Q&A session at the CPH12v3 conference in Copenhagen, Denmark

My name is Chris Raymer. I'm a recovered alcoholic. And we're we're back. We got we got, 30 or 40 minutes maybe. We could, answer some questions.

I know some of you may wanna do that. Again, we wanna remind everybody, you know, we're not speaking with any authority from up here. This is our experience you know, and, you're free to agree or disagree. But, you know, if if you've got some questions that you'd like to to ask, we'll try to make it as brief as possible and maybe one of us can can give you an answer to that that you might wanna take home and consider. That's my sponsor always asks me, Chris, go sit with it.

Go consider it. See if it reads true with the disciplines of these steps. And and that's what I try to do. So, we always try to keep an open mind. So if any of y'all like to ask What is meditation to you and how do you go about it?

What is meditation to me and how I go about it? Answer that from all my calls. If that's my wife, I'm here. One of the hardest things for alcoholic tonatics to do is is to meditate. I, you know, prayers, talking to God, meditations, listening to God.

I I believe that this whole thing is about power and we're gonna try to get some guidance from God. So what I need to do is sometime during the day I need to get quiet so that I can hear God's word. My my experience is that God doesn't compete with the television. You know? God doesn't compete with the traffic.

I hear people all the time, I meditate on the way to work. No, you don't. The idea is to practice the the discipline truly of 10, 11, and 12 around 11th step is to get quiet and focus your mind so you can get some clarity here. We have a lot of people in the talk about about, I'm I wanna meditate so I can leave my body and go some place else. What I wanna do is get quiet so that any guidance that comes in I may I may hear some words in meditation, get quiet, and all of a sudden I I think about somebody I hadn't thought about in 20 years.

It's like, that's God saying, buddy, you gotta try to track this person down. Maybe that person needs some help or maybe that person's got a job for me to do or something of that nature. God communicates to us, folks. I mean, this is this higher power that wants us happy, joyous, and free is gonna communicate with us. If we will shut up long enough to let it happen.

And it and it takes discipline to do because when I get quiet, especially when I was early in recovery, I would get quiet and then the the little voices would all wake up. Hey. You're a on it. The discipline means I've gotta practice it on a regular basis. So I in the mornings, I make shot.

In the evenings, I'm I'm usually a 100 miles an hour, but in the mornings by myself I get out in the back by my garden and and get quiet. No phones, no TV, no nothing. And, say God, that's my prayer folks. God, what do you got for me today? Know these vows.

No long winded bless this, bless this, help me with this, but God, thy will be done. What do you got for me today? And then I get quiet. You'd be amazed. I could sit here and tell you stories right now of of the times that that I've done that.

And in in that meditation, got guidance that It may not make any sense to me today but tomorrow, oh, that's what it meant. You'll follow us? There's some great books out there. Wally Keys got a book called How to Listen to God. It was written a lot through a lot of archival information from AA of the old days.

How to listen to God, and I can hook you up with it if you're interested in selling it to the hospital. That answer your question? You wanna add that? What? I didn't I'm sorry.

I just wanna add one quick thing. I've never worked with a meditation student that didn't get frustrated and and irritated by the process of meditation. We were talking to a guy just a minute ago and I and I you must practice meditation, in the same way that you would practice the guitar if you want to learn how to play the guitar or a foreign way that you would practice the guitar if you want to learn how to play the guitar or a foreign language I mean you would just you have to just make a commitment to do it and then make it important enough in your life to make it a priority. Remember that old thing in AA? Our priorities are what we do, not what we say.

Everybody says how important AA is until you ask them to go do some step work and then they go oh, you mean this this Friday? Well I can't this Friday. And it's the same thing with this thing about about, meditation. There's there's 2 or 300 people here right now and everybody wants to meditate and yet when it comes time to actually making the discipline to sit down and get quiet and still and practice that, see it gets a little it gets a little grimy on this stuff and so what I'm a what I'm a tell you is, expect it to be frustrating I'm assuming that nobody in here meditates. Okay?

