The Mark Houston Recovery center in Manor, TX

My name is Chris. I am an alcoholic. It is, it's a privilege and an honor to, to be here with you all this morning and be asked to share some of my experience on the, the 4th step and to be in Joe Hawk Hall's.

This is absolutely amazing for me. I had the, I had the honor of being able to do some personal step work with Joe six or seven years ago. I, we, we clicked pretty well. He, he was a, he was a great, great guy and a recovery genius. He, he truly was

just to just to tell you where the philosophy and the, the mechanics and the eventual experience from the steps came from. For me, I was in, I was in New Jersey and I was going to meetings. I think, I think everybody in here is probably experienced the meetings where it's not a lot of solution. It's a lot of, you know,

containing to share about the difficulties that you're having in life or whatever.

I was going to a lot of these meetings and my issue was I was really alcoholic

and I was dying inside. I was dying inside emotionally. On a good day. I was restless, irritable and discontented. A normal day I would be prayed of misery, depression, self-centered fear, guilt, shame, remorse, anxiety that that that's a normal day. And this is during my period of sobriety. Well, I, I got exposed to some taste. I've always been a collector and what happened was I started to collect recovery tapes

and I came across, I came across a set of Joe H and Mark Mark H Recovery talks. Now in 95 or so 9495,

Joe and Mark went around the country and did a number of big book workshops. These workshops were Seminole. They were, they were revolutionary. They were, they were so focused on the actual mechanics and processes

of the steps that it shifted my whole perspective about what recovery was about. I thought recovery was about participating in the meetings and cleaning up, you know, doing the coffee and, and, you know, driving, driving people around and going out to the diner. And I just didn't know any different.

And these, these workshops that I've started to collect started to talk to me about the actual process of taking steps. I cannot tell you how lucky you are to be here. There's something like Patty's, there's there's something like 16,000 treatment centers or or or places that you can go for to aid your recovery from addictive illness and that you landed in here.

I can't even

tell you how lucky you are. Inherent in alcoholism is usually an almost utter inability to recognize how much trouble you're in. OK, if you're alcoholic or if you're a drug addict, you know you're in trouble. But let me tell you, you're minimizing like you have no idea. Addictive illness is an aggressive illness that doesn't usually allow you

an accurate perception of how much trouble you're in. You, you know that you're family

mad at you know, it's hard to keep a job. You can't hold on to your money. You're letting your health go. You know all those things. But it's it's even it's an even bigger problem than that. And and you know, when we look at step one, I need to go through steps 1-2 and three before I can start sharing on four. Just to put it in perspective. When you look at step one, we have the fully conceived to our innermost selves that we were alcoholic and I want to be inclusive. If drugs

problem, we need to fully concede to our innermost selves that were that were a drug addict. What does that mean?

I didn't know what it meant until some very, very intelligent, experienced people really explained it to me. Oh, am I powerless over alcohol? Yeah. When I drink, all hell breaks loose. Well, that's not even what they're talking about. And then for a while I thought, you know, I'm powerless over alcohol. I just can't take the 1st strike. If I just don't take the first drink, everything's fine.

That's not what they're talking about either. They're talking about they're talking about someone who suffers from an obsession of the mind coupled with an allergy to the body. A little bit of a dash that and their lives have become unmanageable. What does that look like?

I'll share from my own experience what it looks like. I know it's a good idea not to drink from it. You know, I'm I'm a, I'm a pass out, black out, violent, insane, pathetic alcoholic. Do I know it's a bad idea to drink? Absolutely. I know it. I don't need help knowing it's a bad idea to drink. I don't need people to encourage me not to drink. I already know that the problem is, is

the illness alcoholism?

There's, there's, there's a phenomenon that happens and it's called the obsession of the mind. They describe it in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, like this. Strange mental blank spots that precede the first ring or first stroke, subtle forms of insanity that precede the first string or the first drug. What happens with me is for some crazy reason,

even knowing it's a horrible, horrible decision to make, I make that decision

and I put booze back in my pot.

