The CPH12v3 conference in Copenhagen, Denmark

You guys just y'all need to see this. I mean alright. Single file. Everybody come up here and see what I'm seeing. This is the coolest thing that you guys I have to tell you.

I've talked, in some busted down places in my day and this isn't it. This is the nicest place I've ever talked at. At. It's just amazing. The, it's a little high.

Man, if you get a nosebleed up here, but it's, we'll see. You ready for me, brother? Yeah. Okay. My name is Myers Raymer, and I'm an alcoholic.

And I took my last nasty drink on January 15, 88, and, my home group is the primary purpose group in Dallas, Texas, and, I cannot tell you you what a pleasure it is to be here, and to meet all you guys and gals. It's so funny that hanging out with you guys is like I feel like a viking I just I never felt so manly in my whole life I just I know. I'm gonna go home to Texas and my wife is gonna be smiling for weeks, it's gonna be great. Well maybe not, we'll see. Viking men and the prettiest women I've ever seen in my whole life.

Danish women are a distraction and I don't understand how any man stays sober here. Steps are look at women. Steps are look. It's a no brainer man. We're all I'm glad I'm I'm married and, and happy.

I wanna thank Paul for ushering us around all afternoon and and Ivar and the other guys. I don't know how many of you guys have been involved in putting a conference on or putting a a thing together like this, but it takes a phenomenal amount of work. It's very frustrating. There's all kinds of things that can go wrong and usually do, and to know the work and effort that these men and women put in to putting this thing together is a phenomenal deal. If there's any way that you can support this thing dollar and cent wise so that they can get a good speaker up here next year, this is good.

Do that. Do that. I, it it's an amazing thing. We had a great dinner with Paul and and I gotta embarrass this guy. Where'd he go?

I don't see him now. He's there he is right there. He's 41 today, I believe. It's his birthday today, and so we give him an applause. The way I look at this thing, we've got, he's got 20 or 30 good years of helping drunks, and this is pretty amazing to see.

Think of the thousands of men this guy will be able to help in in the next 30 years. It's an amazing deal. You know, I sobered up in, in a little town in North Texas, and Chris, my twin brother, the evil twin, you've probably heard about. Chris will be up here Sunday, and and, you'll know immediately why they call him the evil twin. But but Chris and I were drinking buddies and we we we lived together for a long time and and he worked with us at at this bindery that my wife and I owned, and and, it was just a bizarre time.

I mean, we we drank and did those other outside issues a lot, and it was just things got pretty bizarre. But when Chris sobered up in, in November of 87, there was my best drinking buddy gone. And I and I I'd love to tell you that I supported him and I told him how proud I was of him. I made his life hell. Hell I just I just I said all the nasty things I bugged you Where's your big book?

I mean I just it was bad. But I watched him for the next 2 months, and I watched how his life changed. They talk about AA being a program of attraction rather than promotion. I watched Chris's life change right in front of me. Day by day, he's the anger went away and the the discontent and the the the frustration, and I just watched him change.

And and I remember being real drunk at work one night watching him back there working. He'd he'd been there 12 12 hours already. He was still there. I wasn't. I was out getting drunk, and I came back to the shop, and I'm I'm kinda standing back over in the dark watching him back there work.

And and I just I just watched him. You know, here was a man who had found a solution to a disease that was had kicked his rear. Chris was the bad seed, and I used to always say if I drink like him, I'll squint too. You know? We drank identically, you see?

And I I just and I remember going home that night and telling my wife, you know, if there's any way I can do what he did, I'm gonna do it. And so I called him and I said, will you take me one of those stupid meetings in the morning? And he said, yeah. And he did. He I mean, he he just kinda held my hand and walked me right into my first AA meeting, and I I it was just an amazing thing.

Let me I wanna clarify something real quick, and I'm gonna watch the clock and I promise you I'll be brief. I know I talk too fast. I haven't figured out this Danish language yet, and, I haven't figured out the money. I haven't figured out much of any of it, but, if I talk too fast, I'm encouraging you to, you cheap guys, buy buy the CDs and, support the conference and then you can play them real slow. You guys will be going, oh that's what he was talking about.

I understand. Most of you will be going, if I'd have known he was saying that I'd have been really mad. So What I want you to understand going in on this thing is that I'm not here. You guys didn't bring me all the way from the United States to judge you or to try to tell you how to have a better program. I mean, it's not not my job to say you're doing it wrong and I'm doing it right.

