The 17th Annual Southeast Louisiana Spring Roundup in Covington, LA

I love the passage you selected out of the Big Book because it describes everything that I know about Chris. And with that, please help me welcome Chris S.

I

my name is Chris, I'm an alcoholic, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I love Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous is

give me everything I have in my life today. It's it's given me a life I've been reborn and Alcoholics Anonymous and I, I can't say enough about it. I love a A and just the best thing that's ever happened to me.

My sobriety date is November 19th, 1998 and I'm a member of the Miracle Group in Fort Walton Beach, FL. We have a great group. We meet at 8:00 at Saint Mary's Church Cafeteria in Fort Walton Beach, FL and we get there to the 8:00 meeting at 6:30

and we we get busy doing what we do. We read from the book Alcoholics Anonymous and the women usually pair off and the men pair off or whatever would sponsee and sponsors and we and we we study the book Alcoholics Anonymous and we usually have something to eat and make the coffee and everybody gets together in the fellowship of the Spirit. And then by 8:00 we're ready for a meet and we laugh and we joke and we kid around. But at 8:00 when the bell

sounds were drop dead serious about staying sober. And I'm very grateful to be a part of that.

It's why I'm standing here, you know, strong sponsorship, strong Home group, commitment to service, all these things that have helped keep me sober and and got me sober.

I'd like to thank the committee for having me over. And you know, I, I feel like I used to live in Southeast Louisiana. What kinda I lived in Destin and in the summertime, every other tag invested is Louisiana. You know, you guys kind of live over there in the summertime.

And so, yeah, like every other weekend, Jimmy's over. But thank you for inviting me. And it's a, it's a honor and a privilege and

what a deal. You know, I'd, I'd like to, to say Norm had a great story last night and we were talking so many losses and so many things that, that, that were tragic and, and, and how he's been able to take that to put in God's hands to help other people's. What a what a tremendous power of example.

And I thought I was thinking, you know, I'm, I never had all these reasons to drink and, you know, excuses. I just drank and I got to think of wait, that's norm story. My story is my story. So that's what I'm going to talk about

on on the page 20 of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. It says that you may already have asked yourself why it is that all of us came so very ill from drinking. Doubtless you're curious to discover how and why.

Face of expert opinion to the contrary, we have recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body. If you're an alcoholic who wants to get over it, you may already be asking, what do I have to do? It is the purpose of this book to answer such questions specifically. We shall tell you what we have done. And that's why I'm here this morning to tell you what happened with me. I remember

I was sitting in the Okaloosa County Jail and

I had done a five year prison sentence of a 10-5 years of a 10 year sentence and, and moved to Florida after being released. And I was sitting in the Okaloosa County Jail for my second parole violation on that. And, and I knew I was going to, I've been out of here and violated my parole twice. I was going back to prison in, in Georgia. I had an Interstate warrant for that. Come back to Florida and do a two year suspended sentence and then facing a another charge

they were going to give me 1129, which is a year, another year. So I'm facing seven years. I knew I was going back to prison, going back to jail one more time,

but I had made a commitment to Stace over. I got to the point of desperation and asked a power greater than myself for help. And here I am sitting in the Okaloosa County Jail and, and I'm

doing what I learned. You know, I'm trying to study the book. We're having these little meetings in the jail.

They didn't have a A in the jail. So we, a few of us got together and would sit right there in the cell or the day room and do do have an, a, a meeting. And I remember looking at a flyer and the flyer had a, a correspondence with different people. You had said treatment contacts. Oh, and so corrections contact Mark B

and, and I'd heard this guy's story and I was at a detox pretty well mangled up. And he came in and shared his story and he shared about being released from prison on parole and violating it, going back and being released on parole and violating it and going back and being released on parole a third time and going back. I couldn't dodge or duck all that because I was sitting in detox, you know, under the radar from a parole violation. But there was a

cell with me and I told him I got out the flyer and I said when I get out of here, this guy is going to be my sponsor, Mark B. And he said, Oh no. He said don't do it. That guy was my sponsor. And, and he said what happened is I got drunk and he came over to my house and he beat me up

and,

and I just shook my head and agreed with him. But inside I was thinking, that's the guy from

if I have any hope of staying sober when I get out of here, it's going to have to be a guy that will come. A big guy.

