Steps 1, 2 and 3 at the Fellowship of the Spirit in Dublin, Ireland

So, anyways, I'll give it to Myers. It always cracks me up. It always cracks me up when anybody shows up again. It's just like somebody will come and listen to a talk, but if they come back again, they already know what they're in for and so it's always, it's always always exciting to to see. For the guys that I didn't meet, my name is Myers Raymer.

I'm an alcoholic. Hey, y'all. And, for those sleepy boys and girls that aren't here yet this morning, they're just gonna be screwed because they're not gonna actually know what's going on and that's okay. We'll just look at them in a judgmental way and convict them so they feel all Oh, shoot. You know, 2 things we probably need cover ahead of time.

Your schedule is fairly useless. We're we're sensitive to the fact that guys need to smoke and and and go go to the bathroom and things like this. And so we're we're not gonna drone on about stuff. We're gonna we'll we'll have plenty of time for breaks. And, we'll get you guys out of here in in early enough this afternoon that you still have some weekend to to do some other things too.

You know, I was talking to this guy a little bit ago and and, we're talking about, I know some of you guys have been sober for a long time and, you work this work and you did this this this thing and and, this is not a an attempt to judge in any form or fashion the way anybody's doing anything. If it took you 2 years to work the work and you got through it okay, terrific. These are simply observations and reflections of of 2 guys who have been through the work and have seen things that tend to not work real well, like take your time doing the work. I mean it rolls off the tongue real nice and we're taught that a lot and yet my own personal experience didn't didn't work like that. It it wasn't like that at all.

The longer I took to do something, the more time I spent in pain and anguish. It was only when I got more vigilant and more diligent in work in the work that I got some relief, emotional relief around what was kicking my rear end. You see? And so, we'll go through and explain that that deal. Remember that everything that we're doing about this is is geared more towards sponsorship than any anywhere else.

We're gonna assume for the sake of this conversation in here that everybody that's here wants to sponsor somebody or 2 bodies or 10 bodies or 30 bodies. We we're assuming that you want to do that, that you desire to do that because that's what the literature asked us to do. The book said you need to go do this. They Bill Wilson and those guys never assumed that what we were gonna do was is that we were gonna get sober and and and and we would be an island unto ourself and we're never gonna sponsor anybody. It it was never intended that.

He he figured that as soon as we were sober and soon as we were ready to go that we'd be out there kicking butt, taking names, and and helping people recover. That's what he assumed we were gonna do. And yet that's not the reality in this stuff, guys. I I at the present time, I sponsor a little group of guys that are chronic. They're I mean, they're just nut jobs.

All of these guys are approaching 20 years of sobriety. This little group of guys, and within that little group of guys, they've sponsored collectively. Those 5 men have sponsored 5 men. Now do you understand what I just said? There's 5 guys that have a total, days of, years of sobriety of over a 100 years, and collectively between them, they've sponsored 5 men.

This that's No wonder I'm so tired. I'm doing their work too. I didn't I don't it's crazy. It's this is oh, yes, I I sponsor a man. How nice for you.

Why aren't you sponsoring 20 men? Because there's a 100 out there dying. Come on. Let's go. And that's where we need everybody to get.

And then it would be a lot easier on all of us and we'd have a fellowship that was so strong and so vibrant and so ready to go that it would scare you. You'd walk into a move into a room blown away by how vibrant everything was and that's the way it should be. And my experience has been is that when we get everybody on the same page, this common solution that we talked about last night, when we get everybody on that same page, that's the experience. Some of you guys have been to Dallas, Texas. There's 2 or 3 of you guys that have traveled to the states and you were in our meeting on a Tuesday night where 200 people are sitting there studying the big book.

And guys, it is excuse me. It's the it's the craziest thing you've ever seen. It's like a circus in that room. 200 people, all excited about recovery, all can't just going nuts. It's like they all have little extension cords plugged right up their rear end and they're all just all plugged in and vibrating.

