The Casa Group of AA in Dallas, TX

Alright. Hey, everybody. My name is Tom Pick, and I am an alcoholic. Hey. Hey, guys.

Glad to be here tonight. I, I was asked a couple days ago to do this, and I I've had such a a cool experience in Alcoholics Anonymous that, I mean, one of my favorite things to do is is is to just run my mouth about it and and share what I've gotten out of this deal. So I'm, I'm as thrilled as anybody to to be here tonight. You know, my my story isn't, you know, very much different than than most people's in AA. There's a lot of things that haven't happened to me.

I've never had a DWI. I've never been to prison. Never been divorced. I've never was gonna say I never lost a job, but that's not true. I lost one job back in 87.

But there there's there's a lot of things that that that I haven't experienced that a lot of people in AA have. On the other hand, I I started drinking really young when I was 10 or 11 years old, and I was drinking on a daily basis at the age of 12, which doesn't, by itself, make me an alcoholic. But what what it I I I say that to to illustrate the the fact that, you know, at a at a very, very early age, I was just unhappy. And and, yeah, there are some things going on in my life, parents divorce and that kind of stuff. But if even if you disregard that stuff, like the book talks about I was I was restless and irritable and discontent No matter how great things are going or how poorly things are going, that is my natural state.

That's what I'm like without alcohol. You know, I'm I'm kinda like that like the dog in the middle of the floor that he circles up, and he tries to find a little spot to sit down. And finally, after about 3 or 4, loops around the carpet, he finds the right spot, and he just drops. And he's just perfectly happy. I never find my spot.

I'm just I'm I'm anxious. I'm bored. I'm I'm always irritable. I always feel like I wanna be doing something, but I got no idea what it is. I can't go to bed because I'm afraid I'll miss something.

You you kinda get what I mean? And and so that's how I was with without booze. Once I started drinking, all that stuff went away. And and the reason I drank on a daily basis was because this this spirituality that the book talks about was was upon me every day, and it had to get fixed every day. And so that was that was my solution to my problem.

When when I drank, I I don't I don't know if I ever had control over my drinking. The book talks about how some of us, you know, we we cross a line where we where we've lost control. I don't I honestly don't remember having control. You know, I remember wishing that I could, you know, have 3 or 4 drinks, 5 drinks, maybe 6 drinks or 7, get really buzzed and then stop. I I always wanted to be able to do that, and I never could.

And I never understood why. And for my first, you know, 17 years around AA, it was never explained to me. You guys talk about it in your preamble, about the the physical allergy to to alcohol, which, which, doctor Silkworth talks about in the doctor's opinion, you know, what how that allergy presents itself in in my case and any real alcoholic's case is it causes me to crave more alcohol when I put booze in my body. That's that's what it does for me. That's why when I try to get away with having 6 or 7 drinks and getting really lit, I can't stop.

I keep going and going and going and going until I either pass out or fall asleep or get arrested or, you know, something happens, against my will that that gets me to gets me to stop. Otherwise, you know, if I could stay awake, I'd I'd probably poison myself with alcohol. I'd probably just drink myself to death. People have done it before, mostly fraternity guys, but, you know, they're little lightweights. But I you know, fortunately for me, that's never happened.

So, you know, moving forward in time, I, because of my drinking, because of, you know, the obvious problems that that come along with it, not going to school, not getting along with my family, major, major depression, no no ambition, none of the stuff, I ended up in in 3 separate psychiatric hospitals between the age of 14 18. And 2 of them were long term places for 16 months each, and the other ones was for for about 4 months, up in Chicago where I where I grew up. And, I can tell you that that those those had to be the most most miserable periods in my life, because I was I was removed from the booze. I was removed from my solution, and and the spirituality just grew and grew and grew. And they're trying to treat it from a therapy angle, But what I've got is a spiritual problem that requires a spiritual solution, which I'll I'll I'll talk more about that in a few minutes.

But I'm I'm in these places, and the idea is that if I just talk about my feelings, if I just purge them, deal with my parents' divorce, my mother's drinking, all these issues that they assigned to me. If I can just deal with this stuff and get it out and cry or whatever I'm supposed to do, everything's gonna be okay. I'm not gonna have to drink anymore. There's people I've watched people for, you know, almost 2 decades in AA. The same people talking about the same problems for 10, 15, 20 years, And and they're just they're absolutely miserable, and they and they think that if they can just get their hands around this stuff and resolve it, whatever that means, they won't have to drink anymore because what we do in in our meetings and I I don't know about this group, but I know in the groups I was going to, the message we send is, hey.

