The 17th Annual Southeast Louisiana Spring Roundup in Covington, LA

You know, it's funny. As much as I do this, I I always have this preconceived idea about how a drunk's supposed to look and you ain't it. I I just the prettiest bunch of people I ever saw in my life and I just you're supposed to be all gnarly looking and all screwed up and you're not. It's just amazing. Had dinner tonight with 3 good looking women and, you know, a couple years ago, we were in we were in Denmark with my evil twin, Chris.

Some of you guys have met him or heard of him. And, these guys kept saying I can't believe how weird you guys talk from Texas. And I was thinking when we were having dinner with this girl I was going, God, if these guys could hear some of these Cajun buddies I've met in here, I'm telling you. This is like, oh my gosh. God.

For guys I haven't met, my name is Myers Raymer and I am an alcoholic. And I am so delighted to be here and I I can't tell you what a fun deal it is to be in a room of like minded people, bunch of warm and toasty drunks. It's this gets the coolest. I wanna thank Dennis and and Laurie for for schlepping me from the airport and doing all that stuff. What a what an unbelievable amount of work.

For you guys that have never done a conference or that have never sponsored or put on a conference, it's an amazing amount of work. And and some of these guys, it's sort of a thankless sort of deal. You do it and you work your butt off for a year. It takes a long time to put them together. They don't just fall into place.

And so for Lorie and and Bob and those guys that busted their rear, my new friend Roberto, what an artist. A little whacked out, but what an artist. This is this is good. So you only took me a couple of minutes to figure all this out. I know.

I love you, man. I'll tell you. It is a treat to be here. The, I tell you, if it's okay with you guys, I'm gonna shed this real fast. No.

You wouldn't wanna go any farther on us. Looks pretty good in a white shirt, but you put a white shirt on a pig and it looks okay. I mean, it just I wish, my home group is a primary purpose group in Dallas, Texas and some of you guys have been on our website and, and I've talked conversed back and forth with some of you cats and I'm I'm it's always a treat to get to meet somebody in person that we've been corresponding with back and forth. There are there are primary purpose groups everywhere but our our group started 18 years ago with the sole purpose of studying a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and that's it. In the Dallas Fort Worth area there's, a 120 groups and close to 2,000 meetings a week.

There's plenty of other meetings to go to but all we do is study the book. And and in the beginning, there was lots of detractors and people said we were nuts, but here we are 18 years later with a 170 or a 180 people sitting in the meeting and it's a it's an amazing thing to see. And for you guys that have corresponded with us, thank you. I appreciate that very much, and I we wanna we wanna stay as plugged in and as in touch with as many of you as we as we can. I'm a 3rd generation drunk.

I know that'll fool you when you see how I cleaned up, but my dad my grandfather was drunk. My dad's drunk, and I have an identical twin brother, the the, infamous evil twin Chris. And you'd think with all these drunks in front of me that I'd see it all and I'd say, I'm not going there. But you know how it is, man. We just frog off into it and before too long, we're we're right in the middle of it, and that's exactly what happened in the deal.

I won't bore you with a lot of stuff, a lot of a lot of drunk stuff. I wish I I wish I had this this story with a bunch of living on the street and eating out of dumpsters and a bunch of this other weird stuff and, you know, I got shot 20 times and I got I love those stories. I love them to death. I guys, I'm a garden variety drunk that lived a pathetic, pathetic life, and and that's the extent of it. The only caveat in my story that may be different from yours is that when I got drunk, I got loud, and when I got loud I got hit.

Lots. Lots. Some of you guys do understand this stuff. You you do. I I I forget where I am.

It's just that the the you know how you know how the weird thing is is that the longer we drink, the scarter we get and the more anxiety and and and emotional stuff that we carry. And it always comes out sideways. It always comes out in all kinds of weird ways. And with me, it always came out in this this kind of, you know, I drink some beers and I get this bravado and I wanna get real loud and God forbid if your date should be in the room because somewhere in there I have to put my hand on her, just being friendly, you know. You know the type.

It's so obnoxious. And and I I just and so I was getting hit around a lot and I, the the last year that I drank, I was, I got beat up in a pizza place for trying to kill a guy. I don't remember all the details. I just remember I was they I was beating this kid, to death and, and they in turn started to beat me to death with a beer pitcher and the whole time my 3 year old daughter is watching. She's right there.

