The 2nd annual Men Among Men group's 12-step conference in Reykjavik, Iceland

Myers. A fine looking bunch of drunks. This is good stuff, man. My name is Myers Raymer and I am an alcoholic. I'm overwhelmed.

Being here again and anytime I'm I'm asked to come back someplace, it's always a big miracle. I I was never asked to come back anywhere and and it's it's always kinda nice. So I do want to thank Arner and these guys that have worked so hard to, thank you, to get this thing done and and to put it on. If if you've never been involved in putting a conference together, you haven't a clue how much hard work goes into all of the organizational stuff and this sort of thing. It's a it's an amazing deal.

And, the men and women that got together to do this thing every year and and, I'm I'm I'm so amazed and, and I'm honored that they asked me to come back again and and do this. The we went we went to the Blue Lagoon yesterday and had a weenie roast, and, I kept looking down to see if my weenie was done. It was just like, that's the hot that's the hottest water I ever felt in my whole life. Oh, my God. Well, what a what an awesome place.

We we drove out into the countryside, and I'm thinking, how does a busted up drunk from Texas get to a place as cool as this? It's just an amazing miracle that any of us walk free and clear. I I I see some of these guys, and I I 2 years ago when I was here, I I met a bunch of people, and then a lot of these guys are still here doing the deal, kicking butt and taking names, and it's just an amazing thing to watch the growth spiritually in a lot of these cats that I met 2 years ago. It's always an exciting deal. It's also exciting to share a podium with Kip and Brian.

I had not met Brian before. I've known Kip for a 1000000 years, and and it's just an honor to be here doing that stuff. And for you guys that got out of this cold, I don't care what they say, you guys can wear t shirts and think it's not cold, but I'm telling you, it's the coldest I've ever been in my whole life. It must be that Viking stock. I used to think as a Texan, I was pretty tough, but you know what?

I'm the biggest wussy that ever crawled out of Texas. Golly. Horrible stuff. I took my last drink on January 15, 88, which was 2 months after my twin brother sobered up. Some of you know my evil twin, Chris, and and, he told me to tell you guys that he loves you and that he wishes he was here.

And believe me, he does. He he, he was so blown away by Iceland and the and the kindness and generosity of you guys. It was just amazing. We talk about it all the time. I need to make a little fast disclaimer for you guys that that don't know me.

I come from I come from, it's like I had 2 stages of AA here. I had a a, a middle of the road stage. We talked about this some in the workshop yesterday. I'm I'm a card carrying member of this of this middle of the road society. I I wanna do as little as I can in AA.

I just wanna come and show up at the meetings, look at the girls, drink the coffee, tell off color jokes, and go home. I mean, it it's just and and I did that for a bunch of years, and I damn near died. Then there's another part of my recovery, which is the last 11 years, which has been with my nose in the big book studying and my rear end on fire to get out there and try to carry a message to a drunk that was still suffering. And those two contrasts, everything I say, guys, here is filtered between my experiences in those two areas. You see?

And so, some of you guys came in here, got on fire right off the bat, and you're kicking butt right now. You're doing everything you're supposed to be doing. And I used to think that I was the only one that had come up through the middle of the road stuff, but I found out as the more I began to talk to people, I began to find out that there are thousands of us out there, maybe millions of us out there, that did exactly what I did. I came and I listened to a bunch of very well meaning people tell me a lot of things that did not belong in our fellowship, that did not belong in our meetings. And I began to get instead of getting better, I began to get sicker, and sicker, and sicker, until finally, I almost died in our rooms.

And I know some of you guys know this. Some of you guys are going, well, I've never experienced that. I don't know what he's talking about yet. But let me assure you, let me assure you, if you stay around long enough I mean, let let let let's clarify this stuff real quick. Okay?

I Part of this stuff is going to be a beating for some of you guys. I'm going to just tell you going in. Some of you guys are going to squirm, and you're going to think that I'm sitting here standing in judgment. I'm in judgment of no man. God didn't wake up yesterday and say, Myers, I want you to go to Iceland and fix those guys.