They're just it's exciting stuff because we know exactly what our primary purpose is. Everybody's real focused about what it is that we need to be doing, and and I see that I see that to a large extent here already in the guys that I've talked to. I've talked to a lot of guys that are really plugged in. The deal is is that so many of us get the crap kicked out of us out there in mainstream AA. We get all excited about stuff and then we walk into a meeting and there's a bunch of old guys in there saying exactly the opposite of what we're trying to get guys to do and it's it's it's daunting.

It's it's it's tough and I know that and I I my heart bleeds for you because I see it all the time and I just, the the the best advice I can give you is just do exactly what you're doing. Just keep going out there, share the truth out of the book and watch what happens. One of the one of the areas we're gonna we're gonna I'm gonna talk about 1, 2, and 3 this morning briefly and then for about an hour and 10 minutes or so and then, Peter's gonna flesh that out. He's gonna spend some time in it and slide into 45, and we're gonna get through this stuff. We'll be glad to answer questions.

The early part of the afternoon, we'll get into some question and answer stuff so that we can shore up some loose ends on this stuff. Let's pretend for the sake of this example, for the sake of this talk, let's pretend that that that Daniel is my is my goofy little drunk that just came in. He's been sober for 2 days and he's sitting in a meeting detoxing. He's just a he's a nutcase. And he's and he's he's tried to do this thing for years.

It's in and out and in and out. You know the kind of guy, little arrogant, piss at, and he's just Daniel was a perfect example of this. Okay? One of the greatest lies that we've been sold in AA, one of the greatest pieces of disservice to this fellowship has been this idea that anybody that wants to be here can be here and that we'll leave them alone when they're here. They have every right to be here.

They do. I'm not saying anything. I'm not trying to be exclusive to anybody. I'm just trying to tell you when a man walks into a room, let's say this is our AA meeting right here. We're sitting right here and Daniel walks in and sits down and he's in here and he's uncomfortable.

We go over, maybe we greet him a little bit, we do, and that's where it stops in most AA groups. We greet him. We make him feel comfortable. Nothing wrong with that. I love making people feel comfortable.

However, there seems to be this thing. You talk about something, the q word, qualifying this guy and all of a sudden it's a nasty deal. Everybody gets all you can't qualify him. Yes. I can.

The book begs me to do it. The book asked me over and over and over again to care. Why do you think Bill Wilson spent 40 some odd pages in the front of this book talking about that one thing, trying to get us to understand the truth around the allergic reaction and the mental obsession. Page after page, description after description, illustration after illustration of so we could understand why it is that we do the crazy things that we do. Let's touch on this just for a minute.

Okay? Because we're gonna scoop this little kid up, the dead this Daniel guy, and we're gonna we're gonna qualify him as he as he comes in. Bill Wilson and doctor Bob and the first 100 knew and understood that when these guys come in here, the very first thing we need to do is is to see if we can help them see their truth. Do I label him an alcoholic? No way.

Way. It's not my job to label anybody anything, but I need to help Daniel understand what his truth is around his drinking. Why? Because if if Daniel has any ambivalence at all in his guts about what he what he is, he's gonna falter down range. You've seen it over over and over again.

Guys that come in listen. The saddest thing that I see in AA today is men and women sitting in meetings 10 years sober still ambivalent about their disease. Still not really sure if they're drunk. You see what I'm saying? And they they think they go back and they think of the drama that got them here.

Oh, yeah. Well, I got the DWI. That must mean I'm an alcoholic. No. It doesn't.

Guys, let me tell you something. The world is full of badly behaved guys that drink and drug and do weird crap, and they wreck cars, and they wreck families, and they wreck jobs, and they do all of this other kind of stuff, but it does not make them an alcoholic. We all cool so far on this? We're gonna make the distinction because the distinction is important. Just because a man is in our meeting, doesn't mean he's an alcoholic.

