Chris S. from Pottersville, NJ speaking in Hoboken, NJ

And today, our second speaker is Chris S from the Spiritual Awakenings Group in Bernardsville.

We're going to speak briefly about what it used to be like and it's in depth about what happens, steps one through 9 and what he's like now, steps 10/11/12. And I give you Chris.

Afternoon, everybody. My name is Chris. I'm an alcoholic.

On or around December 28th, 1989, I got separated from alcohol for the last time. And that was a good thing for me because that was a that was a that was a pretty spooky time, that last drunk. Things I've learned in Alcoholics Anonymous, things that you, you all have taught me, the fellowship and service have enabled me to maintain my spiritual condition to such a point that

the, the God as I understand them has kept me safe and protected from alcohol to this day. And that that truly is a miracle. I want to thank Ava for speaking before. I always like hearing her talk. I always relate to a lot of the things that she, she talks about. I too was like a little alcoholic, you know, when I was younger during an inventory, during one of the fear inventories that I was doing many years back,

the person I was working with asked me to go back to the earliest recollection of any specific fear, your inventory.

And one of the fears that I was inventory was fear of people. And I went back to the earliest recollection of fear of people that I could think of. And it was the day my mother was dropping me off for kindergarten. Hadn't gotten out a lot by myself up to this point. And, you know, this is kind of a new thing for me. I remember she drove me Uptown, parked along the side of this hill and said, there you go there. There's the, there's the school right down there

and I get out of the car and I remember standing up on this hill and looking down at all the kids. There's kids there. They're running around playing A tag and kickball. It looked like they'd all been friends 100 years. And I'm standing up there on the hill looking, looking down like an idiot. You know, I'm like, Oh my God, I can't do this. Well, you know, what if, what if they don't like me? You know, what if they make fun of me? You know, what if I, you know, what if I get beat up? I mean, I'm thinking all this stuff. I, I was totally uncomfortable

with the situation and I got to tell you, at that point in time, I could have used a couple of shots of whiskey and you know, I just would have done much better with the whole kindergarten thing. If I had a buzz on

I, I'd have been, I'd have been playing tagging kickball. I'd been, I'd have been the kindergarten kid, you know what I mean? And I'd have probably done better at at nap time than I did with without the boost too. But here's my problem. My problem was they didn't give alcohol to five year olds.

That's, that's my problem. Because from that moment on, every, every second of the day in school, I had to pretend everything was OK inside me because I, I'm looking at you and you're fine. You're okay. You know, at second period, you know what I mean? You're okay at recess. I'm, I'm like, I'm like a bundle of self-centered fear. So, so I had to, from that day on, I had to act as if everything was OK.

And until about I think it was like 7th or 8th grade, I was about 12 or 13,

I decided with a couple of my buddies that we were going to cut school and we're going to go back to my house and steal a bottle of booze from the liquor closet and get drunk. It's my first experience with alcohol. You know, we've caused some trouble before that and this just seemed like the next logical thing to do to become a cool little 12 year old. So we do this, we go back to my back to my house and we cut school and I take the bottle down out of the shelf. Now I don't know anything about drinking at this point in time. I don't I come from a non alcoholic

house household. I had the bullet dust off of this bottle had probably been it been in there 10 years. But I don't know anything about drinking. But I remember that John Wayne movies. You remember those movies where he fussed through the saloon doors? He'd go up to the bar, he'd go bartender whiskey and the bartender take a bottle of whiskey and fill up like a water glass. And John had just like drink the whole water glass, grab the bottle and go back to the table. So you know, I don't know anything about drinking soap. I take this 4 Roses whiskey, which to this day if I smell

and I pour the three big water glasses for me and my two buddies. Now, my two buddies who never became alcoholic, never became problem drinkers, you know, kept kept a 30 average, you know, in school, these guys, what they did was they drank about 2/3 of the glass of this stuff and then they'd had enough. You ever drink with people who have enough? Isn't that like the most annoying thing?

