The Mark Houston Recovery center in Manor, TX

Good morning everybody. My name is Chris. I am an alcoholic,

I said yesterday. It's an incredible honor to to be here. What what's happening? What's happening at the Mark Houston Recovery Center is,

is Seminole is as far as recovery processes are concerned. I one of the things I do is I go, I go all over the country, all over the world and interview people and talk to people who are involved in addictive illness treatment and recovery processes. And for the most part that they're not really, they're not really able to,

to offer you a spiritual experience. They're able to offer you

clinical processes, they're able to offer you counseling, they're able to offer you really good information. They're able to teach you about, about your, your specific illness. But when it comes to the transformational experience of recovery, they're not, they're not really designed or set up to do that. As a matter of fact, many of many of their counselors or the professionals that work there don't understand

what recovery is. They understand. They understand the illness. They understand

a lot of things, but they don't have experiential knowledge on on the recovery process. What happens here is, is the people that you're exposed to day in, day out have experiential knowledge on recovery. The difference between that is this,

you can have intellectual experience, you can read about this, you can read the big book, you can study, you can study all kinds of things about alcoholism or drug addiction. And you, you can, you know, you can get a PhD in it. But the fact of the matter is, is unless you experience the recovery process, not learn it intellectually, but if you don't experience it, it's, it's not going to become

something that manifests in you and you're not going to be able to move forward.

Now, one of the things that's real tricky for us out there is there's a lot of a, a, there's a lot of NA, there's a lot of California. There's all kinds of As out there. And you can walk into these meetings. I want you to know something though.

Addictive illness. Addictive illness manifests in a scale.

Well, it says in the book, no matter how far down the scale you have gone, OK, then it's then it says in the book, whether you can quit drinking by non spiritual means will depend on how much control you've lost in drink. So what I get from the big book is I get that there's actually a scale that we're all on somewhere

now in a lot of, in a lot of the recovery meetings, a lot of people are, are pretty high up on the scale. I don't really consider everybody that walks into the, the fellowships that we all go to to truly be powerless. I, I believe that a lot of times they still have some power choice and control over over taking the first string. I, I believe that because I know the type of programs they work. I know the type of behavior that they're involved in and it, you know,

me personally, if I was, if I was working that type of a program or if I was engaging in those behaviors, I would be drunk as a goat in 5 minutes. So, so I believe that there's a scale and I believe that you can walk into meetings and you can be among a lot of people who haven't really gone down the scale very far, do not really have to get about the business of recovery and they're going to probably be OK.

Now what happens is when you end, when you end up in a place like this, you've probably experienced relapse.

Anyone, that's anyone that's really tried to separate from drugs and alcohol and found they couldn't raise your hand. OK, Now listen, we're OK. This is what I I love speaking to people who've had the same experience. What happened with me was I signed myself into a 28 day program. I didn't want to go. Nobody was making me go. Alcohol had got my attention. I was going to check out. I mean, I was going to die and I knew it.

So I heard, you know, you know, go to this place. It was the only option that I was aware of. So I signed myself into this place. I, you know, I paid a lot of money in this particular treatment center. They, they, they did give me a big book. They did give me a 12:00 and 12:00.

But what they did was that was they, they had me watch a lot of movies and, you know, a lot of lectures. They had people coming in from the outside who, you know, had dubious recovery at best. And

I didn't get any counselor one-on-one. And, and when I left, they told me

you need outpatient, you should probably go to some meetings. OK. So I did both of those because, you know, I was, I was scared for my life. I, I started to go to two AA meetings and I went to two outpatient meetings and I was paying money at these outpatient meetings. And listen, you got to understand me as a person. I didn't like crowds. I didn't like lights. I didn't like anybody telling me what to do. I didn't like being somewhere at a certain time.

I didn't want to be held accountable. You know, I wanted to, I wanted to dodge and weave. I mean, that was my my modus operandi. So for me to engage in that, you have to understand that I was desperate to stay separated from alcohol, desperate, or I wouldn't have been doing that. I hate it every minute of it.

So I was going to outpatient, I was going to a couple of a, a meetings.