So you can see how this whole thing is. You see, my wife is my business partner. God love her, and she would be at work all day and then in the evening, I'm supposed to go home early because I can't work anymore and I'm gonna go home early and cook. We have this little bindery in in Lewisville and, and so I'm raising this daughter and I'm drunk and Chris Chris, the evil twin, is living with us at the time and he's drunk and so we've got 2 active alcoholics in this house with this little girl and and my wife who's trying to hold our business together. And you can imagine how bizarre the Ramer household was for a number of years.

It was absolutely a cesspool was for a number of years. It was absolutely a cesspool of just stupid, alcoholism. And so it finally gets bad enough for Chris that Chris finally has some blackouts. There's a guy that works with us at the boundary and he 12 steps Chris and takes him to an AA meeting. Chris fell in love with AA right off the bat, goes and does his deal.

And for 2 months between November January when I sobered up, I made Chris's life hell. I I made fun of him. I, where's your big book Chris? And I'm just you know how it is. I'm just He's my buddy.

He's my he's my best drinking buddy. I mean and and he stops. I mean, Chris was my guy. Every one of you in here has got a guy just like Chris. If I get mad at that, son of a bitch, I'm quitting.

You see? Well, Chris was my guy, and he did quit. And I'm just kinda going, oh my gosh, what am I gonna and I'm watching him come to work and do his deal and and go home and get some sleep and come back real early the next morning and do his deal again and he's going to his meetings and he's doing what he's supposed to do, and I'm just blown away by what I'm seeing. Not one time in those 2 months did Chris ever say, hey, bud. Why don't you come with me?

Or you need this, you need not one time. This is a program of attraction rather than promotion. Chris attracted me like a magnet that was this big. I just went, holy cow. He's the light and I'm the moth and I sucked right up next to him and he took me to my first meeting of biopolics anonymous and it was the coolest thing I'd ever experienced in my life.

Guys, from the moment I stepped into that smoke filled room, and it was smoke filled, I was in love. Absolutely in love. That room was as some of you guys have heard me talking about that. That room was as far as from my fist here to that wall, no wider and and about half the length of this room. It was just like a little long shotgun thing with 1 row of tables right down the middle and chairs all the way around.

And everybody starts smoking about 6 o'clock, meeting starts at 6:30, and by halfway through the meeting, you could not stand up without getting, I mean, you just get dizzy. You just everybody that got up walked like this. Like this. And you walk to the bathroom, and you go to the bathroom, and you come back in. As soon as you get the day, you you go get down underneath the smoke again and go back in the deal.

No windows, no doors except the one you came in on. It was awesome. And, but it was great. It it was great. And I fell in love with AA like you wouldn't believe.

Now I gotta tell you, we did great for a while. A couple years into the into the gig, I still don't have a sponsor, and I'm not working any steps. And you can you can kinda guess what's happening. Right? You know, I'm kinda things are getting kinda goofy.

Now by now, Chris has met this little girl down in the Hill Country and got married, and he's moved. He's he's gone. He got him a big book sponsor down there and he's doing all the good. And I'm staying right there where I where I sobered up. There's no reason to leave, You see?

My my concept of AA, my whole picture of AA is what you spoon fed me in a meeting. I'm not reading it on my own. I don't really know what's there. I'm just, you know that room was full of the loveliest, kindest people I've ever met on the face of God's green earth. But, collectively, there wasn't a great deal of sobriety there and there wasn't a great deal of knowledge about what was in the big book, which was a scary thing I would learn after the fact.

I would learn this. Now hold your hold your finger on this thought. Okay? I gotta make sure that you guys understand something real quick. 1, if you don't know me yet, you'll know you you all I'm gonna tell you right now, there is nothing on God's green earth that I love more than alcoholics anonymous.

I absolutely love AA and love the people in it. I absolutely do. This is my deal, not your deal, and your deal may have been completely different. I'm not judging AA as a whole in any form or fashion. I'm just telling you what my experience has been in 18 years of being in the deal.

And, some of it was fun, some of it wasn't so fun. My deal got real goofy because the sickest I ever was was 7 years sober. You see? The weird part about this stuff is that people talk about wanting to kill themselves in their drunkenness and all this other kind of stuff. You know, guys, all of these years that I drank, I never ever thought about killing myself.

It never even crossed my mind. As a functioning alcoholic, I'm gonna do the best I can but it never that that never could even con I never even considered it. 7 years sober, it's the only thing I can think about. Only thing I can think about. I'm still trying to treat this internal condition with the external stuff of my life, my job, the curl, the car, the you know, I'm trying to get all the stuff maneuvered and it's just not working too well.

