"AA comes of age a traditions discussion" in Boca Raton, FL

My name's Bob Darrell and I'm certainly alcoholic. It's good to be here. Good to meet some new members of Alcoholics Anonymous I haven't met before and I I'm surprised at how many people I know here, that I've met on some of the sober cruises, and if they're, Sacramento, some of the different parts of the country, it's it's good to be here. If you're new, I wanna report that I've seen some of these people having more fun than they really should be having sober, and it's and that's what we do here. I'm gonna talk I'm gonna try to share as honestly as I can some stuff from our literature and, probably, more important, from my own personal experience, with our our legacy of unity and the 12 traditions.

Something that, oddly enough, back in the seventies, if I if I would have gone some to a weekend somewhere and there would've been a workshop or a talk on the traditions, I probably wouldn't even gone to the meeting. And I tell you, for a while, my own closed mindedness robbed me of an experience with a set of principles that I've, over the years, at some at times, I feel probably are more important than the steps. And while I'll get into that, the reason I believe that, I know that without the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, as they were outlined in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, I would have died of alcoholism. There is no doubt about that. But without the 12 traditions, alcoholics of my type, we would all die.

See, from the very very beginning of recorded history, in every little village, town, hamlet, on the face of the earth, for some strange reason, there's been a minority small portion of every population that has has been kind of a misfit. These people that don't feel like other people look. And they hide it behind facades, and they try to go on, and and they never really feel a part of. And some of them are prone to deep depressions and some of them are in trouble all the time. And and invariably, some of those people find that once they've encountered fermented spirits, it does something to their spirit that they needed to have done and didn't know they needed to have done till it was done.

And those people throughout history invariably as was my experience once they found that regular everyday living paled by comparison and they couldn't put it down and most of them would drink to their incarceration or death. And for centuries, literally 1000 of years, medicine, society, families, religion has been trying to deal with people like us without much success. There's a great book if you if you wanna read some interesting reading. It's called The Slaying of the Dragon. It's a history of of the bizarre treatments that have been tried throughout our history of alcoholism.

Like when they used to drill holes in our skulls to try to let the demons out. I'd say, I've had some hangover mornings where I might have signed up for that. I mean, you know how it felt like there were demons in there. Lobotomies, pillared pillars where they'd lock in those things and, it hasn't been good. And in 1935, an alcoholic who'd had a a spiritual experience and a a vision that he could keep that experience alive.

Tried desperately to help other people and he didn't have much success. And in, May of 1935, on a business trip that turn went sideways on him and it it dashed all his hopes of ever getting back on his feet financially. And and he lived under the burden of of the of having to be supported by his wife and the low self esteem that comes with that territory and his hope of turning that around was dashed. And in the Mayflower Hotel, he paced the lobby as I I've gone there many up times and I paced that same lobby looking at a bar. And he remembered, that maybe, if he could try to try to help another alcoholic, maybe he'd have a shot.

He wouldn't have to drink himself and it was on him. And he went to a the phone in that lobby and I called my sponsor from that phone and started calling this church directory. And through a weird set of circumstances, was hooked up to one of the first, recorded un members untreated untreated members of Al Anon, Henriette Seiberling, who was trying to fix her at one of her doctor friends and hooked her up with doctor Bob Smith. And I've, I became very close friends with his son who died not too long ago. It was a great loss.

He was the last person alive that was present when these two gentlemen came together. And, Smitty said that, he said that his dad was dragging his feet. He didn't want to go and he but he he owed you know, you know how we are when we're guilty. Right? You gotta do stuff when you're guilty you don't want to do and Anne had had the hammer on him and he alright.

I'm going to go. 15 minutes. Get me out of there. I don't want to listen to this Yankee. Talk to me about my drink in 15 minutes.