And what happened was about two months into this process, somewhere in the summer of 1989, I'm driving to an A, a meeting. And the thought crosses my mind that you know what? I haven't, I haven't been drunk. And, you know, almost three months, I almost don't even remember what that's like. And I heard somebody at a meeting say, if you can't remember your last drunk, you haven't had it, you know, so

said, you know what, I'm going to buy a gallon of vodka. I'm going to drink it. And what that's going to do is that's going to remind me how terrible it is to get drunk. And I'm going to zoom back into this recovery process with a whole new attitude and outlook. OK. So what I did was I got drunk to improve my sobriety.

Only an alcoholic can do that. And I got to tell you, it was a mistake. It was a

three drinks into that drink.

I'm 3 drinks into that bottle and all of a sudden I go, Oh my God, what have I done? I've opened up the cage door to the beast. I'm gonna get dragged around by the neck for however long it's gonna be. I what a no, I can't believe it. I'm drinking again. Now. Now here's here's the crux of the the situation.

What did the alcohol make me? Insane.

No, the alcohol actually restored me to sanity. The alcohol actually restored me to sanity. I realized 3 drinks into it, what a mistake I had made.

I I had, I had that subtle form of insanity prior to putting alcohol in my body. Now this is really what separates us from the heavy drinkers from a lot of the other people that end up in the 12 step recovery processes. We really really want to not do this again and find out we can't. We end up for one reason or another, alcohol or drugs, doesn't care what kind of a reason it gives you,

you know, all of a sudden you're using again. And and you know, it's hard even to explain it to people. Like what? You know, you've had 4D Wis, you've been thrown out of the house and there you are with a six pack under your arm. What is the matter with you? And you're like, you know, it's not even, it's not even something, it's not even something that computes you. You just, you just don't have the ability to get it, OK.

Now this is what separates us and it separates us in the rooms. And I want you to know that

because you can't work the same type of program with the guy that's sitting next to you over here or the guy that's sitting next to you over here. You have to be diligent about the business of recovery. And you learn. You learn that in this place. And I cannot tell you how lucky you are to be to be in this specific facility. You have to take it from me. I go all over the place and it's absolutely tragic. Some of the stuff

that happens with us. You know, your chances of ending up in a place with a true answer is is amazing, is amazingly low and and, and here you are. A addictive illness is misunderstood by so many people. It's misunderstood by people that have it. It's misunderstood by people that treat you for it. It's mis. It's misunderstood by the sponsor that you get. It's misunderstood by the family. It's misunderstood by

everybody. You almost have to be the type of person who has experienced that level of powerlessness that that I really didn't want to do this. You almost have to be one of those people to really have a clue about what is going on with Addictive Ellis. Now,

today I was talking with Patty before the meeting and we're trying to decide on a topic for this workshop. I can pretty much talk on most things,

but we came up with the spiritual experience in this book here. I think it's a 4th edition. It's on page 567 if anyone cares to follow along.

Just a little bit of background about where this where this appendix came from.

What happened is in the 1st edition of the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. In Bill's story, he tells about the revolutionary change in attitude and outlook that he had.

You know, he was on the hospital bed in Towns Hospital and he was getting over his last, his last

detox. He, he's, he's in, he's in the middle of, you know, he hallucinated and he's coming out of that. And

Evie Thatcher is, you know, visiting him in the hospital and he's talking to him about a spiritual recovery program. It wasn't really called that back then. It was more or less

a way of living spiritual principles that Evie Thatcher had used to be able to get solar and on that hospital bed, Bill Wilson had had a spiritual experience. Now the way the way I describe spiritual experience and spiritual awakening is like this, a spiritual experience is something that it's a phenomenon. It happens

you're you're transformed by it, but you don't necessarily or you're not necessarily able to hang on to it.

I think we've all had these. I the first ones that I ever had were on LSD. You know, you know what I mean? It's like whoa, it's like a spiritual experience, like a really a transformational shift in sinking and attitude and outlook on life. Now you have these in in a or NA, you have these when you do step work, you have you have a lot of these. And again,

they're not always permanent. The spiritual awakening that they talk about is

truly our spirits are asleep. We're asleep to a lot of things. We're asleep to a true and accurate appraisal of ourselves, a true and accurate appraisal of our place in the universe. And there's a number of spiritual experiences that build up, I believe, to a spiritual awakening where we we truly have a new attitude and outlook on life. Our, our relationship with the universe, with ourselves and with others is on a whole different level.

