The Spiritual Awakenings Group in Bernardsville, NJ

And, my name's Chris. I'm an alcoholic. I wanna welcome everybody here tonight. This is the Werner Zoom, spiritual waiting room. We have 2 meetings.

One of them is Tuesday night at 8 o'clock, the other is 6 o'clock. On Saturday night, this is basically the home group celebration. Now, I've got, just a couple of announcements. We're group over at Chatham is having its 7th anniversary celebration on Sunday, March 2nd. Dinner at 7 o'clock.

Speaker starts at 8 o'clock. And, the speaker is 20. That's pretty exciting. I am, I'm I'm overwhelmed with excitement for tonight. We've got, we've got 2 really really good speakers.

They've come a long way to celebrate with us. You know, this this whole group basically started about 10 years ago because we were invited in priest tracked us down and said whatever the heck you guys are doing, we want you to do it at our church. And, so so that was about 10 years ago now. Many of the people that are in here tonight have been here at one point in time or the other. I'm I'm very fond of this home brew.

Now, without further ado, what I would like to do is I'd like to bring up our first speaker who's gonna do about 25 minutes, 30 minutes for us. Rich b from Ocean City, Maryland. Rich, come on up. Alright. My name is Rich Brock.

I'm a recovered alcoholic. And, this place Congratulations to the group. That's, the first and foremost thing. I'm tickled y'all, invited me to share your celebration with you. That's what this is.

Celebration of, this home group sticking around for 10 years and, doing the work. What I've seen with home groups is the one that, one of our co founders, Bill Wilson, says that the sole purpose of any meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous is the teaching and practice of the 12 steps. The closer we adhere to that, the closer, the effectiveness of the group is as far as I've been able to tell. The groups that stick to that real closely seem to flourish. Sobriety goes where, we're effective and that's, book tells me that's my job, to grow in understanding and effectiveness.

And I think sticking around for 10 years is a, really indicative of that. So I I will just start off by saying congratulations to you guys. And, thank you to Chris and, everyone involved with the group in this event that had me up here. Everybody's been very hospitable. And I'm I'm just thrilled to be sober.

I'm thrilled to be a part of anything having to do with Alcoholics Anonymous. Group anniversaries, individual anniversaries, I know Suggins' anniversary is, going on tonight. Congratulations. I talked to a lady who has 23 days, and is with us. I'm far more concerned about her than 5 year anniversary.

He's welcomed out. Call it. It's anonymous. Anybody else that's new? Welcome.

Welcome. I got here I don't have time to get in the whole thing. Let's do an experiment. I'm just gonna get you guys to share my drinking, why I drank, what it was like. If you guys will humor me, let's we're gonna hold our breath together for 30 seconds.

I'll count in my head. Ready? Go. Breathe. It's what it felt like when I drink when I when you guys were holding your breath.

That's what sobriety was like for me. You know, I noticed some of you were starting to rock a little bit in your chair, looking at the watch. A little bit of unease, discomfort, very aware of who's next to me. It's kinda quiet. I just really don't like this.

And then, came. That's probably all I need to tell you about my drinking drinking. That's what it did for me, and that's what it was like when I wasn't drinking. So I had a not drinking problem. I didn't really have a drinking problem that seemed to, you know, fix everything for me.

The last couple months of my drinking, my little sister had not talked to me, for about 8 years. I had managed to, when we were kids, push her out of a tree fort, she fell, had some real serious injuries, was never able to have children. She didn't like that. She thought that was a pretty important part about being a woman. I, you know, that she was coming in where we were drinking and I needed her out.

I'd broken into my mother's house where I hadn't been allowed for a long time and, it was about 3 in the morning. She slept in this house that I wasn't allowed in with the doors locked with her purse underneath her bed. Tells you about our relationship. I remember being on my stomach, crawling across that floor as quiet as I could be. Reaching down, quiet quiet going for the purse.

Her head came off the side of the bed and caught me square in the eyes. And she looked at me just with all of the mother's love, said, Rich, take it. Just take it, would you? My father left. Those were the 2 closest people.

My aunt and uncle had talked to me for a long long time. My friends were gone and I was pretty much drinking at home at this point. I'd fled back to the East Coast. I was, wanted in Maryland. I was wanted in California.

I was wanted in Colorado. Warrants everywhere. One step ahead of the man. I'd have told you I was trapped like if you asked what are you doing? You know, like, I was some type of romantic sojourner across our country.

A little bit delusional, but you gotta stay one step ahead of the man. And, that's traveling in my world. And, the body was starting to shut down on me. The the I had just come out of the come out of the doctor's office. I've been in and out of AA.