He didn't say that. And I don't want you to think that I'm standing in judgment of anybody. This is my personal experience. And if you came to AA and it was groovy and you loved it and everything is fine today, super. I'm delighted that it happened that way.

I am. But I but but I also want you to understand, that the first couple years I was in a a in 88, when I came, for the 1st couple years, things were great. Just not drinking is great, guys. If you can't go any length of time without any booze or any drugs, I guarantee you, it's great not to drink. But then you run into this problem.

You're you're going to, well, I'll tell you like this. Let me let me just explain this. Imagine if you will, I'm going to 6 meetings a week, A little meeting hall right down from where my shop is. It's real convenient. Go down there.

Go to a meeting. I know all these guys like this and it's just like And what started out to be a real novelty, hearing everybody's war stories and talking about all this crap, you know, like this, becomes very tedious. And I'm listening to old Tom talk about his stupid day at work for the 1000th time. I'm hearing Sally Sue talk about her divorce for the 1000th time. And I'm here you see what I'm saying?

Now we got a man sitting on our meeting detoxing a brand new guy trying to get a solution to his problem, but we're too busy talking about Sally's divorce because she needs a place to share. You see? And I'm hip. I'm buying into the whole thing. I'm thinking, well, this is what AA is.

You see? But imagine how bizarre it is and how some of you guys know exactly what I'm talking about. How you begin to slowly unravel in your own room. You know, you you got your friends around you and yet the spirituality is kicking your little butt and you can't seem to figure out what's going on. And everybody's telling you that you're doing what you're supposed to be doing.

Everybody's saying, well, just just need to go to some more meetings or or or whatever whatever. You so imagine if you will. I'm 7 years sober. I've not had a drink. For the last 3 years, I'm struggling mightily to stay sober, but I'm not drinking yet.

I'm writing hot checks all over Denton County. I can't keep my eyes off other women. I'm just I know you d a guys. Heads up here. You know, it's just a it's just a struggle again.

No, I'm not drinking, but every other area of my life is in shambles. My relationship with my wife has now gone south again. See, when I got to AA, I didn't get to AA because I got tired of drinking. I got to AA because I got tired of getting the crap kicked out of me. I've been whipped so many times.

It's not physically whipped so many times. It's not even funny. You think I'm obnoxious now. You ought to see me drunk. Listen.

When I get drunk, the very first thing I do is get mouthy. And and if and if you have a date, I have to touch her. I what is it about Texans and this? And it's so and I never could figure out why do guys get so offended by that. Sobriety, I know why people get offended by that.

You see? And so it was always a shambles. I couldn't go to the grocery store sober. I had to get drunk go to the grocery store. I had to go get drunk I used to be a member of a church choir, and we used to drink a case of beer just to go to choir.

I mean, just to see me and this friend of mine are up there just drunkard and skunks in this choir and I'm thinking, God, you must love me because I'm in church singing in this choir. And we're squashed like idiots. You see? Within the last 6 months that I drank, Chris, the evil twin Chris, had introduced me to the joys of of outside issues. And, and things sort of sped up, if you catch my drift.

And, and it was it was a it was a brutal, brutal 6 months, 7 months, something like this. And in that last, couple of months, I I had I did a lot of things that I said I would never do. I was taking places I I said I would never go. You know how it is, you know, and I became what I didn't wanna be. Being the scrawniest kid in Texas, the the thing I hated worse than anything is is a bully.

And guess where boobs and those outside issues took me. I'm a I'm a I'm a bully, you know? I'll catch you in a bar, and I'll sneak up behind you and hit you. I'm I'm too much of a coward to do it in face to face, you know. I gotta but in the last 6 months that I drank, I couldn't stay out of trouble.