And we had, I talked yesterday, we've gone from a life system based on self-centered fear and selfishness to a life system based on love and service. That's really, that's really the shift to the spiritual awakening. I believe the spiritual awakening takes a lot of work. I think we can have some spiritual experiences. You know, each spiritual exercise we take will bring about a series of promises. But I think the spiritual awakening that we're looking for is the treatment or the recovery

from addictive illness because the people that have had this and that follow the disciplines to be able to hold on to it, don't drink and don't use again. Now I've sponsored hundreds of people in, in the, in the last 18 1/2 years. And I've, if you, if you talk about the workshops, I've probably taken, you know, 3 or 4000 people through the steps. I've got some experience with this and I pay attention

the people who go through the recovery processes as it's laid out in the big book and do the disciplines to hang on to that spiritual awakening. Do not drink and use again.

Very very rarely will they get in trouble. The only exception being someone who's had some really serious surgery and put been put on some really serious narcotics. I've seen a few of those people just just have a really hard time and it and end up relapsing. But

but you know, 95% of the people that have gone through this work and do the disciplines to hang on to it, stay sober forever, OK, Not a day at a time. A day at a time is how we live our life. They stay sober forever and permanent sobriety is what we need to look for. I understand. You know, when you're new, looking at permanent sobriety can be challenging. Like I'll never ever drink again. What what about my what about at my daughter's wedding? How will I not drink champagne?

You know, we're like that. We're thinking, you know, 200 years ahead. And sometimes it's, it's, it's a little easier for us to just take blocks of time and just deal with that. But understand that ideally, the life continuum that you want to engage in is one of permanent sobriety.

Addictive illness is progressive things. Over any considerable period of time, things get worse.

They don't get better. Every year is a little bit or a lot worse than the one before. When you're drinking and using. Isn't that your experience? I mean, you know, you're shooting yourself in the foot a lot more this year than you were last year. It's progressive and it's fatal at the end of of the progression. Normally

recovery is progressive too. Recovery is progressive this way. If you continue to practice these disciplines, if you continue to,

if you continue to work the steps, if you continue to work with others, find ways to be of service, live a compassionate life. Try, you know, try to be as compassionate as possible. What happens is your quality of life goes this way and things get better every over any considerable period of time, things get better. It's been my experience. I've, I've, you know, I, I know this from, from my own experience and my experience working with others.

A little bit about the spiritual experience appendix

is that when Bill Wilson had that, that sudden spiritual awakening on the bed at Towns Hospital when the wind of the spirit blew through him and a giant white light appeared. You know, he talks about this in his story. What happened was when this book was published, people, this book went all over the place. The 1st 1520 years or so, people were working out of the 1st edition and they were thinking, I need to have that too. Where's that bright light?

I don't feel any wind of the spirit, you know, blowing up my butt. What's going on? So they're writing letters back to general service and they're saying, you know, are we really sober? Are we really recovered? We never saw the light. And and Bill had to had to re explain, re explain what the spiritual experience of the recovery process was. And I'm going to, I'm going to start reading here.

The term spiritual experience and spiritual awakening are used many times in this book, which upon careful reading shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism

manifested itself among us in many different forms.

There needs to be a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery. OK, a a personality changes like a complete a complete change in attitude and outlook on life, but no major decisions in your first year.

Just become a completely different person, you know?

You can tell I'm not a great fan of the slogans anyway,

especially the slogans that came from well meaning but

uninformed treatment protocols anyway.

Yet it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression that these personality changes or religious experiences must be in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals. Happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous. Bill felt that he might have led people astray because he was talking about having that spiritual experience in like a, you know, a couple of hours on a hospital bed.

And that's not really how we have our spiritual awakenings in recovery. I have known a few people who've had those remarkable shifts in perception. Boom, you know, they've gone from, they've gone from powerless and hopeless to all of a sudden the light is on in their eyes. I have seen that happen, but it's incredibly rare. And again, if that does happen to you and you haven't done any of this work, you might not be able to hang on to it, might not be something that

gonna you're gonna be able to use the rest of your life.

In the first few chapters, a number of sudden revolutionary changes are described. Though it was not our intention to create such an impression, many Alcoholics have nevertheless concluded that in order to recover they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming God consciousness, followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook.

Among our rapidly growing membership of thousands of alcoholic, such transformations, though frequent, are by no means the rule. Most of our experiences are what the psychologist William James called the educational variety because they developed slowly over a period of time.