AA. I've been to the hospital 4 times in this last 3 to 4 month period. I've been in and out of AA. In and out of AA. There was a couple of things I I noticed about AA.

You guys had steps on the wall. I knew just about, you know, enough about these steps to be very dangerous to myself and others. The 4th step in particular, if you've come from where I've come from and done some of the stuff I've done. You don't write inventory. That's called a paper trail.

Some of the guys' type of work left were still in the penitentiary that I just gotten out of in San Diego. I didn't wanna go back, so I wasn't about to do that. God, there was this woman that there's this woman named Jimmy and she really bothered me on meetings. There were certain meetings when they talked about probably, meetings like this one. You know, when they talked about this book, I bring this.

I don't know why. It never gonna make me feel good. Just have they might have this book. They might read this book. I I didn't.

You know, there's good stuff. I was gonna try to have a 64 pages. But, Janine always had this thing with her. Wherever she went, in and out of meetings. And I didn't know, step meeting from a tradition meeting, from an open discussion meeting.

I knew I'd like the ones where you got to talk about how you feel and how your day went and what a jerk your boss was. And and these ones where they're talking about steps and shit. That that that If I got there in time and figured out what was going on, I went to another one where I didn't go at all that night. And if I saw this woman, Janeen, and then, you know, she she just always came. She had the book and she was a little bit older than me but she was close to my age.

So I kinda related to her. And, but the thing was, she was always smiling and happy. She had this group of women that followed her around like, in and out of meetings and they're all smiling and bubbly. And, here's the disgusting part. If you're a vindictive, angry, mean, bitter end of your rope drunk like me, you hate anybody.

Smiling and happy. Right? And then on top of it, you know what she calls this woman? Her duckies. Come on duckies, too.

And they follow her in and out. And there's this guy, Jim, who was always, you know, he he he was from the south. Rich is still back again. I hate it when he said that. Welcome back, Rich is still back again.

How was it out there this time? Thank you. Thank you. Don't expect me. So, I was 36 days sober without a drink.

Very, dangerous place. This last time I went to the hospital, they biopsied my liver. They took out 3 spots out of my liver. And, they're doing this biopsy and the doctors comes back, he says, they're just fatty fatty spots. You're gonna be okay.

No big deal. You just can't have a crayon again in your life. And and I believed and I knew that because of how I was feeling inside. Not this I I heard stuff like that from doctors and you're not gonna scare me sober. You know, if you drink like me, you don't you don't scare me.

Think of books, something like, frothy emotional appeals don't suffice. That's girl expendable in my life. You know, give me a bottle of Jim Beam. But, something Jim Beam. But, something was going on where I I knew it had me.

And I'm scared to take a drink, and I was scared a a. And, and, what he told me was don't take any time. Time is very bad for the liver and you need to give your liver time to recover. And, with a great deal of embarrassment, you know. I I I couldn't see the truth from the false.

I couldn't see another way out. I knew I couldn't drink and I knew I couldn't do it. The people that were happy were asking me to do, you know, what it seemed to me, my perception of things. The only way I saw was that Tylenol. That's what came into my head.

That was the best thought I could come up with. He said, no Tylenol. Tylenol. So I take as much of these things as I can, 3, 4 bottles. And, eventually, I go down in this townhouse that I've been living in and the walls aren't too good.

Thank god. The neighbor hears it. Call is saying they'll answer something. And I'm back at the exact same hospital, Atlantic General, for the 4th and final time. I come to when I'm wearing one of those sexy hospital gowns.

They're paper, your butt paints out, and, you know, whenever you roll over. And I'm hooked up to everything under the sun. Sun. And as I'm coming to, there's a body at the end of my bed. I'm a bunch of how you doing, bitch?

It's Janine. What are the copies? And she says, girls, I'd like you to take a good look. This is what happens to an alcoholic that refuses to take our steps. Let's go, girls.

And they left. And, God, thank God she did that. What that did was tear the last bit of, dignity or, you know, really, ego. You know, they're they're in much love when your butt's hanging out and you're the poster child for poor alcoholics anonymous, did Janine, and the Duchess. And, that was the beginning of awakening.

This, it it happened quick for me, sometimes quickly. You know, sometimes these, things are revealed. I had had a, something happened quick and then a series of over time of, learning experiences where the mind slowly opened and the door opened. And on that particular day, it was if and when I get out here, I'm gonna find that guy Jim. And I'm gonna do everything that he's talked about in that book.

