vol 300. Never Give Up with Chris A.

SPEAKER_00 0:01 We believe that alcoholism is a disease, and that Alcoholics Anonymous is one solution to that disease. I'm here to bring you the voices of its members. Everyone that comes on the show, including myself, is an active member and has found recovery in the rooms of AA. As you listen, please take what works for you and leave the rest.

SPEAKER_01 0:25 My name is Chris. I am an alcoholic. My sober day is 1124. That gives me a little over two years.

I have had multiple sponsors. I've done the steps multiple times. I sponsor multiple men. You can always find me in a meeting.

Yeah, that's uh what I'm doing in AA today. To start out, though, what uh yeah, you know, everyone always talks about their childhood. You know, mine wasn't, you know, I I wasn't a kid, I didn't have any reason to drink or use. I had a great life.

My parents were high school sweethearts, they weren't abusive. We were, you know, upper middle class. We went on vacations. My dad was a team dad on my sports teams or a coach, very supportive, loving family.

I had an older brother that was 13 months older and a sister that was, you know, a couple years older. We were really tight and close growing up. It was nice. I guess my first experience with drugs would be through a doctor.

Uh, he prescribed me like Ritalin when I was, I don't know, maybe 10. Uh, so I got introduced to narcotics at a young age. And by the time I was like 13 or 14, I was definitely abusing them taking more than I should have. And just like anything at first, it was um performance enhancing.

You know, I felt like I was more social. I felt like I could get more work done. You know, it was just all good. There were, there wasn't very much consequences.

So I didn't really think too much of it because I wasn't getting any consequences. My parents were fairly laxed with drinking. You know, I was allowed to drink at the Christmas table while I was underage, or you know, special events, you know, have a glass of wine. It wasn't really a big deal to them.

Shortly after I graduated high school, I got my first DUI. I guess that was the first first real consequence. And I did, you know, a weekend in jail and told myself I wouldn't drink anymore. And I believe I got three more DUIs before I turned 21.

And that's when I first got introduced to rehab, the 12 steps. And it was from a nudge from a judge or an ultimatum from my parents. It wasn't really because I wanted to quit. I tried quitting many times.

You know, I did the things that they talk about in the book, like geographics or just drinking on the weekends and things like that. Uh, tried different like antidepressant meds from doctors and things, you know, just nothing really worked. Uh, I just continuously kept drinking and mixing my alcohol with drugs. I know this is an alcoholic synonymous meaning, but you know, I always reflect back on reading Bill's story, how he mixed, you know, pills and alcohol all the time.

So I'm a member of AA and you know, but drugs were also a big part of my problem, and I like to, you know, make that clear. And I can pretty much fast forward through most of you know my my 10 years of drinking and using and sum it up pretty pretty quick. It brought me to be arrested probably, I'd probably say 40 times. I spent five years incarcerated, three prison priors.

I just kept going to jail, and I'd get out and I lose everything. I'd come out with square one. No support from the family, no house, no car, no money. So, of course, I'd be on the streets, I'd be homeless in between incarcerations.

So I can probably sum it up with about five years of incarceration or five years of homelessness, and living that kind of life really takes a toll on you physically, mentally, spiritually. After 10 years, I turned into a complete different person. I was in complete survival mode. I had no means of you know spiritual fitness at all.

I was super selfish and self-centered, like extremely ungrateful. I used everyone around me. I pretty much used it, people up until they were dry and didn't want to, you know, associate with me anymore. Every relationship I was ever with, they all walked out on me.

Even at one point, my parents were like, Chris, we love you, but we can't watch you go down this path. And they even gave me some tough love for a while, which I think was very beneficial to my recovery. Um, the turning point for me was after going to I guess it was 25 treatment programs, residentials, and all that time incarcerated. I I went out for like one last hoorah, and that last hoorah caught me uh 12 warrants for my arrest that night.

And I fled and I was scared to death. I didn't know what to do. I ended up in San Diego, and I was sleeping under a bridge for about a year, drinking and using heavily. During this time, I was making trips to the ICU room.

Uh it was it was bad. I did not want to go back to jail. I was scared to death. I was all alone in San Diego, and I ended up getting uh stabbed in the neck over an altercation involving drugs and alcohol.

And it landed me in an ICU room and I was in a coma. And I remember waking up and my parents being there, they flew down, and they asked me, you know, you you are you done? And I'm like, oh my God, like this is just insane. I'm looking reflecting back through 10 years of my life, and it's like I could have just died.

It was insane. And I had this moment of clarity laying in a hospital bed, and I was like, Yeah, uh, I think I'm ready. So from there, you know, I made a phone call to a gentleman I knew up in Portland, Oregon. He had written me a letter while I was incarcerated.

He was an AA member, and he wrote me a letter maybe five years prior. Your parents have reached out to me. I want to help you. When you get out, you can come to Portland.

