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

Real quick, I just want to clear up something as always at the break, so I'll ask the best questions. You'll talk about one of the things that we I always strike some nerves as I know there's some people in here that are, are taking medication, sleep medication or antidepressants. And I'm not one of those a, a buckaroos that says that there's no room for any kind of medication because that's nuts because some of us need medication to get through the day. But but there's there's some real big misunderstandings about it. And if any of you guys that want to stop and visit, I see it every day in the treatment center industry where I work. It's just it's we were talking about the other night,

227 million prescriptions of antidepressants in the world. We got a lot of people trying to medicate, just waking up, not feeling good. You'll follow. There's depression and then there's depression

and a lot of people are taking pills to medicate Ordinarily could be medicated by this internal condition can also be treated. You know, you're having trouble sleeping. You might want to look at the amount of caffeine you're putting in your body. And as we get older, you know, we have a less and less likely to sleep when maybe melatonin would be necessary.

But I mean, it's always seems to be a pill to fix the problem if I'm depressed. Let me ask you a question. How much exercise are you getting? Well, I run all day long. Horseshit. No, I'm talking no. When you get up and go actually go run, that's one thing. But just doing the work around the house is not work, is not exercise. You'll follow what I'm saying. What's the last time you got out and actually walked up and down this beach at a pretty fast clip? Got your heart up? I mean, guys, we're not sedentary people. And a lot of this is we don't exercise. We don't, we drink too much caffeine. We eat too much heavy food

and then we wonder why we feel kind of blah. And then the first thing we want to do, you'll follow a lot of cats. It's like the guys that I sponsor, we end up having to go back through this work says well, I'm on these medications.

Why? Because I can't sleep. And I says, why can't you sleep? And says, well, I don't know. I just, I lay down. All I can think about is how much money.

Oh, so no, but so it's less. We're looking at our credit. Let's start looking at our money. I mean, that's part of what I do as a sponsor with the guys I sponsor is I help them try to figure out financially where they're in. We, I watch a lot of people in the fellowship end up spitting themselves into happiness. How many of you guys ever went and bought something that you really didn't want? You did it because you thought it sounded like a good idea at the time? I'm living in an apartment in Houston, TX with Myers one time and we bought a sailboat. I'm talking about a big damn sailboat.

Yes, we were drunk at the time, but why were we? Why were we? It was the boat show. That's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to go buy a 32 foot sailboat. What

why do we do that? Because we were for a minute. It felt great. A lot of you guys do that. That's the same thing. We eat too much. We have, we, we, we get in bad relationships. We, we, we, we, we spend too much money all trying to treat the spiritual malady. If we would just do the work, the spiritual malady would would, would be treated. We would feel good again. And then we could get some real balance in our lives for the first time. Y'all follow that?

Somebody hit me up with a deal. Well, some of us need antidepressants. Yes, some of us do.

Most of us don't.

It's not the answer. A pill is very seldom the answer. Thanks.

And for those guys listening to tapes and CDs later on, the the evil twin just sat down and the good twin just got up. OK. It's interesting when you listen to these things, you'll be, you'll have a hard time telling who's talking because we sound a lot like and

I know that you're in the room, can see the aura around me. And so you'll know that I'm the good one.

She I've already got the troublemakers picked out. I already know who they're going to be. I'm going to separate some of you in a minute. I can tell

the stuff that Chris was talking about just now. It's interesting. It's interesting deal

in our literature. I don't know what it is in your book, in the French book, but in ours, on page 17, they talk about something called a common solution. I want to read something real quick and it's it, it, it will kind of launch us into what we're what we're talking about and why we're talking about it. I'll read it out of this one and then you can find it later.

All the way down the page in our book. It says the feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us.

It is remember the first time you ever walked into an A, a meeting and you finally relaxed for just a minute and you kind of looked around the room. Your eyes finally got up off the table and you began to look around and you begin to real sense that you were in a room full of people that weren't judging you, that you could actually relax around. These were people just like you. These were little knucklehead fried pie guys that did the crazy crap you did and and you felt a unity with them.

And this is good and I'm not making light of any of that. But look at the book and the next line, what it says.

But that in itself would never have joined, held us together as we are now joined. Oh,

the tremendous fact for everyone of us is that we have discovered a common solution.

