The Northern Plains Group in Fargo, ND

Hey, thanks, Corey. Good evening, everybody. My name is Chad Bolte and I'm alcoholic.

But because of people just like you, a great sponsorship, Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole, and a whole plethora that are the things I've been sober since November 28th, 1993.

Yeah, baby.

NP, GS looking pretty good tonight. Pretty good. Everybody's smiling. Not quite as good as the Bolti though.

Hard to beat a cannoli, I'll tell you that right now.

Took me about eight months to pay for it, but hey, you know,

it's good.

Yeah. Little crickets out there. That's good. For those of you don't know what crickets are, that's when, you know, we have, like, a really funny story that you want to say, and then nobody says anything and it's just silence. You know, Crickets, like, right there. That's why I said it like that, just like that, so I could exemplify it. It's great to be at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is for those of you don't know. This has been my Home group since it started

and it's it's been the best meeting that I've been a part of in my sobriety, in my opinion. And it's just an honor to be in front of you and talk and you know, the 10 minute speakers, you know, Corey is my roommate and I feel like a lot of good things are happening to the people who are speaking tonight. Hopefully that will hold true for me. But Corey's moving out. We've been roommates for about four years and Corey's been a good roommate of mine and he's moving on to bigger and better things. I guess. There's a house on Main Street supposedly that is crossed from the street from McDonald's and six of you guys are going to be living there. It should be pretty

cool. And of course, Melanie, I always think, you know, we had this going away party for Melanie because she's going to London and I kind of shared, well, she kind of reminds me of my big sister, you know, just, you know, does everything right and straight as. And so have fun in London, Mel, you know, it's like like that's a shock. She's doing something cool. And Steve, you know, you're still

a dedicated thinker. That's good.

I don't know.

Oh yeah. So you know, I spent a good week. For me, it's it's actually been a Goodyear.

I'll get into that later. But you know, I had a really good weekend. Like I said, we were out at Debs house and it's James mom. I forget her last name, but anyway, we're out there for for Mel and I got to show this because my girlfriend Deb is here tonight and she's, you know, been hanging out for a little while and she's been coming to me and stuff like that. And Adam, where's Adam? He was at he was over there and

this is just hilarious. He's talking to Deb and he's saying things like, you know, so talking about drinking and drugs and what do you think about Chad being an A A and you know, all these cool things and or nice polite things. And then he's like, so Dell

kind of drugs you use in high school and Deb's like, I never used drugs in high school. And Adam, you know, just before she could even get that out, he's like, what about crack?

Like God, go away. You know

goofs

yeah, but I know devs on the right track and she thought Adam was cool, so game on I'm a freak too so Adam, don't worry about it I still know where you're at Is he here tonight or did you leave? Okay, good stay here, Adam. It's a good, good place for you. I,

you guys might be thinking, hey, you know, Chad's cocky or whatever He's, you know, and I am. And Alcoholics Anonymous seems to always beat me down. And I think truth be told, it's a different talk for me. When I talk in front of my Home group, it's a little bit different. I personalize it to the people that I know in the audience. And I kind of digress a little bit and forgive me if I do that, but I love you people and I love talking about you and you guys are such a big part of my life. So that's why I talk like that and it's really why I think I've stayed in Alcoholics Anonymous

because I've been able to have fun outside of the meetings. I've been able not only to come to like say MPG or Saturday men's morning meeting or Thursday night group in Moorhead or the clubhouse. All those meetings have huge significance in my sobriety. But it's what I do outside of the meetings that has allowed me to stay happy, joyous and free and sober. And so when I talk like that, that's why I do it. And when I heard that from the podium of Alcoholics Anonymous, it was very attractive to me. So I,

with crickets involved,

explain that part of my story and I'll certainly get more, I'll get back into that as far as MPG goes, because like I say, it's, it's my current sobriety and Northern Plains group. But obviously I'm an alcoholic and obviously I need to qualify myself.

And, you know, to get into that a little bit, I just want to ask one quick test question, and that is what's the best kind of beer? That's right. You bet your ass it's free beer,

all right. MPG. Way to get it right. You know, you used to get that one wrong. Bunch of idiots out there, Heineken. You know, you know, go to an NA meeting. I don't know. Get out of here.