I kept fighting, and I kept getting getting in trouble. And, the last 3 or 4 weeks that I drank, things began to just sort of dissolve around me. And got an altercation with a liquor store clerk that called my house one night because I'd given him a hot credit card or a maxed out credit card. He wanted his money. I mean, you know, so he called my house, and my wife didn't know what was going on.

And, you know, you can imagine the embarrassment of trying to explain to her why all of our credit cards are maxed out. She doesn't know anything about all this money I'm spending on the other outside issues and stuff. And it it it was just a a a so I go up there to try to kill this guy at this liquor store and, being the scrawny, very drunk man that I am, it didn't, you know, it didn't work. But I probably ought to tell you that I'm also on the chamber of the board of directors of the Chamber of Commerce of that fair town while I tried to kill that liquor store clerk. And they, if you can imagine, these guys are looking at me like going like, oh my just leave, please.

You know, it was this kind of stuff. By now, Chris has sobered up, and I'm watching his life get so much better that it's not even funny. And I'm watching him come to work. Chris is working at our bindery, and I'm watching him do all this stuff. And I'm they they say that AA is a program of attraction rather than promotion.

Well, it is. Chris never tried to sell me on the idea of AA. He never I you know, I'd make fun of him. I'd I'd I'd poke fun at him and all kinds of stuff. But he did all he did was live his life as a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Go to meetings, come back, do his deal like this. And I was just I was amazed. I'm standing back in the back of this shop one night. It's real late. And, Chris has worked a 12, 13 hour day, and he's gone to a meeting.

And he came back up there finish up some work, and he's just doing a great job. And I'm standing back there in the dark like some thief in the night, you know, watching him work, and I'm drunk holding on to this table, you know, like this. And I'm just gonna go on. Damn. And I remember going home that night, my wife who's not talking to me at all hardly these days, she says, what's up?

And I just said, I was just back down there at the shop watching Chris. And and I said, you know, I got to, I gotta figure out a way to get what he's got. And, I knew I was now calling from the time I was 19 years old, guys. And At that time, I'm now 34. At the time, I sobered up, and I I'm just blown away.

So Chris took me the next day to 8, my very first meeting, and, and it was terrific. And things got better. And I and I guarantee I can tell you guys, I understand your excitement. If you're brand new in AA and you're here and you're digging all the talk, and you're digging the camaraderie, and the fellowship, and stuff, stay. Do it.

It's terrific. But the one thing that I found out much later was that the book never talked about going to meetings as a solution to your problem. The book talked about doing something odd, like taking some action towards a spiritual solution to the problem, which was a real novel idea. We didn't talk about that stuff, guys. You'll think I'm kidding you when I tell you this.

For 7 years, I never heard anybody talk about a spiritual solution to your problem. Not ever. I heard people say, go to 90 meetings in 90 days. Just don't drink and go to meetings. I heard every little chicken shit phrase you can say, but I never heard anybody say that it was possible to have a spiritual experience as a result of doing those 12 steps.

We played around them a lot. We talked about them some, but we just played games with it, and nobody was recovering. Nobody was getting well. We were all just kind of hanging in there. You see?

At the end of 7 years, all this drama's coming back into my life and I'm getting really scared because I know I'm gonna die drunk if I'm not careful. Careful. I know that it's falling apart. I know that I will not make it much longer if I don't get some solution. And I'm sitting in this meeting one evening.

It's really rainy outside. It's really nasty. All the way through this this this stupid open discussion meeting thing, and we get I'm the I'm the last guy in the deal. And and and finally, it's we're almost closed on the meeting, and I finally just said, guys, I gotta tell you, man. I don't think I'm gonna make it.

And I think I'm I'm I'm this may be the last meeting I come to. And I said, I can't, I'm just, falling apart. All I can think about these days is drinking and and and it's and it's it's just crazy. And, this guy goes, and, yeah. What is it?

