Thursday Night Study Group annual spaghetti dinner in Davie, FL

Thank you for that.

My name is Chris Raymond. Very grateful. Grateful. Recovered alcoholic.

There's just nothing to do in Fort Lauderdale on a Thursday night, is there? There's got to be a slow night for recovery. It's freaks me out.

Brian called me I got a year ago. I I booked out of year, year and a half or so. Brian calls Could you could you, could you come on a Thursday night? And I said yeah, absolutely. I mean, I do lots of these, you know, 200 people that this is going to be run. Geez, sweet. I walked in about 5 and came in, Karen picked me up and we came in and walked through the kitchen. You know, they have these big buckets full of spaghetti and it's like, who y'all feeding the freaking homeless? I mean,

Oh my gosh, I never saw so much food.

Thanks, Brian for asking me to do this. Anybody that had anything to do with coming up with the money and all that? And I appreciate the car you bought me and the hooker and all that.

Somebody, somebody, somebody said, why? Donna says, gosh, you must make a lot of money with all your speaking engagements. And I said, Oh my God, it just freaks me out what people think. Anyway,

the and Karen picked me up and and she's promised she's going to take me back in the morning. So this is this is good,

all the little cooker bees. I mean that's usually where I'm at and I'm sitting here just grinding my teeth watching this thing come together. We do a little fundraiser every year for our little a a club in the Ingram is called the outpost. It's a little little a a place over there. Y'all can come see it. So I don't know why in the hell you'd want to, but you're more than welcome to if you wanted to. But you come see us if we do this little fundraiser, you know, about 200 people show up, you know, and I and I work for days getting it all. Oh my gosh, these guys, you know, they

what a cool place this is and you guys to be congratulated for all the little worker bees that that did this. I, I'm watching the clock closer than y'all are 'cause I know y'all been sitting here a long time. Your butts are sore and I don't, I don't want to. I'm perfectly capable once I get going. I'm talking all night about recovery.

I know I love, I love recovery and I, I love AAI.

I, my, my life has been so enhanced by the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I, I, I learned more about life from men and women in this, in this fellowship. And you can shake a stick at but I got to tell you, I owe my life to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I know some of y'all don't know what the difference is

because you went to a crappy treatment center, but I

I got to say that I know the pants are next. I don't like

the,

I nearly died getting Alcoholics Anonymous and I

nearly died once I got to Alcoholics Anonymous and some of y'all, I know a lot of y'all heard CDs of mine and tapes and stuff. And I, and I'm so glad you came anyway. And,

and I know some of you have not heard me and, and I just need to tell you because I, I believe it's, it's my life has just been easier since I started doing this. I, I'm, I'm going to be in England next week and I'm going to say the same thing before I talk and I'll, I'll be in El Paso, TX that we get after that and I'll, I'll say the same thing. I, I, I love this fellowship and anybody that says they're a member of this fellowship or any other 12 step fellowship, I got to tell you, I love you. If I can help you in any way,

let me know. I, I believe that alcoholism is a, is a, is a fatal progressive illness. And I, and I'm a big book Thunder. And if you happen to be sitting in this room and you and you believe this is some kind of a self help program and meeting makers make it, you're, you're going to just hate this talk.

And I think you probably should just get up and give your seat away to some little thumper out there and you can go out there and smoke with the rest of them. I, I don't know what to tell you. I'm, I'm not here to fight with anybody. I want to argue with anybody. I work for a treatment center. I'm in the trench. I watch people die of this disease every day. You know, back when I got sober in 1887, back when I first,

I don't look that old, do I,

in 871987 and then I started in AA in early 80s, but we used to watch people die in our rooms. They come in, shake the rattle and roll and Grandma Caesar dead. And, you know, treatment centers have taken away that and, and it's nice because our clubs stay a lot tinier without people puking everywhere. But, you know, the, the, but it also removed the sense of urgency and, and I still, I still experience a sense of urgency about this. I got to tell you, I know the room is full of people that are the Real McCoy. We also have a bunch of

fosters in here that we call Little Disco Drunks, Your heart drinkers, Modern drinkers. You don't need a a. You're welcome,

but you didn't need a spiritual experience to get soda, my book says. If you can get sober because you want to or because you need to, you're not an alcoholic.

You can grind your teeth on that all you want.

