The Into Action Convention "Our Primary Purpose" in Stockholm, Sweden

Never come my own Chris Thor.

I have to move it this side. That's OK.

Can you hear me OK?

OK, My name is Chris Kramer. I'm a very grateful recovered alcoholic. I'm also a recovered drug addict. I probably need to mention that. And can you hear me up there?

No,

I can't. I don't know if I can do this. I get a little,

little tingly. Y'all are a good looking. I agree with what Meyer said. Oh my gosh, I gotta travel around with us and see who we, the audiences we usually talk to. I mean there we were just talking to old geezers all busted up and you know, and it's like you man,

good looking welcome. I

everybody Mars and I were laughing about it on the plane over Everybody's so possessive of their program. You know, it worked for me and it ought to work for you and and it's like, but you don't understand what worked for you may not work for the next guy. And

that's why we do this literature stuff. It's because it kind of keeps the message the same for all of us and everybody, everybody likes this kind of talk. You know, going to get a chance to speak a couple hours tomorrow on sponsorship and a lot of you guys are going to come and you and I mean that's what a great room. And until one of us says something that you don't agree with and then you're

pissed.

We were they were so passionate. They're so this that's nice until we say something and you don't agree with and then it's like, you know,

pissed. I don't know what to say. You are absolutely free to agree with anything I say or disagree with anything I say. And the same, I'm sure with Myers, we are, we are not, you know, representative of a a gurus or blah, blah. If I don't do anything really stupid, in a couple of weeks I'll have 21 years of sobriety and.

Which is a pretty cool thing for me. And

longer I'm sober, the more humble I get about it because the truth of the matter is, and it's just God's grace that I'm able to do what I do. Some days I'm just a piss poor example of what the fellowship is all about. I just, I'm, I'm as human as they come. And for any of you that kind of want to take a shot and set one of us up on a little pedestal quick, don't do that. That's how we get drunk. And I'm honored that you guys have asked us to come over. I want to thank everybody real quick and I'm trying to remember it tomorrow. All of you guys have helped organize this and especially you cats have dropped

bills in there. I saw some of that chicken chip change going there too. But I mean some of you guys have that big bills and this is expensive guy used to be when we travel someplace a couple $100 and get you anywhere and it's now it's just not like that. So somebody really had to had to thank you for your generosity for allowing us to do this. And

I

I got a couple of things I want to mention to you.

There's so many people out there and I never seem to get used to it. This taking shots at us. Us is not just me and Myers, but little big book thumpers, the cats that are carrying the message. I

there's so much of the world out there that's that's in the in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and the other fellowships that are not doing what we ask them to do, but they're the vocal cats that are taking shots at those of us that are actually doing what we were being asked to do Makes sense. It's like it should it shouldn't be that way, but it is. And, and I'll reiterate this and, and if I don't say it tomorrow, Mars and I don't want to do anything that would would cause any kind of divisiveness whatsoever. I did a talk in Toronto not long ago and

set up by a bunch of cats and Cocaine Anonymous, and they were the nicest people, but they didn't go through the proper protocol because it was too much damn, too much damn bureaucracy. And so they set up this little deal themselves and they came up with the money and they got me up there. We did this little talk and it was a pretty good build, gathering a little knuckleheads. And we caught so much flak for that. And I'm so sorry that we did that in, in, in the guys that

we don't want to be divisive. Makes sense if you were going to open discussion meetings and you like those meetings and you just relish hearing about the guys. Weed Eater,

Then who are we to say that you shouldn't be able to go to those? But on the same breath, who are you to say that we shouldn't be able to get into a room and study the literature and do it the way we do it?

I you understand, I know there's a lot of y'all heard stuff of virus out there. And so I'm not going to say anything particularly original tonight. I don't have one story and I'd like to share that briefly with you, but

this thing called perspective, you know, like I know some of you guys, you you, you got caught with some alcohol and you got in trouble with the law maybe. And you came to a A and you liked it. And you know, the women are obviously drop dead gorgeous. And the coffee

with which I'll probably have to pick up a new desire chip for

What is this? I'm using an English copy. A little instant. This stuff is like rocket fuel.

