They Tricked Me: I Came for Alcohol but the Problem Was Me – Mark H.

Hi, I'm Greg Roffle from Recovered Crystal Meth Addict. And a real honor to be up here tonight and have Chris here speaking. Chris was very near and dear to Mark Houston's heart. And Mark spoke very highly of him. And this was planned a long time before Mark passed away. And he wanted it to be in spring because spring is like the new part of the year and beautiful things are out and the blue bonds, Chris loves the blue bonds so he really wanted to be here with this part of the year he's got a real sensitive side but he likes to tell the truth about alcoholism and about Alcoholics Anonymous and he carries a very strong message so you're in for a treat tonight. Come on Chris My name is Chris Raymore. I'm a very grateful, recovered alcoholic. I'm also a recovered drug addict. It's pretty cool to be in here and be able to talk about all that stuff. I've molested a few chickens too. I don't know, maybe never mind. Got a lot of visitors in here that are fixing to get up and leave. There you go. So thanks for an introduction. They said, Heidi's going to introduce you. And they said, Greg's going to introduce him. And Katie said, no, I'm going to introduced you. And it's like, oh shit, we're in trouble here. I'm honored to be here. This is Patrick, I think, is the one that asked me to speak months ago. I booked out a year in advance and we knew that I was going to be there and Mark wasn't going to be her. He instilled in me when we first started started working together, this idea of living life one day at a time and not staying sober one day a time. You little builders, live in life one day at the time and getting excited about what you've got in front of you and that's so true. Even in death he made that point abundantly clear to me. Anyway, I love this place. He was so excited about being a part of this deal and it's great to come out here and we came out early. We had our times a little skewed and we came out, Patty drove me out. My personal chauffeur drove us out here. We pulled in just as the guys are praying for dinner. And it's like, God, it's so cool to see a place like this. This is the last time I'm going to talk about Mark Houston. It was the coolest to be in a room full of men and women heading in the same direction. I travel a lot, guys. Most of you guys have heard me speak before. Some of you have heard tapes I've done, CDs. and I work in this industry. I work for a hospital up near Hunt, Texas and that's where I met some of you guys here. Some of you guy, it's like the joke, I thought you were dead. You know what I'm saying? And there you are. My friend Jay takes a lick and keeps on picking some of the guys here I got to see Joe. Joe M is in here. He was the first guy that ever asked me to speak from the podium before they recorded it. This was 20 years ago for God's sakes and up in San Antonio. And as bad as I hate to speak from the podium, I guess I could just blame it on Joe. Mark loved to speak from podiums. I just, I hate it. I love recovery. I love Alcoholics Anonymous. I love all 12-step stuff. And I believe that as it was explained to me finally, I was years trying to get, I was seven years in AlcoholicsAnonymous trying to pick up a red chip. You know, Father, they talk about chronic relapse. People call me on the phone, Chris, you just don't understand, I've relapsed. And I'm laughing, and they're like, buddy, you don't understanding. I understand completely. I missed a relapse, you know, on my chest. I mean, I said, I haven't done this a thousand times. And I've got a bunch of years today. I've had 22 years of... I mean it still takes my breath away when I think about it. But what changed in 1987 from 1980? What changed in those seven years? I'm in the same damn rooms. There's the book still there. The steps are on the wall, all the same stuff. But what's different was is in 1987, I landed after a suicide attempt. I'll talk to you a little bit about it. But I ended up in a room full of men and women that understood what the solution really was. And they were all carrying big books. And I say it, guys, because I might sound like they were mean, but I've got to tell you, they loved me enough to finally tell me the truth. And I've said this from a thousand podiums, but I thought tonight that I might start off with this. if you're working with a newcomer and you're trying to candy coat this message because you're afraid you're going to piss them off or scare them off you need to quit that you need stop playing God with other people's lives one of the cool things that Mark taught me when I first got sober was he always talked about I wish when people would share in meetings and talk from the podium just generally work with others that if they shared some opinion that they would say that it's an opinion because I sure had a lot of people people for seven years in Alcoholics Anonymous, sharing nothing but opinions with me. Because there was nothing close to the big one. The idea out there in the real world is that sooner or later... Oh, that's my candy. That sooner or latter... Oops. Sooner or later, if you want this bad enough or need it bad enough, that you can get this. You all with us? So sooner or lighter... I mean, how many alcoholics and addicts that I've worked with over the years that just believe that it's like this cosmic time machine Sooner or later, I'm going to get to a spot where I can get sober. And that's just not the way it is. Sooner ou later, if you keep doing it the way you're doing it, you're going to die. Sooner o later, if you don't open the big book and work some steps. Now see, everybody doesn't have to work the steps. That's what Mark explained to me. That's where this great sponsorship is. And that' s where I'm coming from today, in the hospital where I work. I've got to tell you folks, the belief that just showing up to a bunch of meetings will fix the problem needs to be smashed. And this is where I come from, and this is why I catch the heat. It's because I'll say it from the podium. Because I sound angry sometimes with it. I'm so not. I'm passionate about hearing the solution. If a little guy is sitting in here, and he just wants to dick with this, and he doesn't particularly want to stay sober, he just want the heat to go away, then what difference does it make? But I have to direct everything I say from the podium and in my meetings to the one little guy that may be there for the one and only time. Is he going to hear the solution or is he going to hear a watered down candy coated deal? Because guys, the way this disease works is that nobody can do it for us. If love was going to get me sober, I'd have been sober a gazillion years ago. I had plenty of love around me. But what I didn't have was the information on what to do. Everybody wants to pick bones with that. You with us? You didn't stay sober for those seven years because you just didn't want to bad enough. You can share that story next week if you want to from the same podium here if you want to. But my story is my story, and that's where I'm going to get into this thing. And I'm watching the clock closer than y'all, so just bear with me. But I'm gonna share my story. And like I said again, it may differ from yours. Some of you guys in this room have come to us through treatment centers, and some of you guys just walked in the back door of a little AA meeting and got sobered. Some of your came through our judicial system, you know, and