The Springtime in the Ozarks conference in Eureka Springs, AR

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

by the grace of God and the Fellowship, Alcoholics Anonymous and an honest attempt to work the steps of this program and good sponsorship and a lot of newcomers. I haven't found it necessary to take any mind or mood altering chemical or drink any alcohol since March 22nd of 1985 and for that I am truly grateful.

They were just in Seattle

and, and then we're in Vancouver, Canada last week and boy, do I have a story about that. But the guy said, well, around here people don't really give their sobriety day. You know, he said that some people look at it kind of like you're bragging if you give your sobriety. And I said, well, that's funny. In Texas, I say if you if a guy doesn't give a sobriety date, he may not have one.

Yeah. How to win friends and influence people?

I want to thank the committee for having us up here.

I don't want to forget anybody,

Chuck and Jeff and and everybody that was on the committee that had anything to do with getting us here, the people, that lovely gift basket we had in our room, they're just taking really good care of us. And, and, you know, I've been around a A long enough to know that in an event of this size, there's a lot of people that do a lot of work to put something like this together.

I also know

if it's the fellowship that I crave, that there's a lot of people that didn't do a damn thing, but but we have a lot of ideas about how it could have been done just a little bit better, you know?

So nice job.

So for those we have room on the committee for next year. You know,

I want to thank

first of all, Barbara and Chris did a fine job of reading the, the, the work there. And I want to take, thank Rod for picking us up at the airport and taking good care of us. Rod's a super guy. He's, he's not married, but he is conducting interviews. If, if you know, if anybody that's, that's right here. We really like him and I'm sure you will too.

I he's really just been a gracious guy, you know, and that, that bond is funny because the way we were when we were talking about coming up here, he said,

how will I know you? And I described myself and, you know, I'm hard to miss, but I can't tell you how many times we've been flying somewhere and they'll have somewhere to meet you. And you come off the elevator and, you know, drunks, no drunks on it, on an, on an energy level, you know, I mean, and you come down and you go, oh, that's our guy right there, You know, I mean, there's no question about it, you know, And it's just like with Barbara, Katie and I, we had lunch and Barbara was at where she works and

Bentonville and Katie and I both said, oh, we can hang out with her, you know, I mean, now, unfortunately that generally means you're a really sick alcoholic, you know, you know, the, the, the desperately needs this program. But if I'm drawn to you, that's not a good sign. You know

what I'm,

you know, I want to thank we've got our, our friend Bob is here. And how many of y'all went to any of the big book workshop today?

You know, Bob will be speaking tomorrow night. And it's well me telling you that that he's going to be give a good talk. It reminds me of the, the temple that was getting a new rabbi and the rabbi was getting ready to leave. And he says now I know it's going to be disturbing for me to be leaving, but he says the next guy is going to be really good. And the guy in the audience yelled out. That's what they said when you were coming.

But

we're, you know, it was a little disturbing. I went to about 3 hours of Bob's Big books. We just had Bob down to Austin. We've had him to Austin the last two years from the for the big book experience. And I highly recommend those. But I don't recommend going to him right before you're going to talk because I was feeling pretty good yesterday and this morning. Then I got to listen to Bob for about 3 hours and I was sitting there going Katie. I got nothing.

I'm glad to be here. My Home group is the primary purpose group of Alcoholics Anonymous in Austin, TX. We meet on Tuesday nights at 7:30 and we'd love for you to come by. We study the big book line by line, word by word, and I know that that is popular up here in Arkansas. It's a it's not going on everywhere, but there are pockets of enthusiasm, a big book folks around. But some of my heroes come from

from out here in Arkansas. And I'm always, you know, I'm always I love the big book.

I love the results of the work brought about by the big Book. And all this is, is a leather bound copy of a large print version of the big Book that

that a friend of mine gave me. It's probably my most prized possession. This book makes a lot of promises to me. It doesn't wait long to do it. Right here on the title page, it says the story of how many thousands of men and women

have recovered from alcoholism. I used to think it was arrogant attack to say I was a recovered alcoholic. There was a guy that Jim and I used to see at the Kerrville Folk Festival said he was a recovered alcoholic. And I thought, that's really cocky, you know? And, and then one day somebody said, no, it just means that we've recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body. And the book says recovered about 17 times in the course of the book. And I went,

oh,

never mind, you know, I mean, so amends to Chuck from Kerrville Folk Festival if I ever run into him. My, my, my original sponsor is here from Arkansas. Hit my Jim Fletcher's here tonight. And he's been my sponsor since I met him in a treatment center in 1984. And he's a great example of what, you know, the the care and the love that one alcoholic can have for another one. And I want to publicly thank you Jim.

