Why Sharing War Stories in Meetings Does More Harm Than Good to the Newcomer – Chris R.

First time I was introduced to our speaker, my sponsor gave me an old CD of him speaking. And after I listened to it, I had a visual picture of him. So it went something like this. Short, scrawny, bald, tattooed redneck, possibly with a Confederate flag bandana on his head. But one thing, sorry Chris. But one thing was very clear, that he was carrying the message laid out in the first 164 pages of our big book. And he was passionate about it. So as time passed, I've had a privilege to meet and get to know Chris a little bit better. Partially because he's marrying my sponsor. But mainly because he is a man of love and compassion. And he is nothing like the first impression. Except for one thing, which is that he is truly dedicated to the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. And now I can say that Chris is not only someone I know a little, but he is my friend and I'm honored by that. And. He's introduced me to more parts of this book than I thought I would ever know. And opened my eyes and it's changed my life. And I am honored to introduce you to Chris R. from Ingram, Texas. My name is Chris R.. I'm a recovered alcoholic. Ain't it nice to have a man around the house? Thanks. That's good. That's good. It's warm in here. I don't want to hear any more jokes about how hot it is in Texas. It's a lot harder here. I am honored to be here, folks. We came in this week. We came to a little conference over in Queens. And I was just so honored to get a chance to come over here and do this little talk. And I promise you it won't take right at an hour to do it because it's time to eat. It's past my dinner time and we need to do that. And I got to say thanks. I'll tell you, thanks to the home group that invited me over here. There's a gazillion of you that I've talked to over the last six months since we've been talking about this. And I just, I need to thank you for asking me to do this. It's the, you know, I speak a lot. I get a chance to talk a lot out there in public. It's not necessarily because I have anything really to say. But I'm pretty entertaining, if nothing else. I mean, I'm pretty excited about recovery. And, you know, the usual blah speaker that gets up here and tells his drunk-a-log for two hours. And that's just not me. And so I get snagged a lot to go speak at places and anniversaries. And some of these places, they call and ask me. And, of course, in AA, they said, you know, you don't ever say no. And if I can help it, I don't say no. But some of these, you know, I just grind my teeth when they ask me to speak because I know who I'm going to be speaking to. I'm going to be speaking to a bunch of middle-earthers. I'm going to be speaking to road buckaroos that have never worked the steps and never had a spiritual experience. They're staying sober, quote, unquote, dry one day at a time. Miserable people. You follow me? And I am the catalyst for pissing a whole room off, you know. And it's like, and I'm going to irritate some of y'all in here. Some of y'all are lost. You know, you came because you know you got some free food back here. And, you know, after this is all over, you'll be back in your little groups. You'll never guess what happened over in Berkeley Heights last night. I mean, this guy came from Texas. And he was so abusive, you know. And I'd just like to say right off the bat, screw you. And I'll make it real clear, folks. Alcoholism is abusive. Alcoholism really killed me, you know. And when I finally, when Ellen was talking, Ellen, what's your name? When she was talking up here, and I'm listening, my ears are picking up because what she's telling was my story. I was around Alcoholics Anonymous for seven years. Dying in this fellowship, you see. Because there's two things going on out there, folks. You know, alcoholism and drug addiction, there's a fellowship called Alcoholics Anonymous. You with us? And there's a program called Alcoholics Anonymous. The program is the book, is the 12 steps. And we got the fellowship over here. Now, of course, everybody wants to get involved in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Except, you know, nobody bothers to say that the fellowship won't keep you sober. You know, it's been my experience that if you're a real alcoholic, and let's just get straight, you know. I mean, everybody in this room may be calling themselves an alcoholic, but that's crap. Because there's some people in this room that are not even kind of alcoholic. They're hard drinkers. They got in a little trouble. They made a decision to stop. They came to a few meetings, put the plug in the jug, established a drive date, and they're sober today. You follow us? My book says, this is good. On page 34, we talked about it this weekend. On page 34, it says, This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it. This utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish. You see, that's alcoholism, folks. If you can stop just because you made up your mind to stop, come to a few meetings, you're not an alcoholic anyway. And I've got to tell you something, folks, that grinds the daylights out of some of you. Because some of you cats in this room believe that what we're working on is some kind of, uh, uh, commission program in here. And if we can get a bunch of people in our meetings, we're doing a great job. Alcoholics Anonymous were people who were dying from a fatal illness called alcoholism. And if you're not suffering from that, you're welcome. Come on down. But don't, for a second, think that you understand what it is to be an alcoholic. It's the most tragic disease I've ever watched. I answered my messages this afternoon. I've been away from work for a couple of days. And I work for a treatment center down in Texas. And I'm answering my messages. And I left them this nice record. This