That's it. And he went into that room and the gatehouse of the Seiberling mansion didn't come out for several hours. He was so enthralled with what he heard. He said it was the first time in his life that that anyone had talked about themselves in such a way he knew he wasn't alone. And, that was Mother's Day weekend, Mother's Day, 1935.

Doctor Bob never did stay sober at that point because he refused to do step 9. Drank again, came off that. Went to a medical convention in, Atlantic City, trying to continue, you know, maintain his life. He was a a doctor. Came off of that train back from Atlantic City drunk.

They laid him on the platform. He couldn't even stand up. And they called conductor or someone at the station called his office gal and she came down and, they took him put him in bed and Bill was still living at the house and Bill and Anne took care of him and he came to June 10, 1935. And he came to and we didn't know what had happened, where he was. He knew he was in trouble again as we all know that feeling of coming to.

And you don't remember everything that happened, but you know it's not good. And he says, what day is it? And they said, June 10th. He says, oh my god. Not June 10th.

I have a surgery to perform this morning. I got this surgery And doctor Bob was a proctologist, so he can kind of imagine what kind of surgery it was. And he was shaking like this, vibrating, flying apart. And Bill Wilson gave him his last couple drinks and set him into the surgery to perform this surgery. And I I just often wondered that can't imagine being that patient and watching your doctor come in hungover.

They should we should build a statue to that guy, whoever he was. And this surgery was successful, I suppose. I know some archivists that have researched the Akron Hospital records. They don't know exactly the details. All that all that we know from AA literature is that the guy lived.

I mean yeah. He he might have whistled when he walked. We don't know. I mean, you know, but he lived. And, doctor Bob came out of that surgery and spent the rest of the day, all the rest of that morning, all that afternoon and early evening, out seeking the people that he owed.

He wouldn't didn't wanna face and And that was really the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous. And in a weird sense, AA was founded on step 8. Really, when you think about it. Something that I was not, big on doing. Because I owed a lot.

And these 2 guys set out and they started, doing they believed in a principle that if they helped other drunks, that they might be able to stay sober themselves and they got affiliated themselves with the Oxford group because it was a spiritual a like minded spiritual movement. And AA started growing slowly, slowly, slowly. And then something peculiar started happening. We started getting some notoriety. There was a baseball player in Cleveland who, they did an article about him and the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

He mentioned Alcoholics Anonymous changing his life and the Cleveland group of AA was inundated overnight with just amazing amounts of requests for help. There was a Liberty Magazine article and didn't get quite a strong response because it it really stressed, overly stressed the the the it's sort of a religious aspect of AA which to some the people that were really ready were okay, but some of the people didn't get as big a response. And then something happened that I think changed Alcoholics Anonymous. There was a guy named Jack Alexander and Jack Alexander had an impeccable reputation as a troubleshooter, as a no nonsense guy, a guy who could not be bought off. He was an investigative reporter.

He had done some work in in a church and he exposed a bunch of corruption there. He done some some work exposing corruption in one of the big unions on the East Coast. He had a tremendous reputation of no nonsense and somebody said to Jack, you know, look at this Alcoholics Anonymous thing. What could that be about? That's gotta be some kind of front, some kind of scam, some kind of something.

And Jack Alexander took it on, went into Alcoholics Anonymous to investigate us and he found, I'm sure, to his delight in his line of business that we were exactly what we said we were. There was nobody in AA that was gonna get a toaster for helping anybody. I mean, there was no profit motive. There was no nobody had an axe to grind. Nobody was trying to sell nothing.

It we were simply what we said we were. We were people who had been dying of alcoholism that found that they tried to help other people with similar problems that they themselves could survive. And he wrote this stellar article in the Saturday Evening Post, which in in no time at all, the New York office was inundated by stacks and stacks of letters and requests for help from people all over the all over the country. I, was good friends with a gal named Sybil. And Sybil was the first woman west of the Rocky Mountains to ever get sober and she got sober in the early forties in California, right after the Jack Alexander article, and, not too long after that, and they by the time the letters had filtered down to the California group, there was a stack of letters from women asking for help and there was no woman sober.

