The Dallas Big Book Study Groups 3rd anniversery in St. Cloud, FL

There are some sequins here. I'll tell you this year. This is good. This is good. I, for the guys that I have not met, my name is Myers Raymer, and I am an alcoholic.

Hi. I took my last nasty drink on January 15, 88. My home group is the primary purpose group of Dallas, Texas, which causes a great deal of confusion when I I told them last week I was gonna go to Florida and talk to the Dallas Primary Purpose Group in Florida, and it's just kinda like, okay. That's what you say. It it amazes me.

Lately, over the last maybe 5 or 6 months, I've gotten to talk at 5 or 6 anniversary deals. And I can tell you that they're quickly becoming my absolute favorite thing to do. The to to see a group of people come together and do the work and and and take the the heat that starting any group causes. It doesn't make any difference where it is or where where you are. It takes a great deal of commitment from a lot of people to get a group started and then maintain it and and grow it, nurture it, and, lots of prayer and lots of sweat and, lots of commitment.

And I am so grateful to know you and so proud to be in the same room with you. This is this is good stuff. I had an opportunity. I gotta tell you guys, no matter where I go, there's always this moment of uncertainty as you step into a guy's truck that's carrying you from the airport to a conference, and you're wondering, do I have a carload of middle of the road guys, or do I have a carload of guys that know and understand the big book? And so you kinda test the waters a little bit, And and these these guys are, like, all laddered up, and I'm thinking, oh, thank gosh.

It's gonna be a it's gonna be a great deal, man. I wanna thank, Melissa and Mike. And I've been talking to Melissa on the email stuff for years, and and, I got to meet Mike and Kevin, my new buddy here. And by the way, if there's something you disagree with tonight, Kevin's gonna walk me to my my my car tonight. He's my, appointed bodyguard this evening.

So this is gonna be I'll be good. These guys in here may get a little wet. I get kinda laddered up. And so speaking of getting laddered up, now that I've made an impression with the coat, I'll remove this coat. Thank you very much.

I told Cliff Bishop, my sponsor, that I would never ever he said, just don't embarrass me from the podium. And so I said, okay. I'll always make a great impression, but then I'll lose that coach just as fast as I can. I can't stand that stuff. Where to begin?

I tell there's there's this deal about I need to tell you going in on this stuff. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to share an experience that I had, but I want you to understand it was my experience. It may not be your experience. The I want you to understand that that God didn't wake me up yesterday morning and said, Myers, I want you to go out there to Florida and straighten them sons of guns out.

He didn't he didn't say that. You see? I've never met anybody in AA that met me any malice or any harm. I've met the kindest, gentlest, sweetest people in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous that I've ever met, the greatest people on God's green earth. Sometimes when I talk and I talk about my experience, people say, well, it sounds like you don't like AA.

And nothing could be further from the truth. There is there is something about an AA group that is just absolutely precious. And I think in, sometimes I'd see things happening that I don't agree with, and I see things that disturb me greatly. And we'll talk a little bit about that stuff tonight, not a lot, but the the what I have come to find out is that there's this there's this deal of sifting our experience through the big book of Alcoholics Synonymous and the traditions on a group level and seeing where we are. And, hopefully, that's what we'll get a chance to do a little bit tonight.

Not to make you feel uncomfortable, not to make you squirm, but just to give you a chance to go through the same stuff that I went through, which is a kind of a soul searching look at our program, what we're doing, what we're we're how effective are we being, where we If you know me for 2 minutes, you know I'm gonna ask you a 1,000 questions. The guys I sponsor, they hate my guts, most of them, because I'm I can't stop asking the questions because it's only in self scrutiny can we really see where we are. Because self deception runs rampant. You see? For for 7 years, I floundered in Alcoholics Anonymous, and had, some really horrible time.

Not AA's fault necessarily. Most of it was my fault because I'm too lazy to get in the big book and and read and understand what's there. I don't want any responsibility. I don't wanna sponsor you. I don't wanna drive your stupid bus to a treatment center.

