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

Chris Raymer, recovered alcoholic.

Welcome back. You guys are made of steel. To stick with us this long, it's just these these

these days get long. There's a lot of information here and a lot of stuff to assimilate and we're in our last hour here. We just and I want to talk I think about some of the stuff that's nearest and dearest to me and and this deal called working with others and sponsorship. A lot of this can be misconstrued as being the same thing, but it's not. And

on bottom page 129, I want to mention this to you. I'm an alcoholic, synonymous for seven years listening to people tell me to take it easy and get my stuff straight first before I can go work with anybody. We have these unwritten rules all over the United States. You can't sponsor anybody till you're sober a year. You can't chair meeting until you're sober six months, you'll follow. You can't service, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Bottom of page 129 about the middle paragraph on the bottom it says even if you displays at the very bottom guys, even if he displays a certain amount of neglect

responsibility towards the family, it is well to let him go as far as he likes in helping other Alcoholics during those first days of convalescence. This will do more to ensure his sobriety than anything. This is an exact contradiction to what we hear in our fellowship. Bill Wilson and Bob understood it. That's where they went out the next day and started tracking down drunks to work with. They knew that if they didn't give this away, they weren't going to be able to stay sober. And yet our fellowship has gotten so damn sick with this idea that we can't do anything. The cats

remember the window of opportunity we've been talking about and this thing takes place is that what connects the dots for all of us is the, is the is the working with others. I walk into this program and I've got such low self esteem it's not even funny. And the old geezers knew that if they let me let me sit on my butt very long that I would go crazy. And because that's what they did for me forever. Welcome you're here. Sit, have, you know, just keep coming back. But I would sit there long enough for my head to engage and I would start thinking crazy thoughts and listen to few of your war stories and then talk myself into leaving.

And when I came back in in 1987, the old geezers got in my face and they started to qualify me. They did what sponsorship was about. They qualified me first so that I felt comfortable in the room. And they started teaching me immediately about the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. They talked to me about traditions and concepts and they talked to me about my one job is service folks. We worked the 12 steps to have a thing called a spiritual experience. We take this awakened spirit back out there in the universe and see what we can help. It's that I, I'm going to do this again, guys. I know you'll get

this. What goes around comes around is all about, you know, the circle triangle and Alcoholics Anonymous. This outside circle, that's what it's about. It doesn't come just to me, to God. It goes to me for you, to God. Back around this way. And as long as I'm actively involved in this fellowship and trying to help other people, I'm golden. This book tells me on the bottom page 129 that I'm supposed to go work with other Alcoholics and do whatever I can do. Can I take them through the steps? No, I'm two days sober. I can't take them through the work because I haven't been through the work myself.

I can't share what I don't have, but I could damn sure do some things that a lot of people didn't do for me for years. What is this big book? Where do you buy it? How much does it cost? Where's the bathroom? How much is the coffee

will she put out? I mean, it's the information. No, the information. Anybody can sit down with a couple of days sobriety and help somebody else. The problem is we are discouraged from day one to do that. You with us old hierarchy sponsorship. And this is where we get under a lot of people's nerves. Guys. There's a lot of ways to sponsor somebody, but the further away you get from what the Big Book tells us to do, the less effective it's going to be.

Why in the hell do we have to reinvent the wheel? Yesterday, Myers was talking in the early days. I mean like the 1st 25 years,

everything that came down the Pike at Alcoholics Anonymous was filtered through Bill Wilson. Every mistake that could ever be made, they made before they did the traditions. Why do we have to reinvent the wheel? It's but they're all telling us the same thing. Get off your butt, start working for somebody else. You want to get out of your head, you feel low self esteem, you don't like who you are, Go help somebody else and you will.

Or you can just go into another bathroom and look at yourself in the mirror and tell me you're Mr. Big Shot, happy joys and free. You can lie to yourself in a mirror. Do some more positive affirmations. You see this, this world is about working with others and you look at any of the spiritual doctrine. 1st century Christianity was all based on that. Again, this is not therapy. This is this is this is spirituality into action. You'll follow spirituality into action means that I'm supposed to help you. If I'm going to go get a cup of coffee, I'm going to bring you a cup of coffee. That's what this is about.