And he goes, Myers, I know what you need to do. I just think you need to come to more meetings. And I remember looking at him. His name was Scott, and I I love the guy to death today. And, I I I just looked at him and I just kind of went, Oh, okay.

Thanks. Thanks. And I remember the meeting stopped and I we all closed, dropped hands, went outside. I went out and sat in my old Land Cruiser, sitting outside and and I just put my head down the steering wheel and I just wept. I just cried.

I just couldn't, I there's just damn. Why are we doing this? It's just so so lame. I called Chris and I told him how bad it was hurt. Chris had, by now, had gotten married and moved to the hill country and and his life was great.

That's like 300 miles from us. And he he was doing great still, and, but he fell in with a bunch of big book guys in Kerrville, and they got him all plugged in. It was just a super deal like that. Well, he said, don't do anything in a couple of weeks. I'm gonna be up there, and I'm gonna grab you, scoop you up, and, and I'll get you plugged in some place.

See, Chris had been telling me for 4 years, go find you another meeting. Go get a healthy group of people around you. Your meeting has gotten toxic. Every one of us in here remembers the group we sobered up in. And there is an allegiance.

I don't care how sick the group is. I don't care how screwed up those people are. There's an allegiance to where we sobered up. It's a it's a magical kind of a deal. And yet, that magic will hold you until you die if you're not careful.

It takes real courage to step away and step back and look at that deal. I I it's some people get offended when I talk about this stuff and they say, well, you should I think you're being divisive. I don't think you should talk like this from the podium. And I'm saying, screw you and screw that thought because I'm telling you right now, there are are groups in AA that have gotten so toxic that nobody can get sober. Places where there is no talk of God, no talk of a solution, no talk of anything other than stupid opinion and ideas about how we're supposed to stay free and clear of this most deadly of diseases.

Most of you guys understand this. Some of you guys don't yet, but you will. Just because there's a circle and triangle on the door does not mean that you have a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. You could have a meeting of a bunch of people who are drifted so far away. Some people this guy asked me one time.

He said, Myers, it's you make it sound like the whole fellowship drifted sideways and is not doing what they're supposed to do. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Now listen, I'm gonna make sure I'm gonna underscore it. I'm gonna underline it.

I wanna make sure everybody understands this. This is my personal opinion about this deal. This may not be your experience. And tomorrow, next week, you can stand up here at the same podium and counter everything that I said. But my experience in working with 100 of alcoholics and in being involved in lots and lots of these kinds of conferences and talking to thousands upon thousands of drunks and addicts over the years is that the AA that we have today is in real trouble.

And we need to collectively as a whole, men and women together, we need to pull together to save what was started 60 some odd years ago by Bill and that busted up doctor. We need to get back on back on track and and get back into the book. And that's the reason why when we talk about having big book studies. Let me let me I wanna give you an example. This is a quick deal.

I did a talk at a group in North Dallas. I'm sorry I talk so fast too. By the way, you guys I sometimes forget that half of you guys don't understand me well enough when I'm talking slow and I talk a 1000 miles an hour. Get on the Internet, listen to this thing a bunch of times and you'll catch it. Okay?

I'm doing the talk from a podium in a group situation. There's, like, 25 people in the room. It's just a, a regular AA group. I'm doing the steps there for the whole month. And, so I'm talking and and and as I'm talking, I'm watching these guys in there with cell phones talking back and forth, people getting up, people doing all this other kind of stuff, people whispering, people passing notes.

Just to you, you know, I mean, just the room is in absolute chaos. There's a couch over here on this wall over here and and there's a door, a glass door right over here and with a big glass front on it and I'm watching these people and and by the time I get started I hadn't been 2 seconds into it, maybe 2 minutes into my talk, and about half the room was outside smoking cigarettes. Right outside the front glass. It's all real distracting. And this girl walks in.

She's got a man's t shirt on and a pair of shorts on and she's barefooted and and and and nothing else. I mean that's all she's got on and she's she's drunk and she walks in and stands in the middle of this room right in front of me. And I'm talking just like this and she's standing right there. And I'm thinking, come on. Somebody grab her.