My current sponsor, Jim moved to Arkadelphia, AR is that really a place? Is that, I mean Jim moved to Arkadelphia about seven years ago, I guess. And my, and so my and my current sponsor is Mark H there in Austin. And I've been very fortunate to have some good sponsorship over the years.

You know, I wear a suit when I get up behind the podium by a 'cause my, well, my sponsor tells me to, for one thing. And, and the other is out of, out of respect for, for Alcoholics Anonymous, Anonymous. But I, I got to tell you the bulk of my experience in a coat and tie,

my job was to say

no contest, Your Honor.

You know, I mean, I

OK, before we get into the talk,

I got to tell you what happened last weekend.

I because, well, Katie spoke. Katie is the love of my life and my best friend and and we are and she's right down here in front of stand up Katie right there. That's,

that's

and,

and Katie gives a whale of a talk and she's got five months more sobriety than me. And it's just, it's, she'll never let me live it down, you know, And I've, I've kept her sober a few times by telling her that that if she drinks again, I'll sponsor her when she comes back.

But I'm going to try to tell this story the fastest way possible. But Katie was speaking in Vancouver, Canada last weekend. Last Saturday night, she was a Saturday night speaker at the North Shore Roundup. It's the largest a conference in Canada. And there was well over 2000 people in the room. Well, we didn't know that we were just going up to this conference in Canada, but but

I go get my passport out. It's in the gun closet. You know, when I walk in there and I just take it, it's in a fancy leather case because I'm, you know, hot stuff and, and I walk in there and I check it and it says expires 2013.

I'm good to go. Katie's has expired. She orders a new passport. They send instead of a passport, she checked the wrong box online. They sent a little card, you know, and these cards are for people that live close to the border. I'm trying to tell this really fast because I don't want to eat into my a time.

She goes to the passport office and the little kid, his name was Cullen. If you want to get an idea how old he is and and I mean is there anybody over the age of 30 named Cullen? You know, I mean well anyway, Cullen says everything will be fine. You know, don't he goes, I think it'll be fine. And Katie, if you know Katie, her nickname is Scrappy. So she says Cullen I think is not going to be an acceptable answer, you know. So he goes back, he says no, absolutely, you're fine till the 1st

of June. Birth certificate, driver's license, you're good to go. Well, so we get to the airport and we're going to fly to Vancouver and we get to the airport and they said no way, no way. That says it's for land and sea travel. You cannot board the plane if you don't have a passport. That's the way our day started off. She's out on the curb, she's crying, you know, and she's not going. And well, my job is to make sure that Katie doesn't get upset about anything because then when she's happy, I'm happy. Is it,

if you know, if that's codependent, I'm sorry, but but I said let me go and try to work some magic, honey. I go inside and they and they said well, no, it's only good for land travel. I said, well then can you fly us to Seattle because they said it was about an hour drive. Anybody familiar with that three hour marathon death March?

So, so we, they've changed our tickets. We fly to Seattle. This is where it gets good. We get in a rental car and we drive up to the border and we get to the border. Yeah, You know, it's 4:15. We're going to make it fine. We're having a good time

up there. I hand my little fancy passport case to the lady. She opens it up, she pulls the passport out of it, and she goes,

What? You're handing me a Korean passport with your photograph pasted in it? And,

and I went

what? It was like an out of body experience. She might as well have pulled a pound of heroin out of my briefcase. I mean,

let me tell you folks, they were not playing. And she holds up a passport with my picture in it and Co ran handwriting on the back, I mean, writing on the back of it. And then we're both going

what? And and they she slams the window shut. They swat around us, They pull over there, Mr. And they get inside. The guy's going. I need an explanation of how why do you have a Korean passport? And I said,

buddy, I got nothing. You know, I mean, I was like, he's like, I need a better story than he goes. Your story is weak. And I go it damn sure is. You know, I I got no story, you know, I mean, and and they're barking, you know, one guy to ask you a question. You start to answer barking another question over here barking. I'm like, God, I don't know if I'm supposed to be talking or listening. I mean you guys are scaring the crap out of me and,

and they are serious, man. And let me tell you something else, the Canadian customs people do not like to be called dude.