it's like you were mandated signing little sheets and you stayed. However way you got here, we're so glad to have you. You are absolutely welcome. And I'm just going to share my story. And if you can relate to it, great. If you can't, that's fine too. I'm right and you're wrong. So let's just go with that. I was talking to Charlie. We're going to be sharing the podium in Canada next month over there. Katie and I, Charlie and I was just over in Ontario a couple of weeks ago on a Thursday. and it's like a two-hour, three-hour car ride from the airport. I was raised in this place. I thought Texas was the only place that was big like that. But there wasn't shit you could drive for everywhere but not here. Anyway, thank God they got Tim Horton's coffee there so it was not quite that bad of a deal but God says, oh, I've been so excited we've got a three- hour car ride and I've just been so anxious because I just wanted to talk to you some questions about some of the things that you talked about. Let me give you the translation of what that means. I don't agree with your crap and I've got you hostage for three hours I call Patty on the phone he's going to shoot me it's amazing to me how much stuff is out there disguised as recovery that's so not recovery make sense? Bill Wilson talks about this Bill Wilson says he talks non-stop in the book over and over he uses the term real alcoholic Alcoholic. Go with us? Real drug addict in the other fellowships. It's like because he's crystal clear about this because he knows that a lot of people are going to pretend to be alcoholic. You find that hard to believe. But he spends the first 60 pages trying to explain what it looks like to be an alcoholic or to be a drug addict. And we have so many people in meetings when I first got to AA, again, I'll tell you a little bit about it, but they were fanatic. if you think you're one of us, you are welcome and I'm not going to say that because I've got to find out if you are because if you're not I want you to go away please nothing personal but the AA is not a social club we're a spiritual fellowship of men and women trying to help other alcoholics and addicts get well We're not here for your enjoyment. We have a job to do. And it's the hard drinkers, it's The Little Disco Drunks that got scooped up by the net in the 80s that got 25 years and have never worked the 12 steps ever sitting in meetings telling the newcomer you're the most important person. You just keep coming back and everything's going to be okay. Wow. Wow. Wow. you keep coming back and don't work the steps you will gradually go so crazy you can't stand it the internal condition will absolutely reach up and grab you around the neck and you will be in trouble and some of you are grinding your teeth right now and I could give a rat's butt because I'm telling you point blank what we've got to do if you're not an alcoholic you can relate to another alcoholic if you are not another drug addict you can not relate to a drug addict this whole drinking and drugging thing is a minor inconvenience for lots of people For the real McCoy, it's fatal. Just don't drink and go to meetings. Oh my God. I've been looking in this book a little bit. Mark Henry has kind of glanced through it occasionally. And I've been looking and I can't find anywhere in here where it says in order to get sober you've got to go to a bunch of meetings. 90 meetings in 90 days. Any of you guys ever hear that? I'm on a soapbox from hell about it, guys. We've got somehow to stop Stop putting the emphasis on the number of meetings we go to and put the emphasis on the steps we work. Because it's the 12 steps that get us spiritually connected. The steps don't get us sober. The steps allow us to get spiritually connected Listen, you can hear it now He's not in meetings I go to meetings but I don't stay sober because of those meetings It's a part of a three-part program The meetings are one part But if you don't work the steps and then turn around and sponsor somebody money, help somebody else get sober, you're not going to stay in this process. Make sense? The only people that stay sober, meeting maker makers, are the hard drinkers. Did y'all get that? Okay. Alcoholism and drug addiction, guys, is biological. It's not psychological. There's some psychological things that we can deal with, but there's nothing... If you're genetically wired like us, it will progressively get worse. And once and one day you will find that you can't stop. Craving kicks in and you're off to the stupid races and then you show your butt a few times and you say, God, I don't want to do this anymore. And then you try to put the plug back in the jug and you tryと lay the crackpot down for good or whatever it is to stop shooting meth and then what happens is you find you can'T do that because your head tells you that it's okay to do that. That's, guys, that's what alcoholism and drug addiction looks like. Make sense? I've said it from a million podiums. if you can stop because you want to on your own power if you could stop because you need to on your only power you're not one of us but I'm controversial saying that from the podium and the knucklehead telling you to just keep coming back go to lots of meetings and everything's going to be okay is okay I grew up in Curdle, Texas I was actually born out in Odessa out in the oil fields my father was a printer he moved us to the hill country when I was about 11 years old graduated from Tybee High School it's Tybee high school it's Tibby high school it's Hydee high school and I I'm lucky I graduated I graduated in the very tip-top bottom of my high school class. And I've got to tell you this, guys, if I hadn't discovered Boone's Farm that my junior year, Boone'S Farm, Appalachia, I wouldn't have graduated at all. You know, that's because I was on a steady climb down. And I'll never forget those guys at Ocala about this big of BooneS Farm. And I was going to go out and split it with a friend of mine. We went out with, leaned up against one of them big old 700-year-old soccer trees out there just west of Kerrville, between Kerrill and Ingram. We leaned up on one of their polished off, this little bottle. I took a couple of sips. He took a cup of sifts. And the story is, it's just historic. He just said, God, that tastes like crap. And I said, boy, it was pretty sweet, isn't it? It's not quite what I imagined, you know, to be. And I don't know what I thought. What did I think? It's lime green with a screw cap. It's never seen a grape. What did it think it was going to taste like? I don't know. I don' t even know how to tell you. He got out and left. He said, I don''t want any more of that. And I said, whoa, whoa , whoa, wait, wait. Because I don ''t want you coming back later and saying you want some of this. You''re telling me you''re done. He said yes, I''m done. And I say, bye-bye, okay. Hey, I'm going to sit here and swap mosquitoes for whatnot. It was cold. It was January. It was Jan. 1971. I'll never forget it. Years later, I was to find out that was the month that Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, had passed away. And Bill Wilson dies, and Chris Rager's born. You know what I mean? That's how this thing works. And there must have been some symbolic connection there someplace. Oh my gosh. And I didn't get drunk. I hear people talking about thoughts like, I got so drunk and I puked straight up and I did it. I've got to tell you, I drank that and I'm sitting there and I