1 of you women, get her. Nobody touches her. Nobody says anything. Nobody does anything. She goes over here and she lays down on a couch laying right over here and she falls asleep.

20 minutes later, she wakes up. She goes outside. She disappears. Go get her. Please go get her.

Nobody gets her. She goes out. She comes back in a little bit later. This time you can tell she's really loaded. She's been out smoking a crack pipe out in the parking lot.

That's what she's been doing. She comes back in. She doesn't have any bottoms on. She her shorts are gone. She's got a man's undershirt on.

No bra. No nothing. No shoes. Just she walks in and she stands in front of the in the deal again, seemingly lost. Nobody will help this woman.

You see? She goes over and sits on the couch and finally, I can't stand it anymore. Now, I'm trying to be I'm trying to be I was asked to come over there. I'm a guest over there, but I've had a crawl of this behavior in our room. And I annihilated that group from the podium.

I've never been as nasty and as vile from the podium as I was that night. It was absolutely ice it was a it was a spankathon. I I I finally just said, are one of you women ever gonna go help this woman? Why are we here? You see?

Now, I know. Some of you guys are saying, well, why is he telling me this story? I'm telling you this story, guys, because I see this behavior. Everywhere I go, I see this behavior. People not not understanding why we're here.

You walk into a group and you see this clicky thing going. The new guy is standing there. He's all uncomfortable. He's looking at his shoes. He's going like, God damn.

How absolutely alienated you felt? And you walked in and you're looking now like this, and why would we want anybody coming into this thing feeling that way? It makes me weep to think that anybody would come into our dear fellowship and be treated that way by another drunk or another addict. We should be catching them little guys right at the door. Please, let me get you some coffee.

Sit down. Let's go. Get you let me help you find a sponsor so we can get started in this work. Let's go do this. You see, that's how we learn what we're doing.

The trouble is is that in our open discussion meeting formats that are are are big here, but they're huge in the states, you can go to hundreds of meetings and never know you're in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. The meetings have gotten so toxic and so bizarre. We're so busy trying to share goofy opinion about what the book said. Guys, I don't know about you, but I am so tired of AA being the butt of every joke in the world I could scream. Our precious fellowship was handed to us 60 some odd years ago and it worked flawlessly.

Flawlessly. And today, statistically, less than 5% of us are staying sober 5 years. 2 thirds are gone the 1st 90 days. The last census that we had, there were almost 30,000 desire chips given out in Dallas, Texas. Dallas Fort Worth in a group office.

Almost 30,000 desire chips were given out. If Almost 30,000 desire chips were given out. At the end of 1 year, there was only about 15% of those people still here. There was like 2,000 people that picked up 1 year chips or picked up 90 day chips, excuse me, even less than that 1 year. People get all grindy about the statistics.

They say, well, I don't need somebody shooting statistics at me. Listen. I don't like to hear them either. But at some point in time in here, guys, what we have to do is start taking a hard look at us as a fellowship, each individual one. I know you're sober in here today, and God bless you.

I'm glad you're here. But we have to look and have to ask ourselves a question. How many of my brothers and sisters are staying sober as a result of doing this work? Is what we're saying in our meetings killing these guys rather than helping these guys, and the reality is guys, it's tough. I see half you guys nodding like this and the other half looking at the floor.

I'm not I don't I'm not trying to make you feel uncomfortable, but I listen. I remember when I got when I got hooked in with these bunch of big book thumpers and they started taking me back to the work and teaching me what I needed to know about our precious literature when they started teaching me about our history I was blown away and yet there was a part of me, this arrogance that stood over here that wanted to stand in defiance of the whole thing. I wanted to say, screw you guys. I know what I'm doing. I've been sober 7 years.

