Christopher S. from Sacramento, CA AFG speaker at "Sober and Free" gay/lesbian conference in San Jose, CA

This is sort of an encore. He's been in this community before. He moved to Sacramento and he has been an alknown speaker here before and I know that several of our those who've been in program for a period of time have heard him before. I believe it was 1988 when he spoke last. Anyway, our speaker is Christopher S.

From Sacramento. It's a wonderful story. It's been a lot of fun. A lot of people know him from program here. And without further ado, Christopher S.

Thank you very much. I'm so, so pleased to be here this morning. It's such a great feeling to be able to come into a room where you already know so many of the faces. It's very comforting. And I'm grateful to the committee to ask me to be here today to share my experience, strength and hope with you all.

Some asked me before the meeting, how would you to be introduced? And so, I was like, well, something simple. Girl used to be in San Jose Fellowship, makes her grand homecoming debut. Keep it simple. I'm so glad to have been a part of this fellowship at one time.

It was instrumental in my recovery and so many of you were a big part of that. So, I'm going to share just a little bit of what happened, what it's like what it was like, what happened and what it's like now. I was a little apprehensive after looking at your website because it's so fabulous. We don't have anything really that fabulous in Sacramento. And I just pointed out that I am coming to Silicon Valley.

This is the high-tech capital of the world. And so I thought, well, they're so sophisticated there. How will I be able to share my experience, strength and hope in a way that I can really connect with some of them? So, I developed this fabulous PowerPoint presentation. But of course, if I brought my laptop and set it all up, that would have been a little bit over the top.

So, I decided, if you will just suspend your imagination for moment and indulge me, I would like to present to you what it was like, what happened and what it's like now. In this first slide, you see the Capitol dome. It's the state capital. It's Sacramento. It's where I'm from.

It's where I was born, where I was raised, and I'll probably die there. But really, many worse things could happen. In this next slide, you'll see my family. We've got all of 5 of us kids and my mother is the one standing there with a beverage in her hands. Please do not make fun of my glasses or that I have my hand on my hip.

This was this was a great concern to me later in life and we'll get to that later. But, as you can see, we all sort of look happy and that was the space that we wanted really to present to the public. We weren't always successful, but we tried. In this next picture, we'll fast forward to high school because I only have 30 minutes. So, that's me in high school and I have to admit, I did take license with Photoshop in this one and put that cheerleading outfit on myself.

But it's really how I always wanted to look in high school. I was a mess. I was the oldest of 5 kids in an alcoholic home. And so, I often have this over developed sense of responsibility. My mother was a single parent.

You'll notice that my dad wasn't in that picture and that's because he left when I was at an early age. And so my mother started drinking and she would not come home sometimes until very late. And then as her drinking progressed, sometimes she didn't come home at all. And so, I really was sort of in charge. And this actually developed into a very symbiotic relationship that I had with my mother.

She was the main alcoholic in my life that brought me to the doors of Al Anon. But I have to tell you, since I've gotten here, I've gotten many other alcoholics in my life. And thank God for the 12 steps that have allowed me to coexist and live with other alcoholics in my life because some of them are in recovery, but some of them are not. And it's really okay. I'm allowed to coexist with alcoholics regardless of their drinking status.

So just before I graduated from high school, we moved to this house here in Citrus Heights. Yes, those are pit bulls in the front yard. My mother got into a relationship with a man who she became engaged to and he didn't like us. And so we moved out. I mean, not a mom, just us.

So 5 kids, we live down the street in a different house. And so when I started thinking about this when I got into recovery, it's like why did I always feel like I was in charge and taking care of people, it's because I was. And it was very difficult and very challenging to be sort of in high school and being the head of the household. And I can't say that there weren't any adults in the house because my sister was like 15 and her 24 year old boyfriend moved in with us. But this just speaks to the level of insanity that really had started to take hold of my family.

My mother's drinking as it progressed, things just became more insane. I became more insane. And so, I was determined to sort of take charge of my life and bring it all back. I should take a look at my watch, make sure I don't go over. Okay, so this next picture, me in my cap and gown, graduation, high school, yes, because I had sort of decided that that was going to be a turning point in my life.