You got a problem? Bring it to the meeting. We'll help you fix it so you don't have to drink over it. And and the truth is is that we don't drink over that stuff. You know, this deal is it's a it's a genetic thing.

Out of the number that they throw around is, you know, 1 in 10 of us caught the magic bullet, and and we're predisposed to this thing. There's millions of people who've had much worse lives than I have. You know, horrendous childhoods, abuse, rape, incest, I mean, you name it. They've gone through this stuff, and it didn't turn them into alcoholics. So why are we going to take our issues and and blame our alcoholism on that stuff?

It it just it doesn't make sense to me. Now, when I was sitting in the middle of these discussion meetings, it made all the sense in the world because, you know, I I started going to these meetings, and and that pretty much became the doctrine. When you hear this stuff over and over and over, you start to think that that this is the way things are supposed to be. You know, like a lot of folks, I I came to AA through, through a treatment center. I I had to go back to Chicago.

I was living in Austin at the time, and, I was 22 years old, and things were just crazy out of control. And I called my dad, asked him to send me a plane ticket because I wanted to go up and hang out with dad and, you know, kinda buddy up with him for a while and spend some quality time with him and hadn't seen him in a while, and he he wouldn't have any part of that. He told me, you know, look. I'll bring you up here, but you're going straight from O'Hare, the airport, to to this treatment center in in a little suburb, north of Chicago. After I thought about it a little bit, I've by the way, the the cops are knocking on my door at this time.

That that's kinda what that's what got me to call dad to see if I could come up to Chicago. But it was some chicken shit thing. They were they were knocking over, and they they ended up going away. But I was like, okay, dad. I'll I'll take this deal.

I'll go because I I thought they'd come back. So I went, and I went and got treated and came back to Austin. I had, got out of my 23rd birthday, and I had, I don't know, 28, 29 days, something like that. And I I started following the directions they gave me. They told me to, you know, go to 90 meetings in 90 days and get a sponsor and do all sorts of stuff.

So I was like, okay. I'm in. I went down. I went to my first meeting the night I got out, and, I got there. And, man, these are the coolest people in the world.

I mean, they all came up, introduced themselves, kind of a younger crowd, lots of pretty girls, and I I like these people. And when I started going to their meetings, and I started doing that 90 meetings in 90 days, The the problem was is is by the time I got there, I wasn't feeling any of the pain from when I was drinking. Any motivation that I would have had to have taken the steps was were just gone by the time I got out and start going to the meetings. And so, yeah, you know, I knew it might be a good idea to do the steps because I heard people talking about them, and we put them on the walls, and but I didn't understand what they were about. I I thought I thought that they were about, you know, turning Tom into a good boy, And I'm thinking, you know, I'm not drinking, and all that bad stuff that was happening when I drank, it quit happening.

I'm a good boy. So I I didn't really see the the the dire need to do this stuff, and so I didn't. I kinda dragged my heels and did little little vain attempts at the steps. I had I had some sponsors that I thought were good sponsors, and and they were. They were great people, but the the problem was is that we didn't have any direction on how to do this program in our meetings.

We weren't bringing the big book to the meetings. We weren't talking about god in the steps. In fact, we didn't make a conscious effort to to not talk about god, but it didn't come up that much. We didn't wanna freak out any new people or make them think it was some kind of religious thing or or something like that. Well, you know, think about this.

Our only solution is god. Why in the hell wouldn't we talk about God in our meetings? That's the only thing that can fix this deal. We weren't doing that. We weren't talking about God in the steps.

What we were talking about is our day and our problems and our issues and our past traumas and and you name it, man. I mean, you know, it was it was discussion hell, and after a couple years, this stuff, I mean, it it just started to grind on me. And after about 5 years, I'm I'm starting to resent the people that are that are participating in these meetings because I'm hearing the same things over and over, and it and it's just it's getting boring. It's getting extremely boring. By that time, I had heard every slogan, every bumper sticker, every saying, and even 3 or 4 lines quoted out of the big book.

I I mean, I had heard it all, and and there was nothing fresh. And so I'm, you know, I'm just stuck in these meetings. I'm afraid to leave the meetings because I was taught that if, you know, that the people that quit coming drink. So I'm thinking, well, okay. I've you know, I can come.