It comes almost from a place of unconsciousness. It comes almost, it's like I'm not even there making that decision. Two or three drinks into it, I'll realize, Oh my God, what have I done? I'm drinking again. Okay? That's the obsession of the mind. It's the ability

of one's alcoholism to blank out and blot out your ability to make sane and sound choices

that's a problem. Like, you know,

if you know that the booze of the drugs are going to kill you,

why can't you not use or not drink? Because of the obsession of the mind. And if you've gone down the scale far enough and this hits you, if this is your experience, you're in real, real trouble.

Now, the second part of the first part of the first step is the allergy of the body. That's a craving. When I took a drink, one thing always happened. Every time the first drink asks for the second drink, the second drink insists on the third, the third demands the 4th, et cetera, et cetera. I want the tenth straight more than I wanted the 9th strength. It creates a both a physical and a mental craving to continue to drink. Now, this doesn't happen with everybody. This does not happen with

Fanny and Uncle Foot. You know, they can have two glasses of wine at Thanksgiving and they're good. OK. What happens to me is I have the two glasses of wine. I'm looking around for beer. There's no beer. I'm looking around for whiskey. There's no whiskey in the house. I got to go. I'll see you guys later. You know, I've started the engine and the engine needs fuel and

I have little or no control over that now. Now this is a problem.

So many of us minimize this situation. So many, so many of us minimize this experience that we have. Our ego wants to take responsibility of our drinking. Our ego wants to take responsibility of our recovery or our absence. But it's a deeper issue than that. It's

when you admit to powerlessness, you admit to not being able to control, putting it back in your body and not being able to control it once it is back in your body. That's what powerlessness did. So the unmanageability is sometimes the externals. You know, Duis, I've had three of them. I lost my family, 13 jobs, you know, no friends, having to move back home with mom, You know, the whole

I've experienced all that, but that's not really my unmanageability. My unmanageability is the emotional, the emotional state that I suffer from. My life system is a life system based on selfishness and self-centered fear that I grew up that way. I don't know why that was, but that's the life system that alcoholism was able to live and breathe in.

So there's a lot of unmanageable unmanageability that happens when you suffer from an addictive illness. Personal relationship problems,

OK, You're always at odds with the world,

can't seem to make a living.

Misery, depression, remorse, anxiety, all of that stuff that is alcoholism, that is drug addiction, that that psycho emotional state that you suffer from now, that's basically step one. You put all the all three of those things together and you know it's not good news.

It's like customers last stand and there's more Indians coming over the hill. You know I'm doomed is basically what step one is talking about. But then comes Step 2. Step 2 is, well, maybe not.

There's a power that you can access that can restore you to sanity and can improve your quality of life to the point where your life is no longer unmanageable.

Umm, what I learned in Alcoholics Anonymous and some and some from some very, very good teachers is I need to participate in the recovery process with all I've got. I need to participate in the recovery process. I can never go up against booze single handedly. I just can't. I can never fix all of my problems in my life myself just by deciding to.

That doesn't work for me.

But

I came to believe that something has been working in other people's lives. You know, my sponsor was as bad as I was. And now he had, now he's got a house, he got custody of his kids, he's got a really big job. He's got a nice car. You know, things are working in his life. So I started to believe that, that, that there's something, there's something out there that can help me. I I don't really know

everything I need to know about. I want to know more about it, but

I came to believe that there was a power that I could access. And what I found out in Alcoholics Anonymous is that if I rightly relate myself to God and my fellow man, if I live life along spiritual principles, I gain access to that power. That power that can keep me from picking up a drink, that can restore some sanity when it comes to decisions with drugs and alcohol

and help recreate my life based on spiritual principles.