I was going to move out, come out and sort of be my own person. And so, I did that all in one week. I got a job at College High, that was a retail clothing store in the mall. And, I had no sense of color or fashion, but I decided I needed a career. And so I moved out and sort of took care of myself.

I thought that would solve the problem, it did not, because I was constantly being drawn back to the insanity that was going on at home. And I would rush home to sort of rescue things when things fell into disrepair and it became very difficult. I contemplated suicide quite often and it's really a miracle that I thrived. So, I decided I needed to fix that. I should probably stop at this point and show you a picture of my drug of choice.

And that would be this gelatinous ooze, which is a chemical in our body and it is known as, I'm sorry, I'm having a difficult time today. I wanted to be more than I was when I was growing up. And so, I sort of had an addictive behavior from the very start. And it's hard sometimes to look back on my family, but I want to stop and I want to say I'm not a victim. I've never been a victim.

And I've let go of a lot of those feelings because when I first came to Al Anon, I felt very done on. I don't feel that way today. The steps have freed me from that feeling. And so, I'm able to sort of move in and out of different groups today at work, at play, in my family, in my relationship with my partner. And all that really is a gift of the program.

But this gelatinous ooze is adrenaline and that's my drug of choice. And I was drawn to it and alcoholics are great source of adrenaline. If you didn't know that already. And so, I would sort of be drawn to alcoholics because they provided the insanity that I had been used to growing up. So, here is The Rec Room.

That is the 1st gay bar that I went to. And in that bar, it started to lap and I didn't falling down, but that's okay because the outside look like my inside self. I found my first external solution to my internal problem and he was sitting on his bar store and his name was John. And he was the first of many alcoholics that I would encounter and that would sort of fix me for the moment. And it didn't work.

So, I found another and that one didn't work. So, I found another. And this was a pattern that I repeated many times over. And I decided that there was a problem, a very serious problem that needed to be addressed. And the problem was that's right, the Capitol dome again, Sacramento was the problem.

I needed to leave. So I joined the Navy. That's me in my little outfit. Because it seemed like a solution at the time, it would get me out of town, I would find a new life, I would do new things, I would go to fabulous places, join the Navy Seals of the World, be all I could be, all that stuff that we hear. And so I went and started off in fabulous locations like at Disney World because I was in Orlando, Florida and I was in boot camp there.

In the next slide, you will see me with my company in Boot Camp. That's me standing there with the L flag. I was a flag bearer, they called us the fag bearers, because me and these 3 other girls who were in the company, we all marched in the front of the company with the flags. In the Navy, when you pass an inspection, they awarded your company with a flag. So I carried the L flag because we had passed the locker inspection.

So in secret, they call me Laverne because I had the L. And then the physical fitness inspection was carried by Penelope. And then, of course, the M flag for our military bearing award was carried by Mary. And so we all marched in the front of the company and I got to be the cheerleader I always wanted to be in the Navy. And so, I eventually moved on to other fabulous locales, The swamp would be Mississippi and then this skyline is the Motor City, Detroit.

So as you can see, I went to fabulous places in the Navy. Detroit is very profound for me though, because it's eventually where I got recovery. So let me tell you how I got here to the program of Al Anon. So I'm 2,400 miles away in Detroit thinking, okay, my family's business no longer affects me. I'm free.

I am no longer bound by that responsibility that I had when I was growing up. But I would get these phone calls and of course they were just erratic phone calls, sometimes my mother would be drunk, sometimes my family would be screaming, and I was a bundle of nerves. I was a wreck. And so, I would consistently be drawn to that drama and I was really grateful that I first sponsor, here he is, in his little Navy outfit, he was in the Navy too, Dale was my first sponsor and he 12 set me in this program of Al Anon. So I went to my first meeting and it was wonderful.

It was wonderful and it was awful at the same time. First of all, there's many things I did not understand. You all spoke a different language, which I did not understand. The other thing was there was laughter going on. I didn't comprehend that because alcoholism is a serious business, drunk is not funny, and I didn't understand how we're supposed to get them sober if we're spending our time sitting here laughing.

But the other thing was that there seemed to be a piece and a calm that I did not know anything about and I desperately wanted to know what that was about. So, I stuck around and thank God I stuck around. That was actually in October of 1984. I had my first slip in November of 1984. And so I know there's probably alcoholics in the room going, how do they do that?