Please. Just because that lady that came in and sit down next to you in a meeting, just because she's there doesn't mean she's an alcoholic. She could be a badly behaved drunk. They describe it. Page 1920 and 21, they give you a perfect description of it.

They do it again over in, the chapter of the wives. They bust this thing down into what class of drunk is your husband? They tell you this stuff so that you can see what you got. How many of you guys know, I better look at that. How many of you guys know, people that drank just like you and at some point in time they quit just on their own.

They just stopped. We all do. We all run across guys like this. So I got I had guys that I drank with for for the whole time and I'd always think they were just like me. And then their wife says, you know what, pal?

I'm done with your crap and I'm leaving if you don't stop drinking. And I've got 2 or 3 friends that stopped just like that. Never walked into a meeting. Never did anything else. They could quit.

The book tells us that the heavy drinker can stop or moderate on his own given sufficient reason. The doctor says, buddy, your your liver looks terrible. You're gonna have to stop. Okay. It's time to stop.

And they just pull up and stop. Everybody has an uncle. Oh, my uncle, he stopped 20 years ago and he never did any a or anything. He just stopped. He was a bad alcoholic.

Oh, was he? I I I would like to argue that. I don't think that he was an alcoholic. I think that he was a heavy drinker that pulled up and stopped because he could he could stop or moderate on a non spiritual basis, which in that definition keeps him outside that realm of alcoholism as it is. That's why we need to understand this and that's the reason why Bill spent so much time talking about that stuff.

If you don't understand what Bill and Bob and those guys were trying to do, the whole part first part of the book takes on a real boring cache because they give you Jim's story and Fred's story and the Jay Walker story and all this other the the man of 30. All of these illustrations and you're just going like, Bill, get on with it. Come on. Let's let's get into the steps. Let's get into and it took me a long time to realize what it was that they were trying to do.

They were trying to say, if you don't understand the chronic nature of alcoholism, we get worse never better. If you don't understand that nature of the the the mental obsession and the the allergic reaction, you'll never do the stuff that you have to do on over in the deal. Because we're gonna ask you to do some pretty goofy things on over here. We're gonna ask you to turn your will and your life over to care of a loving god. And 3, we're gonna ask you to do inventory.

We're gonna ask you to make restitution. We're gonna and trust me, if you don't understand here this is not an intellectual exercise. Right? If we don't if we don't get you to understand right here what's going on, guys, you will suffer mightily on down the road. You'll you'll simply, at the first point where things get goofy, trans translate that hard, you're gonna just put it at a distance.

You ever hear you ever hear of a guy that comes out of the starting block and he's ready to do anything you want him to do and then he just loses momentum? You get him up around step 3 and then he get him to get him ready for inventory and all of a sudden he just loses. It's like somebody unplugged his rear end and all of his juices flowed out on the floor, and he's not he's not gonna do anything. He's lost his steam. The analogy last night that we were talking to with Danny about this stuff about about if somebody told this cat that he had cancer, there is no losing steam if you have a path set.

If I know I have cancer that's consuming my body as I sit here, and I have a path of action that tells me what I need to do to get clear of it. Did you ever see a cancer patient that's ambivalent about his recovery process? As a general rule, that's not the case. Is it? Is it general rule that go, what do I do next?

Is there anything I can do while I'm doing this? Is it Monday? You want me there? I'm there. You ever see anybody miss a cancer treatment?

It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. Why doesn't it happen? It doesn't happen because there is no ambivalence in this man about his disease. He knows he's screwed.

We're all clear there? Okay. I haven't started speaking in tongues yet. I just it is We don't do that till I get to the inventory part of this. I I just and that's the reason why when we get Daniel in there, Daniel's first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he's detoxing in the meeting and he's go I don't wanna hear him share.

I don't wanna hear him talk. I don't wanna hear him I don't wanna hear him. I just wanna ask him some questions. Daniel, I already love you enough. Let's talk about some of this stuff and see where you are.

