The Primary Purpose Group's 12 step weekend in Cannes, France

My name is Peter, I'm a recovered alcoholic

and welcome maizing. I'd like to ask Andy to come forward please and read the forward to the 1st edition. Andy.

Morning,

my name is Andy and I'm a recovered alcoholic.

Good to be here. All right, This is a forward to the 1st edition. This is a forward as it appeared and the first printing of the 1st edition in 1939.

It says we have Alcoholics Anonymous are more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body to show that Alcoholics precisely how we have recovered as the main purpose of this book for them. We hope these P GS will prove so convincing that no further authentication will be necessary. We think this account of our experiences will help everyone to better understand the alcoholic.

Many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person, and besides, we are sure that our way of living has its advantages for all.

It is important that we remain anonymous because we are too few at present to handle the overwhelming number of personal appeals which may result from this publication. Being mostly business or professional folk, we could not well carry on our occupations. In such an event. We would like understood that our alcoholic work as an avocation.

When rating or speaking publicly about alcoholism, we urge each of our fellowship to omit his personal name, designating himself instead as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous very earnestly. We ask a price also to observe this request, for otherwise we shall be greatly handicapped. We are not an organization in the conventional sense of the work. There are no fees or Jews whatsoever. The only requirement for membership is an honest desire to stop drinking. We are not allied with any particular faith. Sect.

Denomination. Nor do we oppose anyone. We simply wish to be helpful to those who are afflicted. We shall be interested to hear from those who are getting results from this book, particularly from those who have commenced work with other Alcoholics. We should like to be helpful to such cases.

Inquiry by scientific, medical and religious societies will be welcomed. Alcoholics Anonymous.

Thank you Andy.

This is an open work, open workshop and as such all who have an interest in alcoholism and our program of recovery are welcome. Because this is an open works workshop, you need not identify yourself for your reason for being here. If you do not wish to do so, your anonymity will be protected. We ask that you protect ours. While this is an open workshop, membership in Alcoholics Anonymous and in the primary purpose group is limited to those who have a serious drinking problem and have a desire to stop drinking for good and all. There are a number of other fellowships that deal with with problems other than alcoholism.

We will be happy to try and help you find the one that will meet your needs. Like all, please ask all present to please turn down the volume on your mobile phones or pages to limit disturbances to this meeting.

And with that, I'm going to hand the entire procedures over to the people you want to hear anyway,

Chris and Myers in Texas.

Well, it freaks me out. Most of y'all came back, you know, that's a that's a a wonderful thing.

May mean that they didn't understand anything we said last night.

We're we're honored to be here again and we're going to know the program say that we got a 2 1/2 hour chunk here. We're going to do is we're going to do an hour and then take a break because I know some of you old geezers in here like Peter need to kind of pee often. And so we're going to

and

we're going to move move pretty through here. There's no

here's what we're not going to do today. Here's what we're not going to do this big long exhaustive step study. I've been I've done weekends like this where we just grind out, you know, 30 hours in one weekend. We're just, you know, every little minutian dissect every sentence and I just man, I don't think Bill Wilson ever intended for us to do that anyway. But if you all want to go to something like that, rock on. What we're going to try to do is we're going to come from A, we're going to come from a, an angle

of we're taking a newcomer through the steps. There seems to be so much confusion about this. Well, how do you take somebody through the steps? And everybody of course, sponsors a little bit differently, but the idea is to get them from point A to point B at a pretty good clip. And there's, I know there's some in this room that would disagree with that. You know, it's party line BS and treatment is, you know what? We didn't get sick overnight. We're not going to get well overnight, which is just crap. You know, this is this is rubbish. I got well in about two weeks. I had a spiritual experience in about two weeks as a result of actually

off my butt and doing some work. Guys, don't misunderstand because people people e-mail me all the time. I said I was really sick when I got here. It took me year, about a year to physically heal from from some. I detoxed pretty quick, but there was some physical problems. Some people still think I'm still suffering from some of that. I said I wasn't quite wet brain, but I was certainly damp. You know, it was like that's a problem. But there was there was a financial disorder everywhere. And I mean, it took me a long time to to kind of get both feet

underneath me. But the spiritual experience, the obsession to drink left very quickly, not as a result of my wanting it, but as a result of my willingness to follow some directions. That's kind of what we want to talk about today. And some of you were going to be kind of taken aback. What? It seems like they pushed through those steps pretty quickly. This is not rocket science, folks, and we've got to stop making it that way.