So much for sleep tonight. I don't know. Very grinding my teeth. You know what? But

I, I work for a treating center up in the Hill Country. I work for this hospital for about 15 years and I watch a lot of people come to that hospital. And I, I, I get to listen to so many people who have such a skewed misrepresentation of what AA and CA and NA is all about. You know, they're just, there's so much crap out there. Disguise is recovery. And these people come in and they, and so I'm, I'm watching from one perspective and some of y'all would never get to see that perspective. I I'm on the firing line watching people die of this disease every

so sometimes, buddy, I do. I know Myers does too. We come across kind of kind of hot and heavy sometimes. And, and I know some of you guys, you know, you don't even think this is a fatal illness and something. So why should you be?

Why should you identify with our passion? And yet some of you, like me, damn near died. Get into this program. I mean, guys, I'm seven years in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous. I can't get well. I'm drinking like a son of a gun. I can't not drink. And I'm in the late 70s. I found some other outside issues to, to add to my pharmaceutical

wonderment. You know, I mean, I'm just, I'm a mess, you know, and I, I thought the breaking was killing me. Add a little cocaine to that and see what happens. And I mean, I'm, I'm nuts. And then a little methamphetamine on top of that and it's a little doggie diners and I couldn't get that. I'd get pot. I got to tell you guys because I was talking to somebody earlier. I'm not a big fan of pot. I know some of you, a lot of you guys probably are, but I, I just

every time I, I would, I would try to switch from the alcohol and the other stuff because it was causing me problems. I'd go to pot because it's natural and helicopter. Hell, half of Europe, it's illegal. You can just, you know, it's herb, it's not drug. And I, and I put it in my system. Of course, I mean, instantly the stuff hits my budget and I get paranoid like, you know, and I get,

I'm in the closet naked, you know, and the pizza guys knocking on the door, you know, the pizza that I ordered, but I'm not about to answer the door because I,

I don't, I, we all are affected a little bit different, but that was my deal. But I kept going back to it over and over and over again. Seven years and I thought, it's anonymous. I can't get well. And I'm, and I agree with exactly what my brother Meyer said. You know, there was nobody in AA ever tried to hurt me.

The worst knucklehead with the worst advice was coming from a place of love trying to help you. Just you, just you just need to understand that I want to hear what I want to hear. Just like you. This weekend, you're going to hear what you want to hear. You with me. There's people in here right now counting the number of times I cuss just because they like to bring it to my attention. I thought you weren't going to cuss anymore.

Well, I'm not

screw you, OK,

you hear what you want to hear. And I, I just like and that's what I did in a a in those seven years. And I mean, I want to get well and I and I can I come in and I try to try to get my feet on the ground And and this little guy over here with a big old beat up big book is, you know,

all marked up. And and he's telling me not Chris, maybe we want to look at these 12 steps and this other little guys going,

you know, you don't he'll get you after the deal and says, listen, there's some well meaning people in here. He's a hearts in the right place because a little on the goofy side, he's a little eccentric. You know, those steps will be there when you get ready to work, you know, and when you get ready, the steps will work you and I'm what what what are you talking about? What? But he's giving me an out. You know, I'm I'm seeing this four step stuff and somewhere down in there, even with one eye, I'm seeing this 8th and 9th step when I'm going to have to make some amends and I don't want to make any. I'm not quite ready for that crap. I

eating little crow, but I mean I let's don't get

easy does it?

That's a error. They didn't take it out of context every time and the book says easy does it with your families. It doesn't say easy does it work in the steps, but we're going to take that out of context. Easy does it. Well, what they don't understand is, and some of y'all don't understand,

I'm the Real McCoy.

I'm suffering from a fatal progressive illness called alcoholism and drug addiction. I am not a disco drunk. I am not a hard drinker. I am not a moderate drinker. I'm the real alcoholic. Bill Wilson over and over in the 1st 164 uses that term. It drives people crazy. But you think there's a hierarchy in Alcoholics Anonymous? We're all Alcoholics if we say we are.

No, that's not true.

You're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous if you say you are welcome.