recording saying I was coming to Texas and leave the message someplace else. You follow me? I had 21 messages. And a couple of them was from the same lady. This nice lady that I've known for years out in West Texas. And she was so drunk, I could hardly understand what she was saying. Y'all, y'all know this? And the sadness and the loneliness and the fear in her voice. Because the husband was mad. The kids are mad. The town's mad. Everybody's mad now. Because she's loaded one more time. You, you with us? She doesn't understand what she's going to do. She's, she's absolutely. Can y'all understand this? Hopeless. And it's coming across that phone line like you wouldn't believe. And I, my prayer tonight is that she ends up in a room like this with a bunch of people that understand what's in this book. So that she can finally, once and for all, stop this relapse crap and start staying sober for good and for always. I said, Chris, boy, you, you're so pat, you know, you just come across as angry. You know, it's like, geez, guys, you know, I, I ought to be angry. A bunch of us ought to be angry. People like Ellen ought to be angry. We nearly died coming, coming to these rooms, listening to people talk about everything under the sun, except the program, except the 12 steps. It's a travesty. I, I travel a lot in Canada. I was in Iceland this winter and we, we just, I travel a lot doing these talks and doing workshops and speaking around the, around the countryside about this business. And it's not isolated stuff. It's not like down in Texas, they don't do it right. And they do it right in New Jersey and they do it wrong over here. And then. It's the same everywhere. You've got pockets of people just like you're in this room right here who understand that the solution to alcoholism is God, not therapy, God. And in rooms that where people understand that there's a lot of people getting sober and having wonderful things called spiritual experiences. And in rooms where they're not, there's a revolving door of people picking up desire chips, walking back out, trying it one more time. Just that's where this crap keep coming back. You know, keep coming back. You know, it's one of these days. It'll work. You know, I mean, I, I hear people in meetings all the time. You know, when it's God's will, that old boy, he'll get sober. I got to tell you how arrogant of us to say crap like that. How arrogant of us. And when it's God's will, excuse me, I believe it's God's will right now for every one of us to hold our heads up and understand our place in this, in this earth. Children of God, sober, kicking butt, getting all the blessings that the world has to offer. We're going to, we're going to blame the fact that we can't get sober on God. Who do you think gave us this wonderful program? I think we can blame it on a bunch of arrogant people who, who believed. Well, let me tell you my story. I think, I think it'll explain things a little clearer. I think it'll explain things a little clearer. I, uh, I got, uh, grew up down in the hill country in, in Texas and, uh, in high school, uh, somebody handed me a bottle of Boone's Farm apple wine. And, and I, I got to tell you something. Uh, I've heard a thousand speakers talk about this. And I think y'all all understand, so I'm not going to explain, but it just, I suffered from a thing called a spiritual malady. And that's the root, that's the bottom part of this thing called alcoholism. And, and this spiritual malady manifests itself in, in, in depression, in boredom, anxiety, uh, tension, that this low self-esteem, you know, this feeling of uselessness. That's how the spirit, that's what the book talks about. That's how the spiritual malady manifests itself. So I'm walking around looking down at the floor, feeling uncomfortable all the time. I'm absolutely unhappy, afraid of everything, you know, with us and somebody at 17 years old, somebody hands me a bottle of Boone's Farm. Y'all know what Boone's Farm apple wine is? Yeah. Some of y'all, you'd have to be an alcoholic to drink that stuff. I got to tell you, I mean, if it tastes like absolute crap, you know, it's just, it's terrible stuff, but it'll get you loaded quick, you know, and it's, the price is right. It's, they'll practically give it to you for the price of a sack. You know, it's just, it's, so I'm drinking this Boone's Farm apple wine and the stuff does its miracle on me and it fixes what's wrong with me. And I'm like, I'm going to drink this. And I'm like, I'm going to drink this. And it sets me up. I mean, I'm, I'm, the physical phenomenal craving kicks in and I want some more of that stuff. And the mental obsession, you know, is just full blores, like, this is the solution, let's go drink it. You follow us? And for the next, what, 20 years, I drank and then later on drugged and then later on drank and drugged. You follow how that works? And because it's the only thing that I know that's going to fix what's wrong with me. And I'm in the food business. I'm up in Houston and learning to be a professional chef and alcohol is a, is a, et cetera. Deceptive part of the industry. We drink on the job. We drink after the job. We drink before the job. Y'all with us? But you see, the stuff is working for me at that time. Alcohol, alcohol is good stuff. You know what I mean? I, a lot of people think, well, alcohol is the, you know, is Satan's spit. You know, and it's, I, I, that's not my experience. Alcohol, alcohol saved my life. If it hadn't been for alcohol, I don't think I would have graduated from high school because the only thing that kept me from committing suicide was a drink. Can y'all get down with that? A bunch of nodding heads. And some of you are not nodding your head. All right. Pay attention. All right. Because this program is about identification. And I mean, we talk about the, the, the stupid drama out here until the cows come home. That's