The CPH12v3 conference in Copenhagen, Denmark

Good morning. My name is Chris Kramer. I'm a recovered alcoholic. Hi, Chris. It's good to see you guys here.

I didn't think be here on Sunday morning. I in the States, you know, everybody comes Saturday night and then they sleep. Sunday morning, nobody you know? But if you die hards we're in a country of die hards, aren't we? This is great.

I gotta tell you I have enjoyed this weekend. Still no sleep, but what the heck? You know? I have enjoyed this weekend. I I gotta thank our hosts.

There have been so many people that have carved us around and taken us places and, I just I mean, wonderful hospitality. I'm sure every speaker y'all ever heard said the same thing. Thank you for your but I'm we're we're talking about it this morning. We're pretty well blown away by y'all's kindness. It's so great to see all our buddies from England that we've met before and, the little knuckleheads from Iceland.

You know, it was it was great to always good to see those psycho buckaroos and we're we're absolutely honored to to have had the chance to come over here and see this, boom. We were laughing about it yesterday walking through downtown. You know, everybody's so kind. I mean, it's it sounds like I'm I'm patronizing you, but it's just, you know, nobody's honking horns. Nobody you know, you get out in New York or any of the big cities, you know, and you you slow down for a minute to look at something, you got 6 people pushing you over.

You know, it's like, get out of my way. You know, going fingers, honking horns. Just standard procedure. And and they they even do it in Texas. You know what I mean?

It's just it's fast paced. And here everything you know, even the revolving doors are slow. I'll get run over. We get back into Chicago at the airport we'll have we'll be de acclimated. We'll have to re acclimate ourselves to the stupid states.

And so I don't know. I'm speechless about this place. I'll be thinking about you guys for the rest of our lives. That's the truth. I, as always before I get a chance to speak, I I need to kind of tell you a little bit where I'm coming from.

A lot of y'all have heard CDs of mine. Y'all heard tapes of mine, and, I I am evil and, it's funny how many of you said, You're not quite what I thought you would look like. I'm not sure what y'all thought I would look like, but you're not what I thought you would look like either, you know? So, there you go. The the CDs are cool.

The tapes, you know, the the message gets to to travel around. But a lot of times people will get these CDs and the and the introduction's cut off in the front and they just get a piece of it. They hear me ranting and raving. I think, god, this guy is just angry. He's just pissed off.

You know, he's just, you know, I don't I don't know. Very rigid, you know, and they they don't understand where I'm coming from. So I wanna make sure that, at least here, that you guys understand where I'm coming from. I I love Alcoholics and Mamas, and, I love our sister fellowships. I love the 12 steps, and I'm alive today because of that.

And there you go. And, and I'm alive today because of that. And because of people like you and people that cared enough about me to tell me the truth, and, and I feel like I have a responsibility to carry that message on. So, you know, it's it's like I'm not near as a polished speaker as Myers and Alicia. I I, I wish I was.

I would I wish I could just come up here and tell my little story and go home. But you see, my story involves, AA abuse. You know, my story involves some controversy. And open discussion meetings, listen to people talk about their problems, sit in open discussion meetings, listen to people talk about their problems endlessly. You may just love to hear those war stories, and you may be sober 40 years.

I'm so happy for you. I'm tickled to death. That's not my that's not my my experience. We we got to share with a bunch of y'all, yesterday in our workshops. You know, one of the big problems that we have in the country one of the big problems, I'll say this, in Alcoholics Anonymous period, is that we have a preponderance of open discussion meetings where people can talk about anything they want, and they do talk about anything they want.

They talk about everything except the message we're supposed to talk about. And I feel real strongly about that that we are are heading towards the the cliff of which there's no return unless we reel this back in. And I'm gonna say it again because your experience may not be the same as mine. You may love those meetings. You may find what I'm saying offensive, and I apologize going in the door.

I'm not trying to be offensive. I'm I'm trying to share my experience and I can't change my experience. I could come up with a new story maybe. I was a mercenary down in South America and, no. That's bullshit.