I don't wanna do anything. And and so I I I, you know, I got to read what I sowed, which was pretty miserable way of life. See? I'm a 3rd generation drunk. Some of you guys have met my evil twin, Chris.

And, my grandfather was a drunk. My dad was a was a was an alcoholic that died as a direct result of his of his drinking. And and then there's Chris, my twin brother, that's right there in front of me. And you'd think with all these guys there that I'd know, Man, I'm not going to do that. But you know how it is, man.

We just get all sucked up into it. And, I am indeed the good twin. Thank you. And, you'll see. You'll see.

You'll wanna embrace me after this talk. You'll think I'm so good. You that's gonna be good. I gotta tell you, I wanna while I'm at, I wanna thank Melissa for not making me talk from up there. The we did a talk in in, Copenhagen, Chris and I did, a couple years ago, and we talked in a cathedral of this huge, huge church.

You know how churches are in Europe anyway. They're just really imposing. And I walked into this cathedral with all this glass, and it looked like the Sistine Chapel, and the pulpit where they had us talking was 25 feet above the the floor of the of the of the sanctuary, I'm level with the balconies, and it's the most uncomfortable to crawl. You have to climb up these ladders and then another little set of ladders, and you and you walk up on this thing with a couple of 1,000 people out there, and it's just oh, it was the most uncomfortable, and it just took forever. First, it took forever not to step back because I kept wanting to I kept trying to fall off that stupid little deal.

But the second thing was, it made me feel real self conscious about I like it here. And these guys are in the spit zone. I'll spit on them half the time during the night like this. They'll be doing this, but we thought I'd do it. But I like that.

I feel comfortable in that situation. This thing of being removed from everybody else makes me special in some way, and it's real disconcerting. I don't wanna be special. I'm a left on my own devices, I'm a busted up drunk who has the power to do absolutely nothing of any worth or value. It's just a horrible way to be.

Chris and I drink like idiots. I'm not gonna get into a bunch of drunk stuff because it's not the important stuff. I wish I had a great drunk log to tell you. I wish I could excite you with stories of be living on the street and and and all this other stuff. The fact of the matter is I'm a pathetic coward of a drunk.

I drink. I say loud things in bars. I get beat up. And that's kinda it in a nutshell. Kinda it.

And, I I simply you guys remember you remember when you first sobered up and and and it's like the more you drink and the more the disease gets you, the more fearful you get. You have you're you're having less and less control of everything every day, and yet you want more control, and you're exerting it through physical stuff, through this. I mean, a man that would normally never touch his life, and towards the end of his disease, he can't keep his hands off of him. Now, this is not everybody, but this is me. I'm just as the scrawniest kid in the playground, and believe me, I've I've looked just like I did when I was in on the playground.

I just as the scrawniest guy there, a bully made me the utmost upset thing in the world. I absolutely hate a bully with a passion, and booze quickly took me right there. I gotta I gotta manhandle my way around you. I gotta manhandle my I can't go to the grocery store sober. I can't go anywhere sober because I'm too fearful, I'm too afraid.

Everything in my life is unraveling, and I seem to be unable to to do anything about it. I'm a functioning alcoholic. I'm in the I have a bindery there in in in, in Dallas and and that we've had for 30 years. And I used to be able to do all of it drunk. All of it, I could do after a couple of bruises.

No sweat. And then towards the last of it, you know how it is, the disease progresses, we get sicker, I drink 2 beers, and turn around and walk into a wall. I'm like that. And I'm slurring words and I'm just acting a fool and I'm just and so in the last 6 months that I drank, I got I got beat up in a liquor store for trying to beat up a liquor store clerk for calling my house over a credit card that was no good. You know how it is.