He's kind of big like Paul, you know,

this guy come over and beat me up. If I go to start drinking, maybe I'll be able to stay sober, you know, and that's how I, I knew I was pretty hopeless. And that sounds crazy, but that was my, my mindset. And come to find out, most of you guys know Mark and, and, and Dehaltee and they're, they're such a blessing in our lives and here and where we are. And, and there was a little more to it than the story. Mark went over to pick this guy up and he'd been drinking and doing some other stuff and he was

age and he swung it marked. Then Mark beat him up

and so there was a little more to it than that. But when he said that, I, I made a commitment that was going to be my sponsor and and that's what I did. I remember when I got out, that's exactly what I did.

But what got me to that point was, you know, I, I began drinking at a very early age and, and I think I was lured into drinking. I couldn't find my regular big book. So I brought one of my substitutes and, and here it is on the front on the 1st cover. My mother gave me this picture. I looked at the date. I'm nine, I'm wearing a Budweiser shirt, you know, and it was because all of it was the late 60s, early 70s, all

cousins and older brothers and sister and neighbors. We grew up in South Miami, kind of ethnically diverse neighborhood. We had Greeks that live next door with 11 kids, say no more. We had Cubans live next door on the other side and they were always having a party or siesta or whatever it was at for anything. They find a reason to have a big party. And that's what everybody did, you know? And is, is, I think at an early age like this, I thought,

well, this thing called life is tough.

Relationships, marriages,

work, school, all these things are tough. But you have a big blowout party on the weekend. Everybody gets drunk and they're pushing each other in the pool and dancing and having a good time. And it makes everything OK. As a kid, that's what I saw. You know, we, we'd watch it every weekend. You know, they go to somebody's house. My parents had a pool. So they come over to our house and they get drunk and throw each other in the pool. And midnight, they'd be skinny dipping and we'd be looking through the fence. You know, it was just the lure of that

had me before I even drank and like a friend, Bobby says. I was just sitting down for alcoholism and what happened is

is a buddy of mine went down to the local golf course and we called ourselves helping the golf pro clean up golf carts and police around the area. What we really did was we went in and unlocked the back window because so we could come in later and steal beer. And Richard and I stole a case of Miller High Life beer, 16 oz cans and we gave 12 of them away. But Richard and I sat down to get drunk with these 1212 beers,

and

Richard drank one. I drank 11. You know, that's just the what, what happened. I I don't know what that was all about. From the very first time I drank, I

drank 11 beers before he probably even had the one down. You know, I just, that's what I did. I don't know where that came from. A lot of things developed that first night I that I drank, that followed me for the next 20 years. I was 14 years old.

I woke up in a sand trap at 2:30 in the morning.

Vomit, my hair, black eye, shirt torn, missing a shoe. I have absolutely no idea what happened the night before. I was laying on a tennis court watching the whole world spin around. It was the last remembrance I had and I remember waking up in that sand trap and shaking the sand off and thinking wow that was cool and and I couldn't wait to do it again. I had no idea what I did, but I, you know, I knew I had a good time

and,

and it wasn't long. It was the summertime and it wasn't long after that,

a day or two maybe we have a case of Black Label beer and we're up in the woods and we're just getting smashed. And I did not, you know, I came to a, a, the reason I drank was mine. Father was this. And mommy, you know, and I blamed everything. I was a big victim, but I had a good upbringing. And if anything, my parents

had older, I had older siblings and, you know, they,

they had to work and do all that. If anything, my parents spoiled my little brother and I right, you know, gave us everything they didn't have. And, but I can't blame all that on my, my parents because I had a, a good upbringing.

