The steps on saturday morning at the CPH12v3 conference in Copenhagen, Denmark

Does my hair look alright? My name is Chris Ramer. I'm a recovered alcoholic. I'm delighted to be here. I could use some sleep, but I'm delighted to be here.

This is, this is gonna be good. I, I feel so tall. I know really. I, we've got you for a couple hours here this morning and then we'd eat lunch and have it for a couple more hours. We're gonna try not to drag this out too long because we don't wanna wear anybody out.

I wanna talk to you a little bit about, alcoholism. And, as always, I'm gonna get the chance to visit with some of you in the morning at 10, when I tell my story. So I'm not gonna get into that much this morning. But I wanna make sure I start by saying that, just like as my brother did last night, and he he is the evil one. I I just I just we just need to go ahead and get that straightened out.

No? I, we're not, you know, big book gurus, you know, it's not our way or the highway. We're we're, I spent years trying to get sober and and and I finally got back in alcoholics novels in 1987. And there was a bunch of people that for the first time slowed down and tried to explain what this was about to me. And I started doing the book just just like our earlier speaker that just spoke, you know, it's like all of a sudden and this thing starts to make sense, buddy, your life changes forever.

And and the sad part is we get to see so many alcoholics and addicts out there who never get to that spot because they're they're never told the truth. And I and I say it like my brother said last night, if I nobody intentionally lied to me. None none of the counselors lied to me. None of the treatment centers lied to me. None of the none of the people in AA lied to me.

They just a lot of them just didn't know any better. And in their attempts to try to help me, they kind of watered the message down and, what happened was it wouldn't work for me. See, as I'm gonna talk about tomorrow too, but I'm a real alcoholic. I'm not this little disco drunk, you know, who who had a few too many and his wife spanked him and said you gotta stop raping. Oh, KK and I will hang out now at the AA meeting.

I've been sober for a 1000000 years. That's not my experience. My experience was I nearly drugged myself to death. And, I took a lot of drugs and I I damaged myself with that. And I could not stop.

The book explains real clearly. Again, we're gonna refer to some pages and I and there it won't make much sense because it's not gonna coincide with with the Danish book. But some of y'all I know have that regular English, the American version there. Well, on page 34 it says real clearly. It says it says assume that you want to stop, can you stop on a non spiritual basis?

In other words, it it it depends on to the point where you have lost the power to choose whether you're gonna do this or not. Whether you're really one of us. If you can click because you hit a bottom, you just I'm I'm tired of hurting. I'm not gonna drink anymore, and you don't need a spiritual solution. I'm gonna tell you this folks, you're welcome in this fellowship.

You're welcome in AA. Have a nice life. I just the person that you sponsor, I hope you don't kill. Because this person you sponsor might be like Chris Ramer, who'd be who's a real alcoholic, who needs the spiritual experience in order to get sober. Y'all y'all with us?

So it's like I don't wanna come across as arrogant up here. I'm I'm very humbled and very honored to get a chance to to to share some of my experience with you. I work in a treatment center. I I I'm around alcoholics and drug addicts and I get to watch a lot of people not get this thing. I watch a lot of people die.

Now I'm I am I'm pretty passionate about it. I've there's a way that works. It's called the 12 steps. But in the United States, that message has been so down, it's sort of an option. You can come to the fellowship and if you want to, maybe, someday, you can work the steps.

And that's that that almost killed me. One of the one of the problems we see in the hospital when when the when the, patients come in to our hospital. It's a big treatment center. And they all come in, and some of them have been to treatment a dozen times, you know. But they come in, and then the first thing out of their mouth is, I know I'm an alcoholic.

I know I'm a drug addict. And the first thing out of my mouth is, you're a liar. Because you because once you know you're one of us, I mean, I don't mean here intellectually. I mean here. It where it counts.

The book says you gotta be convinced to your innermost self. Guys, I called myself an alcoholic all my life. I remember at 21 years old, somebody said, Chris, you drink a lot like an alcoholic. Oh, I am. I am.