So Sybil is sober like 2 days. She's still vibrating and they sent her out to talk to these women. And she never never drank again. She spent her whole life doing exactly that. Tremendous member of Alcoholics Anonymous helped thousands and thousands of women.

But as a result of this this huge growth spurt, there were problems occurring all over the country in Alcoholics Anonymous. Problems of disunity. There was, the group in Akron was kinda they didn't like the group in New York. They thought the group in New York was too too psychologically oriented, and the group and and and the group in New York thought the Akron group was too Christian and too Oxford group, and and they didn't trust each other. Even though Bob and Bill were lifelong friends, some of their followers bickered about each other and judged each other.

I know, down in Florida, nobody judges other people in AA, but it was a bad problem then. And, Alcoholics Anonymous is is like having a lot of problems. There were groups taking on all kinds of bizarre things. There was a I have a letter. I didn't I wanted to bring it with me.

I didn't bring it with me. It's, dated December 1941. It was from the Executive Committee of Alcoholics Anonymous for the State of California. It was written to a gal named Irma Lavony. And in the letter, it what it had it told it revoked Irma's membership in Alcohol Exonomous and told her she's no longer welcome here.

And I found out through Sybil's daughter, the reason was is that Irma liked men. And they developed, they had a committee meeting, decide decide they didn't want that kind of person. An alcoholic economist had gave sent her this letter, revoked, told her she wasn't welcome, revoked her membership rights, she couldn't come here no more. Well, I'll tell you something, I I know I know thousands of women I've met around the country and Alcoholics Anonymous that have been helped by loose women. But they had no traditions.

They didn't have the 3rd tradition. So groups were taking it on themselves to do whatever they wanted to do. There was a lot of fret there was a lot of people getting drunk. There were people getting resentments, judging other groups and other members of Alcoholics Anonymous, and it was chaos. And Bill is is getting inundated by letters from people around the country that are afraid because they know that their life is on the line.

These are these are people these are low bottom alcoholics that have tried everything, and now they finally, for the first time in their life, they got a shot. And they're watching the thing that has saved their life fall apart around them. And Bill's getting these letters and letters and letters and he doesn't know what to do. And a gentleman from North Carolina sent him a letter and he said, in the letter he said, Bill, the same thing's happening to us that happened to the Washingtonians. And Bill Wilson didn't even know never heard of the Washingtonians.

But he's a very studious guy and he did some research and he found it in the mid 1800. There was a group that started in Baltimore, Maryland and it was a couple drunkards who'd met in a bar and they were hope to die alcoholics, guys that have have had endless temperance pledges, guys that had been in sanitariums, had been in jail, that had sworn they would never drink, and for some peculiar reason, they could not stick to it, and they were dying. And they kept going back to the bottle in face of overwhelming information that it's destroying them. They couldn't stop. And these guys met in this bar room and they're talking about this this hopeless condition, and they they came up with an idea that none of these people, these these people in our churches, in our family members, in our doctors, they've been trying to help us and they can't.

Maybe we could help each other. And they started to do that and they got each other sober and they started to form this little fellowship and go out and help other drunkards. And and within just a few years, without telephone, without public transportation, without all the things that are in place in the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous, this couple drunkards in a bar in in in Baltimore, Maryland grew to a fellowship that the low estimates are a 100,000. And there I've seen high estimates where people have estimated that there may have been as close to a half a 1000000 people involved in the Washingtonians in just a few years. And Alcoholics Anonymous, in just a few years, had only a couple 100 people.

But they didn't have any traditions and they started in fighting. They started judging each other. They started affiliating themselves with other groups. They they started affiliating themselves with the temperance movement. They started, taking political positions on things that I'm sure made sense to them, as it would make sense to a lot of people trying to reform their life and live a spiritual way of life, and they align themselves with the abolition of slavery and some political things in the Mexico deal, and and they want to help laud pneumatics, which is a form of opium and all that kind of stuff.