why we get into these, these pissing contests in our meetings. Everybody wants to talk about their stupid drama and that's the stuff that ends up separating us. Let's talk about the internal condition because I don't care if you're 19 years old or 90. You understand what I just described. If you're an alcoholic, that absolute loneliness inside. And once you're an alcoholic, you're an alcoholic. And once you're an alcoholic, you're an alcoholic. And once you take the drink, it fixes that internal condition. Everybody understands that. Whether you got a lot of money or you don't have any money, you understand what I'm talking about. This is where it gets good. In 19, I moved around a lot trying to, trying to get away from me. You know, and it was just one of those frustrating things. You'd get out of that U-Haul truck and, you know, guess who would be there in Atlanta, Georgia? You know, and you'd move to Vernon, Texas, and you'd move to Dallas. And you'd move to Houston, you know, and it's, and it's like, it's the same stuff. I, I, I had a lot of relationships. I, I dated lots of different women because I believe that, that if I could just finally settle down with a woman that wasn't evil, I, I could stay sober. I'm still not sure I found that woman, but we're going to, all right, I know, I know. All right. I think I have. So, but y'all understand where we're coming from in this. And all of y'all have done this. I've tried to organize my life out here so I could be okay in here. And that's what a lot of you guys have done for years. You've tried to, you've tried to change things inside. Well, about, about the time I was in Houston, when I first started cooking over there, and, and I was quite successful in the industry, but the depression's killing me. Thank you, buddy. The depression's killing me. And, and, and I'm seeing a therapist for the depression, and I'm starting to take antidepressants, and, you know, the, the pills are figuring in a, a part of this. Because trying to, I'm, I, I know instinctively that something's not right because I'm just not a happy camper. And I know instinctively that something could help me, but I just don't know what it is. You'll follow us? I mean, at 21 years old, I picked up a phone book to call Alcoholics Anonymous. I knew I was in trouble. My father was an alcoholic. I knew the symptom. I knew what it looked like. And I was becoming that person. But I didn't call them. I picked up the phone book. I looked them up, but I didn't call them. Because, I mean, I just, I just like, Jesus, this, I mean, this is the lowest of the low when you pick up a phone book to call Alcoholics Anonymous. You know what I mean? I mean, I, I'm out there in Houston, Texas, laying in gutters, puking straight up. You follow me? You know, but I don't, I don't want to look. I don't want to look. I got an image to uphold. I mean, I don't want anybody to know that. We were laughing. You know, you go knock on a date. You know, you started drinking in the afternoon because you got a big date that afternoon, that evening, and you want to get right. You know, and about 7 o'clock, you know, you're, you're primed. You know, you've had a quart of beer, and you're ready to go. You know, and I'm answering the door, and my patch is just a little crooked. You know, it's like back over here, and I'm, I'm squashed. I'm drunk, and I'm knocking on the door, and this girl's looking. It's like, what, what happened to you? You know? Did I, did I intend to get like that? No. What I intended to do was have a couple of drinks and knock the edge off and go be Don Juan. You follow us? What happened was the phenomenon of craving kicked in, and I drank too much, and I made an ass of myself again. You follow me? She didn't go out with me. So I'm driving home. You, you, witch. I'll just show her. Gunk, gunk, gunk. Now I'm really good and drunk now because I've got every excuse in the world, and that's what happened. There were times in my life, just exactly what somebody else earlier was talking about, where everything in my life was absolutely good. Y'all follow me? Good job, making good money, nice house, good-looking girlfriend, nice little doggie, nice, everything good, you know, everything good. And yet, I'm dying inside, and I, and I'm, I'm frustrated now because I don't have anything to drink over, you know? I need an excuse to drink over. So I come home and pick a fight with her, you know, with me, kick the cat, you know, run out, go get something to drink. Looking for an excuse, unbelievable. And I'm seeing a therapist every. Week. For ten. Years. If there's any therapists in here, I want to thank you. I want to thank you for putting up with my bullshit for ten years. As a, as a, as a profession, alcoholics are probably the most abusive people on earth with therapists. You know, when we're telling them, when we're talking nine times out of ten, we're not telling the truth anyway. You, you with us? The frustrating thing part with our relationship with therapy is, is that what we're telling them is not having much effect because what they're telling us back can't fix what's wrong with us. Folks, alcoholism is a disease. It's, it's genetic. Nothing out there causes it. And if you're sitting in a therapist's couch talking about something out there that's causing it, you are wasting so much money. I, I just, bless your heart, just send it to me. I'll put it to good use. I, I don't, I need a new bicycle. I mean, I, I don't know what to tell you. My bikes are expensive. So come on, everybody. I, I, we, we... I think it's probably some of the most controversial stuff I talk about from the podium. Alcoholics Anonymous is not therapy. Therapy is great, folks. Therapy can help us deal with this external world, but it won't help us with this internal world. Medicine is great. It'll help us with lots of things, but it won't fix this internal world. We