Makes sense. Where can I help? I don't have enough snap to read. I can't do this, I can't do that. But maybe I can clean the room afterwards. But that's working with others. That's being of service. You'll follow. What we're having now in Alcoholics Anonymous is a huge problem. I got this e-mail from this cat. Now, this is the kind of sponsorship that I'm familiar with. It's not my sponsorship. This is the kind of crap that was floating around the Fellowship in the 80s when I was trying to get sober. This is from a friend of mine in California, just sent recently back in July.

He's in and out for a long time, 12 years, and he relapses at the beginning of May. He comes back to a A

by Memorial Day. I wondered why I found a sponsor that had me read re read Bill's story for the entire month of May.

Now on the surface, that sounds pretty good. Bill's story, some fascinating stuff, talks about the necessity of working with others in there. It's reread it for entire month of May. Jeez. I wonder where why Bill Wilson didn't tell us to do that. Let me see. Vinnie announced he was leaving for vacation for a month and a half and instructed me to read the Doctor's Opinion over and over until he got back.

Well, this is 2 months. Gave me a cell number, said he could go ahead and call but if he really needed some help. But he gave me some other guys numbers that he could he could rely on. Then he ended up getting hooked up with another guy over there that we know it's a little big book Thumper who took him through the 12 steps. Do do do we really think are we going to be that irresponsible with a little newcomer coming in the door? We've qualified this cat. We know he's an alcoholic and then we're just going to believe that he can just kind of coast through this and within a few months

we can start working on the steps.

In Toronto, they call it booking you. You stays over a year and will book you book this.

If I could stay sober a year, why would I need you? You'll understand this. But yet it's rapid and everybody says it. Nobody says anything about it and that's what I'm saying. We got old geezers in there that have laid the literature down. Bill Wilson's on his 9th day in Towns Hospital when Eddie comes and starts to do the work with him. He has his spiritual experience. He's making amends from a hospital and he has his barn burning spiritual experience,

never to be, never to drink again. And he leaves the hospital and he begins to work with others and Doctor Bob takes him two weeks to do the steps and he's done. Build Dotson #3 takes him a couple of weeks to do the steps and he's done.

Everybody out there, the old geezers that are all dying off, they'll tell you nobody took longer than 30 days to work the steps. Work the steps.

There was no information of go to 90 meetings in 90 days. That is absolute rubbish. Meetings don't treat alcoholism.

We, we, we've got to stop killing people, letting them do that. Why do we tell you 90 meetings in 90 days? This is, this is how this translates. I don't have time to mess with you,

so I want you to just go to meetings and I feel like I've done something for you there, but I've done nothing. Isn't that the truth?

Here's the gravy. I've been reading this forever from the deal. So it was a Grapevine article called Intergroup Ask. Where have all the volunteers gone? This is written by the guys in New York at their Intergroup office. The most frustrating thing about answering Intergroup's phones, says Bob, our manager Intergroup Association in New York City is finding an A A member willing to take a 12 step call for some sick alcoholic who has phoned us for help. Sometimes it takes up to 20 calls to identify just one willing volunteer.

Some of the responses we hear when we give a member, when we get a get a live member actually does answer the phone, he says. What's a 12 step call?

Piss poor sponsorship. How did you get my phone number?

Did you mean you actually want me to talk to someone who's still drinking?

The saddest response came from a member who exclaimed. No, I can't do it today. I'm busy all day. Today is my sobriety anniversary.

Can you get down with this? Guys? We got sober. We got sober so that we could turn around and help the next poor schlep up the hill. That's the only reason we got sober. God loved me enough to survive, to let me survive dumpsters in Houston, TX and a crazy existence. And I didn't die and I didn't go to jail so that I could do one thing, and that's to get my feet on solid ground in sobriety and experience an awakened spirit so I could turn around and go help somebody else. We have a tendency in this fellowship to get really, really embarrassed.

It's almost like we're apologetic about God. It's almost that we're all apologetic about what we're trying to accomplish here. And I got to tell you something, folks, as a fellowship, everybody needs to wake up driving through Houston. I've talked about this from the podium, driving through Houston in a pouring rainstorm at the windows cracked because the windows are all fogging up. And they've got these guys out here working in the trench. You know how they do. And they got eight, 7-8 guys in the endings, yellow slickers, all of them with clipboards looking very business like. And there's two little Mexican guys down there in the trench. You can see from

Mat down in the trench drowning in this, in this trench digging. You'll follow. You got eight guys standing up here in slickers pointing a finger, telling these two little 2 little little soaking wet gentlemen in the trench how to dig a hole.

Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. It's the truth. Same people in this room that are sponsoring people sponsor all the people and everybody else sits on the sideline and waits.

That's not right. The same people volunteer for the committees. The same people chair the meetings. That's not right. It's why we have so many women leaving the fellowship. They get burned out. There's too many people. They all come to the same ones. We need to spread the wealth. We need to teach what this is about. Everybody gets to do this. To not allow somebody the opportunity to sponsor is is doing them a huge disservice. You're missing the gravy of this. One night, a guy calls me on the phone. I've been sober about two months and the guy calls me on the phone and he's he's hooked up with me in the meeting because he's a cook

and I was a chef for years. And so we start talking. He works at the kettle, you know, slinging eggs. And so we're laughing about this and we hook up, we bond. Anyway, this guy calls me after the meeting and he's all freaked out and I'm over with some friends at the house and we're all sitting around fixing to watch a show and like this. And I said I'm not here. The lady that answered the phone said it's rubbish, you are here. There's the phone and I'm talking to the guy says he wants me to go to the down and talk to him. He wants me to talk to him until 11:00 when his shift starts so he won't drink.

Now I get to decide right now, am I going to do what I've been doing for seven years in Alcoholics Anonymous and sit on the sidelines? Or am I going to get involved in this damn thing? But I've only been sober 222 months. He didn't ask for me to go work the steps with him. He asked me to go hold his hand and watch him for a few hours until he went to work

and I get to decide if I'm going to participate or if I'm going to back up. And I chose that night to participate,

cussing the whole way. Mind you, with me, I was not a happy camper. Damn. I just the one night a week I get off and here we go. Now I've got to go help with some drunk. That's what I did. All right, Fast forward 3 hours, comes back, everybody else is gone. That girl's sitting in there and she says what? Where have you been? And she says no, never mind, I know where you've been. What happened to you?

Because I've changed

that little guy that couldn't help anybody, that couldn't look you in the eye. Now all of a sudden I've been spinning down there talking my story, and he's sharing his story and I'm sharing a little bit what I know about the book. And neither one of us, you know, the blind leading the blind. There was no miracle took place here except that somebody finally pulled their head out of their butt and realized that they were to be of service.

I don't know if the guy ever got sober or not. He stayed sober for a while. I don't know whatever happened to the guy, but I know this that I drove home that night with tears in my eyes because I finally understood with this stupid program was about. And it's not sitting in a room talking about my day, and it's not getting tangled up and working the steps over and over and getting getting lost in the work.

It's about helping another drunk.

That's what I'm supposed to be doing. Male or female, that's what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm going to say this and move, Let my brother finish this up because I don't want you. You guys sense a little sense of, of, of irritation here perhaps. And

I watch a lot. No, I watch a lot of you people who you're going through stuff in your life that that everybody goes through. But the problem is you're going through it, not connected spiritually because you're trying to do the little issue man deal

you're trying to fix. Those are his eyes.

A little guy, all the exes, and we have on exes on the little issue, man. Y'all are trying to fix all this external stuff so you can be happy to raise some free and then go work with other drums. And what Bill Wilson tried to explain to us is you're not going to survive the certain trials of low spots ahead unless you go work with the drums. You can work with the drunks. That's your job. I'll take care of this crap,

I'll take care of your money, I'll take care of your health, I'll take care of the stupid relationship. You're going to be of service to somebody.

I'm responsible. They say it, I'm responsible. You know, they talked about it in a Grapevine one time in in Box 459. Again, it was a great article and they talked about why they didn't talk about about weaves responsible. They do that in Narcotics Anonymous. We are responsible. We are responsible.

No, I'm responsible. It's got to start with me. It's easy for me to blame everybody else. The group sucks. My sponsor's no good. We can't do this. We can't do that. Our format's lousy. Change it.

Please Change it. You've got the power to do it. You know what to do. You don't have to argue with what the big book tells you to do. Just do it. If your meeting formats lousy and you're not getting what you want out, you're not getting to study the book. Change the format or we can't. They've been doing it like that for 30 years. Yeah. How many people have they killed because they won't change it? Makes sense.