And with they'd never made the decade. And within less than 10 years from their inception, they no longer existed. And we don't know for sure. There's no way of knowing, but I suspect that most of those people, if they were like me, they died horrible deaths on the streets of big cities in this country from a disease called alcoholism. A disease that by the time it fights, it takes it's such a tedious process, dying this disease.

And I do a lot of work in the trenches down at Skid Row detoxes and stuff stuff, and I watch guys that have died of this disease. And I wanna tell you something, by the time it kills you, you've wished you were dead for a long time. By the time it kills you, everyone you've ever loved or wanted their approval hates you and is gonna be glad you're dead. I can't imagine a worse way to live to die, really. I can't imagine a worse way to die of the spirit in here where the pain really is.

And Bill saw this account this he found out about the Washingtonians. He thought, my god. That's exactly what's happening to Alcoholics Anonymous. And Bill Wilson was a visionary, and Bill Wilson had an ability to see beyond. And he which is obvious from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Bill wrote about things that were beyond his experience. Some of the promises in there hadn't come through haven't haven't come true for him. And yet, he could see. He had a vision of what what could happen and he and out of this, I think, I believe, he was just as divinely inspired to write the 12 traditions as he was to write the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he put those together in the long form, which first appeared in the mid 19 forties as the tenants they weren't called the long form because they weren't called the long form till we got the short form.

Right? Which makes sense, really. Right? They were called the tenants to ensure AA's future. I have a copy of one of the early, publishing typed thing of it of it at home.

And, Bill really strongly believed that this was gonna help this is gonna save this is the only thing that's gonna save us are these principles. And he went on a campaign to get the groups in Alcoholics Anonymous to accept these traditions as they existed in the long form. And nobody would accept them. Matter of fact, they didn't even wanna hear about them. Matter of fact, they wouldn't even read them in the meeting.

My home group reads the the long form once a month. And if you've ever been in a meeting where they read the long form, it's long. I mean, it's in it and, you know, I'll you know, I know how I am self centered. I get sober. It's all about me.

And it's like, well, yeah. You're taking away time. We could talk about me. You know, me, me, me. Right?

And they don't wanna hear the You know, it's like, rules. We don't need no stinking rules. You know, we don't need no traditions. And and they they didn't wanna hear about it. Matter of fact, if Bill was asked, Bill, who's the the one of the cofounders of Alcoholics Anonymous?

Probably, one of the guys that was asked to speak and share his experience the most in Alcohol Exonomous. There's letters in our archives telling inviting Bill to come and speak at different groups, providing he promises not to mention the traditions. And Bill, in the they they started publishing them in the grapevine, in the newly formed grapevine, and and they're he's getting nowhere and AA has fallen apart. And he was under some pressure to do something and, he didn't know what do. And he consented from what I've been able to find out from Bob Pearson and some of the and a couple of the archives, archivists, and historians in AA that Bill was under a lot pressure to get some to have something done.

And some members of the newly formed Grapevine staff encouraged him to do an abbreviated version of the 12 traditions which later became the short form, which has been universally adopted by the groups of Alcoholics Anonymous to such an extent that a vast amount of our fellowship doesn't even know the long form as it was originally written even exists. And I'll tell you, this is an opinion and I which I'm gonna get later into as we get into one of the traditions, the reason why you're not supposed to have them. But my opinion is, I think we shortchanged ourselves as a fellowship when we walked away from the long form. And I'll get into why a little bit as we as we go through the basic differences and how it's affected the fellowship of Alcohol on us between the long form and the short form. There's some tremendous differences.