The problem is what's happened is we've taken the very clear message that could save the ones that needed the spiritual experience and watered it down to such a place so that everybody stays comfortable. There are no musts in a A

sister, sister said, yeah, I believe there are a few months and I believe there's certain things that you need to do in order to get well. But anyway, nobody bothered to tell me that for a long time. So I just get I get kind of crazy with the mixed messages sometimes. And we know this works. I was sitting there watching CNN this afternoon. I was returning a bunch of phone calls in the hotel room and CN NS on the idiot and the place out in California that's got the book for 2495 and he can help

with alcohol, alcohol, alcoholic and drug addiction cure. You know, and you buy this book and you can get well, listen, I got to tell you, I read the book. There's hard drinkers that could really benefit from this book.

If you're an alcoholic, it'll kill you, and I hope somebody sends him a copy of this. We got too many people killing Alcoholics and addicts trying to be cute and clever.

The message is so mixed, mixed. It's so watered down in certain spots of the country, certain spots of the world. You couldn't hear the solution if you if your life depended on it. Even our own a a literature has a tendency to water the message down with some of this other. We got this book in 1935 and then we seem to have published 1000 other pieces of literature that contradict the book.

Any of you guys like living Sober?

Me neither, me neither. But why do we allow it to continue to be published in our own fellowship? It's a piece of crap.

It's comments like that that will keep me from speaking at the A a world.

And it's up near my hometown and y'all are all welcome and

no you can't stay with me.

Oh my gosh,

I, I got sober finally up in North Texas. But I, man, I floundered around with this thing for a long time. I, I grew up in a Hill Country

and my father was a, was a, was a drinker as an alcoholic and my twin brother and I caught the genetic bullet. I've got a little sister that's never had a problem and she's a sweetheart and a half sister is just as nice as I saw her drinking a little glass of wine at Christmas and, and she just smiled and just swirled it around and just played with it for an hour. And I just

drives me crowd. You want to drink that?

You're making me nervous. It's free and there's plenty of it. Drink I

She's raised in the same family. I was raised and and it's like everybody want

still we're sitting here in less and less of it this victim stuff blaming people. But I think more and more people in the studies that have come out lately. I mean, this is genetic folks. This is this is no different than being allergic to a food. And and some of you guys in here, they're trying to still blame mommy and daddy for not potty training you right for your alcoholism. You need to get a new line because it's not going to work for you much longer. People are turning on you. You know, they're not laughing with you now they're laughing at you.

Nobody likes a victim. I got to tell you guys, this is genetic. I mean, it's just like, come on. Did I? Did our external circumstances exacerbate the problem?

Oh, absolutely. That's why I'm a biggest fan of therapy. You can you can throw a stick at. That's why I'm a great fan of good sponsorship that can help us walk through that stuff. But let's stop blaming my external stuff for why I drink too much. This is not some kind of self help program. I want to tell you right now, folks, unapologetically, I'm going to say from the podium, this is a spiritual program of action, period.

You don't have to believe to be a part of this, but you're not going to get much out of it if you don't.

In something you follow you should see some of your faces. Looks like you just got bit slapped

guys. The program is open and Ruby as you can be, and I need to say that right off the bat,

you can believe in Mr. Magoo if you want, but you're gonna believe in something other than yourself in order to get well from this thing. I gotta say this, somebody asked me the other day, and I don't care how you work the steps. I'm a big book thumper from hell and I, I and I believe that. I think the closer that we adhere to the big book, that's what we're supposed to do, you'll follow, the better the results of that. But you know, guys, if your sponsors got you doing it this way or that way or which I don't care, just do it. The biggest problem that we have in our fellowships today and all of our fellowships is that we're allowing people to take their time to work.

And if you're a wonderful individual in this fellowship and the best information that you can give to the newcomer advice is slow down. Take your time. You didn't get sick overnight. You're not going to get well overnight. You need to shut up,

dude. You're we're burying people that you've helped every day. I don't know what to tell you. There's a race. Now. Listen, here it is. Listen, because I get emails from all over the world here. I'm going to get something from this crowd, I can guarantee.

My sponsor had me do one step a year and I'm still over 30 years. Rock on.

I'm so glad it worked for you,

loser.

But the other cat, that's the real alcoholic guys are the real. He's not going to be able to stay sober that long. When the obsession to use comes back, what do we do?

