The Brazos Riverside Conference in Lake Whitney, TX

I want to assure you that everything he said about me is true.

I was in the parking lot this afternoon.

Is it okay if I raise this up or you want to just...

Hi everybody, I'm Charlie Parker. I'm a grateful recovered alcoholic.

Wow, what an honor to be here.

Kirk, nice job on how it works.

I feel you.

I've been coming to this conference for a long time.

And I took a few years off there for a while,

but when I was hanging out in New York,

but I...

It's a real honor to get to talk somewhere that you've been coming so long.

I mean, the whole time, I've always been big on conferences,

and I always say that people don't go to conferences to get their court cards signed.

You know, it's, it's, nothing against court cards, but, you know, it's,

I've always found it to be where people are drawn to the solution and drawn to the program,

you know, to hear because they want to be, and to be up here is a real honor.

I said, my name's Charlie.

I'm a grateful alcoholic.

My sobriety date is March 22nd of 1985.

I have a home group.

It's the primary purpose group of Alcoholics Anonymous in Austin, Texas.

We invite you, if you're ever in Austin on a Tuesday night to come see us.

We've been running about 150, 175 people on Tuesday night studying the big book, line by line.

And it's a great group.

I have my sponsor is Mark Age and then I think I've got most everything out of the way.

I'll get to Katie here a little bit later.

I hopefully.

I want to thank everybody on the board and anybody, you know, now I'm in a great position here.

First of all, it's Friday night, so I get to be the first one to go.

Second of all, I wasn't even supposed to be telling my story.

I, you know, so if it's okay, that's wonderful and if it stinks,

It's Joe's fault for having open heart surgery.

You know, so, but I was slated to do steps one, two, and three.

And I've been really anxious about that for about nine months, you know, about, you know,

how I was going to get one, two, and three all into one hour.

Because, I mean, I can easily talk for an hour about the nature of the disease.

And then, you know, step one, and then step three.

And then they called about a week ago and said,

do you want to do the talk on Friday night and I said I'll be happy I said I'll do the steps

I'll do the talk I'll do both if you want or whatever he goes well it'd be too much to ask for you to do both of them I'm

oh no it wouldn't that would actually be quite a comfort you know because that way I could just if you run

over you can just carry it on into the talk you know but um

I really am grateful to anybody that had anything to do with this conference coming together.

I've been around to A.A. enough to know that there's a lot of work that goes into putting one of these things on.

I know there's a lot of people that worked really hard getting this thing to come together.

Also, if it's like the groups that I go to, I also know there's a lot of people that didn't do a darn thing,

but have a lot of ideas about how it could have been done just a little bit better.

That's the fellowship I crave.

You know, they said, you know, you can tell your experience, strength, and hope.

And, you know, in the doctor's opinion, he says, for a message to interest in hold an alcoholic,

it has to have depth and weight, meaning that I can't just tell you a bunch of theory

or stuff that I've studied out of the book.

We're supposed to be coming out of our experience.

It reminds me of the guy that's driving down the road, and he sees a sign for a talking dog for sale.

And he goes up to the door and he knocks on the door and he says, you still have the talking dog?

And the guy says, well, yeah, he's around back.

And he walks around back and there's a dog laying there and he goes, so you can speak English?

And the dog says, well, I certainly can.

And he says, how did you pick that up?

He said, well, when I was a pup, I started picking up on the English language and I started developing some of the nuances later.

And I'm...

I got to tell you, I really had a fabulous life.

Fabulous life.

He said, you know, I've been involved with the Drug Enforcement Administration for about 15 years,

and I've been a part of ever taken place in the world.

And I've probably been around the world 15 times.

And what's even more interesting is that some of my pups are multilingual

and have gotten into diplomacy and, you know, have been ambassadors post and something like.

Because it's just, it's been a tremendous life.

And the guy, he says, well, it's been a real cool visiting with him.

And he goes back around front where the guy's still up on the porch.

And he says, how much do you want for a dog like that?

And the guy goes, I don't know what, 20 bucks?

He goes, why would you sell a dog like that for 20 bucks?

And the guy goes, none of that crap he told you is true.

You know?

So...

So up here, it doesn't matter how good the story is, if it's not from my experience.

