The Willing to grow conferece in Vaud, Switzerland

I'm very pleased to to welcome you here. I would like to thank in particular our guests Chris sitting here and Peter whom you recognize from last year who have come with their charming wives, Linda and Patty, who are sitting with us and we're very pleased that they managed to to get to to come and see us and spend the weekend in Barqah with us. So thank you very much for them to have made all this effort to come. Apparently, they had a bit of a rest so they should be able to stay awake with us the whole evening. What I would like to do is, before we start, I would like to thank a few friends amongst us, those who have helped organize our event.

And I would like to thank in particular Wendy, Guillaume who has been kind enough to to pick up our friends at the airport. I would like to thank also Sharon and I'm sorry if I have no Philip also, helped and others who might be of help. And I'm not, of course, forgetting our very dear friend, Julia. A big round of applause. Without her, this event could not have been organized, and thanks very much to Julia for all the efforts she made.

And I'll ask you a favor if you if you need anything. Julia has done enough to to prepare this thing. So why don't you direct my your questions to me or to Wendy or to Sharon but please spare Julia. Okay? So otherwise, I would like just to tell you a few details.

We're going to listen to Chris now during during approximately an hour, and then as you know we start our convention tomorrow at 10 AM in Barcarol. For those of you who still don't know exactly the way, please ask me or Wendy or Tina or Sandro. Sandro, thank you also very much for participating in the organization, together with the rest of the team. So you ask them if you need to know how how to get there. Otherwise well, I think it's time for me to shut up and to leave the floor to our friend, Chris.

Thank you, folks. My name is Chris Ramer. Very grateful recovered alcoholic. Can y'all hear me okay? Can you pretty my head's full from the flight and, it just never cleared.

So it sounds like I'm talking in a cave. And so if I start to get kinda quiet, it sounds like I'm screaming. Hold my call. There you go. No matter where you speak, there's always 1 there you go.

You got it? That's okay. That's okay. I, I'm from Ingram, Texas which is a 1000000 miles from here. Not not just in miles, guys.

I mean, we are in different planet. I mean, this Ingram, Texas little country, little town down in down there kind of San Antonio in Texas. I was raised around the the Texas Hill Country and, I started drinking in the Texas Hill Country and I I, I finished there myself. It's, I cannot tell you how overwhelmed I am by this this event, this coming to to Switzerland. You know, you you see pictures from the time your kids in Switzerland.

You're never gonna go there. There's no reason. It's it's I mean, what the heck? What am I gonna do? And then here I am and it's, I'm honored.

I'm so grateful for George and his absolute unbelievable generosity, helping us get here and Julia and all that. Just anybody that had anything to do with this, thanks so much. Peter and I are gonna share tomorrow. We're gonna do a little workshops and talk about some stuff that is is pretty near and dear to us about this fellowship. And and I wanna tell you a little bit about my story tonight so you kind of know what I'm about.

And and some of you probably won't come back tomorrow because of it. And and that's but I think I think that's okay too. I think I think I got sober in in 1987 and, I'm I'm what they call I don't know what they do here but in the states, they they call us chronic relapsers. I was one of those cats that I was trying to quit from almost the time I started. I started having problems with this stuff and and and it took me a long time of actively I was 7 years in alcoholics anonymous trying to get well and couldn't.

And today I I I work, do clerical work in a big treatment center down down in the hill country where we treat alcoholism and drug addiction. And I get to witness, thousands of alcoholics and addicts come through that hospital and and I watch a lot of those people have had the same experience I've had in getting sober. And and it's really frustrating because the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous was written in such a way where it tells you on the title page that you can recover from this. And and my story is is that I never heard that message all those 7 years that I was in the program up to the point I finally landed in the right room. And so this this sometimes when I speak and I speak a lot out in public, I come across as as a bit on the controversial side.