No thanks, no more for me. I'm going home to see the missus. I'm like what,

you know, drink it at the bar. What are you talking about? It's it's like 9:00 at night on a Monday. Let's go to the city, you know, I mean, come on, don't worry about work. That's about sick days for so so I never understood. So these two guys have had enough. You know what I did? I drank like 3 glasses of this stuff. I went into a blackout. I trashed the house and I came to an appeal not knowing how I got there. That was my first experience with blackouts. Anybody in here ever

blackout

Some there's some identification. Isn't that disconcerting? You know, blackout you ever travel, you know, when you're in a blackout, you come to a Topeka with one shoe, you have to pretend you wanted to be there. You know, don't want anybody to think you're stupid. You know, you always go to Topeka Thursdays looking for shoes. But so, so I go to like, I'm 12 years old. I'm already a blackout drinker. I, I could have qualified for a A, but I decided to drink for 20 more years

and it never really got much better

that day. Here's here's the problem though, with that day. I had a nuclear hangover. I mean, I was so sick. You ever have those hangovers where you have to, you have to be flat for a couple of days. I mean, you don't be getting up, you're down. And I had one of those hangovers. I was out, I was out for two days from school and I was just, I'll just I'll

but and, and if, if I would have put anything else in my body and it would have made me that I'll

stayed so far away from it. You know, if it was like a rutabaga or something that made me that sick, I got to tell you, I wouldn't need to go to a 12 step program to stay away from rutabaga. But here's what happened. Here's what happened. Not alcohol changed my perception. It changed the the way I felt about myself. That scared kindergartner, that alcohol was that was the was the anti scared kindergartner potion. You know what I mean? All of a sudden I felt like

you. You get that feeling like like everything is fun.

I'm not I'm not self-centered anyone you know, I'm not I'm not self-conscious. I'm everything, you know, I'm funny. There was dancing lessons in that bottle. You know what I mean? I didn't do anything and,

and that's the part, and then I went into a blackout and trashed the house. But I, I started to slowly forget about how terrible that hangover was. And I started to remember about, you know, how it made me feel. It made me feel larger than life. And I started to, I started to become preoccupied with alcohol. From that moment on, I knew that 4 Roses whiskey was out, you know, so I started the beer and the wine and the gin. I mean, whatever,

I would mix it up a little bit and I always had problems allowing myself to be over served. You know what I mean? That just usually that usually plagued me. It was, it was always had like one too many, you know, and crashed the car or whatever. That was that last drink. But but I began the task of managing my alcohol consumption because because that's what I had to do. I had to manage my thinking about living life without alcohol at this time

wasn't even something to be considered. You know, I used to. I used to see the Nancy Reagan commercials. Just say no,

Say no.

What are you talking about? Say no to high prices maybe, but, you know, say no. Come on. And that that wasn't something that would compute. And so you ever talked to like a newcomer, you know, like, well, your life is is completely in the toilet. You know, you're drinking yourself to death, that you've alienated everybody. I'd like you to start going to meetings every night and they look at you like

what? Take a second overreaction to like a problem that's not quite that big. Well, you know that that's the way. That's the way I kind of felt anyway.

I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm moving along and alcohol is, is to a point, working for me in the early days. I'm in high school now and I can't wait for the Friday and Saturday parties. You know, you just have a blast at the parties and alcohol's working and you're paying a little bit of a price to drink. You're crashing a car here or there.

Yeah. Getting into a fight or, you know, like, like, like hitting on the wrong girl, you know, I mean, you get past all that stuff. You know, somebody would die every once in a while. You just kind of got to move on, you know, And it just moved through the stuff and manage it because alcohol is, is working.

Here's here's the problem. I come from a really smart family. My brother and sister are both Phi Beta Kappa pH D's. My mother and father were master's degree educators and, you know, a college professors, a really smart family. I graduated the second stupidest person in the high school.