And I just kind of made that mental note in the back of my head, and I never called the guy. Well, fast forward, and I'm laying in the hospital bed with 33 staples in my neck. And uh I called this guy up, and I'm like, yeah, I think I need help. And it was pretty amazing, really, what this program and my parents and my higher power had all put together.

They got, I had warrants, so I couldn't get on a plane. I had a dog that I had like rescued on the streets. He was, you know, kind of mangy and flea ridden like me. And they drove all the way down to San Diego, picked me and my dog up.

At the time, I had nothing but a uh stolen skateboard, a backpack, and this husky. And we drove all the way up to five. It was, I don't know, how a thousand something miles. Never been to Portland, Oregon in my life.

This guy invites me into his house, and uh, it's not your typical rehab. It's actually this gentleman's house. He's in the AA, he invites people in, he gets them through the steps. It's his passion in life.

I got extremely lucky finding this guy. The friend invites me and he says, Don't steal anything, don't talk to the girls, sit down and start reading this book. And from day one, uh, he introduced me to you know the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And every morning we'd open up to On Awakening, we would read out of the book, we would do prayers and meditation every morning.

Every day was a two-hour-long book study, every day was a meeting, and every night we wrapped it up with when we retire night on page 86, you know, 10th step. It was insane because like I went to this place having reservations, thinking that you know I was too far gone. Uh, this program would not work for me. And I went in there and there were many times where I wanted to leave.

Uh, and to be completely honest, I tried a few times. You know, I called my uh ex-girlfriend, I called my old drug dealer, I called my parents, and like, get me out of here. And everyone's like, no, we're not getting you. You need to stay where you're at.

And thank God they no one wanted me back. I had nowhere to turn. And I remember this gentleman looked at me and he said, you know, what do you have to lose? He was like, You have a backpack and a dog and a stolen skateboard.

He was like, All that shit's waiting for you if you want to, if you want to leave. He was like, but you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so why don't you just jump in with both feet? And that's what I did. I remember I was coming down really hard.

Uh they had drug tested me upon coming in. And even though I told myself I was going to be done using when I left the hospital, I still went and got more of my uh drug of choice and alcohol and mixed those two on the way up to Portland. And I had uh 11 drugs in my system, including alcohol. Uh, when I walked to this guy's house, he didn't offer a detox or anything.

And uh I was really, really sick. I'm sure I was a really big handful uh for everyone in this house. I had to make trips to the IC or the I see the emergency room to get bags of IVs because I was so dehydrated. I couldn't make my bed in the morning.

I probably smelled bad. I was eating other people's food, like I was a complete nuisance, I'm sure. But these people loved me and they supported me. And once I started feeling a little better, a week or two in, I was getting the steps done.

And I remember I was maybe 10 days uh clean and sober, and I was working on my fourth step, and the gentleman I was working with did have a requirement for the numbers on how many people to put in your fourth step, but I I did like triple that. I think I wrote 700 resentments down by like my 10th day sober. Uh, it took me two months to get my fifth step done, and I just let it all out. You know, there were things on there I thought I would take to the grave that no one would ever understand.

And like I'm reading some of these uh resentments to this guy, and he he's laughing, going, Oh yeah, I did something like that too. And I'm like finding common ground with him. And uh it was great. For the minute I did that fifth step, the relief, the relief I got was insane.

And he warned me that you know, a lot of people rest on their laurels at this point, or they never get past their four step. I think he told me first. He said, You know, a lot of people they they don't ever get past their four step. And he was like, You got past that.

And he said, When you get done with your fifth step, you're gonna feel some relief, but don't rest on your laurels. You need to keep doing the work, and that's what I continued to do, and it was insane how fast I got through my 12 steps. So I finished my fifth step that day. We did six, seven.

The very next day, I'm writing out amends outlines. Maybe three days later, I got a surprise visit from my family. They flew in from California. I started doing amends.

This is like 60 days in. I got a sponsee by the time I was 90 days sober. Uh, right now I currently have one sponsee, but I've sponsored nine men total. And my sponsee has a has two sponsees.

And you know, it's really incredible. I think a big part of this work is getting the work done and then giving it back, sponsoring men immediately. And what my life looks like today is I sometimes I'm still in shock and awe. Like uh this the amount of stuff this program has given me, uh, you know, it says that it gives you a new design for living in the book, and that's exactly what I got.

I practiced these principles and all of my affairs. And in doing so, you know, when I first started, you know, looking for work when I got sober, I was getting raises and promotions left and right. I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary. I like I would just get I would just think about the book.

Like, what's the book to say in this situation? You know, just dealing with other people and resentments and stuff. And uh I was able to excel and work and find gainful work. And then from there, I decided, you know, I could be self-employed, and I've opened two businesses.

I'm pursuing a a career in acting and modeling. I'm also a bodybuilder, and you know, fitness is a huge part of my sobriety too. There's this, you know, the mind, mind, body, and spirit, that little pyramid that you see sometimes. My body came last.