In order to be an alcoholic, you've got to have certain symptoms. And Bill Wilson spend 60 of the 1st 100 pages where he just outlines the steps trying to explain to us what an alcoholic and an addict looks like. And if you don't have those symptoms, you ain't one of us

got these little buttons on. I wear these little buttons little issue man. Somebody is asking about it. I send them to you guys about the thousands people all over Europe are wearing issue man. They don't they don't have a clue what it means, but they're wearing this little guy. But if you look at it and I sign your little books, I put always put a little issue man in there because this is one of the things that helped me in early sobriety. I,

the little X is on the outside or the outside issues. Everybody in here, we've all got issues. All God's kids, kids got trouble, you know, and we've all got something. It's got the weed eater or your grandkid or the marriage or whatever. We all got stuff to talk about. But it's the internal, this little dark spot where his little soul is, is little heart is that's what we're supposed to be focusing on. Because unless I recover spiritually, then the rest of this stuff's just going to take me down the toilet. You follow. And we got off the page years ago with the idea that we could come into meetings,

use our meetings as dumping grounds for these issues, and help each other fix these issues and then we can stay sober. The problem is, a lot of us felt better after doing it. Who? Who doesn't feel better after a good peak, huh?

Let's just get, let's just get straight here, you know, throw up a big old hurl up, that's that. And then we'll get a big old paper towel. We'll clean it all up afterwards and you'll leave that meat and feeling. So I'm so glad I shared that, you know, I'm glad you shared it too, because the rest of us are back here still cleaning the crap up.

You follow. And that's what we did. That's what we did. That's what we turn all of our fellowships into. All the front ones that I come in contact with. They're all going through the same thing. And if I got one beef with a a, it's the Alcoholics Anonymous stood there and allow it to happen. And our idea of trying to become like, let's, let's work with the fellowship, Let's work with the professionals, let's work with everybody. Let's let's use these groups as a process group and talk through our day. And you see, there's not a one of us is like exactly what Myers was saying. All of us have done that

one way or another and benefited from it.

How cool is that? My question is how many people have we killed doing it?

Selfish and self centeredness is the root of my problems and I think I have a right to come into a meeting and talk about my day.

I don't I have a right to come with the brothers that I came with my my little recovery group, my community. Let's go have coffee and let's talk about the day. I'm playing catch up with some of you guys. I met Denmark and England. I got some buds in here Crystal from come on I we got some catching up to do, but I'm not going to sit in a meeting and play catch up with him. You'll understand how selfish can we be? We have a solution, guys. The book on page 17 says we got a common problem,

alcoholism. For

conversations sake

we have a common solution.

What's the solution?

12 steps. A path to God, The spiritual experience. That's the solution. What? I don't, I don't know if I believe in God. Well, you're going to die.

I,

I hope not too slowly,

I, I didn't come up with the 12 steps, but the book was written in such a way that we can pass this on each to the next. And that's what we're going to be talking about in the morning. A more effective way perhaps to transmit this message so that we can get more people off dead center and get them in sobriety. Here's the deal, if you want to get sober

and you come into a meeting and you don't hear the solution, shame on us as a fellowship, shame on me as a sponsor is a is a responsible member. If you just you want to come in here and you don't have any attention to getting sober, well, shame on you. But I mean, you at least deserve the right to come into any one of our 12 step fellowships and at least get to hear what you need to do. You don't need to hear just keep coming back. Everything's going to be OK because that's the biggest lie we tell newcomers. It's crap and we need to stop doing it. If you can just keep coming back and

be OK, you're damn sure not one of us.

You, you, you with us. We're going to talk about some more tomorrow. There's this little window of opportunity that's out there, folks, A lot of people want to make light of it. They want to call it a pink cloud. He's on a pink cloud. And you know, it's called God's grace. And you can, you can be a smart ass and call it a pink cloud if you want to with very with, with, with much sarcasm in your voice. But it's a gift. It's what we're all looking for. And, and I've experienced it several times and I outlived it, You know, I mean, I, I sat there and waited. Oh, this is great, this is great. And then all of a sudden, the window of

closes in, the little pink cloud goes away and all of a sudden reality hits you in the face and now we're screwed. But why was I spinning my wheels and sitting on my butt for three months sitting in a a listen to you just tell me to keep coming back? Why didn't you tell me the truth that this was not going to stay permanent unless I did something to make sure that it did stay permanent?

Guys, this is about recovered Alcoholics. You know, I mean, I drives me crazy when we get into a situation where we have to walk on egg shells around people in our own fellowship about introducing ourselves as recovered Alcoholics or recovered drug addicts and our other fellowships. By God, the book says that we can recover.

Never, not once, not once does it say that we will always be recovering. And yet we want to walk into meetings and be very delicate about it. Well, because that doesn't show humility. I'll always be sick.