I mean, I did. It was I, I didn't, you know, I didn't apply myself. Anybody ever tell you you've got a lot of potential? You know, I was the I was the potential kid, you know,

and until they stop telling you because they think they might have misunderstood your case. But anyway,

here's what happened. I mean, alcohol had me so preoccupied and I also, I also come from the late 60s and early 70s. So there were some non conference approved substances out there besides alcohol that I would partake in. You know what I mean? And you would you have like you have a couple of pills in your hand. I go, I just did and I go. What was that?

Could have been a birth control pill. You know something, you know, dog worming pill,

I'd ask you afterwards. So I mean, you know, just Get Me Out of me is you know, so I didn't really apply myself at school and you know,

by whole future is really being affected by the way I'm acting. But what do you say? Who cares is what you say. I mean, I never said, well, you know, alcohol and drugs are really affecting my performance in my academics here. No, if if I keep on like this, I may not get into the College of my choice.

I never said that.

The gods of Wednesdays off every day just to break up the week. You know the teacher. Go. Where's Chris? Oh, yeah, that's right. It's Wednesday

to stay off. Hey, I just, I didn't, I didn't care. Well, anyway, it gets to the point where I'm done with high school and you know, people like grow up that aren't like major alcoholic, they go off to college or they get a job. Some of them are even getting married and you know, putting a little house together with the picket fence. I'm still looking for that high school party because I'm still 100% into let's have a really good time.

And so slowly the, the people that I was hanging out with are disappearing and I'm having to go for lower and lower common denominator partiers. You know, I'm saying after a while, the people I was drinking with didn't even have real names. They were like Weezer and Greenland. And there was a guy named Rat, you know, going over to Rat's house

to buy. They all had to go. Parole officer.

I mean, I'm OK with all this. I'm OK with those

now. Every single day alcohol is taking more and more of a toll on me. I totaled 9 cars in drunken blackouts. I mean, I just come. I come from a time when where friends let friends drive drunk, you know what I mean? It's like, you know, the drunkest guy gets the keys because it's more exciting, you know what I mean? And that's just so, so I never even thought about it. You know, I crashed one more card, I'd say to myself, I've got to stop driving.

Well, I never said I've got to stop drinking. I wasn't even, I wasn't even. So I, I, I married up with somebody. I, I met this wonderful codependent woman. She was from an alcoholic family. So my dysfunction looked like home, you know what I mean? And and she hooked up with me and she was, it was a perfect relationship because she thought about me almost as much as I did. You know what I mean? And it worked that way.

And,

you know, she was really good about bailing me out and going to the impound place to get the car back and, you know, that stuff, she knew how to put my head over the edge of the couch so I don't drown in my own vomit. And then all of this stuff that you need to know, it worked out for a while, but even even she couldn't put up with it after, after a while, I, I mean, she was Catholic. So nine months to the nanosecond after we got married, my daughter was born. And so here I am. I'm like,

like husband and father, I'm like 20-3 years old drinking every night. There's not a chance in hell I could be responsible at this point in time in my life. I couldn't give this family anything that they needed. You know what I mean? They, they wanted things that I thought were really unreasonable. Like like, like, like get a job, you know, put insurance on a car, you know, stop hanging out with rat and Green Man and, you know, come home at night

to get off my back.

Just get off my back, will you? I can't take this pressure.