Please. I'm assuming a great deal I know most of you have but but assume know going in that you're going to be frustrated with the process know going in that in the beginning it's going to be, we're trying to train our body to be still and our bodies don't want to be still we've trained it to be active from the time we were little bitty kids and and so it takes some some doing For some of us it may take a week or 2 some of us may take a lifetime 6 6 months from now if you're still struggling with medication keep doing it because everything that you can benefit from this stuff, I couldn't begin we could talk for 3 hours about the benefits of of of this meditation He needs to be starting right now with that meditation stuff the question the question was do I have to do, a 10 step before I can do the 11th step? Make sure that you understand this. This was a tough one for people to understand including me. The steps were in order for a purpose but we're given the permission at step 10 to begin doing it's like, I need all of this power to do the immense process in in in 9.

Right? And the and the power comes from this being plugged in all the juju comes from 10, 11, and 12. You show me a man that waits to get all of his amends done before he starts doing, 10 and I'll show you a man that's gonna struggle mightily. It's it's it's horrible. The moment that you finish your 6 and 7 step stuff and you begin making that, 8 step amends list, begin working in 10, 11, and 12 so that the necessary growth will perpetuate itself so you'll have what you need to, to do the work.

You bet. There's no step out there in this in this work that has abused more than that 10 step stuff. Your if we had if we had everybody committed to calling their sponsors when they screwed up and doing what the 10th set asked us to do, I guarantee we'd have a lot less people floundering in this thing. There's huge amounts of freedom around this concept of of of dealing with your day to day wreckage in a tense day. Is that clear okay?

Okay. Peter. Peter says he's got a 10 step sponsor, I mean, a 10 step pal that he does his, his back and forth with this 10 step stuff. Accountability is accountability, and I see no problem with it with that per that perspective on it. I can tell you, if I was your sponsor, I would be concerned about that concept because I'd be feeling like I was out of the loop and I needed to be in the loop to see what you were doing but that's just a personal pizza.

Some of that Yeah. It talks to my sponsors. Okay. Some of this comes because I know you too. I wanna stay really in that loop.

Anybody else? Yes, sir. Blue shirt. If I'm what's going on? And is that kosher or not?

My answer and Chris may disagree with this thing but as a general rule I believe that we ought to make every effort to get our guys back into this deal when they flounder. There could be all kinds of reasons why he's not coming back. And and so I believe in a courtesy call. I believe in picking up a telephone and calling the chap and saying, hey, buddy. What's cooking, man?

We miss you. Is everything okay in your life? And give this guy a chance to say what's going on. It may be that he just got enough distance away from our from our program that he felt alienated again. And as you all well know, I mean, we'll isolate like that.

Given the chance, I'd rather be hiding down there in the bathroom than being right here. I just don't want to be around a bunch of people and your new guys are that times 10 You see? And if they get a little distance away from you they'll drift and if you don't pull them back so so call them. I wouldn't hound them but I'd certainly give him a chance to know that he's loved and that we need him here in this room helping us carry this message. Yep.

Chris Hornby. Yes, sir. Yeah. Did y'all hear what he said? Little guy brought, a big book into a meeting.

He learned big books in there. He brought a big book in the meeting, was holding it up and he was sharing how he recovered out of the big book. After the meeting a couple of guys that had been sober a long time got around him and suggested, it's a nice word, suggested that he that he not do that. I I cannot tell you how many times I've been asked to not talk about the big book in a meeting. And here's here's what we're saying guys.

There's there's a lot of people out there in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, in our fellowships with cocaine anonymous, but they're not in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And and they're staying sober in the fellowship and that's a cool thing, but but for the real alcoholic they may not survive. The fellowship will not keep us sober. The program will keep us sober. And the so the the problem is is this this newcomer is taking heat because he's doing what he's supposed to be doing.