Differences that I don't think when Bill reluctantly agreed to the publishing of the short form, my differences, I don't think he ever imagined would be would have the effect that they've had on Alcoholics Anonymous. And, the 12 traditions, just like the 12 steps, are set are set of spiritual principles that when practiced as a way of life by a group, by a family, by a business, by anywhere that people interact, will ensure something that is desperately needed and define the basic problem, which is defined in tradition number 1, is a lack of unity. Alcoholics Anonymous was coming apart at the seams. And over the years, I've tried to incorporate those those principles. I I I sold a corporation last year that I ran on the 12 traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I all my management staff, they didn't know anything about AA really, but they knew about the principles of the spirit of those principles, because we would talk about them in staff meetings, regular basis. Regular basis. And we tried to run that company, buy it and as a result, it was healthy. Because it kept the egos and the personalities out of it. The problem with with Alcoholics Anonymous is it it's got a lot of alcoholics in it.

And you know how we are. I mean, you know, we're that we're, It's not that there's anything wrong with with us. We just all seem to really get what's wrong with everybody else. And we wanna tell them and straighten them out. And we wanna tell them because we know they need to know.

And it's easy to watch a group that doesn't have the spirit of the traditions, forget their primary purpose and become self serving and start to be dominated by alcoholic personalities and fall apart. Every area I've ever been to in the United States is is is stories abundant about groups that were real strong at one time that no longer exist. Not an old story. And in the first tradition, it's in the short form. It says, our common welfare should come first.

Personal recovery depends upon a unity. Lack of unity really is the problem. And not only is it the problem, in a group level or it was the problem in my business when I started implementing these principles. It was the problem in in relationships that I've tried to implement these these principles. It has it had been the problem personally, primarily in my alcoholism.

I I don't know about you guys, but I'll tell you what was really true for me. I drank because of a lack of unity. I drank because I felt at times like I was dying of loneliness. I drank because I I'm the guy that could sit in a group of people that cared about me and feel that separation like it's all of them and then there's me. I drank because I suffered, as Bill talks about in the 12 by 12, the pains of anxious apartness.

And in the good days when alcohol was really a treatment for the disease of alcoholism, 5 shots of Jack Daniels and I could come out and play. Five shots of Jack Daniels and I could integrate myself with a group of people and feel like I was a part of. 7 shots and I loved everybody. Remember that feeling that it just just you feel so close to these guys. It almost brings tears to your eyes.

Where you just go, I love you, man. Remember you wanna hug people. You're right. Remember that? Remember that?

Now that's spiritual. That's a feeling of unity. And then I would sober up and it's just me back again on me. Isolated and alone and I'm the guy, once again, that don't fit too good. I'm the guy that don't feel like you look.

I drank primarily for a lack of unity because I wanted I might tell you I'd tell you with a bravado, I don't need nobody. I don't need I don't like people. I don't need nobody. But secretly inside myself, I yearned to be a part of. I yearned to love and be loved.

I wanted to be connected to people. And the only time I'd ever found that was in the very early days of my drinking when alcohol worked. When spirits was the solution for the spiritual malady. But as the disease of alcoholism progressed, alcohol no longer integrated me and I entered into an area of bleak bleak loneliness, where I could drink with a bunch of people that cared about me and I didn't fit. And I drank and I still couldn't get me off of me and I'd go on crying JAGS and be full of self pity.

And lack of unity was my problem when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous the last time in 1978. And I'd I'd observed something in a treatment center in in Pennsylvania. I had a run-in partner who, we used to go to meetings together and and and we were on we knew we couldn't drink. It was killing us, but we were on the marijuana maintenance kinda deal. Right?

And we'd sit we'd sit in the back of the meeting stoned and judge everybody. And you if you really wanna judge, you gotta have a good. You gotta have a partner. You gotta really get that You can't get enough torque on the personalities in the room by yourself. Really, you feed each other.

It's a good It's a It's great. And we do that and naturally, I drank again. Right? Of course. I mean, no I mean, some some of you are surprised, but I drank again.