So hold the thought for justice a minute.

The reason that we stay so fragmented in AA today is because we have ceased finding and seeking that common solution. What we started doing is doing everything on our own, kind of freewheeling out there, and if it worked, it worked. And then we'll pass that information on. That's the reason why the meetings where we're just talking about a bunch of stuff get so bizarre sometimes. Yes, it may be worked for you, but would it work for the brand new guy? That's the reason why they wrote the literature in the 1st place. That's the reason why they went through so much effort

put the thing together so that we could stay focused on the common solution. The cat when when when Andy read the forward of the 1st edition, that first paragraph of the four to the 1st edition. We have Alcoholics Anonymous more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body to show whether Alcoholics precisely how we've recovered is the main purpose of this book, you see, and we've drifted clear of that. And what what happened was is in is in that drifting sideways away from that

solution. We stop being effective sponsors me ask you guys a question. Have you

first let me clarify something. I say you guys a lot you guys means girls and guys too. It's like y'all in Texas. It means all of you like the in Australia, some girl got so angry with me because she thought I was being discriminating against the women. It's so tedious to try to talk and go now guys and gals. It just takes extra time to do that and I so I treat everybody in the same. I guess I could say you girls and we will ignore the guys and and then

it will be OK with me too.

That's good. We'll do that. So you girls remember.

Ask yourself, sometimes I have this, this is a great example of what I'm talking about. I'm sponsoring some cats right now, brand new guys. It's funny how my sponsorship stuff has changed. I used to sponsor nothing but indigents, just guys off the street and, and, and these days I sponsor more and more business guys and guys that are, have chronic relapsers and men who have been in the program for many, many years and they've gotten what we would call a, a slick.

They, they know the things to say, they know the things to do. They they have become icons in their groups wherever they're going, but they don't really understand why it is that the internal condition, which is alcoholism

is kicking their butts. Why is it I get up every morning obsessing about a woman I haven't got? Why is it I get up every morning unhappy that I don't have enough money that I'm not? You see what I'm saying? It's just, it's just this crazy malaise that we find ourselves into. So, so it's one of those kind of things where

if we in this collection of men that I'm working with right now, I have five guys who have a, a combined sobriety of well over 100 years. These guys are almost 20 + 1 of them is all close to 30 years sober collectively. One night we were all sitting in a little room and collectively these five men, I said, how many, how many men have you guys sponsored?

And collectively they had sponsored five guys, which meant one guy had sponsored two, one guy hadn't sponsored any. And almost 20 years and what you see what I'm saying, we, we have sold ourself on this idea that sponsorship is this is this is this absolute beating that it's the, it's just this nasty ordeal that we got to go through. And if I can, it's so painful for me as a sponsor and I'm so uncertain about what to do that I'll just hold it at a distance. And so I'm in a meeting and I share something and I'm watching

Guy and he's looking at me and I'm going home.

He's going to ask me to sponsor him. And so I do whatever I can do to get clear. Some of you spiritual giants wouldn't do that. But I'm telling you,

if you do it and will admit it, I empathize with you because I did it for years. I love you. I want you here. I just don't want to have anything to do with you, really. I just, I just, I'm just here to share, OK? I don't because sponsorship frankly scares the spit out of me because I am uncertain

about my own truth. And that's the reason why we spent so much time this morning talking about step one truths.

If I am uncertain

why I drink, then I will be ambivalent about sponsorship and about carrying that message to somebody else. It's like, it's like trying to teach somebody how to paint when you don't know how to paint.

The hell are you doing? I mean, you got it. You see, I haven't had the experience as a recovered alcoholic, but I'm going to try to teach you how to become a recovered alcoholic.

I haven't had actually had sex, but I'm going to teach you about having sex. Can you imagine how uncomfortable that would be trying to teach somebody about something they've never experienced? You see, and that's the reason why I think that we've gotten in so much trouble in a a land out there worldwide is that we have 10s of thousands of people sitting in meetings sharing about experiences that they have not had.