get up from that ground off that cypress tree and I walk across two fields to my house and I sit there looking at that big old full moon and I realize that high school's going to be okay and life's going TO be alright and I'M OKAY. You know? For the first time in my life a lot of them just shake their heads and hear as much. I didn't get drunk. I just got right. You know what I'm saying? And I chased that feeling forever. Early in my illness I could hit that target with that feeling every time I drank. It's like, oh shit. It was just the best. And I didn't get drunk every day. I didn'T drink every day, but when I could, I got to that spot. And I was in the food business and they let us drink behind the counter and they don't care as long as you showed up and did the food okay, you could drink. And I'm 18 years old behind the line at the end of the hill cooking with a beard out here talking about a stud, you know? And there was this little pantry girl. No, never mind. But I'd have never asked her out if it hadn't been for that beer underneath the counter. Y'all understand? That's exactly this stuff. Alcohol fixed what was wrong with me, and our family members don't understand that. Years later, they still think that that's the problem. That's why they want to jump on every freaking bandwagon to stamp out drugs. Let's do away with alcohol. We tried that experiment. The alcohol's not the problem, the drugs is not the problema. Alcoholism's the problema, and only a small percentage of us are wired with that. If you happen to be blessed with that, my twin brother caught the bullet. We were talking earlier, my identical twin brother caught the bullets. I've got two sisters, a half-sister and a little sister. They never caught the bull. They drink. We were laughing the other day. My big sister, they have a big party every New Year's Day and they have a big hot dog roast and we were invited like that and she said, Chris, would you mom go into the store and get us some beer for this party? I said, absolutely not. And she handed me a $20. $20 or less. I said, how many people are coming to this party? And she said, well, I don't know, 60 or 70. Not 60 or 60 of my friends are coming to this part, I guarantee you. You better add some zeros to this dog, I guarantee it. And I went and bought a 12-pack of beer and came back, you know what I'm saying, by the end of the party, there was still beer left in that 12- pack. There was one guy in there, college doctor, and that was it. it. Y'all understand? Losers to the bottom. I mean, I'm just not cuddling the same cloth. My twin brother and I, anyway, we ended up in Houston and he's a bartender and I'm a cook in the hotels over there. We're tearing Houston up. And I remember my 21st birthday in Houston, Texas. We were at the Mason Jar. Some of y'all are from Houston. Y'll know it when we're on 10. And we're sitting there drinking Mason Jars and beer. We just squashed. I said, 21, we're ordering another beer. He said, man, we've got to watch what we're doing because we're going to end up just like pops. And I said yeah, no, never. We'll get another beer over here, please. And we were off to the races. Oh my gosh, that was, I had a whole bunch of years left in me. I'm holding it together pretty good and I got married to try to fix the problem and you know how that goes. Some of you have tried that same experiment. and I'm up in North Texas and I've tried some other outside issues by then somebody showed me cocaine in 1979 and I was adding that with the alcohol and somebody down the road showed me some stuff called methamphetamine oh my god I don't know what that was but I cleaned a well when I was on there and I I was in the food business and a chef came in and said God damn I never saw anybody work as hard as you and you won't for about four days and then I'm going to sleep I'm not going to go to bed for a while but I'm I'm really, really, really fighting some depression and I'm seeing doctors in Houston when I moved up to North Texas because I was seeing doctors and the doctors were prescribing some medications for me to try to help me, and same stuff that happens with a lot of y'all. The symptoms of untreated alcoholism look like a lot of other illnesses. Y'all follow? I mean, it freaks me out when somebody says, well, they diagnosed me with bipolar disorder. Had you done any methamphetamine that week? Well, yeah. Then you've got to wax diagnosis because the symptoms are going to look the same. Number one symptom of untreatable alcoholism or drug addiction is depression. You with us? Are you depressed? I mean, they ask it when they first get into treatment. You know, the guys have come up and that's some of the first questions. Are you depressed? Yes. I was trying to commit suicide in your parking lot for God's sake. You're fixing to take away the only thing that ever made me okay inside away from me. Like, yeah, I'm a little under the weather. Well, here, let's try this antidepressant. You know? And here we go. We're off to the races. I'm not knocking antideressants. and just knock an antidepressant soda. I'm not, I'm just saying you've just got to be careful what you're doing with these medications. We're way over-prescribing people. And I've spent seven years, ten years in therapy out there and every time I'd see another therapist they'd give me another diagnosis. And some of these diagnoses, again, they mirrored untreated alcoholism. So I went to my first AA meeting and I was taking medication at the time and by the time I... It was 1980 1980, and I've been married for about a year, a year and a half to my first wife. Let me see if I can count. My third wife's here. She'll keep me on track here. And I'm trying to save the marriage. I'm try to save a little business, and we have a little push and match, and I end up telling her I'll stop. It was one of the first times. I told people I was going to stop a gazillion times, but this was the time that I was gonna draw a line in the sand and make it stick, and I really meant it. And that's what so many family members don't understand. They think we're just... And guys, I've got to tell you, we as a fellowship, we'll play into this. If an alcoholic's mouth is moving, they're lying. It's not such a big joke. Except it's disrespectful because it's not true. There's lots of times... Buddy, I was raised as a pretty honest old boy and there's lots OF times I was telling you the truth. And when I told that wife and I told my employer that I wasn't going to drink and drug anymore, I meant it. I wouldn't go and smoke up anybody's butt. I was done. Guys, you drink a drug for a while and it's fun. And you drink your drug for awhile and it is a pain in the ass but it is still fun. You drink your drugs long enough and it just hell on earth. It is torture. And you don't want to do it but you can't not do it because not doing it feels worse than doing it. You with us on that one? So when I told that lady and that boss and my friends that I was going to stop I meant it. And two weeks later Later, I drank a beer with the chef after work and went home and packed myself in the back. I walked in the door and she could smell it. She said, God dang it. I thought we had a deal. And the deal was, in my head, was that I wasn't going to come home drunk anymore. But the deal that I made with her was thatI wasn't gonna touch another drop. Then she went to the bedroom and packed. And that was it for the marriage. And thatwas it forthe third and fourth