No. Did I say that or think that? I don't,

I said it. I've been doing that lately. But no, you guys know that answer. And that was, that was my answer. Early on, I preferred Miller High life, the champagne of beers. I'll have you know, however, the best beer was free beer and the best beer was keg beer. You know, 3 bucks, you know, a little plastic cup. And I was like the commander of the keg and I knew how to pump and I knew how much foam was supposed to be coming out. And maybe even if I didn't know, I'd like to control things and drinking seemed to allow me to control

was around me. And, and if you're new and you're wondering, well, what's that? What's that? And I think the reason I talk about my consumption of alcohol and Alcoholics Anonymous means I think it's one of the most important things I can say at a podium of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm also a drug addict. I'm not going to get into that because I honor the podium of Alcoholics Anonymous, but I did a lot of them. So if you're having a problem with identification, please talk to me after the meeting. There's a lot of us here that are drug addicts, and we will talk to you outside of the meanings of Alcoholics Anonymous about that. But for Alcoholics Anonymous

growing, we need to talk just about alcohol. And that's my opinion. If you have a problem with that, please talk to your sponsor. But it's a strong opinion of mine and it's why I'm going to talk about alcoholism and alcohol consumption.

And back to that keg beer. Yeah, unfortunately, you know, what would happen to me at at the beginning of my drinking is I could control and enjoy at the big book talks about it is the great obsession of every alcoholic to control and enjoy his drinking. And I didn't really have that problem early on. I started drinking when I was 1415 years old. I was in sports. I was in, I had a structured home. Oh,

Speaking of the word structure, Corey, this meeting is structured, which means we follow a format and then we can stay sober.

And that's a good thing. So, you know, keep listening to Charles because he will structure your life and you'll stay sober, man. So you're welcome. And you guys down with that or what? I mean? That's. Yeah.

Anyway, I digress. I'll talk to you after the medium. I might have pissed you off, but people in a pissed me off plenty too. But

no, it's just to digress on that. I mean, I think the reason why, you know, meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous continue to grow. The meetings that are are 200 people

big is because there's their structure in it and there's there's a format in it and there's a there's a place and a time to share. And I guess that's my opinion. But anyway,

I keg beer,

love keg beer. I like controlling the keg. I like saying move out of the way. I got the keg, you know, et cetera, et cetera. My and I could control it. That was what I was trying to say. I could control my drinking early on in my drinking. It took away those feelings that I had. I was afraid of the coaches. I was afraid of being the third guard, not this first guard

or the second guard. I would never start it on the teams. I barely made the teams. I tried hard. My dad wanted me to be on the teams. I wanted to impress people. I wanted to get the straight A's. My sister was eclectic and smart and pretty, and I was, you know, CB student, the Joker, you know, always wanted to fit in but didn't quite know how I was going to do that. Alcohol seemed when I took that keg beer into me. And later it was. My favorite was Jack Daniels my senior year. Oh yeah, with awards on

side, Newt, you bet.

It took away those feelings of what I'm just talking about. I didn't like to take off my shorts and run on the court because I had white legs and I didn't tan and I would never tell anybody that and I would take that to my grave before I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. But alcohol took away that feeling and it made me feel like screw the coaches. In fact, I'm like the best ball player there

and I just, I had confidence. If you can relate to that, I think that

you have a symptom of alcoholism and you should, you should maybe ask yourself some more questions about your reaction to alcohol. That's what was told to me when I got an Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Now what happens to Chad? I have a really sharp incline of drinking and a really hard crash. You'll find out really quick about my drinking. I started, like I said, when I was about 14. I was done at 20 years old and I, I seem to have just a blast right up until about age 20.

And I'll tell you a little bit of what happened and it's, it's quite simple. I graduated from college and like I said, I was the Jackass. I was a joker. I was the guy who always trying to get attention, whether it was negative or positive. We hear about this all the time at meetings. I was the same way. I went up to UNDI didn't. I wanted to go up to UND because I want to get away from Jamestown, my hometown,

and I was always bummed out about Jamestown. I just knew it was like this pit and this really glum, boring spot. I just assumed grow up in Minneapolis or something exciting like New York or London,

but I instead was growing up in Jamestown. So I just wanted to get out. I want to experience some new things. And I'll just tell you what happened up there. I joined a fraternity. I got a .6 GPA, which for those of you in college or not in college, that's a

see and create a music and the FS all the way through. And they kicked me out and, you know, I, I guess I shook. I kind of scratched my head coming back from Jamestown that day or that semester thinking, well, what the hell, You know, I wanted to succeed. I want to do better in college. I was determined to do it at this time. I was waking up in the morning. I was asking God, well, what's wrong with me? You know, I need to go to class. I need to,

I need to go to that biology course. I need to not spend money that my, you know, that I don't have.