My own, my own personal experience with this is that I was tentatively hanging on to sobriety when I first when I first got into AA. What happened is after that relapse, after I decided to buy that gallon of vodka, I drank for another 5 1/2 months. It was absolutely, absolutely a horrible experience for me. I came out of that with with a willingness that was absolutely born of desperation. I was desperate to. I wanted to survive. I knew I was losing my mind.

I was becoming increasingly violent when I drank. I was going to, I was going to shoot one of my family or something. I mean, it was really, it was really getting my attention because I, I was, I was Jekyll and Hyde, you know, and, and I had some affection for my family. You know, it would have been inconvenient to shoot one of them. So

and who and who wants to end up in prison? So, so I mean, that coupled with, coupled with just how horrible I felt all the time during this, during this period of relapse, I went back, I went back to AA and, and I did everything, everything I could possibly think of to do. I grabbed a sponsor fish food fill. They all, everybody had nicknames back then. I found out in an inventory It was because I was nicknaming them.

But fish food, Phil, Fish food, Phil told me. He goes, he goes, Chris,

I want you to go to a meeting every night until I tell you to stop. OK, Phil. So I was going to it literally, I was going to a meeting every single night. I wouldn't let anything get in the way of that. Every once in a while, my boss will say, yeah, I need you to work overtime tonight. I'd say, sorry, got to go to a meeting. I mean, I was absolutely desperate and and I really thought my attachment to those meetings is going to mean whether I live or die, not, you know, And that's what I did. I went to a meeting every night for eight years.

Now, now here's here's me, here's me sober. You know, I'm mad at everybody. You know, I'm I've got that self-centered fear. I'm like sitting in the back, you know, I'm saying, you know, I'd have to, I'd have to go to the bathroom in the middle of meeting. I'd be thinking, you know, if I get up and I walk, walk out of here, you know, going to be looking at me. I don't want anybody I don't like looking at me, you know, and and if I share, if I share and somebody insults me after I share, I'm going to have to go out and kill them. So, you know, you know, I don't want to have

to kill anybody in this group. You know, I that would probably make it hard for me to come back. And so, so I better not share. And, and you know, I'm repressed with this anxiety and self-centered fear, you know, and, and I'm ashamed of what I had done. And I had lost my family and I wasn't allowed to see my daughter. You know, my wife moved seven, 7000 miles away just to get away from me. And I'm living at home with mom and I got a terrible job and I'm driving a 76 Ford Granada with white walls, no clutch,

no emergency brake, no heater, you know, no muffler. You know, I'm just, I'm just like, oh, I was just so filled with shame. Now this is me sober, okay? And, and you know, month after month after month. And you know what, what would, what would happen is people would ask me to do something and I'd always say yes. I'd always say yes to a oh, you want me to be the cookie guy? I'll be the cookie guy. You know, what kind of cookies do you want? You know, I mean, I

anything, I would absolutely do anything. And, and I was desperate to not ever put alcohol back in my body. But, but here's what I thought. I thought this spiritual emotional condition was something that I was going to have to live with the rest of my life. I was going to have to live with this. I mean, you know, life is horrible, but it would be more horrible if I was drinking Now. I, I believe that if, if you go to a gazillion meetings and you're, you're all, you're always there to help,

you can create an atmosphere of sobriety for yourself. OK, what, what will happen is, is you'll have a tentative period of abstinence. But the alcoholism is, is that fear? It's, it's that shame. It's, it's all of those psycho spiritual, emotional debilitating feelings that that one has. You know, that was how my alcoholism was manifesting. And you know what,

that's how my alcoholism would have, would have made, would have made the obsession of the mind manifest in me. And it was only a matter of time before I was going to, I was going to drink or I was going to drug. Now, my, my particular story is I was a collector. I'm a, I'm an album collector. You know, I, I do anything to get out of myself because it was such a burden being Chris, you know, let me tell you what I would do. Like I would come home with a bottle of booze for the last couple of years of my drinking and I, I

sit it down and I'd start drinking and I have the TV on and I'd have the stereo on. I have a guitar in my lap and I'd be reading a book. I mean, you know, I'd be just anything, you know, science fiction, you know, anything just, I need to be away from me, you know, anything that that pulls me away from me. And, and, and this is, this is how my alcoholism was manifesting. Now, because I was a collector, I went to a convention and there was a there was the tape booth, OK, millions of tapes. And, you know, so I bought some tapes and

