The Fellowship of the Spirit in Dublin, Ireland

Okay, guys. You're very welcome back to part 2. Hope you're, fed and rested. Guys, please put your hands together and increase the volume. A big Irish welcome, Myers Raymer.

Oh, god. You know, I only have one real regret and that is that I didn't drink with you guys. I it just you're the rowdiest bunch of I bet you 1 on 1, it was just great. No telling how many fights we could've got in to. I just God.

Amazing stuff. For you guys that I haven't met, my name is Myers Raymer, and I'm an alcoholic. And my home group is primary purpose group in Dallas, Texas and, my sobriety date is January 15, 88. And I I can't tell you what an honor it is to be here, and be with you guys. The evil twin, Chris, sends his love and, talked to him earlier and it just god.

What a cool thing. It's a funny thing. We've been coming to Europe for for about 5 or 5 or 6 years now, and there's so many of you guys that I know, and it's like old home week. It just freaks me out how many guys that I know that come and see these things and and it's such a great opportunity to get nose to nose again and kinda get all gathered up again and it's just fun stuff. I do wanna thank, Daniel and Iris and and Paul for their efforts in putting these things together.

If you've never done one, it's easy to sit over to one side and cast all kinds of aspersions and and and say all kinds of well, you know, when I'd have done it like this and super. Next time you do it, it's just like until you've experienced what it's like to actually put a conference together, all the details and all the stuff that needs to be done. You just don't know. It's just an amazing deal. It didn't take me too long to figure out who's carrying the biggest load.

Thank you, Iris. I I know. Yeah, buddy. A part of this stuff is about story and part of this stuff is about kind of greasing the skids about what we're gonna do this weekend. And it's always really funny to to talk with Peter and stuff like Guys, this is a weird weekend for me.

It's like it's like I'm in tall cotton. I, I have my golf sponsor here, Steve West, and and my hair care sponsor, Peter. Peter's the only guy I know that travels with 2 suitcases. 1 for his clothes and one for his hair care products. It's just To this day, I have no idea how many talks Peter and I have done together and how many workshops and we've done them all over the world.

And and it's every time I'm with him, I go home and tell my wife, when I grow up, I wanna be Peter Marinelli. I wanna talk like him. I wanna look like him. I want my hair to do that. We were in Iceland walking down the street one day and these people just are just they can't take their eyes off of he and I are walking.

And I'm thinking I'm thinking because it's I I am the center of my universe that it's me that they're looking at and it's and then it finally dawns on me. Peter's got his hair all slicked back and he's got this long trench coat on and his great big old cigar, and he looks just like one of the soprano guys off TV. And they're trying to figure out which one he is. It's just like golly. I feel like such a boob.

Just what an idiot. You know, there's probably nothing more offensive than, wanting to whack a bunch of guys up the side of the head with a big book and a bunch of it. And I want you to understand going in that that's not what this weekend is about. This weekend is about understanding, and it's a it gives us an opportunity to kind of be introspective a little bit and look at our own individual programs. And, you it's a funny thing at the end of the day and looking at where we are and what we're doing, we still just we we have ourselves.

I mean we're laying there in the bed looking at the ceiling and it's a perfect time to ask those questions. How am I doing in this deal? Am I okay? Am I full of crap? Am I playing games?

Am I a hypocrite? Am I phony? Am I you see what I'm saying? These are all hard questions to ask, but they all need to be asked by every member of anonymous. Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing?

Or am I doing what I think? You know, some some somebody else's version of what I'm supposed to be doing. We'll talk about that stuff some through the weekend. And it's the the the whole purpose of this thing is to lay it out there and you can look at it. You can weigh it.

You can judge it. You can see if it's what works for you, and then we can kind of see in the bigger picture if we can't get more and more people back on a path of unity around this thing called a common solution that our book talks about. It's important. It's real important. And a lot of times we we we we well, I'm working my program to the best of my ability.

We hear this stuff all the time. Well, I know but it ought to be our program. All these programs ought to be identical. Our experiences may be somewhat different, but how we get from point a to point b ought to be much more similar than what they are. Much more similar.