It sounds like I'm taking AA's inventory and I and I'm and I sup suppose I am. I I, I love Alcoholics Anonymous and I I love being sober and I've got a great life today because of it. And, but I watch so many people struggle with this, you know, it's like whether it's the alcohol or or the drugs, I'm sure we have some little drug addicts that snuck in into it, whatever it is, I mean, we have a solution that works and it's just there's so much misunderstanding about what that solution is. Because a lot of people wanna share a thing that I I think is kind of dangerous in our fellowship and it's called opinions. Well, this is what I think, you know, well, this is what my my treatment center said.

Well, this is what my sponsor said. You know, and I I get a little frustrated with it. I mean, I'm pretty passionate about recovery, folks. It it just but I I can absolutely pull my hair out when I start hearing people share this stuff because we've got a solution and I've had it for 70 years. It's called the big book of alcoholics anonymous and if you haven't gathered by now, I'm a big book thumper.

And if you're not, buddy, that's okay. The water's great. You know, the company's bar none and y'all are so welcome. You're just you're just not gonna like what I've got to say. And then, yeah, my sponsor said, you know, if you can't reconcile it with what's in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, you might hold it suspect at best.

You might you might choose to take it with a grain of salt as they say. So, y'all y'all could do the same thing. I'm I'm not here to convert anybody to big book thumperdom or anything of that nature. If, you know, if going if going to meetings and just not drinking is working for you and you're happy, joyous and free and you're putting some sobriety together, rock rock on. I mean, have a great life.

Just don't sponsor anybody. Maybe we could maybe we could go there. I gotta tell you, we we took a boat ride. We we took a boat ride from wherever the heck we're staying and I don't I I'm sorry. And, we took a boat ride across the lake and how what a what a gorgeous I mean, I'm it's breathtaking.

It's like a fairy land over here. I I love you. It was so good. We all get off the boat. We're all we're all combing our hair and my patch is lapping in the breeze, you know, and Peter gets off, you know, it's just not a not a hair on her touch.

He's just still we always make jokes about Peter's hair. It's just he He's been my hair sponsor for years. I'm improving, you know, but it's gonna be fun tomorrow getting to share the podium with him and, we've done it often and and, I'm I'm excited about being here. I, I started drinking in a in a, like I said, a little small town. This is like the Appalachia of Texas.

I mean, it it is Y'all would hate it and, and the food would probably kill you but it's y'all are welcome to come visit anytime. I don't know why you'd want to but you're welcome. But, I wanted to be a professional chef all my life. I was fortunate to work at a hotel, who had a Swiss chef. The the cat had come from Houston and he sort of retired to the the hill country and he'd started this hotel in this in this restaurant and I I I worked for him as a bus boy there and this guy was so cool.

I I can't wait to tell him I I could finally got to see Switzerland but I I found that I had a pretty good talent for that that line of work and I and I I I progressed and I went to Houston and he got me a job at the Warwick Hotel there in Houston, Texas and and I was, an apprentice there and we had nothing but Europeans in that hotel. And I was so fortunate to get to work with Europeans. And, and I became quite good at what I did. And, there was this little drinky thing, you know, because and I don't know if y'all understand this but in the food business, it's just they just look the other way. We don't care how much you drink.

You requisition stuff from the storeroom, get it get you a case of beer, buddy. Go ahead. As long as the job gets done, we look the other way. It's okay. And, it worked great for me.

And, I had a little German, cook that took me under his wing and and he was a brutal alcoholic. And I would smuggle in booze in in my my my tool kit and we hit it off great and he helped my career. I think I helped kill him. I was one of these I was one of these alcoholics. We we call them in the United States, we call them functioning alcoholics.

And I know that some of y'all are like that. I was not a low bottom drunk. Towards the end it got very low, but but for most of my 20 year drinking and later drugging career, I was a functioning alcoholic. I I wasn't going to jail. I wasn't blacking out.

I was going to work every day in the kitchens, coming home, drinking myself spitless and and getting up and doing it again the next day. People knew I drank. They they were amazed. The little skinny guy could drink as much as me. I that should have been my first indication that there was trouble on the horizon but, I I just didn't experience a lot.