just read it in the ABCs, folks. Why do we do this, folks? We sit in our meetings and we read about this every time. We read how it works. ABCs. What, what, what did we just read? That probably no human power could affect me, could fix what was wrong with me. And that God could and would if he were sought. Right? So we put God on hold while we go back over here and talk to somebody else about our crappy day so that maybe we don't have to drink today. This is where we're killing alcoholics. This is where people like you are dying every day because they just get to a point of such frustration. They don't understand what's wrong with them. I'm trying it. I'm going to meetings. I'm doing the deal. But the spiritual malady continues to percolate. I've heard Patty talk about it a thousand times. If it hadn't been for people in this group that were standing for something, she'd have been dead today. And there were people like the Howards in my home group when I finally got back to AA in 1987. In 1980, I entered Alcoholics Anonymous as a result of some domestic disturbance at home. And a therapist looked at my chart for the first time, looked at all of my chart and said, Chris, buddy, you've got some stuff going on and we need to talk about it. And I hope that you stay here with me to do that. But I can't help you with this drinking. You're an alcoholic. You're just a garden variety drunk. Buddy, I'm going to tell you something. I stagger. I staggered out of that office because the first time somebody finally told me the truth. She said, get your skinny butt to Alcoholics Anonymous. They're the people that can help you. And the next night, I went to an AA meeting. I've told this from a million podiums, folks. It wasn't a meeting like this. There was not a single big book in the place. It was a therapy session. And we walked into a deal. It was over a store in downtown Denton, Texas. And I walked up these dark stairs, you know, and it was a pitch dark. And there was a light. One light in this big room. It was a small room. But there was one light back in there. And I could see it from the bottom of the steps. And I'm looking at the address. And I just feel like, hell, I've been drinking out in the truck. You know, and I was like, I've got to walk up here. And I'm freaking out. I don't know. I see a little circle triangle there. I know I'm in the right place. And I start walking up these steps. I don't know if there was 12 there or not. You know, who knows. I walked up there and I walked in the room. And it was one of these pitch dark places. And I walked in. And I squinted my eyes. And there was this old geezer. Old, old geezer. I don't care how you cut it. He was a geezer. And he was in an easy chair. And he was laid back on his easy chair. I didn't know if he was alive or not. And there's this one bulb coming down. It looked like something out of Psycho. You know, and there's this one bulb laying down. And coming out of the, y'all think I'm making this stuff up. And I'm freaking out. I'm in my late 20s, I guess. And I don't want to be there. And the guy says, do you have problems with alcohol? You know, hair standing up. Yes. Well, welcome. Sit with us. Us? Oh, there's six other people in the room. And it's so damn dark in there. You can't see who's in there. Y'all think I'm, it's like unbelievable. And I sit, I pull up a chair. And there's this lady in there. And she starts talking about her husband who's an alcoholic. And her husband's drinking. And she needs some help with her husband. Makes good sense. Except this is not an Al-Anon meeting. This is a meeting for alcoholics, I think. We're not going to talk about me. We're not going to talk about the disease. We're going to try to share some cool things. This old geezer learned in treatment to try to help this old man get in recovery. Nice gesture. Except it wasn't what we were there for. Folks, Alcoholics Anonymous is there for one thing. To help alcoholics get connected to God. Did we talk about God? No. Did we talk about the steps? No. We didn't talk about any of that. We talked about this. I was with this lady's husband for an hour. Then they fleeced me out of a dollar. Said, keep coming back. Everything's going to be okay. And I went down the step. I sat in my truck like a deer in a headlight. And I said, like, what the hell was that? What did I just experience? I look back at that meeting and think, I wonder what Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob would have thought if they'd have been in that meeting with me that night. Treatment centers up in North Texas were grinding out drunks by the gazillions at the time. Recovering alcoholics. I was looking for somebody that had recovered. But we were finding people that were recovering. After all, we're always going to be recovering. I just want to puke. If you're one of those that are saying that stuff, I'm going to tell you right now. Before you get any food in your hand to throw at me, I want to tell you. Buddy, if you're a recovering alcoholic, finish the steps, please. Have a spiritual experience. What kind of hope is this to tell them? We pissed a lady off up in Queens this weekend about that stuff. We're always going to. We have alcoholism. Nobody said you're not. We're always going to be recovering. Recovering from what? Folks, when the obsession to drink leaves you, you're as recovered as you're going to get. I mean, isn't that the truth? What kind of hope are we giving to the newcomer if we invite them into a fellowship where they're going to have to remain sick for the rest of their life? Unbelievable. The book says, 24 places in the book, it says that we're going to recover from alcoholism. But we know better, right? So we're going to. Unbelievable. You know what? The treatment centers continue to talk that stuff because that's exactly where it comes from. And I work for one, and I'll take their inventory