Yeah, I know that now.

At one point I go, dude, I feel like I'm on Punk'd. I mean,

I, I'm waiting for Ashton Kutcher to pop up out of the, you know, from behind the counter And he goes, well, let me assure you, you are not on a game show.

And I'm like,

so 3 hours in the passport department and Emmy and these guys were not playing. They never, you know, there wasn't any shucking and jiving. There wasn't, you know, and you know, there and of course, Scrappy, you know, at one point they're barking at her and she goes, I'm done, I'm done. You're not going to talk to me like that. And she goes over and sits down. I'm like, Katie,

you're not the one that gave him the Korean passport.

So we get like a 48 hour pass to go into Canada and, and she gave a whale of a talk and you guys have been proud of her. But it took us over 4 hours to get back. And then, you know, 4 hours in a passport, no breakfast, no lunch, no nothing. And we're sitting there and they, and, and of course we miss all the flights and, and, and we get to a Seattle airport and I go, well, I don't want to be way off in Seattle. Can you get us anywhere? My best thinking as a sober member of Alcoholics is

part way like Vegas, you know,

that ought to be restful, you know, and, and so we get to Vegas at 8:00 PM, you know, we stay up till three and the next morning I am so tired on the airplane. It reminded me of this buddy of mine in Bakersfield. He flew from, it's a great story. This buddy of mine in Bakersfield flew from London to JFK and from JFK to LAX. And he said he fell asleep when they left the ground in JFK and he didn't wake up till the wheels hit the ground in LAX.

Say this is the way I was on a plane. He said he woke up and he looked at the guy next to me goes wow while I was asleep he says I hope I wasn't snoring. And the guy goes snoring. Sir was the least disgusting thing you did.

So I guess you don't want my card, you know?

Well, I'm glad to be here tonight. That's about the faster version as I can give of that, that story in Canada. But I'm telling you it was intense. And

so, you know, coming to Arkansas was a real pleasure. You know, that was that little flight from Dallas and then over here was just great.

Let's get into my age story. What I hope we get the chance to talk about tonight is what I was like, what happened and what it's like now. I hope to describe a love affair with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous that started back in the 80s.

But you know, before we go any further

in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, it says that that we've, you know, if a story for the story to interest and hold an alcoholic, it has to have depth and weight. So it's got to be my story and it's got to have some experience. It reminds me of the guy that was driving along and he sees a sign by this farmhouse and it says talking dog for sale.

He goes up to the door and he says, you got a talking dog, you still got it. And he says, yeah, he's around back. He goes around back and there's this hound dog laying there and he says, so you can talk. Guy says, I certainly can. And he goes, how did that happen? He goes, well, when I was young, when I was a pup, I started picking up some of the language. And as I got a little older, I developed some nuances of the language. And so it's got, it's really led to an amazing career. He said, I was involved with the Drug Enforcement Administration for 26 years. I was able to infiltrate sites that

nobody would have been able to get into. I've been involved in some of the largest drug busts in world history. And besides that, I've eaten in some of the finest restaurants in the world. I've traveled all over. I stayed in four-star hotels and more, even more interesting, some of my pups have become international diplomats and, and the guy says, my God, it's been a real pleasure talking to you. And he goes around front and he says, how much do you want for a dog like that? And the guy says, I don't know, 20 bucks.

He goes, why would you sell a fabulous dog like that for 20 bucks? And the guy goes,

none of that crap he told you is true.

It's all around here. It doesn't matter how good the story is if it's not my experience. You know,

I

I come from a pretty normal family. I grew up in Dallas, TX and

my my mother was a first grade school teacher for 42 years so I was I was pretty well prepared for the 1st grade. And

did anybody else grow up under the burden of potential?