What the pressure what I was doing was I she was going to work and I was sitting at home watching Love boat rerun smoking joys like, you know, go watching Gopher fall in love again. I mean, I I couldn't get out of the house and you know, so so it wasn't working. She split. She split and I moved into a household of insane guys. I mean,

and guess what, Now I could really drink. You want to know why? Because she left me when I needed her most. You know what I mean? She left me when I needed her most. So I am drinking bottles of whiskey every single night just with these two, the two most insane people in Tampa, FL. You know, one guy was a Quaalude salesman and the other guy, the other guy had been on unemployment for four years. I didn't even know you could do that, you know, so. So here we are. We're in this house. And

I mean, it was really, it really got really got ugly. And you know, my wife, unless she'd gone back to New Jersey and I, I was, you know, I was getting in trouble with the cops. There was summonses, outstanding warrants. I hadn't shown up for court. I was supposed to do community service. There's bills from ambulances because I was only going to the hospital for some crazy thing. And you know, it was life was kind of piling up on me. It was getting unmanageable. You know what I mean? What what do you do when

gets unmanageable like that? Start thinking of mom needs any help at home.

She's she's back there in New Jersey all by herself. I'm going to give her a call, you know,

I'm coming back up. You need some help? So I go back up and I live with my mother for eight years of the worst of my drink. I burnt the house down twice, you know what I mean? So. So anyway,

I'm back up in New Jersey and now even Green Man and Weezer are gone. I'm sitting in my room. I'm sitting in a room in my mother's house Juice. And I've got a relationship with the bottle. I would buy like a bottle of George Dickel and I would like look at it, you know, I sweat, I'd caress it and I pour it and I get drunk out of my mind. It was a it was a very unrequited love affair, let me tell you. Because what that alcohol is doing to me at that point in time, I mean,

the, the alcoholic is so insane.

You know, they talk about denial a lot of times in the roads, but that's not really what we have. Denial is knowing the truth in the back of your mind. But but saying no, that's not the truth. Well, we're delusional. We we don't even know that we can't see the truth. You know, we're so sick we don't even think we're sick.

And that's the way it was for me at this point in time, here I am. I'm too drunk and lazy to get up and walk up through through the room, out into the hall to go to the bathroom. So when I have to puke, I throw open the window and I stick my head up and I puke out the window and there's a sidewalk right there. And there's like an old folks home near my house and you know, and I'm puking out the window and I'm thinking to myself, where are all the faves?

You know what I mean? I haven't had it. I haven't had a relationship in like 3 years. What's the matter here? You know, I mean,

I'm like, I'm like this pathetic drug. Really I am. I'm the type of drug you just don't want me in in your house. One of the last things I did was this one guy was trying to help me. So they they didn't fight me out to Pennsylvania for the weekend and they try to monitor my drinking, give me positive affirmations and all this. I know that's what that now you're not going to drink, are you? Because I promise, promise. Well, I found their their closet and behind a behind the post toasties or whatever with some bottles of booze. I go in there,

they weren't looking and just I got just trashed. They're wondering like we just gave them two beers. How's he that trip? And I remember I'm I'm lying and they brand new, they put brand new carpet and they're so proud of this house And I'm I'm sitting back like this and I don't know this because I'm in a black apple. What I do is I cough up this nasty rubber and just spit right on their carpet. And here's I come out of the blackout and they're down on their hands and knees with brushes like,

like this

type of person who you invite over, you know, I mean,

so, so my, my, my, my sphere of, of, of community is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. It's just so pathetic

I I become an electrician somehow. OK, I don't know how that happened, but Can you imagine, Like a worse trade? Every day

I'd electrocute myself. I mean, my hair was always sticking straight up. They call me Ignatowski.

The ladies garage again. Yeah. And I mean these stupid things. I'll tell you. I'll tell you a couple. One of the ones was I accidentally drilled in the wrong place and I drilled down into this guys closet and I have to go down there and he opens up the doors and there's like 13 suits all covered with plaster weapons curled up into the ceiling.

Yeah,

another time, another time I, I wired, I wired a whole kitchen addition to the wrong panel. And it was a timer panel for the hot water heater. So the kitchen would come on at 8:00 at night and go off at 6:00 in the morning.

So they call my boss up and they say, hey, we eat at six. This is unacceptable.