Recovery is basically this. It's going from a life system based on selfishness and self-centered fear and shifting from that type of a life system to a life system based on love in love and service. When you're in the life system based in love and service, you're in recovery and things are going to go well in your life. For the most part, things are going to go well in your life. You're going to have it. You're going to have attitudes of gratitude. You're going to you're going to have spirituality. You're going to know peace.

You got to understand serenity. It's it's a wholesale shift in perception is basically what recovery is. And the second step is just basically asking you to believe that that's possible. Alcoholism or drug addiction is your problem. Spiritual living is going to be your solution. Step three, you know, and, and I'm, you know, I am, I'm doing this very, very brief

and it's the Cliff Notes version. You know, I know, I know where you guys are. You're going to get a much more thorough understanding of the steps that I'm going to give you here today.

But step three in its simplicity is am I in or am I out? All right, I understand I'm powerless over alcohol, that my life is unmanageable, that I'm starting to believe that there's a power that if I can access it, I can recover. And some things can start going to get going good in my life. And my inner or am I out? Is step three. I need, I need to make a decision to turn my will in my life

or my thinking in my actions over to the care of God as I understand it or spiritual life.

So in step three, basically, I have to come to the conclusion that I need to buy into this process, this process of recovery and the buy in is going to mean participation. So many of us want just to, you know, want, want the home study course, you know, just tell me what my problem is. Just show me how not to drink. We we all want these shortcuts. Unfortunately, alcoholism and drug addiction are so aggressive

that the recovery process has to be aggressive.

Addicted illness is an unorthodox illness. It affects your thinking, it affects your relationships, it affects your wallet, it affects your health, it affects everything about you. It's an unorthodox illness. Most illnesses you go to the doctor and say, hey doc, you know, I'm not really feeling all that great and they'll prescribe something for you. Unfortunately, with addictive illness, it's so aggressive that it needs an aggressive recovery process. So in step three, I need a buy in. I need to buy into this.

Yes, I will do this stuff. What do you want me to do?

Just tell me. And for to the best of my ability, whatever that may be, I'll do it because I've run out of options. I've run out of plans. Here I am in one more place. You know what I mean? So step three is basically I'm in. I need to quit playing God. I need to redefine my relationship with spirituality and with my higher power,

and I need to make a decision to continue on with this recovery process and do whatever work is involved,

take responsibility for that.

Now in step four. Well, let's look at it like this. Any problem? I like the way Bill Wilson uses the example of a business inventory. If you're running a shoe store and you know, you're bleeding money and you're not making any money, you know, there's there's shoes on the shelf that aren't selling. They've been there for years. You know, there's no more room for new stuff that's going to sell. I mean, you're making a lot of bad business decisions that things aren't going well.

The status of your

quality of life is in the toilet.

As a businessman with a shoe store, you're going to need to take inventory. You're going to need to figure out what's selling, what is it, what works, what doesn't, what's good, what's bad. You need to get ready. Get ready to get rid of the things that aren't working, the things that are bad in your life, the things that are causing problems. You need to get ready. Get rid of those. You know, to be able to move forward, you have to assess what's going on

The, the, the brilliance of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. There's still, there's still not a text, not a text more significant as far as what is addiction illness? How does it show up in your life and what is the process of recovery for it. There's, there's been a lot of books written out there on alcoholism. There's been a lot of books written on out there on drug addiction. I still believe to in my heart

that nothing is more significant from the book Alcoholics notes because it's been proven time and again to work. Now I'm alcoholic, can't manage my own life.

I believe that there is a power I can access that can help me with this. I've made a decision to access that. What do I need to do? I need to take a personal inventory. I need to start seeing what is working in my life and what is it? What is continuing to hurt me and others?

What is blocking me off from a successful life? Look, I'm a smart guy. Why am I living home with mom? You know what I mean? Why? Why do I have $2.00? Why have I lost my license one more time? You know, why am I? Why am I working in in a job? You know that I'm so underemployed. What is going on? What, You know, why do I continue to keep getting horrible girlfriends? Right? Yeah. Any number of those questions. We need to start looking at all of this stuff now.