You don't want to change it? Don't want to ruffle a bunch of feathers? Still people pleasing. Why don't you go start your own meat with a nice rigid format that the traditions allow us to set up any way we want? How about a meeting that's for an hour? We talk about what step we're on and we allow crosstalk. How's that? And we can ask questions. Oh my gosh, what a bloodbath it would be. How great it would be. Everybody would come armed. Oh, it would be. But nobody wants to do that. Why? Because it's not the same basic, same old tried and true stupid boring

format that we've been using for the last 40 years. Open discussion hell. Well, this is your meeting.

Who's got the problem? Who gives a rat's butt? Who's got the problem? What want to know is who's got the solution? Make sense

if you're if you're, if you're a young person and you're sober, you have the power to absolutely help somebody that's older. We've got to stop walking on egg shells looking at this. This identification thing is the only deal. We've got to start thinking, I don't know who's God going to use to speak through through to me. I don't know where my next guidance is going to come from. That's why I get so excited about this. Once you remember and once you realize that you can actually be of help here.

The, the, the Sky's the limit. But I'm going to tell you because I've talked to a bunch of you this last night and again this morning. I've talked to a bunch of you. The spiritual path is, is

is a bear. It's narrow. It's fraught with with problems. You get excited and the first thing some some old geezer wants to do is take a shot at you. You start enjoying your life and you walk in and actually feel embarrassed to share your happiness because everybody else in the room is so damn miserable. And we start second. Get y'all. Yeah, some of you are looking down. I'm, I'm, I'm hitting some hot spots here.

Let's I understand that. But our job, the book said in the third step is that we're supposed to bear witness to God's power.

Now my life is a is a hoot today as a result of getting connected spiritually. I've been blessed, folks, blessed. Now I'm going to go into a meeting and I'm going to share that and I'm going to try to pull the newcomer with a vision and I'm going to grab hold of those newcomers and I'm going to try to get them on the same path. I'm not going to strong arm sponsor them. Myers will talk about it in a minute. We don't take sponsies on the race, folks. I have a job. I'm going to get you through the work and I'm going to hold you accountable after. And I'm going to give you an adequate presentation of what a A is about you all

that I'm going to teach you about the traditions. I'm going to talk to you about a etiquette. I need to tell you today, I mean, you guys have been certainly somebody has taught you a etiquette. You guys have been absolutely wonderful. I'm talking about getting up while the speakers talking, slumping around and wearing clothes that are inappropriate meetings. You all understand a A etiquette, what's to do and what's not to do in a A. That's what we do. And if I can do that, then I can move on to the next guy. I sponsor just like Meyer said. I sponsor about 30 guys,

some some long distance. I sponsor about 10 guys local and people are always doing the same. You can't sponsor. That's your ego. No, if you would sponsor a few more, I wouldn't have to sponsor that many

fact. But people walking around, Why is it that I got to e-mail Julia in Switzerland to get her to work with a woman in the United States?

Because I got too many women in the United States that know exactly where to buy nice fresh scented candles, but they don't quite understand how to finish a four step.

No, it's the truth. You little cats that are in this room that have worked the steps and have been on the service line out there trying to help other people. Thank you. That's all I can say. Thank you. You guys that have had some sobriety under your belt and caught fire again and you're back there in the trench with us helping us 'cause that's where we need you. All of us need to be in the trench heading in the same damn direction. Our job is to get the newcomer connected spiritually and I take it serious and I'm not going to crumble under a deck of cards.

I'll say this, I'm not going to fight anybody. I've ceased fighting anything or anyone, including middle of the road. A, A

I'm not going to go into a meeting and pick a fight with anybody. You'll understand that I'm not meeting goes lousy. It's not my meeting. I don't have a right to, to, to to stir it up. But I'm going to go to their group conscience and I'm going to try to make a change in that group. Every meeting ought to be a literature based meeting. As far as I'm concerned, it'll never happen. But what we're starting to see around the world is more primary purpose group meetings, literature based meetings you'll follow. We have an open discussion meeting where Patty and I go in Ingram, TX,

but the topic always comes out of the 1st 64 pages and this is what we talk about. We have a bell ringer. We have a bell ringer. If you talk longer than 5 minutes, we're going to ring the damn bell on you and you're going to be embarrassed and we're going to laugh. We're not laughing with you, we're laughing at you.

We have the best time. Why this? Because our ego wants to tell us that we have something important to say, more important than the little new guy back there. And we need to get to know the little new guy. So everybody just get get in line 5 minutes on this topic and then we're going to move on.