My father was an alcoholic. He was a periodic and, we know today that alcoholism and drug addiction is is genetic and, that is a fact, folks. It is not a theory. Up to about 7 years ago before we got since in in the advent of the MRI and the CAT scans, we know today without a shadow of a doubt, we are truly wired different than normal drinkers and brothers. And, I don't know.

My twin brother was an alcoholic just like me. I've got a little sister that was raised in the same family but never had a problem with alcohol. In fact, she freaks us out. I mean, we we'll get her a glass of wine. Lisa, you want a glass of wine?

And she'll drink it. She'll set it down, slide it across, you know. Lisa, what's wrong with the wine? What's what's that? She's not it just it tastes a bit off.

What off. Oh, man. Off? I don't care if there's a dead cricket floating in it, you know. I mean, I because I'm not drinking for the taste of the legs.

Oh, look at the color. I could give a rat's butt, you know. I mean, I'm drinking for the what the book called the effect produced by the chemical And I start to drink that stuff and this little thing in me called the spiritual malady, I didn't know that's what it was. I mean hindsight, you know, I'm sober 18 years. I'm look back, that's what it was.

The spiritual malady gets treated when I put alcohol in my body and and that's why I drink. The problem is that physically I have this phenomenon called craving so at certain times, I over drink. They get that control thing. Tomorrow when we talk about qualifying the alcoholic, we're gonna talk a lot about that. But I had these symptoms that I knew intuitively that I had a problem with this stuff.

But I wasn't getting in a lot of trouble so I didn't take it quite as seriously as some of the people around me. People just got tired of messing with me, they just left and that's good for you, you know. That's just the way it was. I started seeing a psychiatrist early on in, late seventies, Not for my drinking, but for my depression. I found that when I drank the depression would lift but when I didn't drink the depression was on me and, it was very frustrating because I didn't have a problem stopping drinking.

I could stop on a dime. If the woman was good looking enough, you know, I'd stop quick. I We Months, I would stop and then I would inevitably start again. And that's That was the grinder. But I'm seeing a therapist for the for this depression.

And I'm bored and I can't seem to focus and and they are, doing what psychiatrists do in the states. They they get the prescription pad out. We can fix that. And they're writing for scripts by the handfuls and, I'm moving around a lot because I'm in the food business that's perfectly acceptable and, dang it, every place I go, I don't care where I I I always end up there and, I'm the problem. But I'm blaming everybody around me and I can't I just I I have this idea, as do the therapist, that if I can arrange my life and finally get some stuff straightened out that I'll be okay inside.

And that's perfectly logical. In the treatment center industry which I could go on about for a decade, that's a huge thing to talk about. Why are you drinking? It's not because you're an alcoholic. It's because you were abused as a child or because you were mistreated or because you're black or because you were some I I I don't know.

I don't know. But we looked at all of that. It was so frustrating to me because I kept I was diligent with my therapy and I was diligent with my medication but I but I'm still drinking, you know, you'll follow it. And I and I If I could just make so such and such amount of money, if I could just get to this hotel, if I could just get to be a sous chef, if I could just get to be the Ternod, if I could just What? It didn't matter because I would get there.

You know how God works with us, you know, boom, we get there. If I could just marry that woman, you know. I can remember 2 weeks after I married my first wife and I'm watching her shovel those Cheerios in her mouth and I'm saying, you know, God, if I can just kill this woman, everything would be okay. It's just we're we're After a while, and some of y'all can relate to this, of trying to organize your life so that you can finally be comfortable inside and drink like a gentleman, you just give up. You get hopeless.

In the early, eighties, that's where I was and, I had added some outside issues to my drinking. It was in a form of cocaine. I'll I'll say that for singleness and purpose but and it really just complicated the daylight out of my life. And, first wife said you quit drinking or I'm done. And, I quit drinking for 2 weeks.