Poor beat up. You know, sympathy thing. I'm the victim, you know? I don't have to pay my bills. What do you expect?

I'm an alcoholic. You don't have to do anything, you know? You can't get a date? Go up next to some good I'm just a a poor out you wouldn't want to go out with me, would you? And you know you'll find somebody sooner or later sick enough absolutely.

You know I can't a lot of us have done it. You know you can use this victim stuff to your advantage. I'm sure you and, I'm sure y'all freezing your butts off over here understand that, so thank you. I in the in the hospital when they come in, they say I'm an alcoholic. And you say, no.

I believe you're you're lying. I believe you don't really believe you're an alcoholic. And they get very defensive. They get very defensive because they've spent all of this time talking themselves into being an alcoholic. Now they spent a whole bunch of money coming to treatment again.

You with us? And they think something's gonna be different when they leave. It's not. It's not gonna be different unless they slow down and truly look at the first step. And and I'm gonna spend some time this morning, really focusing on this first step piece.

And there's gonna be some of you that some of the stuff I'm gonna say is gonna make you a little uncomfortable. Oh, okay? It's even if it's not okay, it's gonna happen. You know, so because here's what happened. The thought of being an alcoholic doesn't make us uncomfortable.

The thought of not being an alcoholic makes some of us very uncomfortable. And some of you cats in this room that are not you you may not be alcoholic and addict. You're calling yourself an alcoholic and addict. But the reason that you can't identify these means, the reason you can't get comfortable is you're not one of us. I've done quite quick, didn't it?

So we're gonna be around in that. Like I said, we're gonna talk for about an hour, and then we'll go smoke and come back in and and and spend some more time. I'm gonna answer some questions later on in the day so we can talk and you guys can can get some clarity around this. Because I don't want anybody to leave this this wonderful place where we're getting this chance to share here with questions and and and I don't want you to be irritated. I don't want you to get pissed at me.

Because I'm the shy and sensitive alcoholic. I am. You guys hear those CDs, you know, it's it's amazing. Y'all hear these CDs and you think, God, this little guy, he's he's gotta be I mean, he's tough. You know?

And it's like this I'm not. Y'all see me sitting over here by myself quiet. That's that's my natural state. I am the shyest person in this room. Until I start talking about this, until I start remembering just like our earlier speaker talking about dying after on the street, then I get real defensive.

Because you think it's your right to come into meetings and share anything you want. It's not in this book. It has nothing to do with recovery. You with us? And and I'm here to say it is not your right to do that.

We have one message. One message. It's the 12 steps. It's the spiritual experience. And if you're sharing something else besides that, you're wrong.

Okay. Everybody everybody in the United States it's like no matter where I travel, I travel around a lot in the States and I don't get a chance to get out of the country very often, but, because I can't sleep. But, it's everywhere you go, everybody's tiptoeing. You know? Everybody's afraid they're gonna piss somebody else off.

You know? Well, this is suggested. We're only this is only an this guys, this is as rigid as can be. Alcoholics and drug addicts die. Fatal illness.

It's progressive. It always gets worse. It's chronic. You will die from it. We have a solution that is guaranteed to work.

No exception. But yet we wanna treat this like it's an option. Like it's just so it's just suggested. These are the steps we are suggesting you take folks. It's not a program of suggestions.

See? If you want what we have, if you want the spiritual experience, if you want a changed life, you're gonna have to get off your butt and do something. The patients that come to my hospital, they're in Texas. When they come to this place, they've spent a ton of money and lots of time to to get there. I mean, goodness gracious, guys.

They're gonna get the same results though, because we don't we don't send people out of that hospital, sober alcoholics. We don't send recovered alcoholics out of that hospital. We send dry alcoholics out of that hospital. Dry drug addicts. Y'all follow us?

We clean them up. We get the chemical out of their system. Other than that, if they don't get connected to groups like this in Alcoholics Anonymous and our sister fellowships in cocaine anonymous, in narcotics anonymous, in marijuana anonymous, in crystal meth anonymous, they don't find a home in these groups. They're gonna die. We make phone calls after they interpret.

