Functioning Alcoholic Was My Proudest Label Until Two Liters of Vodka Couldn’t Produce a Buzz – Chris H.

a passage from page 29 of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Each individual in our personal stories describes in their own language, from their own point of view, the way they established their relationship with God. These give a fair cross-section of our membership and clear-cut idea of what has happened in their lives. We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women in our room tonight, and listening later on aabluchipspeakers.org, will hear our speaker and we believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that any of us shall be persuaded to say, yes, I am one of them too. I must have this thing. Tonight's speaker who comes to us by way of West Palm Beach, Florida, his name is Chris H., and his home group is the Hushden Group. Y'all give a round of applause for him. Thank you, Missy. Hi, I'm Chris, and I am an alcoholic. Thank you. And it's a pleasure to be here with you this evening. You guys got to hear my wife tell her story last week, and she apologizes for not being able to come this week, but she really enjoyed her time with you, so you might see us drop in here from time to time. This is a great group. My sobriety date is December 10, 2001. I have a sponsor who had a sponsor, but his sponsor recently passed away. This happens when you get to be a little bit more older in AA. I mean, people do eventually pass away, but he's going to get a new one. I'll tell you more about my sponsor in a little bit. I'd like to start off by saying this, you know, that just because, just so that people who are like me can identify, that a lot of the people whose stories I hear, they had three strikes against them before they were out of the cradle, that their parents were alcoholics or drug addicts. They were maltreated when they were kids, you know, abuse, all kinds of things. They had older brothers that were in sisters that were, you know, drug addicts. I mean, they just had no chance of not being an addict or an alcoholic, and I get that, but then there are people like me, too, whose my, I had two normal parents, and they were really good parents. They were very loving parents. They took great care of me. My brothers and sisters, you know, and they did the best for us. I still believe that I inherited alcoholism. Alcoholism is, I don't know if you guys ever studied genetics in high school with little peas and stuff. We used to do that. Alcoholism is a recessive gene, which means it's expressed less frequently, so it can skip generations. So it skipped my parents. My parents' brothers and sisters, a lot of alcoholics. Their parents, and a lot of alcoholics. So there's alcoholism all over my family, but I got lucky in that my parents didn't get it, but I believe I inherited it, because the first time I really took a drink, 15 years old, and I was actually, I was in a boarding school at that time, not because I was a bad guy. It was because I wanted to go to this school. That's another story. 2 other guys and I got addicted to alcohol. I got a hold of a couple of bottles of wine, and we snuck out of the place in the middle of the night, and went to climb this mountain and sat up there. It was gorgeous. And we drank the two bottles of wine. I don't know. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It was, it felt like, I felt like one of those pinball machines in Las Vegas, where you hit the jackpot and it's going bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. That was my brain. It's like, wow. I didn't know I was missing it, but this is it. This is absolutely it. It was absolutely the most fantastic feeling. I think it was just that my brain was just, it had all the right receptors. It was just waiting for the alcohol to be added to it. And we were off to the races. Because from there on, I had a drink. I got, and got drunk every single chance that I could. Now, when I was 14, those chances were far apart, you know. 3 And they got closer and closer together until I was totally on my own and I was just drunk all the time. It was at 14, I started partying all through high school. It was just party hardy on the weekends. I mean, I'm sure a lot of you guys did the same thing. And I hung out with the people who partied. So I didn't, I didn't stick out. I wasn't, it didn't look like I was going overboard, although I could really drink a lot. 0 I was proud of that, you know, very proud of that. And during high school, you know, I didn't really have any problems. Some of my friends did. I was coming home from a party one night, and I drove around a corner, and there was a Jeep upside down in the road, and a body laying there in the road. And I stopped and got out and looked, and it was one of my friends. But he looked like he was beyond help. And I said to myself, you know, shit, if I stand here, they're going to breathalyze me. So I got back in my car and I tailed it out of there. And there were two guys