And and then I I tried to to beat up a guy in a pizza place one night, for reasons that I don't remember. Oh, and I forgot almost that my daughter, who's 3a half years old, is standing right there watching the whole thing as they beat me off of this guy with a beer pitcher. It's not not pleasant. And, you might understand this. And the, so Chris is working with me, and he's been sober.

He sobered up in November of 87, and and now it's in January, and I'm just I'm just coming apart. I can't stand it. I gave Chris hell. I mean, he he's doing the deal. He goes to AA.

He gets sober, and his his life is great, and he's going to work, and he's doing everything that we do. He's pulling all the pieces of his life back together again. Got this little girl he's dating, and I it's just it's just a cool deal, and I'm watching it. And from my perspective, I'm miserable, and I'm so unhappy I can hardly stand it. My best drinking buddy is not there anymore, and I hate his guts.

And I hate AA, and I hate your stinking big book, and I hate everything. I'm just a hater. I just I I don't because I don't understand any of it. There's still this illusion that I can hold this whole thing together. And so quickly, Chris had introduced me to the joys of other outside issues, which we won't get into, but it sort of sped things up if you catch my drift.

And we and it literally fell apart in months. It it just simply was chaotic. If you can imagine what it's like, Chris was living with me at the time, so we got 2 active alcoholics in the house and and my poor wife who's trying to hold our business together and and this little girl there, and we put her in front of the TV set. And she comes in the kitchen 1 morning and 1 evening, and and I'm supposed to be cooking dinner, and and she said something and interrupted. Chris and I were solving the world's problems, and and and and she said something and interrupted me, and I and she kept saying daddy or something.

And, anyway, I finally couldn't take it anymore and I just looked at her and I said, what? And I remember pushing her down. Now, she's 3a half, and I'm an idiot. And, and I'll never to this day, I'll never ever forget the hate in that little girl's face as she slid across that kitchen floor and slammed into the cabinets on the other side. And I just, Chris is real quiet and looking at me, and Sarah's looking at me, and I'm just frozen.

I don't I didn't want to be a bully, guys. I didn't wanna be a coward. I didn't wanna be what I had become. And yet here I was, and I had to face the fact. So I asked I asked Chris, you know, if he could help and and he said yes.

And so when it came time a month or so down the road, Chris took me to my first AA meeting, and I walked in. And I loved AA from the very start, that old smoke filled room, a little shotgun room. And and I'll Chris maybe told you about this room. It's the dangest thing. It's about from here to the wall no.

Not that far. Half that distance and almost as long as this with a table that runs right down the middle, and and you got 60 people in there all smoking, and by halfway through the deal, you can't see the top of the room. There's no ventilation anywhere in the deal like this. And if you stand up in it, you just pass out. It's just like a bunch of guys laying on the floor flopping around like this, trying it's terrible.

You so you just you know, the the the guys that have been around a while, like me, you do a slurry. You just got up like this, and you just walked to the coffee sideways like this until you get out in it, and it's just but it but that's the kind of room it was, and and I love those guys. I love those guys. I didn't get a sponsor and I didn't work the steps. We didn't we didn't do those things.

But and here lies the problem. Now, you gotta understand, this is my deal here, and I'm not attacking AA in any form or fashion at this stuff. This was simply my deal. I'm involved in a group who who has slowly but surely taken the big book out of the picture, and we're real involved, 21 meetings a week, all of them open discussion meetings, and it's pretty sick already. And then guess what happened?

We get these guys come in from out of town, California. But I'm not gonna say that. And these guys decided it didn't make a difference where they were from, but they they they decided that what we were gonna do was they in a group conscious meeting, they said, you know what? I think we're talking about God too much. Why don't we just not talk about God in the meeting and then we're not gonna scare the newcomer?

And I'm thinking well, I'm not thinking. What I'm doing is I'm really I'm looking around the room and him and him and him, and they're all going and I just kinda fall in and doing just like this. And so on that night, in that cold November, we voted God out of our AA meeting, and it was ugly. Buddy, these meetings these meetings, they were already absolutely painful to sit in. Got so absolute in in in Iceland, they call them dark tunnel meetings, and I know why.