business. I had seven more years in me. Seven more years of excuses is why my case is just a little bit different. I went down to folks anonymous that month to try to save the marriage and try to do what I could do to stay sober but I've got to tell you guys I'm not speaking harshly towards any of those people in those meetings but I spent a whole bunch of years sitting in meetings not hearing the solution and I'm just Bill Wilson in some of his writings there's a letter he did in 1942 in a letter it said our chief responsibility to the newcomers is an adequate presentation of the program. It's not to stand up on the podium and try to be hip-slick and cool or sit in meetings and tell jokes and talk about your weed eater. It's to try to help the newcomer understand what this whole thing is about. In 1980, when I went to my first meeting, we went around the room and everybody introduced themselves as recovering alcoholics, and then we talked about everything under the sun except recovery. And that's my story. Seven years sitting in those meetings listening to that stuff, and I wonder or in defense of so many of the alcoholics and addicts in this room that have tried to stay sober before, could it possibly be that you just never heard the solution? That may sound harsh. You can go to meetings all over the world, folks, and not hear the solution out of the big book of alcoholics anonymous. If the fellowship would keep me sober, I would have been sober because I'm a meeting-making fool. 90 meetings in 90 days, I'll show you 120 meetings in 20 minutes. But if all we're doing is talking about your problem or another war story, What good are we doing? Let me tell you what ties this room together. What ties this room together, most of us in here are alcoholics and addicts. Some of us recovered, some of us are not. But what ties us together is not our drama. It is not our story. Page 17 says we have a common problem. That's one thing. It says it's one element. Because I've got to have a problem with this. If any of these young men in here were going to relate to me, they need to know that it's coming from somebody that's walked in their their shoes. You with us? But once they realize that we're walking in the same shoes, then what I need to do is shut up about it and get on about my business of telling them how the solution is. Because in the next line it says, the one element of cement that binds us is the drama. But that could not hold us together as we're now joined. Sitting here talking to Jay with tears in my eyes tonight. Friends forever. Joe, I've known for 20 years. So many people in this room. We're not here because Because I was a drunk in Houston, Texas. We're here because we got sober and we've been out there in the trench kicking butt, taking names. Walking the spiritual path together. That's what ties us together. Y'all are on that same page? Watch out if you're not because you won't shut up about the stupid stories in the meetings. Those stories that we share are important from this podium to you on a Friday night. They're extremely important, absolutely necessary in a 12-step call. You with us? I'm going to go to the old hotel over here at Motel 6 and got us a little crackhead in there, a little dope theme. You with me? And I've got to go talk to him. I better have a story or he ain't even going to let me in the room. You all with us. I'm gonna talk to him a little bit about my story. We're gonna get together and I'm not gonna take him to a meeting. Once I've got him in the meeting, we're done with the stories. Shut up about it. And you've gotta keep it green. If you ever forget your story, you'll drink again. But that's not what the book says. The book is crystal clear. It says you won't remember your story. On page 24 it says you won' t remember the consequences of a week or a month ago. Your fear won' T keep you sober, will it? How many of you guys ever drank and drugged on probation? Whoa! Let the record show all the hands are up. Well, didn't you remember you were on probation not for a second. Maybe vaguely I remembered and we're off to stupid races. Y'all follow? That's the insanity that is alcoholism. So what we need to talk about is the solution. Get these guys coming from the hospitals. Guys, a lot of you guys have been to the hospital where I work. They're sitting down there at SCU, you know, this little care. They're getting some detox meds, you known. Then they look up on the wall and start to clear the Ativan haze, you known. And they go, oh my God. They look on the walls and see the 12 steps and they go shit. Yeah, they're like, more AA? Oh my God, I've done this. It doesn't work. You just want to hug them. because they were just like me for all those years. Y'all understand that? You did AA because you're saying you did it because you went to a bunch of stupid meetings. That's not AA. That's a piece of it. Did you sit down and open the title page of the book where it says that you can recover and work all the 12 steps in a quick manner, fast manner, get through them from point A to point B so that you could have the necessary spiritual experience? Well, I worked the steps to the best of my ability. That means you didn't work the steps. That's what that means. ain't it right God bless their hearts because I'm there to tell them it does work because I finally did it in 1987 had they offered me another choice I wouldn't have y'all realize how confusing this is to the newcomer newcomer comes in and says you know picks up a chip and I'm the most important person here yeah everybody's loving and hugging he thinks it's going to be okay about the time he starts to get comfortable in his skin you with us there's an old guy over here he's got a big book called Bang that y'ALL know the kind I'm talking about about, right? He's got duct tape all around and he's been just falling apart, you know? And he's over there and he makes an eye contact with this guy and he says, let me see you after the meeting. We'll visit. You with us? The little guy says, okay. And you've got somebody sitting back over here by the coffee machine and they're going, no, no. Come here. So you go back over there like that and this nice lady, she says, listen, you've gotta ignore this guy up here. He's a big book fanatic. He'S just a knucklehead. You don't need to worry about that right now. All you need to do is just go to lots of meetings and everything's gonna be okay. You follow? Come on, guys. I know dozens of you that have been there. I've been there Is this guy trying to hurt me? Absolutely not He's trying to show me the path Is the lady trying to help me? Absolutely not She's trying make it as easy for me as possible Except I have a progressive illness That's kicking my ass Unless I get the real message Get connected with the real power I'm not going to stay sober Do y'all understand this? The best you can do in a meeting Is tell a newcomer to keep coming back Quit Just don't say anything Because you're not helping and, God, you're confusing the bejesus out of them. Seven years in and out of alcohol, it's anonymous. And I'll stay sober for a short period of time and I'll come back in and pick up another chip and the old guy in the front will just kick the other guy and say, Beth, see, I told you, he just didn't want it bad enough. Wow. Wow. I'm taking seven pills a day in 1987 and I'm dying and I've got a lot going on and I picked up a stack of return checks up in North Texas pulled into my little apartment and I live