That's not true. True. You know, I just I was a cook in the hill country. You know, I was raised down in hill country and, jeez. I, I, we started drinking in high school just like everybody else, keg beer, you know, with and it's just was I was kind of a late bloomer.

I was about 17 years old when I first started to drink, and, thank God there was alcohol for me because I was always a little a little uncomfortable in my own skin. You'll see me out there smoking, you know, a little little they say, Chris, you just seem so distant. That's me. I'm a shy I'm the shyest person in this room. That's a fact.

Until I do this, 5 seconds after I get off this podium, I'll go back to being a shy person. That's just Y'all don't believe that. I hope that girl with this porn coffee believes that though. That's kinda sexy. I tell you, Danish women.

Myers comes across as mister spiritual, you know. Today I look I look at no other women. I do. I'm happily married. I love her to death.

Danish women. Get Patty to change her name to older or something. I, It's German isn't it? I, Always uncomfortable in my skin, and when I started drinking everything started, feeling a little bit better. We were talking some of the cats earlier to today.

A lot of y'all had the same experience with me, and I think in Alcoholics Anonymous we have this misunderstanding that that AA is about just about not drinking. You know, our sister fellows with cocaine and on just just don't do the cocaine. And that guys, that's not what this is about. That's what that's what we're led to believe. One day at a time, you can stay sober.

It's great. But if that's all you do is one day at a time, not drink, and you think your life's gonna get better, you are in for a rude awakening. If you're new in this room and you think that that's the problem, you're you're must you've got to read this book and understand what the problem is. My problem is not drinking. My problem is alcoholism.

It's a disease, fatal, progressive, genetic. Unless it's treated, my mind will take me back to the drink. Or if I'm in a position where I've got some sobriety under my belt, some dry time, it may take me to the end of a of a gun. Because I can't live not just not drinking. I I must have the spiritual experience so that I can get comfortable in my own skin.

Y'all y'all with me? We've talked about this a lot this weekend, and it's still so controversial, because I hear people in meetings all the time say, if you if you just don't drink, because I hear people in meetings all the time say, if you if you just don't drink, you've had a successful day. But just you know, all of us have proved that in sobriety. We've done crazy things. We're we're goofy.

We can't it's just it's it's not working for us. You know? We're not happy. I mean, guys, this is about being happy. There's a lot in the book that says it's the great obsession of every abnormal drinker to be able to control and enjoy his drinking.

This is all about being able to enjoy life. And if if you're sitting in these rooms and you're miserable, you're missing what this all is all about. But if you're just not not drinking, you're gonna be miserable. There's there's got to be more. In my experience, I I was in the food business.

I was a professional chef for about 15 years. While I'm thinking about it, I wanna thank the cooks. The the my little buddy that cooked the food. Wonderful. I don't know what some of y'all have been eating the last couple of days, but we've been dining like kings since, blessing for doing all that hard work.

But that's what I did for a living. I was a I was a, cook. And wasn't because I was a particularly good cook, but I was fast. You know, I was pretty quick. And, living better chemically, you know, I I discovered early on a thing called methamphetamine and alcohol was a pretty good combination, and you could work a lot and, you know, don't need to sleep and so, But I was never really very happy doing that.

I I, enjoyed the business, but, I was crazy and, not a happy camper inside. And I started early on moving. A lot of us in Texas, we move around a lot, and you could move forever and not even I mean, Texas is a big place. But I I moved to Houston right after high school, and then I moved to Austin, Texas, our capital there. And, then I moved to Atlanta, Georgia, then I moved to Dallas, then I moved back to Houston, then I moved to Kerrville, then I moved to a little town called Vernon, Texas.

It went y'all live there? It's like some of y'all. You move a lot. Back and forth between Iceland and Denmark, I understand, is a good cure for alcoholism. You know?

It didn't work in that. But the damn it. You know, I get there and guess who's there. You know? Me.

And and it's in my head. I'm believing as we talked about yesterday that that if I could just change a few things in my life, everything would be okay. You know, the spiritual malady that the book talks about is on me. At 17, it was on me. You know, irritable, restless, discontent.