I was told my whole life about my potential. You know, why can't you live up to your potential? Why can't you be more like Charles Miller across the street? Why can't you listen? And I, I remember thinking,

I'm really not holding back that much. You know, I mean,

that's a,

it's a flattering comment, but I'm kind of giving you my best shot, Muhammad.

But I come from an apparently normal family and that there was no drinking in my family. Found out later there was alcoholism on both sides of my family. In fact, I didn't find out about a maternal uncle until I was 20 years sober, that there was his uncle that they wouldn't let come over to the house. I couldn't, I couldn't believe it. I've never heard about it,

but for me

I was pretty OK, you know, a lot of the stuff. But I felt that feeling of separation early on, starting in elementary school, probably that what I've described many times as a black hole inside of me that made me feel less than everybody. It made me feel separate from everybody, a little bit apart from you couldn't always tell it, but I had to outperform everybody in order to feel somewhat equal. And if we were going to play baseball, I had to bat #4 I had to pitch,

you know. And because of that feeling of separation that I had for a long time,

I, I started drinking when I was 16 years old.

You know, it's funny, I used to think that was young to start drinking. Now it's not even young to stop. You know, I mean, it's like, I mean, in a much love for the young people. And hey, I'm not knocking anybody, but I mean, my God, sometimes you see a guy come in and you know, you're like,

you know, it's shocking. And one of my best friends in Austin, PJ, I sobered up when he was 14. He's I guess he's 41 now. He's got 27 years of sobriety. And, and if you listen to him tell his story, he didn't come in any too early, You know, I mean, he just just barely got here, you know, so, so much love and respect to the young people. But for me, I started drinking at 16, and

it was the first thing I'd ever found

that filled that hole, that made me feel OK. And I remember thinking, we are going to do this a lot. You know, I mean, this something special here. I mean, Myers, a friend of mine likes to say, you know, we all remember when we took our first drink. He goes, you know, how many of you remember the first time he ate green beans? You know, it's like it's something special happened when I took that drink of alcohol and.

You know, it would be really macho to stand up here and say that I drank 1/2 a gallon of vodka every day from the time I was 16 till I rolled into Alcoholics Anonymous, but that wouldn't be true.

But what I can tell you is the absolute truth from my own experience is that there was never one time

in that time that I turned down the opportunity to get loaded under any circumstances for any reason. Now, that's not everybody's story in Alcoholics Anonymous. There were people that held it together a lot better than I did, But for me, I was all about getting loaded. There are very few lines in this book that I don't identify with, but one of them is the line that says our stories are filled with countless vain attempts to prove that we could drink like normal men.

I have almost no experience with that. I I, I didn't. I never really tried to drink like

normal man, but it started getting sloppy for me and I started drinking at 16 By 17 or 18 I had crossed that invisible line. I, so I, you know, I had about one year of really good control drinking, you know, but somewhere, somewhere around 17 or 18, as I started getting more and more access to it, it just really,

it got really ugly and it got really sloppy really fast.

I will relate sometimes to the guys and there's a hugely popular rock band. I don't want to break their anonymity, but several of the members of this band are in recovery and they said that they knew they were in trouble when the guys from Mötley Crüe told him. You guys really need to slow down a little bit. You know,

when you got this heavy metal death band saying you guys are crazy, you know,

Well, for me, the shortest version of my drinking is that. And I also have deep respect for the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and for the principle of singleness of purpose. I don't intend to get up here and talk about outside issues. I believe that I, as Alcoholics working with Alcoholics and that we don't do that to exclude the filthy dope friends. We do it. You know, it's not, it's not like that. It's not like that at all. It's that identification

on page 18 in our book. It says what one of our members who has found this solution, who's properly armed with the facts about himself,

can win the confidence of a Newman in a couple in a matter of hours.

It says until such an identification takes place, little or nothing can be accomplished.

That means that that bond that I feel when I get around another alcoholic is so important that out of all the 12 step programs that are out there, the only difference between, I think there's 312 step programs out there. I mean, there's a bunch. And the only difference is the first half of the first step in the middle part of the 12th step. What we're powerless over and who we carry the message to. Because gamblers work best with gamblers and Alcoholics work best with Alcoholics.