Then I had one beer and came home and she smelled it and went to the pack and packed left. She was done. And, and I blamed her for the next 7 years for my continued drinking. One of the things that happened with her divorcing me was that I ended up in a AA meeting. And and this is where it always gets controversial for people because I make I I I don't wanna make anybody uncomfortable because you may have ended up in these same kind of meetings and stayed sober in them but but I didn't.

The Icelandic guys call them dark tunnel meetings And they and they're they're they're all the same. They're called open discussion meeting. And where you go and you talk about your day and the cat and the traffic and the job, whatever you wanna talk about. And at the end, you know, we keep coming back at work if you work it and you leave. And, but you see, I've got a fatal progressive illness, folks, and I'm dying here, you know.

And in the in the first few weeks in a a, it was a very amusing it at at least to listen to you and your life and your story and and and how you got to be such a cosmopolitan doll, you know. I mean, that really I gotta talk to you. GQ, all the way. He's this great guy. And, I'm just pulling my hair out.

After about 2 weeks of listening to this crap, I'm I'm going crazy, you know, because because I'm not stopping drinking and and and if we weren't talking about the problem, we were talking about the war story. It's like, it's this endless litany of war stories And I hit this so hard because I hear the patients coming into our hospital complaining about the same thing. If I have to go back to one of those AA meetings and listen to those war stories, I Hell, I wanted to drink worse when I left than I did when I got there. You'll follow us? The literature in Alcoholics Anonymous is very clear.

In the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous, they didn't share war stories. They shared war stories and it's such a valuable thing that we have in a thing called a 12 step call. I catch you out there on the on the park bench and you're drunk on your butt, you know, and I talk to you. See if you wanna stop drinking and I share some stories to get you comfortable and and we visit and bond a little bit then I drag your butt to a meeting. Y'all with us on that?

And then, we hear some solution like how to work the 12 steps and have a spiritual experience that will remove the obsession to drink forever. What a cool concept. But we didn't do that. In the meetings that I was going to up in North Texas, all we did was talk about war stories, try to scare each other into recovery and whine about our day. Folks, I'm gonna say this real hard.

I'm gonna try not to speak in tongues when I say it. Alcoholics anonymous is not therapy. Therapy is therapy and it's a good thing to have. I think if anybody can afford it, they you do it. It's a wonderful opportunity to get to know some things about yourself.

But I'm gonna tell you, coming into an AA meeting and expecting a room full of people to fix my problems is is I'll say this, it's selfish at best. We got a little alcoholic and he comes in the back room and he's shaking, he's coming to the park, he's in the in DT's and and and and we're gonna talk about our divorce one more time. I it it it makes me wanna scream. Could we come early and talk about the divorce? Yes.

I did and do. Can we stay late afterwards and go to coffee and go to dinner in the fellowship of our college synonymous, talk about all that? Absolutely. But why is it guys that we gotta take 1 hour a day in our meeting and waste it talking about that? And I know some of y'all in here don't agree with that.

If I couldn't talk about my I'm saying if it works for you, find those meetings. But I'm telling you after 7 years of that stuff, I looked in the mirror one day and said I'm never going back. That's my experience. 1987, I'm living with my twin brother. He's got a little apartment he's put me up in and I'm working in he's got a book bindery and, it's a craft bindery and, I'm working for him.

And, I picked up a stack of return checks 1 afternoon and got a 12 pack of beer and went home and opened all those return checks. I'm 35 years old and I realized that I bankrupted another another bank account and then I'm gonna have to go to my family tomorrow and ask for some money. I can't cook in the industry anymore because I can't hold a knife. I am physically and mentally dying. I am psychotic.

I'm hearing stuff and I'm doing that on 7 pills a day that the doctors have prescribed for me. All legitimately, folks. They're trying to help me. What they don't understand is the problem with Chris Ramer is he's an alcoholic. He's not bipolar.

He's not manic depressive. He's not all of this other stuff that we're being medicated for. I know some people need that. I didn't. I was misdiagnosed.