We drink. We're not going to think through the drink. We're not going to remember our Gorsky Relapse workbook grid and go to.

We're not. We're just going to go to the crack house and stop by a bottle of booze and go home. I mean, I don't know,

God, the Real McCoy, Bill Wilson, in the big book, over and over he talks about the real alcoholic. The real alcoholic. I hear people at meetings all the time want to dismiss that. What's this real alcoholic? I'm an alcoholic. If I say I'm an alcoholic, you can call yourself a duck roll. I care, but it doesn't mean that you're a duck. You'll follow. You got to have certain symptoms to be a duck. I tell you, feathers and webbed feet are one of them.

You got to have certain symptoms to be an alcoholic. Let me tell you what they are. You've got to have a physical different that differentiates us from normal people,

physical allergy that the book talks about called craving. Can you guarantee me how much you're going to drink every time you drink? Or sometimes when you start, does it get away from you and you just drink until you take it? Yeah. Puke straight up. Yeah. And then you may control it and hold it together for a short period of time, maybe for weeks and months. And then they'll come another time. You'll be out in the backyard puking straight up big. We got a craving going on here. My first wife used to say she's. You just seem to be so thirsty all the time

because I like Coca-Cola, but I've never drank a 12 pack in an afternoon.

Once there's a craving, something that kicks in with the alcohol. OK, So you combine that with this thing called a mental obsession. It's the most controversial stuff that we talk about. This thing called the mental obsession. On page 24, it says we have lost the power of choice and drink you with us. He's patient. They come to the hospitals. And I'm in the industry and I mean, I'm around it all the time. They said, you know, if you go to like the beginner, the little primary group, and they start to explain the disease concept to you, you know, alcoholism and drug addiction is a disease and you're not a bad person

person. And here's what and you start to feel a little bit better about this. Oh, and I mean, it's not, oh, it's like there's nothing like

you with us. And then you go to your first group and they say, well now, so Chris, tell me why you drink?

Good, because I'm an alcoholic.

Oh, well, yeah, I know that. But tell me why you drink.

You follow absolute rubbish, absolute crap. If I knew why I drank, folks, I'd change it. That's what I spent ten years in therapy trying to do. That's when I spent my first seven years in a a trying to do which changed my external world so there would be nothing for me to drink over. How frustrating for some of us that are the real Mccoys. And you've got some idiot in the meeting saying that they've got you've got a choice whether you're going to drink or not.

I got up this morning. I was in Houston, TX last Saturday in a in a 10:00 meeting and a guy in the back said I got up this morning and I chose not to drink.

Did she?

No kidding. Well, I got up and and chose to stay on the spiritual path. Does that count? But that's not what he said. He said he can choose to drink. If you can choose to drink and choose not to drink, you're not one of us, period. I get caught in these mental blank spots. This is what the book is trying to talk about. You'd be surprised how many people out there don't understand that This is why Alcoholics die. Vote. Our judicial system in the United States is built around punishment. You have me. You keep drinking until we put you in jail a few times,

wake up one day and says I don't want to do that anymore. And you know what you do? If you're a hard drinker or problem drinker, you put the plug in the drug and you're done, period. Bye, bye. Now what do we do? We get the 30°. I go to jail and then get back out and bring some more. You'll understand. Talking to a friend about a high school friend of mine that I went to school with and they all saw him. He's working at the little minute market there where I work and I mean in the little town where I'm at. And I saw him. I said, buddy, how you doing? He says, I heard you had some trouble. He said yeah, went went to jail for my third DWI and

buddy, listen, three blocks from here is our a a club. Why don't you come to meetings with us? It's like he was my childhood friend come to meetings with us. He says no, I figured out the problem. My solution is right out there. He's got a bicycle chained up against the

buddy. You're gonna freeze your butt off. What do you think I'm gonna tell you? You ain't gonna get laid like that. That's a fact.

I don't know what to tell you.

Makes perfect sense to him. He didn't have a drinking problem. He's got a driving problem.