And a little 20 year old back over here

guiding the world, alcoholic and drug addict who has an absolute chance of getting well is going to walk out leaving. So who now wants to be a part of a fellowship like that

where you got to admit that you're sick every day? Guys, I'm going to die with alcoholism. Alcoholism and this is what it looks like, folks. It's genetic in nature. You either got it or you don't. There's nothing out there that can make you an alcoholic. There's lots of stuff out there that can make you an alcohol abuser.

You're with me, a drug abuse them. But if you're not genetically wired like us, your body will not react the same way as an alcoholic or an addict. In other words, you will drink up to a certain point and you'll say, you know, I know that divorce was traumatic or the abuse or whatever, but I'm killing myself with this alcohol. I need to stop. And you have the power to moderate or quit. You follow. I wish I could sit down and watch because some of you guys are like, dear in the headlight. What's he saying?

I'm saying you need to stop blaming your alcoholism and drug addiction on stuff out there.

Good therapy, some of his good medication will get you past some of this weird goofy stuff in your life. But if you happen to be genetically wired like us, this small percentage of us that are like this, nothing is going to change that. It's like, it's like you sitting here pissing and moaning because you're a blonde, buddy.

You know how you got to be a blonde? Little, little pokey Pokey took place and there was some genetic markers that went in there and all of a sudden you're blonde and it had nothing to do with the way you were potty trained. And yet we want to sit in meetings and make this some kind of a psychiatric illness. You'll follow. Alcoholics Anonymous is not about that, folks. This is not a behavioral problem. And some of you need to be qualified. Some of you are looking very uncomfortable right now because you've been blaming everybody in your life or why you're an alcoholic. I'm sorry. I'm not saying it didn't exacerbate it and make it

worse. It did. Some of the people that you can't hang around need to be shocked. You're freaking evil and they're holding you back. You follow.

We talk about that tomorrow,

but guys, I'm genetically like it, but my twin brother, I mean, he caught the bullet just like me. I mean, we're, we're 21 years old looking at each other in a little restaurant, little bar in Houston, TX and we and we, we can see the riding on the wall. When

I did a little CA deal for Chris,

I don't know when years ago and we went to Winchester Cathedral and we had I guess we were participating one of the first CA meetings in at Winchester Cathedral was one of the coolest things I've ever done. Beautiful Cathedral. Y'all know the deal It was that's where the, the, the tomb of the little soldier, you know, the Grenadier, you know, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, there's nobody in the in the in the church at all. There's a bus loads of people getting out to look at this gravestone. You know, because a lot of people in Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm doing the checking this out, but the line in the book, it says, it says ominous warnings for which he

failed to heed. And we're sitting there and the Mason jar in Houston, TX at 21. And he looks at me and I look at him and I remember this Congress. I don't know if he remembers it, but I remember it like it was yesterday. And I said, you know, we're going to be just like pops.

We're squashed. He said, Nah, we'd never be like pops. Can we have a couple more beers over here, please? And we're just, you know, and it was like, and we were like, we just turned 21 and, and got to drink legal. We were in that, in that bar And I had well, you know, another 19 years in me and we, we were just like pops and, and times 10. And it went way past that. I've got a little sister that's a year and three months younger than me as it's sweet as can be. And she has never had a problem with alcohol. We we tried to make her one.

One summer we tried to

we thought she could enjoy your life a little bit if she just ruin it like we we were, but she didn't. But you can't make somebody that's not one of us drink like us. She partied a little bit. She get little little loose. Oh, that was yeah, it was fun. That's let's drink some more. She said. Oh my gosh, no, I'm starting to feel it. I I just, I'm done.

You know, at least we're starting to feel it too, and that's why we want to drink a little bit more and we're done.

Any good alcoholic and addict knows that you got to punch through to the other side when you start to feel it. You gotta

it was a mess. I got 1/2 sister that's never had a problem with alcohol and just we were all racing the same family. There was number goofy stuff going on. Come on, guys, I've got unusually high cholesterol. Come my I'll eventually stroke out. I hope I'm from a podium sometime, but I'll eventually there's nothing they can do. I just eventually my cholesterol, my eye will get so high that I'll stroke out and that's exactly what happened to my dad. And it's genetic. We eat right. We just we, we, we don't. But

genetic

you with me on that one.