And it's tolerable with the younger guys. But when you get guys like me sitting in meetings doing it,

it's really sad. It's really sad. And the only thing that it takes to get back on track is just some courage, just some willingness to to lay there in the bunk at the end, at the end of the day and look at the ceiling and go, do I really understand my disease? Do I really understand how to get a guy from point A to point B? And if you do, super,

let me give you another fast example. We were in a meeting one night in a deal much like this, and I said, how many of you guys feel comfortable and understand how to carry a man through the work? And everybody raised their hand. There wasn't one person in the room that didn't raise their hand. And over the weekend, between breaks, I was talking to these guys and it became real obvious. You know what? None of you guys know how to carry anybody through the work. There wasn't one guy that I talked to that had a clear picture of what to do.

And so

we had to kind of break that down in the next little meeting session, which is fairly painful and there's a little weeping going on. And but it was, it was OK. We got through the deal. But the, the cool part about it is, is that once you make that realization, once you go, I may not be clear about what to do, then you can begin to piece together the things that you need to understand. The reason sponsorship is tough going is because I make it tough going because I've added all kinds of things in here. I think I have to be your best friend.

I don't, I don't even have to like you guys. I sponsor guys now that I could. I can't stand. I swear to God, I don't even I only want to be in the same room with them, but I'll love them enough to show them what I had, what I did to recover. I'll show them what needs to be done. But this idea that I've got to take on the responsibility of all their financial woes, all their spiritual woes, all their their, their relationship problems. There's nowhere in this literature that said that it's no wonder that we get so scared about the idea of sponsorship. And So what this is, is,

is an idea. And if you're doing that, fine. If you're, if I'm sponsoring one man, I can take a lot of his responsibility. I can shoulder a lot. But let me ask you this question just for, for, for an observation. What if you're sponsoring 30 men? Then what do you do?

You see, and people say that all the time. You can't do that. Sure you can. I've been doing it for years. Sure you can. And most of the guys that I sponsor are doing that. It's a you bet you can't. And that's the kind of stuff that we're talking about. We're we're, we're trying to, we're trying to kind of dust, gently dust off the stuff that's cluttering everything up and making this thing complicated and getting it so that it's a little more, a little easier to do so that you can run through this process a little quicker. Something that Chris said earlier that I want to make sure that we clarify.

I have no right in any form or fashion to ever label you an alcoholic or non alcoholic. That is not my job to label you one way or the other. It is my job, however, to help you see your truth around your alcoholism

because if you're not sure if you're, if you're ambivalent about any part of that, if you're questioning your own sobriety or your own alcoholism, then it will manifest itself. It'll come out later down the road and you'll see a lot of that. That's the reason why in the beginning we spend so much time. That's the reason why Bill Wilson in the first of the book, when they wrote this thing, that's the reason why they spent so much time talking about

this, this mental component that was at the bottom of this thing, this idea, this. The

the doctor's opinion in the front of the book addresses what primarily the physical allergy, the physical part of alcoholism. Everything else from the doctor's opinion all the way up through page 44, there's a whole big old slug of book in there. Fred's story, Jim's story, the jaywalker story. All of these stories are there for what? Trying to get you to get your arms around this idea of a mental obsession? The mental component, this is the stuff that separates me from the goofy hard drinker that set on that same barstool out there that could quit.

We all have hard drinkers in our families. We all see guys like that. Oh, I had an Uncle Joe one time and he just one day just stopped.

See, nobody wants to ask whether Uncle Joe was a real alcoholic or not, you see,

and what what we're trying to do in this initial meeting, Andy, where did Andy go? Andy's my brand new drunk. He just came in

for the taping record. He's not he's been sober a long time. But but Andy Andy's my my brand new guy and he comes in and we're going to spend some time initially talking about this thing. We're going to try to figure out if he can. What do they talk about in Chapter 7? Working with others? They spend most of the first part of this stuff giving you illustrations of how they 12 stepped each other. And one of the primary things that they did was not try to beat him up and drag him into a A.

They tried to do what Bob did what what Bill did to Doctor Bob. They tried to sell him on the idea of alcoholism.

Bill Bob is a spiritual giant. Bill came in. This little busted up guy came in for the very first time. Sold Bob on the idea of the hopelessness and the chronic nature of his alcoholism.