You know, at first it was my mind and my spiritual growth. And then I started taking care of my body as well. And the combination of AA, taking care of your body, cleaning, cleaning up house, just doing all the right things. I had this beautiful life today.

I'm engaged, I have a driver's license, I have a vehicle that I didn't steal. I pay, I'm on a lease, I pay my rent, I have credit cards. Like it's it's really insane when you look back just a few years ago, and then I was just this hopeless guy sleeping under a bridge, uh holding a sign and begging for change. I would have never thought I would have got the gifts that I get.

Like people call me all the time for help. Like this morning, I did. You know, there's a gal I knew I went to treatment with. She called me this morning, asked if uh I'd come over and help her move her couch and do some things.

And you know, because people know me as that reliable, hardworking guy, which I was never before I got into this program. Uh, some things that I've struggled with while in this program. I guess it would be sometimes just you know, I it's really hard sometimes because I appreciate it to my sponsees all the time about just being powerless over things that you can't control. You know, it's out of your control.

You need to sit back, relax, take it easy, like the book says, don't struggle. And you know, I I've forced my will upon some things in sobriety, maybe with like some clients and some friends I've been upset with. And you know, I didn't practice the principles of all my affairs on some days because you know I'm not a I'm not a perfect person. I guess the hardest thing is to live up to the expectation of you know what you're teaching your sponsees, and then when they're not around, doing that.

I feel like I'm getting a lot better at it. Sometimes I feel like I can preach a really good story, but then behind closed doors, you know, I'm not doing my inventory every night. And then, you know, I it's funny how my higher power works because I was praying, you know, to help get me in the right direction to get back into step works, more meetings. I I you know, I was praying to my higher powers saying I was struggling getting the meetings and getting my step work done and continually doing this thing every day.

And almost immediately he gave me a new sponsee who you know, I'm taking to a meeting every day. He's calling me every night, we're doing the inventory. You know, it's just I'm getting back on track. Uh, and I love it.

Another thing that's huge for me in recovery is I got my family back. You know, my sister, I remember one time told me if I continued to drink and use like I was doing and continuing to hurt all the people around me like I was doing, to my nephews, I would just be Chris. And uh, you know, I'm proud to say that when I go and see my nephews, they all call me Uncle Chris today. I think that's huge.

I love being around children, which is completely crazy because when I walked into you know this last program, the staff members were like, I don't feel comfortable sitting in the same room with this guy. And now people are asking me to watch their kids and go to soccer games, and it's just it's just really incredible the transformation uh you can get from working in this program. Uh the whole reason why I went on this big, huge last hurrah, bang on the run, almost died, was because I caught all these felony warrants and I was scared to go back to prison. And after a few years of having those warrants, uh I decided, you know, it was time to clean up my wreckage.

And I hired an attorney, I flew down to California, I turned myself in and put it on God's hands, and I brought a hundred-page document of everything I accomplished this year, uh, like I was just kind of talking with you guys with and everything I've done. And I also had probably 50 character reference letters from people in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous that knew what I was going to go do, and they were praying for me, they were writing me letters. I turned this into the same judge who said, if I ever see you this courtroom again, I'm gonna throw the book at you. And I got a suspended sentence.

Yeah, he put me on two years probation with like eight years uh state prison suspended. And you know, it's just so it's just fine, all these things that we fear that you know might happen to us, uh, and making amends, a lot of times never really happen. You know, there's some amends I made, like with the courts. I was never expecting that.

I've also made some amends to some people that had harmed, that's all would never talk to me again. And they were just like, look, all I want you to do is be clean and sober, and and they're and they're back in my life again. I've been making financial amends. I owed a bunch of restitution, and thank God that's all paid off.

I've been paying restitution. I was married when I was in the height of my alcoholism, and I was able to get closure on that, shut the door, and get divorced, and now I'm engaged with a beautiful young lady. Yeah, like you know, there's things like when you're stuck in your alcoholism, you think you know, you're you're never gonna get out of like things like warrants, or you're never gonna get out of this marriage, you're never gonna get a decent job. And uh, you know, that was a lot of fear that I was having when the they they kept me drinking and using.

I didn't think this the freedom that I have today was possible for a guy like me. I have complete freedom today. Uh I I also uh one of my businesses is a uh security company, and I work at bars and nightclubs on a regular basis, and the obsession to drink and use is completely gone. At the end of the shift, the guys are sitting around, they're getting their shift drink, and you know, I'm like, all right, guys, have a good night.

I'm out of there. And you know, I never thought I would it'd be the day when someone would offer me a free drink, and I would say no, if you asked me that like a few years ago. The obsession to drink and use is completely gone. But I like the thing, I don't ever want to get too cocky with that thought.

I know that it's only gone temporarily because what I have is a daily reprieve. And what I need to do is continue to do this work every day. I need to wake up in the morning, I need to say prayers, I need to meditate. The first gentleman who got me through the steps, one of his suggestions to me was to call five people in AA every day.