But we know we know this. We've got a great success rate there. We pound this pretty hard. But in our arrogance, we think we can do it our own way. You can't.

You can't get sober without some humility. You've gotta have the ability to be honest with yourself, and you've gotta have some humility. Humility to know that you're gonna need God to get sober. And how many people do we see every day that are just unwilling to do that? So this is what we're gonna talk about a little bit.

I want you to see on the board, I I write worse than I talk, but, I'll call see the little 15% on the top. Lower. It's a it's a genetic predisposition. Alcoholism and drug addiction is not causal. This will irritate some of you.

Alcoholics are not created. They're born that way. Treat centers hate this when we start talking about this stuff, because they're making a fortune in the United States telling you that you were you were made that way. See, you you can't make somebody that's not genetically wired like an alcoholic an alcoholic. The the the alcohol can exact let's say a kid is, hurt as a child is molested or or or somebody goes through some trauma in the in the war or something.

That that will exacerbate the problem and make them drink or take drugs more than a normal person. Would would you all agree with that? Absolutely. But given sufficient reason those cats can stop. They can do some good therapy.

They can work through it. Come out the other side. If you're genetically white it's like being allergic to food. Anybody allergic to food in here? What are you what are you allergic to?

Milk? Yeah. A lot? Yeah? And beer.

And beer. Yeah. We probably dated. I don't Milk. If she drinks milk it'll affect her adversely.

Most of y'all in this room don't have any problem with milk. You'll follow us? If she drinks it, then she has a reaction. There's nothing weird about that. It's just genetically the way she was born.

Her body will not metabolize milk like mine will. Make sense? Let me ask you a question. This is a tough question. Do you believe that allergic reaction ting?

No. Jesus, no. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. It it would be stupid to think that.

You know, the fact the way she was trained to to to pee had something to do with and yet we'll sit in therapy groups and talk about this nonsense forever. What caused you to be it's the truth. My parents caused me to be an alcoholic. No. You know know how your parents caused you to be an alcoholic?

They did the little pokey pokey, you know? You did a little pokey pokey and you were born and you caught the bullet. Myers and I are identical twins. Y'all can probably see some similarities there. I've been told that I'm the handsomer of the 2.

Yeah, it's my wife who's the only one that says that. But you know But see he and I are alcohol we we got the bullet. My my father was an alcoholic. I've got a little sister that's never never had a problem with alcohol. A half sister, my older sister, she's never had problem with alcohol.

We could sit down, next week will be Thanksgiving in the States and we'll sit down and we'll have a little turkey dinner and they'll drink a little mimosa, a little champagne, you know, a little orange juice. And it's we we always watch because they they they never finish it. You know, they drink a couple of different You go up to my little sister and says, hey Lisa, well you're gonna finish your drink? She says, so listen, listen. She said, no thank you.

It's gotten warm. That's because you drank it too slow. We just can't relate. We just can't relate. Bless her.

But she was raised in the same family we were raised. Say mom then, say dad, say good Christian home. Everything was cool. No weirdness going on. But she didn't catch the genetic bullet that we caught.

And we were luscious from day 1. We drank abusively from the first alcohol that we took. And that that's been that was the nature of the beast. We are born this way. It is an absolutely diagnosable disease.

I'm gonna cover this stuff with you pretty quick. I'm gonna I'm gonna show you the symptoms of alcoholism. And you can diagnose yourself. If I was talking to a group of of adolescents, of kids, 15, 16 year old kids, or I would be talking to a group of professionals, you know, doctors, lawyers, or or I I did a talk one time in a women's prison. It was 500 women.

You know? And that little one I got, you know, it's like, I what am I gonna talk to? This is what we're gonna talk about because it's the same thing. Doesn't matter if you're a woman or black or white or green or blue. Doesn't matter how old you are.

Doesn't matter if you've been molested or or not molested. It doesn't matter what this internal stuff is the same in every single one of us. And if you've got these symptoms, you're one of us. If you don't, you're not. See this is the message.