And from that moment, Bob goes, holy cow, this is not fun. This is going to kill me. You see, I have, I suffer under the illusion that at some point, at any point in there, it'll get bad enough and I'll just say I'm not going to do this anymore or I'm going to adjust some external circumstances. I, I'm a drunk because she's here. I'll get rid of that

cow and I'll, I'll be OK.

You see, it's crazy. There it is. Once again, we've slipped over here and we're treating alcoholism as if it's a behavior problem. I'll modify. If alcoholism was a behavior problem, treatment centers would be turning out 100% recovered Alcoholics every day by the thousands. We're just going to modify your behavior. We're going to find out what it was that made you drink the way that you drink. And it is not alcoholism.

It's just not behavioral. There may be behavior stuff that exacerbates

and causes problems within the confines of the alcoholism, but when we strip everything else away, I have a body that simply will not handle alcohol the right way. My pancreas and liver, the way it processes alcohol is different than the normal drinker. Combined with that, I have a mental component of this thing that's destined to kill me because my mind will always tell me that a drink will fix it. Always. I don't care how bad my drama got. I don't care what happened. I don't care what what what circumstances. It was at the lowest that

ever was. As a drunk.

Give me a little bit of time to think about it. A few moments sometimes in my head takes me back to a time on the Guadalupe River when I was 17 years old in Texas. And I got a quart of beer right here and a little girl right here. And the moon's coming up through those Cypress trees and I can feel the breeze in my face and it is perfect, perfect.

My head. The mental part of this always takes me back to that time. And I'm destined from that perspective. I'm destined to always drink again because it worked then. It solved every problem I had. Then. See, a normal person doesn't do that. Did you ever wonder when you're reading all these examples in the big book, Fred's story and Jim's story and the jaywalker especially, did you ever look at those stories and go, why are they? These are the stupidest stories in the world. Why would these be in there? I never made I

connected the dots. I never could understand why he spent so much time. I just skipped over them. I just go, we don't need that crap and we just we'll get into something else. I didn't understand what they were trying to do is get me to understand that how different I am from the non alcoholic. This is the very thing that separates me from the heavy drinker, the little disco drunk that just got in trouble, maybe left a bar one night, got a DWI and he and the judge says you got to go to a A. And so he comes to a A. And so

everybody in the room,

it's all hands off welcome, welcome. I'm glad you're here and we are. There's nothing wrong with that. But then everybody stays clear of him and nobody wants to help him see what his truth is. This little guy may not be an alcoholic. He may not be. And the reality of that is, is that it's our job as real deal Alcoholics to help him see his truth, not so we can kick him out of a A. Please don't go there. Please don't. Not so that we can be exclusionary and elite here. Don't do that.

We're trying to help this guy understand. If he understands on a gut level that alcoholism is chronic in nature and he's going to die of this deadly disease, then all of the lurking notions that I can drink like normal men and women will go away.

That discomfort. There's an article down here that talks about this, that discomfort is the greatest thing in the world. We immediately muddy the water because we say if you forget your last drink, you haven't had it.

That's crap guys. I forgot my last drink. I'm telling you, and you will too. I can't even remember,

sit in meetings and we talk about these war stories. I can't even remember my own war stories, much less your war story. It's just we, we try to keep each other scared about the story. I need to remember what it was like so I can pass that on to somebody else when I'm talking to him. But the real crux of what I need to know and remember and keep dear to my heart is the chronic nature of alcoholism. And from that point, that point of discomfort, I will gladly embrace anything you asked me to do.

I will be willing to do whatever you want me to do. It's funny how we trivialize this stuff.

If Andy came up to me after this meeting and said, Myers, I've got some bad news, I've got some cancer and I think I'm I'm real sick.

We feel sorry for him. Andy, what are you going to do? And he said, well, they have a clinic. They have a clinic and Monday morning I'm going to be there and we're going to start treatment. No kidding. Yep, that's what we're going to do. Now see, this is how we treat something that we take seriously.

But it's a funny thing in alcoholism, which is as deadly and kills as many people as cancer does. We just simply trivialize it. We just kind of like make I say, I said, Andy, don't you think you better get busy with these steps and, and we'll get, we'll get on into this stuff. Oh, well, I, I have plenty of time. A man in the meeting the other night said I need to feel comfortable in a before I start any of the steps. So I figure in a year, I figure in a year we'll start maybe a couple of months down the road, we'll start

immediately. What we've done is we've trivialized our disease.

