Working the Steps and the Big Book – Sponsorship Workshop – Part 2 of 2 – Chris R.

I thought we were going to break real quick, and I haven't had a chance to puke yet. So I'm going to do it now if you don't mind. My name is Chris Raymer. I'm a very grateful, recovered alcoholic, recovered alcoholic, but I'm foam. That's amazing. I am delighted to be here. I could only ditto what Myers said. Thanks so much for the committee and JR, all the cats that got us up here. Folks, we do this all the time. I travel a lot and get to do this, and I certainly understand how expensive and time-consuming this is to get us anyplace. And traveling from Texas where I live, I mean, it's an ordeal. So thanks so much. I understand from conversations that there were people that were not excited that we were going to be here, and I hope they're having a good day today. Welcome. There's probably some of them in this meeting looking for fodder to use as ammunition. I hope They don't get any. I need to tell you right now real quick, I love any person that's ever had the courage enough to walk in the door of an AA meeting. And if you walked in and have never worked a single step, and you've been sober a long time doing it your way, I am still proud to know you. Welcome. We all get here from different paths, folks, and different things work for different people. But my experience and my story colors the way I share. And I have a special affinity for the chronic relapser. I've shared that from the podium and had people take exception with that. I mean, I don't know what to tell you. Myers came into the fellowship and got sober, picked up one desire chip. I've picked up a drawer full of desire chips. I didn't get this right off the bat. And for the same reason that a lot of people don't get it. Nobody told me how. And I that's just for the little alcoholic, the little knucklehead out there that's still suffering. It's perhaps in these rooms for periods of time, dry time, but miserable like Myers was just talking about. My heart goes out to these people. I didn't get sober to be miserable. But there's a philosophy in Alcoholics Anonymous that that I hear it all the time. I hope we have some time today to talk about it. You know, I didn'T get sick overnight. I'm not going to get well overnight. And they set us up for this disappointment that when we get to the fellowship, it's not all going to be rosy. You know, I understand that. But I'm here to tell you, when I got finally to the rooms of AA meetings where they were talking about the literature and the 12 steps, and I got off my dead butt and started working those steps, I had a spiritual experience that changed my life forever. Now, my life didn't change overnight. My health didn't change over like my finances didn't change overnight, but the obsession to drink left me within two weeks of coming back to Alcoholics Anonymous and has never returned in 19 years. And that fear and the depression that my brother was talking about. I don't left. When when did we get to a spot? What happened in our fellowship over the years, over the 70 plus years, what happened in our fellowship that separated us so much? I hear it all the time. The little big book thumpers and then the little meeting maker make it crowd. You know what I mean? It's all the same fellowship. And yet, so many of us in this room that I've talked to and emailed and have known some of you in thisroom for years, we have taken the heat for merely tearing a big book into a meeting. i want to tell you it's a travesty it's crying shame and i'll never back off the podium because of that thing right there i'm not saying you've got to do it this way i'm saying it again i'm going to repeat myself if just going to meetings has allowed you to recover and you're in good shape and you love your life then how great is that my experience shows quite clearly in my own life that just go into meetings doesn't treat alcoholism. I got a friend up in Maine that said it better than I can. If booze is your problem, then detox is as hard as it's going to get. If alcoholism is your problem, the battle's just beginning. And that just don't drink and go to meetings crap Doesn't float with me It might have worked for some of you It did not work for me Because the further away I get From that drink The worse I become Make sense I think I think a lot of y'all understand that And what's this evil twin thing I know what it is. You know, I tell you, I can't tell you how many people I've met over the years that have met me via the CDs that have traveled out there. The tapes and CDs. A lot of you guys in here, that's how I first met. You've tracked me down, like hunted me down like a dog, you know. Are you, y'all still this day, this week, somebody will call me on the phone. Are you the Chris Raymer? And I go, oh shoot You know I don't know if I want to answer that question or not You know Because I've either made a lifelong friend Or I've pissed you off royally I don' t know which And I got to tell you right now I don''t want to do that I I I don'T want to piss anybody off ever again I know in some earlier CDs I've ever done And talked You know I used to come across real rigid And real And I cussed on the podium And you know And I just And I try not to do that today. I try to come at this with a little gentler mode. I still get excited. I still getting passionate