But probably the most embarrassing thing I'm, I'm an electrician at Epstein. Epstein was something like Macy's or something. And, and I, the job I have to do is I have to drill down by all the cash register places for the new computer lines that we're going in. And I'm doing this down in the lingerie section of, of websites. And I'm, I'm kind of preoccupied, if you know what I mean. I'm like like looking around because it's pretty interesting.

And I have this big giant steel drill that has a locking trigger, big half inch drill and it gets away from it OK. So I bear down on it and it starts twisting around circles like this and it ties me up in the cord and the over bit rips the pants right off my ass. And finally, it unplugs from the wall, and I'm hanging with my pants off, tied up to the drill in the middle of the lingerie section of Epstein,

that is. And you got to act like you're cool about it. You know,

drill touches all the time.

I told him to give me another one.

So it's really, it's really bad. It's it's really bad. And here's the straw. Here's the straw that broke the camels back. Okay, I mean I've lost my family 9 totals 3D wise, no friends and you know, everything is falling away. But here's a straw that broke the kale's back. I'm trying to put a ground screw in a in a ceiling fixture box and I'm shaking so bad from the night before. I, you know that DTS I and the screw keeps falling off the end of the screwdriver

and I'm 3033 years old and my boss has a 19 year old kid who's in charge of it. I mean, that's, that's how much respect I had at work. Junior was the book. So anyway, he's looking at me watching me drop this screw. And have you ever hear somebody think at you as an alcoholic, you can you listen hard enough? He's looking at me like this and he's thinking you pathetic,

you're good for nothing. No account, loser. And I just couldn't take it. I couldn't take it. So that night I got really drunk and I called up the rehab and I said I'm coming in. Well,

I'm checking myself in. I've got to do something about this drinking and I go into the rehab and I spent 28 days in there. I'd like to say something positive about this particular rehab. But what I will say is I did get the $13,000 big book and the pat on the butt to AN that's about all I remember from it, except for doing group. You ever do group where they're sitting around a circle and he's talking about his issues and he's talking about his issues. Shut up, will you? I'm not talking

spending way too much time on your issues. I flex this drink. I, I remember that from group, you know, and that's about it. So I get out and I go to, I go to AA, I go to A and now, now I really want to stay separated from alcohol. I've got to tell you there was, there was not one person in that a, a meeting that wanted to separate from alcohol more than men. I, I signed myself into rehab. I, I'm paying for outpatient,

go to group and hear people talk about their issues. I'm going to AAA meetings. It's like the Castor oil type of going to a, A meetings. Like you go there, you go there to take your medicine. You know what I mean? And I'm doing all this so that I stay sober. And I'm, I'm almost 90 days sober and on the way to an A meeting. The thought crosses my mind that, man, it's been almost three months since I've been drunk. I, I, I don't even remember what it's like to be drunk. I haven't drank in so long

a a stuff. It probably works better if you remember more about being drunk. So I know what I'll do. I'll get a gallon of vodka. I'll go home. I'll drink it and it'll improve my sobriety.

OK, I now know what the first step is talking about when it says we have an obsession of the mind. Alcohol doesn't care if I don't want to drink it, you know what I mean? It'll it'll, it'll convince me that it's a good idea to drink it so that I won't drink it.

Minutes left. So I do, I start drinking. I start, I'm about 3 drinks into this gallon of vodka and I realized the enormity of my mistake. I'm like, Oh my God. I've like opened up the cage door to the beast. He's going to drag me around. Who knows where this is going to end? Oh my God, I can't believe I've done this. Now think about it. Was I insane before I picked up the drinker, after

the the insanity that they talked about in the second step, I experienced it. I experienced it three months sober.

It was the thought that I could put alcohol back in my body. Now, five months later, I mean the worst five months of my drinking ever. It culminates in Christmas at the shore. Okay, since December 1989, my mother's there, my brother, sister, nieces and nephews. There's cats. I mean, the tree is up and the stockings are hung by the chimney with care.