We've just said it's, but guess what? On page 24 in our literature, in our in our book, they talk about this thing we won't be able to bring into consciousness with sufficient force the pain and suffering of even a week or a month ago. Bill was clear on this in the beginning of this deal that we won't be able to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force what it was like what happened. We think we will. Oh, I'll know when I how many guys that are sponsoring guys have heard this. I'll know when I get when, when when I get sick enough. You hear this?

Well, I'm OK. I'm. I know. I haven't been to a meeting in six months, but I'll know. I'll know if I get sick. No you won't.

No, you won't, because here it is in fashion.

The spiritual malady will begin to reassert itself, and you will begin to feel separate and apart from everybody. You already feel separate from a A, don't you? And then it's short order. I'm going to feel separate from God. Uh-huh. And now I'm just out there freewheeling, trying to manhandle the day and make something happen. You see? And from that perspective, it's only a matter of time before the thought

wouldn't of court a bear taste great comes in

and my own arrogance tells me it will never happen.

But my experience and the experience of thousands of drunks that have gone before me says it will happen. It will.

You know, any of you guys ever been caught off guard and found yourself in that situation where all of a sudden you're almost ready to take a drink? It's a scary, scary place to be. Terrifying to realize how quickly you can slide back into that situation and how quick you can get sick again.

Anyway,

that's the reason why we do this stuff. It's, it's, it's not, we're not here insisting that you do the work the way we do the work. That's not why we're here. We're in, we're here hoping that as we talk about this work that we can kind of follow back and get into a sort of a, of a semblance of a line carrying a common solution so that we can. The book says that our common solution would guarantee your recovery. It says that in dozens of places in the book.

And so all we needed to do, and that's what was the what I found

after going to Primary Purpose group at 7 years sober,

devastated by what alcoholism was doing to me again, although I hadn't taken a drink yet. But I get in with these guys and they say we have a common solution and we're going to talk about that. One thing

I know, but I need to share my day. No, you don't. Not here,

Share it with your sponsor here. We're going to share a common solution. And it was tough, guys. I got to tell you, it was tough When you're a guy like me who was used to sharing that kind of stuff. It was the hardest thing that I ever did was to bite my tongue and not share that kind of stuff. But once I understood, and we're going to talk about that some this afternoon. Once I understood that I could actually share hope in a meeting by sharing the common solution that the solution that the literature gave us

great, great weight and hope to the newcomer,

then all of a sudden it wasn't me trying to carry some lame message. It was the big book in its power and the and the steps in its great power carrying this, this message of hope and recovery. Good stuff. Good.

So let's pretend, for the sake of this example here, let's pretend that what we have is, is Andy is coming to this meeting and we've we've, we've pulled him off the one side after the meeting and we're sitting there just kind of talking a little bit. I tell him a little bit about my stuff. He tells me a little about his stuff and we and he goes, uh-huh, uh huh.

Slam dunk. He already knows that he's an alcoholic. There's not any. He's not. He's not faltering under any illusions that he's anything else. He knows what he is, which is great. It makes it that much easier. And then finally, he just says, you know, I think I'm just like you. I recognize in your story that you and I are a lot alike. And then he looks at me and he does just what the book describes. He says, Myers, tell me what you did.

There it is. It's the hook. That's all I wanted him to say. That's all I wanted him to do is ask me what I did.

And then I could tell him I made a beginning. Just like what you're doing, Andy. I had to come to grips with the fact that I've got a chronic disease that's going to kill me. Are we OK there? We're all on the same page. And Andy goes I know I'm screwed. Terrific. And then we talk about this stuff. If lack of power. Remember, the bugaboo here is not the booze. The the bugaboo. The problem is, is that I cannot manage the decision to not take the drink.

Guys, we're all good stoppers. We're just better starters. You see, this is sort of the nature of that beast. It just, and, and so there's what we're trying to do is, is it is it getting to understand that if he thinks he's going to be able to muster the willpower, we've got to squash that real quick. If this isn't about willpower, if it was about willpower, most of us would be in real trouble. This is not about willpower. This is about finding a power

greater than ourselves that could get us to a place where we could get clear of this deal. And this is where the world gets kind of goofy on this thing.