That was it. That was my big olegging. And, and that came from experience. That came from experience running an awful lot of meetings, from making coffee, getting a sponsor, and call them, talking about my problems until they probably wanted to puke. Set up literature tables, come early, tip right, set chairs, put them down, come early, leave whatever, you name it, don't dream, go to meetings.

So any phrase you've heard, I didn't and tried it. What I did not do was avail myself and each and every must in my book. There's, apparently, a lot of big books out there that don't have any musts. People people talk about those books a lot. They're they're different than mine.

I like when people talk about those before because I wanted to try all those other other options before. I didn't wanna do MUSSES. You know, I like the buffet. The one the one that was the only take what you need and leave the rest. That's a well, that's wonderful.

Unfortunately, it was a recipe for, you know, death for a guy like me. So I started this process with Jim and, really, the first the first action, you know. I I I done 1, 2, 3 walking in the door. I I don't I don't know, how much time needs to be spent there. I I wasted several years on step 3, you know, finding God and knowing everything about him.

My thought was the task because of that italicized portion as we understood him. And I'm not stupid. You're telling me to understand God. I see what that says. Good way to die hanging out there for me.

So I got busy writing this inventory. I don't know what's an inventory. This is the big thing for me that I'm so scared of. And he says, it's what you do outside the meetings, Rich. It's what everybody does.

Then they're standing out there smoking, and I smoked at that time. I'm standing out there, I'm smoking, and, you know, I'm talking about the boss, and I'm not making enough money. I gotta go to these meetings, and they want me to go to a lot of meetings and do this stuff and drive guys here. I don't know how I'm supposed to pay rent. You know?

The landlord's pretty unreasonable. And, man, my girlfriend had an elective. And, each of these things that we all and, you know, Chris, he always talks for half the meeting. You know, and then Bob over there, I know what he's gonna say before he says it. And he said, Rich, write it down.

Write it down. And that's what got me started. Well, he said, it's just what we do every day. It's nothing different. You're used to doing inventory.

And I've never thought of it that way. So I started doing it. He said, here's the greatest. It only has to make sense to you. It doesn't have to make sense to another person in this world.

So I started writing it down and said, for me, this this word made sense to me because I didn't have any resentments. I told him that. He said, why don't you write down who you hate and why you hate them? I said, okay. I can do that.

And I'll tell you what. As soon as I started, I felt great, and I was broke. As soon as I got the first name down, I'll do one for you because I I like practical examples. People talk in theory a lot, n a a. At that point, it was Melissa.

She's the first one that came out. Melissa was the girl that had been living with me. She was doing all of my cocaine. She was contributing everything in the refrigerator. I bought her a gum burger.

She ate everything in the refrigerator. Now, she got a job as a waitress and doesn't come home at night. I'm pretty sure she's cheating on me. Thinks she stole more cocaine and is selling it at work. Boom boom boom.

And it's it's going, man, and it's feeling good. And I did this with each and every person in my life. Then, I put it away and he said, well, why don't you come over and bring it over? We're gonna take a look at this and, you know, see what's what's going on here, with all these people. And we started to look at this list again from a different angle.

What was effective with me, you know, was it, whatever, my self esteem, my ambitions, my, sense of who I am, my sense of me, you know, this thing I've created, that we follow my ego. And, sex relations. What about sex? We all have problems there. Right?

Not a loophole in that one. So I'm doing the deal here And he said, now, we're gonna look at this from another. So now, we're doing a a different you know, the we're here. We're they're coming. Now, we're coming back again.

And we're gonna see what I might have had to do with any of this. And I just couldn't understand what, what I had to do with this Melissa situation. I was just such a good guy. I take this girl in, you know, and, and here she goes, taking advantage of absolutely everything. And as we looked at it, he said, but what did you tell Melissa when you met her?

And it turned out the same thing that I told every woman that I'd ever come across in my life. The long and the short of my game I mean, you guys got game contact? My game was, come with me, babe. Everything's gonna be okay. Yeah.

From here on, you're never gonna have to work. I'm a big time drug dealer. Come with me. Please, whoever you're with. It's gonna be cool.

So there was the promise right from the beginning. And it didn't take long, you know, before the reality of of my deal kicked in. But, look, Melissa was separated. She's in the process of going through a divorce. She had 2 kids with this guy.

As it turns out, he wasn't real keen on her getting to see her kids now that she's shacked up with this drunk drug dealer. I come from a pretty small town, Ocean City, Maryland, we're a little island, 6 miles long. Everybody knows secrets don't stick around all good. So, you know, I I made this divorce. I elongated.

I made it ugly. Lawyers were fighting. She couldn't see her kids. I I made it an absolute disaster, like I did to everyone on that list's life when I went through it. I truly wasn't a tornado.