I got some tapes from this guy and that guy. And, you know, I liked it and I grabbed the catalog and I started ordering from the catalog and and here's here's what happened. I see, I see this name. It's a big book workshop, OK. And I see this name and it says Joe Hawk

Salvation Army talks. OK, so I go. I wonder what an Indian would have to say about about it. I, I,

yeah. So, so anybody with the name Hawk, you know, he's got to be an Indian. So, so I, I order these tapes and I start listening to these tapes and it's, and, you know, anybody that's listened to the, to the Salvation Army tapes knows what, what a paradigm shift you're going to go through when you're listening to this stuff. It's like, whoa, I've been going to meetings like till, till, you know, I'm making coffee till the grinds are coming out of my ears and,

and I've never heard this. Now you get upset at first. OK, here's what happens. You get really upset. Like why didn't anybody tell me? You know, you want to go back to the meetings, Like why are you guys are trying to kill me? You know, that's, that's usually the reaction that you have. And you know, you go through that evangelical stage where you know, you're, you know, I made like 700 sets of those tapes and started handing about everybody. And, you know, there's some people responded to those.

They were usually the real Alcoholics. A lot of people are like, whoa, where did you get this stuff? But but what happened was, you know, the truth will haunt you if you're alcoholic. If you hear the truth, the first stage of hearing the truth is you're going to be pissed off at whoever's telling you, OK, but you have to deal with that information somehow. You, you, you have to internalize

these, these, these concepts

and, and if they're, if they're true for you, if they come from a place that you can recognize as your own experience, you have to deal with it. So how, how I dealt with it is I started listening to these tapes and, and you know, I started doing 4 column in inventory and the things that were explained

in these states. Now in my area, no one was doing that. You would you would say something like you would say something like I went to step meetings galore. There was just a million million 12 and 12 meetings. And when I found out, you know, through experience at 12 and 12 meetings, there are places where people go to talk about the steps, share about the steps, read about the steps, philosophize about the steps

and rarely do them. You know, it's, that's just what these 12 and 12 meetings were in my area

and I was going to four of them a week. Remember, I'm going to a meeting every night

now,

my sponsor and I thought it would probably be a good idea for me to start on a four step. OK. And this is prior to me hearing the tapes. And you would say something like you would say something like you'd raise your hand in a meeting and you say something, I remember this happening. I'm not even sure now if it was me asking the question or somebody else. But the question was how do you do a four step? Because in the step book it's not really clear. They talk about the seven deadly sins and you know, all this other stuff and you and you know, assets.

It's it gets confusing. So I remember the question being asked in a meeting and one of the old timers goes, kid, you do a four step with a pencil.

Well, thanks for that. That's very, very helpful. You know, I mean, and I've learned through experience that someone says something like that because they really don't know. Now, when I got ahold of these tapes, I, I really started and it was, it was kind of a bastardized, you know, when I look, when I look at this recovery process today, I did the best I could with a set of tapes and, and, and putting inventory sheets together.

But what happened was, is when I started to take these spiritual exercises as they were laid out in this book,

a shift started to take place in May. A recovery shift started to take place in May. Now,

the educational variety they talk about in here, that's basically what happened to me. I don't like the way they describe it as the educational variety. It's more the experiential variety because what happened was as I was doing these spiritual exercises of the steps, certain pieces of my psycho spiritual emotional condition started to become treated.

No longer was I so attached to what you all thought of me. I mean,

I would sit in a meeting just just worried about, you know, how are people, what are people thinking about me? I mean, you know, this, this burden of self. What happened was that started to heal. And I didn't really recognize it as such in the beginning. But over the course of time, through the experiential variety, I started to heal from alcoholism. I started to recover from alcoholism. I started to know a new freedom and a new happiness.

My whole attitude and outlook on life started to change. I started to become less selfish and less concerned about myself and more concerned with you, things like that. And this, this happened. This was part of my spiritual awakening.

I quite often friends of the newcomer are aware of the differences. Long before he is himself, he finally realizes that he has undergone a profound alteration in his reaction to life. My reaction to life was there's, it's a hostile universe. It's a hostile universe. And I got a dodge and weave. You know, they are, they are, you know, they're out to get me. Everybody, those bastards.

