The Doctor's Opinion at the workshop

I'm Roger. I'm an alcoholic. Good to be with you. I need to

try and make some things clear before I start. First, I'd like to introduce my imaginary friend Dennis.

Dennis can't make it. He's on the West Coast on a trip for work, so unfortunately the good cop is not here.

Dennis kind of is the guy that rounds my edges for me.

There are no way authorities. I'm not an A authority, I'm not an A historian. I'm not anointed. I'm not approved.

I am simply an alcoholic who's recovered using the text that we study, the big Book and and the steps inside it and the traditions. And I haven't had a drink since October 11th, 1978.

So I'm an expert on my experience. I'm not an expert on yours or anything else, but I I was raised by some really nasty guys in

a A and they gave me a A straight. They didn't dress it up, they didn't make it pretty. They didn't.

They didn't encourage me to wait till I feel better or I'm ready. They didn't do any of that stuff. But they also didn't go around beating me up. That might be God

or the pizza guy.

So

for you to know if what I'm relating to you is accurate, you're going to have to study. You're going to study the big book, the 12 and 12 AA comes of age, Doctor Bob and the good old timers pass it on. You're going to have to study that stuff because that's our history and everything I'm going to say you should be able to find either literally or in principle in those books. If I don't say that, it's clearly

clearly something I've made-up. It may work for me, but it may not work for you.

So that's the kind of stuff they would say to me and I, and that's how I got into the book actually, because they'd say stuff and I go, we'll see about that, you know, and I go, where is that? And they go, it's somewhere in the 1st 164 pages. You know what page, I don't know, go find it, you know. And that's, that's what I tell, that's what I tell guys that I sponsor. I say, if I if what I tell you is not in this book, then you can tell me

to take a flyer. And they love that idea

and it gets them into the text. It gets them looking for ways to tell me to

to buzz off. The service man would be another one thing you might want to look at, especially if you have trouble sleeping.

It will. It works every time.

There's good information in there before we get into this

exercise. Part of this is its foundational, you know,

I need to know what a A is and what it isn't. I need to know when I'm in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous or when I'm in a meeting of a version of it. Because I don't need versions. I don't need, I don't need a A2 point O or a a light. I just need a A, whatever the hell that is. And I was blessed to be around some guys that knew what it was and their commitment was to have it be there for me

the way they got it. My commitment has been the same for the guys that I'm blessed enough to have in my life that I can aim and teach and and study with and guide. That's the deal. We don't need your version of this. We just need this version preserved because it works really well when it's done. So a A came from a lot of different sources. We got pieces from medicine, from Silkworth, physical allergy, mental obsession. We got piece of Carl Jung, the necessity

of the psychic change, Silkworth had observed. That hadn't quite they called it a moral psychology.

Jung, before they translate all this stuff, said you got to find God. I mean that was

they took all the gutter Carl Jung stuff when they translated it. But he was a big God guy. He was a big spirit guy. He was a multi dimensional guy.

We got some stuff out of the Oxford Group, we got some stuff. Some of the greatest stuff we got, we got by accident.

We got by accident, you know,

example,

Abby, I have, you know, the, the famous conversation at the kitchen table with Bill and Ebby and Bill's drinking and Abby's showing up to try and, and carry this new discovery. He's found he hasn't had a drink in several weeks and he's on fire, you know? And Bill's going, oh, Jesus, here we go. And

in the book, when Bill's talking about this

part of the conversation,

he says, my friend looked at me and said, why don't you choose your own conception of God?

And all my prejudice melted away. And you know, now that idea was not an Oxford Group idea.

And when you hear Ebby tell that story, I got some recordings of Abby. I think I do radio interviews talking about that. And his version of that was quite different than Bills. He said, Christ, I've been talking to Bill for hours. I finally threw up my hands and said choose your own damn conception of God and I left.

Now who cares? Who cares? Ebby was not a learned guy. Ebby was not a student of anything. He was a spoiled rich kid in the drunk and he wasn't real bright. But that idea? Choose your own conception of God

along with progress, not perfection, made it possible for guys like me to come in the door. You know, you read the original manuscript, which is a which is the piece I really dig. I like it. I like the the attitude of it, you know, but it's a blessing that that's not what we sanctified because none of us would probably be in this room if that was the deal because we would say screw you.