And and and my my deal today and I I I'm gonna talk about it in the morning when I share my story. For every one of you in this room that carried a big book into a meeting and stood for the message you have my absolute undying admiration. You need to understand it on the spiritual path. This is in spiritual doctrine in in all religions. If you're on a spiritual path you will take persecution.

If you stand for truth if you stand for God for the spiritual way of life you will take persecution you will be you will be the brunt of jokes. You will be ostracized. People will talk behind your back. That's just the way it is. But I get a chance to make the decision see because the spiritual path is gonna lead me to an absolute perfect existence in in my own skin on this earth today.

It's it's it's about standing for something. Y'all know that little I am responsible plaque that we see in Alcoholics Anonymous? Every AA group you see it. It's in a lot well, I am responsible when the hand of AA reaches out that somebody better be there. And those of us that are waiting.

You're gonna take shots because we're not all on the same page. They're not I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm just saying they're not on the on the on the same page we are. And you could buckle under and play it their way and and experience the the consequences, which is inebriation, drunkenness, irritable restless discontent, spiritual malady that or you can stand for something and try to do what we've been talking about all day long find the fellowship that you crave find other men and women that love God that understand responsibilities empower them. You don't have to turn your back on those other cats maybe they'll come around when they see you but you but don't back down.

Keep bringing the big book, keep talking out of the literature because that is the only message that we have to carry. Message in the big book. Who else? How about you? By the praise of God, we have another microphone, so we can When I grow up, I wanna look just like him.

That doesn't sound right. No. I'm done. That's What do you do? Don't argue with the fool.

Don't argue with the fool. That's what Myers said. Say, okay. What? You all understand that.

That our fellowship, if you're a newcomer you need to understand. Because we walk into this room we think oh isn't this great? We have all these alcoholics in here but the truth of the matter is, there are a lot of people in this room that are not alcoholic. They can call themselves an alcoholic, but they're not they're not the real McCoy. Like the book talks about on page 21, it talks about the moderate drinker, the hard drinker who has a little trouble with it, but eventually gets it, but what about the real alcoholic?

Those are Bill Wilson's words. What about the real alcoholic? The cat that's gonna die if he doesn't get spiritually connected. You you follow us? These are the cats that hear in the meetings talking about, well, I got up this morning and you chose not to drink.

Oh, how nice of you. You know, it's like, I I can't do that. I can get up this morning and choose to stay on the spiritual path with you, continue to do the work. That's a choice I make, but I don't choose to stay sober. Do you all understand the the difference?

It's a very narrow difference but it but but you but you gotta be able to get your little mind around that. If I can choose to stay sober, we talked about it earlier, I'm not a real alcoholic. See, that's the deal. And people, they get offended by that. I'm 17 years sober folks.

I didn't get up this morning and choose to stay sober. I got up in this morning to pray and meditate, puke because I knew I was gonna come talk here with us and and then Thank you, Jerry. You're welcome. Thank you, Jerry. How about you, sir?

Even though the power is the ground in the presence. That's not necessarily true. Let's talk about it in a minute. Okay? Did y'all hear the question?

Yes. Because it's a huge issue in the fellowship and that's up to you if you wanna work with somebody. I think you could just repeat The question was do I continue to sponsor or do the work with people who are have been medically placed on antidepressants. I I don't I don't work with people that are taking sleeping pills. Ambient.

You're you're with us? Sleeping pills just to help you sleep. But people that are clinically depressed and have been placed on those pills by a doctor, I need to remember that I'm not a doctor. I've I've never walked a day in it. My experience was I was taking about 5 or 6 pills a day when I got sober.

2 separate anti depressants. When I had my spiritual experience a couple of weeks after I had started doing the work the obsession lifted and also the depression lifted and and with the doctors care I weaned myself with the doctor and as my sponsor people around, I took myself off all of that medication. And so today I I I don't take any medication other than occasional aspirin How cool for me to be able to do that but there are some people out there especially some of my brothers and sisters in Coconut who have fried their brains and, and they may have to take those antidepressants. They may have to. I know people, in fact, I could make a name and all of you know who who I'm talking about.