But what happened for me is I just took a drink of alcohol and, and, and Bobby also said alcohol brought out the alcoholic and me immediately. I mean, I've got alcoholism on both sides of my family and, and just chock full And then a lot of reasons why I'm an alcoholic. I,

you know,

doing the family tree thing and trying to figure out, you know, what was my origin. I'm the classic American Heinz 57. I, I'm a mutt, but I'm every ethnic group that should not drink, you know, American Indian, I'm Irish, I'm Italian. I mean, every ethnic group that shouldn't drink, that's me genetically. But but what happened is I just love the effect produced by alcohol, and

up into that point I was a pretty good student. A's, B's occasional C

and when I went back to school after the summertime,

DSF's occasional C and, you know, and that's just what happened. I, I played baseball and football and track and all these things. I went back to school. I quit track. I got thrown off the baseball team. I got thrown. That's just what my drinking did. And and

and the solution chapter talks about what we have to have to recover from alcoholism is a is a whole new way of thinking, a spiritual experience. Take attitudes and actions and emotions,

push them to one side and a whole new set of motives and conceptions begin to dominate us. That's what happened when I drained because I was a like my aunt Polly says you were a good little boy and she'd question me. You're not going to do this and do that and end up like the no man. It has a good little boy. But when I took a drink, ideas, emotions and attitudes that were once the guide and forced my life were pushed aside and

a whole new set of added to, you know, conceptions and motives began to dominate me. And that was

doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it and included alcohol. And

a lot of things happen that night. I say it was like a broken record and, and and one was the way I drank. And then I'm not going to say every time I drank from here that that point on out, I drank straight to oblivion. But most of the time I did because that's just I tried to put as much alcohol in my body as fast as possible, like they were never going to distill or brew another drop. And I don't know what that was about, but right past social drinking to oblivion

and

some other things that happen from the first night I drank that followed me for the next 20 years too. And one was did not the first night I drank, I got in trouble. The kid we gave the other 12 beers to threw up all over his mom and his mom called my mom and we had to March over and apologize for stealing the beer and didn't do much good. You know, I didn't really care about the consequences, especially that,

but drinking began to cause a lot of trouble

right off the bat. And some people develop alcoholism on a bar stool in a period of years. They become out. And then others were just a mess from the beginning. And that's my experience. And

so I got in a lot of trouble because of not drinking. And excuse me,

right from the beginning,

I began to get a lot of trouble and have heavy consequences for my drinking. And right from the beginning, I began to be numb, let's say, or callous to those consequences because I love the effect produced by alcohol. You know, I, I, I say the first time I, I broke some furniture in your house or groped your girlfriend or

fell out in the yard, you said, you know what you did last night? You did this. You and I go, wow, I'm sorry. I, I'm really the 20th time I did that and you said, get out of here. And my thought was I didn't want to come over here anyway. You know, the first time I rode in the back of a police car, I hid my face and didn't want anybody to see me. The 20th time I rode in a police car, I'm waving at everybody could have cared less. I mean, I just became callous to the consequences that my drinking caused.

And so I got a lot of trouble because of my drinking and, and, and, and I developed a pattern of like a broken record. It was like

bam and the record would skip and something would blow up and I would be physically removed from alcohol. That was the only way I could drink it. I would wake up in jail. I'd wake up in emergency room with tubes in my nose. And you know what?

And I come to and I was a pretty good old boy sober, I'd say it was a it was a mistake. I'll control it better. What I tell them, whatever they want to hear, they'd say, well, you need to and and they would release me. Don't get it.

Bam. And and that's what happened. I began this broken record that just followed me for the next 20 years. And, and I'd like to say right here, right now that this is not the comprehensive picture of alcoholism. You're sitting here saying, well, I didn't do that. This has nothing to do with alcoholism. The first page of chapter 4 talks about what alcoholism is. If you can't control the amount you take once you begin or if you can't quit, you're probably alcoholic. And page 30 says this is basically the same thing

where men and women who can't control our drink. And but this is just my experience. I was just wide open, you know, it was either

locked down or drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking. And before I had a driver's license, I

flip the neighbor's truck and got a DUI and written a string of charges. They said let me see your drivers license. I said I'm only 15. I saw I'm in trouble. I mean, then once I've got a driver's license, it was really bad. But I a good student up until this point. I love school, like everything about it, I guess. But I was suspended, suspended, suspended, suspended, expelled and asked to never come back. And really I didn't care, you know,

from a good family. My parents wanted me to graduate high school. My parents wanted me to be this or that. I, I mean, they were professional people. And here I am a long haired little punk that's in jail and they were ashamed of me. And I'm, I wasn't ashamed. I I just didn't care. I love what I was in a you'd hear nobody

out here. There's a lot in my first catch up with that. Nobody ever wants to grow up to be an alcoholic

or have these problems. I did. I mean, I looked up to all the kids, you know, my cousin Patty, I was 10 years old, picked me up, took me to see Carlos Santana in the Miami baseball stadium. She had a psychedelic Volkswagen Beetle drinking wine out of a big, you know, I mean, I just looked up to all them. I just, wow, I can't wait. And

So

what happened as I began at our local detox, they have a sign that says if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. There's a story of mine drinking.