I'm I'm just sharing an experience of 17 years of doing this work, and I've seen it from 2 different sides. I've got a crystal clear image of middle of the road solution in AA that about killed me. I'm the poster boy for middle of the road solution. And I've also by a set of directions what it was I was supposed to do. And then I had me this crusty old sponsor that held me accountable and made me do the things that the book suggested I do.

And the view is completely different. Completely different. And if and if and if your view is from the middle of the road side of the deal, I'm not judging you. My only reason for even mentioning it is that at some point in time, you may find that everything in AA becomes grimy. Everything becomes frustrating for you because you're not getting the solution you need the way you're doing it.

And so all I'm suggesting is that perhaps you could remember that's all I'm saying. After the after the talk, don't come up and wait. Get real grindy with me. That's all I'm saying. After the after the talk, don't come up and get real grindy with me because I said something about discussion meetings.

I'll get it all out right now. I hate open discussion meetings. I think they're terrible. If that didn't hack you off, then we're we're home free, guys. We don't we have nothing to worry about because that's the most controversial thing I'm gonna say.

There's just so much to talk about. I just it just what I want you to do is I picture this situation. I'm brand new sober and I'm sitting in these meetings. Remember the first meeting you ever got set in? Remember?

And how excited you were because there was a there was a piece of hope, there was some excitement that maybe you didn't have to get up in the morning and do all that stupid stuff you've been doing? And that's exactly the way it was when I sobered up in north north Texas. It was terrific. 2 years down the road, things are still pretty good. We're still doing what we're supposed to do, and then things began to change in our fair group.

One of the things that happened was that Chris moved. We had a big book guy in there that left, and it was left with a bunch of other guys in there and some of these guys didn't didn't do the book and they didn't like the idea of of taking any instruction from a book. We have we have 21 meetings a week, and all of them were discussion meetings. It was bizarre. And we there were some guys that moved in and the only reason I put this in this story and mentioned it was because I heard a man say one time that there's no such thing as a bad AA meeting.

Let me assure you. Let me assure you. There he is. There he is. There are some cesspools of AA out there.

So these guys said, you know, I think what we're doing is I think we're talking about God too much in our meetings, and perhaps we ought to not talk about God, and we'll just talk about some of this other stuff. And I I I was in the meeting that night, guys. I mean, I'd love to be able to stand up here all sanctimonious and say, are you believing they did that? I was there when they said it, and I didn't say one word. I just said, well, if that's what you guys think.

And we voted God out of that AA meeting. And it was if you think the meetings were goofy before, you should've seen them after we took our solution out of the meeting You could sit in there for day upon day upon day and never hear anything that was solution based. Nobody was staying sober. There was more. The only thing that was going on in that in that group was wreckage.

Sexual wreckage, people just horrible things going on. We had taken God out of the meeting. I'd like to tell you that I'm smart enough that I got right out of that group and found me a healthy group, but I hung in for another 4 years, almost 5 years after that, thinking in my own arrogance that I could fix it, that I could figure out some way to make it by the end of 7 years, guys. I'm telling you, I had gone from this goofy drunk that was doing toe sacks full of outside issues to a a guy that was okay. I was able to hold work together some.

My wife's my business partner in this deal, and we were we were just everything was okay. And then I began to get sicker and sicker and sicker until finally, it just started falling apart. And if you can imagine how sickening it was for me to be 7 years sober, and I'm writing hot checks all over Denton County, I cannot keep my eyes off other women. I'm not touching. I'm just looking, but sometimes that's as bad.

I mean, when you're drooling every time a girl walks in, you know. I mean, what does that say to the men you're sponsoring? You know? I mean, it just I'm so irritable, somebody wants to start talking about something again, and I'm going, jeez. Why do you have to talk about this again?

Didn't we talk about that stupid divorce yesterday? You see? And it just I mean, where's the love? Where's the tolerance? Where's any of it?

I don't I am so you know exactly what it's like. We we in Dallas, other places too, I guess, we call them the walking wounded. We have we have meetings full of people that are hurting so desperately inside because the solution is not there. They're they bought in I heard a guy little a little late this morning at a treatment center that we went to. And she said, well, I heard 90 meetings in 90 days, and every time I hear that, I used to say that all the time.