I'm not exactly sure if you have forms here. I don't know what you do for a four step here exactly. I know the principles in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. I know you're following those because I know more, but let me just talk a little bit about here. Resentments. Resentment is the number one offender. It says in the book Alcoholics. Now, resentments kill more Alcoholics than anything else. It does not say alcohol kills more Alcoholics than anything else.

Resentment kills more Alcoholics than anything else. Because here's what happens. We get really pissed off. We get pissed off at the people who are in our room, you know, our bunk mates or whatever. You know, this place just pisses me off. I don't like the way they do this. I don't like the rules. I'm getting the hell out of here. You get the hell out of here. You're back on your own. You don't have sufficient defense against the first drink or the first drug you use. Again, you die.

The resentment led to your death. You understand what I'm saying?

There's there's a chain of circumstances that'll happen

now in resentments. We can resent people, We can, we can resent institutions, we can resent principles. There are just things that we're angry with. Now, every once in a while, I'll get a I'll get somebody going through the steps who doesn't have any resentments. They're not mad at anybody. You know, that's, that's a, that's a kind of deny. I'll ask them. Well, have you ever been mad at anybody? You ever get pissed off at anybody at any time? Well, yeah, I know. OK, We'll start with all those people.

We can be, we can have Senate institutions. We, we can be upset at the government, we can be upset at the motor vehicle Bureau, we can be upset at the IRS. There's, there's, you know, a lot of these people are not on our Christmas card list when we get in here. You know what I mean,

to write it down. We can be, we can be upset at principles. We cannot, we can be the principle of being monogamy. You know, there's a lot of principles that we can be upset at. There's some principles in the book Alcoholics Anonymous that I was upset at in the 12th, like a spiritual, the spiritual axiom, you know, whenever there's something wrong, it's wrong with me. You know, I wasn't happy to hear that my problems were of my own making. I didn't want to hear that I can, I can have a resentment toward those principles because I don't, I don't feel.

They fit me, you know, My case is a little bit different.

So I need to write all of these down and how you write them down. You know, there's people in here that'll that'll show you how to do that if you haven't already. I know a lot, a lot of you guys do do multiple fish steps and all kinds, all kinds of great stuff for a living. Today what I do is is I host a web broadcast that where I interview a lot of people in addictive elements, a lot of the people that run the big rehabs, a lot of the clinicians,

you know, believe me, I know what goes on out there in the world of addictive illness processes. And what happens in this place is probably the most significant course of action you can have to prepare you for permanent recovery. You know, so I don't want to get in the way of anybody and how they teach you how to do do the mechanics of this. But yes, I have to ask myself why am I angry?

Then I have to look at the areas in myself

that are harm, threatened or interfered with. I can't be angry at someone or or some institution or some principle without it seemingly harming, threatening, or interfering with my instincts or my ambitions.

Let me tell you what I mean by that. I define instincts as the things that I have and want to keep and my ambitions as the things out there that I want to get in a choir. Now, something harms, threatens, or interferes with my instincts. It's going after something that I consider mine. If it harms, interferes with with my ambitions, that means it's interfering with me getting something I want. You know, I'll get pissed off at a guy in a bar because it looks like

going after the same girl I'm going after. I'll get mad at somebody at work because I think they're trying to take my job. You know, those are my ambitions

and they'll cause resentment because I have a life system based on selfishness and self centeredness. Does that make any sense? You know, it's, it's about me and this is what this is. This is where resentments grow from, the roots of resentment.

So I need to identify the areas itself. What does it affect? Does it affect my money? Does it affect my personal relationships? Does it affect does it or will it affect my my my sexual relationship? I need to look at there's about 7 areas of self that I need to look at for every single resent. Then there's a line of demarcation. It says putting out of our minds the wrongs others have done to us. We resolutely look at our own faults.