Somewhere along the line about 5, maybe 6 years into this into this gig, I'm sitting in these discussion meetings. We got 21 meetings a week and they're all open discussion meetings. And I'm so tired of hearing what you have to say about your inability to find a job and Sally's inability to have a relationship and this other kind of stuff and it's just getting grindy. It's just not and I and I and I don't know anything else. Nobody's doing any step work to speak of.

Nobody's doing anything, much except just, you you get the picture. Well, some guys came in from out of town and they had started in the deal and they they said we I remember the group conscience meeting like it was yesterday and they said, look, I think what we're doing is we're we're talking about God too much and so what we're gonna do is why don't we just not talk about God in the meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and, because I think we're scaring the newcomer away and what do you what do you all think about that? And I remember sitting there in the meeting and I waited until the hand started going up on the vote and I looked for the majority and I went, we probably are talking about God too much and I just raised my hand and and our group that night voted God out of our AA meeting. Alright. Now we were You guessed it.

You guessed it. You take a meeting that was already a cesspool and take the only hope that we had out of the meeting. Boys and girls were slipping and sliding like big dogs. Nobody was staying sober. It was it was just a disaster.

Nobody was picking up chips. We'd have a 160, maybe 200 people in that core membership of that group. And we'd have a birthday night and there wouldn't be anybody picking up chips. I mean, anybody picking up birthdays. Nobody was making it.

You see? But you know how it is. We sold web in a place and we're loyal to that place and I'd have stayed there till the day I died. I'd have stayed right there except I finally got sick enough that I almost drank. And it won't go into it, but it scared me so bad.

I called Chris and Chris said, hey. Let me hook you up with a guy. I'll be in Dallas in a couple of days. We're gonna go to a couple of different meetings, and I'll see if I can find you a big book guy that can help you. I've been telling you for 5 straight years to get out of that group and go find you some place.

Now why do I mention that? I mention that because I've hear I've heard for years that as long as there's a circle and triangle on a door, that God's there and everything is gonna be okay. Guys, I'm telling you right now, that may be your experience but that is not my experience, not in North Texas. There there are some groups have gotten so incredibly sick that nobody can get sober. In Iceland, they call them dark tunnel meetings.

And I and, you know, you have to you've experienced some of it, you go, and I pray that none of you experience. I pray that none of you ever have to go to that deal where where you're so desperate for a solution and the solution simply isn't there because we're too busy in our arrogance and our ego sharing things that don't need to be talked about and and ignoring the new guy that's that's that's still vibrating from his last drink. We we we do that and it's just a it's just a nightmare. So anyway, Chris plugged me into this old guy and he says, here, go see this guy. He's expecting you.

So I call this guy, I go over to his house, and he opens the door and I go, boom. I mean, this guy's like a 110. He's just I mean, I'm old. Clifford is old. And I'm looking at him and he's got that kinda stern look on his face and he's just, you know, I'm going, oh, I'm in trouble.

And you don't how you just intuitively know, And he asked me where my big book is and I said, I don't know. And he said, don't come back over here without it here. Borrow mine. And we sat down on his couch and he started taking me through the deal. Guys, I'll make the reader's digest condensed version of this before you guys melt and slide off on your the floor.

I, in about 45 minutes, this guy took me through the work in terms of, reader's digest condensed version of of of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and the steps, and it was all brand new. I'm telling you guys, I sat there like this and I'd go, really? Really? That's that where is that? And I'd be looking in this thing like this and and I'd be going and and every every every 3 or 4 sentences, I'd wanna jump in there and tell you what I've learned in my 7 years of AA.

And he just kinda rolled his eyes and he just we anyway, we plowed through it for about 45 minutes and we go to page 53 and we're talking about the bedevilments in there and you guys have read these things. And and and he's he's he's reading it and I'm going, buddy, that there's that's describing me perfectly. And he says, that's untreated alcoholism. And I said, I said, Clifford, I I'm I haven't had a drink in 7 years. I've had no outside issues in 7 years.

I just what do you mean? Dying of untreated alcoholism. He said, buddy, you're not treating the internal condition. All you're doing is just showing up in meetings. Well, Clifford, you know meeting makers make it.