Guys, I hate to break this to you, but nowhere in this precious piece of literature does it say that going to meetings is a solution to your problem. It is not in there. It is not. Okay. You arrogant little piss ants.

However, one of you guys half this room is gonna go to your sponsor tonight and say you know what? He said I didn't have to go to meetings. I did not say that. I I did not say that. And I want you to understand how important the meeting is in the big picture of things in terms of getting plugged in for many of us.

For most of it, it was the first time we ever felt a part of and connected to anything. You see? It's hugely important. But you must understand that the solution is not just being with a butt in a seat in a meeting. It's about working the work and doing what we're supposed to be doing.

So I'll cut to the chase. I'm sitting in this meeting, 7 years sober, and I'm so sad and so tore up inside I can't stand it. And I finally, at at the end of this meeting, I said, guys, there's about 30 people in this room, and I said, guys, I gotta tell you something. I don't think I'm gonna make it. I'm really struggling here, and this guy interrupted me, and he said, Myers, all you gotta do is just go to some more meetings.

And I I just I remember I got up. I said, thanks guys. I appreciate your help, and I appreciate your kindness, and I walked outside. It was hotter than hell in Texas, and I just I remember the heat just, bam, hit me in the face and I walked up and I got an old beat up Toyota Land Cruiser with no air conditioning and I just set up in that car and I closed the door. I remember the way the inside of that truck smelled.

I remember everything about that moment because all I could do is put my head down on that steering wheel and weep because I'm so so tore up. There is nothing I can do. I can't go to any more meetings than I'm going to, and if that's my solution, I'm screwed. I'm simply screwed. A couple of nights later, I went into a beer store there in Lake Dallas where where I live and I and I I just I'm standing in front of this beer cooler and I just kinda checked out.

And I don't know how long I've been standing there, but it was long enough for the lady behind me to be mad. She's tapping me on the shoulder going, hey, mister. Are you gonna get something or not? And I it just kinda came to and I looked around and it scared me so bad, guys I had no business being in that store. I wasn't there to get milk or eggs or nothing.

I was there to get a beer. And it scared me so badly I just backed out of that store and I called Chris that night and I said Chris now lives in another town and I called him and I said Chris it almost happened. And he said you know what? I've been telling you for 5 years to get out of that group and go find another group. Go find some place where the solution is.

He said, don't do anything. In a couple of days from now, I'm gonna be in Dallas doing a talk, and I'm gonna get you plugged in with a group. We'll find somebody to help you, and I hung on with that hope. The funny part about it was that was the second time Chris had saved my life. He got me into this deal and then he saved it the second time when he finally convinced me that I needed to move out of that group.

And the only reason I mentioned any part of that story, guys, is because some of you tonight are sitting in groups that have gotten sick, that have gotten toxic because of the message that's there. Nobody meant you any harm, nobody meant you any malice, these are these are all great men and women, but you need to look closely and ask yourself those personal questions. Am I getting a message of recovery here? Is there still hope here? Or are we just a bunch of guys that like to slap each other on the back and tell dirty jokes and drink coffee?

And so much of AA has got there. You see? So Chris got me poking with this old guy, and I went and I met him, and I I'll tell you this, I I just it's like meeting Moses or somebody. I mean, this this guy was close to 80 years old at the time, 70 something at the time. And, I knocked on his door and he opened the door and he scared me a little bit.

He's, you know, he's just I I never met guy. I I open the door and he says, where's your big book? And I'm I mean, he didn't say, hi. My name is Cliff Bishop. He didn't say he didn't say, where's your big book?

And I went, I don't know, mister Bishop. I hadn't seen it in several years. And he said, well, here's mine. Don't come back without it. Just like that.

Now guys, intuitively, I knew that I was in for a life changing event. Because this old guy grabbed me by the shoulder, moved me into his living room, and we sat down. And in about an hour and a half, he had taken me basically through the work again. He showed me things that I had never seen before, and frankly, my mind is divided in 2. Half of my mind is is saying this guy's full of crud Yeah And and the other half is saying wait a minute wait a minute maybe he's got something here You see?

Because he kept talking about stuff like action and doing things and getting up off my rear and carrying a message and this guy. And I'm telling him, you know, I Clifford, I can barely stay sober. Why do you want me to go carry a message? You see? I'm not ready to do that yet, and I'm telling you, he whipped me like I was a small kid.

