The Spiritual Malady and Depression – Chris R.

This is a workshop on step one. At this time, I'd like to take and turn the meeting over to Chris R. from Texas. Can you hear me all right? I don't know why we do this. I'm not going to need a microphone in about 10 seconds anyway. My name is Chris Framer. I'm a recovered alcoholic. How cool it is to be here, to get to see you guys. I know a lot of you in this room and some of you I haven't met yet, but I'm sure I will and those that bother to stay through this hour I will get a chance to meet possibly and you don't have to worry about going to the sanctuary after I finish talking because most of these people will leave anyway. I always think it's pretty funny how sensitive we are as alcoholics and addicts. We have a tendency to come into these rooms and I laugh about it. I work at a treatment center in a hospital in Texas and as long as I'm agreeing with what the patient's saying, they think Chris Ramer's... That Chris Rammer, he's the only person that really understands. And then I hold him accountable. It's like, buddy, you're acting like an idiot. You need to stop doing what you're doing. All of a sudden, it's like who does he think he is telling me what to do? As long as we don't validate your BS, we're in good shape and then the minute I start saying something that differs from your experience then we ain't buddies anymore make sense we're out here smoking cigarettes Chris you're the best and then I get up here to talk about you pissing and moaning in meetings and it offends you and so now we're not going to smoke together anymore you know you know what by yourself you can't talk to me that way I got to tell you guys I'm going to do this little workshop about first step stuff because this is kind of a little thing that kind of well it did it saved my life like Desmond earlier I'm a chronic relapser. It took him a year in and out. It took me seven years in and out to get this. And some of the stuff I'm going to talk about, it sounds a little controversial, you know, but I've got to tell you, folks, it wasn't because I didn't want it. You see? I'm in and Out seven years because in the area that I got sobered up in, we didn't talk about the big book and we didn't talked about God. This was in the height of the treatment center industry in the 80s and we were talking a lot about inner child and mommy and daddy and we were talking about everything under the sun except how to get well, how to recover from alcoholism. So folks, if my experience... I'm going to talk tonight at 4 o'clock. We get to do a little talk at the end. You're going to hear more of my story. But guys, I've got to say this. Bless your hearts. If my experience doesn't coincide with your experience and you can't relate to what I'm talking about, don't take it personal. Because I'm gonna tell you something. I travel about 40 weekends out of the year. And it's not because I'm particularly whimsical is that there's a lot of people out there that want to hear what I'm talking about. You'll follow me? I know that there are some people that are identifying with my experience. I nearly died twice. I nearly tied getting too alcoholic synonymous thanks to alcohol and drugs. And I'm going to tell you something, folks. Once I got to AA in 1980, I almost died again because nobody had the courage to tell me what it was to be an alcoholic. You're with us? It's like we were laughing with Devin when he saw me. It's like we're working on commission in here. You know, and it's like... No, if you're an alcoholic... Let me back up a minute. Here's the... I don't know how to say it. I'm trying not to cuss today, too, so this is going to be an interesting experiment here. I'll probably fail miserably at that one, but here's what's so weird about this business. It's like when you talk to somebody about what it is to be an alcoholic, it's not that during the process of this little hour of tirade we're going to talk about this, it'snot that you might find out that you are an alcoholic. It's that I'm asking you guys to come in here with a clean mind and accept the proposition that maybe you're not an alcoholic because you see, I sat around the fellowship for years and nobody would ask me some specific questions because they were too busy worried about whether or not they were going to step on my sensitive little feelings or not. The cat was here, and so they assumed I was going to stay here. But I wasn't going to say here because there was always this thought in the back of my mind that, you know, my case is just a little bit different. And you come in and you share your crappy little war stories with me and I couldn't relate because I hadn't done some of the stuff you've been doing. You follow me? And so I said, well, I thought I was an alcoholic, but I've never had a DWI, so maybe I'm not an alcoholic. You know, I fought against it. I thought it was an alcoholic, but I never got beat up in a bar fight before. You follow? All that stuff eventually happened to me, I need to tell you. But at the time, I couldn't relate. So, I mean, I spent a lot of years out there in and out that I didn't need. Nobody ever in the group, guys, please, in the groups that I went to, nobody ever slowed down long enough and said, Chris, let's find out once and for all if you even need to be here. You see, guys? Alcoholism is fatal, one, and it's progressive. And you either got it or you don't. you can't be a little bit alcoholic. No? Because here's the difference. Here's the first controversial thing I'll say from the podium. Well, maybe not the first. Here's a part. There's a difference between alcohol abuse and alcoholism. Can you all get down with that? And we've got a lot of hard drinkers. I'll tell you right now, we've Got a lot more alcoholics than we've had a lot harder drinkers in AA today. And they can't relate to alcoholism But because they're alcohol abusers and they were given sufficient reason to stop, they stopped. Now, they're sitting in meetings. They're talking trash. They're all the little one-liners. You know, they sound like alcoholics. They look like alcoholic. You with me? But they're not alcoholic. Their lives doesn't depend on carrying the message to a newcomer. Their lives don't depend on working the 12 steps. You with Me? But they are in meetings and they are calling themselves an alcoholic and what we read earlier, there's only one requirement for membership in Alcoholics Anonymous and that's a desire to stay sober. Well, I desire to say sober. That's great. But if you're not an alcoholic, you'd be real careful with