in a little efficiency apartment in Louisville, Texas. My sister-in-law co-signed for me. I'm 35 years old. Thank God for family, you know? Because if it hadn't been for family I'd be on the street. Y'all understand that? I'm driving a little $600 pickup. Y'ALL THINK THE LITTLE PICKUP THE TRUCK I DRIVE NOW IS LIKE HELL. YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS $600 PICK UP. I'm like leaning on one side while the windows was out and you know mosquitoes were in there in the summer and the ice was in there in the winter. It was a big ol' big ol whiskey den in with a license plate. That was all it was. There's no furniture in that apartment. I lent my furniture to a friend. He promised he would hold that furniture for me. Oh my Oh my gosh, along with every piece of electronic equipment I ever had. He was terrible. What do you think, I have a pawn shop? Anyway, I'm sitting on the floor and a couple of little stinky ferrets in there and I've got a little ivy that's dying over there in the corner and I'll never forget it. It's cold in that little apartment and I'm looking at those return checks and realized I killed another bank account and I am going to have to go to my sister-in-law tomorrow and borrow some money to cover... You all follow? Guys, we're not talking high finance here. We're talking $60 will evacuate a checking account at that point in my life. And now I'm going to have to go back and cover that. Oh, my God. And I just said, I can't do it. And I got up and I took a couple bottles of pills and tried to commit suicide. I tried to die. No letter, no nothing. I am so done with this. Guys, I have a great family. And I've got a twin brother I'm closer to than anybody on earth. and I'm so done with hurting everybody in my life. About the time those pills hit my stomach, I feel a little nauseated and I sit down on the side of the bed and I hear this voice that says, don't do this, go back to AA. It's one of these voices, guys. It's not a little thought in my head. Perhaps I should give AA another chance. This was a voice that said, don't be afraid. Don't do it. Go back to AAA. Man, I freaked me out. I heard it two times that night, three times as I laid down I made myself sick the last time I heard it and I conked out and I woke up the next morning and before I got out of bed I heard this voice that said don't do this go back to AA same voice and I said shit and hair was standing up on the back of my neck and I and I made a promise I would go back to Alcoholics Anonymous and 6 o'clock that night I'm in a meeting I've never been to before I'm sitting out out in the back parked behind this AA meeting I didn't want anybody to know I was going back to EA you with me shit Shit. Years later, I found out I was on the prayer list of every church in Curville, Texas. Thanks, Mom. But I've got to tell you, here I am now and ashamed of it and I'm going to go back to Alphonse Anonymous and I'll talk myself out of it. Y'all know how that works? You have such a head of steam at 8 o'clock this morning and then 6 o' clock tonight it's like, ah, shit. I think I'm gonna go home and finish this detox thing a little bit And then maybe Monday I'll go to this A&AB, you know. And I believe I had my first part of my spiritual experience that night and I found my little skinny butt sliding across that truck seat and getting out. And I walked in the back door of that meeting and it was back in the day we could smoke and everybody was smoking and, you known, clouds coming down. Y'all heard me a thousand times. I walked into there and became about halfway in and I'm just hyper-vigilant, you knowing. I'm a big old guy at the time. I've got a bunch of weight on me, and I've got a big full beard. That was the joke when I got sober. It says, was it an eye patch or an earmuff? It was always crooked. I always had food in my beard, you know, because I was a mess, you know? And I think I'm looking rather rugged. A man's man, you know? A man who subscribes to Cosmopolitan. Oh my God, I mean, this was a confusing life I was I was leaving. And I got about halfway in and everybody's laughing and there's a guy over there I know and a lady over there I know. I've been in North Texas going to meetings for years because they know me. They know who I am. Hey, welcome back and come on in and I'm feeling very, very self-conscious and I got up and I said, I got halfway in and I says, shit, I just can't do this and I took a step back and this little girl snuck up on my right hand side and she swears it was an accident. She got on my blind side. She came right up She's 19 years old, 18, 19 years old. And she snuck up behind me like that and hooked her finger in my belt loop. She didn't say, would you care to join? She hooked her finger into my belt hoop and set me down in a chair. She said, sit down, cowboy. You're not going anywhere. Because her sponsor had said, get him. And he got me. It's true. Absolute truth. Today we know we're so socially correct. Men work with men and women work with women. And don't go nin, nin, nan, nin. Nin, ninn, nin... I'm going to go to a young adult meeting and talk about young adult issues. If this little girl had been in another middle meeting, you know what I mean? I'd have been dead. And that's just my story. And that is why I don't go to meetings where the opposite sex is not there. We get a chance to learn a whole lot of cool stuff. And I know some of you don't want to hear it afterwards. I know you go to the perfect women's meeting and you've changed your life. Rock on. How cool is that? But I'm just saying I would have died if that had happened to me. Y'all understand? It was back in the day. She sent me down, and the chairperson saw me and waved at me like that. She said, buddy, we've got a guy back in. He's coming back in again. Welcome back, Chris. You with us? I was a little embarrassed. He called me out in the meeting. Thank you. You with this? And then they went around, and he said, ordinarily we'd do this meeting this way, but let's do it this way. He said, let's share how our lives have changed as a result of working the steps. The simple fact that a chairperson would absolutely take charge of a meeting takes my breath away. You know, we've got the same old crappy format we've been using for 30 years that nobody particularly likes but nobody's going to change it for nothing. You with us? Well, this is your meeting. Let's talk about whatever you want to. Hey, we got a guy that's dying in our midst. Why don't we help him? What a concept. Because I've got to tell you, I set up and they started doing it and they went around the room and there was about 30 people in that, I don't know, there was a bunch of people in That Room. It was a small narrow room and they all went around and they were talking about how their lives had changed as a result of working the steps. You know what that means? It means if you weren't working the steps, you passed because you didn't have anything to say. It just makes me want to spit when I go to meetings like this. We're talking about fourth step and the first person, well, I want to share but I've never done a fourth step. But listen, this is what, you know, I... No. Don't talk about an experience you've never had. Mark Houston was huge about this nonsense. If you've had an experience and you can share it with somebody, by all means do that. We want to hear it. But if you've never been in a meeting or you've ever done it, shut up! Shut up! Because you've got no