And Clifford just looked at me and he said, Some do. Some do, but not all of them. And I was later defined as a result of actually looking in that precious book, which is a great great trip if you haven't done it, it it was just an amazing thing for me to go through this thing. So we'd sit in these meetings on Tuesday night and Thursday night. We're studying the Big Book.

We go through the thing and some of you guys know exactly what I'm talking about. You're going through this and all of a sudden it's starting to illuminate. It's starting to really come alive and you're starting to see these things for the very first time and I'm getting really excited and I'm calling Chris every day after the meeting and I'm going oh, Chris, Chris, Chris, you wouldn't you know how long it took Bill Wilson to work these steps? And he'd go, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we'd talk about it a little bit.

And then next next week on the next meeting I'd call him afterwards. I'm going, Chris, you did you wouldn't believe this stuff. And my life is beginning to change. And it's just an amazing thing to see what a few simple instructions, it's just it's just crazy. I still got a big old load of arrogance.

I want you guys to understand something. There's a lot of guys in here my age. I understand at a great depth what it feels like to be a part of a fellowship for a whole bunch of years. There seems to be 2 2 bunches of us that are older. There seems to be the bunch that says screw it.

I'm done with it and they go someplace else and there seems to be the others that say I'll make the best of it and stay And then there seems to be some that were kinda like I am that want to hold on to every piece of information I was spoon fed in AA even though it's not AA. I just I don't know anything else. And I'm sober for a bit of time and I'm thinking, god dang. If this is if this isn't the real thing, I don't know what I'm gonna do. So here I am with this weirdness going on inside of me.

Half of me knows right here on a gut level that the stuff that they're teaching me in this meeting is real and a message of depth and weight. I can I know it? And there's another half of me that is fighting it tooth and nail. I don't wanna know anything different than what I already know. I don't wanna start over.

I don't I don't wanna admit that I don't understand what's in this book. I don't want to because it takes a great deal of courage to do that and I didn't have it and I didn't I just damn. I just wanted you to fix it so I could go on and do my deal. That's all I really wanted. I didn't wanna do all this other stuff.

So we're sitting in these meetings and somebody would ask a question and I'd go, oh oh oh. I'm like horse jack jumping up and down going, pick me. I wanna and every time they'd call on me every time they call on some of you guys are too young for even horse shack. Jesus. They'd call on me and I'd go I'd go, okay.

And I'd start sharing some middle road crap that I picked up in some lame discussion meeting. Some chicken chip one liner or some deal like this. And and everybody in the room now these are all big book guys. There is no middle of the road guys in there. These are 50 or 60 guys and they and they're looking at me and women and they're looking at me and you can just see it's like the air is pulled out of the room.

You can just see them slide back in their chair like this. Like, oh no, not again. You know? And I'm looking around thinking like this. So one night, somebody made the mistake to call on me again.

I'm, oh oh oh. And they call on me and I and I I share something and I'm thinking this is the best because I it was the piece of great wisdom that I've been holding back. I'm I'm suicidal. I'm writing hot checks all over Denton County. I can't keep my hands off other women.

My life is absolutely a nightmare, and yet I still want you to have what I have. I'm still wanting to care it's a bad it's a bad thing, guys. Honest. This is a bad thing. So as as I get finished sharing like this, I sit back there like this and I remember sitting back there like this, getting kind of a pant pulled up and Clifford, this old dude, walks towards me.

And as he's walking towards me, he's looking me right in the eye like this and he just sets this note down in front of me and he just keeps walking. And I go, yeah. He likes what I had to say. I like this. And I remember opening that note and in big red letters across it, it said why don't you shut up until you know what's in the book.

See Clifford had had a crawl full of my arrogance and my ego thinking that I knew what I was doing. He'd had a crawl full of it. He already loved me enough to tell me the absolute truth. And guys, that's what we have to do sometime in this deal because we've got a bunch of little arrogant piss hands that wanna say whatever pops into their head. Somebody told me one time I got a Grand Central Station head and every time a train gets in comes in, I gotta get on it.

And that's the way my thought process works. You see? I gotta say this weird stuff and all of a sudden I don't ever think about what I'm saying. I just say it. I was so mad.

I remember getting up and I ran to I just marched to the door and was a big room, not quite this big, and I as I got to the door, there was a guy named Philip File. And I'll bust his anonymity every chance I get. I love the guy to death. And and Philip stopped me right at the door and said, don't don't don't don't go. Philip, he can't talk to me like that.