And I start drinking, right? And I'm resentful. I've got a resentment about something and I'm going to kill all you and I. I threaten everybody's life over. It is Christmas, you know,

and it's not really the festive type of atmosphere they would have liked. So they all leave and they go and they have Christmas and upstate New York, thank you. Now I come out of like a three day blackout and I used to buy one bottle at a time because I might quit tomorrow. You ever do that? It's like the person that buys one pack of cigarettes they've been smoking for 30 years. So. So anyway,

there's a pile of alcohols in the sink like this that I don't even remember buying. I can imagine like staggering Uptown

times. I must have been a site, but I come out of this three day blackout and I start to go into the DTS. I mean the the flat out DT Anybody in here ever have the the DTS knows exactly what I mean. It's it is all you feel is terror. You know, I start to hallucinate. I've seen animals running around. There's things scratching on the House trying to get in

others, maggots all over the slip covers. You know, it's disconcerting

and I remember I'm lying down, I'm lying down on the couch and a demon comes out of the ceiling, this big bull headed demon to eat my face. I'm like, yeah. And I that's the point where I I scream out to God, I go, God, please either kill me or let me get summer. I can't live like this. And that I haven't had a drink from that point in time. I swear that I,

I, I, I know I've got to go back to AI, know I don't need another $13,000 big book. I know I need to go to a A,

so as soon as I'm detoxed enough to go to AAA, I figure out where I'm going to go. Now I've got a, I've got a 1976 Ford Granada with white walls with the clutches almost gone, no emergency brake, no heater core. So when you turn the heater on, it squirts antifreeze on the inside of the window. It's got no muffler, all right. It's, it's got orange paint all over the interior from I don't know where. And I've got to drive to a meeting, but it's going to have to be a flat meeting

because I've got no clutch. OK, so I look into the book and I find a flat meaning. And that's, that's in Morristown. So I, I get there and it's a church kind of like this. And on the outside, there's 500 of my new peers out on the porch smoking cigarettes right as I pull up. And I've got to go up a little incline to get into the parking lot. That's a problem, right? I mean, I've got no clutch, so I have to gun this thing and it's got no muffler. It sounds like a an insane

and I go

half a mile an hour past all these people.

Must be a new guy, you know,

and, and you know, I pull in and I'm shattered. I'm like, I walk into the meeting and I sit down and somebody hands me a step book. I'm like, what? You know, they hand me a step book and I realize that I'm sitting in a step meeting and, and they're reading paragraphs.

I live up and, and, and you know, and the movie and they're coming down the road at me. I'm going to have to read a paragraph and I panic, right? I got to get out of here. So, so I leave now and I'm, you know, I got to tell you, I'm standing out on the porch and I'm smoking a cigarette. I'm thinking, can I do this? This is, this is crazy. I, I don't know if I can do this, you know, and I'm thinking it's either, it's either I do this, which I'm just terrified to do, or I go drink, which I'm terrified to do it. I don't know.

And this guy, I'll never forget. His name is Jorge. He saw me leave and he came out to talk to me. Now this guy, I found out years later, he had 16 days or something. He pulled a 12 step number on me like I like. I'll never, I'll never forget. Anyway, he comes out and he starts talking. He starts going, well, well, what's your deal,

everybody? It's horrible. And he goes come on back into the meeting, come on back into the meeting. And I'm like, well, tomorrow, tomorrow there's a meeting investigating, you know, tomorrow

he's like, no, come on back at me. He had 16 days, but he knew what tomorrow meant for an alcoholic. So, you know, he got, he drags me back inside and sits me down in the 2nd row. Now by this time, people are sharing and he leads over to me. He goes, raise your hand, tell everybody you're coming back. I'm like, well, tomorrow, Tomorrow is a meeting where you go in a room and get to everybody's coming back. And he's like, he's like, raise your hand. He's starting to get loud now. And you know, people are starting to look. And you know what happens after they start looking,

they'll start thinking at you, you know, so I got to do something. And so there's somebody sharing. And right in the middle of somebody sharing, I put my hand up and the person leading the meeting is like looking at me and, and, and shuts the person up who's talking and calls on me. And I say something like this girl just generally got you to thank you. And there's a, there's a quiet. And then all of a sudden,

yeah, everybody starts to applaud. They're like, you know, I could just figure, you know, you the most pathetic person I've heard.