Depression, boredom, no sense of direction. Go ahead, listen. I mean, I just this feeling of uselessness. You know, that we talked a lot about codependency in our fellowships. You know, the book talks about this constant need of others approval, and that's me.

See? I don't I hate myself. I don't like who I am. I'm not good enough looking. I'm not nothing's good enough.

No matter how much money I'm making, it's not good enough. And I spent 20 years drinking and drugging, trying to organize my outside life so I could finally get okay in here. You know? God, if I could just if I could just get out of this stupid kitchen and get up to that other kitchen, everything would be okay. I'm not doing If I could just buy that little barbecue restaurant, everything would be okay.

You know? If I could just get the catering company, you know what I'm saying? Instead of drinking, you know? If I could just get in sales, you know, salesmen, they don't drink. I'd give me a white white shirt with a little chicken chip clip on tie, you know, you know, and I'd be a little salesman, have a little briefcase.

I'd be sitting out by the lake reading the 1 ads with a 12 pack of beer on the floor of my truck, you know, just because I have got strength. I've got to treat this internal condition. The only time I feel normal is when I've got alcohol in my body. Normal drinkers and drug dealers, people out there, your family members, they don't understand thing the case, but guys this stopped being a party for me a long time ago. You know one one day I had it, and the next day it had me.

Now it's telling me what to do, and it's a terrible place to be. They don't understand that. See? When I'm drinking, I'm okay inside, comfortable. I've said this from a podium.

I offended somebody one time by doing it. I'm gonna say it again. When alcohol and drugs was working for me, I was a better person because of it. And I think all of you guys could agree with that. Isn't that the truth?

I remember I remember in the late seventies, you know, it was the disco era in the in the United States. I don't know if disco ever hit Denmark but you know God, let's hope not but you know, we'd we'd go to the disco techs and I'd have a couple of drinks, you know, and I'd catch myself in the mirror and and have to take a double take. It was just like John Travolta was there, you know? I'd get out on the dance floor and show I it's just I with alcohol, I could do a lot of that stuff. I could balance my checkbook, I could ask you for a date, I could go get a job, but without alcohol I I I couldn't wash clothes, I couldn't go get groceries, I couldn't do anything.

Makes sense? It does it to most people. They I know. Busted. I know.

In, about 1980, I've I spent some years in therapy trying to organize my little life, trying to help, and I've benefited from a lot of that therapy. I know we have some therapists in the audience, and and I gotta tell you, therapy is wonderful. And if you're new in recovery, old in recovery, And you've got a few extra shekels to throw away, therapy is great. Therapy is great. But I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I was because that was big in the States.

There's gotta be a reason that you can't stop drinking. You with us? Low self esteem. That's it. So we'd we'd go to therapy and they'd give us a list of positive affirmations and I and I would read the positive affirmations every morning and look at myself.

You know, it's it's like, you know, I'm a a beautiful child of God. I tell you if in therapy or in treatment if that's if that's the best we can come up with is positive affirmations, we are so screwed. You know what I'm saying? I gotta say it's like me standing naked in front of the mirror. I do have a big dick.

I do have a big dick. I hope that coffee girl didn't just hear that. Anyway, you wanna feel good about yourself? I'm gonna tell you something. The coolest thing in the world, you wanna raise your self esteem about 400 notches.

Sit down down across the table from some little busted up drunk sometime and share your experience, strength, and hope with him and watch that little sparkle, that little hope get into his eyes and says, you mean I can wake up sometime in the next few days and the obsession to drink will be gone and watch that look on his face? Buddy, you'll walk out thinking you just saved the world. You'll feel better than you ever put in. Anyway, I got a I got a reader's digest condense this because it's it's a couple things I wanna share with you besides positive affirmations. I ended up in Houston, I was living with my brother if I remember correctly.

I spent a lot of time living with Myers. Thank God for family. You know? I can I can make a car payment, but I can't can't make a car payment in an apartment? You know?