I mean, I got time. I got I'll show up. You know? What the hell? And so that became my doctrine, and and we started, you know, training each other to to think through the drink and as if, you know, remembering how bad it was when I when I finished drinking is is gonna scare me into keeping the first taking the first drink.

Man, when when I think through the drink, I drink. You know, my mind takes me back to that sense of ease and comfort that doctor Silkworth talks about that comes at once by taking a few drinks. You know? So I'm I remember I I had I moved to to Dallas from Austin in 98, and I remember being here for a few years. I think I had I had about 15 years, and I'm, I'm sitting in this meeting.

It's a men's meeting. It's a discussion meeting on Saturday mornings, and and these guys are just they're just killing me. On on one hand, I really love them because I've spent, you know, 300 Saturdays with them. But on the other hand, I am so freaking tired of hearing about Mike's cat dying and Kelly's divorce and Joe's job problems and and all this stuff. I've just I've just absolutely had it.

And we're and we're going around in a circle, and the chairman picks some topic. I don't know what it was. Doesn't matter. But he starts calling on people, and the topic keeps changing every time he calls on somebody because everybody's talking about themselves, and so the topic will change. It gets to me, and and I'm not prepared.

I hadn't been sitting there working on my act. I had no idea what to say because I I just I wasn't into the meeting. I wasn't preparing what I was gonna say in in the event that I got called on. So I paused for a minute. So, you know, my name is Tom.

I'm an alcoholic, and they all said, hi, Tom. And I said, look, man. I don't, you know, I don't wanna scare any new people in this room, but I feel like I'm gonna drink again. And I don't think it's gonna be today or tomorrow or this week, maybe not even this month, and and maybe not even this year. But I'm I'm on a path where I'm gonna drink again, and and I I can't derail this thing.

And, and they all said, you know, we love you, and then they kinda shared at me for the rest of the meeting. And then they they came up to me and gave me hugs afterwards and gave me advice, like, you know, come early, make the coffee, set up chairs, double up in my meetings. And I I'm just thinking if setting up chairs and making coffee and doubling up on meetings is my answer, I'm I'm just I'm freaking dead. I'm just I ain't gonna make it, and and 2 years later, I didn't. All those things that that I had bet my life on, meeting attendance, and thinking through the drink, and and the laurels that I had accomplished at one time by doing treatment center meetings and other stuff, all that stuff that I was betting my life on quit working.

The mental defense that I had to have didn't stop me, and and before I drank, I had a dialogue with myself. You know, it wasn't like, you know, Jim's story where suddenly the thought you know, maybe the thought came into my mind suddenly, but I I had time to have a dialogue with myself, and I remember telling myself, buddy, don't do this. You're gonna lose your sobriety date. You could lose your family, your kid, your business, your life, your friends, all this stuff. You could lose all this stuff.

Don't do it. And by then, it it was it was just too late. I couldn't talk myself out of this, and and I drank again. And I was unbelievably freaked out. I thought that that by, you know, high meeting attendance and thinking through the drink and and using my head and being used to not drinking, you know, kind of being in the habit of not drinking.

I thought all that stuff would save my bacon, and it didn't, and it scared the crap out of me. And, you know, I I would I would guess that I'd probably been to 5,000 meetings at this point. I mean, I I wasn't one of these guys that just drops in, you know, once a month or just to get a, you know, a birthday chip. I mean, I was there, and I was going to the meetings. And even after I started drinking, I was going to the meetings.

And I don't recommend this. I mean, if if you're not happy in discussion meetings, don't drink and go to them, but they ain't so bad when you got a little buzz. You can you can feel a little love for some of these people that you've been resenting for. Long story short, I, I crashed and burned, and I ended up in this little treatment center down in down in Kerrville. And I ran into this guy who, who just banged on the big book, and and I sat down and listened to his big big book lecture, and I'm just it's it's 95 degrees outside, and I'm freezing, man.

I've I've got on scrubs and 2 blankets and 2 pairs of socks, and, I mean, I am I'm in bad shape, and I'm full of Funabarbitol. And I'm and my hands are shaking. I can't I can't even write anything. And I sit down, and and I'm listening to this guy read to me out of the big book, and he's teaching me what step 1 means. And, man, that guy's got my ear.

He's saying stuff out of the big book that I've never heard before in my life. 5000 meetings. I never heard this stuff before, and and he's got my ear. And I'm and I'm listening to this stuff. And all I'm thinking is, oh, man.