I've got a big laugh. If you all ever come to Texas, I'll show you. I've got a, I've got an 82 page four step guide sitting on my desk.

Just take it to set coffee and spill stuff on, you know, on my desk because I've never cracked it except to open it and say, is it really 82 pages? It freaks me out. Can you imagine this little guy sitting in a meeting, He's detoxing like a big dog and you drop this 82 page guide down on him?

What are you asking me to do? You know, so I had trouble just introducing myself for heaven sakes when I got here and so I'm, I'm so I'm so honored to be here. I, I,

we've got some handouts over here and you guys can come up after break and pick them up. We didn't, we didn't print 100 of each. So if you're like in a group of three or four people, maybe I want to pick 1A designated handout picker upper and, and then y'all can make copies and take them back to you and make a gazillion copies of it. We just never know how many to do. And they're kind of heavy to be hauling around. They're pretty good copies of of some some pretty neat stuff that we've collected about first step stuff and and

there's just some good stuff. I've got some little issue man buttons. Some of y'all have asked me for y'all take a handful of those and and

oh, there's just some great I

free shit. People like that stuff. I don't know that

I also brought the infamous rubber stamp and this circle triangle I want to mention too real quick. And Peter was telling me that they're in the British books in the in the English, they're not in most books out there in the United States and in the American copies, they they take in the circle triangle out on the on the title page of the of the original big book in the first printings up through the third printing, they had a little circle triangle on this page. And this is this is how they finally kind of qualified being. I want to talk a little bit about that. When I first got back

in 1987, they subsequently had copyright infringement problems and the United States figured it was better to just take it out of the book instead of trying to defend our right to use it, which I thought was don't get me started, I don't even want to go there. But it was a sad deal they did. Anyway, I've got this little rubber stamp and if you happen to have a big book and you'd like it stamped in the front, man, y'all come by and we'll just stamp you.

Because one of the things that we were, one of the things that we were talking about, I know people in the States have got it tattooed on their deals. It was one of the things we were talking about last night

is this thing called untreated alcoholism, and we'll touch a bit on that this morning again. But this untreated alcoholism is like I stopped drinking and I think I'm going to get better and I start to get worse because the problem is not the alcohol, the problem is the untreated alcoholism. You follow. If I stay in all three parts of this program, you can see where we're at, whether here I think most of you can. Y'all see that? Can you? It's just let me move this.

Can you see that a little better? This circle triangle, there's all three parts. It's a we have a three-part program solution to treat a three-part disease. There's a physical part that's wrong with us. There's a mental part that's wrong with us and a spiritual part that's wrong with us. And I've got the sheets up here too that kind of explain it more in depth. But but I never understood why I couldn't stay sober when I finally got there in 1987. The first night I was in there, no geezer opened up a big book and he says, Chris, let's find out why you keep relapsing

and a bunch of y'all sitting in this room right now are having problems staying sober. If some of you are, it's because you're not in all three parts of this program. If you're in all three parts, you, you cannot relapse

this thing that this painted in treatment centers that, that, that recovery is such a nebulous, tentative thing that if you, if everything goes just exactly right, you can stay sober. Every day is a day I could relapse. That is so much rubbish. That is crap. That's not what the big book says, but you all understand. Listen folks, I'm a part of the treatment center industry and the treatment centers want you to get well. They just don't want you to get

too well.

So what he did was he showed me on the title page of this book. He showed me the he title and he says he said, Chris, what does recovery mean to you? Recovery. And I heed and hauled around because I couldn't tell him you'll follow. He says, Chris, it's the 12 steps. Let me ask you a question. Have you worked all 12 steps? And I remember that night saying, well, I worked the steps to the best of my ability because I've said that all, you know, he said, Chris,

let me kind of bring it down here for you. Let me kind of simplify this for you. I'm going to ask you some yes and no questions, and I want a yes and no answer.

That's what he said. You think that's pretty rigid. And he was smiling when he said it, but he didn't want an essay because that's what it is. I want to talk and rationalize and justify. Well, I haven't worked all 12 steps. I've been in Alcoholics Anonymous calling myself an alcoholic for seven years, but I don't even more know what it is to be an alcoholic than a man in the moon. You'll follow. That's where the confusion comes in. I

he says Chris have you or not? I says no, I have not. And he took a big Ole X

pissed me off.