If when you honestly want to you find that you cannot quit, Look at look at at page 44. Let's just read through this real quick and see. People say all the time, say, when you get a brand new guy, do you start at the title page? Nuh-uh. I don't waste my time.

Why would I wanna start at the title page talking about stuff that this guy may or may not even need? Let's find out who we got in the room first and that's the reason why we can go through this stuff. The reason why the early AA was so effective was because they did this. They qualified their guys first. If I got me a guy that's just a heavy drinker, I don't waste time reading the book.

I'm busy. I have jillions of guys out there dying that need this deal. You understand what I'm saying? And that's the reason why. And it's not unkind to do that.

People say, well, if somebody qualified me when I first got here, I'd have left. Okay. Believe that if you want. Guys, one of the greatest regrets of my life, one of the things that bothered me the most, it was that for 7 years I said in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and nobody qualified me. Nobody helped me see my truth.

We assume that the new guy, we assume that this little knucklehead Daniel is gonna know what to ask. That's gonna know and understand his disease and that is ludicrous. That is that's crap. You know it is. Daniel doesn't know anything, except every day when he gets up he says, I'm not gonna do this today.

And every night when he passes out he goes, I did it again. I did it again. Tomorrow will be different. And he's repeated that exercise over and over and over, and you did exactly the same thing, I bet. Didn't you?

We have tens of thousands of drunks sitting in meetings every day that still don't understand why they drink the way they drink. Why do I do the things that I do? And finally, they settle on the old threadbare idea that I'm just a weak, spineless, little bastard. They do. And you know at 7 years sober, sit in meetings, that's exactly what I'm thinking.

At the end of the day, I I don't really know why. I just I guess I'm just weak. I guess I'm just exactly what my mom said I was and what my wife said I was. I didn't realize that I had a disease that was kicking my rear end. I didn't realize that I had a body that processed alcohol different than the normal people.

I didn't know any of that. And why should Daniel have to sit in a meeting for 7 or 10 or 15 years not knowing that? 10 years into the deal, he's a crappy sponsor and we wanna make all kinds of excuses why he's a crappy sponsor. I'll tell you why he's a lousy sponsor. He's a bad sponsor because he doesn't understand what to teach.

It's as simple as that. He just doesn't know. He's been spoon fed a lot of people's views of AA who loved him to death, but they didn't understand either. You see, it's a tragic circle. It's a weird circle that we get ourselves into.

It would be easier if there were a bunch of evil nasty people out there saying a bunch of unkind things, and then we could we could judge them and say that's the reason this didn't happen. Come on guys, you know that's not true. There's more love and more affection and more genuine concern for men and women in Alcoholics Anonymous than any other place I have ever been on the face of this earth. We have a whole bunch of people that that that made the conscious decision to take the big book about politics anonymous and slide it sideways and set it down. And now it's about fellowship.

We had two sides of this deal. We had a fellowship end of the deal and we had a program end of the deal and the program end of the deal got set aside in most of our meetings. And that's the reason why we've talked nonstop about things that don't need to be discussed in a meeting about politics and odds. We're gonna talk about that thing tomorrow at some length. We'll talk about that specifically.

If If you got your book at you, we're over on page 44. They're gonna ask you these 2 questions at the deal. My very first meeting with Daniel, we're gonna sit there and I'm gonna say, Daniel, let me ask you a question. Let me let me I'll make sure he's got a liter some literature and I'm gonna hand in this book and I'm gonna say turn to page 44 and we go in the preceding chapters. I'm at the top of that page.

In the preceding chapters, we've learned something about alcoholism. We did. We got 51 pages before this that told us everything that we needed to know, basically, about the disease part of of this deal. We hope we made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non alcoholic. If when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely or when drinking you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic.