I went to Houston. It was an apprenticeship program. I was a cook for a long time and did pretty well and holding it together. I was like so many of you guys in this room that I've talked to and I know a bunch of you for years in here. Thanks for coming. But I

a lot of us in here, what we call functioning Alcoholics, we got nipped. We got

the disease didn't progress far enough to drop us in a toilet at a real young age. Some of you guys I've seen you just look like, jeez, you're not even shaving yet. You're already in trouble with this. That's like, man, you got screwed. Let me literally

a lot of us old geezers had a little period of time where it actually works for us. You know, we got to enjoy it a little while and,

but I got to tell you, for most of us, that enjoyment period was pretty small, you know, and it's like, it works and it's great. We have this little workbook at the at the hospital where I work in. One of the questions is did alcohol and drugs work for you? And everybody looks around. I think it's a trick question. They say no, on top of being an alcoholic, an attic. You're a liar.

Of course it worked for you. Why the heck would you have put up with so much crap to get it? Unbelievable. If you have a period where it works and then we have a period where it works, but it's a pain in the butt and then we have a period like the book talks about where it's just a pain in the butt.

You're with us. And that's where a lot of us end up coming to A8 the first time of going to try to take treatment because it's just, it's it stops being fun. I mean, people just think we're partying our butts off. But you know, in stage alcoholism and drug addiction is pretty tragic to watch. It's just, it's just not. You really don't want to and you can't not do it. And then you're in the grips of a fatal illness. And it offends me when people want to try to portray it like some kind of behavioral problem. It's just not

and

I was trying to save a marriage. In early 80s I I got married and moved to Denton, TX

trying to save myself and and I was drinking and it was not going well and I ended up going to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and there was an old geezer in there and I think he was old. I couldn't see him. There was one light in the room and he was in an easy chair laid back. I thought he was dead,

you know, these bulbs that come down like like psycho, you know, you know, and that's exact. And he was in there and he said, I walked in and I, it was like pitch dark except for this one bulb down there, you know? And he says,

do you have a desire to stay sober?

Yes,

he said. Welcome. That was it. That was the extent of my qualifying for the next seven years. Jesus, we're so concerned about membership. What about qualifying somebody and find out if they're really dying of a fatal progressive illness called alcoholism? What a gift we can give the newcomer. What a gift.

We're too busy worried about membership. You have a desire to quit drinking. You remember thank you. Put it down in the basket. Buy a book.

We went around the room that night and introduced ourselves and there's some people in there and there's a lady in there whose husband drank and husband wasn't there, but the wife was there. She wanted to talk about her husbands drinking. So he spent an hour talking about that and I left and I said, Benny, I'm glad I'm not in that household because the boy, that guys a Real McCoy. You with me? And I went back down and opened a court of beer. I started before I went to the meeting and I finished it off and I went on home and I was to do that for the next seven years in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous. Every time my butt would come unraveled, I'd go back into a A and they would give me the same stuff. We would do two things. I'm not going to belabor it.

Most of y'all know how I feel about open disgusting meetings.

We're going to do 2 things in our meetings. This is, I'm going to tell you, it turns out from from from a minor survey here is that that's the most controversial thing I say from the podium. That's the thing that pisses the most people off because you love open discussion meetings. You love coming and talking about your day. I'm so I'm so cool with that. I just do. We have to do it seven days a week.

That's all I'm asking. The newcomer needs a place to come talk about their day. I agree with that. The book suggests one day a week. What a concept.

I'll give you 3. How's that? And we could take four and do it our way, which is to study the literature. You think we're going to get a chance to do that? Nope. Because we're too busy listening to your stupid war story or listen to you talk about your bad day.

Come on, guys, we just talked about this. We just talked about the little brother. Just read it before. We have some things called traditions. What's our primary purpose?

The traditions don't say to stay. So the traditions say our primary purpose is to carry the message to the alcoholic who's still suffering. What's the message? We're supposed to carry

12 steps. It's not our experience, strength and hope. That's what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to share my experience, strength, and hope with you? No, that's not your primary purpose. You can grind your teeth if you want.

I'm in a A for seven years and nobody will say, hey you little arrogant piss Ant, why don't you work the 12 steps? No, they didn't do that. All they did with me was keep coming back

and I and I get to listen to all the little, the little, how many of you guys have ever said in the meeting and, and, and, and watch some of the elders in the group getting a pissing contest in the meeting.