I mean, he just nailed me with this stuff. He said, Tuesday Tuesday night, we got a big book study. You be there. End of meeting. And I came back Tuesday night, and I'm telling you guys the next 5 or 6 months was the coolest experience of my life because what's happening is he's feed those guys are feeding me full of big book on a Tuesday night, and I'm calling him on on Chris on a Wednesday and curve up on Chris, Chris, Chris.

Do you know how long it took Bill Wilson to work this work? I'm getting really excited about this stuff because all the sudden, the the book that had been there for 7 years is now all the sudden coming alive, and I'm starting to identify myself in Bill's story. I mean let me give you an example. We agnostics, I'm not an agnostic, so why read that chapter? Flip flip flip flip.

I never said I was smart. But that's where my logic takes me. I'm not a wife, so I don't have to read that one. I'm not a this, so I don't have to read that one. I'm not a you see?

I just remember the line in the big in the in the, the 5th chapter, chat, how it it works, where it says half measures avail us nothing. You know what? I mean, I always read that to say in my head that half measures avail you at least half success. It doesn't. Half measures availed us nothing, which means that I got exactly what I deserved.

I deserved to be the way that I was because of the effort that I had put into it, which was exactly nothing. I heard a guy from the podium one night talk about, how did that 6 months over and he said, you know what? I'd shoot him tonight if I could. If I could find him, I would. I'm taking outside the media.

You guys would be cleaning the blood up because I'm telling you this. This guy said, you know, 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. Now I don't know where he got it, but for me, that was my I mean, it was the I he could not have said anything that made me happier because I didn't wanna do any 12 step work, and I didn't wanna do anything that made me feel uncomfortable. So I, in my head at that moment, I just said, I'm never gonna be good at 12 step work, so I just will I'll skip that part.

Little did I understand because I'd never read the book that everything from the title page all the way through a 164 pages in our text, I'm not sure what it is in yours, but the first part of the basic text, everything says that we are to draw a sober breath, and then we are to what? Go find a drunk to work with. Go find a drunk. You new guys in here? Go find you that drunk.

Did it ever because we trivialized that whole thing, did it ever occur to you why Bill Wilson wrote an entire chapter, chapter 7, working with others? It got it got a whole chapter just for that one deal. It was a big thing. You see? A big thing.

Let me let me read something real quick. On that on that 12 step, Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message without colleagues in the practice these principles in our affairs. Every one of you guys knows this by heart. Right? Most of you anyway?

But listen to this, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message. What message? That we had a spiritual experience as a result of doing these steps. That's the message that we need to be carrying and yet for 7 years, people say think I'm lying every time I say this, I said in I don't know how many meetings. I was going to at least 6 meetings a week for 7 years, and nobody ever said one word about a spiritual experience as a result of doing this work.

I knew everything about Sally Sue's divorce. I knew everything about Joe's inability to get a job. I knew everything. But I didn't know one thing about a spiritual experience. So the first time I'm over at Primary Purpose and we began reading this stuff, I'm thinking that it's possibly something Bill Wilson wrote to sell books.

I did not believe it was something that was possible to have, that you could internalize it and have this thing called a psychic change. I'm still trying to fix my alcoholism through all the external stuff. I gotta get the wife lined up and the job lined up and the and the car. We call it the trinity. The job, the girl in the car.

Is there a man in here that doesn't know exactly what I'm talking about? If you came out of treatment, we were talking we're talking about this this morning. If you came out treatment, I guarantee you, you walked out the front door and you went like this, smelled a little clean air and then you went, the job, the girl, the car. You forgot everything back here. Everything.

Because the only thing that's important to a man at that stage of the game is I gotta get the job back so the income stream comes back, then I can get the car back because I can't get the girl without the car. And once I get the car back, you see? And so we're gonna we're and so as we focus on this AA trinity thing here, we lose sight of the fact that God gave us a clear set of directions guaranteed to change our lives on a cellular level, to be reborn. We forget it all, and then we wonder why so many of us weeks, moments, seconds after getting out of treatment begin to flounder and begin to get all twisted up again. The spirituality rekindles itself and we get goofy.