I got up off the floor in the very, you know, people I know we probably have some people in here that are not alcoholic or addicts and maybe some family members snuck in. But I gotta tell you, I know it's frustrating. I hope they did. I hope it's it's frustrating to I know to watch us do what we do, to self destruct ourselves. But but, you know, to be in it, to tell your families that you're gonna stop and then let them down, oh, a few thousand times.

I mean, after a period of time, many of us get to a place of absolute hopelessness. And, you know, I was just out of plan. There was no more woman I could stick for money. There was no more there's no more deal to be done to get me out of the jam I was in. I was broke and I was sick and I was very tired of living.

And I went to the medicine cabinet, I pulled out a couple bottles of pills and tried to commit suicide. No romantic nonsense about it. It's the absolute coward's way out. But that's where I was. November 13, 1987.

That's Friday 13th. I took a about the time those pills hit my throat, I heard a voice that night that said, Chris, don't do this. Go back to AA. Freaked me out. I believe in a little apartment about the size of this table.

You know, I mean, I it's it's like it's not like somebody could be hiding in my house, you know. I'm I you can you can see the house from the my mirror, you know, and I it's like there's nobody there. I heard the voice 2 times, 3 times that night said, Chris, don't do this. Go back to a a. Was it in my head?

I I I don't know what it was, guys. I believe it was a power greater than myself saving my skinny little butt one more time. I made myself sick. The next morning I came to, I heard the voice one more time. Same voice, Chris, don't do this.

Go back to AA. And I'm arguing with the voice guy. He doesn't know. Listen. You want me to shave my head and go to Africa and be a missionary?

I'm your man. I'll do that. You what do you want me to I've done every I ain't going back to AA. It doesn't work. Chris, don't do this.

Go back to AA. Okay. I went to a doctor that day and got some doggy downers to detox And at 6 o'clock that night, I walked in the back door of an AA meeting. I knew where this meeting was. I've never been there before.

But I knew I was running late at times and, I I walked in the back door of this meeting which I believe is one of my first spiritual experiences because I did not want to go in that meeting but I did it anyway. And I walked in the back door and every there was 40 people in that room. Y'all smoke in meetings in Switzerland? Did y'all smoke in meetings? No?

Well, back then in Texas, because everybody smoked and you could smoke in meetings and it was like you just walk into this. You could see the ceiling dropping, you know, as the smoke haze dropped down, everybody crouching. It was unbelievable. There was 40 people and they all had 2 or 3 cigarettes sticking out of their mouth. That's the way it was.

And, they all had a big book in their lap. And I remember walking in and going, oh man. I said, all the meetings to go to, I had to land in a nest of big book thumpers. You know, it's just there's 1500 meetings in the Dallas Fort Worth area at the time. 1500 meetings a week and I ended up in this one.

And I I I know today it was absolute spiritual intervention. And I walked in the back door and they were laughing and I didn't like that. You know how bad when you feel bad, you want everybody else to feel bad. So it is that I hated them. And, I started to back out.

This little 19 year old girl got between me and the door and wouldn't let me out. And I'm I'm about £40. I weighed more right I was all right here. I'm my kidneys and liver's going and I'm, you know, big full beard and patches. Uh-huh.

My patch is perpetually crooked. It looks like I wear an earring. You know, it's not Is it I mean, I look like hell, you know. And I and I walk in and this little girl, this 19 year old girl, all cleaned up, spiffy and she hooks her finger in my belt loop because she knows I'm walking out because she can she's not stupid. I learned later that her sponsor said, get it.

And she did. Sponsor couldn't get to me. But I'm in the courage of this little girl to do this and she set me down in a chair and patted my leg and got me a cup of coffee and a roll of paper towels to clean up the mess. I'm detoxed and I can't hold the paper cup and, they went around the room that night. I I committed.

I, I'm gonna stay for an hour. What the hell? What what could happen? A lot could happen. They went around the room and they shared some miracles with me.

The chairperson gave them instructions which was unheard of. It wasn't, Well, who's got the problem? They said hey, we got a newcomer in here. Guy's been around the fellowship for years. He's dying.