Well, my, my sponsor said be fearless and thorough from the very start. This guy's rolling his eyes back over here. Hey, listen, we didn't get sick overnight. We're not going to get well overnight. Easy. Does it

take it out? They always take it out of context, isn't it's not what they're talking about. You with me, rush through the steps, take your time to work the steps. You can't work with anybody till you've been so over a year. First days of convalescence. My book says you better be working with somebody if you're going to get out of your head and stay well.

What? What? I don't know what to do.

Don't worry about this God step. You better have a spiritual experience. What do I do?

We, we were given the solution. It's called the 12 steps. It's called the big book about politics Anonymous. The instructions were listed in here. If we did, if we do this, this thing called a spiritual experience is guaranteed to happen. The obsession to use is going to go away no matter what your circumstances and you're going to be on some solid ground. Why would anybody in this fellowship think it was OK to tell somebody differently than that? Who in the hell died left you king of the universe that you could rewrite the program adlib because it sounds better coming out of your funny mouth.

Feel pretty strong about it, Chris. Yeah, I do.

Come on, guys. I'm in the 8 for seven years. Everybody wants to take exception with that. Oh, surely somebody told you. No, they didn't.

They hugged my neck and told me to keep coming back. And I don't think a single person in those rooms in seven years, ever, not one of them wanted to hurt me. Not one of them tried to hurt me. They were so afraid of hurting my sensitive little feelings that they wouldn't tell me the truth. What do we got to sell, buddies? What do we, what do we got to sell in this, in this, in this, in this fellowship, in this program is the 12 steps and the necessary spiritual experience. And if we're not going to talk about that in our meetings,

why are we here?

A A is not therapy.

We got the traditions that tell us that we have a singleness of purpose. The singleness of purpose is healthy alcoholic in the room. Stay sober you with us. I've said this from 1000 parties. You can go into any any group in Texas. When we watch that single as a purpose, you get one of those little crackheads come in there and start talking about the pipe and all that and then somebody will excuse me. This is Alcoholics Anonymous. We have singleness of purpose here. They'll shut him down in a heartbeat and listen and have every right to do it,

OK? Nobody wants to argue that. And then the next person starts to share. Well, listen, my grandkid. Let me tell you what he did and we're going to listen for 20 minutes about your grandkid

that I know you love.

You tell me the difference. The 20 year old kid in the back is drinking himself spitless that came in here to try to get well, you with me. We're not going to talk about the dope, but we're going to talk about your grandkid, how he can really relate to that.

We we applaud and then we go straight back to our meetings and don't change the formats and continue to allow it until, until the cows come home. Well, we need a place to share. Yeah, we do. It's called a picnic table out front.

I don't know,

I can't get sober and and I leave AA. I promise I'm never going to go back. And I I'm seeing a therapist and in fact I'm seeing a bunch of them for a 10 year period and every time I go to another therapist they give me another pill and it's not bad. You can ride it for a while

and

working for my brother up in North Texas and thank God for family and

they've got me coast. My sister-in-law cosigned for a little apartment for me in in Lewisville, TX and I pick up a stack of return checks one night and

I go up to my little apartment by myself and the depressions kicking my butt. Big Book talks about a thing called a We've got a two-part illness, physical and mental, but underneath it all is this thing called a spiritual malady. The spiritual malady and untreated alcoholism and unmanageability are all the same. And that's what ties us all together. The the little 19 year old kid in the back and the 90 year old geezer and the black person and the gay person and the Yankee and it didn't make any difference. All of us, when we get down inside and start talking about what's going on inside,

we can all relate. And that's the thing that we don't seem to talk enough about. We talk about the drama,

but we don't talk about what's I'm dying of untreated alcoholism, and I'm drinking. People think that going to meetings and not drinking will treat that. I'm going to tell you something, folks. It won't. And I watch a lot of people dry for years, walk out in the backyard and shoot themselves because they're so uncomfortable in their skin. We're seeing an epidemic in this country of people relapsing after long periods of sobriety because they go to a doctor just simply because they feel so

lousy inside because they've stopped working the 12 steps. You all understand

the same disease that brought him to our fellowship 17 years before. The disease is is killing them now because they stopped doing the work in the hospital where I work these, we have this influx of old geezers coming back in good sobriety. Five years, seven years, 10 years, 15 years. We just had a guy laid with 22 years of sobriety. Every single one of them that comes back in, I ask them the same question. Hey buddy, let me ask you a question. How many people were you sponsored when you relapsed?