Well, I'll tell you. My mother called and she had actually hit a bottom and she was in bed and she would not get out of bed. She was incapacitated and was convinced that she was dying physically and spiritually. And so, she just decided she would never get out of bed ever again. And so of course my brothers and sisters called me and they urged me to come home And eventually the Red Cross called me and said, you have a family emergency, you need to go home.

And so, I went home. And when I came in to see my mother, she was in fact in bed and had been for some time. And I thought this is great. I'm in Al Anon now. Certainly, I can just convey to her what these 12 steps are.

She's going to go to AA, get her life together, it will be fabulous. I mean, I had it all scripted, but she didn't get her copy. So, that wasn't the reaction that I got. And so, I started to revert to what I knew, which was to pull out all the manipulating tools that I had, which was the guilt, the children really need you to get out of bed, you really need to get out of that bed. I reverted to threats, you better get out of the bed or else you better get out of that bed or else.

And my favorite, which is the passive aggressive sort of I'm not going to speak to you, let's get out of that bed. Since then, of course, I've learned all about being passive aggressive. My sponsor talked to me and said, well, Christopher, if you're actively, actively giving someone the silent treatment, how passive aggressive is that? So, I really watch out. That's one of my signals that I'm reverting to what I used to do, and I don't want to do that anymore.

Thank God for the course of the steps. I've been free. Let's talk about the steps before I have no time left. Okay, here they are, all 12 of them. I saw them when I came here and I said, no, no, no, no, I will do that one there.

I don't need that one there. I don't have any amends to make. And so this sort of pick and choose approach did not work. It did not work for me. I found myself in trouble every time I tried to take that approach.

And so eventually, I learned about what it takes to be a recovery member in the program of Al Anon. One major element that it takes is willingness and an open mind. And then there of course there are many of the other suggestions that we hear like get a sponsor and go to meetings and all those things. And through that I was able to dispel some of the myths of Al Anon. So, I'd like to just point out a couple of the myths today.

One of them is, and we talked about it last night when I was visiting Patty and Sue, is this is not meant to embarrass you, this is so we can get to know you better. Actually, there is a certain level of embarrassment that comes in by having to raise your hand, it's just part of the package, there's no way around it. But what happens is, it's a humbling experience, one of many that is yet come. And what we find is through these humbling experiences, we hopefully gain humility. And this is a very, very important element to any long term recovery, regardless of what program you're speaking of.

Because without humility, I believe I can do it myself. And when I start with down that path, I'm in trouble, which we'll talk about in a second, because I did get in trouble with that sort of mentality. The second myth I want to dispel is that Al Anon is a selfish program. Okay, Al Anon is not a selfish program. I mean, I sort of bought into it for a little while, but then I thought, well, I've got all this great advice, I'm giving it out freely.

You know, how selfish is that? You know, and I and I gave you advice, you know, and I gave you great advice, you know, and talked about you at length, If you happen to be in the room to get the advice, that was a bonus. Al Anon's when gathered together as a group spend their time talking about alcoholics, huge myths, huge. I mean, if the methodology of my little speak up here hasn't already convinced you that I'm absolutely insane, I don't know what else will, okay? So the process of recovering from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body is very time consuming.

And I assure you, it leaves very little time to talk about you, very little time. When I pack my back to go to the Al Anon meeting, there is no room left in my purse for your issues. Okay. Now, this myth and this is really, really one of my favorites. These 12 steps are but suggested.

Yes, that's true. That's what we say. But the reality is that I suggest that you take in a breath after you exhale 1 and continue ad infinitum if you like that feeling of consciousness and if you would like to continue living. It's really that simple. The word pull on a ripcord when you're jumping out of plane, that's a good suggestion to follow.

I had a I mean, I had a sponsor recently who said, do I really have to do this? I mean, after all, there are suggestions, there are no have tos in Al Anon and I could not argue. That is true. There are no have tos. But we have damn well betters ad infinitum.

We have plenty of those. So, think of it as one of those. I have been blessed in that I was able to get recovery and I was able to work through some of the steps. I did 1, 2, 3. I need to point out that the meetings in Detroit are very different than they are probably anywhere else, but certainly different than they are here in San Jose when I moved here.