Can we share some hope with him? And they went around the room and they each shared some stuff that I could relate to. They didn't talk about little sunbeams for Jesus and stuff, folks. They they talked about stuff I could relate to. Not knocking that.

I just They talked about getting credit cards back. Remember credit cards? Yeah. I'd lost mine years ago. They talked about buying houses and being in cool relationships and and and and having some real friends and they just They talked about having a car with a license plate and car tags and insurance.

I'm These, it just takes my breath away to think about it. You know what I mean? This this was stuff that was just so far gone from me. At the end of a meeting, the guy got up and he says, Chris, he said, welcome. I picked up a little desire chip and he says, are you ready to stay sober for good and for all?

I made the big mistake. Biggest mistake I'd made that night. I said, Well, you know, one day at a time. I know this grinds some of you but our literature doesn't say we stay sober one day at a time. Our literature says we make a commitment that we're ready to do this.

I know that I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow. I may be drunk. With God's help, I'll stay sober. But I don't make a choice on a daily basis whether I'm going to stay sober because my book clearly states I've lost the power of choice. I'm insane around the alcohol but it starts with a commitment.

Are you done? There's a problem in our fellowship and we're gonna hit it hard tomorrow in these workshops. We've gotten away from that. We think this is some kind of a social event. If you're not done, go drink.

Finish the job. When you get ready to do what we're asking you to do, you'll get sober. We'll get success rates back up where they're supposed to be. Anyway, this guy says that's what I thought. Conversation was over.

I chased after him and he explained this to me, this one day at a time thing. And I asked him to ask me again and he says, are you ready to stay sober for good and for all? Are you ready to try this for keeps? I said, yes. He hugged my neck.

The next morning, heard a knock on the door. Oh, man. I'd already decided that I wasn't gonna go back to that meeting. I was gonna go Sunday, you know, because I'm detoxing and I need a little time to chill, watch TV a little bit. I'm not feeling good.

They followed me home the night before unbeknownst to me. Because they knew that I wasn't gonna I was gonna crawfish, you know. And they said, let's go. And I said, no, I don't think so. And they said, yeah, I think so.

Let's go. And they I said, well, at least let me take my car. Yeah. So I I followed them down and and we went to a meeting. Here's where it gets, interesting.

We went to a meeting and then after the meeting, we got, the old timers open it up and they qualified me for the first time in 7 years to see if I was really an alcoholic. We'll talk about that tomorrow. And, they took me in the back room and we got on our knees and I did a third step prayer. And then we went to lunch and came back and they gave me a notebook with some paper on it and they drew some lines on there and it says, Let's show you how to start on your 4th step. Now I'm in Alcoholics Anonymous for 7 years and a bunch of people that said they loved me never allowed me to work one step.

And now I'm in AA for 2 days and I'm already working on a 4th step because these people knew what the book intended for us to do. They knew that I had a spiritual malady that was gonna kick my butt and the obsession was gonna return and I was gonna drink again. They had to get me connected to God quickly. Alcoholics Anonymous is not a self help program. It's a spiritual program of action.

That's a fact, folks. You can treat it as a self help program if you want and you're gonna get the same results. I can't fix myself. That's why I need the spiritual experience. I love those guys.

I'm gonna tell you, I landed finally in a room full of people that loved me enough to tell me the truth. And they didn't give me a rat's butt if they hurt my feelings or not. They they weren't being rough with me. I make it sound like they were so terrible. They just just they just They were very directional and and I needed that.

We we we often We put this back on the newcomer. People come up after I speak and they and they wanna take exception. Well, Chris, you know, if you really wanted to stay sober in those 7 years, you could have stayed sober. I mean, you could have asked the questions. What Oh, excuse me.

What questions were those I was supposed to ask? I don't even know where the bathroom is for Christ's sake. And you and you want me to ask you the right questions? That's ridiculous. It's our job to teach.

