Steps 1-4 at the Into Action Convention "Our Primary Purpose" in Stockholm, Sweden

It's always funny when you come back. It's just as many times as we do this,

there's always this fear that when we do a talk on Friday night that nobody will come back Saturday morning, you know, and it's just you're here. I'm just, I was so relieved

the

I was getting some juju off that. That's good.

What we're going to do is that

First off, I got to tell you that I'm going to go back to the States and we're going to start Swedish Coffee Anonymous.

I sit there. I sit there during that meditation, wondered why my butt was vibrating on that seat. I was just like, I'm addicted. I just can't.

My gosh,

before we get started today, I wanted to especially take a minute to thank some friends that I've met, new friends that I've met here from DAA and

Drug Addicts Anonymous is real new in the States. We're very few, few folks there doing it now. Primary purpose group, the group that I go to in Dallas on a Tuesday night will have 200 people in that room all studying the big book. But these guys, it's an A a group. And these guys stay totally frustrated because they can't seem to find any place to get plugged into study the big book as little dope things.

And so quite by accident, they stumble across a website from DAA here in Sweden and from Stockholm. And these guys started this group and you ought to walk into that room on the nights when they're having this meeting this the biggest bunch of lathered up little doping you've ever seen in your whole life. And they are having more fun than than it ought to be against the law to have that much fun in a meeting. And it just, I am truly grateful because for one, for finally in the States, there's a place where people

go and study the big book and still fight this addiction around the drug.

Just thank you so much for doing what you did on that.

But here's what we want to try to do this morning. The we don't have a lot of time and so we're not going to try to go through a tedious thing through the steps. What what we thought we might do is, is, is approach the steps from a slightly different perspective. We're going to look that look at the steps through the eyes of a sponsor who is interested in getting you through the steps quicker

than you may have worked them yourself, or quicker than you may feel comfortable getting somebody through the work.

When

when I originally started studying the book 14 years ago, after I got to to

primary purpose group, one of the things that I realized real quick, one of the things that first stuck out was that there seems to be some urgency in the way the literature writes about the steps. Next, we launched that on the course of vigorous action, you remember these lines. There seems to be this, this kind of momentum that builds. You've made this decision to do this thing. And then there doesn't seem to be any place in the book where it says, well, now we sit on our butt for five months while we work on an inventory.

It didn't say that, it didn't say that. And so the, the what we found was was that if we kept a fire lit under this, if we just kind of turn the heat up a little bit, that these guys would work the work quicker and stay. And my, so my view in doing this thing is seen from 2 perspectives. One as as my first seven years in a a was, which is a meeting makers make it kind of guy where just come to the meeting

and the steps you can deal with whenever you want to deal with them. That was my perspective for a lot of years. And that's how I that's how I felt so bad. That's why I got so sick.

I I can also look at it from the perspective of 15 years of working with hundreds and hundreds of men, getting them through the work in a timely fashion, and watching with a great deal of personal satisfaction how many of those men and women stayed. How many people came, got excited about recovery and then stayed here

to help carry the message? And so that's kind of how we'll couch this will, will kind of approach it in that direction.

There's always people that want to take exception to it. And if you want to take two years to work your guys through the work, fine. I'm not here, Scout Honor, I'm not here to argue with you. I'm not here to debate you. I won't spend 2 seconds trying to debate that issue. I won't. If it works for you and you're comfortable with it, fine, fine. We're just trying to point, just give you another viewpoint,

just something you might consider and then you can judge for yourself whether or not you want to fool with it or not.

Of interest, I want to read you a couple of things real quick and I'm just going to this is only going to take about 10 minutes to do and then Chris is going to start us into the deal.

But this is the foundation that we're talking about.

Chris talked about a common solution last night and I and I on it's on page 17 in our books. I'll give you the, the page numbers. I was delinquent. I didn't find out whether or not our page numbers sync with your page numbers in your Swedish book. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. But I'll give you the page numbers anyway. In our, in our book, in the, in the American version of this. And then you can, you can sort it out later. At the bottom of page 17, there's a paragraph that we've all read before. It says the feeling of having shared in a common peril

one element in the powerful cement which binds us. Period. Now what they're telling us is, is that, I mean, there's nobody here that doesn't remember how cool it was to walk into an AAA meeting, right? We do. We know how cool it was to be in a room full of like minded people. But that in itself would never have held us together as we are now. Joined.