Where had we been at fault? Where were we selfish? Where were we dishonest? Where were we self seeking? Where were we frightened? Remember, selfish is this is mine. You can't have itself seeking as I want that get out of my way. Dishonesty. We all know what that is. Fear. We all know what that is too.

I need to look at this stuff. I need to be dead on honest, As honest as I can be in any given moment with the 4th column or, or the area where I've been at fault.

Get all this down on paper. There's a magic that happens between the pen and the paper that will not happen between the mind and the mouth. So it's very, very important to learn the discipline of actually writing this stuff down. There's just a magic that happens between the pen and the paper. So I start looking at this, you know, I've put, I start to put together the whole Megillah, the whole series of mistakes and, and resentments and all this stuff. I start putting it down.

I get as many of these things out as I can. With whom I was angry.

The next part of the fourth step is to look at our fears.

Now a lot of us are, we're, we're courageous people. We storm into a bar, we pick on the biggest guy. We race motorcycles, you know, we ride with the Harley guys. You know, to talk to us about fear sometimes is tricky because we're, we're courageous. We're, we're sometimes we're insane. You know what I got? I got to tell you, I was an absolute nut actor. You put some booze in my body and I wasn't afraid of anything.

That's really not the type of fear

that I like to look at in the inventory. I look to, I like to look at the self-centered,

self-centered fear was the way I perceived myself. Uh,

I had a general anxiety about it. I just never felt comfortable with myself or my environment. I just did it. I, you know, if they said Chris is a party tonight at 8:00, let's go. I'd start drinking at 6:00. So I, you know, I have my fortitude, I'd be able to step out at 8:00. Well, what's the problem with me going to the party and starting to drink?

Because because the alcohol and the drugs gave me a little bit of courage,

it took away a little bit of that anxiety that that feeling not a part of be feeling separate from the alcoholic in the attic when we suffer from feeling separation. So we're separate from from, from everything. So I have to start listing my fears. What are some of my fears and why do I have? And I really need to look at it. Then there's a fear prayer. It asks us, you know, it asks us, don't we have this fear because self-reliance

has failed us. Our life system built on selfishness and self centeredness has failed us. Otherwise we wouldn't have these fears and anxieties. We we would, we wouldn't have to put alcohol and drugs in our body to feel okay. Sobriety would be enough for us. So I need to start looking at these fears. I need to list them all out. OK.

The third part of the fourth step is is harms to others. Certainly the emphasis needs to be on sex.

I know of no other group of people who do a worse job with relationships than Alcoholics and drug. We take hostages, you know, we use, we use sex as a weapon. You know, we'll withhold sex to get what we want. You know, we'll, we'll bribe, cajole, you know what, rape, pillage. We'll do whatever we can to get what we think we need. We'll go after women like they're a drug. We'll pick one that is attractive to the point where we know they're going to make

feel different. You know, I'm going to go after her because that would be unbelievable. You know what sort of like going after women like, like their drugs. For us, it's like going after a fix. Once we get once we get into a relationship, we start acting incredibly selfishly. We, you know, we, we, it's like we own those person, that person, you know, we're, we're involved in every detail. What are you doing? Where you going? Who you talking to? Is that on the phone? I mean, we're, we're insane. You know where it comes

relationships. So we need to really start looking at our behavior with the relationships we've had.

There's a review of each relationship. I ask my guys to write at least a paragraph just, you know, painting the picture of the relationship. OK. Then there's nine questions. Some of the questions are, where did we unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion or bitterness? You know, who have we hurt? We also need to look at the collateral damage in our relationships That that can be great. We don't ever want to miss that. In other words,

you know, when I was going after these women and I was engaging them in, in my life and you know,

there were, you know, there they ran for the hills after being burned three or four times. You know who else has been hurt? The parents, their children, you know, their boyfriend or husband. I mean, you know, who knows? Who knows all these other people that could have been harmed. You know, my wife could have been I, I mean, I could list all kinds of stuff. So that needs to be list listed and that needs to be looked at.