just like I take everybody else's inventory. It's much easier than taking my inventory. Listen, you know why they say that? Because it's good business. I don't want you to get well. You introduce yourself as a recovered alcoholic, you're going to be out there kicking butt, taking names. If you're recovering, maybe you can come back to treatment. Dig? Oh, you don't want to hear that, do you? It's great business, folks. It did not come out of this literature. Seven years. In and out of Alcoholics Anonymous. The wife leaves, exit stage left. Two businesses leave. Life is just getting worse by the day. Y'all follow us? And the depression is returned. The antidepressants are not working. And I am an unhappy camper, folks. In November 1987, I was working for my brother up in North Texas. And I drove home and picked up a bunch of return checks. And I'm 35 years old and my accounts are empty again. And I'm not a happy camper. And there's no woman in my life. And there's no furniture in my life. And there's not many clothes in my life. My clothes closet is a... I mean, I at times have made a lot of money. But there's about three or four pairs of Holy Levi's and a bunch of Fruit of the Loom t-shirts in there. Y'all follow what I'm saying? These old beat-up t-shirts. And every time you wash them, the pocket gets a little closer to the center of your chest. You know, it's like... So you've got to look like an idiot. And that's my uniform of the day, you know? And notice I didn't mention there was any underwear in there. You know, I mean, those are the things that we just don't quite have the money for today. Unbelievable. I came home that night, picked up those checks, sat down in my living room, and made a conscious choice to off myself. I was so sick and tired of living the life I was living. I didn't want to die, folks. I had a great home and a great family. And there was a lot of love in my family. I didn't want to leave them. I just didn't want to be who I was. I didn't want to feel the way I was feeling anymore. I was tired of people looking down their nose at me. I was tired of looking in the mirror feeling embarrassed about who I was. And we see this all the time, folks. I don't know of an alcoholic that's the real McCoy that didn't at one time think about offing themselves. And unless that changes, we're going to die. I took a bottle of pills. And about the time... Excuse me. Those things started kicking in. And I heard a voice that said, Chris, don't do it. Go back to AA. I told that voice whatever it was that I'm never going to go back to AA. AA doesn't work. AA is a fellowship of men and women who want to get in there and tell their stupid war stories until the cows come home. And after they finish their war stories, they're going to sit there and piss and moan a while about how screwed up their life is. Talk about their little problem of the day. And everybody's going to shake hands and get fleeced by another dollar. And then we're going to go our own way. And I'm going to sit there the same as I always do. And I'm going to sit there the same as I always did. Empty and scared to death. You with me? This voice said, go back to Alcoholics Anonymous. Don't do this. I aborted that suicide attempt, folks. That was the second attempt to try to take my life. This was the most progressed I ever got in it. I aborted it and went back to Alcoholics Anonymous the next day. I got some doggy downers from a doctor to detox. And I made a commitment that I was going to try this one more time. And I've told this from a million podiums, folks. And this is my story. And if it differs from yours, I'm sorry. This is my nickel. This is my story. I walked into this room full of people. And it was a lot like the experience that a lot of y'all in this room have experienced here. I walked in and they were all carrying this book right here. And they were all talking about God and the steps. And the 12 steps and the 12 traditions were on the wall. And we read those. You follow us? And they were all laughing and joking. And it was well lit. And it was clean. And there was a lot of happiness in that room. Guys. Guys, I've been drinking for years, folks. 20 years drinking and drugging. And my little mind wasn't working real well. But, buddy, when I walk into a room full of people where they're excited about life, you can sense that. The newcomer can see that there's something different going on in this room. It's like some of y'all know what I'm talking about. You walk in certain churches and they just feel like they're dead. And then you walk in certain churches and it's like you can feel the excitement in the church. Because there's some people that are actually connected to a power that created this universe. Can y'all get down with that? And that's exactly what I was feeling in that room. We went around the room and everybody shared their hope with me. There was one stupid war story shared with me. These people understood that Chris was there. He didn't need to get scared into the rooms. He was here already. They didn't need to make a 12-step call on me. I was here. What they needed to do now that they had me was reel me in. Give me something to sink my teeth into so that I would want to come back tomorrow. And they shared their blessings with me. They sat there and they smiled and they laughed and they cried. And they told me that their life was better today. And they told me about making money. And they told me about getting their credit cards back. And they told me about having families and love and people. They blew me away. I've been in hundreds of AA meetings. And all we ever did was sit around and talk. Listen, please. This is my story. This is my deal. If I say anything from the podium that grinds people, this is it. Because a lot of you sitting in these rooms believe it's your right to come into a meeting and share anything you want. And