I have suffered from low self esteem. That just hurt me. OK, he says. He says, go to the next part. It says what does unity mean? What does this unity part? And I says that's that's meanings. Absolutely unity. I take my body, I take my mind to the recovery part. I take the body to a meeting and I go, I go, that's right. And meeting makers make it. He says, Chris, I know it. I've seen you up in North Texas going to lots and lots of meetings.

Got that? You wear this

pop up little bit. You know,

Chris, what's the third part service? What's a a service? He says, Oh well, you know what's empty and ashtrays and making coffee and says he says no, that's not the service, that's a piece of it. Our service is to carry the message to the alcoholic who's still suffering. But you haven't worked the 12 steps, the recovery part, so you have no message to carry.

I knew what he was going to do.

We take our awakened spirit, we turn around and go help somebody else. And you're not doing that. Chris, how many people have you sponsored in seven years?

None,

thanks for having a free ride. You'll follow this. He said you're not in free parts. You're in one part. It's like a three legged stool guys. You could get on a you could do, you could do exercises on a three legged stool and be perfectly okay. Cut one leg off. You better be able to balance pretty good. Cut 2 legs off, you're going to fall in your butt. And that's exactly what we do in recovery. Guys, there's there's only two reasons that any of us in this room will ever relapse. One is we don't know what the problem is, and two, we don't know what the solution is.

You'll follow what happens if my kid dies? What happens if this what happens? No, it doesn't. In this context, it does not matter. There's only two reasons you're going to relapse. You don't know what the problem is. You don't know what the solution is. You're with us today. That's what we're going to talk about. A quick, fast way to get these cats connected to the solution. The only thing worse than drowning folks is is doing it and not knowing it,

and that's what we have. Our fellowship is full of people who sit in these meetings and they call themselves Alcoholics,

but they don't anymore understand what it means to be an alcoholic than the man in the moon you follow. This is why it drives me crazy when we spend too much time in meetings talking about our story. Let me talk about what happened to me. And it's like, again, we talked about last night up to a point. This is quite beneficial. We need that in order to identify. Makes sense. I'm not going to listen to you for a second until I think you know what I'm talking about. So you share a little story with me and I identify that you know your business. Now I want to go

about the solution. I don't want to keep hearing you tell your same stupid boring story over and over again. Because that's what it is. It's stupid, boring,

quite old. After a while, the old timers, if you read the archival literature, talk about it and they talk about it. Doctor Bob wrote about it. He said, Gee, I don't know what all this big deal about telling our story. We didn't sit in meetings and tell our stories. There was only one place we did it and that was from the podium when we were sharing our story. That's a very important place to do that. And in a 12 step call, you need to do that.

I, I cannot do a 12 step call on a somebody who's drinking and, and not tell my story and expect to get anywhere. I have to be able to share a little. You know, I see a guy at the at, at Denny's. Do they have Denny's in France? No, little coffee shop having dinner, you know, and he's having he's, he's fighting with a ketchup bottle and he can't get it out, you know, and he's just, he's a mess. And I go sit down next to him.

Have you found God? Listen, let me know I'm going to walk away from that table with that ketchup bottle stuck up my butt. You know, I mean, I

but if I, but if I sit down with him and said, if I sat down with him and says, you know, about

about 15 years ago, I said at this very same table and had the same fight with that catch up bottle. You know, this drinking is pretty crazy, isn't it? And we start sharing a little bit and pretty soon I've got his little interest and he's laughing little bit and I'm laughing little bit and then I'm fixing to go set the hook and tell him about God. I'm going to get to God. I'm going to get to the solution. I'm going to tell him about Alcoholics Anonymous, but I'm not going to lead with that. You'll follow. That's all we're trying to do is identify and get these guys interests. So that's that's kind of what we're what we're coming from.

I let me turn this over.

This is issue man. It can be here. Issue woman,

Some of you French girls, we should have made those a little bigger, I think.

Texas Okay,

also when I mentioned you guys, you feel free to ask questions in this and here's how we want to do those questions. If you want it would rather catch us at a break and ask us questions. You're more than welcome to do that. And if it's pretty, we'll mention it in the next start. And then you want to ask a question, feel free to do that and I'll repeat it for so that it'll show up on the CD. But what we don't want to do is get into a pissing contest with who's got the longest story in here because all of y'all seem to be unable to just ask a question. You all know what a question is.