I've never sent a therapist office and had them tell us about how you were potty trained. I think that might have something to do with your high cholesterol levels.

Had a hundred of them talk to me about it around my drinking and drugging in the treatment center industry. Guys, the pendulum swinging back the other direction. We were we were getting quite clear about this. There's been more studies and you can shake a stick at on the genetic predisposition and that's what we have to look at. I am one now what? So what now? What is the old expression? What are you going to do? And that's what we have to look at. So I'm an alcoholic and want to stop and can't and

I'm in Texas and the food business and I'm trying to quit and Oh my gosh it's just nuts and I'm starting to see doctors and they're giving me some medications. All the doctors seem to think that my problem is

medical. You're drinking because you're depressed. You're drinking because you're bipolar. You're drinking because you're manic depressive. You're drinking because you're gay. You're drinking because

you're what we laugh. I mean, that's we people are being told that today here, I can assure you in Sweden's what's crying chain and of course every every one of those things they they gave me another pill for. So I'm taking handfuls of pills all with side effects that you are horrendous.

I had all I'm taking 7 pills a day when I tried to commit suicide in 1987 and and side effects out the kazoo. I mean, I, I am, I'm a zombie. I feel like I'm in a cotton ball 24/7. I mean, I, I am emotionless and I'm not not drinking. I I'm drinking on top of it. And the most prescribed antidepressant in the United States right now has 152 possible side effects,

including anal leakage.

I'm going to take depression, guys. I'm going to just,

I anyway, I'm trying to save a marriage and, and I'm living up in North Texas. Any of you guys try to get married to save a marriage? And I mean, try to get sober And I'm trying to move around and we move to another city and moved up closer to Myers for the idea that maybe that would help

fact change. And

our ex wives hated each other. You know, they just, they, they blamed it always. It's Myers's fault you drink so much. It's Myra's fault you drink so much.

Of course it's his saying just the exact opposite. And I can't get sober folks. And I got AI got a job. I'm still in the food business and I hate it. I hate I just don't like anything about my life. And again, thank God for Myers. I'm working in a in a binding with him. Otherwise I wouldn't I'd be on the street. They've cosigned a little note for me so I can get a little apartment and you'll know how it is in stage alcoholism. I, I, I'm not robbing liquor stores and I'm not going to jail and I'm not doing a lot of weird stuff that you guys

want to talk about nonstop. Early 80s, early 80s, I started going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. They qualified me this way in early 198081 when I was up in North Texas, they qualified me this way. So do you have a problem with alcohol? And I was drunk and I said yes. They said, he said, welcome, have a seat. And I did. And that was the extent of the qualifying you follow. And then they went around. So we have a newcomer. So let's tell how we got here. You ever heard me talk about this? And they did. They did a great job

outdoing each other trying to scare them. But Jesus, out of me you follow and try to key on something I can identify with. Oh yeah, I chopped up people and put them in a plastic bag too.

I mean, I'm a professional at time. I'm working, I'm a profession. I'm an executive chef at a Country Club. I mean, I'm doing the deal. I mean, I, but I, I can't relate to this stuff that you guys are talking about. And so I, I know I can sense that I'm in the right room

and I can see that some of you guys are talking about some of the same stuff I can do. But every time you tell another war story, it gives me the evidence to walk back out the door. I walk back up and says, buddy, I appreciate those. I've never felt so much love in a room in my entire life. But I'm just not like those people. I remember, I remember my first wife saying, I'm so sorry. I thought this would work. I was hoping you'd find a home there. I said, well, me too. I mean, I gave it a shot, but I mean, these people are evil.

But what are we trying to do? We still do it. We laugh about it, and we go right straight back in our meetings and we do it. The big book is crystal clear.

There's a place for my story folks from this podium is a good place to tell my story in a total step call 12 step call you with me. You're down the little pizza place around the corner and you're drunk on your butt and I want to go in there and I'm watching you and I think I can help you, but I can't go over there and say, hey, listen, buddy, have you found Jesus? I you know I don't I can't I can't do I can't I have a spiritual solution for I'm going to sit down next to this guy and say, buddy, you know what, 12 years ago I was sitting at the same table fighting with that same bottle of ketchup. But let me tell you, if you just want to visit for a few minutes, I

just like you. And this guy's gonna say yeah. And you tell them a few stories, and he tells you a few stories, and pretty soon you're ready to hook, set the hook. And he's going to do exactly what Meyer says. Sooner, later, this little guy says, well, what did you do? Glad you asked.