I know there's people in the in the fellowship that says if you're taking anti depressant you're not sober. I'm saying that's that's that's pretty damn arrogant. That's that's pretty damn arrogant. Folks I've sponsored schizophrenics before. You know sometimes you didn't know who you were talking to but hell they didn't know they got sober.

I I I'm gonna tell I'm gonna tell this cat who's finally stable for the first time, don't take those those medications because they're because they're medications. It's like, wait. This guy will die if he didn't take those medications. I just we've seen a lot of people in the fellowship stop taking the antidepressants because they were being browbeaten by the fellowship and who ended up committing suicide. Shame on us.

They're trying to play doctor. I only know one way to play doctor. And if my wife ever hears this tape, it's not the girls at the coffee bar I'm talking about. Alright. Who else had a question?

This gentleman right here, go ahead. You know I'm in the spectrum of California and Virginia now. Well I want you to ask for That's a great question. He's asking, from from the state, do y'all here in in, Denmark or over this area use the promises in your meetings? Do you use the 2 sentences further up the page that says the spiritual life is not the period Who else?

The wondering mic is passing by. You hear the question? Because it's it's a it's a it's a mix up in the deal. We're not gonna get over this thing called drinking until we tell somebody all of our life story. Folks, what this means is we don't need to need hear the little minutia.

And then and then I moved to, you know, Burma and was there for about 6 months and then I moved to somebody and there's nobody gives a rat's ass. It's got nothing to do with anything. What what it does is is if you've got some stuff going on in your life that needs to be talked about to another human being, our secrets are are what are what kills us. We're we're talking a little bit different from the from the, from the resentment. Our secrets, if you've done something that you're feeling guilty of and you're blocked from the sound of the spirit because of that shame and that guilt and you don't tell somebody that See, here's the deal.

You need to talk to somebody even if they're not your sponsor. You need to let somebody know what's going on. The 4th steps too often, is thought of to be confession. 4th step is not the 5th step is not confession. We're we're we're we're gonna talk tell somebody what's going on, but we're gonna try to find some truth out about that.

If confession was all we needed to do is tell somebody all the weird stuff we did, the Catholics would have a much better success rate in recovery. Column. Make column. Make sense? We don't wanna leave out those little dark secrets that we've been hanging on to.

It's it's 2 separate parts of the book and they're talking about 2 separate things. I understand exactly where you're at with it. Our story is important but everybody wants to get into it. It's it's that in telling the whole story, it's those little secrets that are getting us. If if I let me let me give you an example.

If I if I I cheated on my wife and the guilt around that was driving me crazy. You with me? And, okay, who am I resentful at here? Myself. Myself.

It talks about there on the pages. Sometimes it was remorse and then we restored ourselves. So my name needs to go on that inventory list. I just need to make sure that I deal with that dishonesty with this against that woman because that's the stuff that's gonna block me from the sunlight of the spirit. All ends up in a resentment inventory.

But I don't have to get you all the stupid sorted details about why I got into that relationship and running into this and this and the other. I mean a lot of you guys are sitting will narrow this down to exactly what we're supposed to be looking at, the the the root resentment, man, you because a fist step will last a couple hours. 2, 3 hours, boom, for a new wave and and you're you're down the road. You'll you'll you'll follow us? This is not about confession.

This is not about confession. With me? Stop asking those hard questions. I shouldn't. These English guys, They lay awake at night trying to figure out how to cut this out.

You don't answer. Where you at? No. No. I I don't.

I I I think if if you've got somebody clear in the head, past detox, trying to work the steps with somebody that's drooling. You know, sometimes it's it's difficult. You know, that they're just all detoxed. They're all medicated. They're they're not really clicking.