This is what makes our organizations, all of our 12 step groups so powerful because we have the ability to help somebody see their truth. And once you see your truth, you'll finish this work rapidly. Rapidly. See these steps were intended to be worked rapidly folks. This is the biggest mistake we see in our fellowships.

No matter where we speak, this is the mistake we see. Everybody believes they can take their time to work these steps. What the book just said, we just talked about it on page 34. You must have the spiritual experience in order to recover if you're truly one of us. Why in the living daylights would we wanna take our time to work these steps?

And we've got people killing people till this morning all over the world in AA meetings. Some some old geezers sitting in the room looking down over their faces. No. If you didn't get this sick overnight, you're not gonna get well overnight. Oh, geez.

I'm trying real hard not to cuss. That is absolute rubbish. How arrogant of you? How arrogant of you? Many of us in this room had spiritual experience that happened in the twinkling of an eye.

And you're gonna sit there and tell me that that's not gonna happen? It's guaranteed to happen when you work the 12 steps. Joe and Charlie the States, they come up with a great little book called Working With Others and it's it's it's this great book. It's the steps we took, and it talks about working the steps rapidly. And they give this analogy about like making a cake.

How are you gonna make a cake? You know, do you get the flour and the eggs? When are you gonna put the eggs in there this week? And next week? Maybe 2 months later, add the milk.

6, 7, 8, 9 months later, put it in the stove. What kind of cake are you gonna get? Great analogy. You make it the way it's supposed to be done. Boom boom boom.

Pop pow. It comes out. Primo. The steps were intended to be worked rapidly. Nobody in the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous ever worked the steps slowly.

I was in Toronto a year or so ago in that at a at a big cocaine anonymous deal and they're using the basic textbook about Fox Anonymous. And and in that in that deal, they were saying because we kept talking about working the steps rapidly. They says, Chris, nobody works the steps until they've been sober 2 or 3 years. You've been sober 2 or 3 years, you'll get an old timer to to book you. You know what?

Quote unquote book you. It's like, what? You know what I mean? Like, book they'll take you through the steps. It's like, buddy, if if I cannot if I cannot do cocaine for 3 years, I don't need your book.

If I can just not drink for 3 years on my own power, why do I need to come back to your stupid AA meetings? If you can stay sober on a non spiritual basis, you're not one of us. Wait on me, damn it. You look at over here in the left I've written 3 words on your face, buddy. I've written 3 words.

There's body, mind, and spirit. This is the 3 parts. If you look in the front of your books, I noticed in the in the, Danish, 4th edition, they still have the circle triangle. In the in the American edition, they took it out because of copyright problems. It gets mullets.

Those people in New York gotta get their stuff together is all I gotta say. But the circle and triangle talks about a 3 part program built to treat a 3 part disease. I'm physically different than normal people. I am mentally different than normal people, and I am spiritually different than normal people. This is all we have to look at to diagnose ourselves whether or not we're one of us or not.

It's just really quite simple. Look at the physical piece. Y'all understand the physical. It's about it's about the phenomena called craving. You know what it is?

Control. Can you control the amount of alcohol you put in your body once you start? I did that you, didn't I, Ben? No. No.

You you I can sometimes. I go to happy hour and have a couple of beers and go home, especially when I was younger. But as I got older, the chances of me doing that was slim. I would sit down with the other guys and they'd say, let's have a couple of beers. And I'd drink a couple of beers and they'd get their coats and said, we're going home.

And it's like, okay. That's cool. I'm gonna stay here for one more. And then about 2 o'clock, you know, after I've had 12 more, I I go on home. And the question is why can't I control that?

See my body will metabolize that stuff differently than normal people and the phenomena of craving. My sister back over here that's allergic to milk. She has a reaction to the milk. We have a reaction to the alcohol just the same. It's an an adverse reaction, and it and it manifests itself in a in a phenomenon called craving.

Normal people don't over drink. They may do it one time, get sick and then never do it again. See? They learn. You you you ask a normal person.