It it is just and that's exactly what it was. It 21 meetings a week of nothing but arrogance and ego and lots of sharing things. But we had no common solution. And so as a result, we started slipping and sliding like big dogs, and people getting drunk every week. It was just nasty.

And I'm getting crazy again. I mean, I'm just you know, for 3 years, I managed to hold it together pretty good, but now all of a sudden, I'm sitting in these meetings. I'm I'm listen. I'm a poster boy of middle of the road solution. I'm a card carrying member of that club.

And I'm telling you from personal experience, you can stay clear of the booze and the other outside issues just going to a bunch of meetings. Can you stay happy? I don't know. I couldn't. Perhaps you can.

But it was it was pretty painful. And so Chris is I'm caught Chris has now moved to the Hill Country and got a big book sponsor, and he's worked back through the work, and he's doing great. And I'm talking to Chris, and Chris is saying, get out of there. I'm telling you, go find you another group. But we got this loyalty to the groups we sobered up in.

Right? There's something kinda it's just the I mean, it's it's cool in some ways because but if there's just this ingrained thing, these are my buddies, these are the men and women that I love more than anything in the in on earth, and I'll stay. We can make this happen. We can we'll be okay. Deep inside, I know this is a bad decision.

Deep inside, I understand I'm in trouble, real trouble. Now fast forward, I managed to hold it together for another couple of years. I'm now 7 years sober. I'm writing hot checks all over Denton County. I can't keep my hands off other women.

I'm I'm I'm absolutely I am so wrapped around the axle. So I'm so twisted that I just can't hardly see straight. I'm yelling at my wife again. I'm starting to get physical with her again. I'm starting to, you know, put my hand on her and just kinda push her out of the way, this kind of stuff.

I'm not hitting her. But what difference does it make? I'm still so fearful again, so so consumed with the spirituality, which I don't understand because and understand why it behaved so atrociously in AA. And understand why it behaved so atrociously in AA. It would be short order though before I'd run across 1,000 of men and women who've gone through the exact same thing, the exact same deal.

All those years I drank and did those other crazy outside issues, all those years and I never one time considered suicide. 7 years sober, that's all I can think about. All I can think about. I simply cannot stand who I'm becoming again. And I am so fearful.

If AA doesn't work, if I can't get clear of this stuff, I'm destined to die of drunk. My grandfather did. My dad did. I gotta figure out a way. One night, I check out in front of this beer cooler in the store, and and I had no reason for being in there except to buy beer.

And I get kinda comatose in front of this deal, and some lady's tapping me on the back and she's really mad and she says, hey, are you gonna get something or not? Which tells me that I've been standing there for a while. I really don't know, guys. I just know that I've been there long enough to irritate the heck out of her. And I it scared me so bad I just backed out, called Chris.

I said, Hey. I'm in trouble. Help. And for the second time, he he stood the ground. Bad twin he may be, he stood the deal and he held me.

He said, Don't do anything. In a couple of days, I'll be in Dallas. I'm gonna get you hooked up. I'm gonna do a talk with some people, and I'll find you a place where you can go to get the book. And I said, okay.

And he did. True to his word, he did. And I got plugged in with this old coot named Cliff Bishop and, he's giving me his permission to bust his anonymity every time I talk and I do willfully and I I love the guy. And, he's just this crusty old guy and he knows the big book and he's and he's not afraid to tell you that you're full of stuff, you know. He's just he's just not afraid to to tell you.

And it is just a weird deal. I come I wanna make sure that you understand me on this thing, guys. It's an amazing thing. I go sit down with him, and in 45 minutes, as it's sitting in his living room, He tells me a bunch of stuff that I've never heard before, a stuff that came out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I think he's making it up. I think he's just I'm going, well, you really know some cool stuff.

Where'd you get that stuff? He's going in the book. You don't read the book? I said, woah. No.