The mental obsession is there in full force to tell us that we don't have a problem. And then what do you do? Your head takes you back to a time when the booze worked, when the outside issues worked, doesn't it? And you're going, you know what? We were laughing about this stuff the other day.

We won't in your head for a moment, think of the worst thing that ever happened to you. In the depths of your disease, the crap beat out of you? Maybe you got put in jail? You pick it. You got the crap beat out of you?

Maybe you got put in jail? You pick it. It doesn't make any difference. And then I want you to stop and think what you were doing 24 hours later, 48 hours later. If you're like me, I know exactly what you were doing.

You were drunk again. See, the normal drinker wouldn't think of doing that. I can remember my wife. She'll kill me if she hears me saying this in front of a bunch of nice people, but I can remember her when we were dating 20 some odd years ago, 25 years ago, and I remember her we were we were drinking a beer, and she dropped the hamburger in her lap. I don't even know if she was drunk or not, but she dropped this hamburger in lap, and it embarrassed her so badly that, you know, as a normal drinker, when she drinks a beer now or when she drinks something, a glass of wine, you know what she thinks of?

That night. And she, she goes like, I'm not gonna drink another one of those. I don't want that to happen. You see that? I was in a pizza joint one night up in North Texas and I got in a a little fisticuff with a guy and I tried to kill him with a beer pitcher.

This 19 year old kid with a black cowboy hat about that wide, that's the only thing I can remember about the whole night. I almost did kill him before they got him got me off of this guy and, I don't even remember what it was about. Now I think, oh, I forgot to say the good news. The good news was my 3 year old daughter was standing right there watching the whole thing. You see?

Well, guess what I was doing 24 hours later? This drunk was a skunk again. You see? Because that's what we do. I'm a big one for asking questions.

We get spoon fed a version of AA in our meetings, and sometimes the book gets taken out of the picture. And we have well meaning, well meaning men and women who love us to death, that tell us things that are not program based, they're opinion based. I've never heard one piece of opinion shared in a meeting that was meant out of malice. Nobody was being mean. Nobody got up one morning and say, you know what?

When I see Myers in the next meeting I'm gonna really screw him up I'm gonna give him some really bad advice They don't do that They don't do that. What do they do? Everybody is well is they mean well. But you have to, at some point in time, you have to be proactive in your own recovery. You have to be able to to know the opinion not programming.

And if you're new, it's hard to tell which is which. You talking opinion not programming. And if you're new, it's hard to tell which is which, isn't it? I I know it is for a lot of you. For a lot of you guys, you've been around a long time, and you're still having difficulty telling what's real AA program and what's just somebody's well meaning opinion.

And so the first thing that we need to do on this thing is, because that 12 step the way it was written is, it said having had a spiritual experience, so what's the first thing that we have to do? Have the spiritual experience. And if you have not, do it. I mean, see, the guys that I worry about are not the young guy coming in here so much. I'm worried about the guys my age that have been doing this thing kind of middle of the road y and kind of kelter skelter all these years.

They're here, they're sober, they still want to be involved, but they're really not sure about what this whole thing is about. In the depths of the night, they think about these things. Do I really understand why I'm an alcoholic? Do I really understand why I drink this way? Do I really know what it is I'm supposed to be doing with this new guy that asked me to sponsor him?

Man, don't we do that? We ask these things, and I hate doing it in the middle of the night because I'll lay there for 2 hours going, do I really know what my responsibility is to this man? To this group? See? So the first thing we need to do is ask ourselves, have we had this spiritual experience?

If we have not had this spiritual experience, then let's let's do what we have to do to get plugged in. If you're an older guy or if you're a younger guy and you've not done this stuff, go find a sponsor that has had the spiritual experience and work back through the work. You may love your existing sponsor. It doesn't mean you gotta can somebody. It doesn't mean you gotta shoot them in the parking lot.

Just you screwed my a a a up. That's what you did. Don't do that. Just go find you a sponsor who has had who's done the work and had that spiritual experience, and then go do that. If you don't know, some of you guys are going, I don't know if I've had it.

Let me ask you a question. Yeah. Okay. Let me ask you this question. Do you know if you've had sex or not?

You better. Chris and I were laughing about this stuff one day. You remember you remember when you were real young or pretty young or whatever it was when you when but when you were just talking about sex? Don't worry people with kids, I'm not gonna say anything nasty, honest. I have 3 daughters, I gotta always worry about this stuff, you know?

