It's no different. There are some of you cats in here that are brunettes. Some of you are blonde. That's all genetic. Some of us don't have a clue what color your hair is. I know, I know. There's a small percentage, 10% to 15%, that are genetically wired this way. The other half are what we would call moderate drinkers, hard drinkers. Tea totalers. You'll follow? but the problem I wish we had an hour just to talk about this is that anybody that drinks too much we automatically call an alcoholic oh he's an alcoholic he's a guy in the hospital the other day a family member came up and said well my uncle he drank for 30 years and he was a bad alcoholic but he got pregnant you know he the family his wife got pregnant and he hadn't had a drink since he was real bad alcoholic No, let me get this straight. He had a baby and stopped drinking. Yeah. And he was a real bad alcoholic. You with us? No, he wasn't. He was a hard drinker. You follow? There's a difference between a hard drunkard and somebody that's dying of a fatal progressive illness called alcoholism. I'm not saying those hard drinkers are not welcome. I'm saying you better make sure that who's given you the solution to this has had the same experience as you. That's the grinder. The reason our fellowship got in such a tough shape with the low success rates is that we stopped qualifying the newcomer. We started looking at numbers instead of the individual people. How many people showed up at your meeting last night? Oh, we had 80 people there. Uh-huh. How many of those were real alcoholics? Ten. I don't know, maybe 80. I mean, maybe the whole room was. But our experience is showing that a whole bunch of people in our fellowship today call themselves alcoholics picking up chip after chip after tip or not even the real McCoy. That makes some of you real uncomfortable because this forces you to look at your stuff here. I'm going to show you what the big book describes as alcoholism, drug addiction. And it's pretty specific. Everybody wants to complicate this. Have you ever looked up alcoholism on the Internet? Billions of hits. Billions. It'll take your breath away. Everybody's writing something new about it. Everybody's got their own opinion. The bottom line is the book in 1939 showed us exactly what one looks like. If you can see what this is, you can diagnose anybody. If anybody had known the questions to ask, they could have diagnosed me at 17, 18, 19 years old. They could have diagnosed me with alcoholism. But they didn't. They didn't know the questions to ask. They asked me, have you had a DWI? No. Well, hmm. What about no? Make sense? Why is it... We want to wait until the alcoholic hits, quote-unquote, a bottom. Where's the alcoholic and drug addict's bottom? There is none. There is death. There are a bunch of them. The autopsy. Yeah, the autopsy See, the bottom should be spiritual bankruptcy where you just don't want to live anymore but we watch 19-year-old kids come into our hospital that are there You follow? But if you look at the external world they haven't done all the crazy things that some of us have done. So we've got to stop using that as a tool to diagnose alcoholism and drug addiction. When you come to that hospital, you've gotto exhibit certain symptoms and it's not necessarily a DWI. This is it. I'm going to step away from the mic and write a couple of things real quick. Can you see it? Two words, control and choice. Let's look and see what the big book says about this. If some of y'all are taking notes, you can write this down or you can listen to this later and see it. In Roman numeral XXVIII, Roman numerel 28 in the doctor's opinion. Cool. we believe and so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy that the phenomenon is craving the phenomena of craving is limited in this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker will it? craving the physical response to the alcohol our bodies are wired different than normal people folks When I put this stuff in my body, this craving kicks in and I have a tendency to drink a bit more than I intended. You follow? Were there times that I intended to drink everything in Canada? Yeah. You with us? But were there times I was going to a business function and I intended zu drink a couple of drinks and be social with everybody else and then go home? But at 10 o'clock, I'm still sitting there making an ass of myself because I've been drinking the whole time. You with me? My first wife used to say, Chris, you just... She'd come in and I'd have a bunch of dead beers laying around. She'd be like, you were thirsty this morning. It's like, buddy, this is not thirst. How many of you guys ever drank a 12-pack of beer in a day? Raise your hand. How many here ever drank a 12 pack of Coca-Cola in the morning? Anybody? You're as sick as sick can be. i have never done that ever done that there's this craving this phenomenal craving the problem is early on because we got a progressive illness so this progresses differently in different people now y'all pay real quick because this is important this this progression of the illness is not chronological i know some young people 20 years old whose bodies are damn near worn out their diseases progressed so fast, so furiously that they're almost used up at 20. And I know people that just recently began at 60 to exhibit the symptoms of alcoholism and drug addiction. You with us? You don't necessarily, the book says, have to drink a long period of time to show these symptoms. But we've got to stop. That's where everybody wants to separate the young adults. They're different. No, they're not. The problem is their disease hasn't progressed as far in a lot of them. I sponsored a guy one time, he drank three times and he had three DWIs. This poor little beggar, he never had any kind of a social window there at all. He just, he had to stop, you know? It was just, what a pisser. Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by the alcohol. Would you all agree with that? Power. essentially because we like the effect produced by the chemical. The book says it gives us a sense of ease and comfort, and that's what happens to me when I drink. If I could drink it and it would give me a sense of ease in comfort, then, and I didn't have the craving, I would be drinking today. Normal people do that. Let's drink a glass of wine and enjoy this meal. I can't drink a class of wine and enjoy the meal. If you've got a couple of bottles to go with it, I'll make a stab at it. You all with us? This phenomena called craving, you've got to have. The question to ask the newcomer is simple this. Did you ever drink more than you intended? I give everybody one bonus puke. Early on, brand new, you know, a kid, first kegger, you know. Hot damn, it's free. And you know big aquarium full of beer. He's going to puke, he's going get sick, He's going to drink more than he intended because he doesn't know what the stuff will do to him. He wakes up the next day with this huge hangover and says, I'm never going to do that again. You know what? They don't. I've said that a million times. I am never going gonna do that again. And damned if I didn't do it again. It's phenomenal craving once I put it into my body. This also works as cross addiction folks and that's what we see in the treatment centers a lot. A lot of treatment centers talk about harm reduction, and I'm all for that. But the problem is they do it with the cocaine addicts especially. You can't do cocaine anymore. Why don't you try alcohol? What a great idea. You'll either become a lush or it will lead you back to the cocaine. No exception to the rule. If you're one of us. Make sense? The pill addicts are the worst. Pill addicts, they're a cut above. I'm not a drug addict. I'm addicted to medication. Let's find out. We can qualify you the same way we do the alcoholic. Let's fine out. Pill addicts are notorious. I won't do the pills, but I'll drink. And it leads them back to the pills. That's why I hate these new sleep medications. Are they doing that in Canada now? You can't turn TV on without watching an advertisement. At least six advertisements for sleep medications, Linesta, what's the other one? Ambien, blah, blah. And we're watching. We've got a hospital full of people that have relapsed, lost long-term sobriety around those sleep medications. Why? Because it triggers the same area of the brain that the alcohol triggered. You'll follow me? Nasty stuff. You can pull it off for a while. I know some people that have been doing it for months. They're playing Russian roulette. I don't know when the craving is going to kick back in again, but it will kick back and if your disease that's particularly far-reaching, if it's progressed a good distance, your chances of doing it more than a couple of days and getting away with it. You with us? I don't know about here. Up in Texas, we used to have this thing called the Marijuana Maintenance Program. Those big meetings up in Dallas, Texas and the 8 o'clock and the bell would ring and everybody would get out of their cars and all this blue smoke would billow out and they'd come in and pick up their cake. I've been sober for two years. Just ripped. he said a desire to stop drinking it didn't say anything about pot oh my god and we allowed it to happen we sat there and watched it phenomena called craving now there's over 40 medications out there in tech in the united states right now i don't know how many of they have here some medications we have in techin in the United States are not legal in Canada and vice versa i don't know but in the united states over 40 medications anti-craving drugs that will help you reduce your your the physical response to the alcohol you're with us lots of people pharmaceutical companies are working overtime with this what we haven't come up with is an anti-obsession drug not one you're within see and that's what the book says that's what the book said turn to page 23 i'm going to flip you through a couple of pages here guys if you got your books tomorrow if you if you don't didn't bring them tonight bring them tomorrow top of the paragraph it talks about now from the doctor's opinion where we just were up to page 23 all we talk about is what happens when i put this substance in my body the physical response to the chemical at the top of page 23 it says these observations about the physical craving would be academic and pointless if our friend just never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centered is in his mind rather than his body. Uh-huh. But what do we do in treatment? We spend 90% of our day helping the patient not take the first Drink. We spend very little time getting to talk to them about the mental and the spiritual piece. It's a three-part disease. And we kill this piece. That's where the relapse prevention comes in. You with us? Which way do you drive home? Oh, I'd go this way. Do you drive past a liquor store? Uh-huh. Well, don't drive past the liquor store. That's a trigger. You have to take a right. But if I take a ride, it's 20 more miles home. Well, but how bad do you want to get sober? You follow me? I understand in early sobriety this might be good, but I mean, how are we going to organize our lives so that we're never around alcohol and dope. Book says any attempt to shield you from alcohol and dope is destined to fail. You're either going to get taken to a place where you don't want to do it, or you're going to keep doing it. Everybody wants to isolate. I need to go back to treatment. No, you don'T. You need to finish working the 12 steps and recover. You follow me? I'm not knocking treatment. I'm saying after 6 times Treatment has done everything they can do to you. Now it's time to do the deal. Do the work. Do the deal, yeah. This is as far as Nancy Reagan ever got. Just say no. I mean, I'm eating out of dumpsters in Houston, Texas in 1976. I mean you know, it's just who knew all I needed to do was say no? it's that simple but you see your families hear this our families my family heard this well chris i mean nancy reagan says it just say no well just but i think it's disrespectful guys i mean i just okay i i can say no i just say yes after i i i can stop i just can't stay stopped why not because of the physical allergy and this physical piece only takes place when the stuff's in your system y'all down with that we deal with the physical piece by a thing called detox will detox your butt get this chemical out of your body and then you won't crave the drug anymore i know some people here from other fellowships that use those words interchangeably we got to Stop it. The physical stuff stops when it's out of your body. The mental is so strong, it feels physical. You ever talk to a cocaine addict? I can taste it. Remember what we were talking about earlier? That's in your mind. It's not the body. Make sense? Absolutely.