about this because the message that can interest the alcoholic, the message they can absolutely save us is in this book. And and I get a little frustrated when everybody wants to water it down and think that you can do this any way you want. We're so we're so committed to get the alcoholic into our room. And then once we get them there, we drop them on their butt because we won't tell them how to get well. And that's my story in a nutshell. I we were raised down on the hill to Texas and and drank like fish. And I was in the food business and drank a whole bunch and it started causing problems. But the fear and the depression and the tension and the anxiety that Myers was talking about started to kick my butt. And I started spending lots of time and effort trying to get rid of that internal discomfort. And I knew intuitively that the drinking had something to do with it. And I and I tried to stop often. Myers owned a business and was married, and I was in and out of a thousand relationships and didn't own a business. A lot of them. I didn't have the constraints on me, but I was just like so many of y'all in here functioning alcoholic. And later on in my in my drinking, other outside issues started playing a part. And I started taking some of those outside issues via my nostrils and which which compounded the problem and made it worse. You know, I still love it. I work for a treatment center and I do clerical work for a hospital down in Texas. And we get these little guys that come in and they're all fried pie and they've been on a six-day methamphetamine run, you know, and you come in, first question out of their mouth, well, are you depressed? It's like, no shit. You know? It's just like, absolutely. So we, you know medicate them and that'll fix you, buddy. No, it won't. Not if you're really one of us. That's my grinder. There ain't no pill out there that's going to fix us, folks. God fixes us. The spiritual experience fixes us People get confused They think the 12 steps fixes us If the 12 Steps is what fixed us We would have a self-help program Why do I need God? Make sense? God, I remember one time Gathering up all my books that I had. I'm a pretty avid reader and gathered up all my books. There were all these self-help books that people would send me and that I would buy every time I tried to get sober again, I'd buy another stack of self-Help books. And I'm going to, you know, and I remember going into a used bookstore. I was going to sell these dadgum things so I could get some money for some booze. AndI remember pulling up in front of this, this used bookstore and I could see the reflection of my old white pickup truck and leaning on one side, you You know, and I'm sitting there in my patches, you know, perpetually crooked. And I've got all these self-help books, you Know. And I just could not bring myself into bringing those in and selling them. Because the lady would look, you Now, and see. There was a dumpster there. And I Just got out of the truck and unloaded them all and threw them in the dumpster. Because I was just mortally ashamed of who I'd become. Um, in 1987, after seven years in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous, picking up chips, listening to you guys shove little one honors up my, I, uh, I tried to commit suicide. I don't want to die I just don't want to feel the way I'm feeling anymore people are so confused they they think we get drunk and we don't know what we're doing and we take our lives folks we know exactly what we're doing we've let Everybody down around us a thousand times and we have to look at ourselves in the mirror and know that we're going to do it again and again and again. And the person that's looking back in the mirrored me is not the person at my mom and dad raised. I have become something else. It's a terrible, horrible place to be. I heard a voice that night That said Chris don't do this Go back to AA After some discussion with that voice Because I don't want to ever go back to AAA I made a commitment to do just that And the next morning I heard the voice one last time And I went to a doctor Doggy Downers To start detoxing And at 6 o'clock that night I'm working for my twin brother In the binder they own And I went into this meeting. This guy that Myers referred to that had 12-stepped me years ago had showed me where this meeting was. He said, Chris, some little thumpers hang out there. That's where you need to go if you get ready to get sober. And so I immediately made sure that I never went to that meeting. I want to go into meetings and troll for somebody that can tell me how to fix my finances and maybe, if I'm lucky, get laid. And that's the truth. And I knew at those big thumper places that wasn't going to happen. So, but I was running late and I went to that meeting. And I believe it was one of my first spiritual experiences. I sat in that truck and I'm still arguing with myself. Chris, you know, you don't want to do this. You know, go back to Alcoholics Anonymous. Why? You've been in therapy for 10 years. You've done every medication known to man to treat this. You've Been in AA for seven. You've Done all this. What makes you think this is going to be any different? I didn't want to stop drinking that night any worse than I did in 1980 when I went to my first AA meeting. Y'all understand that? There was no big precipitating