I was able to see that. You know, I come into this and then it get worse. I make bad situations worse. I make good situations worse. Worse.

And me. And that that was the sum total of this 4th and and and a 5th step step experience. We looked at ourselves. It it gave me a humble perspective on myself. And I even know what that word meant.

I thought it was the same as humiliating because that's a little bit what it felt like. Humble comes from a different root word, hummus, which means dirt, the barest form of ground on which we stand, the purest form of earth. The root, the soil, and all of me with God and and my sponsor, I'm standing there. And I was able to see something that day. Bill uses these boat analogies, you know, floundering a vessel when we're passengers on the great liner and all those analogies.

I was the one I was talking to my new friend before the meeting about that, what really that did for me, it gave me a course of latitude and longitude of where the ship called Rich was lost in the sea. You know? And once I have a latitude and longitude, I can start working. I can set a course. And buying through these steps, you know, it it led me with to this power with this power that I never had.

And I will tell you, I found it in one place and one place only. And it was buying through the 12 steps of all those times. That's just my experience that I got to set a course. And with that done, I got to approach, approach this power and ask for some help for the first time in my life. We were talking about I didn't get this wonderful feeling of, you know, how liberated I was.

My feeling was, boy, I'm really a disaster. Which is a good thing because now we get the, you know, that step alone. It's it says, unless followed by still more action. This is gonna have little lasting permanent effect. All I did was, you know, share with somebody and put down for the first time what a total wreck my life was and and and come clean a little bit, but that doesn't do very much to fix my life.

I'm still 1 in 3 states at this point. So, and I ruined a career, potential career, and all of that stuff. And my sponsor at that time was, he still is. He's a he's a man named Jim Mallory and he's in his 42nd year of sobriety. He was sponsored by a man a man named Clarence Snyder.

He was sponsored by doctor Bob. I just like to know that so I know what I got and where it came from. And he was honest enough with me to say, I retired from the military. I've never worked in, honestly, you know, in the public private sector. You know, my life, I've never had to go out and look for a job.

I've never had to repair jobs. I I retired from the military. I've been collecting a pension. There's a guy in Delaware named Roger. Why don't you I I know he kinda balanced the 2.

Why don't you talk with him? And, Roger's sitting in the front row. Roger's my other sponsor. And, anybody that can wear red, sport coats, you know, comfortably can. They've done some work.

But, so he he he's he's got this terrible line that he keeps throwing at me when we get to this 8 step list, you know, which was just the 4th step, transferred over, and then I threw on all the random damage I caused because, you know, you don't necessarily have to wrong me or cause resentment. Sometimes, you're just in my way of my drinking. An example of of that I'll give you was, Bank of America. They, they didn't They, you know, their ATM machines were weak. We'll say that.

So, he starts off with this, how free do you wanna be thing? What what what lengths are you willing to go to? I had some Ravens tickets at the time, and I wasn't, real comfortable in my sobriety at first. And he said, what? I forget who suggested.

Why don't you give your little sister the 2 way that it sees the games? You know, once they cost? Do you know about those PSLs? They're hard to get on them. Like my sister, she hasn't talked to me forever.

Didn't you wanna make this right? Yeah. So I give her these tickets the whole season. And, she doesn't even write in there and call or say thank you. There's another one.

But you know what did happen? After the first game, she calls me and says, hey. They they claimed the Broncos tonight. You should've seen this game. I took a client from work and and she called me to tell me about the game and we started having some conversation and I got to have these each week.

And, that was the beginning of that relationship starting to grow. She bought her first house down in a place called Federal Hill by the stadium. And then a little townhouse that need a lot fixing up, about 3 hours from where I live. She said, you know, we helped me paint this place. I'm out of Montmartre.

I had a little bit of that and, helped get some paint and helped her paint dry. 3 hours on the weekends, you know, and 3 hours back. And then came the hardwood floors. Can you help me snap together? I'm not very whatever you wanna call it.

Handy. But I showed up, you know, I'm snapping down on this hardwood floor, and we're talking and we're talking football and this and that. And I he said, well, what about what about mom? I talked to mom. I'm starting having lunch or dinner once a week, you know, Fridays.

And she picked Fridays and she got the pick. And, there's always something to do on Fridays. That's when the action group meets on on Friday. I like the action group by now because that's what they're doing. They're action.

You know, I don't like being around these people. I'm getting fired up in AA. I'm I'm able to my sister's call and I'm looking my mom in the eye for the first time. I mean, big things. I wanna be with these AA people on Friday nights.