You want another dream? They'll say, no. Thank you. I'm starting to feel it. I said, Yeah.

Me too. You want another one or not? I because I don't understand that. I'm starting to feel it. It feels great.

Let's drink another one. See? These cats are not coming to treatment, folks, because they had a couple of beers. They come to treatment because they had they tried to drink them half at Denmark. You know what what what it's the quantity.

It's the like the pot. Can you smoke a little pot and be done with it? Can you can you do a little cocaine and be done with it? No. No.

I can understand the phenomena of the the craving. Everybody gets on the same page. Doctors, counselors, everybody. Everybody's clear. When an alcoholic starts to drink, he loses control.

So the solution is, especially in the States, thank you Nancy Reagan, is just say no. See? Because if you don't drink the first one, you won't get drunk. There's a there's a mullet and curveball that says this guy's been sober over 30 years and that's how he shares from the podium. Y'all just remember, if you don't drink the first one, you won't get drunk.

It's like, no shit. What? Why didn't I think of that? You mean in 1976 when I was crawling those dumpsters in Houston, Texas to get my dinner, dinner, all I had to do was just say no? See, but here's the confusion because a lot of people can do that.

A hard drinker, given sufficient reason, they don't wanna crawl back in that dumpster, they can just say no and stop. But once I the problem is not when it's in my system. We can get everybody detoxed. Y'all understand detox? You're in treatment centers all over this town right now.

People are getting detox. The chemical is being pulled from their body. So the phenomena of craving is no longer a problem. It's the second piece, the mental obsession. The obsession of the mind.

This is what kills us. United States right now, every big large pharmaceutical company in the world is working on anti craving drugs. Now with us? Wait. We don't need any more of those drugs.

We need an anti obsession drug. I need something that's gonna treat this head. It's not getting it out my system is easy. All of us have detoxed, sobered up. The problem is staying sober.

I've quit. I thought how many of y'all y'all ever quit? Quit drinking and then started again? You just should have said no louder. The mental obsession is quite clear, buddy.

On page 24, it says this, and again, the pages won't line up. The fact is that most alcoholics, and I can paraphrase in here for our drug addict buddies, most alcoholics are drug addicts for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so called willpower becomes practically non existent. We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory, suffering, and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.

You with us? On page 43, a few pages over, it says, once more, the alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first dream, except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a higher power. Must come from God. I'm an AA for 7 years, and nobody will tell me this.

In the morning, I tell you it's it's we're gonna hit this hard. Because I believe we're misleading the newcomers because we avoid telling them that. I have a mental obsession that tells me to drink. And no matter what happens in my life, no matter how deep the bottom is, my mind is gonna forget it. 2 weeks, 2 days, 20 minutes later, my mind says, ah, wasn't that bad.

This time I'll just drink 1. You know? And then I'm back to the dope. Then I'm back to the alcohol. Is that that's what alcoholism is.

If you take this mental piece out, folks, we don't have a disease to talk about. You ask alcoholic. You can't go tonight to an AA meeting. You ask them. You hear them from the podium, Cher, all the time.

I got up this morning and chose not to drink. There is no shit. Is that right? Is that right? Because if you can do that, you're not one of us.

And you need to stop sharing that from the podium. Did you choose? First step says as we were powerless over alcohol. You're telling me that you still have a choice whether you're gonna drink or not. If you still have a choice, does your experience show you that you can choose to do this when you want to, and choose to stop when you want to?

Uh-uh. Then maybe you are truly powerless over alcohol. Can y'all get down with what we're saying here? This this thing about choice is the most complicated piece of this. If if you can choose to do it, then we have a behavioral problem.

But see, there were times see the little x's? This is issue man. These I've got some little buttons I'll give to some of you later. A little issue man on here. Issue man.

These little x's on the outside of issues. Y'all know what issues are. A drama. All of our drama. Right now, today, in this in this town, in every treatment center in this place, they're talking about these x's.