I hope to talk to you a little bit about that, you know, but the book says our stories

just close what it used to be like, what I used to be like, what happened and what I'm

like.

Now for me and the way my story goes, I kind of have to talk about what I used to be like,

what happened, and then what happened.

And then what happened?

And then what I'm like now?

Because I've had some different levels of involvement in this fellowship.

But I guess let's just roll on into it.

Let's see what time.

I come from a pretty normal family.

I grew up in Dallas, Texas, during the baby boom.

I was born in the mid-50s, and there were 61 children on the block that I grew up on.

So it really was the baby boom.

But, I mean...

My friend Jim says that normal is a setting on a washing machine, but I mean,

but it was a fairly normal family.

And, you know, there was no drinking in my house, and I was the only alcoholic in the family.

I'm still the only alcoholic in the family, but in that little nuclear family.

But my mother was a first grade school teacher for 42 years.

So I was very well prepared for the first grade.

I know.

You know, I mean flashcards and all that stuff.

I look back at my parenting skills and I go, I didn't even stick a toe in the water compared to what my folks were doing.

But I held it together pretty good through, gosh, you know, probably up to about the fifth grade.

Anyway, you know, I mean, I was rocking along pretty good.

But I don't know about anybody else.

Did anybody else grow up under the burden of potential?

Oh my God, you know, the whole time is like, why can't you live up to your potential?

You know, why can't you be more like the, like Charles Malir across the street and, you know,

it was, you have your potential.

I remember thinking, you know, I'm flattered by the statement, but I'm really not holding

back that much, you know?

I mean, I hate to disappoint you, but this is pretty much my best shot, you know.

But, you know, I'm...

I was going along pretty good, you know, and I was involved in all the sports and high academics and all that stuff.

But to get to the drinking part, I didn't start drinking until I was 16 years old.

And there was a time, you know, that was, it's funny because back then, that was kind of young to start drinking.

16, ninth grade.

Now, it's not even young to stop, you know.

I mean...

You know, you got people picking up desire chips at like eight.

You know, you know, you know.

I mean, much love for the young people in there.

Hey, I'm not knocking anybody, but you know, you just, you look around.

For me, it started at 16 years old.

And I probably didn't need this fellowship until I was 17 years old.

You know, but I mean, so I had a good year of controlled drinking.

But, you know,

I don't have enough time to really talk a lot about my drinking, but I have to tell enough to qualify.

So I like to try to weave it in, you know, to what the book says about what's wrong with it.

Because I spent years in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous saying, my name's Charlie, I'm an alcoholic,

and I didn't even know what it meant.

You know, I just said, I knew everybody else said they were alcoholic, and I knew I drank a lot, and...

had a lot of trouble as there's a hope to get later to the part about

physical allergy and mental obsession but there's a lot of pressure off of them in that

because I love the way they do the speakers here at this conference and then they have step speakers

because I usually take up a good bit of my talk talking about steps one and step two and step three

and the nature of the disease and that sort of thing and I'm happy to say that right from my home group tonight

we've got blind Dave doing steps one two and three tonight and if you've never experienced Dave

doing the steps. It's just tremendous. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's the best you've ever heard ever in the history of this conference.

Probably in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't think anyone has ever done the steps as well as Dave.

I mean, in fact, if it's not the best you've ever heard, I'd think of it as a disappointment to our host and an embarrassment to our home group.

But, you know,

So, that's really gives you something to look forward to later.

I love Dave.

I really do, you're going to enjoy that a lot.

But, you know, the way my drinking went, it would be really macho to stand up here and say that from the time I was 16 until I stopped drinking at the age of 28, that I drank a fifth of whiskey every day or,

But that wouldn't be true. But the thing is that is absolutely true for my story, and it's isn't true for a lot of people held it together a little better than I did.

But from the time I was 16 until the time I stopped, I can promise you with every fiber of my being that I never turned down the opportunity to get loaded one time under any circumstances for any reason.

There was never one time where somebody said, hey, how about this? And I'd say,

Oh, no, I'm going to have to pass.

You know, it's my mother's birthday today, or I have to be somewhere in February.

Never one time, never, ever one time.

It just never happened.