what you're sharing in the meeting with me. Because if it differs with what's in this book, you and me are going to go out and smoke a cigarette and chat. This is where some of you guys get cranky. See, I wore my special Denny's shirt today. Did y'all notice the Denny's shirt? I got a buddy in Houston that owns some Denny'S and he sends me these shirts. And I wear them sometimes when I lecture and do this kind of stuff because I believe that this is the place that we need to go talk about a lot of stuff that we're talking about out there in Alcoholics Anonymous. Because I believe in a meeting, a meeting ought to be a pep rally. We ought to talk about the power of God. We oughta be talking about the 12 steps. And other than that, we're gonna part ways. See, some of the stuff I wanna talk about at 4 o'clock tonight, you know, some of you that are not going to be here at 4 o'clock because I'm going to go ahead and piss you off now. That's okay. But I need to tell it now because I might not get another shot at you later. I believe that... I'll tear your motives. I believe Alphalete Synonymous was exactly what Desmond said. It was a gift to us. And it's difficult for me not to get quite emotional about it because about the time that Bill Wilson was dying in 1971, I was picking up my first drink. and if it hadn't been for some people strongly standing in the trenches explaining to us what this program was about, I wouldn't be here today. And I've got to tell you guys, I've Got a Terrific Life Today. I have a wonderful life today as a direct result of following the tenets in these books. You follow us in the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you can stay sober hanging around the periphery, you're welcome. But I might submit something to you. I spent years in and out. Why couldn't I stay sober? Because my time in AlcoholicsAnonymous when I wasn't working the steps was more painful than my time out there drinking. See, I suffered from a thing called a spiritual malady. And the depression that is involved in a spiritual Malady is you can cut it with a knife. A lot of y'all understand that. And I started going to doctors early on. I was barely 20 when I started seeing a doctor and receiving my first prescriptions for antidepressants. I mean, guys, man, I was 35 when I finally got sober. That's 15 years that I was taking medication to treat a symptom that could be alleviated like that by the power of God. It's a pretty cool thing. So this is what we're going to talk about. I've brought some little issue man buttons up here for some of you guys that wanted little issue men buttons in there. So let's get started on this. There's a small percentage of us in this world, I'm watching the clock, guys, it's got to be for about an hour and then we'll go smoke big cigarettes. I was too nervous to smoke earlier, I didn't do anything. Alcoholism and drug addiction, what nobody bothered to tell me for years in and out of this fellowship was that it was genetic. You see? We kept wanting to spend time in therapy talking about what was it in my life that caused me so much discomfort that I had to drink over it. You with me? Now, I've got to tell you there was some stuff in my Life that caused мне some great discomfort and I drank over that. You with меня? I'm down with that. People sometimes misunderstand what I'm saying. My past doesn't matter. I'm telling you, of course it matters. But alcoholism being the genetic disease that it is, I would have had whether I'd been raised in a rich family or a poor family. Make sense? And this is what we kind of all need to get on the same page. Some of you guys in this room, you get cranky about this message that I'm carrying to you today because you've been holding on so tight to this issue that you continue to think is causing you to drink and drug. And that's what the book tries to explain. Bill Wilson in the first 100 pages describes the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the first 60 pages he talks about this right here. First step. He spends, in the next 40 pages, he describes the next 11 steps. Bill Wilson really wants us to understand what this is about. Are you an alcoholic or not? In the back of the book, I think it's page 155 or 150. Well, heck, I'll just read it. Thanks for the cold weather too. I'm sure y'all did that on my... Talking about Dr. Bob. Bill Wilson's talking. and he's talking about his bud Dr. Bob when he was 12-7. And he said, Dr. Bobby had a desperate desire to stop but saw no way out for he had earnestly tried many avenues of escape, painfully aware of being somehow abnormal. You know, duh. The man did not fully realize what it meant to be alcoholic. And see, that's the problem that we have in this room right now. We've got some people in thisroom right now that are calling themselves alcoholic, but if you stop them and you get them away from everybody and say, hey buddy, you keep calling yourself an alcoholic, Would you mind telling me what that means to be an alcoholic? And you're going to get some uncomfortable silences. Well, I drink too much. No, it's got nothing to do with the quantity that you drink. And if you can't know it in your heart what it is, one, you won't stay in these rooms because the steps will push you out. Working them are so uncomfortable, you don't want to do it. You won't do them. And two, you won't be able to translate the message to the newcomer who desperately needs to hear what's wrong with him. See, I spent years in therapy, 15 years in and out of therapy couches having them tell me why I drank and drugged. Blaming everybody under the sun why I drunk and drugbed. And I'm going to tell you something, folks. That's absolute garbage. Absolute garbage. Absolute rubbish. It's genetic, folks。 