I kept drinking. I kept getting in trouble. I

and the progression of alcoholism, they say it's a fatal progressive illness. It gets worse and ever better. Well, the consequences of my drinking got worse and ever better. You know, I wasn't getting slapped on the wrist anymore. I was going to jail and I'd go get out of jail and I'd go to the state work camp. I remember we went to the, the, the state work camp there. We had moved from Miami to a small town right outside of Atlanta and,

and they sent us to the work camp where we got to basically workout on the road. And it's you've seen Cool Hand Luke or whatever. It's it's it's a.

It should be embarrassing and life changing and you should think about things and change. They put me in the cell with a guy we used to hang out of the beer joint with and he said oh it's not so bad. My girlfriend will throw out a bottle of vodka and we'll go out and cut bushes on the side of the road, get drunk, have a good time. It was like putting us out now hunting camp in the woods and said y'all be stay out of trouble now.

It was and you know, Norm talked about it last night. A sponsor talked about and, and this part I couldn't relate to, but in my warped mind, I, I kind of could

going into the service. My sponsor went into the service and served this country. I remember we were staying around a campfire one night and this buddy of mine says, I

says, Gene, you were in the Marine Corps, weren't you? He said three years, three years. He said, hell, Tom and Chris and I had done at least three years in work camp, and that was my daughter. You know, my service to my country was cutting bushes on the side of the road and clean up garbage. I mean, that's green core chain game. You know what?

He was proud. We were proud. And. And so instead of being being humiliated and humbled,

it was just like, yeah, that's what we did. Yeah. And. And so if nothing changes, nothing changes. I always do what you always do. You always get what you. I had more DUI's. I went back because of more DUISI. Back then, it wasn't like it is now. Now they it's it's I, I sponsor a guy with four DUI's in Florida. He'll never get a driver's license ever

in state of Florida

at 40. You asked before I was 18 years old. I mean, I just do you after do you. I got two in one night, you know? Cobb said. Don't be driving anymore. And I'm cutting Donuts in the high school lawn and we'll have to take you down again, you know, and, and

it, it was, it was just a slap on most of my DUI's were not.

Sir, have you been drinking my DUI's where I'd hit three or four cars in the beer joint parking lot,

three or four miles down the road, The sheriff would finally find me where the skid marks went off by a bridge. And I'd flip the car two or three times and they'd arrest me for DUI, leaving scene, destruction of property, whatever, a string of charges. And that was par for the course for me. And so I got in a lot of trouble and it got worse and it got worse and it got worse and,

and I got in some big trouble one night. I I can really relate to my sponsor

talked about this is

fight broke out over a girl. I didn't even know the girl, but I got right in the middle of it. You know, that's the story of my drinking. And it got crazy and it was like

it was a long story. We went to Atlanta about a month ago and I showed my sponsor and Dale, a friend a scene of the the whole thing. And it was like it was shoot out at the OK Corral. And I got all, all of a sudden I got a violent charge. I got an aggravated assault assault charge. Nobody got hurt or other than their feelings, but I got in some serious trouble. I went to prison and

it was humiliating and humbling.

They shave your head, they put you in there and spray you down and stand in there with a bunch of other guys

and then those couple of hours are over and they throw you in the cell block with a bunch of inmates And it's and and it was humiliating for a few hours, you know, and then and then it just it's crazy, you know, and and and by this time I've been a lot of trouble. I've been been in AI never talked about this in my story and I

somebody at detox the other day was talking about being in and out of mental institutions. I was a little locked down on a psychiatric. They called it an observation hall for 10 months one time and I never talked about being in a mental institution locked down thorZ out and then four point restraint. And I was like, wow, I never talked about that before. But that's that's what happened and that's

will continue to happen. And, you know, it was almost like a attorney, housewife,

whatever. The hand that I was dealt was alcoholic. That was OK. You know, you, you got your hand. I got mine. Sure. It came with trip to jail and whatever, wrecking cars, fighting and all this. Whatever. When I get out, I'm gonna have a good time. You know, it was worth the consequences. I guess that's what I thought.