But once you get the physical piece taken care of, I I think the sooner we get this work done the better. You know, and over in I wish I could remember that quote. It's in Bristol Fashion over England and it's in a little mass head. It talks about this. You know, we've seen a lot of people try and play with this program and leave it undo, but we don't see people not get sober that actually work the program.

You know, back to basics talks about working them in 4 or 5 days. It's it's an absolutely doable deal. I've done it the past. I've come to conferences like this and worked steps with people before. It it it can it's not that difficult, Guys, I'm telling you, it's not rocket science.

We're asking some questions. We're transmitting some information, and then we're going on down the road. You guys get this mixed up with therapy. You cats get this mixed up with therapy. AA is not therapy.

I mean tomorrow morning that's all I'm gonna talk about. Y'all need to understand I almost died believing that AA was therapy. That I could come into these rooms and all of my little chicken chip problems were gonna get solved. This is just not true. You with me?

Alcohol's anonymous got me connected with God. It's funny watching her. She's translating up here. How do you translate chicken shit? Sure.

Is that is that absolutely. That's the hook you wanted out. There you go. You you got it. Everybody's different.

Don't take them. Here's this is from my experience working in a treatment center. Okay? And and trying for 7 8 years to get sober and not be able to get sober. My mind will always go to something that will fix what's wrong with me.

The sleeping pills will make me sleep. They will also treat this spiritual malady but while they're doing that they will trigger this this phenomena called craving that we talked about and and my experience is you can take sleeping pills for a period of time some of us and get away with it but it'll eventually every time lead you back to your drug of choice. Listen my experience guys I don't know of one single exception to that rule. You take a pill, continue to to take it, it will eventually lead you back to the cocaine or it will eventually lead you back to the alcohol. That's that cross addiction piece we talk about in treatment so much and that's as real as it comes.

I can't put anything in my body that changes the way I feel. Here's the problem with the sleep, if I had taken sleep medication 2 nights ago when I first got here, taking sleep pill, I tell you I would feel a lot better than I feel today. I haven't slept in 3 days. I mean I'm just like kicks my butt. You follow me?

But I would have talked in the morning possibly drunk. That's my experience. When I eat the pills, I go back my body will gradually reset itself. Nobody's ever died from lack of sleep and if you stay up long enough, your body will cycle back around pick yourself back up again and you'll start sleeping on a regular basis. Maybe it's because you're drinking too much damn coffee, you know.

Maybe it's because you haven't done any exercise in 6 months. You with us? I mean, all of these things figure into absolute wholeness of health and that's what we see a lot of time. The quicker softer ways, let me just eat a pill and fix this. Makes sense?

I understand pot's legal here too. You know? You once you just go smoke a joint. I mean, it's I be I just would be I would I would just be careful, hon. I would just be careful.

I've got a really good friend of mine who who relapsed around, herbal, how do you say it? Like, you know what viagra is? When you're little peeking at work? Yeah. Eating herbal an herbal sexual male enhancement thing and and, it triggered the phenomenal craving.

He had about 6 months of sobriety and went back out. Over that, it changed something, triggered that phenomenal craving. It hardwires in. That stuff comes from the midbrain. It doesn't come from the thinking part.

It's midbrain. It's you're you're locked in. And it when it happens, you just go do it. It's just not worth the risk for me. Makes sense?

Just get with your sponsor on it and say, who's got the who's got the mic? My name is John McCullough. Hey, buddy. I wanna thank you for coming on. Cool.

I just wanna remind, That's your question. How come I got the hard work to get those? That is such a good question. And it comes up so often in sponsorship if you if you're if you're very active at all it'll come up if it hadn't happened yet I guarantee you it will. Some cat walks in and you zero in on him and go, that's my guy.

And you go over there. I have found that if I'm not careful, I will circumvent God's will in the deal. And it's my arrogance that says that I'm the best man to sponsor him. And I and I think that I know that that I think probably a better tact would be, I'm gonna go over as the moment he gets there I'm gonna go over and introduce myself and I'm gonna make sure he knows where the coffee is I'm gonna make sure he knows where the bathrooms are I'm gonna make sure he knows where the predators in the group are I'm gonna make sure that he knows all of the things that are important to his comfort there. And then I'm gonna back up a little bit.