Two distinctions right there. Right? Two distinctions. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer. In one paragraph, I've given this guy the exact what he needs to know to qualify himself for whether or not he's a drunk or not, whether distinction that we That's the distinction that we need to make.

And then it also, at the bottom of the paragraph, tells us exactly what we're gonna have to do to recover. It didn't say, which only 90 meetings in 90 days will cure. It didn't say that. A spiritual experience, and the only way I know to get this spiritual experience is work the steps. That's it.

You may be able to do it other way. If you find a way, tell me. It may be easier than this and I'll be doing it your way. I just So in that deal, I'm gonna ask Daniel. I said, Daniel, if you honestly wanna stop, it's like given that choice.

If you tell yourself, I'm never gonna do this again. Better let's let's let's put it in personal deal like this. Let's say that his girlfriend says, I'm I'm out of here. If you drink again, I'm gone. Daniel says, I'm not gonna drink again.

And then 3 days later, he finds himself drunk. He's lost the power of choice. Check choice. Okay. If he says, Iris, I'm gonna stop after work and I'm gonna have one beer with these guys down at the plant and then I'm gonna go home.

I'll see you for dinner. And he has 6. He's lost the power of control. Check control. You understand what I'm saying?

He's it. I don't give a rat's patootie about everything else Daniel wants to tell me. Daniel wants to tell me about his DWI. He wants to tell me about the night he whacked the crap out of Iris. He wants to tell me about all of this other stuff.

He wants to tell me about all this drama that went down, and none of it makes him an alcoholic. None of it does. Are we clear here guys? We, it's important that we are because from this foundation, we're gonna launch into the rest of this stuff and that's why it's important that we get all in agreement around this deal. Your drama did not make you an alcoholic.

The fact that a cop whacked you on upside of the head didn't make you an alcoholic. The fact that your mom put you on the toilet seat backwards when you were a little kid did not make you an alcoholic. You can you can go anywhere you want to around it, but the book tells us we have 2 qualifications. If you lost the power of choice and control, and if you have, welcome. You're it.

You're screwed, but there is a solution. This is good. You see? And we understand this. But, see, if you know it from that level, this point of discomfort that lies in the pit of my stomach, that there is no wiggle room, that I am actually doomed to a horrible death and everybody that I know with me.

At the point that that realization is made, I can make my beginning from there, and the motivation is there to keep and continue doing everything that needs to be done. Eat a cat turd, where is it? I'll eat it. I'll do any I'll Whatever it is, I I'll do it because that's what I'm gonna have to do in order to recover. You see what I'm saying?

Let me ask you this question. How many of you guys have ever gone to a treatment center and you did a little talk and you picked up some guy out of this treatment center and he says, hey. I want you to sponsor me. I just got here in this treatment deal and you can look in his eyes and he's dead he's just desperate. He's just had the crap kicked out of him and he's just, oh, it's just horrible.

And and you what you have is is this little compliant guy that's ready to do the work. And you're all excited, you think, oh, this is the greatest stuff in the whole wide world. And so you you say, you bet I'm gonna sponsor you and I'll be back in a week. And so you come back in a week, next time you're you're you're back up there and you walk in and and you're looking at this guy and something's a little bit different, you know. And you kinda go, I wonder And so you talk a little bit and he's he's he's he's still willing.

He's still giving you the right answers. Yes, I'll do this. And yes, I'll do this. And yes, I read this. And yes, I like this.

And you go, okay. Well, okay. I'll see you in another week. And about that time it's gonna be about ready for you to get out of here. And we'll really start in earnest what we're doing with this work.

And you go, great. So you go back in again in the the following week. And you walk in the room and he doesn't even look like the same guy that you talked to 2 weeks ago. This little guy that was all beat up and compliant and ready to do anything he could do to get through the work is now this arrogant little piss ant like this with his arms folded like this and all he we call it the AA trinity, the job, the girl in the car. That's all he cares about.