There was a lot of people that that wasn't their experience, but for me, I was all about, from the first time I ever felt the buzz of alcohol,

I remember thinking, we are going to do this a lot, you know, and because it did something for me

that I didn't even know it needed to happen, but I'd been walking around with a black hole

inside of me since elementary school.

And something that made me feel different from everybody, that made me feel apart from

everybody, made me feel like I had to outperform you in order to feel equal to you, and, uh,

And I was completely self-centered and self-obsessed.

And living like that, you need a drink as soon as you can get your hands on one.

You know, but for me, it was at 16.

And boy, it did something, you know.

But there were periods where it was kind of going all right, you know,

but then it started getting sloppy.

And most of you have probably experienced that.

You know, I want to welcome while I'm thinking about it.

How many Alonans are here tonight?

Fantastic.

When I sobered up, it was really cute to tell jokes about Alan's.

And I never thought that was funny.

It never made sense to me, and it's not funny to me now.

I mean, it's the only group of people that loves us.

You know, I mean, and that ain't easy.

I mean, I've got an Alonan story, but I'll try to get to it later.

Okay, before we go any further, I've got to tell you one other thing.

I got a little ADD working up here.

So my brain goes off on little bunny trails sometimes.

And when I tell you that we're going to get back to something a little later,

all that means is this is an inappropriate time in the talk to introduce that piece.

But when I say we're going to get back to that later, we're probably not coming back.

There's about a 10% chance that I'll pull it back around.

I'm always so excited when I do.

I'm like, God, dang, I actually brought it back around.

But so I should probably go ahead and tell the Alon story anyway.

Before I get any further, I try to make this fast as possible.

When I first sobered up, my sister was getting married.

And my mother, my father went to Alon, and my mother never did.

She didn't need it.

You know, and just ask her.

So my dad was going to Al-Anon, and anyway, my sister was getting married,

and I could work my mother like a rented mule.

I mean, I could just, you know, I remember calling her up one day,

and I said, okay, mom, I've been thinking, you know, there it is.

I said, you know,

For the wedding, I was going to rent a tuxedo.

And, you know, in Texas, it's okay to wear boots with a tuxedo.

So I was thinking, instead of wasting the money,

listen to how I shake this up.

Instead of wasting the money renting those rubber shoes,

I thought we could buy me a pair of boots.

I'm still living in a halfway house at this point.

I said, I was thinking we could buy me some boots,

and then I'd have them after the wedding.

And my mother said,

Okay, you know, it's a good plan.

And so I went out boot shopping and I called back to the house to report in and I said,

I told my dad, my dad answered the phone this time.

And I told my dad, I said, I've been out boot shopping and I found some boots I like.

I said, now they got some Dan Post lizards that are $175 and they're pretty nice.

I said, but the ones I really like are these Lucchasee elephant boots and they're $400.

And this is in 1984.

And my dad says, Charlie, I want you to have the best boots that money can buy.

He says, I don't care if they're 200 or 400 or even $1,000 just as long as you can afford them.

I have you guys to thank for that.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's, so there's some fine pictures at my sister's house of me wearing rubber shoes.

But that was my first experience with Alonanon.

And I love you guys.

I'm glad you're here.

You know, as we went along, I said it started getting sloppy.

I mean, this is a meeting alcoholic synonymous.

I believe heavily in the spirit of singleness of purpose.

And when I'm in an AA podium, I try not to talk about outside substances.

But...

I had a lot of experience with things other than alcohol.

And I guess the best way to shape it up was the guys that I drank with thought that I was doing way too many drugs.

And the guys that I did drugs with were shocked by how much I drank.

You know, so...

Everybody thought Charlie was getting too loaded, you know, and it always reminds me there's a band called Aerosmith, and I don't think this is breaking their anything, but several of them were in recovery, and they said they knew they had a problem when Motley crew told them they were getting too loaded.

You know, you know, you guys need to back it down just a little bit, you know.

That's kind of the way it was for me, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

But it started getting sloppy, and I crossed an invisible line somewhere where I lost the power of choice and control.

I don't know when it happened.

I think that's why they call it an invisible line.

But, you know, somewhere along the line, I lost the power of choice and control in my drinking.

And the book talks about that a lot.

I...

I love this book, and all this is here is a large print copy of the big book that a friend of mine had leather bound for me.