So you you you kind of double up and, I have the ability to earn a lot of money, but I'm I'm I'm not. I've been drinking and spending it on drugs and stuff. So, I, there was a woman in there I met in the bar, and, she's working at a bar where Myers Myers used to tin bar. I thought it was his best customer, and I'd come in and visit. And I fell in love with this little girl, and and she was a nice egg.

And I remember go going out to the parking lot, there y'all know that here ever hear the Astrodome? You know, this is kind of in the shadow of the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. I remember thinking, god, if you could let this girl marry me, everything's gonna be great. You know? Because I'm a I'm pushing 30 years old.

It's time for me to grow up. Settle down. You know? Maybe have kids. Do something stupid like that.

And, thank god I didn't. And, I I asked this girl to marry me eventually, a few weeks later and she said yes and I mean short boom boom boom, you know, we're married. And, it's one of those deals, you know, I'm I'm sitting at a little garage apartment where I live there and and, geez. Maybe 2, 3 weeks married watching her eat, shovel those Cheerios in her mouth and I'm saying, god, you could just kill this woman. Everything would be okay.

It's I'm no I'm I'm I know I'm back into therapy trying to figure out was it what was it? You're talking about everything under the sun, mom, dad, you know. Tell us about your childhood. Every therapist is tell us about your childhood. Just unbelievable.

How are you you potty trained? What position did you sleep at night? What? Where were you born? All this we talked a lot about Vietnam.

You know? We talked a lot about the traffic. We I've never been to Vietnam, but we talked a lot about Vietnam. I gotta tell you, we were talking to to my buddies in England about this when I was over there at a CA deal. You know, we spent a lot of time every therapist I ever talked to, we spent a lot of time talking about my sexuality, Because, you know, a lot of us have hang ups around sex, a lot of problems around there.

And we she seemed to believe that that if I could finally get clear around my sexuality, that I could break free of this shame and guilt that's perpetuating my alcoholism. Fuck god. I wanted to be gay. I mean I thought this would be a good thing, you know. Because then I had I could I could blame it on something, you know.

But I'm not. And and it's like Can can y'all get to see where I'm going? So many of us, have grasped at straws. What is it that's causing me to drink? Is it being gay?

Is it being black? Is it being abused? Is it being the traffic? Is it the job? Is it the poverty?

Is it mom? Is it dad? Is it something? But see nobody's ever gonna tell us that it's a disease. Genetically, we were born with it.

Nobody with diabetes sits around and says, gosh, how did I get this terrible disease? I mean, what caused it? You know, nobody talks about that. They were born with it. It's genetic.

It's like being allergic to a food. It's no more complicated than that. If you have it, your body will not metabolize alcohol like normal people. It's just this simple. I have a physical allergy.

I can't control it when I put it in my body. Simple. Coupled with a mental obsession. Control it when I put it in my body. Simple.

Coupled with a mental obsession. I can't stop when I wanna stop. You'll doubt with that? That's alcoholism. And if you can relate to that, It doesn't have anything to do with my drama.

Can my drama exacerbate the problem? Can my drama make it worse? Yes. Of course it can. That's why some good therapy is great.

That's why working these steps, finishing a stupid 4th step, making those amends, cleaning up the wreckage of your past will help you walk into some free air. But my drama does not cause the disease. 2 years married to this woman. We're living in Denton, Texas, and, we have a little domestic disturbance, and, I promised this woman that I would never take another drink. And, and 2 weeks later, I drank.

And she was not a happy camper. And she packed her stuff and moved back to Houston, and I think I moved back in with Myers. And, but what it did for me, it put me into the system there and MHMR got hold of me. This mental health and and, what is it? Mental health and mental retardation something.

It's in the mental health services with alpha. And and so we we, I ended up at another therapist's couch, but this one was a licensed chemical dependency counselor. And this this cat knew about alcoholism. And he's looking at me and looking at my chart, you know, and looking at all the stuff. And I'm taking handfuls of antidepressants and he said, Chris, buddy, you know, I don't know about this manic depressive stuff.