All he cares about is how to get my job back so I can get my car back so I can get my girl back. You see it? You've been there? You know exactly what I'm talking about. This guy could care less about your stinking steps, and the only reason he's even considering AA is because his counselors leaning on his back every day to get involved in an AA group.

That's it. Because he doesn't really feel like he's got the problem anymore. They fed him enough good food. They fed him enough knowledge, and he's bulletproof. And let me tell you something.

This arrogant little guy is destined to to have a real awakening when he steps out on the street. Life slaps him upside the head. He'll be at the he'll be at the at the dope house or the drunk store in in just like that because he didn't really believe that he had the problem. Lurking notion. If there's any lurking notion that there's another way to do this, you'll do that, and that's the reason why early AA didn't play with you.

They didn't mess with you. If Daniel's arguing with me and he's got other ideas about how well, what I think I'm gonna do for a while is I wanna go to church with my wife and we're gonna try to get back into that deal. I say, Daniel, I love you to death and I'm delighted that that's what you're gonna do. You go ahead and do that. If you need me, here's my card.

And that's it. I'm done with Daniel I don't understand. Why would we wanna spend any more time with Daniel? He's their lurking notion is there. He's gonna run it again.

The game is gonna run out and as it plays back out again and he leaves church and he goes to the beer store because the football game's getting ready to start and he's drunk again in no time and then he whacks her up the side Iris up the side of the head again and she calls me and said, well, he did it again. I'm going, Iris, I've been asking you. You need to probably get out of that deal until we get this thing worked out. Badly behaved and finally, Daniel calls me again and he says, okay. I'm ready to listen.

Now this time, Daniel's not talking a lot. That this time, Daniel's not trying to tell me all the crap that he's got. He's not trying to run any games on me. He's desperate. He knows he's in trouble and he's gonna die if he doesn't do something.

Now I have the Daniel that I need. Now I have the guy that that that's ready. Book keeps telling us in the in the early part of the book, they keep using this illustration of going back out and doing some controlled drinking. If you think you can do this, go do collective breath like, you wouldn't suggest that a guy do that? Heck, I wouldn't.

I do it every week. If you don't think that you belong here, go drink. Let me tell you something, god. I can't talk anybody into recovery. I can't.

I've never been able to do it. You tell me this. What was it that your parents told you that made you stop drinking? They didn't come on, guys. Sometimes the very best thing that can happen is for these guys to go back out, make another run at it, realize how absolutely hopeless thing this thing is one more time and then they'll all get gathered up and they'll say, I'm ready.

And the difference is a phenomenal. You Guys, the spiritual experience that we're after manifests itself in physical ways, tangible ways. You see it happening. I talk to guys all the time, but I've been sponsoring this guy for a year and we're we're almost through the work. And I'm just gonna I I I always go, okay.

Why are you still doing step work with this guy here from the time that you started with him? Why? This guy is either ready to do the stuff or he's not ready to do the stuff. It's black and white, guys. It's black and white.

He's either ready or he's not. If he's not, leave him alone. Let him go do something else. If he's ready I know some guys some of you guys are looking at me like, I don't believe he's saying that. I didn't say it.

The book said it. The literature said it. They're crystal clear on this stuff. Go read chapter 7 working with others and watch what happens on this stuff. They tell these guys, don't waste your time.

If he's not ready, leave him be. You'll screw it up for on down the road. Leave him be. He'll come back, we hope. He may not, but that's not my deal.

I'm not responsible whether he comes back or not. I'm responsible just to get him through the deal if he's ready to do the work. As we work I I listen. I've sponsored 100 and 100 and 100 of guys, and I've never taken more than a month to work anybody through the work. Never ever.

You don't need to. The book was clear that we go get through this stuff. They use words like action and more action and and and over and end. Read read at the end of every step and watch what it says right after that step. Now it's time for more action.

You know? I just there is no reason for Daniel to suffer. Turn over to page 24. Halfway down the page. Let's look at this thing real quick.