Yeah, I knew there was going to be a catch.

The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution, period.

See what Bill Wilson and Bob and those guys did when the 1st 100, when they wrote this, what they figured was is that they would, they would write this book which would give us a set of directions which would keep all of us in a common solution. We would be trying to do that. My experience working the steps and her experience working the steps may be two completely different things. How we reacted to the steps may be different. These are our individual experiences that are important,

but how we got from point a busted up little drunk to recovered alcoholic over here should be a lot more similar than they are worldwide. We have guys telling us over here to take take a step a year or a step a month or a step. What I mean, there's all these opinions about how we're supposed to do this stuff, and yet the literature gave us a pretty clear cut picture of what the steps were supposed to be like. And we've chosen to walk away from a lot of that in in a lot of our meetings, we do this.

And so keeping that, keeping that in mind,

turn over to page 24.

I'll read it. You don't have to do it if you if you, if you don't want to do that, they,

you guys have read this 100 times. But, but, but I'm gonna read this again. The fact is that most Alcoholics, for reasons get obscure, have lost the power of choice and drink or so-called willpower becomes practically non existent. We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.

Bill Wilson and Bob and those cats were trying to tell us going in, you're not going to have but just a little piece of time there

in order to get this stuff started. You better be on a spiritual path fairly quickly or you won't remember. How many times have you guys done this where you walked into a treatment center and there was a guy in there who was so beat up this this little fried pie guy, he's just burnt to a crisp and he's sitting there and you start talking to him a little bit and he's and he's compliant. He wants to do anything you want to do. He's I'm ready to do this

terrific, but because the treatment center sets it up so we can't do any step work while they're in treatment.

We have to wait until they're almost out of treatment. So now we got this guy that's ready and willing to do anything. He need a handful of spiders if you gave them to him, he do anything. So 27 days later, we walked back to the treatment center and we walk in and we're looking for Sam. Where is Sam? He we're going to do some step work today. We're going to start his deal and you're looking around

and he's Sam and there's this little arrogant piss Ant sitting back. It's the back wall. He's got his arms folded like this.

You ready to go, buddy? You ready to do the work?

What for? I'm OK. See, Sam has had 27 days of good food, some exercise. He's had the flow torch back off his rear end for 27 days. He's bulletproof. That's what the book is talking about. He's passed the window. He's done. Now he's the arrogance and the ego has begun to rekindle itself. And here is a little guy that's not nearly as compliant as he was. He didn't care. He. We call it the A. A Trinity, the job, the girl in the car,

That's all he cares about,

is it? That's it. He all he wants to know is can I get my job back so I can get a car? If I can get a car, I can get the girl and if I can get the girl, girl, what I I'm okay. I could always stay sober if I could do that, right? Well, we know that's not true. Chris is going to talk about this stuff. I mean, it's just, it's ridiculous. But there is the window mist and, and, and because of the nature of alcoholism and the resurgence of this arrogance and this ego, we are in real danger.

We think we're OK. Our head sells us the idea that we're OK, but we're really not. And that's the reason why there there is indeed some urgency in getting started quickly in this stuff.

I one more thing and then I'll sit down and Chris could go ahead and start on this thing in, in, in how it works in chapter 5 in the States. They read this before every meeting non-stop. It gets so tired of hearing it. Sometimes you want to weep. We don't read it in our group because of that reason, but the the

we read some other stuff until we until you want to. We want to weep, but it's it's

there was two qualifying deals. It said if you have decided you want what we have and or willing to go to any length to get it period or hyphen there, then you're ready to take certain steps. They ask you two questions. So my little buckaroo here that was sick last night that still sick this morning. He's here. He just walked in. We're going to ask him two questions. Hey Slick, have you decided you want what we have?

OK? Are you willing to go to any link to get it?

What's it say next guys? Then you're ready to take certain steps. That's it. That was only that was that was where we were trying to get that get the guy in the 1st place. Once he's there and he's made that commitment, there's no sense waiting for him to sit there for six months to get comfortable in the States. We hear this so much. It drives me insane. Just just, well,

we wanted to be comfortable first. Why? Why? If he's comfortable, he won't do it.