We've known it medically for years. Genetically, there's a small percentage of us in this country that are wired like us. About 15% are wired like me. About 85% of the people hard drinkers, moderate drinkers they can take it or leave it alone. But the small percentage of us it's like being allergic to food. We got anybody allergic to food in here? Please. What are you allergic to? Sugar? What happens when you eat sugar? You get more sick. Absolutely. I think that's the truth. But it's the truth. Any of y'all read Dr. Atkins' book, you know, The Protein? He talks about addiction to carbohydrates and the allergic reaction to carbohydrates. Some of us can open a bag of potato chips and eat a couple of potato tips, and some of us open a back of potato strips, and it stays open. Patty and I'll sit there in front of the television. Are you really going to open that tonight? Yeah. Okay. Go ahead and open it, but it's going to be gone before we go to bed because we're going to sit there and eat that crap. Our bodies react differently to carbohydrates. Some of you react differently to seafood. You know, you eat shellfish. We all have these reactions, but nobody wants to sit here asking somebody that's allergic to shrimp. Nobody wants to jam them afterwards and say, hey buddy, do you have a tough time with your mother? Is that why you can't eat shrimp? No, and we laugh We laugh about it, but I've had countless arguments with people. Listen, I had to do a whole life story one time about how I was potty trained to try to figure out why it was that I was drinking. Now guys, I'm not knocking therapy. I learned a lot of great stuff about myself, but we're trying to treat something that can only be treated internally by looking at stuff that's external. You with us? And this is for years what we've tried to do. So I want to talk to you a little bit in the time I've got with you about what the book clearly describes as alcoholism. First thing I want to read you, though, is my new favorite page. I read it last summer when we were up here. It's on page 34 if you've got your little book. Whether such a person can stop... Well, the whole paragraph. For those who are unwilling to drink moderately... Unwilling. Unable to drink modernly, the question is how to stop altogether. We're assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. Stop right there. Now, that's an assumption, isn't it? I mean, how many of you guys know there's people that you're dealing with, guys that you sponsor perhaps, that just flat don't think they're really one of us and don't want to stop. So again, we're not out here soliciting business. Cat comes in, he's looking for some help. Here's the deal. Whether such a person can quit upon a non-spiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he's going to drink or not. Got it? Tough paragraph. Tough sentence. It says, can you stop on a non-spiritual basis, folks? That's what the book is asking you on page 34. And I'm going to say this and then we'll move on past it. If the book's questioning whether or not I can get sober on a Non-Spiritual basis because I didn't misread that, folks. It says once the psychic change has taken place in Chris Raymer he can go out there and kick butt and take names and have the power to absolutely stay away from alcohol and drugs Oh, and by the way, has the power to deal with all of his other problems. And it doesn't say anything in there once he works through every stupid little... No, I just... How many of us in this room have spent... I mean, there's not one of us here that hasn't gone to an AA meeting and dumped. Everybody does it. I've done it. Everybody in this room has done it, and I'm just having a shitty day, and I just need to talk about it. You know. And I know we're going to continue to do it. There's people that are going to keep doing it. But I never could get sober because I thought that's what meetings were. I believe, just like some of the other people have said, I believe that AA was one big self-help program, and I've had a crappy day, and you're goingto have to have a better day, and that means that I'm not going to have to drink. But you know, guys, here's the deal. We laugh about it every time I get a chance to talk. How many of you guys drank and drugged when everything was going absolutely great in your life? How many drank and drunk when everything went absolutely crappy in your lives? Now, what are we going to do about this, guys? Same hands were up. We're all drinking and drugging. Did you drink when it was rainy outside? We're in trouble today, aren't we? I mean, I don't know what to tell you. Rainy and cold. And we drank when it wasn't sunny. And we had a great girlfriend. We drank when we, you know, when I was dating Satan's sister. You know the old deal. And everybody says, well, I don't know what to say about that. I don'T know what TO say about it. You know why you don't have it? Because it doesn't make any difference. And we talk about it endlessly. We want to talk about this idea. We do it in treatment centers forever. We foster this idea, this absolutely ridiculous idea that if we can make your life okay and work you through all these little crappy problems that you can come out the other side and never have to drink again. And that is... I'm telling you something, folks. that is absolutely disrespectful to do to an alcoholic and an addict if you're a hard drinker you're going to be lifted up by that I guarantee you all I was I was in a bad relationship and now we work through it in some good therapy and I'm out of that relationship and I don't have to drink anymore hallelujah good for you have a nice life go away God I've spent a lifetime organizing my life trying to arrange this over here so I can get over and this over here so I can get sober and this other here and you know gee move and go here and go there and change and go to school and change and for 18 years I drank and drugged for 18 year I could not stop I need to tell you folks I talk at a lot of different fellowships and so if I say drink and drug I know where I'm at I'm an alcoholic synonymous my nemesis was beer not cocaine not beer I could not stop drinking beer Dig? But I tried everything under the sun. Cocaine was my big experiment. You know, I finally found something. You know? I don't have to drink anymore. It was a bad move on my part. I should have thought this one through a little bit more before I did it. But all of y'all have done it. You've got combinations of stuff that you can do. We've got the pills. Now we've got alcohol and the pills and no, no,no,no. Alright, alright. This is what an alcoholic looks like, folks. And some of you guys are going to really be able to relate to this. and I'm going to tell you right now before I get started, some of you guys in this room when I do this little exercise you're going to say I don't relate to what he's saying. I've done you a great service. All I'm asking you to do is look at your truth based on your experience. There's nothing tougher for me to do than to sit in the fellowship that saved my life and what some of you suffer so greatly in this fellowship. And why are you suffering? Maybe you're in the wrong room. Maybe you don't need to be here. What Desmond said this morning was so true. We need so many of you in the trenches with us in this spiritual program of action helping other alcoholics get well. And if you can't relate, you