1st 3rd of the page, excuse me. The fact that most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure have lost the power of choice in drink, our so called willpower becomes practically non existent. They're talking about the mental component of alcoholics of of an alcoholic. 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 are without defense against the first drink.

This guys is the stuff that we're talking about. This is the stuff that that that that just We have to understand this. The idea that a man or a woman is gonna be able to come into our fellowship and maintain a life without booze or any any determined length of time is ludicrous. And where we got it, I swear I don't know. I I swear I don't know.

It's it's just the book just told me that I won't remember the pain and suffering of even a week or a month ago. Think about the worst thing that ever happened to you guys. Think about the the the the I got raped in a jail cell 1 night. Fun? Not for me.

It wasn't. And but what was I doing 10 hours later? I was drunker and a skunk, 10 hours later. You see what I'm saying? I couldn't remember with sufficient force, the pain and suffering.

And we assume that the war stories are gonna do it and all the other stuff that we talk about in these meetings is gonna do it, buddy, let me tell you something, I can't even remember my own pain and suffering. What makes you think I'm gonna remember yours? It's crazy. We need to stop taking up thousands and thousands of hours a week in AA are spent with people telling war stories in meetings. I understand the nature of identity.

I understand that we need to identify, but we don't need to identify that much. We don't. It's not necessary. There's a perfect place for a story like that. It's called a 12 step call.

Daniel and I are gonna do it when I first talked to him when he was sitting in the meeting. I'm gonna tell him a little bit about myself. He's gonna go, yeah, I know that. Yeah, I know that. And then I'm gonna ask him a little bit and he's gonna share some stuff back with me.

I'm gonna, yep, I relate. We've connected and we've related. That's all the identity we need to do. We don't need to go back through this war story crap every time because there's too much other good stuff to talk about. There's too much other solution stuff to talk about.

You're Y'all are cool on that. Most of you guys are like You are already there. So understand this deal. In this first meeting, this first set up with Daniel, we've we've qualified him, he knows that he that he's lost the power of choice and control, he's the real deal alcoholic. We talked to him about the allergic reaction.

They talk about it there on page 24. They they talk about the allergic part of this deal. We all know that. There's nobody in here that doesn't understand. Once I start, I can't stop.

The physical part of this is the is the easiest thing for us to understand. We got into the mental part of it, now it's a lot harder to understand because of that mental component. Why is it stone cold sober? Why is it no booze anywhere in my body? Do I still find myself picking up the drink?

That queer mental black spot that they talk about in the deal. The mental obsession is much harder for us to understand and that's the reason why Bill spent all of that time, all of those stories, Jim's story, Fred's story, all of those illustrations are about the mental obsession. Why is it? You see. If I think that the distance from my last drink will will be sufficient to keep me clear, the longer I'm sober, the the more secure I am in my sobriety.

Well, most of you guys know better than that. Most of you guys have been sitting in meetings with men that are 20 years sober and they're so miserable they can't stand themselves or you. It's it's a horrible place to be, horrible. Guys, in the big picture of this thing, look at what's happening. As Daniel gets as the clock ticks day by day by day, left unchecked, Daniel's ego will reassert itself and Daniel's selfishness will reassert itself and he will become an animal.

He will become as ugly a human being again as there is. He's a nice kid, but I promise you based on self, what you were getting ready to talk about, he'll just be a it'll be a a nightmare. And that's what happens to us, you know. It's like it's like I get up, picture the situation and I bet you there's nobody in here that hasn't done this. This.

Picture this, I left a meeting last night and I felt like a spiritual giant and I go home, I go to bed. And I get up the next morning and something's not quite right. There's just some uncertainty, some piece of discomfort deep inside. And I look in the mirror and I don't like what I see and my head's already at work and I'm thinking about a bunch of crud and I'm just like, you understand what I'm saying? And now it begins.