I want him sitting there in our first meeting. I want him sitting there ringing his hands. I want him in tears. I don't want him comfortable. Well, we need to let him get all get. Listen,

Bill Wilson's in Towns Hospital. What is he? 3 days? And he begins doing the work. He's there what, seven days total? I forget. But Doctor Bob, within a week he's done through the stuff. Dodson's the same way. All of these guys meant they didn't waste anytime. Go back and look at Clarence Snyder, who was one of the original early guys in a a look at his memoirs and look at how long it took most of these guys to do the work.

I'll tell you this and then I'll sit down.

In the last

May, in the last 10 or 11 years anyway, I have sponsored

hundreds and hundreds of men through the work.

And I can tell you without any problem at all that in those, in those instances, none of my men have taken more than 45 or 50 days to work through the work. That's a month, a month and 1/2 at the outside to work through that work. There was simply no reason to waste a bunch of time.

And the idea that we have to take time is one of the opinions that we hear in a, a that's founded on things that are opinions because the literature tells us just the opposite. So stick with us. If it feels uncomfortable, welcome it. It felt uncomfortable for me too. I fought it to tooth and nail. I I mean, really tooth and nail. I just know we can't do this with these guys. It takes six months. It takes a year take. No, it doesn't. And and as you begin to get into this thing like that. So let me ask you this question.

If you were sponsoring one man, you could effectively take a year to get him through the work and it wouldn't be such a big deal, probably. But what happens if you're getting asked 10 times a week to sponsor somebody? What happens if you're trying to sponsor 30 men at a time? Now, some of you are going, no, you can't do that. Yeah, you can. Yeah, you can. But you can't do it the old way. You can't do it the way you've been taught to do it. You'll have to look at it from a different perspective in order to do that. And once you hit, once you do it, there's nothing cooler

on God's green earth. Then they watch a sea of men in front of you recovering from this hopeless disease based on the steps that you laid in front of them. It's the most, it's the most amazing thing you'll ever experience. It'll be a good morning, I promise you.

He's he's so rigid.

My name is Chris Rayburn, recovered alcoholic and drug addict.

I thanks for coming back.

Already been asked some great questions and I know that we've got some folks here that weren't here last night. And so I want to just briefly

kind of give you a 5 second disclaimer so you'll kind of know where we're coming from.

We're here to share some thoughts based on our experience about working the steps and sponsorship. And you guys are free to agree or disagree. So one of the things I said last night, I think most of you took the heart. I know some of you didn't because of your comments afterwards.

You were so free to agree or disagree with anything we say. We're not here representing a a we're not here trying to push into some kind of an agenda. Our experience comes from the the the perspective of what happened to us.

I nearly died getting to Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm seven years in and out. I'm a relapse and fool at the end of seven years, tried to commit suicide because I couldn't get this. You follow. I'm going to meetings and they're telling me to keep coming back and I'm doing that. But I can't stay sober if y'all look in the first step

says, you know, we admitted we were powers over alcohol that our lives were unmanageable. You'll follow and treatment center is what we want to do is we want to use that unmanageability. We want to look at the outside stuff that my life is unmanageable out there. That's not what the big books saying the big book is talking of unmanageability is internal. This is where the little

the little buckery, the little issue man pins that you that we they're everywhere. Some of you guys have got them on don't even know what they are, but it means if you wear one of these, it means you're gay and then like

that it doesn't. I assure you it issue man at issue what we do in this little lecture tools. It's like on the out. I mean I I don't have a little piece of paper here, but y'all, y'all can see the little is bigger. Can you see that? If you close one eye, you can see them better.

These little, these little XS on the outside or the outside issues. This is the unmanageability that everybody wants to talk about. This little dark spot and there's a little heart area is the unmanageability. That's the spiritual malady that the book talks about, and that's what we're going to talk about real quick

morning. But it's this internal stuff that keeps me in trouble. You keep telling me to keep coming back. Everything's going to be OK, and you want me to sit close. And we have to love him until he can love himself. Just just,

so I sit there and exactly what my brother just talked about, I, I do well for the first few days until this internal condition starts to come back and then I start to implode. You know, I start to come apart at the scenes and, and then my head says it's time to go take a drink and I go drink. And then you throw it back in my face. But I just didn't want it.