But as worldwide we've drifted off into a bunch of areas and we're gonna talk about that some this weekend, not to be offensive and not to make anybody feel uncomfortable. It's just simply that this is the way it is, you know. This is this is sort of the condition of AA and we can decide for our self each individually in our own bunks in the middle of the night. We can decide if I wanna be a part of that or do I wanna be a part of some change that might affect some some great deals in other people's lives. You guys know some of you guys know my twin brother and and you can't imagine what a weird time it was to be drunk with Chris.

Chris lived with me and worked with me and, and my wife is holding our business together. So Chris and I can go home at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and cook dinner. That's the that's the quotation marks on it, cook dinner. And and and we just get sloshed and we just it just was just a mess and it just And so imagine what it was like when Chris sobered up and I'm happened to live in the same house with this guy and then and then he moves out and gets him a little apartment, but it's it's like he's sober and I'm still drunk. And I watch him and I watch him and I see his life change miraculously.

And we've all seen that. We've seen seen guys that have were just Chris was always my guy that went. I go, well, if I ever drank like Chris, I'll stop. I mean, I'm the guy. He's he's my go to guy.

He's the knucklehead that I use as a as the as the as the gauge for whether or not I'm as bad and do I need to stop. See, I'm always thinking that I have the the ability to stop on my own once I make that decision. All I have to do is decide to stop and I'll stop. Nothing could have been further from the truth and, and that would prove out. So, but it's like so Chris Obers up.

I watch him, and I say, I want what that little rascals got. And and we get all ganged up, and he takes me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I I loved it. I absolutely I'm I'm one of these guys. I've got one sobriety date, January 15, 88, and I I walked into a a and I loved you immediately.

I love that smoke filled room. I loved all the people there. I loved the stories. I loved everything about the whole deal. But guys, here's a funny part about this deal.

There seems to be a fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous that's built up around us here that is comprised of 2 distinctly different camps. Heavy drinkers who got in trouble and came and stayed and real deal alcoholics over here who came and stayed and tried desperately to stay sober. And what you ended up with was this deal in this group that I was going to, you ended up with this deal where we talked very little about God, we talked very little about the steps, we talked very little about anything except the the problem du jour. Every meeting started out the same way. Who's got the problem?

And we would settle in on some topic and we'd go through the deal like this. And it and it I gotta tell you guys, coming from where I came from as a busted up drunk that did lots and lots of outside issues, coming from where I was there to not drinking was pretty tall cotton. It's pretty good stuff. The the problem is is that it's not good enough. And after a while, those stories that you were telling that were entertaining for a while became very, very tedious.

You ever been in those meetings like this? Bro, Joe wants to tell you about his war story for the 10 thousandth time and, you know, in the in the the first week you're there, you wanna hug him, you love him to death, and the second week, you know, and but by like 2 years down the road, he's still telling the same story every chance he gets. He never changes anything and he never adds anything. He never grows spiritually and shares that. He just shares the same story.

And at the end of the a couple of years of listening to this thing, all I wanna do is choke the living shit out of Joe. That's it. I just Joe, I love you to death. I just want you to die and go away. I just And, we see this stuff all the time.

I don't I don't I don't Sorry. I don't mean to I judge no man. Honest. And as soon as Joe shuts up, then Shelly starts with her story. And she's talking about her divorce for the 10 thousandth time.

And then so it goes. Guys, we either are gonna treat alcoholism as, a disease, or we're gonna treat it as a behavior problem. But trying we gotta make the distinction between what it is. If the if it the disease is physical and mental in nature, then why are we sitting in meetings just talking about it? I mean, imagine what the situation is.

So Daniel comes to me and says, hey, man. I I've got I've got cancer and it's a it's a bad deal and I'm real bummed out and we are talking. I said, god, Daniel, I'm really sorry. Tell me what your plan of action is. Tell me what you're gonna do.

And he said, well I got this doctor and this doctor says that we're just gonna sit around this room. It's kind of a group support kind of thing and we're just, we're gonna talk about it. And I'm going, yeah. And then what? Well, he just said we were gonna talk about it.

Daniel, you have cancer, brother. You're getting ready to get your butt handed to you. What do you you what it makes you think that talking about it's gonna make it go away? And Daniel goes, well, you know, deep down inside, I thought that doctor was full of crap when he said that. I didn't really something doesn't ring true here.