event. And I got out of that truck and I walked in the back door. And sure enough, every knucklehead in there was carrying a big book. And they were all laughing their butts off. And I hated their guts. If I'd have had a gun and I didn'T. and a little old girl got between me and the door and sat me down in a chair and sit down because I was backing out. I was so self-conscious. I knew they were laughing at me. It was all about me. And they weren't. They were just having a great time in sobriety. And I sat down in this chair next to this little girl, a little 19-year-old girl. I've said it from every podium I've ever talked about. I know that young adults love their young adult meetings. I think that's just great. But you know, this little Girl understood that she didn't have young adult alcoholism. She just had alcoholism, you know? And she was in the same damn room with the rest of us knuckleheads. Everybody wants their little specialty meetings. I have to go to my specialty meeting. I'm not knocking it. It's go, but come to Mainstream AA because if that little girl hadn't been in there that night, trust me, I'd have died. She snuck right in next to me, hooked her finger in my belt loop. I'll never forget it and sent me down in a chair. Sit down. Let me get you a cup of coffee. I mean, the courage of that girl to do that. And they went around the room and they shared miracles with me. This group of people, this guy had seen me up a thousand times, guys, and he didn't give me this, well, let's have a first step meeting. I hear people talk about it all the time. You know, well we're going to, we have a newcomer, let'S have a First Step Meeting. And then you knuckleheads want to go around and tell about how you got here. Like I don't know, you know. I know, I know. And listen, all of you that have heard my speech, this bristles you, you You know, because, well, Chris, all we have is our story. If that's all I've got, shame on me. The story without the solution is worthless. It's just a story. And those old timers understood. I didn't need to get pulled with another stupid war story. I'd had the DWIs. I'd have the blackouts. I'd pissed my pants. I've done all the stuff that you've done. You with me? Everybody laughs when we talk about this, guys, and then you go right back in the meetings to do it. I don't know what we can say. The book says we're supposed to pull the newcomer with a vision of life in sobriety. That's what we're suppose to do. But yet nobody seems... I should say, I know a lot of y'all that are doing it, but it seems to be such a novel idea. And those people that night pulled me with a vision. They talked about the stuff that I could understand. They didn't talk about little sunbeams for Jesus. They talked About stuff that i could understand guys i'm less than 24 hours away from a suicide attempt I owe everybody on the face of the earth and they talked about getting their credit cards back And getting a good job and making money and and being happy with that and getting in good relationships And I mean they they pulled me With a vision We laugh about it all the time The one I remember the most was the guy that said he had a car he had He had an inspection sticker, insurance, and a spare tire all at the same time. Man. The only thing that could have gotten my attention more is if somebody had said they knew Pamela Anderson. After the meeting, an old geezer came up. old guy, long-term sobriety. He came up after the meeting and they'd seen me up in North Texas for years, picking up desire chips. And he asked me point blank, he said, Chris, are you ready to do this? What I need to ask you, this is point blank. Are you done now? Guys, nobody in AA had ever asked me that question. They'd ask me, are You ready to stay sober today? You with me? And I'd say absolutely today because tomorrow I'm going to get thirsty, you know, but today I think I can pull it off. Guys, I'm going to tell you, the book is crystal clear. We're supposed to ask the newcomer and we're in the next hour when we get a chance to talk about sponsorship. I'm gonna talk about this qualifying thing. The guy asked me and I made the ultimate mistake and I said, well, you know, one day at a time. And he said, that's what I thought. And he got his coffee and he left the room. Why do we allow society to believe that if Bill Wilson had intended us for every day to wake up and make a decision whether we're going to get sober or not and stay sober, then he would have put it in this book. I think he didn't. He asked us if we want to live one day at a time, live one day at a time. Daily reprieve daily. That means every day. It doesn't mean that I wake up and decide to stay sober today. I am without the power of choice and drink. That's what my book says on page 24 buddies, page 24. I've lost the power of choice and drink that doesn't mean I ever get the choice back. That's why I need God. That is why I need the spiritual experience, so sanity returns. It's just that simple. But I didn't understand that seven years in AA. I believe if you come in and you just finally make a decision to stop, if you have enough willpower, you'll be able to do it. That thought philosophy, that line of thought got me to a suicide attempt in 1987 because I couldn't pull it off. And neither can you if you're the real McCoy. I'm going to say it again. Some of