I'm here to tell you right now. You can tell anybody down there at Denny's tonight that that little one-eyed guy was off base. But I'm telling you right now. You might want to consider what you're doing before you do it next time in an AA meeting. Because I've got to tell you something, folks. Your words have a lot of power. Your actions have a lot of power. That smile has a lot of power. And you're sitting in that meeting using it as a freaking cheap therapy group. You are doing more harm than you're doing good. How many of us in this room have done it? I mean, I've done it. You go in there. You talk about your crappy day. You leave feeling better. Thank you all for listening. Thank you for letting me share, quote-unquote, with you. But, you know, what about the poor schmuck alcoholic over in the corner that's dying just like I was for seven years? Did we give him any hope? He doesn't have a baby to worry about. He doesn't have a family to worry about. He doesn't even have a place to stay tonight to worry about. But we're going to talk about your little chicken shit problem over here, expecting absolute arrogance of us to think that we can come into a meeting and do that crap. I mean, where's our discerning spirit? We walk into a meeting, right, with a nice businesswoman like you. And we sit here, and the first thing out of the bag, I'm looking right at you. You look like a nice businesswoman. Hell, I don't know. You may be a hooker for all I know. You look like a nice businesswoman. Okay. And she comes in, and when she sits down in the meeting, and she's scared to death, and she's got her purse there, and she's uncomfortable, right? And what's the first thing we want to do? We want to go around, and we're going, oh, we've got a newcomer here. We're going to have a first-step meeting. And everybody starts telling they're stupid. They're stupid. They're stupid, pathetic war stories. Well, this is my story. Who cares? Who cares? She just wants to know if there's any hope. Can she wake up tomorrow and have the obsession to drink removed? Is there any hope for this woman? That's all she's in here looking for is a little hope. But we're not going to do that. We're going to scare her with another stupid war story. The same war story that we've all heard a thousand times, and we're all going to roll our eyes, because he's going to tell his same stupid war story again. You follow us? Oh, and I, you know, boy, and I ate out of dumpsters. And everybody nods their head and feels the pain, right? And she's going, Jesus, that's pretty low. I've eaten out of dumpsters? Well, I got two DWIs and almost lost my family. Well, I've never had a DWI, and I've never lost my family. Oh, you think that's bad? I had three DWIs and ended up in the penitentiary. Nah, nah, nah. Nah, nah, nah. Y'all with us? We do it every time. And this lady over here, instead of becoming comfortable and feeling some hope in her life, she's scared shitless, because she thinks she's in a room full of psychopaths. Because we're all too busy trying to outdo each other with our stupid war stories. How sad can we make this? How tragic can we make our lives? What, do you think for a second that if she's a real alcoholic, do you think she's going to remember your crappy war story when it comes time to take a drink? My book says she won't. My experience shows me she won't. She's not even going to remember her war story. War stories. Why is she going to remember your war story? Guys, one place for a war story, that's a 12-step call. You catch somebody out there that's never been in AA, and you want to get them to identify a little bit, tell them a little bit about your story. It's a powerful tool to help people get here. But once they get here, shut up with your war stories. That's why we can't keep the young adults in our rooms, because we're too busy trying to scare them in here. The book says you won't remember the consequences of a week or a month ago. That's what it says. It's page 24. You won't remember the consequences. When the mental obsession hits you again, you're just going to go drink again. So why don't we start sharing the good stuff and get them to come in here and get this work done, and then they can recover and have the coolest life imaginable. Because it's been my experience that God's grace is even on everybody, and everybody that does the work gets the message. They get the gold ring. Everybody. These people asked me that night if I was ready to get sober. They explained to me quite clearly that our job in Alcoholics Anonymous was not to help you not take a drink today. It was to help you get connected to God so that you didn't want to take a drink today. This is where treatment centers have killed millions of us, believing that we're going to be able to somehow, someway, orchestrate our lives so that we don't have to be around alcohol and then we don't have to drink. Absolute crap. Because if that internal condition continues to percolate, and that fear and that tension and that depression stays with you, you will drink again. You will drink again, without exception. You may last a few months. You may last a long stretch of time. But you will end up in a place where you will become so irritable, restless, and discontent you can't stand it, and you will pick up the drink. What's the solution? The solution, folks, is a spiritual experience. A new attitude towards life that takes place as you work the steps. Rapidly. Not over a period of years. Over a period of weeks. Finish the work. Those guys in Alcoholics Anonymous that night, there were men and women both that sat down at the table with me. There was young adults there too, laughing, having a great time, drinking coffee, talking shit. Smoking cigarettes out in the back. Enjoying the daylights out of this experience. And they all got around me and said, Chris, you want to stay sober for good and for all? After