You see? It didn't make any difference that my life was in shambles and I could not you know, I went all those years and I never thought about killing myself, and at 7 years sober, that's all I can think of. I'm just going nuts, you see? Cliff Bishop and those boys that I met at that group, they they they grabbed me up and they got me in the literature as fast as they could. And we worked back through that work and they talked about taking these steps quick.

And they asked me questions like, like, how well where are you in the steps? Well, I've I've worked them all. I'm I'm done. Oh, well well, tell me about it. Tell me about your experience.

Okay. So I'd share a little about what I did and and they'd go, but I know, but what tell me about about the steps? Tell me about what you did on the steps. I'm going, well, you know, there there are different kinds of steps and you know this. You know what I mean?

We have 3 meetings a week, and they're all book studies. And yet I wanted to turn every one of those meetings into a discussion meeting. So if there was a pause in the study, I'd I'd like to say something, and I'd I'd I'd start sharing some some psycho crap that I've learned in some discussion meeting like this. And I just want somebody to recognize me for the intelligent human being that I am, you know. And I and these guy these guys are just like, oh my gosh.

And they're just they're so tired of me in the meeting. They're just so disgusted with the fact that I came in those rooms because it's just because I won't shut up trying to share all this stuff. I'm trying to share all of this. There's not one thing that I'm trying to share that's in the book. It's all just hip slick hip slick and cool stuff that I learned in in in open discussion meetings.

That's the reason why I don't like that kind of format anymore. I know people say, well, you shouldn't say that. Well, I hate the open discussion meeting format. I do. I do.

I think it's the worst thing that ever happened to Alcoholics Anonymous. And it's not because the format is so bad, it's because sponsorship has gotten so weak that nobody's there to hold it on track. There's nothing wrong with an open discussion meeting if you're talking about God and the steps and how do we get to that psychic change that we so dearly need to to live. And yet, we'll start the topic and then Sally Sue will go, I I I just need to talk about this, the thing, you know, and so we're gonna talk for the rest of the hour about the relationship thing again while this man is detoxing again in our meeting. You see?

It's crazy. It's it's it's just it's just bizarre. Guys, if there's one change that we need to make in Alcoholics Anonymous is around the area of sponsorship and around the area of 12 step work. It's just it's just imperative that we understand. How many of you guys came into AA, You don't have to raise your hand, but how many of you guys, came into AA and held all that at some distance because you felt like you needed to get well first?

You needed to get better first. I needed to get you know, most of us in here were as exactly like that. I did. Listen. At 6 months sober, I walked into a meeting and I sat down for speaker meeting and there's this guy standing at the podium just like me standing up here looking all sharp and he said You know what?

There are good 12 steppers and there are bad 12 steppers. And if you're not a good 12 stepper, you don't have any business doing that. And if you're not a good 12 stepper, you don't have any business doing that. And if And if you're not a good 12 stepper, you don't have any business doing that. I know today that's empty stupid opinion.

But I thought maybe he well, maybe he read that someplace in this thing. I don't know. The man I could have kissed the man that night, because he took away every piece of responsibility I had to carry a message of recovery. He took away every piece of it. I I know I don't have to go carry a message.

I don't have to do any of this stuff because I know I'm gonna be a pathetic twelve stepper. I'm gonna be a pathetic pathetic guy. So so I and so I bought into it. So guess what I did for the 1st 7 years I was over? I didn't sponsor anybody, and I didn't do any 12 step work.

And no wonder I got sick. You see? Because as we as I got over to primary purpose group in Dallas where I so where where I spent the last last 11 years, I'm reading through the book and on every page it's telling me that I need to get off my butt and go help a drunk. On every page it screens this stuff. And I'm thinking, golly, this book, didn't do it the way I did it.

You know? And still, there's this underlying arrogance that says that I was right and they're all wrong. You know? I wanna beat up this big old room full of big book thumpers because they're doing it wrong. You know?