I always do that. Sometimes it's more than five. I have a huge network of guys that I reach out to, and I think that's important because sometimes your sponsor, your number one guy, isn't there to answer the phone. So I like to call five people every day and then get in the habit of it.

And it's really nice when some days I'm busy and they call me, they're like, hey, Chris hasn't called me today. And they they call and check on me. And I have an insane social network like that. Like, even if I'm not at the gym for a couple days, I have some of my guys that send me to the gym to call me, hey man, I haven't seen you at the gym in a few days, or so I make sure you're okay.

Uh, and you know, people honestly care about me these days and love having my company, and I love helping people. Service work is a huge part of my recovery. I never say no to service work, even sometimes when a lot of people would say no. Um, there was a huge snowstorm and a rehab had a bunch of trees fall on the property and knock their power out, and uh they were quoted some obnoxious amount of money to get all this cleaned up and get their power turned back on.

And I went out there with a generator, helped hook up the power. I went there with a chainsaw, I cleaned up the whole property for them all, you know, just free of charge. And you know, it just makes me feel so good doing things like that, just being of service to others and helping people. It's really the highlight of my day.

And that and the the best part about this program is that aha moment when you're working with the sponsee and you're telling them something a few times, and you know, also it clicks and that light bulb turns on, and he's starting to comprehend what this big book is saying, and he he finds a connection with this higher power, and he starts he he's that guy they described in the book who just that light in the eye, you know, the other people see it before he recognizes it. I love being that guy to recognize the light in other people's eyes and helping to be a conduit of a higher power for them to help them find a goal in life and some meaning. It's it's just really beautiful. I'm yeah.

Anyways, I could probably go on and on about how grateful I am for this program. Uh, but there's one thing that I I really want to acknowledge is I definitely would not be where I'm at today if it wasn't for parents and friends and my my higher power. Like everything that I've accomplished, I did not get here alone. Uh, someone had to teach me how to do what I do at work, someone had to teach me how to get through the steps.

I had to look up to people who were in relationships that I admired and I wanted. So, like when I picked my my next sponsor, I found a guy who was married and had children. And that's the guy I'm working with now because those are my kind of goals. Finding a sponsor and getting the steps done is the most important thing you can do.

And uh thank you for having me, Tara. I really appreciate it. Thank you. SPEAKER_00 21:33 Thank you, Chris.

SPEAKER_01 21:35 That was so fast. Was it fast? SPEAKER_00 21:38 Yeah, but that's okay. It was a complete story from the beginning until now.

So your parents were high school sweethearts. That's very sweet. You're the youngest of three. You talked a little bit about some of your family relationships and that you're engaged now.

You also mentioned, which is a common question of mine, is what do those relationships look like today? So I appreciate you covering that. What I would like to hear about with relationship to those, some of those relationships anyway, is the tough love that you mentioned that your parents gave you that you described as beneficial for you. Do you want to, or can you elaborate on what you mean by that, tough love?

SPEAKER_01 22:28 Absolutely. There's a point where I think, you know, I don't have children, so it's hard to comprehend the feelings that my parents had. But I think everyone really wants to help someone who's in the depth of their alcoholism. And a lot of times in doing so, they enable them.

I remember spending my money irresponsibly on, you know, drugs and alcohol, my parents paying my rent. Like that, that was not beneficial to me. I remember getting arrested and my parents bailing me out. You know, in hindsight, you know, I think that was enabling.

They were doing the best that they could, but until they stopped taking my phone calls at the jail, until they stopped uh giving me money to get my vehicle out out of impound after another DUI, uh, and until I was left with absolutely nothing uh was I ready to take these steps and make that phone call or start working this program. They were always there for me to answer the phone call, but they would draw a hard line when I would ask for things. And I did this with one of my sponsors, or a few of my sponsees, you know, I feel like I would enable them in like little ways. Like they would want to meet up.

And instead of me saying, hey, okay, do the work and meet me at this meeting and I'll see you there, you know, I would go and I'd pick them up and I'd take them to the meeting and I'd drive them home and you know, things like that. And, you know, the way I do it now with my sponsees, it's like if you want to meet up, you need to do the work, you need to meet me at a meeting. And and when we're there after the meeting, we can find a quiet spot and do some step work. You know, I had a one sponsee, I used to drive an hour to his house to go do step work with him.

That's kind of where the tough love, I think, is important. Uh, you starting to draw those boundaries and be like, look, if you want to do the work, you need to come to me. And I think that's kind of how my parents were doing it towards the end. They were like, Yeah, we're willing to help you.

When I was in an ICU room, they came down and from there, when I was at bottom, they were willing to help, but they had to let me hit bottom before I could start climbing back up. SPEAKER_00 24:52 That makes sense. I feel like that's some good guidelines as well. Take the call, but don't bail me out.

Empathize with I imagine when they were paying your rent, they didn't know for sure that you spent your money on drugs. You had some sob story that you gave them. I imagine. SPEAKER_01 25:12 Oh, yeah, I was a master manipulator a lot.