This thing called a spiritual malady. I'm feeling separate and apart from you and from God and from everybody. It's it's just an ugly place to be. By the time I get to work, I'm, you know, flipping people off. I'm already I'm already deciding whether I'm gonna quit work or not quit work or whether I'm gonna leave her or not leave proportion.

Nothing happened, guys. Nothing happened to start it. It was just a condition left unchecked. I'll be able to handle it for a day or 2. Now I've yelled at everybody I know.

I stomp my foot. I've acted like a child. I've done everything that I it's just an ugly place to be. Remember that place? Horrible place to be.

My insides are in a just a just a I'm just so funked out for a lot of us from that point, we slide right into the darkest and deepest of depression. That's where we go, that's where I go. That's what scares me more than anything in the whole wide world. I don't wanna drink again not because I wanna die drunk. I don't wanna drink anymore because I don't wanna be depressed anymore.

My depression damn near killed me and I'm not talking about this heard this lady one time, oh yes, I I remember being real blue one time and I just like this. Lady, shut up. You don't. We ain't talking blue here. We're talking comatose.

We're talking sitting in bed, can't move, that kind of that kind of depression. And, and I and I see drunks like this all the time. That's the reason why it's so important, guys, that we do something to break that cycle and to get clear of that. And unless that I can have a spiritual connection and that's the reason why after I qualified him, the next thing we do is step 2 stuff. Everybody says, I've heard guys for months while I'm working on step 2.

I'm I'm working on step 2. There's nothing to work on, brother. You either believe that there's a loving God out there that's gonna fix it or you don't. It's that simple. It it it you don't have to understand all the parameters around it, mister smarty pants.

You don't have to understand all the what you have to understand is, do I believe that there's something out there bigger than me? Yes. Check. Step 2. Next, 3.

See what I'm saying? I mean, Peter always finds more to say about this, but I but, at the end of the day, it's always the same thing. You either believe that God will fix it or you don't believe that God will fix it. Let me show you something real quick. Turn to, there is a solution.

Page 24, right at the bottom of that page. Let's do the other one. Go to page 25, bottom of the page. If you're seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there's no middle road solution. We were in a position where life was becoming impossible.

If we had passed through a region from which there is no return to human aid, which writes off your group. My group will keep me sober. No, they won't. My sponsor, he'll keep me. No, he won't.

The book just told me this and it's not the first time or the second time or the last time that they're gonna tell me that. Human aid is a bad place to be. We had but 2 alternatives and they're gonna lay it out. We could go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could. That means we could kill ourselves, drink ourselves to death.

And the other was to accept spiritual help. Guys, there there is no 3rd door. I'll read that in a minute. There is no 3rd door. I I can't offer Daniel a 3rd door.

I can't offer him another alternative, because there is not one. Daniel will either accept that there is a God. They use a whole chapter, chapter 4, we agnostics, to try to get Daniel's head around the idea of accepting something that he may not be willing to accept. Guys, I'm not stupid about it. I understand that 90% of us come into this thing with God exactly sideways in our crawl.

You mentioned God and I get goofy. I understand that. I'm not asking you to accept my God. I'm not asking you to accept my religion. I'm not asking you to accept any of that.

I'm asking you to accept the simple fact that you're gonna have to, at step 3, turn your will in your life over to something, wouldn't it be a great idea to form some idea? Doesn't have to be a full formed idea. I don't care if you think God's a grasshopper. I don't give a rat, Spatutti, but he better be a pretty powerful grasshopper is all I gotta say. You know?

Right? And so and so here we are standing at this position with Daniel. Daniel goes, okay. Yes, I I'm okay. I do believe.

I said, great. We're ready to look at step 3 and then we do this stuff. Any of you guys ever wonder why Bill Wilson and those guys when they wrote the book, when they wrote everything from we always read how it works in the states. We don't know our group, but a lot of groups do read chapter 5 how it works, before every meeting. You get to the ABC's.