When when my eyes start working again, I'm gonna get my hands on the big book and see what this guy's talking about, because I have got to see this for myself. And we had this meeting every morning at 8 o'clock, and I, you know, I did that meeting with him for, you know, 37 days. I I listened to him talk about my truth, my real problem out of this book and and the real solution. See, the deal is, like most people that come to AA at any group at random, the message I got was that step 1 means I've got a drinking problem, and the unmanageability is all the goofy stuff that happens when I drink, all the bad stuff that happens. DWIs, bad checks, losing relationships, getting arrested.

I mean, you guys you guys know the drill. All the bad stuff that that happens when we drink is what I was taught was unmanageability. Well, I had stopped drinking, and the alleged unmanageability stopped happening. As far as I'm concerned, my problem's solved. All I need to do is coast, go to some meetings, do some meetings at some treatment centers, you know, tell my story, try to, you know, tell some funny war stories, make them laugh, and all this garbage, and then everything's gonna be groovy.

What what Chris is telling me down reading out this big book, he's talking about the physical allergy, the mental obsession, and the spiritual malady that gets the whole ball rolling. And he's reading out the doctor's opinion, and he's and he's talking about this allergy. And and when he's talking about an allergy, he's not talking about, you know, hives or rash or your throat swelling up from penicillin. All analogy is is is an abnormal reaction to something. We act different.

We we react differently than most people to to something. I'm cool with penicillin. I can take it all day long. Most people are, but some people, they have a reaction where their throat closes up, and they could die. They could literally die from from taking Penicillin.

These same people, when when they come to my house, I do not have to lock up the Penicillin to pray that they're gonna get in there and and just take the whole bottle. So the way our allergy manifests itself presents itself is in the form of a craving where I talked about earlier. When I put booze in my body, I crave more booze. Doctor Silkworth, in the doctor's opinion, talks about this in this paragraph on Roman 28. He says that we believe and so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol in these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy.

Says the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. Normal drinkers do not experience the allergy. You know what what happens to them when they feel when they drink? It makes them sick. They start to feel it.

They start to feel out of control. You know what they do when that happens? They stop. They don't like feeling out of control. They don't like feeling sick.

Not so with us. With the real alcoholic, if you're a real alcoholic, you experience this. Says they can never use safely use alcohol in any form at all, and our bodies can't tell what's on the label. It doesn't matter if it's a NyQuil, Listerine. God only knows what what some of you guys have drank.

I, our bodies react our bodies react to the alcohol. That's what we react to. Says once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self confidence, their reliance upon things human I thought humans were gonna save me. I thought psychiatrists if I just get to the right psychiatrist, get the right antidepressant, talk about the right issues, cry the right amount of times, what whatever, I'll finally be okay, and that day never came. No no preacher, no spouse, no girlfriend, no parent, no human ever relieved us of our alcoholism.

It never happened. Hard drinkers? Perhaps. We'll we'll talk about that in a minute. Then it says their problems pile up and then may and become astonishingly difficult to solve.

Well, okay. Bottom of the page. Here's here's why we drink. This now this really kinda smashes to hell what what I'm guilty of of teaching people, new people in AA, where they've gotta deal with their issues. What what he's saying here is that men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol.

I was talking about alcoholic men and women. Says the sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious, and those injuries include things like going to treatment, going to jail, losing your job, spending all your money, whatever. Those are the injuries that they're talking about. They cannot, after a time, differentiate the true from the false. It says to them, the alcoholic life seems the only normal one.

Here's here's the one of the big lines in the book. It says they are restless, irritable, and discontented unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort, which comes at once by taking a few drinks. He's talking about the spiritual malady. This is what it looks like. You know, you can also turn to 52 or 53.

I forget what page of time. It goes more into the spiritual malady. But, basically, he's telling us that without booze, we're just naturally miserable, and and our only solution to the spiritual problem is the booze. And and for a while, I I gotta tell you, man, it worked perfectly. I'm not stupid.

I didn't I didn't drink this stuff and and have all these problems because it wasn't doing something for me. The the benefit outweighed the cost until until it switched. And then it turned out, at least for me, where I didn't wanna keep drinking and I didn't wanna stop drinking, and that was that was just a hell of a spot to be in. Thank God there were some other outside issues I could avail myself of to to keep the game going a little bit longer, but, you know, finally, I was brought to my knees, and, I got help. If if our problem were just a physical problem, the answer would be don't drink.