Sure. Yeah, they was I told my someone stole my wallet or something. SPEAKER_00 25:18 Right, for real. Yeah, I mean, endless number of stories.

I can come up with one now, like impromptu. Uh yeah. So you mentioned the Portland dude, and I think you said that your parents found him. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 25:39 Oh man, I love this guy so much. I'm just almost emotional just thinking about him. Uh this guy, uh, let's see, I introduced my family because I had a cousin who was struggling with alcoholism. They called this gentleman up who was in the AA, 34 years sober, and asked him to come and speak to my cousin Travis.

And Travis wasn't interested in his help and drank himself to death maybe a week after meeting with Lowell. So Lowell went to try to help my cousin, and he he passed away. And Lowell, he felt something right there. He was like, Man, uh, I wish I could have really helped Travis.

And he had uh, I don't know if it was guilt or shame, but he just kind of felt like he he let someone in our family go and he he didn't want to see another one go. He made connection with my family. So my parents had reached out to him when I was in jail. He wrote me a letter.

I wasn't interested. But for the his his letters, it just really stuck out to me. Like I was sitting in jail all by myself, no commissary, no one's writing me letters. I'm I got no money on the phone, nothing.

I mean, months went by, not a letter. And you know, one day they're like, hey Chris, you get you got some mail. And I'm like, and I'm reading it like, who is this guy? And it's just crazy to think that five years down the road, I would end up being I lived with him, I was he was my employer for a while.

He's really guided me in the right direction over it's just crazy, just one guy reaching out, you know, that's all it took. One letter to me in jail, and uh just planted that seed. Oh, I'm sorry. I got one more thing I could just touch on since we got a little more time.

So Lowell, uh you know, I don't have my exact numbers in front of me, but from Portland to San Diego, I believe it's like 1,100 miles or something like that. And he drove, he made that trip down there to get me and to get me up to Portland because I couldn't get on a plane because I had warrants and I had this flea ridden dog and yada yada yada. And while I was working for Lowell at at a treatment center, uh I got the opportunity to drive to outside of uh Denver, Colorado, and it ended up being the same exact distance that Lowell drove to come get me to go pick up uh an alcoholic indeed who needed treatment. So what he did for me, you know, he drove 1100 miles and got me into Portland.

And about a year later, he sending me 1,100 miles away to Colorado to pick up an alcoholic to get him help. So I got to like pay that forward. And I just it's just funny that the spiritual connection you get. Like, I don't think numbers really they're not super significant, but like the number just really stuck out to me.

Whoa, that that's the same exact amount of miles that Lowell drove for me, and I just got to do that for somebody else. And uh the feeling I got from that was pretty incredible. SPEAKER_00 28:27 I do like that story, that's really sweet. I think it's it's nice sometimes when it's so perfectly lined up that you have to smile and like a week.

SPEAKER_01 28:40 The numbers were like it was like within like three miles or something. I can't remember the it was like this is like that's a huge distance to travel. And it was like the same month, like a year later, where their Low took the trip to San Diego to get me. That's when I really started feeling a connection with my higher power.

That's just that way. I was like, there's no way this is a coincidence. SPEAKER_00 29:04 Do you know where that dude is now, or did you Yeah, no, absolutely. SPEAKER_01 29:10 He's in uh San Luis Obispo, Cody.

SPEAKER_00 29:13 And is he sober? SPEAKER_01 29:15 Yeah, he's sober. SPEAKER_00 29:17 I love that. SPEAKER_01 29:19 Absolutely.

Yeah, I actually just reached out to him maybe two, three days ago. SPEAKER_00 29:23 We should get him on here too. It'd be like We should. We should get Cody out there.

Where's Lowell? We need Lowell. SPEAKER_01 29:29 Uh Lowell just got home from India. He I just had dinner with him last night.

He just spent three months in India doing a uh meditation and yoga retreat. And uh he's got back I had dinner with him last night. It was it was really awesome. I see him in three months.

SPEAKER_00 29:42 That's very cool. He's doing something really special. So you thought you were too far gone for this program. It sounds like they had a very structured schedule when you were there at the house, and they have you jumping into the steps right away.

So maybe some of the more original process from like the 30s is implemented here in Lowell's house. SPEAKER_01 30:12 Well, it was it was old school, old school all the way. I mean, yeah, you you wake up early, you make your bed, you know, common things, but then immediately you're in the front room, and we're reading out of page 86 on awakening. We're reading as Bill sees it, 24 hours a day, daily reflection.

We're reading those three books, we're all going around the room, we're all sharing our input on it. We're saying prayers, we're doing a 20-minute meditation. That's how you start your day. Every morning, crack of dawn, and then from there, it was straight into two hours of big book study every day, seven days a week.

We finished the first 164 pages. I don't know how many times. If I go through and look at mine, like my first 164, you can just see all my dirty finger marks down those pages. I'm using eight different color highlighters, four different kinds of pens.