It's probably my most prized possession, and there's a lot of good stuff in here, and I hope to talk about some of that later.

We'll see about that.

But, you know, somewhere along the line, it became different.

It wasn't just about partying and stuff.

I'm going to have to come out of this.

If anybody talks to Mark Houston, would you tell him that I wore a coat and tie?

I got to tell you, most of my experience before I got to the program in a coat and tie,

my job was to stand there with my hands at my side, and when I got nosed, I'd say,

No contest, Your Honor.

That's just my experience.

But, you know,

It started getting kind of sloppy and the things, you know, it started getting where people weren't as excited about seeing me coming.

And I started, here, honey.

Everybody say how to Katie?

That's my hero right there.

I'm definitely going to talk about her a little bit later.

Oh, it's a new world.

Get a little oxygen of the brain.

We'll be all right here.

I'm sloppy and I start you know it's I like to talk about the pawn shops when I talk about the things getting I don't know about anybody else but I love pawn shops I loved pawn shops I loved the whole equation of pawn shops because it was so pure you know I mean you know you walk in I've never once had a pawnbroker look at me and go

good God Charlie what are you going to do with this money you know or weren't you

just in here this morning you know you know any of that stuff it was always just

walk in with the deer rifle and walk out with the money and really a great deal only

one thing though I didn't own a lot of stuff so I was forced to pawn stuff that

didn't belong to me and

That creates hard feelings in your family and friends and stuff.

But I would start pauling stuff and just, I had so many good plans.

You know, God knows drunks can put a plan together, you know.

And most of our plans work really well until they stop working.

And, you know, and the plan with this one was,

You pawn the stuff, you had 90 days to pick it up.

So sometime during a 90-day period, you had to pull a scam big enough to go get everything out of the pawn shop.

And then you could roll for another 90 days.

And, you know, it was a pretty good plan.

Except for them, I had lost the power of choice and control in my drinking.

One night I claimed hail damage on this...

A little 240 Z I was driving back then.

I mean, wherever it hailed, I was there.

You know, I mean, I'd be watching the news, and they'd say there was hail and brownwood last night.

And next morning I'd be on the phone going, man, I was driving through Brownwood yesterday.

You wouldn't believe what happened.

But I get this check for the hail damage on this car.

And I never tell that story at Detox centers.

I don't want to give anybody any ideas.

But...

I got this check to get everything out of the pawn shop.

And I came out of a blackout.

I'm a blackout drinker.

I just, I thought that's the way everybody drank.

But I used to blackout several times a week.

And I mean, on a regular basis, I would drink to blackout,

just because that's, oblivion was always my goal, you know,

there towards the end.

But this time, though, I came out of a five-day blackout.

Five days don't remember a thing.

And I was sitting on the edge of the bed at my parents' house.

I should tell you that I was so poorly treated as a child

that I finally ran away from home for good at the age of 27.

I mean it never went back but I was in and out of their house for it till I was 27 years old

and you know and this time I came out of that blackout and I had eight dollars in my pocket

and this big old gangster wad of pawn tickets I hadn't gotten a darn thing out of the pawn

shock and um

I should warn you, I'm a big guy, I ride Harleys, I do all that stuff, but I am liable to cry like a little girl in a pink dress sometimes.

If I don't get through this one, I never know when it's coming.

Katie always says that I do the same thing whenever I start crying, I always go,

Wow, didn't see that one coming.

You know, but here we go.

I would have to go to my father and say, Dad, if we act now,

I can get you a really good deal on all of your stuff.

But, you know, I say that like it's a joke.

With Alon's in the room, I got to tell you, that's the only way I can get through that without crying.

My dad was a good man, and nobody gave him his stuff.

And here's his son out ponding it.

You know, and what we would have to do.

And the reason I like to tell this story when we deal with the loss of choice and control is because...

In Dallas, this was in Dallas, Texas, it's a big town. You don't just get in the car and go to the pawn shop.

It was, okay, dad, we got to go over here on East Grand and pick up your shotgun over on Buckner Boulevard.

And the metal detectors are out on the beltline, and then we need to go over to Oak Cliff to pick up the sterling silver.

And, you know, and so it was all day in the car with me and my dad and all that shame.