If you don't drink alcohol, you cannot crave it, period. Can't happen. You gotta put it in your body to crave it. Once it's out for, shoot, I don't know, 72 hours, 96 hours, not long, once it's out of your system, the physical craving is gone. What are you left with though?

I know what I was left with, an unbelievable obsession where my mind kept going right back to that sense of ease and comfort that doctor Silkworth talks about. My mind can't think through the drink. All it can think about is how good it made me feel, how it fixed all my spiritual problems. You know, for some people that can last a while, I'm good for about 12 hours before I'm I'm ready to drink again. Think about think about the the worst day of your drinking, the day that that that the very worst thing that ever happened to you happened.

I don't know about you guys. I I swore off drinking, and when I swore it off, I meant it. And when I told my girlfriend about it, I was a 110% committed. 8 hours later maybe, I'm drinking again. I was I was able to remember that period 8, 12, 16 hours ago well enough to keep me from picking up a drink until later that evening.

You know, at 2 in the afternoon, there was no way in hell I was ever gonna drink again. 4 in the afternoon, no way. 8 o'clock at night or 9 o'clock, whenever it was, way. I'm drinking, and and that's what I did. You know, another thing that that this buddy of mine down in Kerrville explained to me was was about the the the mental obsession.

And once in a while, those words would come up in a meaning, but it it just it just didn't have a whole lot of of meaning to me because when I heard it, I wasn't experiencing any thoughts of drinking. After quite a while, the the obsession had been removed, and I wasn't you know, my mind was not drinking. But when he starts reading this stuff to me out of the big book and explaining the second half of step 1, the unmanageability, and telling me what that is, that's when all the dots got connected. You know, see, I was I was going to lots and lots of meetings, and we had all sorts of little dots all over the meetings, but they were never lined up to where anybody could connect them. It was just personal opinion here, speculation here, no experience, but I'm gonna talk about the steps anyway over here.

All sorts of stuff, and and I could never, you know, put 22 together until until Chris read this deal. And at the top of page 24, it says at a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. Makes sense. Says this tragic situation has arrived in practically every case long before it has disappeared, long before it is suspended. And then there's some metallic writing in it.

If you guys don't have this underlying in your big books, go home and do it, man. This is one of the most important paragraphs in the whole book. It's the one that did save my life. Says the fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Says our so called willpower becomes practically nonexistent.

Says we are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We're without defense against the first drink. What this is saying is, it's saying even though I can remember everything that happened, some of it's claudier than other other times, but I can remember all the bad stuff that happened, I can't remember it was sufficient for us to keep me from that first drink. What what I've been hearing in AA for almost 2 decades was was bad information. What I've been telling people to do in AA for almost 2 decades was terrible information.

I was teaching them like I was taught to rely on my mind to keep me sober, that if I can just stay focused on on that last drink and what it was like, that'll be enough. That and go into meetings and make it up. So what they're telling us in this book is in complete conflict with what with the rhetoric that we hear in our meetings. And and and trust me, I mean, I am a hard caring member of the middle of the road solution seekers club. I mean, for for 17 years, I thought I had found the bare minimum that it took, and and I was focused right on that.

And I'd hear us, you know, we'd talk in our preamble about, you know, how half measure to build. It's nothing that I'd think, oh, bullshit. You know? You you can do that when you're sitting there 13, 14, 15 years knowing that that what you're doing isn't even half measures, and you're still sober. See, I'm I'm thinking that that, you know, I've got this stuff figured out.

The truth was is I had no idea what my problem was. I had no idea that my mind couldn't keep me from the first drink, and I had no idea that it was my body that couldn't keep me from the second drink. That's that's an absolute death sentence. There is no hope in step 1 at all. Period.

With this knowledge, I found the motivation to take the rest of the steps. I understood the death sentence. I understood how how dire it was to to treat this deal. How how lethal and and deadly my situation is. You know, now a week prior to hearing this stuff, I've been on 2 different ambulance rides where they're, you know, trying to keep me alive and stuff, and I'm not gonna go into the stories, but I'm I'm pretty in touch with with how deadly this thing is and and how dangerous it is.