Yeah? Let's talk about the molestation. Let's talk about the rape. Let's talk about being adopted. Let's talk about the abortion.

Let's talk about Vietnam. Let's talk about being black. Let's talk about being gay. Let's talk about what? Anything that you think separates you from everybody else, let's talk about that.

You with us? We need to stop doing that. Is it important to talk about that? Yes. Does it have anything to do with whether I'm an alcoholic or not?

No. It does not. And I know that offends some of you because you've been using that as your trump card for years. I drink because I was molested. We need to help you find your truth.

Because if that's why you drink, we need to do some good therapy around that and you need to go some place else. Let me ask you a let me ask you a question. We do this all the time. How many of you guys drank and drugged when you had lots of money? Raise your hand.

Yes. How many of you drank drug when you had no money? How many when you had a great job? Good job? Crappy job?

When somebody would you really loved? When when you was dating Satan's spawn? See this? Same hands up. Same hands up.

So why is it that we think that that's got something to do with our drinking and drugs? Guys, I I drank. There's a line in the big book that's so great. It says, it was the end of a perfect day, not a cloud on the horizon. Y'all remember that line?

And what does the guy do in the next paragraph? He gets shit faced. Yeah. Unbelievable. I'm a huge proponent of treatment.

I'm a huge proponent of therapy. But I'm gonna tell you something folks, it's it's stuff we need to all do. Normal people need to do therapy. Good heavens. Y'all y'all die with that?

It's got nothing to do with whether I'm gonna stay sober or not. The spiritual experience has to do whether I'm gonna stay sober or not. Look at this little guy, this little middle this little part over his heart, this little dark spot, that's what we put up there to signify the thing called the spiritual malady. Some of y'all that may be the first time you've ever heard that term. It's in the book often.

I mean, when I open it. Big book talks about or not. I don't know. The big book talks about a thing called a spiritual malady. Book says that when that's treated, I straighten out physically and mentally.

I suffer from a spiritual illness. It's got nothing to do with belief in God. I've always believed in God. It's got to do with access to God. Big difference.

And this spirituality, folks, is what we didn't talk about in AA for the first 7 years I was in there. Never heard the term. Let me describe it to you. This is what ties us all together. Lots of different folks in here, different countries, different nationalities, different education, different some of you have got that gorgeous.

Some of you are butt ugly, and you're welcome. This is what ties us all together, folks. Y'all understand the word irritable? Think about it. Think about it before you ever started drinking, folks.

Think about you. 11 years old, 12 years old, irritable, restless, discontent. Think about it. Bored. No sense of direction.

You know what this? They call it ADD today. You know, they give you a pill for it, you know? I I can't concentrate. Here's a pill.

Oh, oh that's good. That's good Hey, it's it's a symptom of the spirituality How many of you guys understand depression? Depression. Number one symptom of alcoholism and drug addiction is depression. And we treat with a pill.

You're with us? Yeah. We treat lots of this stuff with pill. No sense of direction. How about how about the words on page 52 in the bedevilments?

Trouble in personal relationships. Oh, yeah. Including the one with yourself. Think about how you're treating yourself. Some of you guys are are meanying on you, tough on yourself.

Trouble making a living. It's got nothing, not nothing. You're not making money. Some of you guys make lots of money. What you doing with it?

Spending it? Yeah. Credit cards? I had one one time. Yeah.

Are you being a good steward with God's money is what it's saying. No. Absolutely not. Pray to misery and depression. Talks about on page 52, there's one line that says, we were unhappy.

Does that sound familiar? In 17, it and instantly that stuff went away. You could have asked me 30 minutes after I finished that bottle of wine, Chris, are you irritable, restless, and discontent? No. Trouble in personal relationships?

Absolutely not. I am Don Fucking Wong. We're gonna have the truth. See, wrap this up. See, this is what normal people don't understand.

They think the alcohol and the cocaine and the pot, they think, oh, that's the problem. If he just stopped drinking, he'd be okay. If they just stop smoking cocaine, they'd be okay. They don't understand. That stuff's our solution.