You remember just talking about it? And your friend maybe did it, and then he's telling you all about it, you know, like this, and you're going, oh, man. It sounds it sounds great. And then on down the road, you actually do it. And then you go back to that friend and you go, buddy, you didn't tell me about this.

I mean, you didn't you come in. You see what I'm saying? You can't describe that kind of deal. And it's the same way with the spiritual experience. As you do the work and as you begin to change internally, it's hard to describe.

And so for many of us, we get off into AA far enough that now our arrogance and our ego is to a point to where we don't want to admit that maybe we have missed the experience. And so I implore you, if you if you're questioning that, come see me, and then let's get you plugged into a bunch of these guys. I've talked to a ton of guys this weekend all who have done this stuff. I've seen very little middle of the road stuff. Most everybody I've talked to is so plugged into this work that you are truly blessed to have them here.

These are true leaders in your community in the AA deal. They know what they're doing. Trust them Because your life will be changed forever as a result of doing this stuff, guys. We were at a men's meeting last night. I think it was last night.

I did. I'm so befuddled, the and, and I was blown away by the maturity that these men showed in this this meeting. Unbelievable stuff. You should be very proud to have these guys here. Yeah.

Let me tell you the reason reason that you're that you need to be proud of these men that are doing this, and I'm saying this because I've met more men than I have women, and, I only met you women in my dreams. You're special. I the reason that you need to be proud of these men is because it takes courage to do what they're doing. You understand it it it to take heat from an AA community that needs to be unified is tough, and it takes some real courage to stand there and say, you know what? This is the way the book told us to do this, so we're gonna do it this way.

It takes a great deal of courage and commitment to do that, and some of these men, like like like Chris and Alicia and some of these people that have done this, have taken a huge amounts of heat over the years for what? For getting back to the basic text of our products anonymous? Doesn't that strike you as bizarre that we would have to defend the text, and yet we do it all the time. I was doing a talk in in Fort Worth a couple of years ago and a woman physically pulled me off the podium. Physically like this and then got right in my face and she's hit me in the shoulder so hard that I'm going lady stop.

I'm not a viking ant. I can't take this. She was so irritated, and I'm late I was going, lady, I didn't invent this stuff. I didn't write this text. Bill Wilson, doctor Bob, and a 100 men and women who experienced it wrote it.

All I'm doing is trying to get you focused back on it. I don't give a rat's patootie if you get it or not. Thanks. I'm out of here. You know?

Glad I'm not married to her too. I guarantee you. But some people get like that, and it's okay to do this. I wanna talk about this 12 step stuff real quick. Okay?

Because everything that we're doing this weekend, Chris Sunday will primarily talk about, sex with animals and things like that. It's what he usually talks about. But when he finishes, he's gonna address he's gonna address the big picture talk about why we do the things we do. Why are we here? Because you must understand that.

Why? It's not so important that you understand it just from your own selfish standpoint, but because you can't transmit what you haven't got. So if you don't understand this body, mind, and spirit, the 3 fold disease that kicks our our collective rears, if you don't understand that, then you can't carry that. And so when the new guy sticks out his hand and says, would you help me? You go, okay.

I call me in a couple of months and we'll talk about it. I mean, you'll do anything you can to Dustin because you don't really understand the deal yourself, and you must do that. Alicia does a great job in the middle part of this thing too, explaining the cause and effect of why we're here doing this stuff. The biggest single the biggest single piece of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous that we have trivialized and left out of the picture is this precious 12 step work. This responsibility to get up off your rear once you've been given this gift and go carry that message to another ground.

There are thousands upon thousands of us out here that believe that I'm gonna sit in a meeting and discuss things and make coffee and discuss things again and never get off my rear and go carry a message of recovery. If some sick sick guy comes into our meeting and sits down right across from me, and I can't avoid his eyes, and I cannot avoid him talking to me, I may be forced to address this sponsorship thing with this kid. I'm not taking your inventory, I'm telling you I did that for years, that's the reason I know it so well. I don't wanna sponsor you. Thank you.

I wanna come and talk and sit on my rear end, but I do not want to have to take the responsibility of another drunk's life. You see? And the funny part about that statement is is that in making that decision, AA. And if there is one, it's that. Our responsibility to carry a message to our brothers and sisters in this fellowship that are so desperate for a solution out of this deal, not any well meaning opinions.