So when when I finally understand exactly what the problem was, I'm pretty motivated to take these steps, and and and the people that we're sponsoring, I don't know about any of you guys, any of you guys sponsoring people, but I I find that when when I explain this stuff to people, it's not that hard to get them to to take these steps. When when you explain to them that it's the spiritual malady, it's a spiritual problem that kicks off the obsession, that once you start drinking, it triggers the craving, and and it's just a vicious cycle, and and there's no end to it. When they can really appreciate that that information and that the only solution is taking the steps, they'll do it. They they will do it. I remember is there anybody here that that disagrees that that our our success rate isn't that great?

In fact, it it's so bad, we we ought to call it a failure rate. Dallas, Texas based on chip sales, it's not scientific, but it's an indication of of where we're at. You know, according to our chip sales, you got a 5, 7. I'll be generous and say 10% chance of making it a year. You got 25% chance of making it 90 days.

All those people that we tell to go to 90 90, we tell a 125 are there to pick up their chip. I don't know what happens on the 91st day, but I've told them to do it too. I am I am just as guilty as anybody of giving that direction. Because I didn't I didn't know anything about this book. I didn't know about the steps.

I just did what was done to me, and and I'm just I'm trying to pass this information on to people. But the deal is is is back in the thirties, what these guys were doing was they weren't they weren't setting up meetings and and trying to have 4 or 5 meetings a day so that anybody who needed a meeting any time of day or night could have a meeting to stay sober. That's not what they were doing. What they were doing is they were praying, meditating, keeping their side of the street clean, and looking for people to work with, actively looking for them, going to hospitals, you know, cold calling doctors and priests. Hey.

You guys got anybody we can talk to? They were busting their butts looking for people to work with. That's what their life was like back in the early thirties, back when 50% of 3 quarters of them were getting sober and staying sober. The people that that that really did this work and honestly did it, they were staying sober, every last bit of them. But the problem is is is today, we've gotten to a point to where we've gotten away from the big book and we flip flopped into putting emphasis on the meetings and and the fellowship instead of the program.

And, you know, for me, hell, I mean, it was the softer, easier way. I had no problem with with how we were doing things once upon a time. Today, I got a big problem with it. I almost lost my life in this deal, and and I've watched countless others go back out and drink and die, you know, since 'eighty seven, since I've been around. People who who wanted the solution, who came for the solution, and and we didn't have it for them, and and I I find that disturbing.

And I'm gonna I'm gonna share share some of my experience and some of my observations with you guys, and and this is I think this is where I'm gonna close the the the warm, touchy, feely part of the talk, and and and I understand that that some of the things I I might say might make someone in here feel uncomfortable. I don't know who it is, and it might be nobody. But I I know for damn sure it would've made me uncomfortable when I was sitting around in AA, taking up space, doing nothing, being a total boggart, trying to get as much as I could instead of giving. But but it it's my experience, and it and it's and it's what I've observed, and it's what I've done. If you go to page 62, Bill Wilson tells us what the road of our troubles are.

It it talks about the selfishness, the self centeredness. We've we've all heard it. I I even heard this stuff in meetings. Every once in a while, this would this would kinda slip in there, and we'd talk about it a little bit. We didn't know what we were talking about, but we'd talk about it.

It says that we think is the root of our troubles, driven by a 100 forms of fear, self delusion, self seeking, and self pity. We step on the toes of our fellows, and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past, we have made decisions based on self, which later placed us in a position to be hurt. So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise about ourselves.

The alcohol is an extreme example of self will and right, though we usually don't think so. Says above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of the selfishness. There's one of the musts that we don't have in the program. Here comes another one. We must or it kills us.

Not only they tell us that we must be rid of it, it tells us why. We gotta get rid of this or it kills us. What happens is is it blocks us from God, which is the only thing that can save our bacon in terms of keeping us free from the obsession to drink and and treating that spirituality. So that's how it kills us. If if if we're wrapped up in self, we're never gonna get plugged into that power that we have to have to stay sober.

When when I'm thinking about me, there's no possible way I'm thinking about anybody else. And the only time I'm aligned with God's will is when my thoughts are around other people and and God and what I can do for them and for him. When I think about what I can do for myself, I'm in big ass trouble. Big trouble. So we, you know, we we had our meetings.

We had our our discussion meetings. We had lots of them, 35 a week, 34 a week, something like that. Just just just crazy, and and and it's what what it turns into is is 34 opportunities to come in and talk about yourself. And if if if we love each other so much, and and knowing that that this selfishness can kill us, why do we allow people to come into meetings and engage in that selfishness and talk about themselves and let it go on and on and on? These people you know, I I don't wanna take anybody's inventory, but hell, I mean, it's right out there.