That's what treats this internal condition. That's why we can't stay sober. You take alcohol and drugs away from an alcoholic or drug addict. You take that away from them, they will get worse, not better. All of us have done that.

We had periods of sobriety. My outside world got better. Made a little bit more money, cleaned the house, car got washed, you know. I mean, my outside world appeared to be getting better. My inside world began to disintegrate and the depression slowly returned and the boredom and the anxiety.

And one day I'm driving home from work and I'm just I'm pissed. The cars are driving too slow and the radio station's playing nothing but crap and I just I'm irritable, restless, and discontent again, you know? And my little mind says, you could probably have one deer. I argue with it for about 20 seconds. No.

But you've been doing so good. You have 6 months of sobriety. It's just right there. You pussy. Pull into the 711, go to the Cuda, pull out a beer, go back to counter, stop, go back to the cooler, put the beer back, get the seats back.

Absolutely. Get a good quart of beer, you know, a little potty cake. Well if I'm gonna make it 1, it's gonna be a good one, you know? Listen. Watch this guys.

And and you're you pull up to the counter, you know, and there's a guy getting a money order and lottery tickets and little 8 cuts in front of you, and it's just no big deal. You know, it's like, no. Abs I'm in no hurry. Go ahead. You know, it's I got a little beer under my arm.

I'm ready to you know, it's like everything's okay. Haven't even drank the stuff and I'm okay. Y'all understand that? If that lady had tried to cut in front of me that morning, I would shock her. Get the fuck back in line lady I But now, you know?

Sit in the car don't even start it. Crank up the little radio, you know, oh, listen to that song. That's the best song I ever heard in my in the guh guh. Instantly, instantly, this internal condition goes away and I'm feeling pretty good. You know life's not so bad.

That job is gonna be okay. But you know the sad part is I'm a real alcoholic and the phenomenal craving kicks in. And so before the afternoon's over, I snuck back across the street to the 7:11 and got me a 12 pack to finish the damn job I started. And my sobriety that I had for 6 months is gone again. What got me drunk?

The stupid 711? No. When you go to treatment, that's exactly you were triggered. Something that song must have caused you to drink. That's that's absolute rubbish.

It's just crap. What got me drunk was this head. What got me loaded was this internal discomfort. That's why we must have the spiritual experience. Because when I have the spiritual experience and God gets connected with me, this internal condition leads.

And I get comfortable in my skin and the depression goes away and I start seeing who I am really as a child of God with some character defects, but I'm not that bad of an egg. You start getting excited about life again, and you start getting a thing called passion back. I'm not talking sex passion, that comes too. I'm talking about the cool stuff folks. I'm talking about the cool stuff.

That's such a great message to carry to a newcomer. And in 1987, those old timers got with me that night after my suicide attempt, and they showed me this, and they explained to me that I had a physical allergy coupled with a mental obsession underlying this spiritual malady that must be treated by God. And I said, how the heck am I going to have a spiritual experience? And he says, you're going to finally, for the first time, finish working these 12 steps. I can do that.

I will do that. Life's never been the same. We're gonna talk a little bit more about that. Myers come up and maybe visit a little bit about the second and third? How about that?

You wanna take smoke though? How long have we been talking? No. I'm not. And I hung.

I want Texas time. And it's in the middle of the night in Texas. You wanna smoke? Yes. Yeah.

Let's go smoke real quick. We'll come back. Thank you. You guys ready to start? Rock how do you say rock and roll in in in Danish?

Rock. How you guys for for for those that I didn't meet last night, my name is Myers Raymond. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Myers. There's a couple of thing I wanna mention a little bit, just a little something on what Chris was talking about, a minute ago, and I also wanna I wanna, say something ahead of time about what we're doing here primarily this morning and and then again this afternoon.