some discussion, y'all heard my story. Not the one day at a time stuff. After some discussion, I said yes. And they said, buddy, then we're going to help you with this work. And if you're willing to go at any length, come on down. Two places in the book says that you've got to be willing to pay a price if you want to get sober, folks. Are you willing to pay a price? Because you see, if you're not, you can't get sober. Guys, sobriety. It's not this willy-nilly little thing that floats through the air and some of us finally get struck sober and some of us don't. That's just ridiculous. The people that end up doing the work get what we call permanent sobriety. It's the absolute, the depression lifts like this. Boom, gone. The boredom goes away. We get a new sense of direction, a sense of ease and comfort in our lives. And some of y'all are sitting in this room and that hasn't happened yet and you're mad at me because it hasn't happened. And I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at you. I'm mad at you. And I'm sorry. I want to motivate you to finally get a sponsor and to get past your arrogance and get next to somebody that understands this work so that you can have the same experience I had. Your spiritual experience will be different than my spiritual experience but it will blow you out of the water nonetheless. There's no such thing as a baby spiritual experience, folks. I hear people in meetings all the time talking about it. I had a spiritual experience with the educational variety. Buddy, it's the same as Bill Wilson seeing the vision of God in the hospital. It's enough to overcome alcoholism and drug addiction. Can y'all get down with that? Reader's Digest can dance. I'll let you out. I was back the next morning after the noon meeting on a Saturday. We did a third step prayer in the back room. There was three or four men in that room with us and we all held hands and we got on our knees and did the third step prayer that we opened this up with where I asked God to be my father, where I also implored God to remove my difficulties so victory over those difficulties could bear witness to God's power. Pretty cool. And they explained that to me. And they sat down and we really talked before we did this about that. The physical allergy and the mental obsession, they qualified me to make sure I needed to be in that room, that I wasn't just taking a seat. You know what else? They asked me some questions so they could find out, so I could see my own truth. They didn't jam this down my throat. They just asked me, are you willing to do this? Does this apply to you? Thank God for those people that took time with me. That afternoon they gave me some information on a fourth step. Guys, I'm detoxing one day. They gave me information on doing a fourth step. Those people understood with crystal clarity, that the last thing I needed to do was get comfortable and sit on my ass. Because I've got a history of seven years of showing you that the minute I get detoxed and I start feeling lousy again inside, I'm going to go drink. The problem with having an Alcoholics Anonymous today is that too many people are willing to sit on their butt and watch our newcomers die. Because nobody wants to take responsibility to try to help them get connected to God. That's why our success rates in the early days of AA were so huge and they suck today. Because everybody's too busy looking around. Nobody wants to get involved. I'm talking to Maggie before the meeting. She's talking about somebody coming up to her afterwards and referring to her as a bleeding deacon. You know, I've got to tell you something, folks. We're all so afraid that somebody's going to call us a bleeding deacon that we just don't say anything at all. I've been called worse, Maggie. I've got to tell you that. Asshole comes to mind. I don't know. Guys, everybody's experience in this fellowship is going to be a little bit different. But, you know, we owe it to the newcomer to at least give them a shot at the program. We owe it to them. And then if they don't want to do it, that's their business. We don't chase anybody down. They say, Chris, you're kicking this God thing too hard. I don't think I'm doing it hard enough. Two weeks later, I've done a completed first step sitting down with a sponsor and a spiral notebook and a big book. And I've done this work. I've got an appointment to do a fifth step. And I'm on different foot. Now, some people, this doesn't happen too that quick. But for me, within two weeks of actually for the first time in seven years getting off my butt and doing some work, I start to have this thing called a spiritual experience. I start to have this thing called a spiritual experience. And I drive home that night. And it was a Friday night after this meeting, two weeks after I tried to commit suicide. And I sit on the back end of my pickup truck up in North Texas and cry like a baby. I mean, I'm looking around me, and I'm surrounded by liquor stores and 7-Elevens and places. There's four places, five places that I can go get a drink right now. My dope digger lives in the apartment complex where I live. I mean, there's nobody living in my house to follow me. Nobody to tell me I can't. I've got some money in my pocket. What? Guys, I don't want a drink. It dawns on me quite clearly that the obsession to drink has been lifted from me sometime in these last two weeks. I don't even want a drink. And, folks, that's not a pink cloud. That's called God's grace, and it's as real as it gets. It wasn't because finally God had pity on me and said, you've suffered enough. It's because for the first time in my life, I found a bunch of men and women that loved me enough to tell me what to do. I finally followed some instructions and had a thing called a spiritual experience. That was two weeks after I got to the fellowship, and I'm pushing 16 years of sobriety now. And