They need the facts. How do I get from point a as a slobber and drunk to something like you that can love and live life and be creative and be vibrant and be a a member of society? What a distance from where we were to where we need to be. You see? And once it's happened to you, if you're sitting on your butt not carrying that message, shame on you.

I will take your inventory from that. We've been given this the most precious gift that God has ever given a man or a woman a chance to walk free and clear from this deadly disease, and for us to hoard it like it's ours, like we own it, this is not good. But in carrying that message, guys, there's a line on page 132, and I and and and on our text, and I guess it's in here somewhere around it, it says, that we have recovered and been given the power to help others. The illusion is is that we must learn so much and we AA scholars before we have what it takes to go carry a message. Let me tell you something, guys.

I sponsor a fistful of young men that don't know a great deal about the book yet. They're learning, but they're not quite there yet. Let me bring them up here and let them loose on you for a couple of seconds, and I guarantee you, they'll be wailing and gnashing of teeth by the time they get back there. These men, if you even if you even seem like you don't understand the book, they'll be right in your face. They'll be carrying what they know about this program.

They'll be sharing what's happened in their life, they'll be carrying that hope. This horse crud about saying that we gotta be in meetings for a year before we help a drunk. Well, I'm sorry. I've been through the book a few times, and I can't tell you where I where where that is. If you're sober here a day, tomorrow you'll be sober 2 days, and there'll be somebody in here that's been sober a day.

And you know what that new guy wants to know? That new guy wants to know, can I get up on my second day and not drink? Can I get up on my second day and not obsess about putting something in my body to make me feel whole and okay? And he doesn't wanna hear the message from a crusty old fart like me. He wants to hear it from you.

He wants to hear it from a kid who's who's living it right then. And there is nothing sweeter, guys. I'm telling you there is nothing sweeter. You you men and women that sponsor people right now know exactly what I'm talking about. You sponsor women and men and you watch them change and then you watch them you I'll never forget the night I walked in and one of the first guys that was one of my really success story kind of guys, he was just a busted up street guy, and I watched him change, and I walked in, been sober 3 weeks.

I wanna say this again guys, He'd been sober 3 weeks. We had worked through the work. He had had that psychic change, and I walked into that door, and guess what? He's sitting in the middle of this room, we're setting chairs up, and he's sitting in the middle of the room with a big book on his lap, and there's another man facing him, knees touching with a big book on his lap, and he's carrying that man through the work. And I'm telling you, I went, and I walked I backed up out of that room, and I put my head against that wall, and I wept like a kid because there it was, the dots had been connected.

I finally understood. This is not about whether Myers stays sober or not, This is about whether we can effectively carry a message of recovery here that could be transmitted to him and her. Can it? Sure it can. And if that's not good enough news, they can transfer it to her.

Is there anything sweeter on God's greener for a group of busted up drunks and addicts to be able to take a message that is so powerful that it affects everything about the people that we sponsor? Is there any more I I guess an outsider would look at my life and they would say, you know what? Myers, your life is pathetic. You just work with those drunks. Maybe my life is pathetic, but I'm telling you right now guys, there's nothing that I've ever experienced that is so sweet than to see lives change and people become healthy and wives embrace their husbands again for the first time in years, and kids not do this when you walk in the room.

You know? It's not about not drinking, guys. This is not about not drugging, guys. This is about how do we walk through life with our head up and have some dignity. How do we walk through life being able to be of service to another man or another woman?

To know that our lives counted for something besides some lame, goofy, self serving crap that we do all the time. I wanna tell you a quick story and then I'll stop. Some of you guys have heard me talk about this kid named Terry. It's a quick story, And, you know, and the the main reason I tell it is because it it it perfectly demonstrates exactly the stuff that I'm talking about. This need to refocus what we do and get more plugged in to what our primary purpose is.

Tradition 5 said that our primary purpose is to carry the message of recovery to another alcoholic. It wasn't to solve Saudi Sue's marital stuff. It was to carry a message of recovery. You see? So picture this situation.

There's a place in Dallas called Homer Bound. It's a place for indigent, drunks. You guys all make too much money to go there. These are this is for really really tough guys and, they they I saw we're carrying the message there. We we sponsored our group to sponsored 8 or 900 men and women out of this thing.