I've gone over it so many times. I'm pretty sure every word in it has been highlighted by now because everything is important. Then we had an in-house meeting, like an hour-long speaker meeting, like we're doing now. A guest speaker would come in for an hour and share their experience, strength, and hope.

And then we would go out to an outside AA meeting every day, and then we would come home and we called it nightlies, but it was our 10-step inventory. We would go around the room and we would all do an inventory every night, and it was off to bed, and it was just repeat for 90 days. It was extremely structured and nothing but the big book. It was just 12-step immersion, and that's that's what I needed.

Because I'd like I said, I've been to 24 treatment centers prior to this one. This was my 25th, and you know, I did the Salvation Army's faith-based. I've done the clinical studies, I did the places where they throw pills at you, like Suboxin or things like that, and none of those were working. But what this book had to offer in the 12 steps did.

And what I mean by I was so far gone, I always remember that part in Bill's story where he's talking about doctors that deem, I think it's on page 11. He's like, doctors that deem me incurable. Society wanted to lock me up and throw away the key. Like, that's where I was at.

Like, doctors were done with me. The judge said he's gonna throw the book at me. My parents didn't want me living there, my girl didn't want me home. Like, I literally had nothing.

That's why I thought I was just too far gone. And I'd been in survival mode for 10 years. I was like a feral animal. It was really weird living in a home with other people and sharing meals at the table with people and talking about feelings and doing things for other people.

Like, you know, like someone would get up and I'm getting coffee. Do you want a cup of coffee? And they'd offer me one. Like, you know, I'm like, wait, you're you're gonna get me a cup.

Like, it was just it was just it was in shock to me that people would do nice things for me and uh would tolerate me. It was it was just completely structured, and uh I needed that. And I also needed someone extremely hard on me, like Lowell. He reminded me more like a football coach almost.

Like, that's what I needed. I played sports for 10 years. Like, sometimes you you gotta you gotta tell me the hard way. Tell me I'm not doing this right, and that I am the problem, and I need to shut up and sit down and listen.

And that's what he did, and that's what I needed. I didn't need a friend at that time, I needed someone to tell me the reality of my situation. Uh, and he was really good at reminding me of that every day. SPEAKER_00 33:45 That's such a good quote.

Like, I didn't need a friend, I needed somebody to tell me the reality of my situation. That's really good. Um it is such a scary, scary disease. And we do think that we're invincible when we're in it, probably in part because for a lot of that time we probably wanted to die, and we're like, no man, like I can't get away out.

I'm stuck here. That makes me invincible. SPEAKER_01 34:18 Oh, and I'm so glad you brought that up because that was you know my rock bottom point. So when yeah, I I can't believe I let this part out.

Like the right before calling Lowell in San Diego, I had walked out of the hospital uh AMA with 33 staples in my neck. They tried to put me like a 90-day convalescing program. I'd been out of a coma for like a week, uh, still had all the staples in my neck, uh, full catheter, you know, all that. And I'm like, I just I just want to leave.

And they were like, don't leave. And I left that day, AMA, against all medical advice, and they're warning me how I'm gonna die. And I like, I really didn't care. I was like, that that is the goal.

Like, I have nothing to live for anymore. Um, I just wish I was dead. And I remember walking out of the hospital. I'm like, I don't have any money to go get drugs and overdose.

I don't got money for an Uber to go to the Coronado Bridge and jump off. I'm too weak to walk there. I don't have a gun. I can't shoot myself.

I was literally at that jumping off point when I called Lowell. And I that's why I think it's so important that people answer their phone calls because you never know when you're gonna get that phone call when someone's so desperate that they're ready to accept his program. Uh so the timing was awesome for Lowell to answer the phone that day. SPEAKER_00 35:39 That's such an understatement.

SPEAKER_01 35:42 Yeah. SPEAKER_00 35:44 You remind me of a friend of mine. Actually, you more than remind me, I want to give your number to him, a gentleman who has convinced himself that he's too far gone. And um, I think you might be in that unique position to help other men like that that think, oh no, I am truly uh worse than is helpable.

Is that a word? Uh yeah, and you said you had a few sponsees. Is that the type that uh attract to you or absolutely okay? SPEAKER_01 36:29 I like the really, really desperate man.

The sponsee I'm working with now, uh to share a bit of his story. Like this month, uh, he ended up in jail. He called me collect from from the jail cell, walking him through you know, step work through through the jail phone. And then, you know, he's got a big book, he's in jail, he's reading.

Uh from there, he gets out, he's still struggling. He finds himself committed to a mental ward for like a 72-hour hold. He's calling me from there. Uh, I pick him up from the hospital.

He had nowhere to go that night, you know, and that's where that tough love comes in. He wanted to come stay at my house, and I was like, no, you got yourself in a position, you're gonna stay on the streets tonight because you put yourself here. Uh hopefully you stay dry and warm. But oh, this is what I'm gonna do.