You know, that's really what my my perception on reality was,

and my reaction that such a change could hardly have been brought about by himself alone. Certainly something was starting to work in my life. There was a power if, if we have to admit that we're powerless over alcohol or drugs,

then the solution would be to find some power, find some power again, because alcoholism is an unorthodox illness and the recovery process is a very unorthodox illness. It's very, very difficult to understand prior to having experience with it. That's why they ask us, you know, they say we need to come to believe and then we can come to have faith. And then we know, you know, you will know when you have experience with it. But prior to having experience with it, you know, sometimes you just have, you just have to hope.

But I knew that it wasn't me. It could not have been me that was creating this change. I was participating in the recovery process. I needed to take responsibility for these exercises and for my participation in recovery. But this was a shift that was so profound. I knew, I knew that I couldn't be making it happen.

You know, I, I, I couldn't, I couldn't get my car inspected,

you know what I mean? My, my best thinking got me hospital plastic on my wrist every time, you know what I mean? So I knew, I knew that that there was something really at work here. And many of us start to call that God, that power God. You know, I believe that. I believe that there's a lot of latitude and how you perceive that, how you name it, the attributes you put on it. But you do have to understand that it's a power greater than yourself. It's something

it's something that

that we can make ourselves ready for,

but it manifests through us and it's something of a divine nature.

What often takes place in a few months could seldom have been accomplished by years of self-discipline. Anybody in here read self help books? Oh man, I had a library of them. I had a library of them When friends and influence people through intimidation, you know,

hide A dagger behind the smile, you know, I mean, I had a million of them, you know, I had a million of these books because I was always looking for an answer. I, you know, I knew that, you know, there was something just totally fundamentally wrong with me. I didn't know what it was, but I thought maybe there's a book,

you know, maybe there's a way to overcome this. You know, I'm a terrible, I'm 32 years old. I'm a bad electrician, you know, with no money. I'm blowing things up. All there's just got to be, there's got to be some answer. My I can't be this pathetic, you know, so, so I had a million self help books and we can't study our way

recovered. We really can't. We have to act our way recovered. We we have to change our behaviors. We have, we have to place ourselves under the care and protection

of spiritual teachers and recovery processes. And you know what? We're not going to believe it's going to work for us. You know, I don't know about that inventory stuff and, you know, pay the money back. Are you nuts? They don't even know I took it.

Why? Why the hell would I pay it back? I mean, we're going to come up with every excuse in the world to not do this because we don't understand why we would have to. You have to be at a point of desperation sufficient to just forget about why you shouldn't do it and just do it.

And I was at that point, you know, I had a willingness born of desperation. You know, sometimes I almost hoped it didn't work so I could go back and say that didn't work, you know, but but, but I did it. I did this stuff and, and, and, you know,

there's tons of promises in this book. I really don't like it at meetings where somebody has to read the 12th promises. There's a lot of meanings. Harry will read the 12 promises. Well, you know, they're, they're, they're really, really, really selling you short.

There are so many promises in this book. Every, every part of the action process leads to a series of promises, a, a series of changes in your attitude and outlook, a series of changes that reflect directly to your quality of life. And, and you know, and I think offering a newcomer promises that are going to come halfway through the 9th step is just not a really great way to do great way to do it. And so we don't,

but what we do do we do, We talk about the spiritual awakening. We talk about that shift in perception, that shift in perspective that happens through a recovery process.

With few exceptions, our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource that they presently identify with their own conception of a power greater than themselves.

The power of God, folks, is alive and well.

If you rightly relate yourself to that power,

if you participate in the recovery process, the power of God can become manifest in you.

That is a remarkable promise. How about we read that promise at some of these groups because it's absolutely true. But it doesn't happen because we're sitting in a chair. It happens because we get busy about the recovery process. So many things have happened in my life. I talked a little bit yesterday about 2008 being my year. I, I, I cannot believe the things that are coming my way

in 2008. It is absolutely

remarkable. Now you got to understand, I come from a place where no one wanted to have anything to do with me. I was, I was the type of alcoholic who had just become isolated. I couldn't go out. It was me in the bottle. You know, I'd sit there and I'd talk to my bottle of I, I used to drink George Dickel. You know,

me, me and you, you know, it's me and you would get so bastards. I mean, you know, and, and, and really, truly, you know, everybody left, you know, she left me when I needed her most. And,

you know, I mean, I had this, I had this just dark, tragic perspective on life. You know, the, the shift, the shift in perspective and the shift in my ability

to to to work in the universe, to, to be of service in the universe has become incredible to me this year, You know, be just being asked to to speak ears. Just one of a whole series of things that have just completely blown my mind.