you in here may be not the real McCoy. Maybe you can on your own power stays over one day at a time. I can't. I chased the guy back into the coffee room and I said, ask me again. And he did. Chris, are you done? Would you like to try this journey for keeps? And I said yes. And he gave me one of them hugs that Myers was talking about. And the next morning they were on my doorstep to make sure I made it back to that AA meeting. Pissed me off. They followed me home. They didn't just pat me on the ass and said, come back tomorrow. Keep coming back. They they made sure that I made it back. Got back next morning. We went to a 10 o'clock AA meeting and afterwards we sat down with a book and we opened it up and they finished the qualifying process. They asked me point blank the questions that the book asked them to ask me to qualify, to make sure that i was an alcoholic or Chris, are you an alcoholic? Are you a drug addict? Are you both? We need to find out what room you need to go to. They did me the greatest service that they could do, but they took a little time to do it. Not long. It didn't take long. It's not that complicated. I was talking to somebody earlier. They were saying, well, I wish we were doing this conference longer. You know, we're talking about sponsorship and we're telling me this. You know we got to do this over a two day period. Why? It's not that complicated. If you're doing it the way the book says, it's pretty simple. That's what I'm excited about doing today. Anyway, we got up. I said, yes. He says, are you ready to do this deal? And I said absolutely. And we got in the back room and we got on our knees with three or four other guys and we did a third step prayer. Boom. Got up, went to, got some Mexican food, came back and I'm walking to the truck and the guy says, give me ten seconds, buddy, and I'll show you how to start your fourth step. You're detoxing. You feel like hell. You might as well go home and do some paperwork around this. You're not going to be able to sleep. What's the point, you know? and he was right I'm crazy and they gave me a notebook and they showed me how to start writing it and I went home and started working on my fourth step and I said oh that's too fast you can't even start thinking about a fourth step until you've been sober nine, ten months this is when I start speaking in tongues I show me in the book where it says that, you know, I don't know. And I started working on that two weeks later. I've got a completed fourth step. I'm ready to dump a fifth step and I set on my tailgate of my truck. I tried to explain it a thousand times. I just don't have the vocabulary to explain the spiritual experience, what took place. But it just it dawned on me sitting on the tailgate of that truck, that the obsession to drink had lifted. The obsession to do all those outside issues had lifted and I realized that I'm free. And I noticed the breath coming out of my mouth and I noticed a big full moon up in the sky and I notice the smells and I notice and for the first time in my adult life, I am experiencing what life is. Not the big experiences, just being, just existing. The great. I'll never forget that night. Walked up, washed dishes and cranked up some great music and and just enjoyed the night. Guys, that was 19 years ago when not once is the obsession returned because I did what the book asked me to do. And I had this experience with God. I knew about God when I was eating out of dumpsters in Houston, Texas, I knew about God, but knowledge about God is different from experience with God. We've got a whole bunch of people around the fellowship, exactly what Myers was talking about. People that have got out of treatment and they have a head full of knowledge, but they've not experienced the presence of God in their life. That happens as a result of doing certain things. That's what I guess one frustration with all of our fellowships is that we want to drag this experience out. We want spiritual experience is going to save your life, but you can't start doing the work to get that spiritual experience until you've been sober a certain amount of time. This is rubbish. This is ridiculous. You don't have to do it perfect. I get people call me all the time. Well, Chris, I work the steps this way. I work to set up. We do a third column extended inventory. We do have five column. I don't care how you do it. I don' t think it matters. I don''t think it matter how you d o the work as long as you d it. That's I've seen that too many. I think it's fascinating. I still go to book studies. I still want to see how you do it and grow bigger. As I get more sober, I can try different things and have a new experience with God. And I think that's all wonderful. But the very basic, simple stuff that will get us connected to this thing called God is right here in this book. And if you just make a stab at it quickly, rapidly, the miracle will take place. That's been my experience a thousand times. Y'all cool with that? one of the sad things that I get to watch and I get to hear, just like Myers, I get thousands of emails from all over the world thanks to the CDs and stuff. And I get phone calls out the kazoo all day long on that 800 number at the hospital from people who have had the same exact experience that I've had years in the fellowship dying, miserable and then they finally get hold of