But Bill, it's funny how it all worked out. If we understood on a gut level that lack of power was our dilemma, that's what's going to kill us. We don't have the power to stay clear of the booze.

If we understand that's the problem, then the solution is obvious. I've got to find some power,

and that's what the rest of this work was about, how to find the power. That was enough that was sufficient enough to get me clear of the booze.

And we we get sold all kinds of things which which confuse the issue. Meeting makers make it they gonna it it it every in in a a worldwide. It always seems to go back to the meeting. If you want to survive, be in the meeting. If you want to do this, be in the meeting. If you want to be in the and you know what? In our literature, there's not one place ever where it says that the solution to your problem is in a meeting.

Please don't misunderstand this. I don't want you calling your sponsor after this thing and saying, you know what that little bastard said? He said. He said don't go to a meeting. I didn't,

I didn't say that. I'm going to make it clear. I did not say that. But what I said is, is that if you're putting all your eggs in that basket, you may be in for a real surprise because there's a lot of us that die sitting in the meeting. There's a lot of us that get real sick sitting in the meeting. The meeting will not treat the internal condition, which is your alcoholism. The only thing that we know that will effectively do that or the steps a connection to a higher power that we're going to come to know at some point in time in the deal.

And that's why it's so important on the deal. Like it, it's like,

umm, if the meeting was the was the big deal, then don't you think Bill Wilson would have done Step 13 go to meetings? But he never said that. There are a lot of people that recovered just by reading the big book, just by going through and following the clear cut directions got through the deal. You see the meetings are important guys. They certainly are. But sometimes we get hung up in that. And I think some of you guys already recognize that. Some of you will recognize that

if you don't put it on a personal put it on a personal basis,

stop and think about what it was like when you first got to AAA and you were so excited you were about to pee on yourself every time you went to a meeting. You just couldn't. It was the IT was the coolest thing in the world. I can't wait to get back in the meeting. Nothing wrong with that, but I want you to Fast forward two years down the road, three years down the road, however long it took. And now all of a sudden the meeting seems tedious to me and and and I'm making excuses why I can't go and I don't why I don't want to go when I just it's just all of these things are happening because as

taker in a a as that this this need to be fed by the meeting gets me down range. What happens is it eventually the internal condition again is not being treated. It's not it's not getting what it needs and I get sick. You see where there is a novel thought We're going to talk about it all all today. We're there to give, not receive. I'm there in the meeting to give, not receive. And if you're going into the meeting waiting to be fed, you're in for

frustrating, frustrating time because in that thought process, guys, in that thought, there's a great deal of expectation. And when my expectations aren't met,

I get goofy, I want to retaliate, I'm getting mad, I weep, I get I all these emotional things are attached to my expectations of what you're supposed to be feeding me in that meeting. It's a really sick place to be. But the moment this is the thing that they taught me when I got over to that crazy primary purpose group and those guys, the moment I made the mental connection that I was there to give instead of receive, everything about my program shifted. All of a sudden I'm enthused about learning about the book because I this is what I have to teach.

You see, I can't, I can't teach my guys that I sponsor if I don't understand it myself. And so I become, if you want to become a great, good, strong sponsor, learn the book.

They go kind of hand in hand. I didn't really care about what was in the book until I was faced with the prospect of sponsoring a handful of guys. And then all of a sudden I'm going, oh, crap, now what? You see? And I had to get busy. And you'll understand that stuff.

I hear people in meetings all the time going, well, I'm working on Step 2. I'm just, I'm working on step two. And six months later, well, I'm work. I'm almost there to Step 2.

I just want to slam my head down the deck.

There's nothing to work on.

It's this. It's the simplest part of the whole deal. It doesn't make any difference if you have a formed idea of what God is like and you're all warm and fuzzy with it, or if you have no idea what it's like and you don't even really believe there's a God. You don't have to believe anything. And Bill, in his infinite wisdom, those guys that wrote the book wrote a whole chapter called We Agnostics Working with others because they knew that at least 50% of us that came to this deal had God sideways in our crawl. When we

here, we're not all little sunbeams for Jesus. When we get here, we are. Some of us are. I'm telling you guys, I just flat there are there's a part of me that wanted to break God over my knee when I got here. I just didn't want anything to do with God and the thought of it made me sick.