As we're riding along...

I would say, Dad, I swear to God, I will never do this again.

And if I was lying to that guy, I didn't know it, because I meant it with every fiber of my being.

And that's what I'm talking about when I talk about the loss of the power of choice and control.

I could not choose whether or not I was going to drink, and I couldn't control how much I was going to drink once I started drinking.

And that's the nature of the disease of alcoholism.

They will talk a lot more about the physical allergy coupled with the mental obsession.

But it's those two working together that make me alcoholic,

and that's the thing that baffles our family members and the people that love us,

is that when I promise you...

that I'm never going to drink again,

I might as well be promising you that I'm going to fly out across the parking lot

because I don't have the power to make good on that promise.

I cannot manage the decision not to drink anymore.

And I've proven that time and time again in my life.

But

All I can tell you is that people were tired of hearing about it.

I knew I was alcoholic for a year and a half before I got here.

You know, and saying that I was alcohol, people get really tired of hearing that you're alcoholic.

I mean, I was like, well, you know, I'm alcoholic, you know, and I was fixing to go to treatment.

Anybody else spend any time fixing to go to treatment?

Man, I mean, you know, next week is a good time to go to treatment.

And when it would get really bad, sometimes, by God, I'm going tomorrow.

You know, I mean, well, probably tomorrow afternoon.

But tomorrow, for sure.

And then, you know, when today would come, it was never the day.

It was never the day.

Today was never the day to stop.

And that went on for a good while.

And during that time, you know, it started getting sloppy.

I got a hundred mile an hour in DWI, and I got one night, I was leaving a bar,

I'd had five Long Island teas.

And I was leaving the bar, I like those things.

And when I sobered, I used to leave that bar and take that drink and just stick it down in my belt and pull my shirt tail out.

And then when I, my mother had two cases of those glasses at her house when I sobered up.

You know, in the laundry room there was two cases of those drinks from the Abbey Inn there in Dallas.

I guess I should try to find the Abbey Inn.

Put that one on the list, honey.

God almighty, it just keeps getting longer.

You know, when you get your consciousness around, you know, the eighth step,

they start bubbling up out of nowhere.

And I'm sure I'll talk about that later.

You know, but, you know, I let this bar in a blackout,

and I came out of the blackout, there'd been an impact.

And I could see the fender of the car sticking up in the air.

And...

It was real hazy and a really hazy night, you know, and, uh, but I was still rolling.

And I kept my foot on the gas and I made it down the block and around the corner.

And for some reason, my shoes were on the passenger side, but I grabbed my shoes and, uh,

and I ran back to the bar to report the car stolen.

And, uh, just a day in the life of Charlie Parker and, and, uh, um,

As I'm running back to this bar, I remember running under these trees.

And I'm running along with my sneakers in my hand, and I'm going back to this club.

And as I passed the scene of the accident, I looked across the street,

and I was pretty drunk, but I could make out that there were two police officers

standing there with a flashlight, and you could see the twinkle of broken glass in the street.

And I just remember as I ran by thinking, my God, they got here fast.

And I ran back to the bar and I reported the car stolen and the national, Katie says it's important for me to mention to you that this was my mother's car.

I wrecked every car she ever owned.

But the next morning the police called and they said, Mr. Parker, you're going to have to take a polygraph test to get your car back.

And I said, well, why is that?

They said, it was involved in an accident before it was reported stolen.

I said, you're kidding.

He said, no, they rammed into a parked police car.

And I remember thinking, that explains how they got there so fast.

You know, I mean, you know, but...

It all made sense, them.

But I guess, you know,

what I'm talking about is that it just really

had started getting sloppy.

And so I'd heard about AAA.

I'd heard about treatment. I really didn't hear anything about

AA. I just heard about treatment. This maintenance man

in my apartment has kept talking about treatment, treatment, treatment,

treatment. You know, treatment, you go to treatment, you want to go to

treatment. And he never mentioned detox. He never mentioned

Alcoholics Anonymous. He never mentioned anything

but treatment. And

So I went to treatment finally, but I was fixing to go to treatment for about nine months.

But when I finally went, I don't know, was anybody else disappointed with our 12-step program?

I mean, I figured we'd stop drinking about step 10 or 11, you know?