How cool is that? And you start looking forward to these meetings. Have a sponsorship linens. It's quite long. The guys I sponsor, if I'm sponsoring you and six months later you're not sponsoring somebody,

we're going to chat.

Actually, that means that I'm going to talk and you're going to listen. I'm going to find out who in the hell you think you are. Because if I'm sponsoring you, you're through the steps way before six months and now you're not sponsoring anybody. Makes sense. I'm watching you and a little newcomer comes in the door. I'm watching and you better have your little butt turned around watching the door too. Because when the newcomer comes in, we all know who the newcomers are. You all know they got the look,

they're vibrating and they got the look. You better be on them because I want my guys to get them. You go follow. That's that's how this thing works. Because then 'cause I want them to experience the, the joy of getting a chance to work with another drunk. Because once they experience that, they're never going to relapse again, folks. They're never going to go back out again

because because it's like dope. It's like it's pretty heady stuff when you realize that you could participate in somebody else's recovery. He's got him in there like that. I've seen it a million times coming to the group, look back over in the corner and he's got this guy in there. One of them, they're both on their knees over there doing a third step prayer. He's taking him through the work. All right now. Now we're going to launch out on the course of vigorous action. I mean, you need to start working on a four step little guys looking up. It's OK, I can do that. And I'm sitting over there by the coffee room with tears in my eyes, understanding exactly what happened.

1939 Bill Wilson and Doctor Bob got together and these cats came up with this book and they started working with people, one drunk with another,

not from the podium, not in big workshops. One stupid little drunk working with another stupid little drunk, showing him how to have a spiritual experience. And that's how the message gets carried. We're not going to start a big big

one drunk carrying a message of hope to another drunk. That's how it works. And on down the line, because Bill Wilson and Doctor Bob didn't give a rats butt what other people thought. They just were going to do this and they knew what would work and they didn't. Oh jeez. And they didn't back up. They didn't have a problem talking about God. And when the meetings got crappy, they changed them. And they got very rigid about people and the time it took to work the steps.

1987 after a suicide attempt, I walk into a room.

There's a bunch of guys in there that didn't give a rats ass how I felt. They didn't care what I thought. They weren't working on tip toes worrying about my sensitive little feelings. They didn't worry about talking about God.

They said, buddy, we can't help you, but a thing called a spiritual experience can. Are you willing to go to any length to get well?

And I said yes and they showed me how to work the 12 steps

and I got sober.

Oh my God,

we spend so much time when you guys come to treatment and you guys come to AA talking about the damage you've done and the people that have been affected by your disease. We don't ever talk enough. I think about the, the, the, the, the absolute power that takes place as a result of getting sober. One little knucklehead not drinking,

being in the meeting at the right time to catch me. The rings of sobriety that come out from my lineage. Come out from your lineage. You can't change the world.

Don't tell me that

you don't know how powerful we are. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. You have to know what's in the book and you have to go get you a drunk. They're everywhere,

they're everywhere. And then you too can have the same the same joy of knowing that you can do something that nobody else can do. And that's reached that person. I said it last night and I'll end with it. God doesn't need any more Chris Ramers, and we don't need any more Myers. We don't need any more any. We need you. We need you because you're the cat that's going to be able to reach the guy that we can't reach. Some people need a really in your face kind of approach. Do y'all think for a second that we going to meetings and talk like this?

We're as quiet as we can be in a meeting. We we're, we're just talking, sharing, just from the heart. There's a member,

this is from the podium, both talking to a room full of people. We're not there to beat up anybody or make fun of them when they misquote a passage. We're there if with love and tolerance trying to guide them to the light

and that's what we're going to do. Makes sense guys. And I sure hope I see you. We've got these cards up here. I mentioned to you, it's my hospital's number is on there, but I give them out because all of my emails on there and my phone number, we're not soliciting business there, but you guys can call me anytime you want and it's toll free number and we've got that stupid e-mail address and, and how cool is that? And then we can stay together, folks, 'cause you truly are brothers and sisters of mine.

Thank you for letting us come up here. Thank you.

Almost done. I bet your little butts are so thankful. It's going to be good. Get this, stand up in 15 minutes and be out of here.