I'm not real sure about your bipolar and this anxiety, this I'm not sure. But I can tell you by looking at this, you're a drunk. You're an alcoholic. You know, I was pissed. You know, I mean, I was I don't mind being crazy, but I don't wanna be a drunk.

You know? We got standards. And so she said you need to get your butt to an AA meeting. And so I said I would, and and I did. And I I went to my first AA meeting.

I'm watching the clock because I don't wanna get too long with this, but I remember my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. It was at downtown Denton, Texas. And, I checked the address and it's there's there's a little side outside and I walk and look. It's pitch dark outside and it's dark up these steps, these big steps. And, no, there wasn't 12 steps.

I don't remember how many. It was just old old it was an old dirty damn warehouse is what it was. We walked up these creepy steps and at the end of this room, there was a one little light bulb hanging down on a lamp. And back over in the corner, there was this old geezer. Old geezer.

Leaning back in an easy chair. I didn't know if he was dead or not. And my eyes get get adjusted. It's like Marfrig's, you know, in Houston, you know, you gotta see your eyes get adjusted. And I look at him and there's 3 other people in the room too.

There's 3 other ladies in there and me, you know And he says, do you have a problem with alcohol? It's like a freaking seance, you know? Yes. I think I do. I'm drunk.

I mean, I got a quart of beer open in the truck. Yes. I got a problem with alcohol. And he says, welcome. Sit down.

So I sat down. Pitch dark. Right? Sit down. This deal.

And we went around and talked. One of the ladies had a husband that was drinking, so we talked about her husband's drinking and what she could possibly do to get him to come out of his office. That was my first AAB. We talked talked we did a couple of the other ladies that shared a little bit, you know. One little lady shared a little war story.

She just got out of jail and was here. And and, oh, by the way, can you sign my court paper? And so it was like and I'm sitting there thinking, well, this is great. You know, this is super. I finished my first AA meeting.

Don't know any more about this than the man in the moon. You with us? Please come back. I I will. Walking down the stairs you know thinking you know when hell freezes over?

I says what was that about? I get drunk, I get in trouble, I go back to AA. And I'm trying these meetings, and I'm showing up drunk, and I'm trying these meetings, and I'm showing up sober, but I can't stay sober because when I go to the meetings, we're not talking about anything under the sun except here it is. Problems. You with me?

Yeah. And war stories. I work at a treatment center in in, Texas. I do clerical work for a treatment center. I'm not a therapist or counselor.

We we Alicia and I, we run a little store, and we do follow-up calls to the alumni. One of our cool jobs is to help, alcoholics and addicts get connected to the 12 step community after they leave treatment. Because we know when they connected, they stay sober. When they don't get connected, they don't stay sober. Treat treatment centers don't crank out sober people.

Treatment centers crank out dry people. Right? You with us? The spiritual experience is not taking place in treatment. It's gonna take place out here.

When we try to get them connected to good big book thumpers, trust me. We get anybody from Denmark, I got a bunch of names that I can send people to here, because a bunch of UCATS would be great great sponsors. Go down with that. But when these guys come to this hospital, first thing we do is we get a chance to love on them when they're down in SCU and they're hurting and feeling lousy, and it and we we've seen this a 1000 times. They'll look up on the wall and they'll see the 12 steps and they'll go, oh no.

You know they just spent a huge chunk of money committed to 30 days of their life to come into treatment to find out that it's all about AA. With me? Because AA works, and we know that as a hospital that's why we do it. You with us? But they are so disappointed when they get there because they they've been to AA.

And they had the same experience I had. It did not work because they never got to hear the truth. My experience was I sat in AA for 7 years in and out of the fellowship listening to you tell your stupid war stories. I'm sitting here listening to these people talk about war stories. Y'all understand I'm pushing 31, 32 when I'm going to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm not going to jail.

I'm sitting in a meeting listening to this guy with First step meeting, you know? Let's tell Chris how we got here, you know? And and this oh, you know I had 6 DWIs and beat my wife and not me. I'm smiling. Oh thank you for sharing from the heart like that.