And I end up living in an abandoned building and I'm I'm in I'm really in bad shape and I he this guy sees me after about 10 days on this run with the sores and the the dirt and the, you know, the wet pants and the whole deal. And it shocked him. And he went and quit that, changed his sobriety date, went and got one of those fanatical big book sponsors, the guys we really used to judge and make fun of. Went and got one of those guys and next almost a year later, I'm in another institution and I'm waiting for the for the the AA do gooders to bring the meeting in. Right?

And here comes the guy that was my running partner. And the lights are on. And he's laughing. And he's having a good time. And he's driving.

He drove up there in a car that he bought. And he's engaged to be married. He's got a good job. And and more than anything, he had these newer guys with him that he was sponsoring and the lights were on. See, I could have sat in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous for 20 years and discounted your stories of recovery because you're not like me.

My case is different. But I knew this guy. I knew that guy. And I knew that the answer was somehow he did something I didn't wanna do. He became part of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Somehow, in this thing that that he talked about called the steps, he was able to dismantle his judgment machine, the thing that kept him separate and apart from, and integrate himself sober into this fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I wanted that because I'm dying here. See, if I could've drank successfully, if I could've killed myself as I tried to do on my last run and failed, if I could have stopped on my own, I wouldn't have needed you and I wouldn't have needed to be a part of. So on a on a subconscious level, I got it. That I my life depends upon me being a part of here.

And which is bad news for a guy like me. One of my big problems with Alcoholics Anonymous is, I don't like people. And that's a real handicap in AA. I I've never I've never met a guy I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him in about 3 minutes. You know what I mean?

And it which keeps you separate and apart from. And But yet, I knew I had to be a part of here, I was gonna die. In the long form of tradition, when it says, each member of Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part of a great whole. AA must continue to live or most of us will surely die. Hence, our common welfare comes first, but individual welfare follows close afterward.

I have a daughter who's 16 years old, who I love more than life itself. We just came back, from a trip to Europe with Charlie and a bunch of guys. I don't know if she's alcoholic. As if there's no symptoms of it as of yet. And I don't know if she ever will be.

And I don't know if her children will ever will be. But I'll tell you something, if they get to a place that I was in in 1978 where they're standing on a bridge with a bottle of cheap wine, trying to get up enough courage to jump and just stop it. I want them to be able to come to a place called Alcoholics Anonymous. And without the 12 traditions of AA, our children's children's children will die on the streets. They won't they don't have this.

You know, why would I think that this is gonna we can we can trash AA and then have it's gonna come up again. It didn't in 1000 of years. We I tell you, those of us that have alcoholism in this small minute period of time in the big scope of human history are are so fortunate. Really. When you look at the 1,000,000 and millions and millions of alcoholics that just had to take their own life, or drink themselves to death, or end up in in locked up in institutions.

We're very fortunate. And we are but a small each member is but small part of a great whole. I heard a guy back in the seventies, a guy that was became one of my mentors, a guy named Chuck Chamberlain, say something that really got my attention. He said he said, if you if we he said he believed if we could see how if we could see the magnificence of Alcoholics Anonymous and and the light that it has brought into the world, it would be so intense it would burn our eyes out. And I've gone to meetings in in prisons where there's lifers in there that are alive.

I'll tell you something, through this 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, these guys doing life imprisonment are freer than a lot of guys I know sit in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous on the outside. They're freer. The only thing a guy like me ever really has to be free of, the bondage of self. And these guys are helping the newer people and they're on fire and the lights are on. I'm just a small, small part of a big, huge, magnificent whole called Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I owe AA. And I I wanna be a servant here. How could you not how could you not wish to serve and how could you not fall in love with something that does for me what AA had done for me once I got really what it did for me? Tradition number 2, it is the only tradition that's longer in the short form than it is in the long form, which makes us makes the traditions very alcoholic. It says, for our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority, a loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience.