in that Jeep, and one of them did die. It sort of shook me up, but not in the right way. You know, what I thought, I didn't think about, you know, oh, man, maybe I should watch my drinking and driving. I thought, boy, those guys should have been better at drinking and driving. I'm really good at it, but they obviously weren't. I clearly had the alcoholic thinking. And going right from the get-go, you know, this disease was going to make whatever excuses, whatever explanation it needed to keep me going. You know, high school went okay. Then I went to college, and in college I encountered some of the more interesting other substances. I was really, you know, one of those garbage can people. You put it in front of me, tell me I'm going to like it. I did not. It did not matter what it was. It still was okay. And, again, I was surrounding myself with people who were all doing the same thing. So, you know, I had no reason to really think that there was something wrong with me. As a matter of fact, just the opposite. I thought everything was great with me, you know, because I graduated from college and then went on and got a decent job and all that. But the very first drinking, I was aware that I was going to die. And I was going to die. And I was going to die. And I was going to die. And I was going to die. And I was going to die. When I was on my honeymoon, I was 25 years old when I got married. We were, my wife's parents were from Portland, Maine. And we went up there and got married in the summertime. It was gorgeous. We got married on an island. I mean, it was all beautiful. And we decided to go camping for our honeymoon, which is a little unusual, but it's such a gorgeous place up there. It seemed like the natural thing to do. So we're. We're out camping, having a great time. And I'm like packing up the stuff in the morning. And it's like about, I don't know, quarter to nine. And I catch myself thinking about when I'm going to get to have my first beer. The thought just occurred to me, you know, that's a little weird. You know, here you are on your honeymoon, having this wonderful time. And it's quarter to nine in the morning. And you're thinking about when you're going to have your first beer. Hmm. Fine. You know, okay, fine. And of course I got my first beer as soon as I could. And life went on. And you know how the alcoholic typically follow the same path. You know, it starts out, it's fun. It's a lot of fun. We have a great time. And then we have to start to have a problem or two, a few problems. Then we have more. Four problems. It's all right. And then more. And then it starts to get so it's not fun at all. And we finally end up where it's fricking miserable. My curve took a pretty long time. So it was when now I was, I don't know, about 30, 31 years old. I'm out of school. I'm married. And I have a decent, decent job. You know, not the world's greatest, but a decent job. I am absolutely getting shit-faced everywhere. Every day. You know, I would come home from work, start drinking a little something else and keep drinking. Because alcohol was always my first, anything else was welcome. I would just drink until I passed out, you know, basically. And I would pass out every single night. Every single night. I didn't really realize that. I called it going to sleep, but it was passing out and coming to. That is what I did. But somewhere, I guess a year or two before I was 30, 28 or 29, my wife, who was my number one party buddy, we met in college and, you know, just had a great, she started to get migraine headaches, you know, really bad headaches. And of course, she goes, you know, I'm just going to stop drinking. And she stopped drinking. You know, she was a normie. She could stop, stop drinking some, uh, something. She came active in her life that gave her sufficient reason to stop, and she just did. And of course, once she stopped, I started to stick out like a sore thumb to her. You know, she's like, look at him. He's a vegetable. He passed out on the couch yet again. She wouldn't, she soon got tired of trying to coax me into the, into the bedroom to pass out in there. You know, she just let me leave me wherever I was. And so when I was at 30, 31. She started kicking around the word alcoholic in my presence. I'm like alcoholic. I don't even know what an alcoholic. I decided to do a little research. I found one test. I think it's called a cage test. I don't know. There's a, I hardly ever see it anymore. And so I answered all four questions. Yes. And I turned it over and it said, if you answered one or more of these questions, yes, you may have a problem. With alcohol. I'm like, well, what a wimpy ass test. This is everybody I know would say yes to all these questions. And of course I was true, but I didn't really realize why, you know, because I only hung out with alcohol. So I didn't stick out. I kept looking for more information on alcoholism or what an alcoholic was. I didn't even know, really know the word alcoholism and I found another test. And