He said, Myers, he can, and he did, and guess what? We've all gotten those notes. And I remember just sitting back and going, down. Okay. And it was like, oh, I was just deflated.

I was just sitting here. I just I was I was ready and willing to do whatever they wanted me to do, and and so we did. We finished studying. Eventually the duality thing went away and I quit trying to fight the deal and I just admitted that I didn't understand anything that was the big book. And as we studied every Tuesday night Thursday night, I began to piece together and we began to connect the dots of what was going on and it was an amazing thing to see, guys.

An amazing thing. The old deal is I think AA is therapy and it's a it's a deal where in the fellowship we just get together and we hold each other up and that's how we do this thing. Well well, holding people together is part of the deal. Our common problem is a big thing thing and we come into a room none none of us will ever remember the first time we walked into a room full of like minded people and we looked around the room and we went, wow. These guys understand.

This singleness of purpose, this thing of being able to identify with where I've been and what I did was huge in the deal. The problem was is that somewhere along the line, me and a whole bunch of others just like me had gotten hung up, twisted up, and locked down in the fellowship side of the deal and never ever ventured over into the program side of the deal. And so what happened was, meeting makers make it. We just go into a bunch of meetings and I'm I'm I'm I'm at the end of this line going to all these meetings and some guy, you know, I'm telling him one night how sick I'm getting and I'm just not doing well and he said, Myers, you just need to go to some more meetings. And I went, thank you, Rick.

Thank thank you. And I and I remember just walking outside and I slid down in the seat of that old Land Cruiser of mine, and I remember just it's hotter than heck, and I remember just putting my head down on that steering wheel and I just wept like a baby. I just wept. I just didn't know. So you fast forward in.

We're getting a load of big book, and I'm starting to come together with this stuff, and I'm starting to understand what this thing is all about. And they talked to me about a disease of 3 parts, a body, mind, and spirit. I don't understand the allergic reaction. We all understand the allergic reaction. And then they introduced the mental obsession.

I don't understand anything about the mental obsession, Anything about it. And yet Bill Wilson spends what? Forty some odd pages from the doctor's opinion all the way over to page 44 talking about one thing. What is it? Why is it you think he spent so much time in in in Fred's story, in Jim's story, in the jaywalker, and the rest of these deals?

All of that stuff is illustrating the mental obsession. Why is it? Stone cold sober. Why is it that I still pick up a drink? Guys, let me tell you something.

I'm I'm a great stopper. We're all great stoppers. We're just better starters. I mean, therein lies the problem. I'm just keep starting again.

You see? Once we understand this stuff that's why see, I never understood why Bill was spending so much time with all the illustrations because I didn't understand the mental obsession part of this deal. And driving the whole train is this spirituality part that they talk about on page 64. This spirituality, this feeling of being disconnected and and some of you guys have kids now that have never had a drink and you already see this in them. I betcha.

I got one at home right now. I'm telling you right she she's 15 years old. She's never had a drink, and I can see this disconnectedness, this feeling of being less than anybody else around her. It's the most baffling thing in the world to see. And it drives this whole nonsense.

This thing of this this spiritual malady, this thing how many of you guys have you ever been in a room with a 1,000 people and you still were so lonely you couldn't stand it? These are manifestations of a spirituality. This feeling that I am less than and disconnected from you and God and everybody that surround me. It's a painful, painful place to be. And for the alcoholic, it's the kiss of death because where do we go to get that feeling of ease and comfort?

What connects to the dots? You guys yeah. How many of you guys remember the first Coca Cola you drank? Next to none of us. How many of you remember the first drink you drank?

Almost all of us. Because for one important evening, I am connected and at one with the universe. I can talk to a girl. I'm not afraid of you. I can dance.

I can I can I'm? People say, well, those those drunks, they just party too much. Guys, this isn't about partying. This is about getting on even ground with the rest of the universe. I just wanna be normal.

And as a functioning alcoholic, that's what happens. And you know what, guys? If it still worked today, I'd still be doing that today. It worked great. Alcohol treated my alcoholism for 20 years perfectly.

Perfectly. And then it stopped. I went from being able to drink a case of beer. You'd never know I had a drink. I could still work a full day's work, and you'd never know I had anything to drinking 2 beers, and I turned around and walked into this wall.

I just I'm an idiot. I mean, it physically, it just stopped. You see? And there's the there's the deal. Let's look at a couple of things real quick.