can'T help anybody get well make sense because you're going to be talking about something that you know nothing about see there's a difference between knowledge and experience and that's all I'm trying to get you guys to see this morning what is your experience around this thing we call alcohol what is your experience screw your war stories we got one great place for war stories that's from the podium and in a 12 step call and we're doing neither here You follow us? Your war stories or some of your war stories are your worst enemy. It's the noose around your neck. I hear people in AA all the time, right? They want to say, well, that's all we have is our war story. If that's it, if that's what I've got, shame on me. Yeah, I've Got a War Story. I know exactly what led me up to here. You know, the miracle happened 15 years ago when I took my last drink and I had some people that showed me how to get connected with God and I got 15 years of sobriety that I would like to share with a newcomer. The good stuff. Getting my credit back. getting the relationship that I want, being in a nice house, being able to support... There's some great stuff happening out there, guys, in this thing called life that I wanted to avoid so terribly for 18, 19 years of drinking and drugging. Y'all follow us? War Story is a piece. Page 17, it says, Our common problem is one element in the cement that binds us, but that can't hold us together as we're now joined. Guys, why am I so friends with you? I emailed dozens of y'all in this room. We stay connected. I've known you for years. Why do we stay connected? Because I ate out of dumpsters in Houston, Texas? No, we stay connected because your life is on fire and it's fascinating to watch. We help each other stay on the path. That's all I'm trying to get you guys to do. What's the truth based on your experience? Yeah? Have a lot of people in the industry that I work in, the treatment center industry, we've got a lot of people out there talking about stuff that they've got no experience with. They're not alcoholic and addicts. They've got a lot of education but they're not one of us. You follow me? And they're going to tell me what it's like to be an alcoholic. Excuse me? You know, I think we probably have a lot less problem in our fellowship today if we had people that would just talk about what they know about. You know what I'm saying? Instead of what you think you know about You see, we've got way too many people in AA today sharing their opinions and not near enough people sharing their truth. There's a difference. We were laughing with Patty the other day. I finally admitted from the podium. You know, through the 80s, I actually subscribed to... I'm afraid to tell you this. I subscribed to Cosmopolitan. I couldn't buy it off the magazine, right? Because, I mean, I'd rather buy the dirtiest magazine out there, you know, and at least look like I knew it. But I'm subscribing to Cosmopolitan because I want to know what's this woman thing? You know, what is it? We're going through the 80s and trying to be a sensitive kind of guy, you know? And if you learn a little about women, then maybe... Maybe you get more kissy-kissy. Okay, so... And I need to tell you I failed miserably at that experiment too, you know. But I mean, just because I know a lot about women doesn't mean that I know what it is to be a woman. Can you all get down with that? It means like, ladies, you think you know about guys? You'll never know what he is because you've had no experience being a guy. Isn't that right? I hear the guys out here, you know, oh, I feel... Talking to a black man who's been discriminated against all his life. Oh, I can feel your pain, man. Your white guy said, you don't feel shit. You will never know what that man has gone through. Because you've never been there. Y'all with me? That's exactly what we're talking about here. Some of you in this room, you've been given such a tremendous gift. Is it a death sentence? Yes. But it's such a gift because you know and understand this. You can relay this message to the newcomer and help them get connected. Thank God for that. But if you don't understand this, you can't share it with anybody. I hope you got that one. Okay? Here's what it is to be an alcoholic. But there's three little areas we're going to talk about. We won't spend long on any one of them because it's just not all that complicated. This is not rocket science. Body, mind, and spirit is what the book talks about as it describes this alcoholism. It's also the same as drug addiction in the purest sense of the word. Here's what it is. Now, you can relate. I do family lectures with families and members of alcoholics and addicts and some of the people in the room can relate and some other people can't relate. So if you've got these symptoms though, I think you can relate and you can understand what I'm talking about. Physical allergy, first piece. Y'all get your money. Let's pay for my plane fare. Physical allergy. When I put alcohol, the doctor's opinion in the front of the book talks about it. When I'm in a hospital when I put alcohol in my body Something happens different in me that happens in ordinary people. Go with us? You put alcohol in your body, something happens different. Family members, they drive them crazy because they believe that alcohol in you should be the same as alcohol in me. And they don't understand that there's a physical thing that separates me from other people. See? I can eat shellfish. Some of you in here can't eat shellfish. That doesn't mean that we're weird in any other way. It just means that genetically I can't tolerate the shellfish Make sense? Same stuff right here. Physical allergy. When I put alcohol or drugs in my body, what takes place? What happens? I begin to lose control once I put it in my belly. Y'all got it? Let me put it another way. Did you ever drink more than you intended? And you get the young guy and he goes, no, every time I drank, I said I had to get absolutely squashed. I'm not buying that because I like Desmond and some of the others in here. I was a functioning alcoholic, folks. I was a professional chef for years at the height of my career. I couldn't do that if every time I drank, I drank everything in Texas. You all with me? But there were times that I set out and I was just going to drink a couple of drinks, right? And I ended up drinking six drinks. Sixteen drinks. You follow me? Some nights the phenomena of craving were satisfied with a coupleof drinks. I drank two and went home. And some nights the phenomenon of craving wasn't satisfied