Finally, in 1987, I landed in a room full of people that knew that And the entire group took me under their wing and they showed me how to do the rest of the steps. 2 weeks after I had the my suicide attempt, I've got a completed 4 step and I'm sitting on the tailgate of my truck in the same apartment complex where I tried to off myself and I realize that the obsession to use is lifted. Same apartment complex, we were talking about it today. Same apartment complex that I was doing all the cocaine and drinking all the alcohol in but I'm in the same complex that something shifted because I've gotten off my butt for the first time in this fellowship and actually started doing something. I had a spiritual experience with the obsession to use lifted.

And folks, I'm gonna tell you that was 18 years ago and not once in 18 years has the obsession to drink and drug returned to me. And I'm a cat that could not not drink. And I know that story is different for you. I know some of y'all in this room right now have been around alcohol synonymous for years years years and you still have moments where you wanna drink. I'm sorry, that's wrong.

That's not a recovered alcoholic. Book is quite clear. If you can't be around it, you're not recovered. My sponsor says how free do you wanna be? I got the same sponsor Peter does.

How free do you wanna be? You wanna be free today? You wanna be free the rest of your life? That's where I come from, folks. That's where my passion comes from because I have watched thousands of alcoholic sinatics finally catch fire with this thing and get with a sponsor that understands what's in this book.

Go through the 12 steps rapidly and have barn burning spiritual experiences and the obsession to eat those pills or smoke pot or drink or do cocaine or whatever it is, leaves them. That's what a recovered alcoholic is. Chris, you're so offensive. Everybody everybody knows you'll always be recovering. That's what treatment centers teach you.

That's not what the literature teaches you. Makes sense? The problem, the problem, 70 years ago, Bill Wilson and doctor Bob got together. They couldn't stop drinking. They worked for, many many months on making some changes in the way they were doing things so that they could get some maximum benefit and help alcoholics get achieve sobriety, permanent sobriety.

Today, what we wanna do is we wanna take those same twelve steps and put our own twist on it. Well, I think you should do it this way. Well, I think you should do it that way. What's wrong with doing it the way the big book outlines? Makes sense?

I was in Detroit, couple of weeks ago and a guy comes up and says, well, we do a 4 step. Where we where we, list every person we've ever known in our entire life on a 4 step. I said, how many names did you have on your resentment inventory? He said, 1100. I said, buddy, I'm gonna tell you, when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I couldn't even zip my own pants, much less figure out a This is ridiculous.

Go to a newcomer and ask him to do this big feat. Guys, the original force step was in such a form that you could do it in a couple of hours on the back of an envelope. It's a fact finding mission. It is not unbelievable, the misunderstanding about our fellowship. No wonder people get frustrated and quit.

I got off in the I got off the plane in, in, Denmark a couple of years ago and, our host I'm out there trying to regain consciousness and smoking a butt and our host comes up and says, Chris, what do you think about the about the German method? Don't know the German method? Well, y'all, I'm fixing to explain it. Y'all should. If you wanna kill people, go right ahead here.

I said, I don't know bud. Let let me settle a minute here. I'll get right back to you on that one. And I'm driving and this new driver comes in and says, well, Chris, what do you think about the German method? I finally get with my host and I said buddy, you gotta fill me in because I've never I've been around the fellowship for 20 years.

I don't have a the German method. He says, yeah. This is what they do and I don't know if they do or not because I've never been to Germany but this is what they said, you come into the fellowship and you and you chill your jets for a year. You get you get your feet underneath you. You you you go to a meeting.

You just don't drink. And then at the end of the year, they'll start working you through the steps, 1 step a year. 1 step 1 step a month. Excuse me. So I let me get this straight.

So I come in and 2 years later, I'm gonna work the 12 steps that guarantee me the spiritual experience. Guys, if I could stay sober 2 years, why in the hell do I need you? My book says on page 34, if you can stay sober on a non spiritual basis, you're not one of us. The German method. You could take that and hang it.