And that is that there are tables set up and whatever step you're on is what table you go to. And this was very difficult concept for me to grasp because I was always at the first step table and that made me mad because I wanted to be over at the 12 step table where I was sure they were talking about how really to keep people sober. And so, I would work my way up and I would get frustrated because I would get to 3 and that's where I would stop and then I would have to go back to 1. And I did this 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 for a very long time. I was asked to speak at a conference as an Al Anon speaker in 1987.

So So by this time, I had like 3 years in Al Anon and my sponsors said that I couldn't accept the invitation because I hadn't worked the steps. I was still on 3, 3 years into the program. I thought it was like a step year program thing. And how can you really talk about the steps? How can you transmit something you haven't got?

And so, we agreed that I would do my 4th and 5th and I could go to this conference. So, he just sent me the most wonderful email the other day because he reminded me of my first 5th step in that little CRX car that he had driving to Toronto was a 4 hour trip and that was where I got to relieve myself of the burdens that I had been carrying for so long. And what I got to get from that experience was that so much of what I had done before was circumstance. Circumstances is what brought me to Al Anon. And if you stay here long enough, your circumstances improve, but that doesn't mean that I'm not still a co alcoholic.

It's very important that I keep that in mind. And I call myself a co alcoholic because when I arrived in 1984, that's what we call ourselves, at least in Detroit. And words like codependent and other words didn't really come about until later. But I like the term co alcoholic because it really for me sort of defines the parallel that I have, the symbiotic relationship I have with alcoholics. When they're on a roller coaster ride up, so am I.

When they're on the roller coaster ride down, I'm sitting right next to them. And the reason I'm feeling like I have no control is because oftentimes I am not driving. I want to think I'm driving. I want to think I'm in control. I want to think that I'm really running the show, but the reality is that control is an illusion.

I finally did get the first step, stepping back just a second, I got the first step very clearly and recognized that I had no power, no control over what my alcoholic says. I eventually moved here to San Jose. So, there is the skyline. Of course, that was the skyline in 1987, so just pretty much the Vermont, everything else is sort of smallish. And if this had a soundtrack, maybe you'd hear Dionne Warwick singing, if you know the way.

So, here I am and it was a great fellowship, really embraced me, made me feel welcome, made me feel cared for and it's really what I needed at that time because I was going through some serious stuff in my life and I really needed the support of fellow co alcoholic to pull me through that. And when I trusted in that power, because there were times when I didn't feel like I had a God in my life, when I trusted that the power could reside in the group, even if temporarily, I was okay. And so I would go to meetings to get that power because there is no substitute for meetings. Along the lines of not being able to transmit something you haven't got, by the same token, you cannot receive something you're not present to get. And so, there is no substitute for meetings.

If you're not making the meetings of Al Anon, you're definitely selling yourself short. So, many of the suggestions that we get are so very good. And as long as I maintain an open mind and continue to work towards those, I'm actually doing pretty well. So, what happened when I got to San Jose? Well, one, I met my partner Rob.

So, I'll introduce him. We've actually been together for a while now. Rob is an alcoholic, I can say that. And so, great, I got another alcoholic in my life, but I'm improving. This one's in recovery.

Okay. So that was a new thing for me because I hadn't had recovering alcoholics in my life. I'd only had using ones even when I first moved to San Jose, I grasped on to an active Coke user and that was another story. So, this is really new and interesting. We decided we were going to go slow.

We weren't going to move in together or anything like that and then that Loma Prieta thing happened. And so, he moved in with me for just a short time, while he looked for his own place and to this day, I still have to throw the classifieds at him once in a while and say look harder. But it takes what it takes. And if it's meant to be, it's meant to be. And so, I have let go a lot of trying to decide what's best.

So moving through the steps, I already talked about my 4th and 5th and the 6th step talks about being entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character. It's important for me to be entirely ready at all times, not pick and choose which defects I want him to remove because I do that too. And that of course predicts step 7, which talks about humbly asking them to remove the shortcomings. If I'm just saying, no, this is what you need to take, but don't take this one, because I really like that one. Well, that's not humbly.

And then, the 8th step we talk about making the list of amends. And I need to tell you that by this time by the time I got to the 8th step, my sponsor had moved. Dale, my sponsor had moved to San Diego. So, I decided I would just do this by myself. I didn't need a sponsor right away anyways.