And I, and I think it's important for me to tell you at this point of, you know, my relationship with God. I always believed in God. I always, you know, I was confirmed a Lutheran. I, I believe that there was a God out there when I was drinking. I didn't have an inside of me, However, I just felt, you know, he was somewhere elusive for me. I didn't have a negative connotation towards God or anything else like that. I just really didn't much think about it. And that's, that's important to know because my relationship with God is, has changed a lot now Alcoholics,

and it turns out to be one of the most important things, arguably the most important thing that we get in Alcoholics Anonymous. And so I just want to give you a little snapshot of where I felt as far as God and I was starting to fail at life and I was starting to be disappointed in who Chad was and no longer was the, the cocky attitude, the spending the money, the, you know, all I'll do, I'll deal with that later. Was that sufficing the alcohol would go into my system and I wouldn't feel as strong. I wouldn't feel as confident. The the whole

buzz, the whole wonderfulness of alcohol seemed to be slipping away. And what does a guy like me do when I, when I get in that position, I drink more and either consciously or unconsciously, I'm drinking more. I'm being more unmanageable. I'm not, like I said, I'm not going to school. So I went to Jamestown and I got a job and I went to Jamestown College a couple semesters later. Got my confidence back up by taking

theory of Baseball and Intro to Psychology

and thought that I was like this, you know, brilliant guy again. Went back up to UND and, and that my drinking just kept going. My drinking was more important than my friends at this point. I had some pretty good friends up at UND. My, my drinking was more important than Thanksgiving. I was a mama's boy and very close to my family, even with my drinking. And I remember the last, you know, that would have been the fall in 1992. I called my parents and I said, hey, listen, I'm not coming home for Thanksgiving.

And that was a big thing for me. That was a big thing for me to call my parents and say that I wasn't coming home for a major holiday. It was just not the thing that Chad did. And it was because I felt terrible inside. I felt Calvin talks about the wind blowing through him and I, I certainly felt like something was blowing through me and it was icky and it wasn't good. And when I when I wanted to go out and drink, it wasn't filling those holes anymore. And I think that's what

that's what I bring into Alcoholics Anonymous meetings today. You know, what I bring into Alcoholics Anonymous meetings is I, I remember how it felt

towards the end of my drinking. And you might say, well, 11 years. How do you remember that, Chad? And the way I remember that is I, I talk with new people and Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's why I'm, I'm very happy that there are new people in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I like to talk with them because they remind me so much of myself when I was new. And I, I don't ever want to forget that. I don't ever want to forget how I felt because there's been times in my sobriety where I've forgotten how I felt when I was new and what happens

and the position I'm in when I forget about the new person, when I'm an alcoholic. Synonymous is something in my life is more important than Alcoholics Anonymous. And I've been there. It's been golf, it's been money, it's been women

and it's been laziness. It's been fear,

it's been a lot of things that have gotten in my way of being helpful to new people. And I'm telling you right now, if you're in that position, there's a way out and hopefully I can communicate that a little bit. My experience, how I did it, I think the rock solid way out of that is a meeting like the Northern Plains Group. A meeting where their structure and where there's commitment and where there's camaraderie and where there's sponsorship that tell you things that you don't want to hear long enough to believe that they're true.

And working the steps and going through them earnestly and understanding that you need to find a power greater than yourself and you need to grow an effectiveness and understanding and that to stay here anyway.

So that's that's where my state of mind is as far as

near the end of my drinking

and it just isn't working.

And what do you do? You're 20 years old, you're like, what the hell. You know, I even I remember thinking, what the hell, why isn't alcohol working? You know, this is supposed to be long term solution. You know, I always looked at alcohol being my medicine. I'm sure you guys did too. And there comes a there comes the end of the road. It's like, well, this isn't working for me anymore. What am I going to? Well, for me, I had to hit the end of the road. And this is where we get to the crazy part of my story and every you know, I've had requests now tonight on what to say as as far as

and I kind of like to steer away from this story. And actually, it might freak some people out like my girlfriend,

but nevertheless, I need to, I need to share. And what ended up happening was I was, I told you about the UND cycle and I was up at UND and I had begged the Dean to give me one more semester. And by April, I wasn't going to any classes. I hadn't been to class for over a month. I went to a keg party and I was drinking pretty hard, and

I went to the bathroom, which keg drink, keg beer drinkers do often. And I looked in the mirror and I was kind of afraid of what I had interpreted coming out of the mirror. But I had to contemplate it, surely. And what it was was it was a message from God coming through the mirror that yes, Chad Bolte, you will be Jesus Christ.

And umm, kind of a cool thought. Umm, I had to contemplate it as a lot of responsibility.