this one had 20 questions on it and you guys have probably seen this one. And so I go down and I started answering the questions and I have yet to figure out that yes, is a bad answer. I go tick, tick, tick, tick. And I answered 17 of the 20 questions. Yes. I turn it over and it says, if you answered six or more of these questions, yes, you do have a problem with alcohol. So I'm like, well, okay. All right. Well, fine. So I'm an alcoholic. Okay. I meet the definition. I pass the test. But I'm a functioning alcoholic. I mean, look at me. You know, I got a job. I got a car. I got a driver's license. I got a wife. She's a little pissed off, but I've got one. You know, I got it all going on. So I'm a functioning alcoholic. I wore that label proudly. I actually was proud of that. You know, if somebody asked me what I was, I often would say I'm a functioning alcoholic. Damn straight. And I could still drink almost anybody under the table. So, yeah, you know, that's what an alcoholic is. Time went on, not much, because a couple of years after that, or maybe even a year, I got a job offer in another city, another state halfway across the country. It was a really good job offer. I was going to take it. I'm talking to my wife about it. And she goes to me, look, I can't stand to see you kill yourself with alcohol and drugs. So I'm not going unless you do something about it. What my alcoholic brain translated that into was I'm not going with you because my job here is more. It's more important to me than you are, because she had a good job, too. So that isn't what she said. That isn't what she said at all. That's what I told myself, that her job is more important to her than I am. But no, she said, I can't stand to see you kill yourself with alcohol and drugs. So I packed up and left, you know, without a backward glance. You know, looking back, that really is sad. Sad, because she was a really great woman. We liked each other a lot. You know, we had fun together. And she was really concerned about me. But, hey, she was threatening my drinking. To heck with that. See you later. So I moved off to another city in the middle of the country. St. Louis was where I was. And St. Louis, I don't know, somehow St. Louis was a great town for drinking. Not that it really mattered. It really mattered where I was. There, I had no restraints now. You know, I didn't have a wife to look at me funny or make remarks about alcoholism or anything. And I had a really good job, you know, that paid a lot of money. So I got to find out what happens. What happens if you just drink as much as you want for as long as you want? What happens? I mean, there's all kinds of crap that happens along the way. But at the end of that, it wasn't getting me buzzed and doing what it's supposed to do. It actually hit me. I was in England because I had been sent over there by my company with the wonderful job of closing a factory. In England and the rest of Europe, the law says if you're going to close a factory, you have to give everybody six months notice. So my job was to go over there, close the factory. You're all in. You're doing your job. But we got to work for six more months. So let's go. Needless to say, they weren't happy. And I must say, they weren't mean to me or anything like that. But nobody was happy. And it was, I think I went over there like in September. And so six months. So it was all the wintertime in England. And I don't know if anybody's ever been there in the winter. But the sun, you see the sun last maybe in August. And you don't see it again until June. It's just, you know, it's just cloudy and overcast and miserable. And the days are really short because England turns out it's way up there north. So it's miserable. I'm just miserable, miserable, miserable. And I'm drinking like a fish. On the way home from work one day, I stopped in the grocery store and bought two liter bottles of vodka. Went home to my little apartment. Three hours later. And I did not have the buzz. I didn't have it. I'm like, you know, it's just, I'm not there. What do I do now? Do I get in the car and go out and get another one? What do I do? And I had one of those moments of clarity. You know, you're considering getting in your car after drinking two liters of vodka to get some more. I mean, you are just messed up. And they were out of town. So I called my brother and told him that, you know, I'm screwed. And he said, wait, you know, just wait a few minutes. Anyway, they sent a rescue party to come in and get me. That's a whole hysterical story because you send more drunks to get another drunk. It's like very, very funny. But nonetheless, they got me back. And they took me to. To West Palm Beach. I'd never been drunk in West Palm Beach. I'd really never been to West Palm Beach before. But West Palm Beach has a ton of rehabs in it. Anybody been to rehab in Florida? It's a popular spot. But I went to go to rehab there. And when I got to the rehab, it was a really nice one because I had insurance at that time. It