It is funny, we used to talk about this thing being the secret handshake of Alcoholics Anonymous. This deal of, of, of something miraculous happening as a result of the work that we were doing. And, and

because of the, because of my perspective of seeing this thing through two different viewpoints. 7 years of doing as little as I could in a, a just come in and taken in the last 14 years, actually being there to give back and seeing the results of doing that. And over those years, getting a chance to see the miracles that happened in your life and how, how just

you can't argue with experience. You can't argue with what you're seeing in front of you. All the miracles of that that have come about by people that have been willing to submit to that simple, simple process.

Talking to a guy one time and he was talking about how we, we couldn't go to some wind up joint because he couldn't go to a wind up joint because he hadn't been sober a year. And remember, we, we talked about it some and, and a couple of days later, some guy sent me this little article. And I just want, it's just a little, little paragraph here. And it said this comes from when a, a comes of age. And he said it was soon evident that a scheme of personal sponsorship would have to be devised for the new people. Each prospect was assigned an older a A who visited him at his home or in his hospital, instructed him on a a principles,

and conducted him to his first meeting. But in the face of many hundreds of pleas for help, the supply of elders could not possibly match the demand.

Brand new AA, sober only a month or even a week. Had to sponsor Alcoholics still drawing up in hospitals.

You see this,

I have, I have within me 10,000 reasons why I can't help you. It starts with this. I'm too stupid. It does every time I'm not smart enough to help you, it it's followed closely behind. I'm too busy to help you. I might hurt you. I might. I mean, did you just fill in the list? Whatever the deal is, and it's, and it's interesting because it's the stuff that Chris talked about. We're faced with this situation where we have a fellowship out there

where we have a bunch of us getting hard starts just heading out, doing exactly what we're supposed to be doing, and we have thousands of members of this fellowship standing in the way going. No, no, no. Stop, stop, stop, stop. What are you doing? Stop. Don't do that. You haven't been sober long enough to be helping that woman. What are you doing? You'll kill her doing this. You see none of it based on her literature, none of it even based on experience. It's just based on an opinion,

a man's opinion. He wasn't saying it out of malice. It was just in his opinion,

it was another piece of that spoon fed stuff. That becomes my doctrine and then I take that doctrine and it becomes my program. You see, instead of letting the literature dictate what it is we were supposed to do and not supposed to do, we relied so heavily on other people's ideas and opinions. And that's the danger. That's the stuff that we talked about at some link last night. It's interesting when you look at that conflict. Look at the the the title page to Working with Others,

Chapter 7, Working with Others. It's just as practical. Experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other Alcoholics. We've read this a million times. OK, It works when other activities fail,

huh. Practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other Alcoholics. It didn't say about going to anything about going to meetings. It didn't. There weren't anything else. Look at step 12. And this is an interesting point on this. I think this if step 12 said this and we'll read it off that thing too. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to Alcoholics

and to practice these principles on all of our affairs now of interest. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message. What was the message we were trying to carry

that we had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps? That was what we were trying to carry to the new guy.

Tradition 5 read it on the deal. Each group has but one primary purpose, to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. What's its message? That we could have a spiritual awakening. We could have a have a a deal sufficient enough to get as clear of the booze. Now that's hard and final. That's the literature as it's laid out in front of us. And our job, day by day, is to ask ourselves, each individual, one of us, where have we drifted from that statement?

Are we in the meetings carrying a message of recovery or we in the meeting sharing our day? What is it? What is it? Are we ignoring the new guy because we would rather sit down and talk about the football game that's coming up

with our buddies? Sure, I understand that, but I mean the only people. I'm not here to judge any of that. I'm just here to help you illuminate that stuff in the same way that I have to look at it today. Was I effective at helping a brand new guy feel comfortable in my meeting that has 200 people in it? It's like a minefield. You can't move without stepping on a new guy. Was I effective in trying to help those guys, or was I over there trying to talk about motorcycles to my buddies

or what other lame thing I ever came up with? You see what I'm saying

or chasing some skirt around or what? What am I doing? And I have to ask myself those questions. Look at just a couple more references and then I'll I'll stop with this. The at the bottom of page 14 picture this situation.

Bill Wilson laying in this hospital,

and he comes to this conclusion at the very bottom of that page on our in a deal. It says my friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs. Particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me. Faith without works was dead, he said. And how appallingly true for the alcoholic. For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead.

He did not work. He would surely drink again, and if he drank, he would surely die.