No formal training in theology, but all right, these are the kind of questions going through my mind. And it's kind of a funny story, but this would go on for months. I would think this to my heart and soul that I was Jesus Christ. And

so that's what happened to me. That's how I got into Alcoholics Anonymous. And so when I got into AAI was a little weird. And I would share things at, you know, like,

like the topic is serenity. And I would say things like, yeah, I know the topic is serenity, but I'm kind of waiting for Doug Goldstein, the manager of Guns and Roses, to come. And actually, I think he's waiting till I'm 21 because G&R likes to drink. And, you know, anyway, I know I'll pass

and, you know, people would like scoot away from me and stuff, you know, it's like, and you know, it's just, and the reason I say that and the whole Guns and Roses things, I thought that was actually going to be a lead guitar or a rhythm guitarist for Guns and Roles. It didn't know how to play guitar, Steve. But you know, being Jesus, I had faith, you know,

and never liked her music. But you know, that old Like a Virgin video from Madonna, she comes up and she says, will you marry me? Well,

that was my message to me. You know, of course, Madonna, I'll marry you. Jesus Christ. Madonna World tour. Yeah. Poignant. Yeah. Let's get her done. And the only thing I can say all about all of that is don't tell anybody that you're Jesus because about 48 hours later, you're in the psych ward, you know, in a padded room. And that's essentially what happened to me. And

so that's how I got into Alcoholics Anonymous. It was 1993, I was in Jamestown and a lot of things change for me. Obviously when I got

into Alcoholics Anonymous, I dried up. I things started to change, but one drastic thing did not change for me and that is I did not stay sober. And I think the reason I did not stay sober is I did not have structure. I did not have a regular meeting. I did not have a sponsor helping me do the things that I needed to do in Alcoholics Anonymous. One thing that did happen to me later on, and I would drink, I would go and I would not be able to stay away from that first drink. I'd go to parties,

would determine not to drink, and I'd find myself, you know, bubbling back a Bush light and starting over with my sobriety. So for me, I know that I need structure. I need to have, I need to have a sponsor that's helping me go through the steps. And I found that in Dick ass early in my sobriety. And he took me through the steps word for word. He even had an old 1935 dictionary because he felt that the definition of words changed over the decades. So we're going to know the exact definition of the words

in the big book. And he was that kind of guy. And I'm very grateful for Dick because he did take me through and I understood the steps. I wrote a true inventory. I found a power greater than myself. And for the first time in my life, when I laid my head down, I was not alone. God was in me. And I had a bunch of crazy thoughts. I thought I was Jesus and I was embarrassed about that. And obviously I have, you know, religious views in my in my heart. And I felt very I felt like I betrayed my God because of my thinking.

And one of the first spiritual awakenings that I had was when I was on my knees and I was saying, God, please remove this obsession that I'm, you know, I have, I find refuge thinking I'm Jesus. And I know that this might sound that I've never shared this from the podium before, but something happened to me that night and I started to cry and I started to feel like God was in my life and he was taking away my selfishness and he was taken away my my,

my, my willingness or my wanting to escape reality because I was always a dreamer. And that's what I have to do with the whole Jesus thing

is Chad Bolt, he just wasn't a performer. He wasn't a guy who would take action. I was a dreamer and I wasn't willing to take the action that I needed to take in life to, well, to stay sober, but a lot of other things too. And I started to realize that by going through the steps. Shortly thereafter, Dick quit A A, he found religion. And about that time, Scott B moved into town and he picked me up and he started to sponsor me. And a lot of things changed for me when I got Scott. He's the one who described to me

what NPG could be and he described that by

saying you want to have a fellowship that you that you crave, you want to have fun, you want to be able to go to football games and going away parties and what else do we do? We do a lot of cool stuff. We shoot pellet guns. Well, I don't do that. Other people do.

Oh, we drive. We drive, go karts and we go on planes and

God, I just we go to meetings.

Aaron's trying to mouth something to me. I don't understand what he's saying, but I'm just trying to say all the different things that we do. And

I guess I want to talk a little bit about an amendment that I made and, and then I have about 5 minutes and I think maybe I'll have time to give you one current story. But the men's process and you know, we talk about why are we in Alcoholics Anonymous? I think we're in Alcoholics Anonymous to stay sober and to help others to achieve sobriety. Well, in that process we have to do the steps and in that process

we have to do things that we don't like. And a lot of that I think kind of boils down into the steps, I mean, or in the into the amends. We find out, well, yeah, it's easy to identify our wrongs, you know, with sponsorship and with a with being honest and thorough. We can find out, hey, I'm selfish, I'm dishonest, self seeking and frightened. Yeah, I can do that. But now when the rubber meets the road is when you tell God, you say, well, can you get rid of that defective character for me? And he says, yeah, Chad, you can. I can get rid of that for you. But you got to do this first.