at all and I drank around the clock. You all With us? There was nothing weird going on in my life that was causing me to drink that day. It was all boiled down to the phenomena called craving. Normal people don't crave alcohol. You with us? Is there anybody normal in here? Any family member in here by any chance? This would be a hoot if we had one. We could just torture that poor fool. You ever sit down with a normal person, though, and watch them drink and they drink a couple of drinks and you say, honey, are you ready for another drink? And they go, no thank you. I'm starting to feel it. See? And because they're starting to feel the way they don't like the way it makes them feel and so they what? They stop. You see? What happens with us? We start to drink a couple or drinks and we start to feel that what does our little mind say? Guys, it is the truth and you talk to this about people that don't understand this bit and they think How many of you guys ever went and got sick, an old beard joint, and threw your guts up and then came back, walked back to the table and, yeah, let me have another drink. We laugh all the time, blame it. Must have been the stupid chicken, you know, blaming the chicken. What happened? What happened, see? And here's... Here. Here's a little target. Here's what happens when we first start drinking. When I started drinking, I bet you dozens of stories the same as mine in this regard. Patty, any of us in here that we know Mike, we started drinking and the stuff started affecting the way we felt. And I'm telling you, every time I drank, it did something pretty magical for me. It made me feel better. And I've hit this target. Now guys, you can hit this Target for about a million times. But what happens that one time that you ended up drinking a little bit too much and you missed the Target altogether? You'll follow us? Guys, this is the happy, happy place right here in that center of that target. We call that Mr. Happy Place. I know. This right here is Mr. Not-So-Damn-Happy Place. Right out here. You know what I'm saying? And sometimes we'll be drinking and hit this thing again for the next thousand. I'm never going to get that squashed again and make a fool of myself and throw up at that party and I got a DWI and I'm not ever going to do that again. And so for the last thousand years for the 40, 50, 60, 80, 100,000 times you hit this target again. You with us? And then there comes that one day that you sit out to drink a couple? You with it? This has never seen Mr. Happy Spot over here. This is out of the car, boy. You're under arrest. You know, this is... Waking up someplace without hats and clothes on, this is not a happy thing to do. You know, this is not... This is the kind of stuff you don't want to talk to anybody about. You know? What happened? Okay. Y'all understand that? Newsflash! This doesn't happen to normal drinkers ever. Ever. It doesn't happens. Just us. There's a genetic reason, a physical reason we don't have time to go into. But our bodies don't metabolize the alcohol like other people. And the phenomenon of craving kicks in and we can't control it. The book says at certain times Guys, you've got to get past this one piece and we'll move on. There are times that I can control it. At least it appears that I'm controlling it. I'm not getting drunk every time I drink. I'm making an ass of myself every time. I'm ending up over here every time I drink the question is the book asked you did it ever happen? Well, yeah. You're it. You've got the physical piece the physical allergy. Now that doesn't make you an alcoholic that just means that you're wired weird. Dig? No. This is the second piece. This is a piece that I'm famous for right here. And this will make some of you uncomfortable, and I apologize for going in the door. Because this... Oh, geez. On page 20 and 21, it starts talking about it now. And then it goes on over to the next two or three pages. On 23, it says, The main problem is if all we had to contend with was the physical allergy, then just don't drink. I mean, it's like, Thank you, Nancy Reagan, for sharing your wisdom with us. Just don't drink. Just don' t drink. I mean, if you know that sometimes you drink a lot and you're over at Mr. Happy Spot and now we're over here in Satan land, then just don' d drink. Well, I don't seem to be able to not do it sometimes. That's the second piece, buddy. That's what the book says. the main problem centers of our mind rather than our bodies. Listen, guys, detox centers, the hospital that I work for, we do a great job getting you cats detoxed off the pills or the alcohol, cocaine, whatever you're detoxing off of. We can get that out of your body and now there's nothing physically to trigger the... You know what? If you don't drink the first one, you'll never end up over here. That much is true. Now, my problem is I can't seem to stay away from the first ones. Can anybody... You know why I'm saying? Can anybody try to clear this up in my head why it always is that I know this on an intellectual basis. Chris, if you just don't drink, you won't get drunk. Thanks! You know, I don't even have Devin's education, but even I understand that. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. Why can't I leave the first one alone? Why is it that I get caught in these mental black spots and a week after I've made a commitment with tears in my eyes in front of a wife that I don' t want to scare or lose anymore and I'm going to say, buddy, I'm not ever going to do this again. Why is this that I did it again? and we've got people in AA today killing people standing up on the podium saying I got up this morning and chose not to drink did you now did you know my book says point blank on page 24 that we have lost the ability to choose whether we're going to do this or not if you can choose and make it stick then you are not one of us you're a hard drinker a hard drugger welcome have a nice life but you're not an alcoholic Got colder in here all of a sudden, didn't we? Here. Choice, guys. This is the choice. You want to tell me you're choosing. This is why treatment centers kill us because all we want to do is go to treatment and talk about all the reasons why we're drinking. Isn't that right? How many of y'all been to treatment and y'All did it? You'll sit there and tell the counselor all the reason that I'm drinking. I'm excited. I had such a tough life and this happened and this happens you want to give me all the reasons this is about hair what do you want hair we couldn't do this without putting a little buckaroo up here here's a