None.

Excuse me, but my book right up in the very front says you cannot survive the certain trials and low spots ahead unless you work with others. Who in the hell do you think you are?

15 years ago when I started at that hospital, we would maybe get one or two of those people in a community a month. And I bet you we got 1520 people in there right now that had ten years or more and lost it. Most of those around the prescription pad where they went to a doctor to get something to treat that internal discomfort,

you follow.

I could hit this for an hour, folks, and piss everybody off. I'm not gonna. I'm just telling you we're watching. We're watching an epidemic with a prescription pads and people thinking that it's OK to do that, but at least I'm not drinking one day at a time.

Yeah, but you can't eat breakfast because you're so loaded on sleep medications. What are you? What do you call that?

I'll tell you what I call it crappy sobriety.

I'll tell you what I call it dishonest sobriety.

I have a sleep disorder.

No, you don't.

You have a conscience that's driving you crazy because you're not working the steps anymore and you're not taking care of a night's 10th step and 11th step on a regular basis. Y'all down with that? Well, I wish you could stand up here and watch how many you got uncomfortable. I don't care. I don't care. Good. It's worth the trip over here to make some of you uncomfortable. Get off dead center.

I'm taking 7 pills a day and I am dying. You follow the depression so thick it's choking me. And I can't figure out what's wrong and they can't figure out what's wrong And I'm the anxieties and the fear with me. And I picked up those return checks and I went to the back and I laid them on the counter and I fed the ferrets and I went to the medicine cabinet. I took a couple of bottles of pills out and tried to commit suicide. I'm just, I'm done, guys. I've done everything I can possibly do. I've tried a a. It didn't work.

You follow, didn't work the steps, but I tried meetings. That's all you told me to do. Meeting makers make it.

Tried the church, didn't work. I tried therapy, it didn't work. I tried colonics.

I'm going to tell you that your complexion was absolutely glow.

I heard a voice about the time I got those pills in my stomach. I heard the voices. I'd swallow those pills. I heard a voice that said don't do this. Go back to AA and I and I'm arguing with the boys because I don't want to do this. I am sick and tired of this. I'm not. I ain't going anywhere. I have a sex change. I'll consider that, but I'm not going back to a A.

If I have to listen to one more stupid war story, I'm going to puke.

Don't do this. Go back to a A three times at night. I lay down on the bed. I made myself sick and laid down. Next morning I heard the voice one last time and I got up and I called a doctor and I went to work and I got some doggy diners at lunch and I'm detoxing at work and I and I promised I'd go back to a A I years before some guy had 12 stepped me and and he showed me where this meeting was. There's a little nest of big book thumpers. Wasn't a very popular meeting at the time. You'll follow. It wasn't a disc. You know, every city's got the disco, the big pickup place.

People get dressed up and come down and start their stuff. This wasn't that place. This was

and, but, and I wasn't going to go because he said don't go in there unless you're unless you're, you want to learn about the book, unless you want to seek a power greater than yourself, because these guys don't mess around in size. I but I was right in lake and I was feeling pretty sick and it was on my way home. And so I stopped at this meeting and I walked in the back door and sure enough, everybody in the place had a big book on their lap, you know, Long Paul. And everybody was smoking six or seven cigarettes sticking out of their mouth.

I tell you, I smoked as we ruined it for the new guys. I'm so sorry. We we should have been and

and I'm walking in and they're laughing and you know how self the term is hyper vigilant. Have y'all ever heard that is like I'm so in tune with what you think about me. My father is like it's called selfish and self-centered to the core is what it's called. It's what the big book calls it and

that was my big deal for years. I'm suffering from depression. No, it just sounds better than I'm full of self pity.

It's my problem with self pity. It wasn't the OK, so I,

I walked into this deal and everybody's laughing and I wish I could do a proper visual. I've tried it. I just, I got a bunch of weight on me. It's all kidney damage and liver damage and I'm, I'm, I'm, and I'm yellow. I mean, I'm not hair down here and a big full beard. I mean, I, I of course this patch, which is never on straight, you know, it's always kind of crooked and you don't know if it's a patch or an ear muff.

I used to be so sad I couldn't get laid back in those days with two pockets of cocaine.