And that's, and that's, this is what took me to a suicide attempt in 1987. And finally in 87, somebody sat down and they, for the first time, they qualified me. They, they, they asked me some specific questions so I could get off the damn fence. We've got cats all over the world in Alcoholics Anonymous sitting on the fence. You know what that means? Sitting on the fence. And maybe it's a Texas expression. It's like one minute I know I'm an alcoholic and the next minute

I think I'm a hard drinker.

I think I'm having a little, little problem with my so you got to get off the fence one way or another. If you're not one of us, go away. That's one way. If you are, let's do the work and then you can get in the trench and help us carry the message of hope and help others get well. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. So before I go on with this, I just want to make perfectly clear, you know, I got accused to take it a as inventory last night and I I love Alcoholics Anonymous and I just, you know, the treatment centers the way Myers just

it removes the urgency to do the work. I could talk for two hours on what happened to our fellowship. And, and I know some of you guys who came in, you did the work, you got sober, you've never had a problem. And you're looking around like saying, what's the big deal?

I'm so happy that you had that experience. But for many of us, we didn't have that experience. And you, you, I can't argue with your reality and you can't argue with mine. I sat in Alcoholics Anonymous for seven years

without any direction. Now whose fault was that? Ultimately mine. I could have asked for some direction.

I didn't know what to ask.

Jeez. We assume that the newcomer is going to know

you follow. That's how we've gotten in such trouble in our fellowships. I don't know what sponsorship is. I don't know where the big book is. I don't even know where the freaking bathroom is. And you want me to figure this out? I know you came and you got yours and so you're happy and content.

Well, why can't you get yours? Maybe I was in worse shape than you were. Maybe I landed in a group that didn't understand our primary purpose. Makes sense. Alcoholics Anonymous in the United States is a self help program.

Do you hear me? It may not be here in the United States. It's a self help program. You come in, we're going to show you some ways to keep yourself away from alcohol. Is it any wonder that we don't all get confused? If you look at the big book, the big books got some pretty rigid directions. These are some clear cut, specific directions on how to have this thing called a spiritual experience. And then you turn around and somebody hands you a piece of crap literature like it's called living sober.

Without a ate produced in 19 what early seventies 72 this living sober book now you take that it'll tell you listen if you want to stay sober, just don't get too hungry, angry, lonely or tired. Let me see this says I need to work some steps and have a spiritual experience. This just go over here says I just need to not get too hungry, angry, lonely, tired,

absolute crap. Is it any wonder that we confuse this the you with us? This book says we have a spiritual experience. We get well, but you can pick up any copy of the Grapevine and they'll put they'll produce an article just telling you to do this any way you want. So you know, the problem is not that the steps are not worked correctly because I don't think it's that critical. I think the steps are pretty open and roomy. The problem is, is that we're not working them at all

with the guys that I'm sponsoring. That's basically what I'm seeing. You follow, you do a three column four step, or a four column four step, or an 8 column expanded four step. I don't think it really makes a bit of difference. I think the longer you're survived sober, the more you can do different things. You know,

the problem is not that you did a weird goofy kind of four step. The problem is you didn't do a four step at all.

And that's what we're seeing all over the world. People are talking about the steps, but they're not doing Jack. And the reason we're dragging it out too long makes sense. If we mess around too long with this, my ego is going to rebuild itself. The the internal conditions going to come back and we're going to use again. So that's where we're at. The guys that in 1987, they qualified me that first night and they spent the next morning reviewing it, making sure that I understood.

They watched me up in North Texas pick up chips for seven years and

and I just I couldn't stay. I wanted to stay sober. I needed to stay sober and and and I could stay sober for short periods of time. I'm I'm a two week wonder. I under under the weakest excuse in the world. I can stay sober for two weeks. You'll follow me if she's particularly good looking. I've known to a month once before, but at the end of the month she got ugly quick and then just like up time for me to go and I

we lose all of our reasoning. So but these guys, they qualified me. What Myers is referring to is, is that the book talks about Joe and Charlie. You know, Joe and Charlie fame and they were big ones about bringing the the bottom up. If you come in here questioning whether you're an alcoholic or an addict or not, that's good. And my job is a responsible member of AA is to qualify you and help you figure this out. If you come in here without a good case of alcoholism, I need to give you one. Makes sense. It's not talk you into being one of us. It's to show you your truth

based on your experience.