some little big book thumper who starts to take them through the work and they get out and start working with other alcoholics And all of a sudden, all the dots connect. It's like, oh, shee-wawa, this is what it's about. And the tragedy is that there's a lot of people out there that really would like to have this experience and be excited about their lives again. You with me? And the only reason that they can't have that experience is because they're in the wrong meetings. I get so sick and tired of listening to old-timers tell us when somebody goes back out and they want to flip it back in our lap and say, well, they just didn't want it. They just didn't want it. The question needs to be asked, did they not want it or did they never once hear the solution? That's what we have to look at. I sat in meetings for seven years and listened to people tell me, take your time to work the steps. I'm going to tell you something, folks. If anybody out here in the room is saying that, if you ever hear anybody say that, that's one exception that I will make to take exception with what somebody says. I don't go as a gunslinger into meetings and start shooting people down. I know enough about the book to be dangerous. You with us? I don' t want to strong arm anybody, but if I hear some idiot, some idiot say that, take your time to work the steps, what makes you think you've got time? Some great writers out there have done some great articles on this little window of opportunity that we have to get this message. We come in there, we get detoxed, and we start feeling pretty good. We see them in treatment all the time, guys. Three weeks in treatment, and they're bouncing off the walls. They look good, they feel good, they're ready to go set the world on fire. And everybody wants to talk about the pink cloud. This is a natural phenomenon that takes place with us, folks. A natural phenomenon. It is a period of grace that God gives us. And I believe for a specific reason. So that we can finish the work. and then we walk back into our fellowships and some old geezer that's been sober 30 years says, take your time to work these 12 steps. Remember, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Why does that always translate into take your Time to Work the Steps? I'm not saying do it half-assed, but I am saying do it quickly. While the window is open, while the obsession to use is gone, let's do this now. Because when the obsession comes back, you're going to go drink. Make sense? I. One of the things that we're getting to see today, we were talking to Mark and Myers earlier today about it as y'all were gathering in this room. And 10 years ago, we couldn't have put we we could have done a workshop like this and had 15 people in there. And most of those were there gunning for us, wanting to take exception with what we were saying. You'll follow what we're seeing today in Alcoholics Anonymous is this huge resurgence of people that understand that the solution is in the book, that the literature means what it says and can bring about a spiritual experience that will change your life forever. That it's not just about not drinking one stupid long day at a time. It's about a completely new existence on this earth. How cool it is to be a part of that. How cool is it to know a bunch of you guys in this room who are doing exactly the same thing? I mean, guys, the book, absolutely. The book gets crystal clear. The book says in the book. The book said in the boat, there's a line in the books that says. says we have recovered and been given the power to help others. That goes for all of us. Bill Wilson, up in the very front of the book where it says, in Bill's story he talks about each of us in our own way will go transmit this message. See? We've got little laddered-up knuckleheads in here that are storming around carrying the message and we've got people in here very quiet working behind the scenes. Each in our only way, as long as we're all on the same page and we understand what the solution is, which is the 12 steps and the spiritual experience, then each in our own way are going to be able to help so many people. You don't have to... I hear people, I wish I was just like you. God, I'm glad that there's nobody else out there just like me. I bet you some of y'all in here are too. You know, it's like one of me is enough. You in your own way. That's the fear that kept Myers from doing 12-step work for so long. That's The Fear That Kept Me From Doing 12-Step Work So Long. And those early guys in Alcoholics Anonymous, when I got back, they didn't give me an option. You go help us now. He's like, oh, OK, because they understood it. Me and my own way was going to be able to help somebody. I don't know who somebody all I had to do was suit up and show up. And that's the hardest thing to get people to do. And I'm excited about the next hour or so. So we're going to Be able to talk about this sponsorship deal, because this is far as I'm concerned, is the crux of the problem. Every problem that we have, tradition breaks, financial problems in AA, home groups in disarray. Every bit of that starts from piss poor sponsorship. Weak, weak, ineffectual sponsorship because we've gotten off the page. We don't seem to have a clear idea of what sponsorship was intended to be. And that's what I'm looking forward to talking about. Thank you so much.