Crackheads work best with crackheads. And, you know, I mean, anybody that thinks it's all the same disease

needs to see when a pure alcoholic tries to sponsor a crackhead sometimes, I mean, he's out over his head the moment he steps out of the car, you know, so that that's my little pitch on singleness of purpose. But I don't think it's all one disease. And I think it's critical that a guy find a fellowship that he identifies in because it says until that identification can take place, very little or nothing can be accomplished well.

But having said that, I always drank,

but I never just drank. I have a lot of experience in both in the shortest version of my drinking story because I I've never sat down from a talk and went dog, Katie. I didn't talk long enough about my drinking. You know,

the guys that I drank with thought that I did too many outside issues and the guys that I did outside issues with were shocked by my drinking, you know, so

everybody that I knew thought Charlie Parker was getting a little bit too loaded, you know, so, so that's what I'm talking about. But, you know,

it talks about losing the power of choice and control. You know, I only, only suffer from alcoholism under two circumstances. One is when I'm drinking it and the other is when I'm not drinking it. You know, that's the way our book describes it so beautifully in the doctor's opinion. And it's that. And when I drink it, I suffer from an allergic reaction called the phenomenon of craving. When I I can't promise you how much I'm going to drink or when I'm going to stop. My real problem starts when I try to not drink it.

All my problems don't go away when I'm not drinking alcohol. When I get restless, irritable, discontent, the mental obsession returns. I drink again and I get stuck eventually in this cycle where I'm going to drink until I have to stop, and then I will stop until I have to drink. That's the hopeless condition of mind and body that we talk about being delivered from. And that is

a that was big news when that program, when our program hit the ground. And it's big that it was big news in my life when I heard about it because I could not

not start again. I always started getting loaded again. Well,

when we talk about the loss of choice, you know, I mean, we all had stuff that happened, but one night in my drinking, I was leaving a bar and I was in a collision and I was a blackout drinker. Not everybody in a a was a blackout drinker. I was I blacked out all the time. And in fact, I thought that was just kind of the goal, you know, was oblivion. But I would I would left a bar and a blackout one night and I had to drank 5 Long Island Teas and

bam. And I remember seeing the Fender over in the periphery of my vision, but we're still rolling and I rolled the car kept my foot on the gas. I went around the corner, grabbed my shoes and I'm running back to the bar to report the car stolen. And, and

this is just a day in the life of Charlie Parker. And, and, and as I'm running back to the bar, there was 2 policemen out in the street. I'm running under this line of trees and there's two cops out in the street with the flashlight and there's glass all over the street. And I remember in my drunken stupor, I remember thinking, my God, they got here really fast, you know, And so I ran to the bar and I and I called the, you know, the next morning they called me and they said, you're going to have to take a polygraph to pick up your car. And I said, well, why is that? He said, well, it was involved in an accident before it was reported stolen,

so you're kidding. And he said no, they ran into a parked police car.

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

because. Because I've been a little foggy on that one. Yeah, but

but normality used to talk about seconds and inches, and

if those two cops have been standing there when I hit, when I roll down that street, I could easily still be in jail. So my life could have gone a lot worse than it did. When I talk about the loss of choice and control, I like to talk a little bit about the pawn shops. I,

I loved pawnshops. I don't know if anybody else any at pawners here, but I loved the entire equation because it was so pure. You know, you just you just walk in there with your thing and you give it to him and they give you the money and you leave. I don't I don't ever remember a pawn breaker going. Good God, man, weren't you just here this morning?

You know, or, or what are you going to do with that money

or anything like that is just give him the shotgun and go. Well,

the problem with this plan was I didn't own very much stuff. So

so I had the pawn stuff that didn't belong to me and

that creates hard feelings and you're in your circle of friends. So, but like all of my plans, you know, we make some good plans as drunks and they all work really well until they stop working.

And my plan was always you pawn the stuff and then sometime in a 90 day period you go get everything out of the pawn shop and then you could roll. And well, one, one time I pulled a scam that raised enough money to get everything out of the pawn shop and I came out of a five day blackout

and

five days don't remember anything. And I was sitting on the side of the bed at my mother's house. I should also say that I was so poorly treated as a child that I left home for good at the age of 27. And

I mean, it never went back. And I had some apartments and stuff, but I mean, I would always go back to my mother's house and I'm wake up on the edge of her bed and I had $8 in my pocket and I still had all those pawn tickets.