And so, I set about to do my 8th 9th step. And what I sort of read was that I needed to make a list of all the people who had harmed me and I need to become willing to give them all. And so in my nights that I actually did that, I actually went to people and said, you know, I need to sit down and talk with you. I need to let you know this is what you did to me, and it's okay. I'm over it.

People do not accept that as graciously as I expected they would. And if you want to talk about humility, let's talk about going back and making your amends for the way you made your amends. What I need to remember is that co alcoholism is a disease of the mind and body. And therefore, the answer is not there. Walking through the steps without the Eva sponsor is akin to walking through a bad chaperoned, and my mind is certainly a bad neighborhood.

So, I try and remember that and keep connected to other co alcoholics. And I did use the word disease that always raises eyebrows sometimes because I don't know that people grasp the seriousness of co alcoholism and how debilitating it is. And we have a hard time with the medical sort of connotation that's attached to the word disease, think of it as disease. Co alcoholics are certainly at disease. We can probably agree on that.

So, if that's what works for you, then grasp on to that. But, co alcoholism is certainly a disease and I really wanted to recover from it. So, I did what I was told in the rooms here and I'm blessed today. I'll fast forward because I really have very little time left, But I finally made it to Sacramento, which was my real homecoming. I got out of the Navy because I was stationed here at Moffett Field until 'ninety one.

And when I got out, I said, okay, I'm moving back to Sacramento, which Rob, of course, jumped on the bandwagon wholeheartedly. And we moved Sacramento and that's where I'm at now. I'm in a career that's very different from the Navy. I coordinate the Gay and Lesbian Center at UC Davis right now. And so, that's a huge change obviously from what I was doing here.

And I would like to tell you it's a huge improvement, but at times it is really not. But what I've got now is the steps. And more importantly or as equally importantly I should say is I've got the traditions. Because when I first got here, I was told that the traditions are to the group what the steps are to the co alcoholic. And I don't believe that anymore, because I've been able to apply those traditions in my life as a regular person and find relief from the insanity.

If anything, I believe maybe, okay, the steps keep us from committing suicide and maybe the traditions can keep us from committing homicide. But, I use them. We were talking about this last night. I've really got some stuff going on at work and it's really been insane. And so, I've looked at the Traditions and what jumps out is Tradition 10.

We were just actually talking about tradition 10 last night at a meeting I was at. And that is that we have no opinion on outside issues. So, at work, we have like a mission statement, which I sort of believe in because otherwise I probably wouldn't be there. And so, all this drama that's been going on, which is sort of fed into my adrenaline, doesn't have anything to do with what's going on at work. And yet I insist on voicing my opinion and letting people know what I think and how I feel.

And I don't need to do that. In fact, it's probably a more sane idea if I don't do that, because people not always come over to my way of thinking and that's what makes me crazy, because I want people to change. I want them to invest their thoughts and actions into what I would have them do. And that is a very dangerous place for viscoalcoholic to go. So I've been working on letting that go and it's been very challenging for me, it's been very challenging.

And I don't know that I would be able to do without the support of the fellowship that I have in the program of Aleron. I have a home group, it's actually in Davis and I really love the meetings there. They are very small. There is only like I think it's like 5 people in my home group and it fluctuates to maybe 6. But I'm grateful and I'm going to wrap this up because I don't want the tape to run out.

But I want to point out the one thing that I really have gotten from the program of Al Anon, and that would be this. It's a mirror. And the beautiful thing about that is that if we look in there, we see different things. If you all look in there, you see all of you. And I certainly have been given that.

I have been given the wisdom that you have imparted on me through your experience, strength and hope. And as long as I remain open to that, I'm actually doing okay. When I look at it, I see myself. That's another thing I've gotten that you've all given me. You've given me a sense of self and self worth and self love and hope.

I have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body that I live in every day. And being free from the bondage of that has actually come from all of you. And so there is no way that I could possibly repay you back for what you've given me. But what you've asked me to do is to use the 12 Step to carry that message to other people who have families of alcoholics who are suffering. And that's my responsibility.

For that, I'm responsible. So, and part of that was being asked to come here today and share with all of you. So, hopefully, we did a little bit of that today. Thanks.