I couldn't picture life without alcohol and and so.

But what happened for me is

as I got out of more trouble, I got married briefly to a girl I dated in high school. I didn't know how to be married. I knew how to drink and I knew how to do what I wanted to do.

We were married a couple years that It was a couple years of my life that I stayed out of trouble because I had a babysitter. She would drive me around drunk or she'd keep me out of trouble or keep me out of scrapes. And I remember I was in a

treatment facility, a Georgia State thing, and she came to visit me with divorce papers. And I was like, wow, after all we've been through, you know, later on, I got snuggled up. I, I thought, how in the world did she put up with it for that long? You know, I mean, and oh, I hated her mother, you know, my mother-in-law at the time, if I was her mother, I would have had me, like, knocked off or something. I mean, I, my brother said she was a nice girl until she met you.

But um,

I got in more trouble. That's when I went to prison on this. I got a traffic ticket. It was the, it was the selfishness and self centeredness of my drinking. I was probably spoiled and I was lazy, didn't want to work. So I do whatever I have to not to work. And I would be import export business that would be stealing cars and be whatever. I mean, my parents didn't raise me that way, but I, that's what I did

and I got in trouble for traffic ticket or trafficking something like that. They gave me this 10 year sentence in, in, in Georgia penitentiary. I and I, I remember my father came over and and visited me said I've got this connection. Get you any prison. You want to go to that and you ought to go to this one where your grandmother could come down and visit you. And, and then so I said, OK, that sounds good to me. Whatever.

And I remember going back to the cellblock and telling the guys, yeah, I'm going to Central Correctional Correctional Institute in Macon, GA.

And they said, oh, no, that's a disciplinary camp. That's where they send the worst of the worst. You don't want to go there, you know? And I remember you can't write or I mean, you can't phone or anything. Remember writing a letter to your dad? Please give me sent anywhere but. And then before the letter got to him, it was like

EF 286829 report to book anyway or transfer.

And here I go to one of the most violent prisons in the state. And I got to visit my grandmother, though. You know,

I remember I was in the intake and I heard all these bad things. And there was this guy. He was on the United States Bobsledding team, and he was bigger than Paul. And he's standing there. He was in the goon squad. Keep everybody. And I said, is this place as bad as they say it is? He said, it's probably worse. I said, oh, Lord. I said, can I transfer out of here? He said yeah, you can

after you've been here 2 years. I was like, oh man, it was exactly 2 years to the day that I transferred out.

But what happened is I was I was paroled in 1990, three 1994 and my parents had moved to Florida. And what do you do when you're 30 something years old and everything you owns and half a garbage bag one more time home to Mama. My parents took me in, my father

bought me, help me buy this little car from a neighbor, helped me get a job over in Sandestin area. I went over there, I was out 30 days, got a DUI on the mid Bay Bridge. Deputy said I was scraping one side of the bridge to the other 80 miles an hour. I don't remember anything. I just woke up in jail and

one more time and

before my parole papers got from Atlanta to Tallahassee to Shalimar, our local office had violated it. My parole officer didn't know what to do. Remember Animal House? They put them on double secret probation. He said we're going to put you on double secret Probationers of AI said what does that mean? He says you can't get in trouble with alcohol. So what does that mean? He said if you drink one beer and get in trouble, that's a problem. If you drink 1/2 gallon of vodka and don't get in trouble,

it's OK. You know what? I heard you can drink 1/2 gallon of vodka. So I was out another 90 days maybe, and I flipped the car, you know, string of charges. My brother was coming over to get me to take me to detox because I was on a run and he didn't show up in time. So I decided I'd drive myself. I'm driving down the road in the rain, flat tire,

no lights. Deputy

goes to pull me over. So I decide, well, I've had a little bit too much to drink. I'll outrun him then get the detox. I've killed myself. I had flipped the car and and I remember going around the corner sideways and there's my brother and his family coming to take me to detox and my nephews and nieces pointing. There's Uncle Chris and they followed the carnage down the street and the deputies, I just, I remember floating through the air.