It's it's got a question mark after it. It's one sentence, It doesn't have a lead in six paragraph. And then the question.

Let me tell you the history of AA in Denmark, and then I'm going to ask a question. You know,

I'm fascinated.

Let's do that down later after over a coffee, OK? Because we just simply don't have the time

in 1987, I told you last night, I tried to commit suicide. And you know, I was like, there was nothing in me that wanted to, to, to die guys. I mean, I, I had a great family and, and my just, I just did not want to feel the way I was feeling anymore. And I've done everything I could possibly do to, to not drink. And I've I've done 10 years of therapy and I was taking 7 pills a day, antidepressants, anti anxiety medication, lots of medications I was taking those medications took were harder for me to get off of than the

was hard. It was just unbelievable. And I've got my own soapbox about that. But I,

I've been in AAA for seven years and sitting in meetings

because that's what the old geezers were telling me. And I'm, I'm, I agree with what Myers said. Could I take it a little more initiative and found out a little bit more about this? Absolutely. But, you know, for everyone, it would say, you know, Chris, you might want to do the steps that somebody else was saying, don't worry about the steps. Just come to meetings, don't drink. And everything was going to be OK. And I'm believing them. And I'm just saying it's one of the things that gets me in trouble from the podium because I know a lot of people tell the newcomer that it's a good way to interact with a newcomer, but not really have to get your hands dirty. Keep coming back.

Thanks for nothing.

He's like,

because if I'm a real alcoholic and I just keep coming back, nothing is going to happen. You'll

follow. It's like me, just keep coming back to the gym. Nobody bothered to say you have to go upstairs and lift weights. You know,

you actually got to do something. We're a spiritual. We're a spiritual program of action. That's what this is about. It's a spiritual program of action and it is not some kind of a chicken shit self help program. This is a spiritual program of action. But nobody bothered to tell me that

the AAA meetings that I was going to at the time was in the mid 80s if the heyday of the treatment center industry in the United States. I could talk for an hour about how that all came about. But the truth is up in North Texas, they were cranking them out by the thousands out of these treatment centers. Now, a lot of these treatment centers weren't explaining what alcoholism and drug addiction was. Anything after all the drugs and drugs, a drug, it's all the same thing. No, it's not. But you're going to, we're going to teach you that it is. And you're going to come into these meetings and talk about anything you want. Alcoholics Anonymous could have made a stand at that point, says, excuse me, this is not a process group.

This is a place where we study and learn about the steps so that we can turn around and go help another brother and sister get well. But we didn't do that. We sucked under trying to be helpful to everyone and turned our back on the problem. Makes sense now. Alcoholics Anonymous did that and a A has got to take some of the responsibility for our meetings going into the toilet. We allowed that to take place. We need to stop allowing that to take place. That night in 1987, the old geezer sat down, and that night and the next morning they explained.

For the first time what it was to be an alcoholic, you'll understand the term qualifying someone. If I went to buy, wanted to look at one of these big houses on the hill over here first thing, would he would qualify me first and find out? Basically, he would find out if I had any money or not because he ain't even driving up that hill if I just want to go look at this house. Do you have the ability to buy this house? I'll take it and show it to you. You follow. That's exactly what we stopped doing in Alcoholics Anonymous. Welcome, welcome, welcome. And our fellowship

grew and grew and got bigger and bigger. But half the people that were coming into the rooms didn't even need to be here. I got to say, I'm watching the clock, guys. I I know this offends some of you. I'm an alcoholic if I say I'm an alcoholic. No, you're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous if you say you're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. But unless you walk like a duck, quack like a duck, you ain't a duck.

You follow. And that's the problem in treatment centers. We've got a whole lot of people in there that are ducks that think they're cats and it's our job is to kind of reel them back in and try to make get them back on track.

So it says that's the biggest deal. That's our biggest job with the newcomer. If you're sitting down with a new guy or one man or woman and they want to know, just don't say welcome, keep coming back. Here's the cost. You need to qualify and find out do you even need to be here? Am I dealing with an alcoholic or am I dealing with somebody that's just severely depressed with some antisocial behaviors attached to it? Because they look a lot like us, they drink a lot like us, but they're not

us.