I did it freaks what's wrong with doing just exactly what the book says do? Those guys had me doing 12 step work the 1st 2 weeks I was sober. They didn't have me leaving big book workshops and stuff, the hopes that they had me participating. Help us chair the meeting. Help us make the coffee.

Answer the phones for us. They gave me jobs so that I would stay and feel a part of the group instead of just patting me on the ass and telling me to keep coming back. You kill a lot of people with that crap, folks. It's not about just keep coming back. It's big in Texas.

That's the big saying with everybody. I'm sure y'all do it here. They've got people. Tell the newcomer, just don't drink and go to meeting and you're gonna be okay. I'm sorry.

That's not my experience. Not not my experience at all. Not with a real alcoholic. You just keep coming to meetings. I had to go into meetings down, brother.

You I mean, I'm 90 meetings in 90 days, I'm a media maker fool. It was the not drinking between the meetings that I was having a little trouble with. Yes. You see where I'm at with that? Again, all this comes from people's opinions because it's not in the big book.

Tomorrow, we're gonna hit it hard with this stuff in the treatment centers and the damage done by people that should know better and don't. Settlement tailgate of my truck in North Texas, realized that the obsession to drink had been lifted. Went up to my apartment, cranked up some hot jazz, listened some rock and roll, washed the dishes and was free. That was the greatest thing that ever happened to me in my life was that obsession lifting from me. That has a direct result of me getting off my butt and participating in my own recovery.

And I've been so blessed for the last 18 years to be able to be around this that our treatment industry and an active member in our fellowship. I'm I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and also Copean Anonymous. And I'm so honored to be a part of those fellowships. That's what it's about. Let me tell you this Let me give you an analogy real quick and I'm a let you guys go.

Swiss are big pharmaceutical country. Y'all probably come up with it. Swizzle invent a pill for the ugly. I can see it on the horizon. You with me?

Thinking about this coming over. Eat this pill and you're instantly not ugly anymore. And and, some of y'all in here don't need that medication. Some of y'all desperately need this medication but it's work. The side effects are a little rough and it's tough to take but it works 100% of the time.

You with us? But there's only a small market for that medication because it's not that really that really that many ugly people out there. There's a lot of homely people out there. You with us? So we're gonna fix this medication.

The homely people don't wanna take this medication because it's too rigid. It's too hard to take. You with us? So we're gonna revamp this medication and we're gonna knock it down a few notches so that the homely people will find it palatable and they can take it. And all of a sudden, it's treating homely people like you wouldn't believe.

But you know, by making this a weaker medication, it won't work for the ugly people anymore. You're down with this? Exactly what I'm saying is going on in Alcoholics Anonymous today. We're so damn concerned about upsetting somebody. We're so concerned about scaring the newcomer off.

We don't wanna talk about God. We don't wanna talk about the 12 steps. Oh, we don't wanna do that. What do we wanna do then? Sit on the sidelines and watch them drink and then blame them for why they relapsed.

Come on folks. Patty and I were talking about this earlier. It's a it's a big soapbox of mine. In a great country that I live in, the United States, and I love my country but it it is unbelievably stupid sometimes. Take take for instance George Bush.

I said it from the podium, I don't care. He's from my state. I'll say what I want. In the United States in the early eighties, we started seeing lawsuits trickle down through the ACLU around separation of church and state. People that were sentenced to alcoholics by well meaning judges were digging in rigidly saying, you can't ask me to go to a fellowship where they talk about God because you're a federal arm of the government and that's a spiritual entity and you can't force me to do that.

And you know the legal guys won and they won big time. And it coursed its way to the appellate courts and ended up in the supreme court in the late nineties and we lost. And now what happens in the United States, and I don't have a clue how your government runs, obviously better than ours, but how it works in the United States is that if you have a treatment center that's state funded, that has any federal funding, which are also the most reasonably priced treatment centers for for the little knuckleheads coming off the street can go to. You can't talk about the 12 steps in those meetings. In those hospitals, you can't talk about God.