I got to get, I got to run to get the detox. I come crashing through a halt. I jumped out and I ran through a briar patch. And then when the deputies got me out of the briar patch, you know, they did the little Rodney King treatment on me. They like beat me to death before they threw me in the ambulance. And I could remember my nephews going look, Uncle Chris, it was horrible. They remember that to this day.

Do you think of Uncle Chris and drinking? And that's what they think of, and that's a good thing. You know,

they haven't seen me drunk in a long time,

but that's that's what got me to the county jail. That's what got me to the point that, you know, on page

Bill's story, Bill talks about at the very end of his drinking that that he was there on the, the, the bottom of the, the, the staircase and, and

thinking about jumping out the window sash and all. And that was it. And it said, it said that

the next morning the doctor came with gin and sedative and the next day found him drinking both gin and sedative. And it soon landed him on the rocks that he feared for his sanity and others did too. That's my experience. Right at the end of my drinking, I got involved with some really high-powered things that I had done in the past. But it, it really came, it landed me on the rocks and,

and I, I just got to a point.

What happened for me is what happened, how it was, what happened, what it what it's like now is, is it the theme of this, the singleness of purpose over and over and over from the 15 years old when I'm at my first a a meeting, I heard what I heard was in a, A was all these old people that are about my age, all these old people were talking about.

This is what we did, this is how we dream. This is what happened. And I can relate to all that.

And then this is what happened. We got to a point of desperation and we finally reached out for help. We asked a God power greater than ourselves. We asked a woman or a man to sponsor us. And then our lives transformed. And I sat there at that meeting as a kid thinking,

well, if ever gets bad enough, I can go to a

stick that in the back pocket. And, you know, and that's what that thank God for that, you know, thank God that they said that's what their experience was because all throughout my drinking, that's what happened. I came to a A for all the wrong reasons. They had cookies in prison and it looked good on for the parole board. But when I got there, you people came in and said the exact same thing. You carried the message to the Alcoholics and

thanks for that information. If it ever gets bad enough, I'll have to do the same thing.

Look, look, look, look, look, you know, and, but thank God for that because my experience is on page 30. It said we learned we had to fully concede to our animal selves.

Well, my learning took a long time and I and you know, I hope it doesn't take that long for anybody else, but that's just, I'm a hard headed alcoholic and, and it took a long time for me to learn that I had to fully concede to my innermost self because that's the first step in recovery. I could admit, well, I'm an alcoholic. My life is unmanageable. Give me another drink. And that was in the ninth grade. I knew all the other kids didn't drink a pint of vodka and go in the homeroom, but I did,

you know. And so I knew I had a problem. And I remembered this old guy in detox said, do you think if God himself came down out of the heavens stairway, out of the clouds, came right down here right now, could he help you with your drinking? And I wasn't prejudice against God or whatever I said, well, sure, he said, then why don't you let him? And he had me. I mean, well, the reason I didn't let him is because I didn't really want to get sober. You know, I hear the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is what we did when we got to report,

you know, my sponsor came in. That's a picture below my

you know the mug shot. I'm beating up stitches in my head, my collarbones broken, my ankles broken. I'm hobbling around and my sponsor comes in and tells his story.

And he got to a point of desperation that he couldn't go one step further. He heard a woman share her experience. He went back to a homeless shelter and got on his knees and asked God for him or a power greater than himself for help because he he left God in in in Southeast Asia. I

thanks for the information. If it ever gets bad enough, that's what I'll do,

you know, and back in jail and racking. But thanks for the information. And and it should have got bad enough, but it, I don't know, because it didn't get bad enough on the inside.

But what happened is my parents, my family, my everybody on the planet earth said go away, you know, and I and I went away and I and I, I reached the point of desperation. Norm talked about this last night. I got to a point I was, I was standing in somewhere in New Orleans. There's train tracks that go underneath. There's this bridge trestle. I was going to jump off of it and kill myself. And I remember thinking,

you can always go back to a A. And I was like, not only did a, A ruin my drinking, a ruin every part of my life.