little issue man issue man we're famous for these little guys I was just back in Iceland a couple of weeks ago and they've got 400 people at this they're all wearing little issue men buttons you know little Iceland issue man this is the coolest here's why we drink and drug and this is what everybody wanted to talk about Chris you're drinking and drugging because of all this external stuff. And that's what we talk about endlessly. That's why it drives me crazy when you come into the meetings instead of going to Denny's where you're supposed to be talking about that crap and waste my time in recovery talking about everything under the sun out here except what we're supposed to be talking about which is what's going on inside. Make sense? Guys, we've got to get straight. If you're drinking because of something external, then you're not one of us. If that's the only reason you're thinking, change your circumstances. See, See, I'm going to come back to this. Let's go to this third piece. The spiritual malady piece. This internal condition is what the big book says the reason that I drink and drug. And it describes it in the doctor's opinion in several places on page 52. It talks specifically about it. An internal condition that's causing me to drink. Let me tell you what the spiritual malty looks like. And you've got to see if you can identify with this. The book says it. How many of you guys in here understand irritable? how about restless discontent fearful depressed boredom and just leave them up you're making me seasick it's like it's a wave out here and you're peeping them down yeah it's the same what about no sense of direction trouble in personal relationships trouble making a living got nothing to do with making money A lot of us make good money. What do we do with that money? We have to spend it more than we're making, living beyond our means, credit card debt, spiritual malady is what that's called, folks. That internal condition is what's killing alcoholics and addicts. Guys, I was talking to a friend of mine in the program yesterday. We were talking about his 12-year-old daughter who's never had a drink and he's describing the symptoms. It's alcoholism. It's alcoholicism. Guys, at 17 years old, somebody gave me a bottle of Boone's Farm apple wine and I drank that bottle of Booze Farm and I'm going to tell you what the Boone's Farm did. Did it get me drunk? Yes. Did it treat the spiritual malady? Instantly. You catch in here, you want to think that the alcohol is a problem. If I just leave the damned alcohol alone, everything would be okay. If you're an alcoholic and you just don't drink, you will not get better. You will get worse. That's my experience. It's the experience of being around this fellowship for 20 years, watching you and myself in and out of this fellowship with the long periods of dry time and then leaving. How many of you people know people that have killed themselves in sobriety? Well, if alcohol was the problem, what are we doing? Alcohol is not the problem. Alcohol has never been the problem but alcohol is the solution. It instantly treats this internal condition. That's why not drinking is a real pain for some of us. That's like, oh, you mean I guess he's not drinking part but no pot? You know what I mean? How many people did I see coming to our hospital right now? 90 people in my hospital right now and a lot of them were sober, dry for periods of time and came back via the prescription pad. You follow me? I'm not taking any alcohol in my body anymore but I'm not getting better either internally and the depression comes back and the boredom and the fear and the anxiety and all of this and finally it just gradually outweighs the benefit and I get caught in this middle blank spot one day driving home from work. Y'all know what it's like. Some of you have had this little dry spell, you know? And you're driving back rush hour traffic and like you've been doing okay for weeks and it's no problem and now all of a sudden stupid radio station they're just playing crap with all this rap stuff on here I can't believe you're pushing it irritable you pull into work and somebody's got your parking place and you immediately are grateful that you didn't put the gun in the car today you have to go shoot somebody you know we're getting your parking place it's like everything's life and death and you know the voices are starting to return and you're worth this piece of shit and you never going to amount to anything and you are no good and you have the low self you with me look at yourself in the mirror God what an ugly you know it's internal stuff guys there is nothing external happening weird your external world has gotten better because you haven't been drinking for six months but the internal world is going to hell in a hand basket and driving home that afternoon, you're just going to come unglued. You pull into a 7-Eleven, you walk in to get a soda water and you open the deal and there's a Dr. Pepper there and you shut it and stand there for... One beer. It's over six months. One stinking beer. Grab the beer out. Put it back. Grab the tall boy. I mean, if I'm going to make it one, I might as well make it a big one, you know? We were downtown in New York yesterday and on the street there's all the trash and stuff laying there on the streets and they had those Heineken's, like big, what? They didn't have those when I was out there drinking. You know, these big, they had both hands that carried it the best. You know? That's my kind of drink, you're going to have a beer. I just had a beer It was a gallon, but it was just a beer. Come on, guys. And you sit there and you get back in the car and you open that big bottle and you gunk, gunk. And you pour some of that down your throat and immediately, oh, listen to that song. I haven't heard that song in 20 years. You know, it's like, oh, that's the... Back out. Somebody's in your way. Go ahead. I'm in no hurry. You know what I mean? Because the internal condition is starting to feel better now and instantly the beer's fixed you. But the problem is you've got this little pesky thing called the physical allergy. we talked about at the beginning and it kicks in and now you're off to the stupid races again. Go with me? And now, maybe today maybe tomorrow maybe next week the phenomenal craving kicks in big time and you're squashed. You follow us? But what got us strunk is treatment centers kill us for years by telling us that what we have to do is stay away from slippery places and slippery things. And we laughed about it at the first of the meeting guys, that's