Why should I do that? I mean, I just I didn't see, I know some of you guys are going, I don't understand anybody could be that stupid. Trust me. I'm that stupid. I am.

It just I didn't know that there was a way to do this stuff. I didn't know that there was a set of directions in this thing. So he starts carrying me through this thing, and there's such a conflict here. I go to a first meeting with this guy, and it's a it's a big book deal, and we are studying the book. And afterwards, I'm sitting there in the parking lot thinking this, and this is what my head my head's telling me.

I want desperately what these men and women have. I can see it in their eyes. I can see the way they walk. I can see the way they they talk. I I want everything these people have.

However, these people probably need to know how much I know about the big book of Alcoholics and Oz because I've been sober 7 years. It doesn't matter that I'm suicidal and I'm a goofball times 10. It doesn't matter. They need to know what I have to share. And so there begins the battle.

And so for you guys in here that are older, that have been around for a while, that they're frustrated with this resurgence of the big book and you have problems with that, and some people do. I I run across it everywhere I do. Buddy, I'm joined at the hip with you. I understand what it's like to live in conflict. Intuitively, I know that the message of depth and weight was handed to me that night.

I knew that. And yet to admit that I really don't know anything about the book is take some powerful doing. And when you're an arrogant little piss ant like me, it's really hard to do. And so started the battle. The meeting would start.

Somebody would would would do our big book study like we always do, and I'd go, oh, oh, oh, I I got something. I had no choice, so I start sharing. Well, you know, for me and and and everybody collectively, the hope this is painful for me, guys. For me, everybody would just kinda roll their eyes and look at the ceiling like this because they knew what's coming. Now they didn't do that in my old group.

They said, come on. Tell me let's let's let's go ahead. Maybe I was the best guy in the old group because I was always bringing the problem. I was bringing the stuff. You see?

Collectively, we have the craziest relationships on God's green earth, and yet we're gonna go sit in a discussion meeting and ask those crazy guys that haven't had a decent, honest relationship in their entire life what we're supposed to do with our relationship. Isn't that odd? It is to me. It is to me. So anyway, here's the so here's the deal.

And this goes on for a couple of weeks. And finally, one night, I'm just busting to the seam. I've got some cool psycho stuff that I wanna share that there's some new guys in there, and I'm gonna just go, Oh, oh, oh. And I'm I'm about to pee on myself. I'm so excited because I know the answer to this thing.

Right? Well, here it is. Cliff Bishop gets up. Some of you guys have heard this on tapes before. Cliff Bishop gets up, walks across the room.

It's a big room like this, and he walks over and he lays a note down in front of me, and he just keeps walking. And I'm thinking, yeah, he wants to tell me how much he liked what I had to say, like this, and I'm just so full of it. And he goes, I look at the note. It's a little here like this, and I pull it off and it goes and the note said, why don't you shut up until you know what's in the big book? This is my sponsor.

Where where is the love, Cliff? You know, I'm just going where is the love? I said, I'll see you guys later. I'm out of here. And I walked straight to the door, and there's a guy named Philip, who who is a member of our group and still there in good standing.

And Philip walks all the way across that room and catches me right at the door, and he says, Please, don't leave. Don't leave. We need you here. And by the way, we all have those notes. And I just sat there and okay.

And afterwards, Cliff and I had a little chat, and we talked, and I said, Okay. I'll I'll shut up. And we go back through this stuff, and it's an amazing couple of years. At the end of those couple of years, I've now connected the dots. I understand we have a disease of body, mind, and spirit.

I understand that this is a deal of of of of, an illness, not of willpower. I understand that there the spiritual malady see, I didn't understand why Bill Wilson spent so much time in the front of this book, everything from the the beginning of this thing all the way to page 44 where we agnostic starts. What's he talking about? Why are all those stories? Who gives a rat's patootie about Fred and Jim and the jaywalker and the what I don't understand is is that these are the important things that we need to understand because they explain in great detail the middle obsession.