And then, I might ask him if he hasn't picked a sponsor yet, if he's done, you know, where he is in the big picture, and then just see what happens. And usually, what will happen is since you're the only guy in the room that showed him any love and any cop and he care he'll walk up and say you know I really need a sponsor and and I don't believe in temporary sponsors. It drives me nuts when people at a treatment place that says I need a temporary sponsor. I said, well, great. Go find 1.

I don't I don't I don't wanna do this because people have a tendency to start people started doing this thing called auditing sponsors, and they have a spiritual sponsor and a money sponsor and this kind of deal. And pretty soon, you have all of these guys that you're manipulating with your stories, and nobody has the whole piece of the puzzle. Everybody has just little parts of it like this. And so if you're giving me the responsibility to be your sponsor, by golly, we're joined at the hip and I know everything about you brother and you know everything about me and we're gonna work through this work and it's a absolutely marvelous experience. It's the it's just the coolest, but let God have a say in it.

Let God come and direct that choice and I think you'll be, more pleased with with who you end up with. Cool? Yes. Thanks buddy. Anybody else have any more questions?

I don't know how much time we have left on this thing. I hope somebody's paying attention to it. That's okay. Anybody else have anything? We're we're if not Nicholas was next.

Yes. Yeah. That that was a great that's a great question. And, did all of you guys understand this stuff? Yes.

There seems to be some discomfort, some some uncomfortable stuff about responsibility to judge a man's alcoholism or not. It's not my place to sit here in judgment of whether you are or whether you aren't. It's not my place to sit here in judgment of whether you are or whether you aren't. The book is painfully clear in several places how we're gonna qualify somebody. The very best that I can think of off the top of my head, page 45 of the chapter 4, we agnostics.

There's a paragraph there. Read the paragraph. The only thing that we the reason every that not everybody that walks through the door with that circle and triangle on it is like we are. There are other people that that are there and it's important to understand that from the day that you first get there because the solutions that are talked about are different You understand that I think but but you're right I mean I want the in the in the in the states in the group that that my my home group, we have nothing but open meetings all of our all of our our meetings are book studies and, and we have them open for that particular reason because I want the new man that comes in that's questioning what's going on to have an opportunity to shake the thing out and look at it and and and I'm gonna help him make the decisions. I'm not gonna let him flounder.

If if I look like I got a guy sitting in our meeting that's lost that does not seem to be connecting the the language of the heart that these guys is not there then this guy may be hiding out in our fellowship. He may not be the real deal and I and and my I'm not saying something to him to make him feel uncomfortable It is not my place to make this man feel badly But it is my place to ask him a few questions and see if I can help him see his truth so that perhaps he needs another fellowship Perhaps he needs some therapy Perhaps he just needs something else and I'm supposed Alcoholics Anonymous to take some responsibility to try to help him see where he needs to be. And if we discover that he is a, a cocaine addict, I'm gonna try to help him get plugged in to a CA meeting where he can be a people of like mind doing, what CA guys do. You see? That's my part of my job.

Did that answer your question? I do understand your concern and it's suit it's really important. Sure. We okay? You hear that track clicks and set?

If you know, we've been here a couple of days sharing some stuff and some of the stuff we've shared seems real controversial to you. But I'm fixing to answer you, you guys are absolutely free to agree or disagree with I wanna remind you that, okay? I'm gonna I see this all the time I have some people out there that I have flat raped over the coals, that I have hurt. And I need to go make amends to those people. We have seems to have a little threat in our fellowship with people.

We we call them amends makers. They're always you know, their feet are kinda down, they're kinda bored and so they go, well, I'm gonna go make some amends. Because you know how good you feel after you make an amends to somebody? And so they'll go and and I get them all the time. Chris Ramer, when I first met I hated your guts But I realize where you're coming from now and I just wanna make amends for for hating your guts And we're okay now.