crap! That's crap. Listen and not a day goes by I don't have somebody, a family member calling me on the telephone. Chris, I want you to talk to Johnny. What's he doing? He's listening to that damn Metallica again. So, come on, hon, I'm busy. What do you want me to do here? Well, I want to tell him to stop listening to that music. Why? You believe that that music is what got him loaded? All right, Johnny, put him on the phone. Johnny, take all that Metallica, box it up and send it to me. I have a story for you. Come on, guys. What are we going to do? How many of you guys drank when you listened to rock and roll? Yeah. How many you drank when You listened to Patsy Cline? Dave Sanborn. Why did you still listen to music all together? How many when you was alone by yourself in that little apartment? How many with a woman? You know where we're going with this, don't you? Forget it. Forget it! Uh-uh. That's what we've done in this fellowship. We've tried to point fingers and blame everybody under the sun while we got drunk. And the truth is this, point blank, I got drunk because I didn't do the things necessary to recover from alcoholism and drug addiction. Bill Wilson, when he wrote the big book, guys, 24 places in the first 164 it says that you can recover from alcoholismo. It never says we'll always be recovering. That is absolute crap. That is treatment center crap. It's what kills alcoholics. we'll always be recovering. That means we're always going to be sick. I'm always going to have alcoholism, folks. But guys, 15 years ago, the desire to drink and drug left me. As a result of me getting off my dead butt and finishing this work, finally working the steps, the desire for me to use is left. What kind of a crappy program is this? If all I can offer you is that you can stay sober when things are going perfect. When things are doing great, you can say sober. But what about that little line, that little pesky line in the book where it talks about Fred the businessman. Is the line, y'all know the one? It was the end of a perfect day. Not a cloud on the horizon. And what does Fred do in the next paragraph? He gets squashed. Thought crosses his mind he could have a drink and he goes and takes a drink. Y'all with me? Y'ALL UNDERSTAND? You absolutely cannot expect to stay sober if you believe that you're drinking a drug that's got something to do with this external world. If there's anything left to drink over folks you're going to drink over anything. the desire to drink has either been lifted from you or it hasn't we're downtown New York they're smoking crack out on the parking lot they're drinking in the bars we're surrounded by the stuff it's everywhere we go what a terrific place y'all live in no, it's the best I mean, what a wonderful place as a recovered alcoholic I don't have to worry about what's happening out here so I can stay sober in here I just have to keep my little nose buried in the book and helping somebody else and watching that door for the newcomer to come in so I can go get some fresh blood to work with. Do you all understand that? That's what this is about. You all read it today. It's called Carry the Message Group. How cool is that? I'm going to submit something to you. Some of you guys are spoiled because you sit in this meeting and you surround yourself with people that are big book thumpers and understand the necessity to work with others. But I'm gonna tell you, there's a fellowship out there right now that they don't do that. There's a lot of people out there not working with others because they're too busy talking about their crappy day. Y'all with me? Does it sound like I get a little irritated with it? I am. I am, I've had it to here with it. Absolutely drives me crazy. And everybody thinks it's our God-given right to do it. Our God-driven right to make a conscious choice whether I want to seek the power of God or not. I wantto seek God. That's a second step consideration, isn't it, little brother? Second step consideration. Either God's everything or He's nothing at all. What's it going to be? He's everything. Good. Do you really mean that? Did you really mean that in the third step prayer when we said we're going to remove our difficulty so victory over the difficulty can bear witness to God's power? Do we believe that? Then why is it that you spend all your time coming into meetings instead of looking for a newcomer to work with and sharing some hope all you want to do is come in and use it as junior therapy session? Why is it that we continue to have our big book about Fox Anonymous show up in indexes under self-help? Guys, if I could help myself, I'd have done it a long time before I did. Can y'all get down with that? I am powerless over alcohol and the stuff will kill me if I don't get some intervention. If sanity doesn't return and place me in a situation of position of neutrality, I'm going to drink again. It's just that simple. Why is that so controversial? Because that's the message that Bill Wilson tells us to share. Bill Wilson says as Bill sees it in the little book, in a letter from 1946, he says Our chief responsibility to the newcomer is an adequate presentation of the program. And I'm going to tell you something, folks. For years in AA, I didn't get an adequate presentation of a program. What I got was a lot of people pinching me on the cheek telling me to keep coming back and telling me it was going to be okay. Telling me that meeting makers make it. And I want to tellyou something, folks. Meeting makers don't make it Meeting makers make if they eventually work the steps. But if they're real alcoholic, they will eventually get so sick and tired of sitting in these meetings listening to the crap that they will leave. Their internal world will get so noisy that they can't sit in these rooms and they will go out in their car and they'll open a can of beer and they would put an end to the pain that's going on in their life. Make sense? It's a pretty simple message. Quite controversial. Let me ask you a question before I go. Let me answer your question. What's our primary purpose? What message are we carrying? We need to be carrying the same message, guys, because the same messages that got Bill Wilson sober is the same messengers that got Dr. Bob sober. And Bill Wilson and Dr.Bob carried it to number three and they got sober. And there's millions of us today because we're sober because somebody had the courage to tell us what we needed to do in order to get sober. Just getting you in this meeting is not good enough. Now we've got to get you motivated enough to actually do