I'll be back at 4 a.m. in the morning to get you to the detox center to make sure you're the first one in line and you have a bed for tomorrow. And that's what I did. I dropped him off that night on the sidewalk in Chinatown, and I said, You're on your own tonight, but be right here at four o'clock in the morning.

And I came back at four in the morning. I got him to detox. When he got out of detox, I helped him get into a halfway house. And from there, he's doing good.

He's got almost 30 days sober. He's on his fourth step, and he's a real go-getter. He's already got one sponsee, which is just I'm sucked. Oh, it's great, man.

I mean, just stay longer a step ahead of him. Let's do this. But yeah, I love the desperate guys with nothing. They're my favorite.

SPEAKER_00 37:58 It sounds like you might be a future low. You're a business owner already. Do you have ambitions of being in this industry as a as a career, or your business is completely separate from program? SPEAKER_01 38:16 No, not necessarily.

Um, one of my businesses, I actually go to halfway houses and I pick up sober people in need of uh some need uh due labor for uh work. And I'll go there and I'll pick up two or three guys, I'll take them to work with me. They'll be safe and sober all day, and we'll talk AA all day. And that's kind of what Lowell did with me.

I was his right-along. He's like, hey, if you want to get your step work done, I remember we took a trip to Canada, we jumped in as Audi and we're driving, and we're doing step work the whole way up there while he's doing work. It's like road trip recovery, you know what I mean? Like, and I don't do road trips with these guys, but I'm getting a car and in between jobs, I'm having them read the AA book with me, you know, because I'm a busy guy and I'll have my own little personal audio book, and I'll just read to me while we're going to the next job.

And uh, I think they're extremely grateful, and I'm grateful for them too. It's you know it's a win-win. SPEAKER_00 39:10 Hmm. That's very cool.

How do you work differently, or how did Lowell work differently with you because you were so far gone, in your words? SPEAKER_01 39:29 He just challenged me. Every day he challenged me, and I needed that. I'm a very imposing person, I'm you know, 6'3, 240.

Uh, and you know, I had this guy half my size telling me that all my character defects and just laying out there so raw that I it was just insane. Like, you know, you would remind me all the time of uh, you know, how do you think your parents felt when uh they got that phone call that they said you might not make it and uh you're down in San Diego, and they you were a John Doe. I think I showed up at the hospital. I refused to give the cops my name because I had warrants.

So my wrist tag said like Rabbit33 or something. They didn't have my name. It took them like days to figure out who I was, you know. And then my parents got a phone call saying, you know, your son might not make it.

Uh he was, you know, you'd constantly remind me, like, how do you think your parents feel? And then, you know, just things like that. Like they would just really hit home, or he'd remind me about how I told him all my my nephews just call me Chris and not Uncle Chris. And he was like, Is that the kind of life you want to live?

And like you would just really just find all those things and just really hit home with it. And I just thought of another really good thing of how you know attraction rather than promotion. If you don't find me at work or a meeting, I'm at the gym. I have three gym memberships.

Um I have a lot of guys that look up me at the gym. I help a lot of people in the gym, and then they all ask, you know, how how how can I get a transformation like you, like you have? And I tell them, I don't drink alcohol, I don't do drugs, like first and foremost. And then a lot of these people were like, oh yeah, like, oh, I have a drinking problem too, or I had one, and I've actually recruited some guys to come to meetings with me through the gym, you know, just through things like that, which is uh really cool too.

I really love the attraction around the promotion thing because I I don't go around preaching AA, but I when people ask me, you know, where do you how did you get where you're at? And I just tell them the first thing I do is I had to stop drinking. And then usually I'll find common ground with them right there because I think that that's crossed everyone's mind at some point. SPEAKER_00 41:44 Oh, I bet.

I bet. You have three gym memberships? SPEAKER_01 41:51 Yeah, yeah. SPEAKER_00 41:53 Well, I guess I mean I mean, I don't think they have a 12-step program for that, but maybe you need to probably qualify.

SPEAKER_01 42:01 Yeah, yeah. SPEAKER_00 42:03 You have a strong program today. You have said that the obsession is completely gone, but you understand that that is temporary um contingent upon probably all of the work that you do and the program you keep. We heard about some of the things that you do.

What does your week look like day in and day out? You wake up just like a quick overview of a seven-day period. SPEAKER_01 42:33 I have a lot of clients. I usually do about five jobs a day.

So uh that morning routine is really important to me. You know, before I got fancy and got an iPhone, I used to do it on a pad of paper. But you know, now I have my phone. So, you know, I wake up and it's my morning routine, and it's I figure out my day first, and then I set aside a uh time to do prayer and meditation.

I'll be lying if I said I have time to do a reading every morning, but I like to do that several times a week for sure. Then I'm just constantly a service. My job involves helping people. So throughout the day, I'm never thinking about I need this money.

I'm thinking, you know, how can I best help this client or help this person be of service to somebody else? Then as soon as I get off work, I'm thinking about other people. I'm thinking about my sponsee, I need to call him, and then I'm thinking about my fiance, I'm like, I need to cook her dinner. Uh, I'm thinking about my dog, I'm like, I need to get home, I need to walk my dog.