And we've all had those mornings, you know, where you just go. Oh, no, because I shot my wad getting the pulling that last little scam and I'd blown the money and I got nothing and I still got all this. And this is my dad was a good man. And if there are Alan Hans in the room, I'm glad you're here tonight. Any non Alcoholics in the room? I'm glad you're here tonight. I have to tell this story like it was a joke

because I still never know if I'm going to get through it or not. But I would have to go to my father

and say, Dad, if we act now,

I can get you a pretty good deal on all your stuff. Yeah, but

goodbye,

if we wait until tomorrow, it's strictly retail, you know, so, and the point of that story is when we're talking about the loss, the loss of choice and control, point of that story is we would get in his car and we would drive around. This was in Dallas and Dallas is a big town. And it wasn't just going to the pawn shop. It was we're going to go over here on Buckner Blvd. and pick up your shotgun and I'll let you dear raffle on East Grand and then your coin collections up on Beltline Ave. and the metal detectors in Oak Cliff. And we need to go to Garland and pick up, you know, this and the sterling silver and, you know, and it was

all day in the car with me and my dad and all that shame. And

as we're driving along, I would say, Dad, I swear to God I will never do this again.

If I was lying to that man, I didn't know it because I meant it with every fiber of my being. I knew that was bad. I knew that he was a good man and he nobody was giving him his stuff and I'm out there pawning it. And I meant I will never do this again. And within

244872 hours, I would hit the back door of his house like a cat burglar and, and you just go in there and go that and I'd grab a shotgun or I'd grab a deer Ralph and off again. So, you know, my father and I made the rounds of the pawn shops three times before I, before I finally sobered up in this program. So

that's how slick I was when I got here. That's how cool I was when I got here. You know, I mean, and that's how well it was working for me was that, you know, on my best power. I what I did not know is that in the absence of the psychic change provided by this program, I did not have the power to make good on that promise that I was making to that man. I might as well have promised him that I was going to fly out the window and circle the pasture and fly back in through the front door

because when I said I will never do this again, I did not have the power to not do it again. Our book says lack of power was our dilemma. One that I didn't know when that I was alcoholic didn't do anything for me. I walked around saying I'm alcoholic for a long time before I sobered up. In fact, it wasn't even this stuff that brought me into a A. What brought me into a A and I didn't see it for a long time. In the book is back on page 152 in the big book where it talks about the jumping off place.

Says he can't imagine life without alcohol. Says one day he'll be unable to imagine life with or without alcohol. He will be. Then he will know loneliness such as few men do. He will wish for the end. He'll be at the jumping off place. That's the place that drove me. An Alcoholics Anonymous was when I finally got to that place that I knew I couldn't keep going the way I was going,

but I couldn't imagine not getting loaded at all. You know? I mean, if you're talking about nothing,

it's horrifying. It was horrifying because, you know, I've been willing to go in any direction for 12 years at that point.

Well,

I came in to AAI, went to a treatment center that I'd heard about and I had three slips after I, I sobered up and, but I only went to treatment that one time. I met Jim in the treatment center and he was, I asked him to be my temporary sponsor and he was my temporary sponsor for 1617 years. I think and, and

you know,

have to be careful how I say this because

Jim was 100% in the deal. I mean, and he was giving me more than I'm giving any of the guys that I sponsor. I mean, as far as his time and his attention. And we were meeting at the noon meetings and we were going to the cafeteria after when we were traveling together. And we, I mean, we have some beautiful stories together and we work the steps. I mean, we went through the steps. But now it's funny because I went through one time, I have some friends in this program that like to say they never heard the message for six or eight years, you know, that they were in the program.