the work that you're supposed to do to get connected. We got so politically correct in the 70s and 80s, nobody wanted to talk about it. I've sat in meetings and listened to people who said, Chris, you talk too much about God. You're scaring the newcomer away. Shame on us. Shame on us as a fellowship for going there. Shame on Us. Thank you God for keeping me sober for 15 years. But I see a newcomer coming in the door, but I'm not going to tell him about you. That's pretty tragic. First step stuff is this. You have a physical allergy. This is what we need to be doing. When a newcomor comes into our fellowship, we need qualify him. About the time he gets here and he stops shaking a little bit, Y'all with us? He's got a little coffee right there. We need to start qualifying him to find out if he's in the right room. Is he a drug addict? Do we need to help him get to his cocaine anonymous or his sister fellowship's narcotics anonymous? Can we help them get connected someplace that they need to be? Are they suffering from some stuff, this psychological stuff that they needs some good strong medical attention? Y'ALL WITH US? Do they need some good therapy? Can we keep them connected? Can we just help them with that? We can't do that if all we do is just tell them to keep coming back and avoid them. We've got to sit down with a cup of coffee and talk to the cat. Figure out what's going on with it. That's what our book tells us to do. Find out as much as you can about him. We sit in meetings and it says, You don't have anything to share for the first six months you're here. Excuse me? Show me in the book where it says that crap. It doesn't say that. It says let's get the guy to talk. Let's find out what he needs to do. And then we're going to get with him. We're going try again, qualify him. We're gonna ask him some questions. Find out if he's a real alcoholic or not about the physical allergy. Hey buddy, what happens when you drink? Do you lose control sometimes and drink more than you intended? Yeah. Given sufficient reason, You just lost a job. You woke up sick. You scared the daylights out of the kids, whatever. Can you stop and stay stopped? Have you been able to quit for good on your own power? No. Well, buddy, guess what? You're suffering from a disease that we can guarantee you recovery from. How cool is that? All you've got to do is finish this work. And you know what else is cool? I know how to show you how to finish it. And there's people in this room that can show you how to finished it. We're going to work you through these steps rapidly. We're not going to let you sit on your butt for six months until you get comfortable. We're going to work you through the steps right now. Today, we're goingto get started. Tonight when I talk at 4 o'clock when I speak this afternoon, I'll tell you about my experience finally coming back to the fellowship after seven years in and out and had the old-timers sit on me for two weeks until I finished the work. That's what they did with Ebby. What they did was Bill. But you're not good enough to do. We're just going to allow you to sit in these rooms for years and do nothing. Absolute travesty. Success rates in Alcoholics Anonymous used to be excellent. Second Edition tells us we had a 75% success rate. The stats in Akron around Cleveland were nearly 100% in certain places. Read into the Clarence Snyder stuff. Read the history, read the archives. Worst case scenario, 65% were getting sober. Right now in the United States, I'm telling you right now, We've got some cats from New York here that could probably fill us in a little closer on the stats. Right now, in Texas, I can tell you right now, from chip sales, we've got less than 8% staying sober. What's up with that? It took us 67 years to take a beautiful message like this and trash it. Why did we do that? Why did мы трэш it? Because this message right here, you know how much this message cost? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Do you know how much it costs to come to most treatment centers in the country right now? Let's don't even go there. I'm not knocking treatment centers. I work for one again. I think it's the absolute best. I'm telling you where all water is down to, though. If we take them through the treatment and we don't explain this to them, they're not staying sober. We've watched it for years. In and out and in and out and in and out and in and out. Make sense? this is the coolest if you understand the physical allergy the mental obsession and the spiritual malady and you can understand and show them in the book where this is at there's no reason why after the first couple of weeks you're sober you couldn't start carrying this message to the newcomer that's still hurting out there and helping them because it's by giving away by carrying the message like we read earlier in this book that we're going to stay sober it's about giving it back that we get to stay sober and I sure hope that we got more of you in the trenches with us I'm preaching to the choir Most of you in this room are nodding your head. Some of you are grinding your teeth. You know, guys, I don't know what to tell you. I love you. But you know, if you think for a second that I'm going to sit around on my butt and watch you kill people in this fellowship by sharing your opinion, you're wrong. You're wrong! You have every right to stand up and say what you need to say in a meeting. Just like I have every right to stay up and carry what's in this book. This is the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. The program is the 12 steps. If you're not working the 12 steps, you're in the fellowship. You're welcome. But you're not in the program. And this is where we get well, is in the problem. If you've got a sponsor that's telling you to take your time to work the steps, come see me after the meeting. I know some people in this room that understand what that means. That means is I don't have time to mess with you. You down with that? Come, let us get you hooked up with some cats that are going to work you through the steps so that you can have a spiritual experience so that the desire to drink and drug leaves you and you can walk out of this room absolutely free. Thank God for that because I'll repeat what Des said earlier. God, we need every single person in this room, young adult, old adult. We need everybody in the trench with us helping us carry the message of hope because they're not getting it in treatment. They're going to get it right here with you cats. I'm glad to know every one of you. Thank you so much. Thank you.