About the only time I'm thinking about myself is when I go to the gym, uh sometimes several times a day. That's my selfishness for the day. And then I catch a meeting, and when I go to meetings, I actually enjoy sharing, but I'm not the guy that raises my hand. I'm not the guy that tries to stick out.

I love going to a meeting when I don't get called on, and I just get to sit there and listen. Sometimes those are like the highlight of my day just having that hour in a meeting and not getting called on and just sipping some coffee. And then every night my sponsee calls me. We do our inventory.

I say prayers before I go to bed. I spend time with my fiance, I spend time with my dog. I try and check in with my mom. I try and check in with Lowell.

I try and check in with guys like Cody, Jared, guys that I care about. Yeah, that's that's a pretty typical day. Oh, and also, like I said, that mind, body, spirit. I, you know, I spent years smoking cigarettes, drinking, using drugs.

You know, I I gave up vaping, I gave up cigarettes, I gave up processed foods, I definitely have a caffeine addiction. But yeah, I meal prep. I mean, I I'm really so organized. I I have a desk with drawers full of receipts for taxes.

I have uh my meal prep all macroed out. Like my plan for the day is probably the most important. My organization uh really gets me through the day, and I set aside time for meetings and program. Yeah, pretty full days.

SPEAKER_00 44:55 Yeah, that sounds like a business owner's day. Like shit to keep every minute full. Yeah. Is this the same flea ridden dog?

SPEAKER_01 45:08 Yes, he's actually sitting on the couch next to me right now. SPEAKER_00 45:11 He's so much happier that you're not homeless anymore. SPEAKER_01 45:15 Yeah, he uh funny story about that dog. Yeah, he was with me when I got stabbed.

He was the only one with me. The reason I left the hospital AMA that day was I I I've concocted this story in my head that I needed to go get my dog out of the pound. That's why I needed to leave. That was my intention, and I ended up not doing that.

But someone else got the dog out of the pound for me. And when we got him out, he was still covered in blood, my blood, and uh yeah, he is just adorable though. I just he we got a serious connection. SPEAKER_00 45:47 What kind of dog is he?

Husky. Yeah. Okay. So your house is hairy.

SPEAKER_01 45:53 Um well, I got one of those uh little Dyson robot vacuums. So if it wasn't for my Dyson, the the auto spot would be very hairy. SPEAKER_00 46:04 Uh okay. All right.

So I have two final questions. We'll see if you have anything for the first one. Is there anything that you left out of your story or that you are thinking of now that you would like to share? SPEAKER_01 46:21 Probably just the amount of desperation I had coming in this program, just how low my bottom was.

Like when people see me nowadays, like they can't really comprehend me being that dude on an off-ramp holding a sign uh with a shopping cart full of everything he owns. But like that was me. I had nothing to live for but drinking and using. It can completely consumed me for so many years.

I'm just extremely grateful to still have my health. Just simple things like that. And you know, someone told me once told me, you know, the the lower your bottom, the higher your springboard for success. Because every day I get like a constant reminder.

I look in the mirror and I have this giant scar that goes all down the side of my neck from behind my ear to my collarbone to remind me you are one step away from being on the streets again. So I'm super grateful for the gift of desperation and how low my bottom was. And you know, just reminders like looking in the mirror every day, like you were this close to going back. SPEAKER_00 47:28 So you know, I can't rest on my laurels.

SPEAKER_01 47:33 I can't be like, okay, I did the steps, okay. I sponsored men, like I can take a month off or something. Like, I just know that that's not an option for me. I went through so much pain and suffering to get to where I'm at that that's always a fear of mine, a valid fear.

Uh that's a it's a very healthy valid fear of this alcoholism and what it can do to you. I have such a fear of going back that I just do the work every day. SPEAKER_00 48:01 So wise. So wise.

Okay. Final question for the listener who is suffering, what message would you like to leave them with? SPEAKER_01 48:16 That you know, it's the same thing that I was told. You know, what do you have to lose?

Why don't you just put it all aside for now and just jump in with both feet? What's the worst that could happen? Also, my biggest advice would be don't procrastinate on your step work. Uh, someone told me one time it took them six months and three days to do their four step because they procrastinated for six months and got it done in three days.

It's completely doable to get these steps done as fast as possible. And the faster you get them done, the better. Just don't procrastinate. Get a sponsor, don't be picky, just pick someone more time than you have, and just find someone who's been through the steps that you can relate with and just get done.

Just don't procrastinate. And when you do it, jump in like it's the last week in school in June, and you have an F and you don't want to go to summer school. You need to do whatever you can to make up those assignments so you get your summer back. You know, and it's more than it's your life, you know.

It's it's it's a way bigger analogy than just going to summer school. But the life that you can get from this program is it's incredible. SPEAKER_00 49:24 For more information, read the first one hundred and sixty four pages of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous or visit keepcoming back.net.