You're with us,

let me stay with you because there's some people shaking their head. You in order to be an alcoholic, you have to exhibit certain symptoms. These symptoms are the same in everybody and that's the truth. Young people back here, old people back here that we're

you get a 19 year old girl and you got a 90 year old man and we're all going to have different circumstances in our life. You'll follow, we're going to drink a little different, blah, blah, blah. But there's certain things that are going to be absolutely identical. That's how we can identify this as a disease because it's the same black, white, gay, straight, Yankee, rebel, southern, I don't care. Same thing. And that's what we have to look at. But we've over the years,

Bill Wilson in the first 100 pages describes the alcoholic. He paints a picture back over in the back of the book. I forget the exact page. It wouldn't matter anywhere. We're the first meeting with Bill Wilson and Doctor Bob. He talks about Doctor Bob, and he says he had a great desire to stop drinking, but he didn't fully understand what it meant to be alcoholic. And that's the problem that we have in our fellowships today.

We got a lot of people sitting in here that don't even understand what it is to be an alcoholic. What makes you an alcoholic? I drink too much. It's not quite it because a lot of hard drinkers out there drink too much. A lot of people consume too much alcohol. But given reason, good reason, it talks about in the book, they can stop on their own power. If you can stop on your own power, The big book says you're not one of us. You follow. And again, you're welcome if you want to call yourself an alcoholic to be a part of this,

more than welcome to do that. All I'm saying is you better know who you're working with. And again, as Myers have said this 100 times, I'm not so concerned with whether you sneak in the door and get to come in here and get a free ride. You with me. I'm worried about the people that you end up sponsoring and don't bring through the work properly downstream. You may not be an alcoholic 30 years sober killing people with your crap,

but the little guy that you're sponsoring is you follow and you're short changing him by not letting him do the work and get well. And it's the same story.

He relapses. The first thing everybody wants to do is just dump it back in their lap. Well, he didn't stay sober. I mean, I hear meetings all the time. I was in a A for 10 years and never did the work. Yes. Then we need to look at this. You need to look at this.

Is it possible to stay sober 10 years without doing the work? Yeah. But the disease is progressive in nature, folks, and it's going to end up grinding you up. More of us commit suicide, statistically in sobriety than we do out there drinking. Now, why is that?

Because the problem is not the drinking. The problem is the untreated alcoholism. You're with me. OK,

a little booger right there. No, I just

from from y'all can take notes

Booger. That's a French word. I learned it last. No, here

from the doctor's opinion up in the front of the book, from the doctor's opinion up to page 23, Bill Wilson is trying to explain to us and talk to us about what happens when we have alcohol in our body, the physical phenomena called craving that Doctor Silkworth starts to talk about. He was a he was a neurologist, I believe, information that I had for about 16 years at Towns Hospital. What he ended up

witnessing was that the same similarity happened with the old geezers and the young people and the black people and the white people. They all developed the same symptom. Once they started to drink, it was less likely that they could stop

on a dime. You'll follow. It's not that I every time I started to drink, I drank until I blacked out. But as the disease progressively got worse, it was less and less likely for me to be able to stop once I started. Can we get on that same page, guys? The problem is not that I drank a little bit. The problem is that I got squashed. I tried to drink up half of France. That's the problem. OK, OK. Why? My first wife used to ask that question was why can't you drink like a normal person?

I

because I'm not boring like you. I don't know what to tell you.

And we've tried to rationalize and justify. You know what? I'm a work. I'm a very complicated individual. You know, I'm a very

my intellect, you know, I mean, I, I, the truth of the matter is I don't know. But he began to see this phenomena called craving. I can go months and months and months and not drink until I put something in my system. That's what I was talking about last night. What we're starting to see in the treatment centers is people coming back in having relapsed around prescription medication prescribed by doctors that should know better that don't you with us. And I don't want to make anybody uncomfortable if you're taking that medication. But I'm just saying you have to be careful with sleep medication, with pain medication, anything that kind of changes the way you feel.

And it's different for everybody. I can take some kind of antihistamines and but Patty can't. Patty takes it and you would have thought she just did a big shot of speed. It changes her different than me. She when I want the house cleaned, we, we give her

A

and she just, and she just backs them vacuums a lot. So,

so we've got this physical piece, this physical phenomena called craving that the doctor's opinion talks about. But nobody ever really explained that to me. Most everybody understands it. Doctors, lawyers, probation officers, a lot of people that I talked to understand this. You Alcoholics, once you start to drink, you can't control how much you put in your body. You are truly powerless over it after you put it in your system. And everybody nods their head. This is, this is the party line stuff that we teach everybody in treatment. I don't care if they're in treatment and here in France or in the United States

or Canada or Denmark, it's the same. Once you put it in your body, you were powerless over this substance.