Right? No. 10 minutes ago we were perfect because I didn't know anything about that but now you with me? Now we really have a problem. You with me?

It's like that. I have enough things to make a men's for without having to dream up something. 10 years ago I said something nasty about your tits and well you know I really would like Please. No. No.

No. No. I'm not gonna make amends for stuff I've thought about. Guys, there are times in my sobriety when I've been driving down the roads if you could see in what was going on in my head. I'm psychotic.

I'm figuring out how I'm gonna chop you up and put you in a little bag and and and I'm gonna go make amends for that, they'd lock me up. I'm gonna ask God to take my fuck life to a different place and I'm gonna ask that God heal me because I'm the nutcase that's that's having trouble here, you know. I'm not gonna include you in in that in that category. Yeah. It's nuts.

Guys, there's good and then there's good. I mean, this is ridiculous. Who else? Anybody else? My name is.

Talk They just they just wearing you down. You know? I don't care how you do it. Escalate it. Here here's the deal guys.

It's like it's like our our brothers and sisters are narcotics anonymous too. In their textbook they talk they they take time to work the steps. A long time. I just my experience shows my experience from spending years taking my time to do it but never quite finishing it to finally just doing it and getting to a different spot with God was was so amazingly, life changing for me. And so that's the only thing I can do.

That's the only thing I have to offer is my experience. There's probably a lot of people staying sober doing it that way. And I'm saying for the cat who's don't understand it. Alcoholism and drug addiction is progressive. Could could y'all if y'all could if y'all could see up here from my perspective, I mean, we have some very young people in here here.

We we have this I fucking know how old he is. I don't know. He's just old. 74. You see, see, but we got but can you tell my little brother from the can you you can't tell at 74 years old how far his disease has progressed.

See, alcoholism progresses whether you're drinking or not. You think your disease stops when you stop drinking. It doesn't. It continues to progress. So some people early on in their disease, maybe they can take long times to work the steps.

And they're successful with that. My experience with people who are very far advancing this disease, we have a little very narrow window. It's called God's grace. You know when the dust settles a little bit and the head kinda slows down for a second and you've got a little window where things are feeling pretty good. Some of you some of you disrespectful buckwheres wanna call it a a pink cloud.

I don't talk about pink clouds. It's God's grace. It's a little free time that we can maneuver and not fight that obsession. But it's not gonna stay there It's it will be fleeting For some of you it lasts for months For some of you it only a few days We've got a window of opportunity where we can work with that person and keep him motivated and getting connected to that God so he can have some permanent sobriety. If we miss that window, we're all bets are off.

I don't care how long you take, you're not gonna stay sober. Make sense? That's that's the best answer I can give you. Good stuff. Don't bug the system.

One more question and then afterwards, I have a few messages. My name's Kevin. Okay. Chris, Good question. Do y'all hear the question?

This is rampant and nostalgic. It's extremely controversial. But we have these things called the traditions. They're pretty clear cut. Alcoholics Anonymous is for alcoholics.

If you happen to be a drug addict and an alcoholic, that's great. But the blue card that was established in the early eighties states specifically that we talk about our problems with alcohol. My job as a as a recovered alcoholic is to help that cat exactly what Myers was talking about to qualify and help him. And if he's in the wrong room, I don't say you you need to get out of here. What I need to say is, buddy, we've got some wonderful wonderful fellowship called that started in 19 82.

Narcotics Anonymous in 1953. These are wonderful fellowships. Pills anonymous. Maybe you let me let me help you get connected to that fellowship. We are not here to treat every problem in the world I mean truly we're not we're here to help folks overcome their problems with alcohol.

We're not trying to be exclusive. If that happens to also be one of your problems, you're so welcome. You're so welcome. Does that that make sense? Bless you.

Wonderful deal. Do do we have one more? Are you ready? Kaput. Bless you.

Thank you.