Guys, if worldwide our success rates are less than 5% worldwide, we need to cut out the arrogance. We need to stop trying to defend trying to defend something that is not working. If the figures were reversed and we were we were back up 70, 80, 90% success rates, I'd shut up. I'd stop talking about this stuff, but it's not. And so the reality is, if so few people are coming and staying, then why is it that we wanna we wanna support it and defend it to the very end?

Why is it we love our stupid open discussion meeting so much that we're willing to kill a drunk over it? I'll tell you why. Because they're fun. They're ego inflating and they're fun. How many of you guys like to sit in a meeting and say something cute and clever and and then have somebody come up and slap you on the back after the meeting and say, man, I really like what you had to say in there.

The rest of you liars can hold up your hand later, because I'm telling you right now, we all do. That's why they're so much fun and that's why they've managed to stay a centerpiece of our fellowship for so many years. Let me tell you something, guys, in case you didn't realize it. The open discussion meeting was not a format of the big book. It did not spring from this literature.

It sprang from the grapevine. God bless them and screw them. I'm telling you. I bet you wish I was finished, but I'm not. Let's talk about this thing, about 12 Step stuff real quick.

I know you guys are saying, and you're thinking to yourself, Okay, listen. If I don't if I don't sit in the open discussion meeting and do all this discussing stuff, then what what is it I'm supposed to be doing? Here it is. Here's the game plan. Okay?

If you want it if you want it all spelled out, here here's the game plan. What we want you to do is we want you to to reread the book with a sponsor who has had a psychic change as a result of doing this work. That's important. See, I thought it I thought the psychic change was something that Bill Wilson put in the book to sell books. I didn't realize it was possible to actually have a spiritual experience as a result of doing these steps.

I thought it was something they made up. Well, they take me back to the work and all of a sudden I'm on fire and I'm just going, my gosh. I'm not believing this stuff. I'd call Chris every night we'd have a meeting and every morning or the on a on a Wednesday morning after meeting, I'd call Chris down in Kerrville and I'd say, Chris, Chris, Chris, you Guess how long it took Bill Wilson to work these steps? And he just he just laughed and he didn't he didn't jam me up.

He didn't make fun of me. I mean, he just. I mean, you guys gotta imagine what's going on here. I'm 7 years sober, and I'm finally learning what's in the book. Because collectively, as a fellowship, we want to be spoon fed AA.

We want to come in and sit in these rooms and have some old timers spoon feed us their views and versions of the big book. And who are we to dispute them? They're old. They're smart. They know what they're doing.

I'm old, and I'm not smart, and I don't know shit what I'm doing. Okay? I don't. But we're like parrots. That's how we learn.

Stop and think about your experiences in AA. Didn't you learn all you know because you watched other people do that stuff? This thing of drifting from our traditions or our 7th tradition of of of being self supporting. How many times do you walk in meetings now and see people just passing the hat and nobody putting any money in? Let me tell you something.

In the group I go to, the old guys taught me that wasn't cool. That basket would pass in front of me and I'd pass it to the next guy like this and the old guy sitting across me would look at me like this and he'd go and they'd pass the basket back down there and he'd sit in my lap until I put some money in it. You see? That's how we learn how to do this stuff. You see?

But it takes some it takes some courage to do this. It takes some courage to go against the grain and get back in the literature. The first 164 pages of this book gave us a clear cut set of directions on how to have a spiritual experience if we would just do it. This horse crap of having to come to our meeting and share our day is crap. Stop it.

Don't do it. And I know if you need to share some place, and you do. We all do. I'm not making light of any of your problems. We all need a place to share.

You know where to do it? They call it a sponsor. Go call your sponsor and tell him what a screwed up life you have or what a what a bizarre day you had at work. Do that. But in that precious simple hour that we have to carry a message of recovery, let's make sure that that's exactly what we're doing.