point of reference. They went around the room and the people that had worked the steps and whose lives had changed as a result of working the steps, man, I'm going to tell you something, folks. They talked about stuff that I could relate to. You want to talk about God beating you where you're at? They talked abut getting your credit cards back and they talked about having cool jobs and getting in cool relationships and buying houses and going back to school. All the stuff that I thought, guys, I was less than 24 hours away from a suicide attempt and now they're talking about stuff that we can do that I can do in sobriety. I'm 35 and I think my life's over. And they're there to tell me exactly how not my life is over. Wow. Not one person, not one person told me how they got here. I didn't have to hear about one effing DWI. I didn'T have to care about anybody going to jail because that wasn't the instructions that the chairperson gave them. Y'all understand that? They didn't waste any time rehashing their tired, old, boring war story they shared the one thing that I needed more than anything on the face of the earth that night they shared hope hope with me shit at the end of the meeting the guy said buddy do you want to get some of this do you wanna do this I said absolutely and I got a chip at the ending of the reading he came up he's got in the little chair next to me had one of them old busted up big books we were talking about and he said Chris he said I gotta ask you this question he said He said, do you really want to do this? Because my book asked me to ask you if you're done. Not one day at a time. Are you done? You don't have the power to just do this but one day at a Time. But we're going to show you how to live life one day at atime. We're going show you How to do This. And I said, yeah. I need somebody to show me. And he hugged me. And they got me to my car and somebody followed me home. Make sure I got there. I'm detoxing. And the next morning they were at my doorstep. Nine o'clock, they're going to haul me back to a meeting. I tried to talk my way out of this, you know. Oh my God, I'm running around the apartment looking for a patch. Who the hell's at my doors nine o' clock in the morning? And it's the A&A guys. And they haul me back. And we went to a cool meeting in the morning and then we went in the back room and they asked me about God and we did a third step prayer and we went for lunch and I came back and they gave me a notebook and we started working on a fourth step. Boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom. I've been in AA for seven years. Hey, I get more people come up after that. That's way too fast. If they fast me to do... Everybody does it a little bit different. The urgency that we do the steps is the biggest mistake we make in our fellowships today because we got this idea, especially from folks coming from treatment, that we've got plenty of time to do this. We've got people in this room right now, I guarantee you, telling their little sponsees, You didn't get this sick overnight. You're not going to get well overnight. Well, you're being kind of risky with that. Because that's not what the book says. The book says we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. We beg of You to seek the solution with the desperation of a drowning man. And listen, folks, taking nine months to do a four-step doesn't sound very desperate to me. You somehow think that you can face over? Guys, remember the last time that obsession came back and your head went out and said, yes, you could do this, you'll follow? I've got to get well. See, a recovered alcoholic, that obsession goes away. Man, I'm loving those guys. Didn't want to do any of that work. I fought it tooth and nail, but I did it. Two weeks later, I'm sitting on the tailgate of my truck and it gongs on me that the obsession to use has gone away. And I've recovered. And I'm surrounded by liquor stores and my co-dealer lives there sitting on my goddamn couch. And I don't know what's going on. And I am done. And I have done. I'm standing there and the obsession is gone and haven't returned in 22 years. Guys, listen. And I ended up getting married a few years later and I moved back here to the hill country and I started working at this hospital there in Hunt, Texas. And that's where I met Mark and we started doing the work together. And he was one of the guys that finally told me, he said, Chris, you know what the message is because you had some good sponsorship up to this point. The problem is that you're afraid to share it because you're scared of what other people are going to think about it. And I agreed with him. This idea out there in recovery land And that we are, I had a guy say it tonight. He said, well, I wish I could be like you, Chris. I wish i just didn't give a shit what people thought. You know, and it makes me want to cry because I care so much what you think as a friend and a brother and a sister in this fellowship. I am not that thick-housed person. Mark said, I care. I just can't care so months that it changes the message. message. And that's the cool piece that I want to leave you guys with here in just a second. It takes every single one of us in this room to carry this message. There's some little hard eggs like me out here telling how they can, and I can crack a few that can't crack any other way. And there's some very gentle people in here that can do the same thing, same message. Bill, in Bill's story up in the front of the book it says each in our own way carry this this message. Charlie will carry the message different than me and my wife Patty, bless her she's so, she just cuts straight to the chase, you know, you'll get up and have been gutted and not even know it she's just but it's just very direct and to the point very direct because we understand guys I can't keep you sober talking to a lady on the phone yesterday, mother, this 70 year old mother's son's drunk again back in his fourth treatment center and she's crying on the other end they've spent all their money trying to get this this guy sober, and listen to this woman cry. You know, not sitting there thinking, yeah, I'm going to go smoke up this kid's ass. I'm gonna go lie to him and candy coat this message. There was in 1935, they got together and started writing this book. In 1939 it was published. It's the clear, precise solution to alcoholism and drug addiction. You do this work, you get well. Never seen anybody not do it. You don't have to do it exactly perfect, I don't think. I certainly don't. The people that are not getting sober in this room folks are not people that are working the steps incorrectly they're the people that are not working the steps at all and unfortunately too many people in this ring are surrounded by people who are encouraging them to go slow it takes the breath away when we have this idea that there's plenty of time to do this work when the obsession goes away guys I can't tell you when it's going to come back I can stay sober on the top of a dime without God for I I've proved it for weeks. I've done it once, three months at a time. And then when the little boys come back and say, you can smoke a joint, I'm off. I'm on. And I may argue with that voice a little bit. No, no, I don't think so. Well, how about beer? No, I know. You know, if you could argue for a while. And then everybody, the little boy says, what are you, a pussy? No, except that. And I'm going to go drink. And I's just what we do. We