That's the part that separates me from the heavy drinker. I I drink just like the heavy drinker does. I had a lot of buddies that were heavy drinkers. Given sufficient reason, they could stop or moderate. Could I?

No. See, my it all comes to a head when I try to stop. I'm the world's greatest stopper. I'm just a better starter, you know. And I just I just can't keep and that's the whole thing.

If you got a if you got a if you got an allergic reaction to booze, don't start. Stay away from it. Super. I wish I could do that. And if I could do that, I'd be in great shape.

But there's there's the rub. And why can't I stay stuck? Because of the mental obsession. And the mental obsession is being driven the whole time by a thing called the spirituality. And there's where the rub comes in, guys.

The spiritual condition inside me that keeps me separate from God and from everybody else. It keeps me separate from you. You're always prettier than I am. You're always smarter than I am. You're always better than me.

And it's been like that since I was a little turd this big. I just you see what I'm saying? Do you remember when you drank your first beer and you straightened up a little taller and the bumps fall off your face and your hair isn't greasy anymore, and you're just thinking, god dang, man. I'm at one with the universe. We had a we had a deal.

I don't tell you that. I'm not even gonna talk about the goat sex or any of that kind of stuff tonight. It is it's it's a story for another time in another place. Okay? So we have a we have a we have a spirituality that drives the whole deal.

And so here's the scenario. I'm doing okay. How many of you guys see if you see if you if you can follow along with me. You leave a meeting at 7:30 at night, and you're you're groovy. It all is right with the universe.

You're all warm and fuzzy inside. You've been there with your AA buds all night. They're all doing good. You're doing good. Everything is great.

You go home, you lay down, and you get up in the morning, and you sit on the edge of your bed, and something's not right. That feeling of being disconnected is there. You see? By the time I'm having my bowl of Cheerios, I'm getting pretty twisted into it. By the time I get in traffic, I'm really into it.

By the time I get to work, I'm a nutcase. I'm a nutcase. You see? The spiritual malady, this feeling of being disconnected is eating my lunch again because I'm not treating the spirituality. I'm not treating the internal condition, which is alcoholism.

My my deal is, guys, that I was taught all these years was, if I manage well, I can stay sober. And that is that is a load of of of crap. Don't do that. And if you're selling that in a meeting, please stop. If you can manage to not drink on your willpower and your manipulation of the external stuff, you're probably not one of us, guys.

I know that hurts some of you, but the reality is that the book is real clear. If you can stop or or moderate on a non spiritual basis, you may not be one of us. You need to take a hard look at this stuff regardless of how much time you've had in AA. It doesn't make any difference. And these are things that get me, you see, but we we we we that when we tell people that meeting makers make it and we ask them to come to a 1000 meetings a week, This is exactly what we're telling them.

We're telling them if you can manage well, if you can be here, then you won't drink. But none of it treats the internal condition. Is the meeting fun? Yeah. Please, I'm begging you.

Don't go get on the cell phone as soon as this talk's over and tell your sponsor that I said don't go to meetings. I didn't say that. But what I want you to understand is is that there's no place in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous where it said that the power to recover is in the meeting. It didn't say that. It said it was in 12 simple steps that would get you to God, and God would remove the obsession to drink and do those other outside issues, and you will have had that spiritual experience.

But it came through the steps we worked, not the meetings that we made. And that's why I get so painful when I think about people doing doing 21 meetings a week in a discussion deal. 7 years sober, I'm falling apart. I sit in a meeting in in that group up in North Texas, and I have one of these these burning things at the end of the thing where they they say, hey. Does anybody have anything they gotta share?

Yeah. I gotta share. I love you guys, but I'm not gonna make it. I'm gonna I'm gonna and this guy interrupts me. His name is Jim, and I'd kill him tomorrow if I could find him.