You see? But guys, this is exactly the same parallel that we run-in Alcoholics Anonymous. We have a physical and mental condition, an allergy in the middle obsession that we're gonna talk about at some length in the morning, and yet we have 1,000 upon 1,000 upon 1,000 of AA groups that wanna talk about the problem trying to treat it. Guys, we have to stop treating alcoholism like it was an external problem. It's an internal condition that has to be dealt with internally.

You can't deal with it from an external set of circumstance. You can't. Listen, let me tell you guys, the meetings may be therapeutic in nature, but they are not therapy. They're not actually fixing anything. There's nobody in here, including me, that hasn't been helped by a conversation with another drunk in a meeting.

We we I'm I'm not saying that, guys. Please don't even go there with me on this stuff. I'm not saying that. But in the Dallas Fort Worth area, guys, when you have when you have, 1500 meetings a week in the metropolitan area. 1500 meetings a week and you have 98% of those meetings are discussion meetings.

So we can talk about Joe's inability to get a job and Shelly's divorce and this. You you understand what I'm saying? All those meetings are like that. We have Oh, listen to this. You'll get a you'll get a kick out of this.

Some of you won't. But you some of you will. A couple of weeks ago, we called the intergroup offices there in the Dallas Fort Worth area in the in the Dallas area and we got a, a listing of the year so far to date, giving out desire chips on this stuff. The desire chips, this is for a 6 month period. They gave away almost 9,000 desire chips.

By the 9th month, they've only given out 723, that's about 8%. So see, what Within the first 30 days, that would pretty well take care of 90 meetings in 90 days. Right? I mean, the 1st 3 months, that's 90 meetings in 90 days that we hear so many. We only have, 15% of the people that came are still there.

15%. And yet, we say it like it's some religious mantra, like it's some kind of 90 meetings in 90 days, meeting makers make it. Let me tell you something, guys. Some meeting makers do make it, but you know what? There are a lot of meeting makers that die on the vine.

There are a lot of meeting makers that get just like I do that just become so miserable in their own skin, They can't stand it. They can't stand who they are. Guys, I want you to put put yourself in my situation at 7 years from my last drink and my last outside issue. 7 years into this deal, I am suicidal. I'm writing hot checks all over Denton county.

I can't keep my hands off other women. I'm just I am so twisted around the axle that I can't even begin to tell you how painful my life has become. I'm going to 6 meetings a week. I'm telling you guys, I was the most miserable I've ever been in my life, sitting in these meetings, listening to these guys, well meaning people who loved me to death. There was no malice meant here.

There were no evil people in those meetings. These weren't SOB's. These were kind, gentle people that simply didn't know the truth to carry. They were doing what they had been told to do. And there's the rub, guys.

There's the problem. How many of you guys used to play that parlor game when you were kids like this, where you start over on one side of the room? We'll start with Daniel. And I'll say, Daniel, come here, man. I'm gonna whisper something to him.

And then Daniel's gonna sit down. He'll whisper it to Paul. Paul whips whisper to hell and then we'll just kinda slide on around the room like, by the time it gets over here, it's already starting to change. By the time it gets over here, it's a completely different deal. By the time it gets back there, Daniel's some child molester.

It's just it didn't even resemble anything that we said. It's just like it's it's just bizarre, but see the guys, that's what's pro that's the problem with an oral tradition that's carried from one man to another, because things change delete things. And I don't like that inventory stuff, so I'm not gonna talk about that inventory stuff. But I like yoga, so I'm gonna talk about yoga in my class, because yoga helped me. You You see what I'm saying?

Is there anything wrong with yoga? No. I've been practicing it for years. There's nothing wrong with it. But guys Oh, shit.

Stop sharing that in a meeting as a solution to your problem. Please. We all clear on that? See, there's the there's the problem. On page 17, let's read something real quick.

You'll get it. I think it'll clarify some of this stuff. Every one of you guys got your big books on your lap. I know. For you sinners that don't, I'm gonna read this for you.

Okay? All the way down to the bottom of the page. The feeling of having shared a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us. We've all read this a jillion times. The fact that we're alcoholics in that room binds us.