were talking earlier about some of the cats going on the fellowship. I've got some buds from the hospital that works here, and we were talking about it 17 years ago when I started working in a hospital. Every once in a while, we'd get an old guy through the hospital, somebody that had some long-term sobriety, and they lost it. We'd all, you know, wow, what happened? You know, we're getting around and finding out. I've Got to tell you something, guys. Fast forward 17 years today at that hospital. There is a pool. Some of y'all are from that hospital, you'll know what I'm talking about. There's probably a full quarter of our community there, the 100 patients there, a full corner of them had multiple years of sobriety. Five years or more and lost it. I cannot tell you how many alcoholics and addicts that have long-term sobrietry that we're losing around a stupid prescription path. Non-stop around the prescription paths. Doctor, you can take this Ambien. You just need some sleep. Oh, but I'm a drug addict. Oh, it doesn't matter. This is non-addictive. Walk on. You know, for some people, it doesn't seem to be. And I can name you a hundred right now that relapsed around the crap. It's called lack of transparency. I'm not a doctor. I'm going to tell you what to do. I'm saying pay attention to what you put in your system. Y'all follow up where we're at? Here's where I'm doing with this. With all these guys coming back in, I'm asking them the question. Guys, there's a guy out there right now who had 20 years and lost it. And I ask him a simple question. I slide up next to him because I do it with every one of these old geezers because they're my mentors. These are the cats that I... I slide up next to them and ask them. I don't ask them what happened because that doesn't make any difference. You didn't drink because of something external. You drank because of something that was going on inside, the internal condition, the spiritual malady that the book talks about. I ask them one question. Buddy, let me ask you a question. At 20 years sober, how many men were you sponsoring? None. well, what the hell did you think was going to happen? Because our fellowship believes it's an option to work with others. And it's not! Bill Wilson, on the top of page 14 and 15, he's being 12-stepped. Actually, he's in Towns Hospital doing work with his friend, Eddie. Eddie tells him, and this is Bill talking, and he said, My friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs. Particularly was it imperative to work with others as he'd worked with me. Faith without work was dead, he said and how appalling the truth for the alcoholic or dope fiends. Paraphrase. For if an alcoholic fails to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. Do you all get it? He didn't say he might not. He said he will not and that's been my experience. We've got this belief in AA today and around our other sister fellowships, Cocaine Anonymous, Crystal Meth Anonymous. Some of us can sponsor and some of us don't have to sponsor. I'm sorry. That's not what my big book says. My big book said that you're supposed to get in the trench with me and help me in your own way to carry the message. Talking to somebody the other day, Katie, they said, how many people do you sponsor? I said, God, I don't know. I probably sponsor about 30 guys. He says, oh my God, if you sponsor more than three men, your ego's in charge. That's way too many. And I said, shit, I'll say the same thing I always say. If you'd sponsor a few more, I could sponsor a couple of people. I could do it for a few less. And I've got to wind this down. I'm preaching to the choir here because I know a bunch of you guys. I sponsor a bunch Of you guys in here. And I know what you do. This is the beauty Of this whole thing Is that each of us In our own way Gives a chance To be a part of this. I've told this story A thousand times, folks. Folks, I've sat in meetings at the beginning of the meeting and done a serenity prayer and got quiet and closed my eyes and I don't know, something happened 15 minutes, 20 minutes into the meeting. My head wanted to drink so bad I could taste it. Just like that, sitting in a meeting, the spiritual man comes back and I want to go do some dope. You follow? My head's screaming at me, arguing. Usually around a big piece of self-pity. You'll follow? See, I don't want to go there again. I don' t want to ever go back to that again. That daily battle. Am I going to use? Am I not going to us? I love my life today. I love the friends I've got. I love myself. I love health. I love those blue bonnets. I've gotta tell you real quick. I don''t know where he got that stuff, but I've GOTTA TELL YOU. I got a we were laughing the other day about this again I just talked about this when we were gazing at podiums but I think it's a worthy analogy I was a cyclist for a long time rode bikes forever and I've been riding I guess five years and still never run 100 miles you know if you're a cyclista especially if you ride a road bike eventually I'm not talking about motorcycles I don't have the cojones to ride motorcycles but I can do a bicycle and I'm riding but we're not I've never done a 100 mile ride and everybody does a 100 miles eventually that's what you do it's just a goal you work towards it really doesn't take that much if you just practice a little bit in a couple of weeks you can ride 100 miles but I've ever done it so we set out one Saturday to do it we all get met at the sports center a lot of y'all have been to Kerrville you all know where the sports centre is right there at Harper Road and we were going to ride out there was about 20-25 of us a bunch of people who joined us and we're going to do this this is how it was titled We're going to do a nice, leisurely 100-mile ride. Because the guys I train with, they're all hammerheads, and there's nothing nice or leisurely about the way they ride. They're just 100 miles an hour. But I'm going with a bunch of old busted-down geezers like me, and it's just okay. So we're ready to go. We know it's going to get cold. We've all got our cold weather gear on. We've been loaded with food, so we're going ahead out. We take off across the hills, and we get out about 25 miles, and this little cold front was supposed to hit, hit. This wasn't a little coldfront. This was West Texas, Kyle, you know, dry line. We all put our cold stuff on and got charged up in nutrition, food, and we're headed out again. Guys, listen, this has gotten nasty. We're going straight into the wind, and it's cold like the sun of a gun. We get out about 75 miles, and we stop at this little gas station, and most of the people have left. We're still at about 15 people there, and when we stop At this gas station they're all looking for a phone. This is before the day of cell phones. None of us had one. It wouldn't matter if I had one anyway because there was nobody to call. You know what I'm saying? And we sat there like that. There was about six of us that said, let's just finish this ride, damn it. It's 25 more miles. We'll finish it and we'll be done with this. It wasn't fun anymore. You all follow? It's getting dark outside. It's sleeting. It's just stupid. We should not have been out there. It's Getting Dark. Everybody else said, you know, guys, have a nice life. Bye-bye now. And they took off, and we got back on our bikes and headed out. And guys, I've got to tell you, as I'm getting on that bike, I'm thinking, this is so stupid. I'm exhausted. I'm 75 miles