Now I'm going to kill myself and can't even do that because I, you know, and that's where I had to get, I had to get to this point. You know, my thought, my thought of my buddy Tom, I from North Carolina says it the best. This thought of joining the Legion of the damned Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, wasn't the, you know, it just this hell on earth experiences the way I thought it would be every second of the day. I'd be wanting to drink, but I couldn't drink because I was in a A and, you know, nothing.

I likened it to let's make a deal. Remember, what was his name or the money hall, The long microphone, the lady in the chicken suit and the man with the bag on his head. You know, I'm standing down front and he's like, okay, Chris behind door #1 we've got your sad, pathetic life of alcoholism beaten and dragged and kicked and dragged down the street and every horrible thing that's ever happened to you. Direct result. Oh, yeah, by the way, it's chronic progressive illness that gets worse, never better.

Or door #2 the spiritual path that we're all taking, where every hope and dream and ambition and anything good in your life can ever be imagined behind that door. What's it going to be? Door number one or door #2? And I'm like, well, what about door #3 And there he's like, there is no door. It's door number one or door #2 and, and I'm well, can I just cash out and go home and say no, you, you passed that point a long time ago.

This is the decision and, and, and that's a brutal decision for an alcoholic to think of, you know, and that says it in the 4th chapter, to live on a spiritual basis or die an alcoholic death. Let me think about it. You know, I remember sitting in detox. I'll die drunk in a ditch before I go to a A and I met it all those losers up there. My dog died, my boyfriend or girlfriend left me. But now I'm happy Joyce and free because I work the steps and called my sponsor. No,

but what happened is I got to a point where that hell on earth existence and that legion of the dam sobriety shuffle was more appealing than the life I was living. You know, the worst thing I could imagine being sober in a a look more appealing than where I was at. You know, I remember getting on my knees and just saying, God help me. It was a bunch of stuff in a row

and I just got on my knees because thank God of the singleness of purpose and that I finally took filing cabinet back there somewhere and just said my wife says the best driven to my knees said God help me, I can't go on like this.

And what happened was I got up

and I went to one of those meetings where those losers were

because I knew if those losers can't help me, I don't have a hope. If those steps those losers aren't are working, can't help me. I'm dude, if the sponsor those losers say they have can't help me to,

it's over. And that was my experience and I found out that I felt sorry for these old guys that sat around this one meeting.

This one guy drove an old beat up truck and another guy was AI, felt sorry for him, wore the same clothes. I thought they were bums. One guy was a Dean of Dartmouth College. Another guy was a Air Force Colonel. He just like the old beat up truck, you know. And So what I learned was all these losers weren't losers after all. You know, they were just trying to stay sober and trying to.

But what happened was

parole officer picked me up, took me to the county jail and my journey began because when I got out, I had been to my Home group many times. Our Home group is the Home group that everybody talked about in the area. Our Home group was the one

that

where all the real Alcoholics congregated. Those fanatics,

I remember I came into Alcoholics Anonymous in the beginning and there's a big room and on the coffee pot over here, there were the fanatics and they were our Home group members and they were saying don't drink and either begin to tickle it. You need to start prayer and meditation and serve this work. And

I'm like, whoa. And then over on this side of the room and the other coffee pot, they're saying, hey, don't listen to those fanatics. And we didn't come in here to lose our individuality.

Just don't drink. I'm like, OK,

come hang out with us. You know, we do a lot of fun stuff. You know, they were all doing other things and that. And I was like, wow, this a a isn't that bad. And then there I am on death's door one more time. And I couldn't stay sober with those people. So where did I go when I'm in business to the fanatics? And I remember pulling up to the meeting on Tuesday night

and I pulled up in this old beat up car and I heard the halty's laugh the best. Everybody's out on the front porch,

like I said, having a good time, shoot the breeze. But when the bell rang, they were dropped dead serious. I knew that, that's why I was there. But they were up on the porch laughing and I just couldn't get from the car to the front porch. I remember one night getting in the car after hearing her up there laughing and just saying,

you know, heck with them. I went and got drunk despite them. You know, I'll show them.

But that's where I that's where I went when I I meant business and I got out of jail. My big first miracle in a AI was going through all these

reasons I got sober and all this other day, the reason I got sobers, I got tired of going to jail, got tired of going to the penitentiary in the nut house and the places that I went because of my drink. And

but what I did was I my first, Oh yeah, my first miracle was the seven years I had to do