I don't know if that was the case for them. I know it wasn't the case for me. I in fact, one time I think I said I didn't hear about a lot of this stuff till I'd been around for a while. And Jim pointed out to me that is it possible that you were so resistant and defiant that no matter what the message was put in front of you, that you not only would you not have heard it, but you'd have made fun of the person that was saying it. But for some reason, but

having said that, we we gave it a hell of a shot, you know, and we went, we went through the steps,

we did all the steps. Now is a little weak in six and seven and in 11, but

we did a four step. We did a fifth step. We were into the book we were doing that. We were doing Tuesday night big book study. I think I did the Joe and Charlie big book studies three times.

I I love those guys. You know, I mean, that's some of the guys I was talking about in Arkansas. Some of them lineage, you know, goes right back to Joe and

but I missed a lot. I missed a lot in the book and my current sponsor likes to say how do you know what you don't know? You know, I,

I was

because I went through a period where, you know, I guess the story that I like to tell when I get a chance to get up here and talk is a story of untreated alcoholism in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. Because I think it's a message that has some grip. And I think there's that I'm not the only one that experienced a lot of what I'm going to describe. But if it if and if I am, and if a lot of the stuff I say is old hat and ridiculously simple to you, God bless you. But I'm going to tell you what my experience was in AI.

There's a thing on page 30, it says we have to fully concede our innermost selves, that we're alcoholic, the first step in recovery.

I knew that I had alcohol problems, but I don't think I fully understood the phenomenon of craving coupled with the mental obsession. And I'm not going to say that people weren't talking about. I never forget. I was sitting with the guy one time and he goes, man, I just wish there was somebody coming out of the book like this. You know, 17 years ago when I first sobered up and I said, brother, not only were they probably saying it and you weren't listening to them, you probably made fun of them.

And his eyes went real distant. I went, come on, he goes. There was a guy

that's a couple. Let's hear it. He goes big book Doug. We called him, you know, we we all made fun of him. He always big, big

every meeting, you know, and, and he goes, we all made fun of him and I said, so there it is, man. I mean, not the message was there, but you got to figure out now how to be more effective than Doug was. You know, how can we try if we're going to grow an understanding and effectiveness? How can I get this message across? Well, let me tell you what happened to me. I went through with an understanding. I worked a program that was based on abstinence from alcohol.

I

going back through the book,

the book takes a a right turn at page 60 that if you're not careful, if I'm not careful, I missed it. If if we go right from the second step, because easily I was, I understood that I was Paris over alcohol and my life was unmanageable. And are you willing to believe? I had a little struggle with that, but okay, I'm willing to believe. And if I go right from that to the third step, prayer, I miss that whole body of work that takes place on pages 606162 and 63.

The book says

we were now at Step 3, the first requirement. I'll never forget going back through the book and it says

the first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self will can hardly be a success.

What you know, I mean, I remember I remember on this pass through the book, you know, saying

not only was I not convinced that my life run on self well could hardly be a success. That sentence never touched me, you know, and let me describe how it went for me because

when I'm a guy that's living a program based on on abstinence from alcohol, I'm totally in self. Well, I don't understand what the book and it's funny because I think the book knows on page 60 when it says the first requirement is that I'd be convinced that any life run itself will can hardly be a success. I think it knows that at that point I don't have the information to be convinced that any life run on self will can hardly be a success. That's why it says we're now at step three. Twice in the book it spends it says we're going to turn our will and our life over the care of God as we understand. Then it's

book has promised me clear cut directions. It says

just what do we mean by that and justice, what do we do? And it spends the next two pages telling me what they mean and then it talks about what they do. And I got with some guys that were heavy in the book and

I thought I'd been in the book the whole time. But I remember one time I was sitting there reading it and Katie was sitting there and I, I go, Katie, you know, self is all over this thing and she goes, you really never saw that. And I'm like, she goes, that's some pretty basic stuff, Charlie. And I was like, missed it, you know, I mean, because.

I don't know about any of you guys, but that actor trying to run the whole show

meant nothing to me. I mean, I used to read that and go whatever, you know. I mean, you know, actor running this show. And then and and well, what happened was I lived this program like it was based on abstinence from alcohol. And you all know that guy. You've heard him in the rooms where he's like, well, screamed at my wife on the way out the door this morning and slapped a couple of the kids and kicked the dog. And then I went to work, you know, 30 minutes late and looked at two hours of Internet porn while I was at work and then