would pay for a good spot. And it was one of those ones that had its own. It had its own medical wing with doctors and all that. And they took one look at me and they said, man, he is in bad shape. Take him to the hospital because we're worried that he's going to have a stroke as he detoxes. My brother took me over to the hospital and I spent my first week in the locked psych ward. It's called St. Mary's Institute for Mental Health. So I was locked in there. The funny thing is, I did not. I feel out of place. The arts and crafts were right my speed. All good. And it was interesting. They had AA, people from AA came in there and did meetings. And that was interesting. Those were probably my first meetings. I don't really call it my first meeting. But now that I think about it, those were. But I was so out of it. I didn't really know what was going on. Anyway, after a week. In there, they let me back into the into the regular rehab. It was it was sort of amazing because after after detoxing and then after a week of being in the in the rehab, I started to feel good, like, really good. And I think it was my body was just like, oh, my gosh, he has finally stopped trying to kill me. You know, I was starting to recover a little bit. So I'm feeling like. Awesome. I actually went out. They had a little track and I actually walked around it. It's like I had done intentional exercise for a long, long time. So so that's going on. And then the next thing was, was, you know, they had the steps on the wall. This was a good treatment center. It was a 12 step face. They believe in all that stuff. So they had the steps on the wall. And I was reading on the first one. Admitted or powerless or alcohol. I realized I'm. Well, obviously, and then the second one came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. I'm like, I know what they're talking about. They're talking about God. And I thought about it and I didn't didn't. I'll tell you this little thing, because God, God, God had sort of made a crack in my or I got into the into the rehab, but not long before. Where I lived. In St. Louis, I lived in an apartment and it was a nice apartment on the 23rd floor of this building. And right across the street from me was the Cathedral of St. Louis, Catholic Cathedral. Gorgeous building. Beautiful, beautiful building. If you ever are there, get a chance to look inside it, too, because it's amazing. And it's got this big green dome on top with this huge gold cross, you know, just there. And that is what I looked at. And I looked out my window all the time and I was there for like ten years and I'm looking at this cross for ten years at the end of my toward the end of my drinking career as my life has fallen apart. I'm miserable and I cannot stop drinking. It occurred to me that maybe I've been wrong about this. God said I've dismissed God out of my life when I was said I don't need this God screwy. It's for weak people. Who are scared about dying or something, you know, but I started to think that maybe I've been wrong about it. And I actually went over into that cathedral a few times drunk and it didn't really do anything for me. But but there was, you know, I think there was this calling. So when I was in that treatment center and I'm reading that second step came to believe all of a sudden I didn't I had no resistance to the idea. I'm like. Maybe there is a power greater than myself that could restore me to sanity. I hope there is to the idea. And then the next step made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Well, I'm like, you know, if there is a God, he's already he's the most powerful thing in the universe. He created everything. It only makes sense to turn my will and my life over to his care. Right. Because, I mean, he's basically running the show anyway. So what the hell? There I was. I had done the first three steps. Right. Right. Well, I was sitting there and I started to feel spiritual, spiritual stirring in me and it felt really good. Now, this might have been like the second or one and a half weeks into the treatment. So I'm now I'm feeling good, really good. My body's feeling good. I got a little spiritual glow going on. You know, I'm like skipping around this place. It's just going, wow, now I know why all the movie stars and rock stars come here. This treatment thing is great. This is awesome. And then I noticed another thing is that I started to be able to like read in the in the book and comprehend what I was reading and to talk in complete sentences. I'm like, wow, my brain is working again. You know, this. You know, this. You know, this. You know, this. This is awesome. You know, I feel like Albert Einstein. This is great. And so now I got this three prong thing going on my physical. I'm feeling good. I got a little spiritual glow going and my brain is ticking like a finely oiled machine. And boy, I am just loving rehab. Loving it. Loving it. Oh, and I don't know if anybody else has ever done this, but I guess I wasn't the only one in