out, and everybody else is, the strong riders too. But everybody did what they were supposed to do, and we made a deal that the strong writers, some of the guys that we rode with were professionals, and they got in the front. Usually in a Peloton, you know, everybody takes turns at the front, at leading, and you get to rest in the back. We didn't do that this time because we were done. And there were more than once in this little 25-mile stretch, I felt the hand on my butt pushing me up a hill. That's what they did. The strong people got around us weak guys and pushed us on up the hill. There was one guy, all he did was sit in the back because he had the light, the little flashing light, because the cars couldn't see us. It was getting dark and asleep. The windows were all messed up. There was not one of us, it was six of us that didn't hit the asphalt on that island. Every time we'd hit a cattle car, all of us would go down. on. You know, it's like the ones in their head were leading us, trying to protect the ones in the back. And I've got to tell you guys I'll never forget. We pulled back down into that sports center and pulled into that parking lot and I looked down at my little odometer and it clicked over 100. You with us? And everybody in the place, we looked at each other like that and there wasn't a word said, hey, where did was not silence. We got off the bikes and we put them on our cars and went inside and took a shower, got in my sauna and we're just sitting there. What we did was just look around at each other and we just, you know, still to this day I work with one of the girls that was on that ride. We've never talked about the ride. All we do is look at each else and go, huh? Huh? Remember that? Yeah? Everybody says, what? What? Nothing. Nothing. You wouldn't understand. a bunch of you in here will never understand because you ain't on that bike ride. You're not in the trench. You're sitting on the sideline doing just exactly the minimum you need to stay sober one stupid day at a time. And you're missing the whole show. Bill Wilson, Dr. Bob talks about the most thrilling years of your life lie ahead in this journey. Not the journey of just staying sober so that you can be Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky, so that You can stay sober and turn around and help somebody else up to do the work of somebody else. And I've got to tell you something, folks. That's one of the things that Mark Houston instilled in me. And that's what this entire facility was based around. One little busted-up drunk helping another little busted up drunk. And together you go and you get to a third one and a fourth one and a fifth one. Why will we survive? Why didn't the dumpsters of Houston, Texas swallow me up? How did I survive those overdoses? I don't know. I don' t know. Not because I'm good. But there was an old man that explained that six months after I got sober and he leaned across a kitchen with a towel in his hand while I was washing an old ashtray and he looked up with tears in his eyes and he said, buddy, I've got to tell you, we need you. We need you in Alcoholics Anonymous. us. And it's the first time in seven years that anybody had ever said that to me. They'd say, keep coming back, but they'd never said, we need you. And I've got to say it, I'm going to end with it. I know so many of y'all in this room that are lifelong friends of mine. It's been so over a long time and you've been in that same trench with me. You've been on that 100 mile ride. We know what it's like to go and speak from podiums and go to detox centers and halfway houses and carry the message and haul people being serviced to our fellows. I'm going to tell you something, guys. We are the only game in town. There's not a treatment center out there. There's no medication coming down the pipe that's going to fix this problem. It happens unapologetically about God. It's about the spiritual experience. And that message is not being carried very well in our fellowships, in any of our fellowshipS. We walk on eggshells around it. Nobody wants to talk about God because you want to scare the newcomer off. Well, God damn, I thought this was how we stayed sober. It is. how confused the newcomer gets guys, my spiritual experience is going to be different than your spiritual experience you with me? I had one 22 years ago that changed my life at a so good a level the obsession went away Cindy's spiritual experience she's having this week working at this facility is goingto be different then mine it's gonna be sufficient enough to keep us on the spiritual path sufficient enough to keep us with enough power or to never have to worry about relapse again. We need everybody in this room carrying that same message, folks. We need it from the podiums. We need a few less comedians from the podiums. We need some people that feel strongly about the power of God sitting in these meetings helping the newcomers. That's what we need. All you little new guys, we need every single one of you. The little new guy is not going to hear it from an old geezer like me sometimes. No, they need to hear from somebody else. The women in here, they're not going to hear it from me. They need somebody that gently maybe carried the same message with as much force but in a kinder, gentler way. We need every woman in this place in the trench for us carrying the message. We were just talking to Charlie and Katie earlier before the meeting. We've got people all over the world calling right now, today. There's not a day I don't get an email from somebody wanting women. Gosh, don't we have any women out there speaking from the podium talking about the power of God? We do. Two. Very few. And the ones that are are getting stretched too thin. They're just beat. We need people to step up to the podium, folks. We need the people to help carry this message. You've got piercings. You've gotta tattoos. Come with us. Come with me. Come with you. You're black, gay, straight. I don't care. In the trench. Carrying the message. Does that make sense, guys? Because it's a journey you'll never miss. You think you can't help anybody. I've heard it in therapy for years. You're too sick to help anybody. You've got to get well first. You see, guys, we get well by helping others. That's how we do it. You've Got 30 Days, you've Got 40 Days, you've Just Talked a Little Brotherly, you've got 60 Days. How cool is that? 60 days with no alcohol and no dope? Oh my God! How many people in Austin, Texas do you think are coming in today with no survival? You could help them. I love every one of you. Thanks so much for letting me come out here and do this. Thank you. Let's thank Christian Eberhardt once more for our support. And I've asked Branch to read the advance that promises for us today. My name is Branch and I'm a drug addict. We are painstaking about the phase of our development. We will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the path nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. way. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and the end of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? They are being fulfilled among us sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. Now I'll just hand our chairs to Lawrence Kirk, please. Thanks, Patrick. Do you want to take his office, Trevor? He keeps his show. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, without mercy, and in power, and all glory, forever and ever. Amen. Thank you for watching.