We understand that. That's one of the deals. But that in itself would never have joined us, held us together as we are now joined. Wait a minute. There's the fly in the ointment.

And here it is. The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree and upon which we can join in brother brotherly and harmonious action. This is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism. They talked about a common solution, guys.

In theory, what should happen is is that as I begin to carry a guy let's say I sponsor Daniel, and I do. But no. Let's just say, at least today I do. Let's say that I sponsor Daniel like this and I carry Daniel through the work the way the big book asked me to carry him through the work. And we get him through the deal and then he carries the work to Paul just exactly that same way.

At some point in time, what you're going to end up with is a room full of people who've been who have had a spiritual experience as a result of doing work out of the book, the basically the same way. And it becomes real simple to carry that message, you see, because we're all had a common solution. It's not coming Let me ask you this question, how how come it is that we are so terrified of the idea of sponsorship? That's the reason why I so readily agreed to do this. Not not the fact that I just like Daniel.

I'd read I wanted to do this because he said, let's do something about sponsorship and I said, I'm your guy. Worldwide, not just here in Ireland, not just in the United States, worldwide, how come it is that we have so many people that don't want a sponsor? I'll tell you why. At the I think that probably the biggest single reason that we don't want a sponsor is, 1, we are ambivalent on how to do it. We're not sure.

And the other one is there's a huge dose of fear involved in it. We've bought into the idea and we've signed on to a lot of responsibility that's not mine to to sign on to. I have a I have a a a a view of sponsorship that was spoon fed me in AA meetings that didn't come out of the book. You see, I have to be best friends with the guys that I sponsor and I have to do this and I have to do that and I have to do an 8 hour inventory with them and I have to and it just goes on ad nauseam. All of these things that were added in verbally told me that I was supposed to do.

No wonder when some guy walks up to me after a meeting and said, would you sponsor me? I want to figure anything I can do to get out of it. I want to just I tell you what you do. Read the big book, and I'll see you in a month. How's that?

Come come back and see me. I mean I mean, but we hear this all the time. I said, tell me what your sponsor told you to do when he first got hooked up with you. And you'd be surprised over the years how many bizarre stories I have heard. Bizarre stories.

I heard one guy who's who's who's brand new sponsor told him to take a sabbatical from work. Where did he get that? I mean, it just it just goes on and on and on like this. But no wonder we're so timid around the idea of sponsorship. No wonder that that we that we tend to go, thanks for asking.

What I really wish you do is just die and not come back because I really don't want to sponsor you because I really don't know how. That's what I'm hoping this weekend. We're gonna we're gonna shore up some of those loose ends and we're gonna connect some of those dots and we're gonna see if we can't simplify the process. So that so that instead of being anxious and timid about the idea of sponsorship, you're more aggressive and more, excited about the prospect of seeing one miracle right after another miracle unfold right in front of you. And guys, that's the fun of the deal.

I mean that's the that's the cool part to see some busted up little knucklehead standing in front of you, you know, just goofy as a bed bug and and carrying through the work and then watch what happens to him as God begins to enter his life and the process begins to dissipate all the drama and crap that he brought into this deal. That's the cool stuff. That's what I signed up for. And that's the reason I'll never ever stop doing this. Our fellowship is full of walking wounded, guys.

Our fellowships are full. I used to think that it was just me that felt like that, but the reality was is that there were tens of thousands of drunks that felt just like I did. They're sitting in meetings night after night after night hoping to get something akin to this thing called recovery that the book describes, and yet not getting there. We wish it, we hope it, we, we we pray it. We do all of these things hoping to get where we want to and we do everything except what the book asked us to do.

The book said, there are 12 simple steps, spiritual in nature, which when worked would guarantee your recovery. And yet, we have tens of thousands of drunks out there making excuses why they can't do it. Picking and choosing what they will do and what they won't do. Full of defiance, full of arrogance, full of all kinds of pride, full of God. You guys know those guys.

Some of you guys sponsor that guy, you know? Thank you. Thank you. I I know I haven't had a sponsor in 6 months, but I'm asking you tonight. I want you to sponsor me.