Then faith would be dead indeed. With us, it is just like that.

They gave us specific directions of interest. Hold your finger on that page of interest in this thing. The very next paragraph says this. My wife and I abandoned ourselves with enthusiasm to the idea of helping other Alcoholics to a solution of their problems.

Folks, I want to ask you, just between me and you, how long has it been since you abandoned yourself to anything?

You know, I might abandoned myself to learning how to play a guitar or abandoned myself to learn how to a foreign language, or I mean, sometimes we do that in our life. But in a a how long has it been since you simply abandoned yourself to the idea of helping a brand new guy?

You know it fellowship wise, that seemed to be more problem in their worth. We seem to just go, oh shit, another new guy. Oh man, you see, that's going to distract us from being able to talk about Joe's divorce again. You see, it's just crazy.

It's just, it's just

on page 160 and then I'll put this book down for a second. There's A at the bottom of page 160. I mean the very last line on that thing. It says he and his wife would leave, elated by the thought of what they could now do for some stricken acquaintance in his family. They knew that they had a host of new friends. It seemed that they had known these strangers always. They had seen miracles and one was to come to them. They had vision, the great reality, their loving and all powerful creator,

classic poetic Bill Wilson, classic Bill Wilson. It's just the best dead dumb stuff. My wife and I would leave elated by the thought of what we could now do for some stricken acquaintance. It's always of interest to me, guys. Sometimes I think we trivialize where we've been. You know, sometimes it seems, doesn't it kind of, it seems like it's a dream. It seems like the the, the bad times and the debacle of the of the drunkenness was just something that was way back there. And we tended to just make it be that something that happened back there

and we don't realize that what happened back there made us uniquely qualified to try to help a brand new guy. Uniquely qualified.

It's an it's an amazing thing to think that we could be a busted up drunk

in 20 or 30 days later we could walk free and clear of this deadly disease, fully recovered from this horrible disease. I mean,

as an intellectual, I tend to look at it and go, how in the hell is that possible? Because you know what? There's not a whole lot of this thing that makes sense intellectually, really. I mean, if you were looking at it from a distance, you'd look at it and go, these guys are nuts. Let me see if I have this. I want to see if I got this right in the big picture.

All I'm required to do as a result of my sobriety is get off my butt and go try to help a brand new guy and everything else will straighten out my life.

Well, that's stupid how you can't justify that.

It's the truth. It's the truth and any of you guys that have crawled off in that trench and they're doing that work know exactly, exactly what I'm talking about. I'll tell you a real fast story and then we'll quit.

Last night we were talking about me coming through this middle of the road group and I've been struggling for seven years and, and over the last three or four years anyway, I've been struggling mightily. And I got over to primary purpose group and we were going to, we were learning the book and, and I was starting to every meeting. I was starting to connect some little dots and things began to make sense about what we're doing in the steps and what we were doing with why we were there. And, and, and it, I began to feel sort of connected to everybody in the room. And so

a couple of years go by now I'm spending most of my time hole and Cliff Bishop around so he can do 12 step work. He's an old guy and, and I'm just, he's teaching me stuff, but, but I'm not doing any talking. I'm not doing anything. I'm just hauling him around. And I'm thinking this is OK, This is what I'm supposed to be doing. And I didn't, I didn't really embrace anything else. And if it was on a bell curve, you would see my life like this. You'd see it suck. And then it got better and better and better and then it just kind of leveled off. My time at primary purpose was two years of just kind of level stuff. I'm better. I'm not doing goofy things anymore,

but I'm still kind of,

or a lot of you guys might be some of you want, but I mean, it's just this kind of, I'm not, It's not that I'm unhappy. I'm much better than I was. I'm not drinking. I'm things are better, but I there's just no real joy in anything. There's no real coolness about anything.

So one night we're sitting in this meeting and it's just like a full big old meeting and everybody's like this. And as we close the meeting, I'm looking around the room.

I'm going oh shit.

And it hit me like a ton of brick.

This room is still full of people that are not like me. These people are different

and I just,

it was nothing tangible. Nobody said anything. It was just something that I made the connection and went, oh shit.

We walk, get done with the end of the meeting. And I said, Clifford, can I have a couple of minutes? And he said, Yep. And we walk into this little back parlor and I said, Cliff, I'm still different from you guys, aren't I? And he said yes.