Rather than look at this thing as a lecture on on the steps, I guess you could look at it that way, but it I don't what I would prefer you to do is look at it as a checklist for sponsorship, because everybody here that's drawn a silver bread has got a responsibility to to extend a hand and try to help somebody else. Right? And so the common question that has run through every drunk that I've ever met in every attic I've ever met is, at the moment that I have to go start helping somebody, what do I do? The literature tells us what word is. Strong sponsorship helps us see the direction we're supposed to take, but there's always this anxiety inside, this fear that says, I don't know what to do.

I'm not sure I know how to go ahead and carry this guy through this work. You see? And so as we go through this, I hope that we can use this as a checklist to kinda say, okay. I'm I'm okay here. I'm okay here.

And when we get to a place where there's a question, something that is doesn't jive with what you've been doing, we can talk in questions and answers after this. We can do it on a 1 on 1 after this, and we can get everybody kind of squared away so that we're all sort of coming from the same page. The book guaranteed that we would have a common solution for our problem. There shouldn't be a 1,000 different ways to do this thing. And I hear this all the time in the United States, people going, you know, there's a 1,000 ways to work these steps.

Well, I'm I'm gonna go a little distance with that. Yes. There is a there's a bunch of different ways to go at this thing, but but they should all be sifted through the basic text to show us how to do it. It ought to in the end, it ought to be all the same stuff that we're telling the new guy, not all this weird convoluted you guys understand the deal. I've had one consistent question since we've been here, and that's about this thing about working people through the steps quickly as as opposed to working them over a year or 2 years or whatever the deal is.

And I don't wanna get into lengthy debate with anybody about it. I'm just from my own personal experience and the experience of 100 and 100 of men that I've had the pleasure to work with, you can stretch this thing out for a long time, but I've got we there's we have no guarantee when the mental obsession that Chris was talking about earlier. We don't know when the mental obsession is gonna rekindle itself, when the spirituality will become so intense. So you how many of you guys that sponsor men have seen a guy that you're working with and you he's been sober for 6 months and you watch him slowly unravel right in front of your eyes. You watch him slowly just disintegrate.

He was doing great a month ago and now he's just restless, irritable, discontent. The spiritual malady has rekindled. He is he's so uncomfortable in his own skin he can't stand it. The mental obsession is standing boom right there waiting to tell him, you know? When I get goofy like that and the spirituality hits me, what do I think of?

I the mental obsession takes me back to a time on the Guadalupe River, which is a real pretty river in Texas. 30 years ago when Moon still worked, and I got this little girl right here and a quart of beer right here, and Moon's coming up through the cypress trees. And come back and I can I can see it just like it was yesterday? It doesn't make any difference that I've been beat up and busted by the booze. My head takes me to there, to that night on that river.

And so when my guts get tore up inside, I think, you know what? That beer will work again. I'll be able to take a pull few pulls off that thing and treat that internal condition. That's what Chris was talking about. And so everything when we're when I do the steps specifically, in anything like this, I wanna make sure that we're doing it from the standpoint of a sponsor working through a brand new guy.

And so when I'm I'm when I'm talking up here this morning and this afternoon, I'm pretending for the sake of this deal that you guys are brand new guys and that we're just working you through the first time. And that way you can see sort of how we go through this thing, and then it becomes easier when you start doing it. If you wanna take a year to work the guy through the steps, fine. Do that. But when he unravels 2 months into the deal and he gets drunk, there is a a there is another way that I think works better, and I'm gonna suggest it like that.

Just try that. If you'll go back and look at any piece of history, they worked through this work. In 40 5 days or less, most of these men were through the work and helping somebody else. They simply did not let them, get in trouble. One of my buddies we were talking to just a minute ago, he said, well, you know, somebody's got, including me, I took 6 months to work through the work and and this kind of well, that's great.

What I would prefer to see you do is work it through fast, have the experience, and then go back and catch up on the stuff. Then go back if there's pieces of the stuff that you wanna look into, if you wanna do an extended 3rd 3rd column deal on your 4 step stuff, if you wanna go back and explore some things, do that. But the experience is already there. The cycle change has already begun and the spirituality is held at bay and you can be healthy in your own skin, and that seems to be a healthier way to to take a one at the problem. Yeah.