That's the long form. In the short form, they added, our leaders are but trusted servants, they do not govern. And I think by the time I think, I have I I wish I could find this out. I I always had the sense that Bill added that line. That that was his deal.

Because I think, maybe, by the time the short form came out, he'd watched some of us, rule the universe in AA and and realize that the best we're ever going to do here is be a servant. It's the only organization that I know of where you come in a big shot and end up you grow to be a servant. It's like the it's like the opposite of every company or industry in the world. You go in as a servant and cleaning floors and you end up being a big shot if you're lucky. Here, it's the opposite.

We If you're really lucky, you'll get to be, one day, be a servant here. And one of my favorite pieces of ancient literature is a is a is a book called Paradise Lost by Milton. And there's a part in there that where Lucifer shakes his fist as he's casting by his own self will. Casting himself out of heaven, shakes his fist at God and the angels in heaven and he says, I would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven. And you know what's true for me always, always, always, always is when I'm reigning, feels like hell.

And when I'm serving, I feel connected and free and a part of and it feels like heaven. And our leaders, it's it's a constant reminder that the best we're ever gonna get here is serving. How can I help? Is there something I got that can help you? You got it.

I'm a servant. Hard thing to remember when you have the the basic personality trait that wants to run the universe. And it, you know, this this principle of an ultimate authority, is is remarkable to watch. If you've ever I spent a guy wanted me to say this. I spent over, I think it was over 10 years in general service.

Everything I did, a couple terms as a g GSR, a couple terms as a DCM area officer. I was on committees. I did a lot of that stuff. And what it was I loved being a part of the general service structure just as I love being a part of my as a one voice in my group conscience and my home group. I love to watch the spirit of God work in the group conscience.

And it's so it's annoying sometimes the way it works. Because in a group conscience, you'll have people off the wall to this side, and you think, what are they even saying? That has nothing to do with what we're trying to talk about here. Then you have people off the other side so far off, it's just ridiculous as and you sit there. You wanna pull your hair out.

You don't realize you're this is tolerance 101. Right? Right? And out of all of that, out of all it's all necessary. I'm telling you, it's all necessary.

Out of all of it materializes this thing called a group conscience. And it's a what a wonderful thing. Once you when you're in the middle of it, trying to express your opinion with with 50 other people all expressing their opinions, it's it's often a caustic situation. But then later, I would step back and I'd look at what happened in that assembly and I would think, man, God did it again. It was exactly it was it was right.

It's exactly the it was not the way I would have voted. They didn't vote the way I wanted to vote, but they voted the way they were it was the hand of god was right in there. Right in there. It's the only organization where people wanna every you know, on a regular basis, people wanna call up and complain to the leaders of AA. We don't got any.

Alright. Or newcomers, you wanna come in and they wanna feel they wanna get they wanna find out who's in charge. You ever have somebody in your home group come up to you and say, who's in charge here? See the guy that's cleaning the bathroom? Well, right now, he's probably at the top of the food chain.

Weird organization. Tradition number 3. And I really wanna talk about this. I this is one of the traditions where I think I think we took a hit. I think if we would've stuck with the long form, the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous would be different than it is today.

Now, this is just my opinion but I want to talk a little bit about the differences between the short form and the long form. The short form, which everyone's familiar with, is the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. The long form's a little different. The long form says, our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence, we may refuse none who wish to recover from suffering from alcoholism.

Nor AAA membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any 2 or 3 alcoholics gathered together for sobriety, they call themselves an AA group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation. And it and one of the other traditions, it really goes into affiliation. And let me tell you something, there is a a world of difference between having a desire not to drink and suffering from alcoholism. Today, there's probably 10,000,000 people in this country on the carbohydrates.