I I whipped my little big book out and say, here you go, buddy. I work some things called a 12 steps. You're always going to say the same thing. No, I tried it. It didn't work. Buddy, you didn't make maybe you didn't try the Real McCoy. Let me let me just show you this. But listen, this guy's not even going to talk to you unless you share some stories with him. You guys want to take the stuff we say out of context?

That little one I'd got from Texas says we are sweet. We shouldn't tell our stories. I'm just saying you should stop telling them non-stop in open discussion meetings. If the cats in the meeting, he's there. It's time to give him the solution. That's what he came into here was the solution. He didn't come in here. Another one of your stupid stories. What we There's no chapter in the back of the book called In the Scare.

All I need in order to help somebody is this is my story.

That's not true.

That's not that's not true. I could sit here and tell you about eating out of dumpsters in Houston, TX, but that's not going to help a single one of you get sober. I can show you how to finish a four step and be rocking it into the 4th dimension. I can show you in in in 20 minutes how to have a spiritual experience. But we're not going to get a chance to talk about it because we're too busy. Letting you bore a spitless with your last bust

takes the breath away.

There's a place to your story in a in a meeting, is not it?

We weren't trying to scare each other into recovery. We're trying to fix the world, Myers read a great little paragraph. Bill Wilson, who wrote, was one in the big book that says we can't take on the personal problems. We need to allow the newcomer to become attached to this thing called God, not us. In other words, we as Alcoholics

and addicts, as recovered individuals, are not going to take on every little chicken, every little chicken shit problem you have.

This is why we're going to talk about tomorrow. So many of you won't even bother to sponsor because you don't think you're equipped to do it. But if you're trying to take on their whole life, you're right, you're not equipped to do it.

Who wants to do that? You got the greatest gift that that that money can't buy. The solution to alcoholism and drug addiction?

Let's just show that and let God help them take care of the rest of that.

How many people do I see run screaming from the rooms because they just can't sit in another meeting while we try to fix your day and the arrogance of us to think that we can make sense guys, This is why I love literature based meetings. This is why we're seeing this big movement all over the country and primary purpose groups and and into action stuff here is all based in the literature. Let's study the book. Let's get you connected to God and then God will take care of all that other stuff. If you don't believe that, we got a chapter called to to the

that you might want to read

because God is real. And oh, by the way, in addition to removing the obsession to use he'll, He'll change your life forever.

He she hit whoever you want to pray to.

I I can't say sober these meetings and I don't know what it was about that day. I tried to explain it from 1000 podiums,

I physically really sick and I've seen a doctor Myers hooked me up with his doc and the docs looking at me sitting face and said buddy, you need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous, you need to go to treatment. You need to do something. You can't keep doing what you're doing on the medication that you're on and not experience problems. And

I don't know,

I don't know if it was the medications I was taking of the alcohol I was drinking, but I went home that night and I picked up a bunch of return checks in the mailbox and it sat on the tailgate, my truck and went in and opened them up. And it was just a a bloodbath. And I knew I was going to have to go the next day to Myers wife and she's going to have to bail me out financially one more time. I I'm 35 years old and I'm broke

and there's no friends in my life. There's nobody wants to be around me and there's no women in my life. And,

and I got up and I went to the medicine cabinet and took some pills and was going to commit suicide. I'm just dead. I'm just, I'm done. So done. And that's a romantic nothing drama, no big long letters, just

I swallow those pills down. And by the time they hit my stomach, I heard a voice that said, don't do this. Go back to AA. And we could talk about that for two hours, folks. I heard a voice that said, don't do this, go back to AA. And I did, I, I, I made myself sick. And the next morning I heard the voice one last time. So don't do this, go back to AA. And I'm arguing with the voice. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I, you know how we do, we're all hearing voices anyway. But I, I'm arguing with this 1000 times. I still do in sobriety. If you could crawl into my head sometimes and see what I'm thinking, you'd go look that 21 years. So do my ass.