The power of God can become manifest in US. All we need to do is rightly relate ourselves to this power through work and self sacrifice for others.

How weird is that? You know, we we need to be helpful to others and through being helpful to others, we're getting have a shift in attitude and outlook on life. And all of a sudden we're, you know, we're going to grow an understanding and effectiveness.

We're going to be able to accomplish unbelievable things. I always thought that you needed to work. You needed to like, you know everything's about you.

All those self help books,

one of my sponsors said one time, Chris, why do you have all these self help books? Where are the help others books? Well, I don't know Phil, you know why? Why don't you pay attention to helping some other people once in a while? You know, that's where it's at.

This is part of the unorthodox recovery process from addictive illness. Now, who would have thought? Thank God for the Oxford Group, for Bill Wilson, for the Emmanuel Movement, for the Washingtonians, for the Jacobi Club. There's a number of organizations who got it.

You know, between 1860 and, you know, 1930, there was a number of organizations who got it. And basically what they did was they applied the spiritual principles and religious principles that had worked for a gazillion billion years. They learned how to actually apply them, to actually do them to create that spiritual awakening.

And thank God that Bill and Bob and Ann Smith and all of these people were exposed to this process and then carried that message back to us. You know, there's a number of people that, that recovered from alcoholism and had that spiritual awakening back prior to Bill Wilson. There's a number of books that they're hard to find now, but they were written by members of the Oxford Group and others who used to be drunks. And they they underwent this

of action in the Oxford Group and some of the other groups. And, you know, we're reborn. I mean, that's the terminology that they would use back then. And they wrote, they wrote some great books. The big Bender, I was a Pagan for sinners only. These are these are a number of books that were written, you know, telling the stories of people who had recovered from alcoholism. So so thank God that that Bill decided to become the architect

of these principles and lay them out in a book

to other Alcoholics. A lot of people had gotten sober and, you know, never thought of that on his hospital bed during his last detox. The thought crossed his mind that I am going to lay out these principles. I'm going to carry the message of these principles to Alcoholics that that one idea laying on his his detox bed has LED all of us to be in this room today. I believe that and it and it's through such, it's through such shifts in

that that amazing things can happen and they can happen in all of our lives.

Most of us think this awareness of a power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it God consciousness. Most emphatically, we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in light of our experience honestly facing your problems,

in light of our experience with these recovery principles, applying these principles to your own life, your own problems, your own, your own emotional condition,

provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts, he can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial. Intolerance, belligerent denial, allowing ourselves to be resented out of the recovery process

is what kills so many of us.

We're not, we're not running on all cylinders when we get into, into, you know, the rooms. We're, we're not, we're, you know,

you get, you get secluded during recovery treatment for a reason. You know we're, we're, we're not.

You do you know we're not. We don't play well with others.

There's a lot of things that are really going on with us.

There's so many things we know that are wrong. There's so many behaviors that we, we continue to use that have failed every single time. You know, well, I'm going to do this. Well, hasn't that failed like 100 times before? Yeah. Well, this time it might be different. You know, we're, we're, we should be locked up. You know, we sometimes, sometimes just to protect ourselves and other people around us,

we are in real, real trouble

if we've gone down the scale in addictive illness. You know, we need some real help. We need a spiritual awakening. And it's, it's something I, I mentioned, I mentioned earlier, a lot of people will come into the 12 step rooms and they've relapsed. How many of us have heard people? I'm coming back. I've got, you know, 4 hours. Well, what happened? Well, she left.

She did. That's why you drank. Well, yeah, you know, or I decided to drink. And I said to hell with this, and I decided to drink. Now think about this for a minute. Knowing what you know about what alcohol does to you. Knowing what you know about what drugs do to you,

how can you make a decision based in sanity to put that stuff back in your body? You can't. That decision has to come from a place of insanity. It has to come from almost an unconscious part of part of part of your your personality. Because none of us. Here's what I would have to do if I was going to relapse today. Let's say there's a bar across the street. I'd have to go over there. I have to go bartender.