Everybody, any any you could take mother when Mother Teresa was alive, you could give her a few drinks and put her behind the wheel of an automobile and she could get a DUI and be sent to Alcoholics Anonymous and go, well, like, I don't really wanna drink anymore. This this is a great let me just be a MAA member. I think there's a lot of people coming to Alcoholics Anonymous and entrench themselves in AA that don't have alcoholism as it's discussed and talked about in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. As a matter of fact, there's a section in there that talks about the 2 different types of people. On page 20 21, at the bottom of page 20, it talks about hard drinkers.

And the way it talks about a hard drinker, it the hard drinker sound from if you were a doctor and you looked at this guy, you'd think he had alcoholism. It says these hard drinkers, these I'll I'll just read it, that's even better. This is this sounds like an alcoholic. Bottom of page 20. We have a certain type of hard drinker.

He may have the habit badly enough to gradually impair him physically and mentally. He drinks habitually to the point where it's screwing him up and he's paying a price mentally, and you drink the you drink the beverage alcohol every day heavily for a period of time, it'll make you a little weird. And, physically, you drink beverage alcohol every day for a sustained period of time as guys do. I I went to high school with a guy that went joined a drinking fraternity in college and they just drank every single day. He had to be detoxed at the end of the semester, but he didn't have alcoholism.

He has never gotten himself in that shape again. Never. Gradually, impairmentally, physically, it says it may cause him to die a few years before his time. That's not good. And then here's the here's the primary difference.

It says, if a sufficiently strong reason, ill and it gives some examples. Ill health, falling in love, change of environment, or the warning of a doctor find it difficult and troublesome, and may even need medical attention. He may even need to be find it difficult and troublesome, and may even need medical attention. He may even need to be detoxed. But he gets he one day, he wakes up and he gets it.

This is not good. This is the doctor I just came from the doctor. He said that I got pancreas, signs of early pancreatitis. My liver panel's off the chart. He says, if I keep drinking, I'm going to die in a couple years.

Man, I ain't going to do that no more. He puts the plug in the jug and after a little period of shakiness coming off of bed the drug alcohol, he is restored to normal living. Well, I'm the guy. I go to the doctor as I have and the doctor says your liver panel is not good. You get you can end up with pancreatitis.

It's not gonna be good. This is gonna be bad. It's gonna kill you. I'm probably gonna go get a bottle of whiskey to think about what he just said. Or it says, falling in love.

I I went to I used to drink with a guy, who I tell you by observation, I would have thought he was an alcoholic. He drank so habitually and he I mean, he every time I ever he picked he started drinking, he got drunk. He was off the charts and he'd get crazy and fights and just whack stuff. He looked like an alcoholic. And he met this girl and fell madly in love with her.

And she wouldn't put up with a party and then she gave him an ultimatum. And he was so in love with her. He said, you know, sweetheart, I don't wanna live like that either anymore. I wanna have a family. And he put the plug in the jug and he got involved in some civic groups and stuff in the community.

And he's never looked back and he'd never ever looked back. I'm the same guy. And I I remember I remember being in a real I remember being in love. Well, it's kind of like being in love. I she had a job and a place to live.

I mean and I'm and I'm pathetic and alone. I mean, that was as close to love as a guy like me will ever get. You know what I mean? I couldn't imagine life without her because I had nobody. So and she gave me an ultimatum because, you know, she's I would get a little out of line once in a while.

Didn't mean to, but I would. And she just got tired of changing the sheets and stuff. I mean, you know what I mean? And she gave me an ultimatum. And when she gave me an ultimatum, man, she is my life.

Without her, I don't know what I there's I I am so I have no self esteem. I secretly believe if if I lose her, I will never find anybody that would ever love me again. I believe that with every fiber of my being. I swore to myself, I'm never gonna touch that stuff again. And I meant it.

And I went into a place and I they they they weaned me off with alcohol with Valium and some other stuff and and I got sober and I'm not drinking day in and day out and week in and week out and month in. And the longer I'm sober, the more I realize what's wrong with her. Right? Till one day, I I can't take it anymore and I gotta go drink because I'm the real alcoholic. I am not.