Chick. This guy's had 7 DWIs and he's been to prison, you know, and you know, and he's a little geeky, you know, but he's showing a little story. Well, thank thank you for sharing that. You know, we're going around here and I've said this from a 1000000 podiums folks. By the time it gets about halfway around the room I realize what they're doing.

They're all trying to one up and shit. Oh, you think he's bad? I black out and piss my pants. Check check check. Not me.

I can't relate. See, we don't ever connect the war stories with the internal condition called the spirituality. You tell a war story like that to a 16 year old kid who is a real alcoholic, they're not gonna understand. They're not gonna relate. They're gonna wait till they start having DWIs before they can relate.

We've gotta stop that. Listen, we we watch women in AA die by the 1,000 because they come into these meetings and they listen to all these hairy eyed guys tell all their stupid drunk logs and their stupid war stories, believing that's what this thing is about. What what we're trying to do is scare newcomers into, you don't want this to happen to you, do you? Oh, no. Then stay in AA.

You with us? Us? But the book says on page 24 in our textbook that you're not gonna remember the consequences of a week or a month ago. You're not even gonna remember your own war stories much less my chicken shit stories. Listen.

Listen. War stories have a place. It's called a 12 step call. Go down with that. Somebody that's never been around our fellowship, doesn't know anything about this drinking business, you can sit down at the cafeteria down here with him, sit there and eat eat something and visit with him a little bit, share or whatever and get this guy's attention.

He can talk about being arrested or whatever. Maybe get some identification going and then bring him to a meeting. But once he's to a meeting, why don't you panic with the war war stories? We've made identification. We've we've got the cat to come in here.

You understand this dreamy. You understand about dope. I understand. I I'm with you. This will work.

Now we've got to get him in these rooms. Now we've got to start telling him something different. Watch these ladies come into meetings, and and we'll sit there at a new meeting, and she's freaked out. And she you know she's uncomfortable, she doesn't wanna really be there, and some stupid idiot wants to tell some story about eating out of dumpsters. She's a business woman.

She's in a suit. She works. She's got 3 kids at home. Why do you wanna tell her a stupid story about eating out of a dumpster? Are you looking for sympathy?

Because it's not working. All you're doing is scaring her out of the room. There's a lot of people that come into our fellowship that have never eaten out of a dumpster. I don't happen to be 1, but god dang it. Listen.

If if y'all pick up a copy of a a big book, of, Doctor Bob and the good old timers, you'll have it over here. It's conference approved literature. I'm sure a lot of you have it. There's an excerpt in there. It says in 1940, this cat writes this.

There's this old timer in there. It says, we did not tell our drinking histories in meetings back then. 1940. Book was published in 1939. This is very early days.

We didn't need to. A man's sponsor already knew the details. Frankly, we did not think it anybody's business. We all knew how drink. What we wanted and needed to know was how to how to get sober and stay sober.

What a concept. This is why our success rates were so great back in the olden days of Alcoholics Anonymous folks. You read the preface in the in the 1955, the second edition. You read the preface as it says, we had a 75 percent success rate in this country. Right now in the United States, we hover we hover around 8% in the United States.

I'll argue those statistics with anybody. How did we how did we take a perfectly wonderful fellowship and in 70 years, trash it? You know how we did it? We turned our back. This fellowship turned their back and allowed it to take place.

Somebody said the other day, well, treatment centers have caused you're right. Treatment centers have done us a lot of damage, but who allowed it to happen? We did. We did. When we finish with the war stories, we start this junior therapy session.

Right? Our meetings in the United States, most of all of the open discussion meetings which are the preponderance of meetings in our in our fellowship over there. It's like it's like 90 to 90% to 10%. We've got a few literature based meetings and some speaker meetings, but most of our meetings are open discussion meetings. That means that you can come and talk about anything you want.

You're with us? And I usually start with this. They read how it works, then the chairperson says, well, this is your meeting. Who's got the problem? Oh, who's bitten me?