AA and our in our neck of the woods, North Texas, I can name you right now 3 groups in North Texas that will not let you bring a big book into the meeting. Will not let you bring it in there. They'll they have guys that stand out in front of the front of the meeting place like this, and if you get out of your car with a big book like this, they'll ask you to take it and put it back in your car. We don't need it. We're we're gonna do something else, but it's not gonna be big book.

I can name you 2 groups in the in the in the general area where we are in Texas where they're charging money to hear piss steps. Charging money. And there's always somebody that says, well, how much are they charging? Well, what kind of pit step do you want? How good?

That's it. I know. I understand. And and I know some of you are going, like, I don't understand why he's even mentioning any of this thing. Well, I I I tell you, I mentioned it because from my perspective, I don't know how broad your AA world is.

I'm hoping that it's here and you're involved and everybody's feeling warm and fuzzy about the thing. But let me tell you something, from my perspective I'm seeing different AA groups every weekend. I'm sitting in meetings all over the United States and now internationally over the last 4 years that meetings that would blow you away. Meetings where you never hear mention of of God or the steps in a meeting. Meeting where we just go there's a group up that just opened up in Boston.

You know what the name of the group is? The dump it here group. What is this? I don't understand this. Why?

And and then and then everybody wants to get adamant and defend the whole thing instead of just looking at it. All I'm getting you I'm a big one on asking questions. All I want you to do is is ask yourself the question. Am I doing these things? Am I a part of this nightmare or am I a part of a solution?

And if you're part of a solution, God bless you and I love you already. And there's a bunch of you old coots that have been around for a bunch of years that are in this room tonight and you are my absolute heroes because you stayed and held the door for the rest of us knuckleheads to get here. And I am so very grateful that you did. Al Anon, I've met some Al Anon's here tonight that I just worship already. Golly, I love that fellowship.

I love everything about that deal. We just need to make sure that we're all on the common page, the common solution. Remember, the book talks about a common solution, and and yet when I walk into one group, I hear one thing. When I walk into another group, I hear something else. When I walk into another group, I hear something completely different.

I've been around a few years. I can make a determination. I'm not stupid. I can make a determination of what I'm gonna take and what I'm gonna lead. But what about the new man?

What about my new friend over here in the hat that I just met tonight that's fairly new in this deal? What's he gonna do when he walks into a goofy meeting and hears I may have some out of body experience thinking about it. What I just what's he gonna do when he walks into a meeting for the 3rd or 4th time hearing the same people talking about the same problems over and over and over again? I went to my old home group, the one I soldered up in, about a year ago and I walked in, I only knew 2 or 3 people out of that big old meeting that was there. And and one of those ladies is sitting over there and I'm talking to her a little bit, and so the meeting starts and we sit down.

We get into the meeting. Not 2 seconds into the meeting, she goes, well, I really need I know the topic tonight is whatever it was, but I really need to talk about, this job thing. And my eyes got like a deer in the headlight. I'm going her name is Ruth. It's not Ruth but I it'll be denied.

Ruth. And and after the meeting, she shares for 15 minutes about her inability to get this job thing worked out. 10 years ago, she was doing the same thing when I was sitting in those meetings. The same thing. I said, Ruth, let me ask you a question after the meeting.

I I I run my course with it, guys. I've just said, look, sweet pea, tell me why this is still happening. What does your sponsor say about all this? Well, you know how it is. And over here, I'm just changing sponsors.

I've had several. You have you ever worked the work, Ruth? Well, in my own way I have. I went, woah, woah, woah, woah, stop. Remember doctor Bob said there is no such thing as a personal interpretation of the big book.

It's not there. It was written. It uses words like exact and precisely when you get into the book. That's what they're talking about, guys. They're wanting us to get they gave us a specific set of directions guaranteed to bring about a specific outcome, and yet we let people fester in our meetings and get sicker and sicker and sicker and we let people we let people think of things that that that they think are important and we talk about those kind of things.

In at at Primary Purpose, we call it the the AA Trinity, the job, the girl, and the car. You know? I mean, stop and think about the guys that you worked at coming out of treatment. You you see them at a week into treatment and they're so pliable, they'll do anything. If you it's they need a handful of spiders if you said this is gonna get you sober.

They'd do anything and yet let them go 27 days or 30 days. Let them do this And then you go see him and you're looking at a completely different guy. It's like some alien got him. All he cares about is the job, the girl, and the car. I need one those three things to line up again.