And, this is how I think we ought to do this. And then he begins to tell me for 30 minutes how I'm supposed to sponsor him. I'm going, excuse me? Why don't we address this from a different way? Okay?

If your life is so wonderful, I thought you wanted what I had. Okay? Let's just let's just take this from a different perspective and I and I'll drive the ship on this and we'll see if we can't get you through this. Okay? It just freaks me out.

We see it all the time. At 7 years sober in that group, I finally got out of it. I I was I was in trouble and, and I knew that I wasn't gonna make it And I, Chris called me and he had met this old crusty guy named Cliff Bishop, and I I love busting his anonymity. It just most of you guys know him anyway, and it just I just I I I I met Cliff and I I walked into the door and I knocked on the door and this crusty looking little guy is just looking right at me like this and he scared the spit out of me. He didn't even he looked at me and he said, where's your book?

And I said, I don't know where my book is. And he's he handed me a book and he said, here's mine. Don't ever come back over here without a big book. It was I'm wanting him to hug me. I want him to I want I want something warmer and fuzzier.

I I'm thinking that we're gonna sit in his living room and we're gonna hold hands and sing Kumbaya and we're gonna it's it's just gonna be a kind of a, you know, a get to know each other kind of thing. And I'm gonna tell him for 2 hours how smart I am about alcoholics and all this, because I've been sober for 7 years. I'm gonna tell him how how how You see what I'm saying? Arrogance and ego is driving the true the whole the whole train and it's just gotten real ugly. And so I'm sitting in this guy's living room and he goes, woah, woah, woah, stop.

Uh-uh. Let me ask you a couple of questions. And I got my dander up and now I'm wondering why he's treating me with disrespect, you know, and he and he starts asking me these questions and you know, he asked me a question. I go, well, well, you know, there are many there are many kinds of of ways to work this work like this. And he he'd ask me another question.

I go, well, I I can't offhand remember where that is in the book, but I I I I I think you're probably right. And then he'd ask me another question. And after about 10 minutes of this stuff, guys, it became laughable. It became he just he just looked at me. He said, you know, Marsha, is that the reality is here you don't know anything about this book, do you?

And I just am so I'm so unhappy and I'm so fearful again, and yet I'm so arrogant and so goofy around the whole deal. And I'm just trying to justify all my time in AA and it just you know the feeling and it's just like our rooms are full of men just like me. I've been sober 30 years. I'm powder dry and I just assumed shoot you in the back just look at you, but I'm you know, I've been sober. You see what I'm saying, but we we get this stuff.

I cheated I cheated my employer last weekend and I'm screwing 3 girls in my home group, but my wife doesn't know anything about it yet and I just you see what I'm saying? I mean, we do we we it's the stuff that Peter was talking about. This this this path of hypocrisy that we live in AA, wanting to keep AA separate from everything else about our whole whole life, and it doesn't work that way. The book went on page after page after page telling us a story, painting us a rhetorical picture of something that was completely different. Completely different.

They painted a picture that I could get up in the morning and not obsess about drinking. They painted a picture that I could be friends with my wife again. That I could be the kind of father that my kids wanted. That I could be a a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous and rise as as as a a servant in that fellowship. They painted that picture.

And if I take that picture and set it here and then look at my life here, the contrast is obscene. The contrast is just horrible. I'm not there. I'm not even close to there. The only thing that's similar is that I'm just not drinking.

And I see my brothers and sisters in this fellowship doing exactly the same thing. And I talk to them ad nauseam on the telephone and I email them 2 hours every morning. Every morning, I answer hundreds of emails from people who are struggling in this fellowship. And the common thing is always the same. I have no sponsor that will hold me accountable and help me do the work and I have picked and choose chosen what I wanted to do in the way of step work and I'm not willing to admit that it's not working because of that.

I would much rather blame it on my group or on that chicken shit sponsor that I've got or on that what I'd rather blame it on anything than to accept the responsibility for myself that I simply isolated myself from what I was supposed to do. And hopefully, that's what we're gonna get through this weekend, guys. In a 2 week period, that crusty old guy sitting in his living room carried me back through the work and he went from being crusty cliff to the most loving, gentle, and kind man I'd ever met my whole life. Rigid? Yes.