I got the problem. And then we're gonna spend an hour talking about that problem. It's not gonna be a problem with a step. Y'all follow me? It's not gonna be a problem with meditation, something that we could talk about.

It's gonna be a tell you, I don't tell you. I don't hit anything else from the podium harder than this. This has got to stop. Alcoholics Anonymous is not a therapy group. It is not a process group.

Alcoholics anonymous is a spiritual program of action. Early days. Eddie, Thatcher, little little guy, you know, he, Roland Hazard comes back from the from the the continent. And, after working with Carl Jung and and he drinks again, and he's so depressed. And and and and doctor Young says, you need to you need to to have a spiritual experience.

And so he gets involved with the Oxford Movement in New York, and and they're they're doing works with street people. They're down in the missions, and and and Roland has a spiritual experience. He's one of the little guys he sees in there is a little guy named Eddie Thatcher. He takes him to his house, and in 2 weeks, he works him through the steps. Now steps originally were 6 steps, and they exploded them, and Bill Wilson took a perfectly simple 6 step program and made it a 12 step program.

Go figure. But in the 6 day, he worked Eddie through the steps. Eddie has a spiritual experience and the obsession to drink leaves him. He eventually drank again, but long and short, he was sober at the time. About a few weeks sober, he gets on a bus and goes find a little cat named Bill Wilson, who was the co founder of politics anonymous.

He sits down with Bill Wilson, and they share a few little war stories. They get comfortable visiting, old time's sake, you know. And then Eddie tells him how he got sober. He found God. Bill Wilson gets more loaded that day, ends up back in treatment the next day.

This was his 3rd time in treatment at Town's Hospital. 3rd time. He left AMA the other two times against medical advice. He never stayed through the whole treatment. This time he was committed to stay through the whole treatment.

Willing to go any length, folks? This time he stayed. While he was in treatment, Eddie worked the steps with him. It's in the book, guys. It's in the store.

It's in the front front of the book in Bill's story. He does a 4 step with him. Let's let's Bill share his stuff with him in a 5th step. He's working on his amends on his 9th day in town's hospital when he has his barn burning spiritual experience, and the obsession to drink left and never returned. 6 months later, he's working with drunks.

He's he's busting his butt, but what he's doing is he's going about it all wrong. He's just out there preaching. He ends up back in Akron fixing the drink. Crazy. Business deal went south.

He knows he's shaky ground and needs to find another drug to work with, so he goes find doctor Bob. The story's in the book. Doctor Bob and him meet together. Doctor Bob was all settled. I'm gonna meet with this moron in about 15 minutes and then he's out of here, you know?

Because I don't wanna talk to this guy. And they talked for hours. What did they talk about? They initially talked about war stories. They they shared some commonality about their drinking.

I've done that. I can relate to that. You with me? And then Bill told him how he got sober. Doctor Bob did everything except make amends and got drunk.

June 10th, he had his last couple of drinks. He was doing surgery. He's a proctologist. I'm sure y'all may not know that. That's a butt doctor.

That's a butt doctor. I mean, that's exactly what it is. And then I mean, this is great. This is our roots. An out of work stockbroker and a butt doctor.

This guy's fixing to do surgery and they get he's a little shaky. The guys figured to give him a couple of beers to steady his hands. After he drinks those beers though, he does his surgery, gets in the truck, goes around Akron, and finishes making his amends that he'd refused to make previously, never to drink again for the next 15 years till he died. You'll you'll die with this. 2 days later, they said it's time to go work, find drunk.

And they went to town's hospital and they found another drunk. And they did it the same every time. They shared some stories. They got to get comfortable, then they set the hook. They told him exactly what they did to get well.

A spiritual program of action where we have to turn around and go work with another drunk to stay sober. About 1970, we had success rates through the ceiling. 50, sixties, we were still being quite successful. Our fellowship was growing hugely. In that mid seventies, there was an article in the grapevine called called the open discussion Absolutely rubbish.