the obsession to use has never returned since. That's called recovery, folks. We paint this picture in treatment like this is some kind of a nebulous, tenuous little thread. We're grasping at sobriety. That's ridiculous. Ridiculous. It's tough to get on the spiritual path, folks. It takes some effort, some responsibility, and some discipline to get on the spiritual path. But once you're there, it's solid as a rock. It's the only solid thing I know in this world. It will not change. And I do the things necessary to stay connected today. I've got a home group. I've got a sponsor. I sponsor some men in the fellowship. I try to reach out and give the service where I can, just like so many of y'all in this room. The sad part is we've got a fellowship of men and women that have decided that we would rather be liked by everybody around us than to share the truth. And it's a crime and shame. We go into a meeting, folks, and somebody's off the subject. We need to reel them back in. And somebody's got to take responsibility for that. You don't have to be abusive. Hey, hey, shut up. Nobody's asking you to do that. You might be thinking about it. I often sit in meetings and think about what would happen if I had a big gun. You know, and I would take them and shoot them, shoot them many times, reload, and shoot them some more. Because it drives me nuts. I've got to get this. A friend of mine from up here in Jersey gave me a little sheet and a little thing in the mail the other day on the Internet. And one of the lines in here, it says, a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle. A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle. I don't know where it came from. It's a great piece of literature probably. But that sums up this fellowship to me. You see, those guys in 1987, they loved me enough to tell me the truth. And by helping me catch fire, they had one more little buck root in the tree just helping them carry the message. I think in closing about this, I mean, I think all of us need to get real clear on the power that each of us has. I speak on the podium and people come up after me and say, God, I wish I could speak as passionately as you. I'm so glad you can't. You know, because we don't need another Chris R.. We don't need another Mike Lawrence. We don't need another Patty. We've got one. We need you. You don't have to be someone else. Who did God make you? What did he allow you to survive? And the stuff that you survived, the stuff that you're made of, the stuff that tempered you, is what you're going to bring to the trench with us. What happens if we go work on a car and all of us show up with screwdrivers? They start saying, we're going to do a lot of screwing. No, we're not. We need some other tools in the trenches with us. And that's what the deal is. Some of you guys in this group tonight, you're cooking. Some of you organize the money. Some of you organize the decorations. People do that. Guys, use your talents in this fellowship and you will never get bored and you will finally understand your place in this trench. Everybody in this fellowship needs a job. My question, like I always say, what's your job? What can you do well? All of us have got to do 12-step work. None of us gets off that. You, in your own way, are going to sit down with a newcomer and explain. Explain what's in this book. That's what those people did to me. Stop walking on eggshells, folks. God gave you a message to carry. Do you have the courage to share it? I mean, we talked about it this week. Knowing God's will is not the same as doing God's will. We've got a lot of people that know what they're supposed to be doing, but they're not doing it. You've got to go inward and look at that. Everybody wants the treatment center to take care of the drunk. Guess what? They're all going out of business. The insurance company is out. You guys think 9-11 just affected New York? It affected everything. A lot of people trying to come to treatment can't come to treatment now. Where are they going to go? Berkeley Heights. Be here. Please. You be here looking at the door waiting for the newcomer to come in. Because I'm going to tell you something, folks. If you're not here, you're going to be missed. How in the hell do I know who God's got you connected with? God's already got it planned for your life. All you've got to do is show up and do the work. I need to thank you for that. I need to thank you before I get out of here for saving Patty's life. I wish I could say that every Alcoholics Anonymous group, I hear it all the time, God's in every meeting I've ever been in. There's no question about that, folks. Where two or more gather, God's there. I'm down with that. But I'm going to tell you this. I've been in meetings where we didn't even consider talking about God. We didn't pray. We didn't read the literature. We didn't do nothing but talk about our stupid problems and call it an AA meeting. Thank you for being a part of a group that carries the message of hope. Thank you for being here when she's not here. I owe you. I owe you. We're not lovely people to work with sometimes, folks. We're tough eggs. Thanks for standing in the trenches with us. If I can ever help you, ever, you call me. I truly mean that. I've got a bunch of cards. I'd love to stay in touch with every single one of you in here. I also have some little Issue Man buttons. Issue Man and Issue Women buttons. These little buttons. There's little X's on the outside of this little cat. Little stick figure guy. And these X's refer to our issue. Next time you've got somebody, get a little pocket full of these. Next time you've got somebody in there pissing and moaning about how bad their day is, you can slip them one of these little buttons that's here. Why don't you wear this? Dig? You won't be real popular, but it'll get the point across. You'll follow us? I'm honored to be here so much.