Willing to listen to me go on and on about my bad day? Not for 15 seconds. You didn't care and neither do I. I'm telling you, on the guys that I sponsor, I really don't I really don't care. At the end of the day and the guys that I sponsor, when Daniel calls me and we talk a couple of times of a week, usually at least once a week, Usually, at least once a week.

You know, we'll listen and we'll talk about some of this stuff, but at the at the at the end of the deal, all I really wanna wanna know about Daniel is, Daniel, tell me today, how much time did you spend with God one of God's kids today? And and how much time, did you spend with God himself today? It's about that. It's about a relationship with the God of our understanding and it's about a relationship with a busted up drunk that because because I've been there. That's what I want to know.

And if he does that, it submits to that simple process, everything falls into place. And we have we have everybody out there going, no. It's more complicated than that. No. It's not.

It's not. And everybody wants to take exception. We got thousands of people. I get emails. I get as many emails from those people saying, you're full of crap.

It's not that simple. I'm telling you, the basic text said exactly that. Develop a relationship with a god of your understanding and then get off your lazy scrawny butt and get out there and carry a message of recovery to somebody else. That's what it said. I paraphrased it a little bit.

It didn't say scrawny butt, but you you know what I'm talking about. I don't need to explain it. I don't need to understand it. I don't I have no I don't give a rat's patootie why it works. I don't.

I just know that it does work. When I simplify the process and do exactly that, everything gets better. In 2 weeks, I'd had a spiritual experience as a result of doing that work with that old man, and we were off to the races. He would carry me every place that he'd go carry a message. I was going right there with him.

Got involved in sponsorship, got and I and and it's the most amazing thing you've ever seen in your whole life. I gotta tell you guys and I'm done. If this had just happened to me and that's all it ever happened to, I would never stand at a podium and share this. But I've watched this experience happen in thousands and thousands of men and women who have submitted to a process to get back in the literature, to set the baseline, which will become their doctrine of what they're gonna carry to the next guy that asked them to help. My opinions are taken out of the picture, but along with it anxiety was right there with it walking out the door.

I'm not anxious anymore because I don't have to have shoulder the responsibility whether or not you recover or not. What I have the responsibility of is carry you a clear cut message of what the book said. And once you do that and once you do the work, it's between you and God, how you get through the rest of this deal. And it is an amazing process to watch these busted up guys get well and watch them change. But what's more amazing than that is to watch a busted up little drunk like Daniel get through the work, have the experience, watch his relationship men, watch his friends men, watches work life men, and then watch what happens when he does the exact same thing with some little unlovely knucklehead that walks into the meeting and sits down with him.

There is the power of this fellowship. We'll talk about this stuff some tomorrow, but I'll tell you right now, the first time that you walk around the corner and most of you men and women in here have experienced this thing. The first time you walk into a room and one of the guys that you sponsor is sitting knee to knee with a man and he's got his big book on his lap and that other guy's got his big book on his lap and they're going through this stuff like this, I promise you, you will go through the exact same experience that I went through. You'll take one step back out of the room, and you'll either weep or you'll be so thankful you'll wanna hit your knees. Because you'll all of a sudden understand the connectedness with each and every one of us to a fellowship that was handed to us 70 some odd years ago.

And instead of dancing around the outside of this deal, I'm a part of a cog in this bigger picture. I'm not just out there spreading garbage in meetings. I'm out there carrying a solution that I know will change a man on a cellular level. And guys, that's fairly heady stuff. Fairly amazing for a busted up drunk to know and be clear on what his primary purpose is.

You guys get some sleep tonight, and, bring your books tomorrow, and, we'll we'll get through some of this stuff. And I look forward to not only talking to you from here, but also talking to you one on one. It's always kind of a fun deal to break up some log jams and and get get all hugged up. And if you wanna sing Kumbaya tomorrow, we'll do that. But I I just, you maybe they don't sing Kumbaya in Ireland.

I love every one of you. Thank you. Alright. Great stuff indeed. 9 AM tomorrow, my right.

Yeah? Yeah? Okay, folks. That's our lot for this evening. 9 AM tomorrow morning.

Come early. Bring your big book. Safe home. Good night. God bless.