And Jim said, maybe kill is not a good word. But Jim says, Myers, listen. We're kinda short on time here, and, I I know what you need to do. You just need to double up on those meetings. And I remember thinking it was just real clear all of a sudden.

I went, There's no sense talking. There's no sense arguing. There's no sense because these guys simply do not understand. I'm not relating to these guys, and they are not relating to me. We are not identifying because we stopped talking about alcoholism years ago, and now we're talking about the daily grind of putting a marriage together and a babysitter together and a job together and the rest of this kind of stuff.

We're just not we're not we're not identifying with each other anymore. And I remember walking out that front door of that dead gum AA hall and I walked out there and I got in the seat of my old Land Cruiser and it's hot. Golly. It was hot. And I closed the door and I just put my head down on that Land Cruiser steering wheel, and I wept.

I wept like a baby. Because, guys, I'm telling you, I'm already going to 6 meetings a week. I'm telling you right now, guys, as I love you to death, I would not steer you wrong. Meeting makers may not make it. You can get real sick making a bunch of meetings.

Let's make sure that when we're in the meeting that we're talking about a spiritual experience brought about by a set of clear cut directions that the big book gave us. Please, let's do that. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna see the nature of AA begin to shift. And instead of a bunch of guys thinking that they can manhandle their sobriety guys, we call it the AA trinity, the job, the girl in the car. How many times have you had a guy in treatment?

I saw a busload of guys out here, that got out just a minute ago. Alright. Want you to stop and think about your experience. When you got to treatment, busted up, absolutely brutalized by the disease, you were what? You were willing and ready to do anything that needed to be done.

Most of us get there, and that's where we are. A lot of times, we'll slip into those situations and wanna sponsor those guys right there. And if they'll let us, we meet with great success. But a lot of times, the treatment guys don't want us in there yet. They wanna wait till they get out.

It's their house. It's their call. That's what we're gonna do. But guess what? You take that same busted up dude that absolutely would do anything when he first got there.

Fast forward 27 days, and let me tell you what you got. You got you an arrogant little piss ant that's full of himself and absolutely bulletproof. Bulletproof. Because our book tells us that we will not be able to bring into our mind with sufficient force the pain and suffering of either a week or a month ago. And it's the truth, guys.

And yet we go into our meetings, and everybody wants to talk about their war stories. I don't get it. Listen, guys. I can't even remember my own war stories. Why am I gonna remember yours?

It's simply waste time. Is there a time for a discussion like that? Is there a time for a war story? Yes. It's called a 12 step call.

Remember it. Do it. Use it. It's important. When we're trying to this guy comes to me, and he's and he's busted up, and he's drunk.

We need to swap some war stories. This guy needs to know that I understand the drink game, that I understand what it's like. He needs to understand that. But past that, guys, we this guy sitting in our meeting, he's there. We got him.

Let's keep him. Let's keep him with some hope. Let's drag him with a vision of how cool our politics anonymous and our recovery thing can be. Well, some of you guys say, well, you makes you you you make it sound like a is in trouble. For 5 minutes, I wanna talk about a few things, and and and and you can believe them or not believe them, but I'm telling you right now, these are these are things we need to talk about.

Hang on. Well, I'm screwed. There he is. My glasses some men miss other things when they get my age. I just miss my eyes.

I'd do anything. I'd do anything to have my eyes back on this stuff. In the Dallas Fort Worth area tonight, I can name you 2 groups that will ask you to leave your big book outside if you come in. If you walk across the parking lot with a big book in your hand, they've got people standing out the parking lot that will tell you to go take your book back in your car. Thank you very much.

We don't need it in our meeting. Because our solution's not coming from the big book anymore. Our solution's coming because we are junior therapists, and our God given right is because 10 days sober is to try to share all that wisdom we've got. And as a result, we're killing all kinds of drunks. It's a it's a dangerous thing you've ever seen.

In that same area, North Texas, I can name you 3 groups that are charging money to hear 5th steps. Right. Scout's honor. And everybody always wants to come up and say, how much they charging? You?