This is where everybody the divergent roads. This is where everybody splits

My book from 23 to 43.

Talked about this word called choice.

You'll follow. This is the most controversial piece of info that I'm going to give you all day long. This is the one that everybody wants to split hairs with, and yet Bill Wilson spends 20 pages explaining it beautifully. Again, these page numbers may be different in your books, but he spends these pages explaining this thing called choice. Before I put this in my system, I have this mental peace in me that tells me to go ahead and put it in there.

It's a psychotic thought the book talks about.

It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a mental blank spot that says it's OK to continue to use this chemical.

Everybody's comfortable with this physical piece. That's why in treatment, we spend 90% of our time trying to get the newcomer to not put it in your body. You'll follow. We try to keep you away from slippery places and slippery things. You can't go those places because they might trigger you and you might just start to drink. This is, this is all well and good, but it doesn't take as far enough if we leave out the mental piece. And most of you do. I'm telling you from from from emails and correspondence. Most of you do.

I know they do in the United States.

I talked to a man the other day. He introduced himself in a meeting like this. He's, I know he's 19 years sober. He says my name's so and so. And I got up this morning and chose not to drink.

And I'm sitting there. I turned around. I said no. No shit,

huh? That's the stuff I listened to for seven years, folks. I'm getting up in the morning and choosing not to drink. And by lunch I've changed my mind.

You'll follow. And this is the problem. The big book calls this mental blank spot, this insanity. If you really loved your family, you'd stop. You're right. And I make a decision to stop. And a week later I'm drinking again. I didn't choose to drink. I chose not to do the things necessary to get spiritually connected.

You follow. It's a form of mental insanity, folks. That's what makes this thing so deadly. Any idiot,

we were talking last night at dinner, worst things we'd ever eat and blah, blah, blah. Mine was monkfish. I don't like I, I cleaned a monkfish one time when I was in the kitchens in Atlanta. And they said, and I started to clean this fish and I grabbed hold of this fish and I pulled and all this snotty stuff came off and it was purple. And I had it all over the front. And I went, you know, I went to the chef and I said, listen, I can't do this. And he said, cool, give it to somebody else. I get you. Something else to do. And that's the last time I've come within 10 feet of a monkfish.

Given sufficient reason, can Chris Rammer stay away from monkfish? Absolutely.

Given sufficient reason, can Chris Rammer stay away from alcohol? Even though I've promised you I'm going to stay away. I promised the judge, I promised that woman, I promised my employer that I wasn't going to do it. And I go back to it. You'll follow. This is why everybody wants to make this a behavioral problem. Why did you go back? Why did you go back

the true answer? Because I'm an alcoholic. Everybody thinks when we talk about this, what we're doing is we're letting the newcomer off the hook. Well, you tell it. Here's what the book says.

Here's what the book says. The fact is, this is on our page 24. The fact is that most Alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory and suffering and humiliation of even a week or month ago.

We were without defense against the first drink. Back over in the United States, back in the 70s, in the early 80s, they used the aversion therapy. They still use it in Russia. Understand the aversion therapy was quite simple. They would just hit you with an abuse to give you a chemical. It would make you sick when you drank, and then they would give you all the damned alcohol you wanted to drink and you would get sick twice a day. Big, big communal stainless steel.

Everybody would just have a Pukethan, you know? Have you never

with you? And it was like, oh, that's disgusting. Yes, it is. And we're going to do it again this afternoon and we're going to do it in the morning and we're going to do it in the afternoon. And it was just like a week. And they would do this after a period of time. And then you would associate alcohol puke bad you with us. This this form of treatment worked beautifully

for hard drinkers, hard drinkers, moderate drinkers. They never touched another drop you'll they're all out of business in the United States because they simply were ineffective. With real Alcoholics, we cannot stop giving any reason. We can stop for short periods of time, but then we can't bring to the forefront of our mind the problem you with us. That's what drives me crazy back in the olden day in treatment when they used to throw our families up in front of us. Don't you love your kids,

boy? You want to talk about disrespectful,

be the same thing as listen to your significant other puke in the bathroom. You'd knock on the door, says, Honey, if you, if you really loved me, you'd stop that.