Walks like a duck, cracks like a duck.

It's a duck. Why we freak people out is that we walk like ducks, we quack like nuts and we think we're cats

and it really creeps our families out. They think they're, they're kind of weirded out about this whole thing. So, So what we got to do with the newcomers? We got to help him figure this out. What what happens is we want to get distracted. These guys will come to treatment and the treatment centers and we tell them when they get there says, well, you know, you're, you know, you're an alcoholic and you're a drug addict and you know, you're, you're this is a disease. And we talked to him about the progressive nature and the genetic predisposition and we, we get them kind of statement. They start to kind of look, oh, oh, I see, I'm not,

I'm just, I'm sick and I see this. And, and so we're going to tell them we're about the disease concept and we're going to get, and they get all excited. Then they go to therapy Rd. over there where they sit and stuck to the therapist and therapists say OK so now tell me why you drink.

Oh, because I'm an alcoholic. Oh yes, well that's yeah. But why do you really drink?

You follow. This is what we do, and we just confuse the daylights out of the people that we're trying to help. I drink first and foremost because I'm an alcoholic, folks. I said it last night, and I know I scalded some of you and I didn't intend to, but I'm going to say it again.

I if you're drinking because of something out there and that's the only reason you're drinking, and let's do some good therapy around that out there. The X is the external stuff and then maybe you don't have to drink over it. What a concept, huh? That's what hard drinkers do. That's what drug abusers do.

But the real alcoholic of the real drug addict will not be able to stop giving sufficient reason. We can do all the therapy in the world. In the United States, we put Alcoholics and addicts in jail. I don't know what they do here in Sweden, but they born. There was a bunch of on the street last night. They were howling. I was wide awake at 4:00 in the morning. They were howling outside. I went, We were downtown. They were partying like a son of a gun. I was like oh buddy

just drop dead good looking blonde girl puking her guts out. I was like, buddy I, that looks like so much fun

out there. Freezing to death at 4, throwing up. Oh my gosh, those were the days.

I spent ten years in therapy trying to fix the problem. And every time I turn around, they were trying to help me with another issue. And at the end they just throw up their hands. And what we really don't understand because we worked it on this and you can't stay sober. And this is, I'm not knocking therapy because I think all of us need therapy. I think especially if you can afford it, good heavens do it. I mean, it's a great way to

unknot your life in a hurry, I can assure you of that. But all the therapy in the world is not going to fix this problem.

This is a problem that the book says can only be treated spiritually by that spiritual experience. And that's what we're trying to help help you find.

When I sat down, these guys finally qualified me. It was like a weight lifted off my shoulders. It's like it's a death sentence. But at least now I know what's wrong with me. What took me to that suicide attempt was just frustration because I can see you quit. I'm sitting in the meeting and the idiot in the back to you know, I got up this morning and I chose not to drink.

Rock on. You know, I got up this morning and chose not to drink and by 10:00 I changed my mind

and I can't. I can't not. You know, my friend DJ says, at what point does I change my mind, qualify for insanity?

That's what we're doing. I mean, giving good reason. I know it's ruining my life, but I can't remember the consequences like my brother just talked about. And so, and I, my head says it's time to go use. And, and what we're seeing now in the States, of course, is this mass exodus to the pills because, because that's OK, because it's not drugs. It's that's medication.

No comma, it's not, it's, it's drugs for most of us. But anyway, I sat down and these guys opened the big booking for the first time. This is my story, folks. And I'm telling you, you can't argue with it.

For the first time, somebody qualified me. I'm an A A for seven years and nobody ever qualified me to find out if I was an alcoholic. This is a self diagnosed you call, you're an alcoholic if you say you're an alcoholic. This is just not true.

You're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. If you say you're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, you'll follow.

In order to be an alcoholic, you've got to have certain symptoms. And this is what we got to help the newcomer find out. This is the most urgent thing that we need to do with a newcomer is to make sure that they understand they're one of us. If they have a thing called a first step experience, people they want to argue, there's no such thing as a first step experience. Yes, it is when this thing sinks into your psyche and you know that you're one of us and it finally dawns on you that you're suffering from a fatal illness. You, it's like a, it's like being diagnosed with cancer. You will not feel comfortable in your skin.