And this trip, man, after they're done, they go out. They go bowling and all the stuff I used to make fun of, and I found out that when I get out of me, enough of stuff's fun. You know? Having pie at Denny's with 90 year old ladies is pretty cool sometimes. You know?

I'm learning stuff. So I'm going and and and and doing the deal there and my mom's starting to hug me and kiss me. And I remember one day, she left the purse on the kitchen table and walked into the living room. I was I don't think she knows but I noticed. That came to big, it was, calling this judge in California.

He told me he's put put me away for 5 years. I had to do, I've had a felony cocaine charge and DUI and outstanding. And he told me that he was gonna cut me a break because when I got it, I was in college and he said, you have your whole life in front of me. If you do these 10 a n, 8 meetings or whatever and alcohol class, it'll be as if this never happened. And, I said, okay, judge.

You know, you got it. You'll never see me again. I'll be a new boy. And, of course, I didn't go to any of the classes or do anything. Yeah.

So it all turns into warrants. When things turns into warrants, I travel. We already talked about that. Time to go see Colorado. And, so now I gotta go see the same judge whose last words were, if you don't do this, you will do every day of the 5 years.

But that point, I've been sober for about a year and a half. And I write this judge and tell him I'm coming. I'm coming to turn myself in. I'm sober this thing called the 9 step. I don't wanna have to ever take another drink and a waffle drink if I don't do this.

So here I come. Do what you want. And, all these other people write the letters from AA, and this priest where I'm mopping to church at night says, send me letters. You guys would, like, bombard them with letters from my home group. But because I'm doing stuff in AA.

You know, they know I'm not full of it anymore. They're they're they're seeing me do the deal. I'm sponsoring guys and all this kind of stuff. I'd like to tell you I did it with some dignity. I was scared of death.

I'll just tell you probably the real story after that meeting. I I got sweat circles under my arms. I'm in the hallways. I'm in San Diego. And in the morning of it, I'm waiting for a quarter to 9 o'clock.

I was in another bathroom probably 5 times coming out of all ends. It wasn't free. I was scared to death. But I knew by this point that I had something going on in my life. It wasn't me that I learned.

I don't do things like that. And, I walked out of there that day. The judge said, whatever you're doing in Maryland, keep doing it, mister Broadme. I came back, and my relationship with God got a little bit stronger that day. My faith grew.

Bill says, at long last, I saw, I felt, I believed in that that order. I had to see a little bit. I had to start feeling some things and then believe. Our folks now just never asked me to believe in anything. They asked me to take a series of steps that availed me to God's presence, that availed me to God in my life, and it happens at every single time as far as I'm seeing.

I sponsor a lot of guys. The ones that, you know, get in here and do the deal to me and ask what it is. What is that law of synonymous? Chris always reads it, you know, from the beginning of 12 to 12. It's a series of principles, spiritual in nature, that, you know, when practiced, if practiced and able to suffer, that's me, to become happily and usefully whole.

I'm big that. That's what I'm after. Happily and usefully whole, that's what's going on in my life today as a a result of this stuff. And then when this is this deal is done, and I'll tell you, I'm the freest I've ever been in my life. I wish I had more time.

I'd get all fired up without a it was a lot of work. It was scary stuff, man. But you get through it and you get to dive back in on the other end of it. And that's what I that's what our 12 step is about. Just getting to carry this thing.

I get to go to the jails. I get to go, you know, halfway houses. I get to get in there and really find that sick and suffering guy before he gets a veil to some type of, watered down, crazy, half measures type deal. And and tell him, hey, check it out, man. I did that for you already.

I did all that stuff. And and here's the only thing. This is the only thing that saved my neck and allowed me to find God. And, god for that, I will I will always be grateful. I wish I had, time to give you guys some more details, but, Chris is one of my AA heroes.

Everybody's got I I have here wherever I go. And there there was a guy I was working with named Dennis. Dennis was a knucklehead of the first order. I couldn't get him to do anything. And, I don't know where he got it.

I ran him a copy. He took he probably stole it off my desk. He said, I did grab a copy of Chris' CD, and he's been goofing around for 4 steps for, like, a month. And sports stuffs take, like, 30 days in 3 hours or 10 years in 3 hours or 20 years in 3 hours. Right?

But they're 3 hours. Whenever you wanna do it. So he calls me at midnight and says, I just listened to this guy, Chris R. And he says that I really need to do this stuff or I'm gonna die. Can I come over now?

And, by that point, my girlfriend said, no. It's midnight. Go do this somewhere. So we ended up in a booth at Denny's from midnight till about 4 in the morning, and Denny's got free that night. And, so thank you.

And, Friday night you did that. Thank you guys for my sobriety in letting me participate.