I'm sure it's the same as some of y'all. And I walked, I walked, I went to work and I left at lunch and went to the dock and got some doggy down there. And because I've detoxing hard and and, and at night at 6:00, I might one of my first spiritual experiences was that I sat in in in a, in a meeting I've never been to before and I sat outside the meeting in my truck. It was colder than hell, overcast and, and I

I started arguing with myself about going to this meeting. You know, I'm sick and I don't feel good and I'm detoxing and I just need to go on home and,

and I'll go tomorrow to this meeting. You know what I'm saying? And, and I got propelled out of that truck into that meeting.

It's amazing to me. Myers was referring to it how fast our Eagles will start to rebuild. You can be bloody with the damage. I've got an old friend of mine in the Hill Country that jumped out of a four story building on cocaine and spent two months in the hospital and

she used less than a month later.

You just you don't remember the consequences of a week or a month ago. You know, you get caught in that mental black spot in that internal discomfort comes back and your head says, I'm just going to have just a little something to knock the edge off. And that's where so many of us in this room are getting tangled up in, in pain pills and sleeping medications and anything that we think we can legally put in our system to change the way we feel. The problem is it'll trigger the physical craving. And so some of you guys got to be real careful with that stuff because physically, once the craving gets triggered, you're off to the stupid races and usually within a day or two we're back drinking or just shooting dope.

We're doing so

it's an it's I don't want to go but I do. And I walked in that room and they were all laughing and joking. He's all heard me tell a story 1000 times. I'm miserable and I feel really uncomfortable and I'm sure that these people are all laughing at me and I'm so self-conscious and I got this patch and it's always crooked. Oh, you don't know if it's a patch or an ear muff?

It's hard to pick up chicks that way too. I had a table and I

and I walked in and this they're laughing and smoking and I get real self-conscious and and I back out. This little girl got put me in the door and

wouldn't let me pass. She looked her finger in my belt loop says sit down cowboy. Meeting was fixing to start. And you know, I've said it from 1000 podiums guys, y'all hear me talking about it. I, I, I'm not against young adult meetings and I'm not against women's meetings. I'm just, I just need to make a clear statement that if this woman had been in any other meeting, I'd have been dead.

If a guy like you to come up and you know, says, hey, sit down, I'd attack you because I was, you know, a guy I can deal with. But a a little 19 year old girl took my breath away. What I mean

she was doing what she was supposed to be doing in Alcoholics Anonymous. She was there trying to help another drunk. She didn't give a rats but what the attachments looked like.

We've gotten so pure in our fellowship now is detoxing hard and looked like hell. And she,

he set me down a chair next door and we went around the room and the chairperson had seen me up in North Texas and said to let the meeting just run the way it was going to go. And she said, he said, let's, let's show Chris, let's give him some hope. And they did. And they all went around the room and they talked about stuff that I could sink my teeth into and that I could understand. I hear people make sarcastic remarks about it. I don't know about you, but I don't even remember my first meeting. Well, I don't know about you, but I remember mine.

Those people talked about getting the credit cards back and they talked about getting jobs and, and making some money and getting happy again. There's a lady down there that had a sketchbook and she was sketching the whole time we were talking. And she, I'm a big fan of art. I'm talentless, but I'm, you know, she's in sobriety. I took some art classes and I did some and I'm just like, I'm going men, I could do this. And

they were all pulling me with a vision. I know some of you think that's so hokey, but guys, I'm less than 24 hours away from a suicide attempt. I don't need to hear one more sad story. And I don't want to hear any junior therapist trying to tell me what's wrong with me. They were just saying, you know, we were all messed up like you, and now we're not. Now we're on solid ground. Now we're recovered Alcoholics. And I like, damn.

OK, no, geezer. After the meeting came up and we I picked up a chip and a few of them applauded. Not all of them. And I've been picking chips up in North Texas for seven years.

They were done.

The old Giza came up and says are you? Are you done? Are you, Do you want to stay sober for good? They didn't ask me if I wanted to stay sober. One effing day at a time.

Guys, the book is crystal clear. I'm gonna say this. We're going to move on. I know it drives you crazy because you're buying that PR nonsense.

It says that we live life one day at a time. I need to go to God every day and get connected spiritually. This idea that I get up every day and decide if I want to stay sober just today is horseshit. And if you happen to be a real alcoholic,

are you still here? People all over? I had a guy in my a group not long ago, 19 years of sobriety, got up in a meeting and one of the last two shares my name is so and so. And I'm, you know, I'm a recovery alcoholic and I got up this morning and chose not to drink. Hot bang. For 19 years you've been making the right choice,