I watch him in treatment. Oh, guess what? I understand first step now. I understand first step now. No, you don't,

because you'd be in the bathroom puking if you understood the first step. Anyway,

this is what it looks like. Alcoholics and drug addicts have three specific areas that they need to look at. There's a mental piece, a physical piece, and a spiritual piece. The physical piece is the easiest for most people to understand. Even even Oprah understands this.

Just the line is drawn right there. When Alcoholics drink, there's a phenomena called craving and kicks in. Doctor Silkworth

truly understood this. He was one of the first medical doctors that started putting the pieces together. He could see similarities. When we look around this room, guys was a cross section of humanity in here. We've got some beautiful people in this room. We have a couple of pretty damn homely people in here too. I need to tell you, we got some rich people in here, poor people in here, black people, white people, gay people, straight people. The one thing that ties us together though, is this disease. We all have the same symptoms. I can ask the 19 year old to answer this question or the 90 year old

and the answer is going to be yes or no. You follow, it's going to be the same. That's why we got to stop separating our diseases out so, so much. It's you to got it or you don't. Physical. When I put alcohol in my body, can I control how much I put in there every time or does this phenomenon of craving kick in and make me drink more than I intended? Sometimes I can drink normally. I was a functioning alcoholic for years, folks. I had a social life in corporate America. I didn't every time I drank. I didn't black out every time I

drank. I didn't get drunk

later in the illness as it progressed, I did make sense, but the book doesn't ask me. Did you ever black out? Did you ever rob a liquor store? Did you ever wreck a car? Didn't ask those questions. That says, did you lose control and drink more than you intended?

If yes or no, you know, yeah, I give everybody one bonus puke. When you're a kid, you know, and you don't know what alcohol will do to you, Just drink until you explode. You know, you've got in the front yard puking straight up and then and you and you're sitting there think I'm never going to do this again. And normal drinkers don't, you know, they go, I'm never going to do that again. They drink a couple of drinks. Oh, no, I'm starting to feel that way again. I'm going to stop,

not us. We do it again. So the question I guess we could just one down about the craving is did you ever get sick more than once?

Next topic OK,

let the record show that was a yes. OK, but that doesn't make me an alcoholic. At that point, it's like being allergic to a food. You'll follow. It's just it's like, it's like if if you're allergic to iodine and shellfishes, you can't eat shellfish. You eat it, you get sick, says jeez, I can't eat shellfish and you don't eat it anymore. At this point it's the same. Oh my gosh, when I drink alcohol, sometimes I over drink, Stop drinking. That's where Nancy Reagan came in. Just say no,

don't hear. She took a full fall and busted her hip.

Sorry,

just say no is kill more people than anything else I can think of, folks. I mean I what a waste of you as taxpayer dollars if I could just say no. I mean good heavens. I mean how? How

second piece up the doctor's opinion up to page 23 in our textbook. It talks about the physical. On the top of page 23 it says it talks about the crux of the problem being on mind rather than our body. You'll follow. Detox gets us past the physical craving. Once I got this stuff out of my system, there's no more craving involved. There's obsession involved. Now you follow and that's what we have to there's there's over 24 in the United States right now. There's over 24 anti craving drugs coming down the Pike.

We have absolutely none for obsession, which is the pissing. Because that's the crux of the problem is the obsession. That's what the book is trying to say. Top of page 24. It talks about the mental obsession. The fact is that most Alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink.

Jesus Christ, you be the lost the power of choice and drink or you've not.

This choice is so controversial.

Well, once you Alcoholics put it in your body, you've got no choice.

But before you put it in your body, you do. I've heard it a million times. That's not true. That's a lie. And we've got therapists all over the world teaching that. We've got psychiatrists and doctors teaching that. We've got professors

that don't understand the symptom that kills Alcoholics and addicts is this thing called the mental obsession. My mind says when I just come out of a DWI. I've just I've been faced with a divorce. I'm not going to do this anymore.

And I think I can manage the decision to stay stopped and get the book clearly on page 24 in the next 20 pages. It explains I don't have a choice whether I'm gonna drink. I have thousands of choices. Folks. Don't let me let you. We're not letting the alcoholic off the hook. People. Go, go swing back the other way on that one. Well, you're just letting them off the hook if you're telling them they don't have a choice. They're just going to use card watch. No, we got thousands of choices. I didn't know that. I got a choice this morning to get up and pray and meditate.