And you get here and they're talking about just bam, just stop drinking right off the bat.

But I had this vision of treatment where...

somewhere between the jail and hospital and I'd gone with my last hot credit card and charged these purple pajamas and a matching

Christian Dior robe and some little slippers because because I knew that in the hospital you spend a lot of time in the bed and

I had this idea that they were just you were going to lay up in the bed and they were going to come in and treat you a little bit every you know

I mean this

Treat you a little in the morning and then treat you a little in the afternoon.

I didn't really understand why it was going to take 30 days, you know, but I had time in my schedule for it.

So away we went.

I discovered alcoholics anonymous in that treatment center.

I did not go to that treatment center to stop drinking.

I went to that treatment center because I was in trouble, and I had felony charges stacking up,

and I was starting to incur charges while I had...

pending charges and you know it started getting sloppy and at one point they were even talking about sending mr and mrs parker's boy to the penitentiary and and

I was like wait don't you know you know I mean

But it started getting really ugly and I got into AA and

This is where I talk about you know that I like to talk about what happened then what I was like

I mean then what happened and then what happened because I kind of came into AA and

I came into A.A., and a lot of people in this room have come into A.A.

during a period when there was an abundance of discussion meetings.

I went almost strictly to discussion meetings.

And we would kind of talk about A.A.

And you'd hear a lot of things that after a while, if you hear them a couple of times in AA,

you think, well, they must be A.A.

You know, I mean, I heard it in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

couple of times but uh... so i'm just kind of piecing together a a from

from what i was hearing in the meetings and and then we you know we had some

had some big book experience but i missed a big piece of the program i missed a lot of it

and uh the biggest piece i missed of it was the selfishness piece not a small piece but

But I missed it for a long time.

And I don't think I'm the only one that it ever happened to.

So that's why I like to talk about it sometimes.

Because what happened for me was I came in and they said,

are you powerless over alcohol?

And I said yes.

And they said, do you believe that a power greater than yourself could restore you to sanity?

And we got past that one.

And then they said, let's get down on our knees and do the third step prayer.

We completely missed that piece of work in pages 60, 61, 62, and 63.

Right.

not really important pages unless you're interested in the root of our problem, you know,

the nature of our disease, you know, and what's going to kill me and what made me need a drink so bad by the time I was 16 years old.

It sounds crazy, but then I kind of just went along, and I know, this is an oversimplification.

There was more stuff going on than just this, but to say that I was still living a life based on self is a little bit of an understatement.

Katie can testify.

I should say Katie and I were littermates in this program.

Katie, you know, and I'm going to mention it while I'm thinking about it, honey.

This coming Tuesday, Katie will celebrate 24 years of sobriety.

Thank you.

four and a half stinking months she's got on me.

You know, I've kept her sober a few times by telling her if she drank again,

I'd sponsor her when she comes back.

But we sobered up together.

We were litter mates, and I'll try to get basically...

She was married the whole 20 years that we were best friends.

I mean, and to say that we were best friends, I mean, like brother and sister.

There was never any kind of innuendo or flirtation.

She wouldn't stand for it.

And, you know, she was married the entire time, and then her husband passed away about five years ago.

And then...

I had been through a series of marriages, and not one that she ever approved of.

And then we've been a couple for, I don't know, almost five years.

And then we got engaged to be married in June.

So it's been a big year for us.

I'm going to get back to some of that.

I'm going to try really hard, honey.

But I went through this period of AA, and I...

I don't know how to describe it, really. I was going to a lot of meetings. I was going, hanging out with AA guys.

I had AA roommates. I had, I worked with AA co-workers. I dated AA women. I went to AA barbecues.

I went to AA dances. It was a whole lot of the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And don't get me wrong, I love the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I really do. I love the meetings.

But it's been my experience that it doesn't treat alcoholism.

Am I saying don't go to AA meetings? Absolutely not.

But if you've got it the way I've got it, for a chronic alcoholic, just going to AA meetings will not get the job done.

For me, you know, it'll keep me sober right up until I go absolutely nuts.

And I've had some experience with that in sobriety.

But what happened for me was at about, I've had two or three bottoms in sobriety.

One was at four and a half years.

One was at seven years.