I came in tonight thinking I had problems. Oh, thank you so much.

Because I was so bad. And

at that moment in time, I've got to tell you, at that moment of time, something dropped off on my shoulders that I was carrying. I don't know what it was, but I started to say maybe I can make it. Maybe I can do this Alcoholics Anonymous things. Should I? I told everybody I was coming back. That's like the one of the hardest things you can do. And I started to have a little bit of hope and I started to go to meetings the next night. I got myself a sponsor. Fish food filled

diamonds response. Everybody had nicknames back then. RadioShack. Mike bummed out. Bob doing an inventory one time. I realized they've got nicknames because I'm nicknaming them, you know,

4 bastards. This guy hasn't worked in RadioShack in 16 years. Everybody still calls with RadioShack money. So. So anyway, I get fish food fill as a sponsor and I remember going to him and I said, look, Phil,

I've been in hell. Tell me how to get out. I'll do anything. And he starts working on my on my fellowship commitments. OK, this is back in late 89, early 1990 and there was not a hell of a lot of big book sponsorship or stuff back then. They got you involved in the fellowship and you were you were given fellowship commitments and things. And he said, Chris, I want, I want you to go to meeting everything. I'm not going to tell you either 90 to 90 meetings and 90 days because it's not a 90 day program. You do a meeting every night till I tell you,

hey, so I want to see you here. I want to see you here. I want to see here. So I started doing I started doing the meetings and I started getting active and I started to feel a little bit better, a little bit better because there's no more bruise in my system. You know, I'm starting to feel a little more healthy now. I, I became a secretary at this group. I got a chance to lead the beginners meeting over here. I even even people were asking me to sponsor them because I have no idea why. I guess sometimes a tugboat with the most steam, you know,

gets to pull the boats or something. And, you know, I sounded good if they just see me at home, like like yelling at my mother because there's no ice cubes in the ice cube tray.

If they have seen that, they might not have asked me to sponsor. But, but you know, I gave good share in the meetings, you know, but, but there was there was something still really, really wrong, you know, that scared kindergartner, that person who just doesn't feel comfortable with themselves or their environment.

I just, you know, everything was like a struggle and I had to act as if everything was OK all the time. Well, I'm, that's still all over me and I'm sober about a year now. You know, I'm, I'm sober and I'm thinking to myself, man, I should, I should be feeling better. But you know, I'm still like tortured by myself. And my friend RadioShack Mike, he had given me some tapes to listen to at this one point. Give me some Louise Hayes hay tape. So affirmation tapes. Anybody ever listen to that? I'm like a shattered alcoholic and I put this tape in.

Repeat after yourself off. Chris, you're a wonderful guy. Chris, you're a wonderful guy. Like 50 times until you believe it. But like in front of miracle, God

bless you, take the tape and throw it at him. You know, what do you, I mean, seriously, try to treat alcoholism with an affirmation tape is like trying to stop a semi with a cobweb. You know what I mean? It's not happening. So he comes up to me, he goes, he goes, he goes, Chris, I got these tapes. They're really hardcore. You'd like them. And I don't really trust his choice in tapes at this point in time, but I've got a long ride to work. So. So I take him and I pop him in and they're from a couple of guys. A couple of guys are doing a big book study from Arkansas.

Like Arkansas. I hate people from Arkansas

come from the Northeast. We do watch thinking by 9:00 in the morning, then an Arkansas is going to do all day. What the hell is somebody from Arkansas going to teach me? You know, but I've got a long ride to work. So I've plugged this thing in and, and you know, if I had, if I had a, a faster speed, I would have put it on that because these guys, these guys talk like this.