They're they're selfish. They're they're wrapped up in this stuff. They're not recovered, and and we've got a responsibility if we love these people to to pull them aside and say, hey, man. You know, what I'm hearing is is you can't think about much besides yourself. Let's let's go do let's do step 10.

Let's let's take the steps. Let's do something. Let's get you out of yourself instead of instead of just letting them rattle on and on because the the guys that have been there for a number of years are just you're just you're driving us crazy. And the new people, and and we don't know this. We don't because the new people don't tell us.

I hear it at the treatment centers that I go to. The new people are disgusted by it. They're disgusted by it. It makes them not wanna come back. It makes them sick.

It makes them critical, and, you know, all these guys are looking for a reason not to come back anyway, and we hand it to them. I'm I'm telling you guys, take my word for it or don't take my word for it. You know? Come, you know, come with me to some of these treatment centers and talk to these people who have had years or months or several periods of 1 year. I mean, I I see it twice a week, and they're all saying the same thing.

They can't stand the meetings. And and you know what? I had I had a friend. We worked together before I got sober, and and I had about 5 years, and he called me up and and I I finally got the call. He's like, man, I'm ready to stop.

I said, fantastic. I've been hoping to hear from you. Says, are you still sober? I'm like, yeah. Says, well, man, let's, you know, let's go to one of those meetings.

I was like, great. So I take him to a meeting. We get in the car and we leave, and he's like, hey. What what was that? Like, what do you mean?

What what was that that we just went to? I mean, I I know it was an AA meeting, but is that what they're all like? And I'm like, well, yeah. Why? What what's the matter?

He says, well, all they're doing is just pissing and moaning and and, you know, shit. I I I can't keep doing that. I'm like, dude, you don't get it. You know, that's that's your solution. You know, you're you're just being critical because you probably still wanna drink, and so you're trying to find a reason not to go.

Well, you know, I got news for you. That's you know, bad news is that's how it is. The good news is, you know, it works. And so we went to a couple more meetings, and and then he went to a meeting on his own. And he called me when he got home, and he's pissed.

I mean, he's just he's had it. He's like, dude, I I can't hang with this anymore. There's there's gotta be something else. I'm like, I'm not aware of anything. And he says, well, screw it.

I I just I can't I can't deal with that stuff. It's just silly. I was like, well, man, I think you're making a big mistake, and and a week later, he he wrote a suicide note and killed himself, and and there's some who may say that that he didn't want it bad enough. I'll I'll submit to you that he wanted it plenty bad, but but when he showed up, it wasn't there for him because we were so busy talking about ourselves and wrapped up in ourselves and violating the traditions by permitting people to talk about outside issues in our meetings that that when the time came to carry this message, we were too busy doing something else. And and a guy like me, I had no idea that that what we were doing was was killing these people.

I I really didn't. I thought that that it was just kinda it just kinda made sense that only, you know, 5 or 10% of the people made it. I had no idea that back in the day, back when these guys were working the steps in in just a week, 10 days, 2 weeks, that that that they were getting sober. I had no idea. When I first heard of this stuff about working the steps in in a week or 2, that blew my mind.

You know, I like most of you guys, I've heard all sorts of direction on on when to take the steps. The one I liked was a step a year. K. You know, well, you you can't do step 4 till you've had a year because you can't handle what's gonna come out on your inventory. The people that tell you that don't know what the inventory is about because I got news for you.

You can handle it. If if you understand steps 1, 2, and 3, you've got enough juice from God. You got enough of God's power to get through that 4th step and get through that 5th step, and it snowballs and it builds to get you through the rest of the steps. I had no idea. I remember telling people, that they can't sponsor anybody till they've got a year.

Think about it. Our solution is step 12, carrying this message. If if you got a problem like on page 24, we got maybe a week or a month that we're gonna be able to think through the drain till it doesn't work anymore, we got a week or a month to get to the solution or we're screwed. Why if we keep somebody from the solution working with others by telling them to wait a year? That's it's it's crazy.

It's it's a death sentence. These people don't need to be waiting for a year. If if you've had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, you got what it takes to carry this message. In fact, maybe even more effectively than anybody with 5 or 10 years does because that new guy is gonna listen to a guy with 30 days, you know, 30 days ago was doing what he was doing, and now he's not, and and he he's experienced the promises in the book. There's nobody better that could do that for that guy.