But the thought of dying drunk made me sicker.

The thought of dying an alcoholic death was horrifying to me,

and so all I did was follow the directions in the book of what they were talking about. Was I Was I willing to believe that there was anything out there bigger than me that could restore me to sanity?

The insanity that they're talking about is the mental component of this deal. It's the part that separates me from everybody. That's normal out there.

Is there anything out there greater than me? What put the stars up there? What put the do I need to know and understand? Do I need to label it? Do I need to put No, I don't care if you think God looks like the Easter Bunny. I don't care,

and nor should any of you really. It's just simply not the deal. But the pathway to the power was understanding that there was something out there that was bigger.

The mistake I think that we make is trying to sell somebody our idea of God. You see, and that's the reason why we make a lot of mistakes in our rooms is that we want to share our religious conversion and we share it just like that. And the brand new guy that's got God stuck sideways in his craw listens to that and goes, let me ask you a question, guys. Just just between me and you guys, Did you ever sit in a Sunday school class when you were growing up, church school or something like this and look around the room and

why you were the only one that wasn't getting it?

I mean, I'm looking around at this little room full of, you know, little Saints and I'm just going, why can't I, what can I get it? You know, I'm sitting in the room and all I want to do is, is dismember something. I'm, I'm just, I'm just like, well, sitting here, flicking a cigarette lighter into the seat, trying to light the seat on fire. I'm just, I'm just, I want desperately to be good. I want desperately to understand it the way you understand it. I just can't.

It's like 2 extension cords that it just aren't quite long enough

and everybody else snapped into it real easy and I'm still sitting over there struggling just trying to damn it. If I could just get it a little bit closer, if I could just hold my mouth just right, if I could just,

you understand what that's like, you see, And there is the dilemma that we face. There is the dilemma. And depending on how you were raised or what you came through, it could be a real stumbling block. You know, you, you, you get brand new guys and you're looking at the steps and he's reading them off the wall, or he's looking at him in his book and he sees the God thing and he just goes,

you see,

And what we're trying to get these little buckaroos to understand

these days, I would rather have you coming in hating God.

I'd rather have you coming in with no idea of God

than to come in a little sunbeam for Jesus. Because in that perspective, there's nothing wrong with that, except that you come in with a bunch of preconceived ideas. You come in with a bunch of other people's ideas of what it is that you're dealing with. And what I'd rather you to do is, is experience here what it's like to get plugged in as you begin to do the work, as you begin to do the things that we do, even though you don't really believe it's going to happen

one day, you pull on the extension cord and you notice that they're coming a little closer together.

And you go, damn, this is pretty cool. It actually, you know, it's not such a struggle you see,

and you do a little more work and you get a little service commitment and you do the other things. And pretty soon you go, shit, it's I'm almost there.

And pretty soon you're there. And without even knowing it, for most of us, it was an absolute left field surprise. We just wake up one morning and we sit on the edge of our bed and we go,

shit, I'm OK, I'm OK, I'm happy. You see the extension cord locks together and you just lay it down and there's no more struggle. There's no more fighting, there's no more intensity and trying to be what you can't be. It was just all done for you because you were willing to do one thing, submit to a program of action

which required just that action. You were going to do something.

In order to be a parent, you have to do something. You can't just be a parent by sitting in a PTA meeting. You see what I'm saying? You got to. You got to actually

do something, you know, you had.

We go from spiritual into the toilet just like that. I mean,

nobody but a Texan could screw that up,

you see, but that's what this thing is about. And so in this step two thing, we're not going to make a big deal out of it. And, and most of the Step 2 work that I do with guys that I'm sponsoring like this, we're we're in it and out of it in 5 minutes. Tell me what you think about God. And he'll go, I love God OK next or he'll say I hate God. I say, OK next. I just need to know where he is. You see what I'm saying? If this is not a, this is not a big long drawn out ordeal. They didn't spend a lot of time in it. Look at the way it is in the big book. They

do that. Did you have something you wanted to add?

Do you wait just a minute? You do that? Because I can always tell when Chris is getting pensive back there, he either needs to go to the bathroom where he's being pensive about wanting to say something. So

I