And a little thing that I did when I was 12 years old, I used to call grandmothers up in Jamestown and look up the gardenette because that's where all the old people lived.

So I look in the phone book with the buddy of mine and we look up Garnett and we'd call people and we'd ring. Ring. Hi, Grandma. How are you?

Well, who is this? Well, this is your grandson. Well, my grandson. Well, which one? Guess.

Well, you see where I'm going with this. And we'd play games with these old people. And yeah, in fact, we're coming

up, Yep, from Sacramento to surprise. Yeah. And Yep, Mom and dad, they just wanted to let me know that that's what I was doing. And, you know, they're not going to call, but we'll be up there next Saturday.

Well, you know that's mean.

It's pretty damn funny when you're 12. But

those are the, those are the kind of things that I identified in my in my inventory. And I think it's what, what I found out that in Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm not a bad person getting good. I'm a sick person getting well. And I think there's a big difference. And I was definitely sick in doing that. And I talked to Bence and Ben Scott

and he which by the way, Scott Bent says I can use his last name at the podium, which is why I do it.

He told me, well, you need to make amends for that. And well, how am I going to make amends for that, Scott? Well, here's what you're going to do.

You're going to go up to the nursing home and you're going to find somebody who has no communication with with family members. And I was like, OK, and then you're going to commit to going there. And by this time I had moved to Fargo. Every time you come, my parents are stealing Jamestown. And every time you go to Jamestown and talk to him, then you're going to make another commitment to go back and do it. I said, OK, I'll do that. And then of course, me, you know, I'm like a history guy. So I pick some guy that was in World War Two. Yeah. So I can talk World War 2

with this guy. And anyway, side note, so I go up to this guy and I'm having conversation with him and he really likes it. He's really receptive to it and frankly I'm enjoying it, but it's kind of dull, just kind of a mend work trudge what was me. And well, the next date is is July 4th and July 4th I'm home, Mia's home, my older sister and we're going to the park to take pictures. And my mom's kind of, you know, in her mode where, you know, let's do the family thing and let's go. Let's

and then let's go have a picture. And then I throw in there, OK, then I'm going to go see Joe, you know, and she was like, no, you know, I really don't want you to leave. And I said, well, mom, you know, I've got to go. You know, it's what I'm doing in Alcoholics Anonymous and I'll be back. And in my mind, I'm like, what am I doing? You know, I've got my family put together and I'm doing what I'm supposed to in alcoholic synonymous. Why do I have to do this? You know, he's not even going to really enjoy this. And like I said, it was been kind of passive, you know, and kind of it was fine, but it was not anything earth shattering.

And and now I'm building up like, you know, he, you know, found the fountain of youth or something and that's not going to happen. But what ended up happening was

he wanted, I suggested we go for a walk and he was in the wheelchair and we were walking down the street. Oh, here it comes. I can already feel it. And he he looked back and he said, you know, Chad, this is the first time I've ever been out of the

nursing home without, you know, going to the clinic. And I really appreciate you just taking me out.

And it was just, it was just that simple, you know, just a simple thank you from an elderly man who appreciated, you know, me taking him out. And I'm, you know, I'm gruff and I'm, you know, stoic and all that kind of stuff. But that stuff just rocks me. You know, I feel, I feel a part of, of the Northern Plains group when I do stuff like that. I feel a part of mankind. I feel I feel worthy that I can have a girlfriend and I can have a job and I can

and I belong here if I'm doing the work.

And that's the kind of stuff that when I hear it, well, you guys have those stories too. Can you have a great story, a men's story too? I haven't heard it for a while, but we all have those immense stories after we get rolling through them. And I think we should share them. I think that we should and I think we should remember that. That's important because

that's God. You know, I've always wanted to feel God. I've always wanted to feel good. And for me, I felt it through the steps and I that's why I gave you that one example of of me doing the amends. I, I don't know really what this talk, how it went. It seemed like it just went like that. I hope I talked about what's important to me

and what's helped me in sobriety, but recently what's helped me the most in my sobriety is just realizing that I need to be here. I need to be in the present. What's really helped me do that is I've been reading pages 84 through the end of the chapter and I've just been asking myself some questions in there. They're really direct. They tell you exactly what to ask and just asking God for help and asking God to take the right action. A lot of times I'll stop during the day and

say thy will not mine be done, just close my eyes. And it's amazing what kind of reaction I get out of that and such as I need to sit down and shut up. Thanks a lot for letting me talk. And Aaron, thanks a lot.