there. That was like feeling this kind of euphoria thing, the men separate from the police. So I thought I would sit out front with the guys smoking cigarettes and we would just laugh our heads off. Laugh, laugh, laugh. It was hysterical. I mean, I was really having a good time with the rehab. So I'm like, wow, this is awesome. And it was all going really good until my third week in the rehab. And it was so sometime like in the middle of the third week. And we're in one. One of those groups, you know, we're directing the group and we're all saying whatever bullshit we were saying. And I started to look around. How did I get here? Look at these people. That guy's hiding out from the law. That guy said he's been in here 13 times. This other guy, his wife's, you know, leaving him, taking the house. I mean, they could be. They don't have their, they don't have jobs. They don't have driver's licenses. I got, you know, compared to them, I got it all going on. You know, I still got a house to live in. I got a driver's license, a job, car. I got it. I got it all, you know, compared to them. I'm a functional alcoholic. And it didn't even occur to me, you know, how ironic it was that that's what I've been calling myself for the last 15 years. I thought it was a new. New idea. You know, I'm a functional alcoholic. And maybe I was too hasty about coming to this rehab. I spent the last week or so in there planning how to test the theory that I was a functional alcoholic, you know. And I figured, I thought about it. I gave it a little thought. I'm like, well, you know, I know a little about this AA thing now. I can probably even go to a meeting or two. I know about alcohol, a little bit about alcoholism. They're assigning me a psychiatrist when I get out of here. I can use him. I can use all these tools. And I can manage it, you know. I'll manage this drinking. I'll be able to drink and manage it. I decided to test it. I went to the grocery store. I bought a case of beer and a bottle of vodka. Started drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking. A couple hours later, I'm on the phone, you know, calling up the Coke dealer. And got that. Back going. You know, by the end of day one, the whole thing didn't, wasn't gradual at all. So that went on for, and then I'm like, oh, my God. You know, here I am. I'm back doing the exact same thing. This is a mess. Oh, and did I mention that in that little bit of time, I had a really great job that I had that I thought I couldn't get fired from? You can't fire me, you know. Oh, yes, I could. But it didn't stop me. It didn't stop me from drinking. But anyway, I'd go, you know, this is horrible. This is, you know, they were right. I can't control it. I called up that psychiatrist that they assigned me to. Of course, I hadn't called him before that. And said, oh, I'm drinking again. And he goes, okay, all right, I'll make an appointment for you. And so it turned out it was only three blocks down from my apartment. It was a hotel. It was a hospital with a locked psych ward. And there I was again in the locked psych ward. So I was in there for three days. And they gave me those nice little livrium pills is what they gave back then to detox with. And I loved it, you know. And after I detox, I go to myself, well, shit, this doesn't prove anything. You know, this wasn't really a test of whether you're a functional alcoholic or not. You just checked yourself in here so you could detox. You could detox with those stupid pills because you're such a wimp. And so I called my main drinking buddy up. He came and picked me up. And we went straight to a bar. Yeah, oh, my God. And it didn't turn out well. I mean, needless to say. So about five months after that, I was back in the treatment center again. And this time I had to get sober. I had to. I knew it. So I was willing to do everything they told me. And one of the things they told me is, stay here for a long time. And I did. I did. They really did know what they were talking about. So if anybody's in a program and, you know, you get to your 28 days and they say, maybe you want to stay a little longer, you might give that, pay a little attention to that. Because 28 days was not long enough for me. I needed more. And like I said, this was a great rehab. And they taught me several things. They drummed it into my head that what I had, it was a disease, alcoholism, probably a genetic disease. But anyway, I had it. That this disease is progressive, incurable, and fatal if left untreated. And I have since spent a lot of time looking it up in the medical literature and so on. That is exactly what it says in there. That's what the medical community thinks of it. And so if you want to live with this progressive, incurable disease, you've got to treat it. And you have to treat it regularly. They said every day. And I believe that every day. And they said the only way, the best way we know to treat it is when you get out of here, you get your ass to AA, get a sponsor, do what he tells you to do, and