That we're talking about the big book, that we're talking about this spiritual experience so that the new guy coming in can get some hope. I know that you guys think that the drama in your meeting as you share all your bad day stuff and this sort of thing, I know you think it's important, but guess what the new guy thinks about it? He's thinks it's boring. He thinks it's pathetic. He's dying of a deadly disease and that's all we're gonna give him is just this.

Don't do that. Just stop. Our our meetings in in Texas at the group that I go to, we start at 7:30 in the evening, is, and I'm there at 4:30. We get all the tables and chairs set up. We're all set up to go and by 5 o'clock, my guys start showing up.

And between 5 and 7:30, I got take a number. Just it's next, next, next and I'm working through that stuff. The bad day stuff, all this other kind of stuff. And we're going through this 7:30, step up the podium, we get the meeting going, we do the deal, and I'll stay afterwards until the cows come home. I'll stay until we need to till we're done.

But the point is, we don't take up valuable recovery time talking about problems during the meeting. We talk about what we're supposed to be doing, which is studying this precious literature. Because if you study the work, it takes away all the anxiety and the fear that we talked about yesterday in the workshop. It takes away all that anxiety about what are we doing. Most of us don't want to do 12 step work and we don't want to sponsor because we're not sure what to do, But study takes that stuff away because now you understand the message that you're supposed to be carrying.

You're clear on that. We got a we got a we got a huge fellowship out here that wants to hold 12 step work and sponsorship at some distance, and we just sort of dance around it. Guys, the fire in the middle that is sponsorship and 12 Step work is the part that changes us. It's the part that that that melts us together and makes it all cohesive and work good. And we've got millions of us out there dancing around the fire, afraid to go through it and do it.

But what we have to do and realize is that guys, if we'll do that, if we'll just men, just grab one of these and just go take a deep breath and just walk through the fire. Just go do it. You see? And when you get through the other side, you are different. The fire has changed you immeasurably.

You're completely rearranged. Everything about your life has shifted. And until you experience it, it's like it's like we we we laugh all the time. It's like talking about sex. You you you remember when you were young?

I know how much of you guys could get any younger than you are, but but do you remember talking to people about sex and they'd tell you something about it like this and you go, oh, oh, yeah, it must be it must be awesome. You know? But they can't but you really can't connect all the dots. You see? And then but when you when you when you do that, guys like me, so when somebody has pity and does that with me, If I could take it all back, I would.

Honest, I didn't, but it's out now. But when you find out when you find out what sex is really like, you remember sitting back going, holy holy shit. Now I know what they're talking about. And you're changed. Everything about you shifts.

You see? And that's the way it is with this work that we're doing with this thing about AA. AA is a set of spiritual principles guaranteed to get you to God. And once you do that, everything in your life shifts. Your perceptions and ideas shift, your views of other people shift, your judgmental nature shifts.

Everything changes or at least that's the way it should be. They in the 3rd step prayer, they talk about being reborn. Let me ask you a question. Is there a busted up drunk or a busted up addict in this room that didn't pray for the chance to be reborn? The chance to just walk free and clear and be a different individual.

Well, that's what this program was all about. How do we build on those guys, understood early on that it couldn't be a it couldn't be a superficial change. It had to be something on a gut level that would bring about this change so that these things of body, mind, and spirit could go away. Let me do a little piece of house cleaning real quick. Everybody in here must by now understand the 3 part disease of body, mind, and spirit.

Right? I know you do. Few new guys understand this thing real quick. Sometime when you don't have anything else better to do, go back in the big book from the beginning to up about page 44 in our book. I'm not sure what it is in the Icelandic book, but where we agnostic chapter 4 starts.

Read everything from the we agnostic backwards towards the front of the book. And look at how much effort and and and verbiage is spent on trying to get you to understand about the mental obsession, the the mental part of this deal. And it's the most baffling part of our disease and yet we don't understand it. And and and and I I implore you, find you a sponsor to teach you these specific things before you frog off and work with anybody, before you do anything. See, early AA, they used to do this right off the bat.