I got a choice to come to conferences like this and expand my mind and learn to work the steps to turn around and help the newcomer. I make choices every day to stay connected spiritually. Guys, this is not a self help program. I work the steps and get connected spiritually and God removes the obsession to drink.

Make sense?

I can walk down on that street with Myers last night and get a little quick bite and watch people doing cocaine and watch people drinking and never once be bothered by it. Why? Because I have recovered the tents. That promises have come true for me. I've been placed in the position of neutrality, safe and protected. That's where I want everybody in the world to be.

This idea that treatment centers teach is that if we can teach you to just watch for your triggers, everything will be OK.

Sorry, just won't work. If you can choose not to drink, then do it. If your experience shows that you've chosen not to do it, but you do it anyway, you're in the right place. That's what kills alcoholic fanatics real quick. I'll let you go because Myers are going to pick up some rest of these. We're going to do some of this. We're going to show you how to get through these steps at a pretty good clip

when I sit down with a newcomer, I go over this stuff with him the physical piece the mental piece and gonna clarify right then and there do you understand this can you identify with this Nine times out of 10, the results of the reaction, you're gonna get it. Oh my gosh, it makes perfect sense now why I do this in the first time that's why one of us is Alcoholics an addicts. We're so able to help other people like nobody else can because we've been there. One other piece that I hit on that I don't ever skip is that mental, The excuse me, the spiritual malady piece, because

got to tell you guys, nobody wants to talk about that. I guess because the word spiritual is involved. We got to talk about God. But the spiritual malady, the spiritual illnesses is real as can be.

If

this is alcohol or drugs, which is the truth,

the world out there, including most of the treatment centers that I've been associated with and have been around, believe that if I would just don't drink. Everything will be okay

if you're a hard drinker.

If you're real alcoholic, that's not true.

If you're hard drinker, detox is as hard as it's gonna get. If you're a real alcoholic,

it's just fixing to get tough

after detox.

I can detox and start feeling pretty good. How many of us? We talked about it last night, we're feeling great. We're jumping around. Oh my gosh, who knew it was going to feel this good? And then the internal condition comes back. Let me describe the symptoms of the spiritual malady, the little dark part and the little issue. Man, the spiritual malady looks like this. How about irritable, restless, and discontent? Talks about the doctor's opinion. Guys, when you're not drinking and drugging, forget the stuff in your system. You're goofy when you drink and drug. That's a given. When I'm not drinking and drugging. How about have you noticed the times when you were irritable wrestlers and

you can't Anxious, bored, depressed #1 symptom of alcoholism and drug addiction is depression. Nothing. And we medicated with a pill every stupid day. The largest prescribed medication on the face of the earth today is antidepressants. Makes me want to puke.

Not knocking them. The fact that it's the largest prescribed medication on earth makes me want to puke.

Am I suffering from depression or my second from untreated alcoholism?

Page 52 the bedevilments you trouble having trouble in personal relationships when you're not drinking.

My first life use coaches. I don't know what you did up there that A and a place, but I like you better drunk

and me too Hun. Let's go.

I understand that. Trouble making a living. What are you doing with the money when you get it? No sense of direction, Low self esteem. Does it sound familiar? When I'm not drinking, guys, I don't do better. I do worse. The problem is not to drink The it's not the cocaine. It's not the pills.

The problem is the untreated alcoholism that the alcohol in the pills treat.

Does that make sense?

Your families don't understand this guy. If you just leave the dope alone, everything would be OK. Your external world will get okay. Those little exes will get okay, but this internal condition will start to come back. That's why we watch people 3456 months out who haven't worked the steps relapse. Why do they relapse? Because they're so damned uncomfortable in their skin. They can't stand it. They're driving down the road just irritable, restless and discontent. And there's like grinding their teeth and it's like, I hate my life. I just, I just

you could probably smoke a joint.

Where did that voice come from?

Pot. That's that's the ticket. Yeah. It's natural. It's yeah,

it's it's legal in some spots.

And before you know it, you've talked yourself into doing something really, really stupid. You put the pot in your body, the physical craving is triggered. The same area of the brain that lights up with a cocaine lights up before the night's over. You. You're you're you're looking for cocaine. You got a beer in your hand. How did this happen? How did it happen?