What? How are you going to stop? What? It's the same thing. I can't no more stop this than a man in the moon. I'm truly powerless. This is why this is fatal. I will drink this crap until the day I die unless the book says I have a spiritual experience.

That seems to be the grinder right there. Hard drinkers and hard druggers look hard drinkers and and real Alcoholics look exactly alike. Folks out there drinking We we, our stories will jive a lot there too. But when you want to get down to it

right here, control and choice, and that's what we're looking at. You'll follow if you want to qualify a newcomer asking point blank, when you start to drink, have you ever lost control and drank more than you intended? We give everybody one bonus puke. You'll follow when you're new because because we're stupid when we're little kids, when we're young, we don't know. And the first time we get around something or away from home and we can drink whatever we want, we usually drink to everybody. They drink, drink too damn much and they throw up puke straight up. OK. The question is, did you ever do that more than once? Yes, we have something. We have to look

here now guys. Normal people don't do that. My little sister says no thank you, I don't. We did at her wedding. We said least you want another drink,

She was paying for it and she says no thank you. I'm starting to feel it.

Me too.

You want another drink is I don't understand my body's all geared up. I'm ready to go. She's stopping because she knows two more and she's going to be throwing up and she doesn't want to do that on her. Nice. So understand you combine that the physical allergy, though a lot of people are allergic to when I drink alcohol, something in it, the hops or something makes me sick. I just don't drink alcohol. It's the same with us. OK, then don't drink. Oh, well,

I can't. I always dream. Now we got something to look at. You're going to tell me you chose to drink given sufficient reason. You just drank up last month's rent. You just got a DWI, You just went back to treatment, You just made promises, blah, blah, blah. Can you stop and stay stopped?

Well, what is your experience show you look at your truth based on your experience. No, I can't stop. I can stop for two or three weeks, but I always go back.

Welcome. Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. We got your solution. Here's the piece that nobody wants to talk about,

the spiritual peace. We're going to hit this today, guys. We're not going to hit it too hard because it doesn't need to be hit too hard, man. I don't care who you pray to. I don't care what's going on. But the book, you can't deny it, talks about it. The spiritual malady, the spiritual illnesses is real as can be. And it's this internal condition that causes Alcoholics and addicts to drink. Guys, at 17 years old, somebody gave me a bottle of Boones Farm Apple wine and I lit up like a neon sign. You all understand that. I felt good inside. I'm not walking back across that field after drinking that bottle of wine and saying, Oh my gosh, the spiritual

that's been kicking my ass all my life has been treated. I feel great. It was none of that. It's like, I don't know what this is about, but I'm going to find out some more of this. This is pretty good. Everybody's had the same experience with the alcohol. It makes me feel okay inside. And it wasn't until 1987, seven years in AA, all those years in therapy, nobody talked about this.

What's wrong with Chris Raymer is not the booze. This is not the problem.

I can quit. I've done it 1000 times. I can stop on a dime.

I can't stay stopped because this internal condition, this spiritual malady starts to kick my butt. This is the symptoms of the spiritual malady. This is what the internal condition looks like unmedicated. You're with me, irritable, restless and discontent. Can you all identify with that? Think about it, irritable.

Last week I stopped drinking and this week I'm throwing cars. Everybody's pissing me off. Irritable, restless, can't sit still. You ever seen a newcomer in a meeting? They're like a caged cat. This can't, can't discontent. Nothing's good enough. Just top sales in my company. Big awards all over the wall and it's not good enough. The book talks about a feeling of uselessness. The bedevilments on page 52. Can y'all get that? Your drop dead gorgeous and yet you're harming yourself.

This low self esteem is what the book talks about. Number sense of direction.

I want to, I want to move here, I want to move there. I want to go back to school and then just by lunch, I'm going to start a new business instead. And I I can't get focused. That's why we drive the women crazy. Our dates. It's like, Oh my gosh, I thought you said you love me. I do. But that was last week. We're going to move on now, you know, because I can't.

No sense of direction, this internal discomfort. There's one line on 52 that says it, sums it up, says we were unhappy. And that was me. How many of us in this room, though, guys have spent a lifetime trying to find out what's going to make me happy? How much money is enough? How much sex is enough? How big a house do you need? And we spent a lifetime trying to fix this internal condition. We got these cats coming into this beautiful hospital where I work, who on the outside would look like their lives are perfect, but you talk to them and they're suicidal. All they want to