Guys, let me this is what this is what kills me about our meetings. We we propagate the idea that if we manage well, we can stay sober. Guys, that's not true and you know it's not true. How many of you guys drank when you had a ton of money? You bet.

How many of you guys drank when you were flat busted? Sure. How many of you guys drank when you had the best looking girl in this parish? When you had some beast on your arm. See, it doesn't make any difference guys.

This whole process, it's like herding cats. They never get lined up. You never get it all set up. Sorry. Forgive me.

I just stop that. Stop doing that. Listen to this. Well, the downhill slide, honest, guys. You guys say I know.

Some of you guys are going I didn't know I was gonna get spanked tonight. I didn't when I get back to Dallas, they'll say, Myers, how was it? And I'll sometimes I'll say it was spankathon and sometimes I'll say it was it was fine. It was it was great. Usually it's usually it's great.

The the deal is that I've met enough people here already that know that some of you guys are already in the trenches doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. You're sponsoring guys and there's a there's a feeling of genuine solidity in the stuff that you're doing and the work you're doing. We do seem to have a common solution to what's going on and this is good. Guys, let me tell you something. There are areas where where where you would never have anybody agree on what a meeting should be and what we're what we're supposed to be doing.

In Denmark, in Europe, in all the Scandinavian countries, they have what they call the the German system. Yes. That's it. The German system. And the German system dictates that once you come in and sober up, you don't work any steps for a 160 days.

And at the end of a 160 days, you get a sponsor and then you begin working the work. Well, my book tells me on page 24, top of the page, that I won't be able to bring into consciousness with sufficient force the pain and suffering of either a week or a month ago. This illusion, guys, I hear it all the time. If you forget your last drunk, you haven't had it yet. Guys, I'm telling you I'm telling you right now, I'm not gonna remember it, Not with sufficient force.

I've had some bad things happen to me in my in in in drunkenness, but they were not enough to keep me sober. Stop and think of the worst thing that ever happened to you when you were drinking or doing those other goofy outside issues. Stop and think what you did, and then stop and think what you were doing 10 hours later, the next day. If you're like me, most of us, we were drunk again. We were back looking for the ease and comfort that comes at once by taking a few drinks.

That's the scary part. Remembering it is not enough because the book tells me I got this mental obsession, this mental component of the disease that will not let me remember with sufficient force. And so I'm destined to repeat this over and over and over again. And it is sad, and it is maddening for you, and it is absolutely intolerable for your family. Unbelievable.

It's it's a miracle that any of them stay with us because of that one component right there, that stupid mental something is amiss in our meetings, listen to what Bill Wilson wrote in something is amiss in our meetings, listen what Bill Wilson wrote in a letter that he wrote 1966. An AA Group as such cannot take on all the personal problems of its members, let alone those of non alcoholics in the world around us. The AA Group is not, for example, a mediator of domestic relations nor does it furnish personal financial aid to anyone. Although a member may sometimes be helped in such matters by his friends in AA, the primary responsibility for the solutions of all his problems of living and growing rests squarely upon the individual himself. Should an AA group attempt this sort of help, its effectiveness and energies would be hopelessly dissipated.

Now here it is. Heads up. This is why sobriety, freedom from alcohol through the teaching and practice of AA's 12 steps is the sole purpose of the group. If we don't stick to this cardinal principle we will surely we will shall almost certainly collapse and if we collapse, we cannot help anyone. You see, in 66, Bill Wilson could already see where the deal was sliding.

He could already see us heading down a weird road. The grapevine decided to introduce the discussion meeting. Guys, let me tell you. If you listen to me talk for too long, you'll understand this. I think the open discussion meeting is the worst thing that ever happened to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I do. I've seen groups I Do I do I think and feel strongly that a man has to have a place or a woman has to have a place to go share? You bet I do. It's called a sponsor. It is.

Go find that sponsor, hug his neck and tell him how crappy your day went, or tell him how good your day went. But when the bell rings at the start of that meeting, we're there to help the new guy understand what the life giving steps are about so that they too can have what you have. And this is why do I think that we could go to some discussion meetings and do some good? Yes. You bet.

It's just gone too far, guys. It's just gone too far the other direction. We need to drag it back into perspective of what this thing is about. We need to get more studies and more literature based meetings so that we understand what we're talking about so so that when we're sitting in that discussion meeting and we're sharing some stuff, we're in the book that we're we're sharing that instead of opinion. All those years that I got sick at that other meeting like this, did any of those people mean me any malice?