keep doing that for the rest of your life. And you have a chance at living a good, long life. And I did that. I immediately went to, I made that my home group. And it was an amazing group. I got a sponsor. And the sponsor started taking me through those steps. And boy, did my world change. And it changed pretty quickly. You know, it wasn't a slow process. I've seen people make it a slow process. But it doesn't have to be. And for me, it wasn't. One thing that happened six months in is one of my group members, a really good guy named Gerald, it turned out that the Hospitals and Institutions Committee there, which was in Florida, that's how they take meetings into rehabs and hospitals and prisons. At six, you're allowed to join it after six months sober. So Gerald kept asking me, how long you got? How long you got? As soon as I said six months, he goes, come on. And we went to a meeting of that. And I signed up. And he goes, okay, good. Meet me at the State Work Release Center on Monday night, 30 p.m., I think it was. And we'll do a meeting. And so I met him there at 730. And we went into the Work Release Center and we did a meeting, you know. I'd only ever spent one night in jail. So prison was a new thing for me. But it was amazing. I don't know. I just felt really good when we came out of there. You know, I felt like I'd done something. I felt like I'd done something useful. And so Gerald goes to me, well, great. Good. So we'll meet back here same time next week. So next week I'm there at 730 on Monday night. And Gerald doesn't show up. So I got to do it by myself. So I did. I went in and did that meeting by myself. And Gerald never showed up again. He's kept going to the group. But he's like, that's your meeting now. And I did that meeting every week. I did that meeting every Monday night. And I started doing it even more often for 12 years. And it was amazing. It was, you know, it helped me change my life. Being that alcoholic, you know, who knew that he was not doing what he was supposed to do, you know, with all the alcohol and drugs. And that I wasn't living up to any kind of potential that God had put me here on this earth to live up to. You know, I was not being useful to myself. You know, I was not being useful to myself. You know, I was not being useful to myself. You know, I was not being useful to myself. You know, I was not being useful to myself. And I started to talk to my fellow people, my brothers and sisters. And now through AA it had the steps that had taught me how to look at myself, how to work on my character defects. And now through AA it had the steps that had taught me how to look at myself, how to work on my character defects. And then, you know, this wonderful program had taken me into this institution. I got to do this meeting with these guys in the Work Relief Center. And it turns out it was really important. because a lot of them were coming off of wrong sentences. You know, some had been in, they hadn't seen the world for 13 years. I had a guy in there I didn't know what a cell phone was. Be in an AA meeting and ease your way back into the world was very important. And I have several lifelong friends that I've made through there, guys who came out of there and really did well. That was, I got to, it wasn't me curing them or helping, you know, or doing anything, but I got to be useful. I was being useful. I was doing something that clearly my higher power wanted me to do. And wow, you know, that was just so amazing and powerful. And, you know, for that and a whole host of other examples just like that, I am so grateful to Alcoholics Anonymous. And actually, I am grateful that I am an alcoholic. Because I never would have found that on my own. Me, this person, would have never walked into a prison and tried to be helpful to anybody. This program showed me how to do that. And because I was forced to do it by my disease of alcoholism. So, but I'm grateful for it all. And life today is wonderful. I could go on, but I won't. I'm running out of time. But early sobriety is hard. It's hard. It sucks. And you don't want to do it again. As you progress in sobriety, it gets better. It really does. And it gets a lot better. It gets to where, you know, it's so, it's amazing. I'm just doing things. I do things on a regular basis that would never, ever have occurred to me to do. And they're good things. You know, I used to get all kinds of ideas. And they weren't good. Now it's different. So, I really encourage you to stick with it. It's an amazing way of life. And thank you very much for listening. Thank you, Chris. Like you, this program has also taught me there's a lot to be grateful for. We've asked Marlee to come up and hand out the chips. Hey, I'm Marlee. I'm an alcoholic. Hey, Marlee. I'm here about the white chips. If you want a drink or you're coming back, first time in the room, anybody want a white chip? Go, girl. Go, girl. Go, girl. Go, girl. It's not somewhere strange. You can't put the bottle down. Then they take the edge.