How good a 5th step you want? I'm not fooling you guys. I'm not fooling you. I've seen I've seen I've seen it. I've seen how painful it is.

For the last 4 years, membership in alcohol economics is flat or declining depending on the year. We're not growing. Less than 5% of us, statistically based on intergroup sales of chips, less than 5% of us are getting sober and staying sober. 5%. We took a we took a program that had a success rate of 90% or better, up through 19.50 something.

And we've taken it to a place where very few of us guys, statistically, you know what that means? Based on the number of people in this room, it means this pew of people right here are gonna get sober, and the rest of you guys are just screwed. Statistically, that's what that means. Not all about you, but it scares the heck out of me. I love you to death.

I know. This guy goes, thank god. It's me. I just I just I don't know about you guys, but I'm so tired of Alcoholics Anonymous being the butt of every joke. Every comedian has gotta take some cheap shot at AA.

Every goofy sitcom has gotta take some cheap shot at 12 step recovery stuff. Every one of them. And I used to resent them and hate them. And you know what? We deserve every piece of it.

Every piece of that crap we deserve because we allow it to go on in our meeting ad nauseam. When we watch these meetings going down the toilet because people aren't willing to to to to buck up and just say, no. No. We're not gonna do that. I think the open discussion meeting is the worst that ever happened to Alcoholics Anonymous.

However, I'll tell you this as a caveat on this thing. The problem we have with this thing is we let it go too far one direction. We got groups with 20 or 30 meetings a week, and all of them are discussion meetings. None of them are big book studies. So what we have is this bunch of junior therapists, and they're thinking they know what's in the book, and they don't know what's in the book.

They were just like me, a bunch of well meaning people trying to turn AA into therapy, trying to turn AA into this big therapeutic support group with nothing else, trying to treat an external condition like it that's why we drink. We do this every time we talk like this. How many of you guys drank when you had a ton of money? How many of you guys drank when you didn't have anything? See?

How many of you drank when you had the best looking babe in this county? How many of you guys drank how many of you guys drank when you had Satan's sister right here? It makes no difference, guys. The illusion that we can we can deal with the external circumstances and stay sober needs to be smashed. That's some of Nancy Reagan's just say no stuff.

God love her. But I'm telling you, if I Alcoholics Anonymous and alcoholism is an internal condition, and it has to be dealt with internally. And that's what the steps we're talking about in this thing. If you look at look at your book on step 12. 9 at 12.

Go to go to page 60. I was so delighted to see some of you guys with big books in here. I almost I just about flipped. Page 12. At the very top of the page, guess what that is?

Step 12. Right. Just like you'd read on the lampshades in a lot of these rooms. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, there was our clear cut direction, guys.

That is tradition 5, our primary purpose. Tell us what our marching orders are in this thing. So what did it what did this mean? Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message. What message?

That we'd had a spiritual experience as a result of these steps. That's our common solution that the book talks about. I mean, I know we're all jazzed and excited to be here because we're all drunks or we're all addicts, or we're all whatever the deal is. I know that there's empathy in that and there's there's safety in numbers. I love being in a room full of drunk.

But let me tell you something, guys. That's not what holds us together, and that's why we're drifting sideways because that's what we think is the only thing that's holding us. It's our common solution. So you got a brand new guy, this sick guy right here, and he comes walking into a room. I'm sorry.

I apologize later, but I keep I think they know something I don't. I do. I do. So here we are in a situation like this. This guy comes in and he's sitting in a meeting and we got this guy over here that shares some some stuff and this guy over here sharing some stuff.

And now this lady over here says, well, I know what the topic is, but I really need to share about this babysitter thing. And so she takes up half the meeting talking about that, then then we get it back on topic again, and then some old crew over there says, you know, this is a program where we take what we want, and we leave the rest. We hear this stuff all the time. What about this guy? It's no wonder our new guys walk out of the room and go, what the heck am I doing here?