Then at the end it says, with this information,

because now we're looking at man, you know, look at all this stuff, we can see what hasn't worked for us. What is what's this is the stuff that contributed to to our failure in having a successful relationship. It says we then we then develop a sex idea. We then try to develop a sex idea. I'll usually tell my guys, we're going to some prayer, go into some meditation, ask God, you know, you already know what doesn't work. You listed it all out.

Ask God for some of the attributes of of the type of person

you need to bid. Who do you want to show up as at the next party? You know what I mean?

This is really, really important.

You attract what you are. If you're a dysfunctional, maniacal alcoholic, who do you think you're going to be attracting in relationships? You you attract what you are. So I would rather start attracting people that have have some kind of qualities. So I need to start developing certain qualities in my life and how I show up and how I react in relationships.

So the sex ideal, I asked my guys to put at least a couple of paragraphs together, usually more, listing out the attributes and the behavior patterns and you know, the, the, the type, the type of person you need to be or you want to be in the next relationship.

And then it says we ask God to mold our ideals and help us to be the type of people we like to be. So after we figured out how we want to show up every single day, we need to ask God for the strengthening direction to become that person. And that becomes a spiritual discipline and that becomes a cornerstone on some significant change in your life,

being a better person. You know, I don't know. I don't know any of you real well. Some of you are probably married, some of you have girlfriends, some of you have families, some of you are estranged from families.

But I know, I know Alcoholics and I know each and everyone of you wants to be the best person they can be

with the people that you care about. You just haven't been able to over the last number of years because you've been shooting yourself in a foot.

This process helps us helps us to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.

So we started asking God to mold our, our ideals and, and that's, that's what we do now.

I, this is an unorthodox treatment or recovery process for an illness. You know, if you've got heart disease or something, you don't go home and inventory all this stuff. It probably would be a good idea, but that's not what the doctor's going to order you to do. Because alcoholism is so aggressive and so unorthodox, it takes an unorthodox recovery process.

Going back to the origins of where did they figure all this stuff out?

Bill Wilson and Doctor Bob were both suffering incredibly from alcoholism. Both of them were exposed to the Oxford Group. The Oxford Group was where Alcoholics Anonymous came from. The Oxford Group was basically a group of of people that got together to talk about religious and spiritual principles and actually put them together in their life. And they did it with an intensity.

They met almost every night, they had weekend house parties, they got together and they were really active and they really got busy

talking about how to become spiritual people, how to become, how to have more faith, how how to live better lives. Now

I Bill Wilson, Doctor Bob and their wives basically learned everything they needed to know for alcoholism recovery

through the Oxford Group principles.

Bill was going a couple of years. Doctor Bob was going about four years. Bill was able to say, so Doctor Bob wasn't the significant fact in this was is here's how Bill showed up to his recovery process. He went every single night. He was grabbing people to bring him along. He was sharing his experience with other people. He was constantly trying to help people. Every time he was asked to do something, he did it. He got up in front of people. He told his story. He was about the business

of the oxygen Group or spiritual living. He was about the business and he stayed. So Doctor Bob, on the other hand, wanted to just come, come late, sit in the back, don't contribute anything, and leave when when he's stuck. Many of us have approached 12 step recovery groups that way. We'll show up, we'll go to a bunch of meetings, but we really aren't going to get active. We really aren't going to get business. The difference between the two was Doctor Bob was busy

and stayed. So I'm sorry, Bill Wilson was busy and stayed sober. Doctor Bob was minimizing and dodging and weaving and procrastinating and he did not stay. So Bill gets together with him and says, look, we we need to get busy.

Doctor Bob have one more relapse. And he stayed sober after that. And for 15 years, he helped thousands of Alcoholics and didn't take another drink.

Now it's important to see where these principles came from. They came from. They came from Christian groups that got together to practice spiritual principles. I said earlier, alcoholism or drug addiction is your problem. Spiritual living is your solution,

and that's absolutely, absolutely true.