I don't know how to explain to you how bad

I still look bad now, but I mean anyway,

they

they're laughing just like we're doing it here now. They're all having a good time and I'm feeling all of a sudden really self-conscious and I'm in about 10 feet and I stop and I says I can't do this. I'm I need to go home and detox a while and I'll go back later. You know what I'm saying One more time I'm going to set myself off The promises I made to God the night before have just gone out the window. Bye bye. And I I start to back out in this little girl got between me and the door and stuck her finger in my belt open. She said sit down cowboy and I talked to a bunch of you tonight that remind me of

19 year old girl and you know how God was if it had been view. I just whipped your button left. You know some guy I mean I got to die too, but I mean I but a little 19 year old girl. I mean take your breath away. What? What?

She wasn't off in some little young adult meeting talking about young adult things. You know, she was in mainstream A, a trying to help another drunk.

Makes me want to cry thinking about it. You should grab me. And she sat me down in a chair and I'm just kind of looking at. And they got some paper towels and started cleaning up my spilled coffee, which immediately did. And they went around the room. That night, the Chairperson took charge of the meeting.

What a concept

you got a guy sitting in the meeting that's reeks of alcohol and his and looks like death warmed over and obviously in the throes of detox. And and we're not going to do a little sunbeam for Jesus, meaning we're going to we're going to talk about how our lives have changed as a result of working the steps. And that was a quote from the chairperson, not tell us about how you got here. Oh God, please don't do that.

I spent seven years in here listening. How you got here?

I don't care,

I want to show hands in here. Everybody talks about you got to find somebody you identify with. Let me ask you a question, how many one eyed people in this room eat out of dumpster? Eat out of dumpsters? Anybody in here

one? Rock on brother.

Where, Where were you 21 years ago when I needed you?

Come on, you don't understand this from the podium. Tell that story. Absolutely out there with a one-on-one on the 12 step call. You better be armed with that story. If you're going to help anybody, you'll follow. But guys, we're in a meeting. We're here. We got the little guys there in detox. So coming into our meetings, they don't need to hear another stupid story. They need to hear some solution.

Yeah.

These guys got hold of me and wouldn't let me go. And I mean, they went around the room and they shared stuff that I could understand. They talked about getting their credit cards back. They talked about getting married. They talked about buying a house. You'll follow, guys, All of my stuff was gone. I'm done. I I'm less than 24 hours away from a suicide attempt. Those people in that room gave me the one thing that I needed worse than anything, and that was hope You'll follow.

They they, they collectively 20 or 3040 people in that room pull their heads out of their butt and stop worried about their day and started worried about my day.

We play lip service to this newcomers the most important person, but you're not going to stop your stupid domino game when the little new guy comes in the door to go over and introduce yourself. We have a tendency in other meetings to get real cliquish.

I'm guilty.

We got to remember what this is about. Those people took me under their wings and they said, buddy, come on. And I guarantee they pulled me with a vision. At the end of a meeting, the old geezer asked me if I was ready to stay sober for good and for all.

He didn't say let's stay sober one day at a time. He says. I can show you how to not drink for the rest of your life. Permanent sobriety

and it clicked click you'll follow

Power greater than myself.

He hugged my neck. That night they followed me home to make sure I made it. And the next day they followed me back to the meeting to make sure I made it.

And we went to a 10:00 meeting in the morning and visited a little bit. And after after that we went in the backroom and they asked me if I had a problem with God and I said no. And they finished qualifying me. They made sure that I was a Real McCoy as an alcoholic. I qualify for a bunch of fellowships and they qualified me control and choice, those two words. And we got on our knees and did a third step prayer. And I got up and felt different. And we went to lunch and came back and they gave me a notebook and they said, buddy, let's start working on that old four step. And I said, well, I don't know, that seems kind of complicated.

Worry about it. I'll show you how to do it. We're going to do it a column at a time, just to list the people that you hate. Can you do that?

Nothing I can do that.

Two weeks later, I've got a completed four step ready to do a fifth step. These guys are teaching me how to pray and meditate. They're teaching me how to take a daily inventory on 10 step stuff big. I'm sitting on the tailgate of my truck and it dawns on me the obsession of drink is lifted. Those guys had me busy from sunup to sundown at that little a A club you'll follow, Chris. We got a newcomer here. Just so happens we got an opening on the cleanup committee. Oh no, no,