But anyway, I'm listening to it and I get all the way through this series and and and you know, I've got a resentment now really

against market science because here's what they told me. They said, Chris, you're in the fellowship, you're not in the program. You have no program, you're not working any of the instructions out of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. So don't say you have a program. And you know what? If you relapse, don't tell anybody A, A didn't work because you didn't work a A because the a a program is in the big book, you lose it. And this is what? This is what these tapes said, OK?

Like, God damn it, I knew I hated people from Arkansas for a reason.

But I'll tell you what, if you're an alcoholic, the truth will haunt you. The truth will hunt. There's a section in the big book that says if we've disturbed you about your alcoholism, this is all to the good because you're going to have to come to terms with that disturbance, whatever it is. And usually, usually what will happen is

you'll recognize some of the truth in it that's making you mad when the truth was I need to work harder than I've been working. Yeah, I'm, I'm making coffee till the grinds come out my ears. I'm doing all that stuff, but I'm not working a recovery program. So I, I see the tapes to the side and, you know, I had burned it in resentment for. But after a while, after a while, you know, that that that internal condition, that untreated alcoholism just just was getting in. I said, God damn it. And I took these tapes out again and I brought a big book.

I lost mine. You know how it is with big books. I opened it up and I started listening to tapes and I started to started to do a program. And you know, I don't recommend that, like if you're new to just do, do the program by yourself because it was pretty bastardized. You know, Chris, when he's very, very mentally ill type of a program. But it was enough of a program for me to start, for my spirit to start to heal, for that scared kindergartner to start, start to, to mature into into an adult.

And

the course of time, but I had a lot of spot sees at this time who were drinking on me. You ever have a spot see drink on you makes you look bad? You know what I mean? Somebody comes up to you and says, hey, it's Harry yours. Do you know he's drinking and he's borrowing money and you know, it makes you look bad. So so I've got to do something about this slowly sponsor, he's drinking. So I get some, I start to bring him over to my house and I start to go through the big book, the Joe and Charlie way from Arkansas.

And we sit there, we're sitting out of my house and, and you know, we're, we're working, we're working through the stuff and team was one of the early victims of this, you know, damn near killed him doing it. But,

but along the way, I started to understand a little bit about the recovery process. And I spent and the people who hung in there, the people who did the steps, did the 4th and the 5th step did the immense. They're all still around. They're all still around in a A and they're all working with other people. And so I started to realize that that there was three parts to AF.

There's the meetings, that's the fellowship, there's a service commitments, that's everything you can do to keep the message being carried or or carry the message. And then there's a recovery process which which is, which is that healing that internal condition that we all have that makes us uncomfortable with ourselves and uncomfortable with our environment and uncomfortable with crowds and uncomfortable police and uncomfortable with families at Christmas and all that stuff. It starts to heal that stuff. So,

so anyway, along the line,

a group of us are now in recovery. We're in the fellowship of the spirit instead of in the spirit of the fellowship. And I've got a meeting going on at my house on on Thursday night and people are coming over to go through the steps. And

it's not, it started off by being the people I'm sponsoring, OK, But then they would say, hey, can I bring over my buddy here? And all of a sudden this meeting started up in my room. Now I took somebody through the steps who, whose sponsor came to me and said, Hey, I, I'm really seeing the change in so and so over here. How about taking me through the steps? This guy had like 10 years at the time. So I go, OK, so I take him to the steps. He's working with a priest.

Who sees the change in him

and says what the hell happened to you? And the guy goes, well, I'm going through the steps with this Chris guy. He goes, where can I find him? He goes, well, he's speaking up in Nekon and this priest comes up to me after after giving a pitch in Nekon and says, hi, I want to you know, I'm friends with so and so over here. Whatever you're doing up in your room, I want you to do it in my church because I don't any night you want don't want any money. You know, I want this to be part of our churches mission