Absolute rubbish. We have the meeting in print. It's called the big book. And you guys that are fans of the Grapevine meeting, in meeting in the 19 seventies, the treatment center started cranking out drunk after drunk after drunk and they tell them to go to these meetings and talk about their problems. If you're having a bad day, come share.

Because if you share, you'll feel better. True. Is that the truth, guys? How many of you guys ever got been was drinking and you got real sick and and you went to the bathroom and puked and you came back and you just felt so much better? Y'all ever do that?

Isn't that what you do when you come into our meeting? You wanna come in and talk about the stupid divorce one more time or talk about the kids or talk about the problem everybody loves on you and you just feel you just leave? I just feel so much better. Great. But well, let me ask you a question.

What about the little kid in the back? What about the guy that came in after the meeting started was sitting back there scared to death, can't even hold a coffee cup because he's detoxing in our meeting? Did we talk about the spiritual experience? Did we talk about the power of God? No, we didn't because we were too busy trying to fix you to a chicken shit problem.

Guys, the book talks about this. We're here to give. After the meeting, before the meeting, we're gonna hit We're gonna talk about all your problems if you want to. But during a meeting, Jesus, can't we just talk about the solution? That newcomer this may be the one shot that the newcomer gets.

Let's talk about the first step. Let's explain this to them. Am I speaking from some spiritual mountain top up here? Absolutely not. Have I gone into meetings and dealt my problems?

Absolutely. I'm I'm just here to tell you I was wrong doing that. I'm making amends to the fellowship. I was wrong to do that. I used the format that was supposed to be spiritual in nature as a problem solving event.

Let's stop it. Can you imagine how stupid this is? You cats are coming into Alcoholics Anonymous and want to talk to a collective room probably some of the sickest people on earth about your relationships. What what we absolutely need in our fellowship is more spiritual mentors. We need more spiritual mentors and a few less junior therapists.

I'm 7 years in and out of Alcon's Anonymous. I can't I can't get this. People wanna come up after him. Chris, you just didn't want it. I just think that's the most disrespectful weak thing we can say.

You know, for an alcoholic, the screw up his strength and walk into a strange room full of people, you with us, and admit they're an alcoholic, you can't sit there and tell me he didn't want it. The The truth is there's a lot of us that wanted it and never heard the solution. We heard keep coming back. It works if you work it. We heard 90 meanings in 90 90 days.

You with us? We didn't hear work the damn steps or you're gonna die. But that's what they heard in the olden days. So, fast forward, 1987. I'm coming apart at the seams.

Health is going south. I'm working for Meijer's and the and, I can't cook anymore. I'm just I'm just I'm too sick, and, hands are too shaky, shaky, and let me see if you can relate to this. I can't sleep. I'm waking up in the middle of night and the voices are there, screaming shit.

You know, you're worthless. You'll never gonna amount to anything. I'm 35 years old and I have no money, and if it wasn't for family, I'd be on the street. And I life is not exactly turning out like I had envisioned it to be. I, I'm dating a girl that's, I'm not dating anyone.

In my head I think I'm dating someone, but I'm not. Just like I'm dating a coffee girl. So Anyway, I was pulling out of a store one day and I talked about this before. I was pulled out of a store, grocery store, one day, out on the street and and, take a left to go to work to the bindery, take a right to go back to my apartment. And I get to the stop sign and I've got to make a decision what I'm gonna do.

And I and I it's like I vapor lock. You know what I mean? I get and I I need to go to work because I need to earn some money, but I'm so uncomfortable in my skin I need to go back home. I just wanna I just wanna go hide. You know?

Curl into a fetal position under the bed. You know, leave me alone. You know, I'm psychotic. I'm nuts. I sit there in that Kroger parking lot there on 121 and have a nervous breakdown.

It's like, Chris, this is not this is not some analytical problem here. Turn left, turn right, but get out the goddamn intersection. You know? And I can't and I can't do anything. That car's honking behind me and I'm I'm this is a terrible place to be.

My it's getting worse. I'm crazy. I can't I can't get comfortable with my skin. The depression's killing me. I'm taking all these pills to try to treat it, and they're not working.