And that's why they changed it, because when they talked about, they said, you know, no one likes to be talked. We don't like to be talked to like that,

you know, and it

conceptually it's true. You know, if you've gotten to this point, you're ready to leap, you're ready to take this third step thing. And if and if you're not ready, either toss the book or start over again because you've missed something. They give us all that stuff. Coming up to the third step, just to answer the questions of the 1st 2 steps. Am I powerless? Is my life unmanageable?

Do I believe in a power? Am I willing to believe in a power? And if the answers to any of those are no, you got to go back and start over because you can't do this

half assed. It just doesn't work. I have life experience.

It doesn't work.

11 1/2 steps, 2 steps, one step. It just doesn't work. It's a 12 step program, so

lots of different influences. Also, Christ was a big influence in these guys. Not the religion of Christ, but the teaching of Christ. They called it. They referred it as 1st century Christianity, which was Christianity before there was a church for it. OK. What Christ thought was consciousness, He taught being,

and there's a thing in his teachings called the law of life, and everyone's familiar with it. We call it karma. It's what I think, say and do to you will be done unto me.

Eastern discipline calls it karma. They've been talking about it for thousands of years. It's not a new idea. It's not a new idea, but try it on. And when when you come and you say you won't believe what they've done to me, now, you know, I got my new resentment, you know, and I lay it out there. And the question I always ask is, have you ever done that to anyone? I've never had a guy say no.

I've never had a guy say no. Oh, I've never lied. I've never stolen. I've never cheated. I've never said I was going to do one thing and do another thing. I've never, no. You've done that.

You've done that. You didn't do that because you were bad. You did it 'cause you were sick, did it 'cause you were warped.

My head didn't let me know that for years. So

here's a couple things I'm going to read that are going to be very familiar, but I want to read them because it's a AS message. It's not my message, it's a AS message. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. Common problem. Alcoholism.

OK. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. We're all familiar with that tradition. Desire to stop drinking. You got a desire to stop drinking? Yes, I do. That means you can be in the meeting drunk. Doesn't mean you can disrupt it, but it means you have a right to be there. The only question is, do you have a desire? How the hell do I know if you have a desire? I don't. But it allows us to have the space to come in and find out,

and if we're going to have guys at the door judging who's got a desire or not, we're going to be in deep Doo Doo.

You know, I had a desire to disrupt the meeting,

you know, and I would wrap that little tradition around when they go. Yeah, yeah, you have a right to be here, but you don't have a right to disrupt.

I thought that's rather narrow, you know, But I I need to give you a picture where I was at when I came here. Kidney and liver damage. I was bleeding from every orifice in my body.

I had a distended liver. I had been hospitalized for barbiturate poisoning. I had a huge amphetamine habit. I had drank

as far as I could, as long as I could, and I couldn't drink anymore. I hadn't filed taxes, federal or state, in five years. I had warrants and a half dozen states now. I was not a bank robber,

but these were states that if I would have been found in, I would have gone to jail. And so I had really interesting routes crossing the country, especially from here out West and down South. It was rather, you know, why are we going through North Carolina? Because we can't go through anything east of here to the Mississippi.

I had a divorce. I had restraining orders going both ways, and I had been running a little entrepreneurial exercise,

import export business. And the front for that was a motorcycle gang that I hung with when I wasn't doing other stuff. And they fronted me a lot of money. And I had a problem when I got loaded, I got generous.

And I just want us all to get loaded, you know. And I owed them many thousands of dollars. They were not interested in my spiritual evolution. And the truth is

the word was that they were going to kill me. But the truth is they knew where I was, and they could have killed me at any time. But I lived in absolute terror Between the motorcycle gang and the IRS. You know, that's enough to keep anyone drinking. And

oh, I had about ten $15,000 worth of bad checks. My concept, my financial concept was a little

tweaked and I thought if I had checks, I had money

and other people didn't agree. But I papered a lot of saloon walls with my checks. So anyway, you would, you would think. Plus I was a devout atheist. I was an evangelical atheist. I bailed on church when I was 12,

so that's what I showed up with here.

I didn't go to treatment. I sobered up on the street

in a flophouse. I was limited and I had two drunks babysit me. One is dead

from drinking and one is still drinking, as far as I know. And it took, I don't know, somewhere between 7:00 and 9:00 days. And I shook everything at the same time. Not recommended. And I probably the only reason I survived it was 'cause I was young and I was pretty strong. At least my plumbing was strong. And when I came out of that detox,

the very first coherent thought that my brain constructed

well, I'm sure not going to a a

followed by I'll do this my way. My dad sobered up 10 years in front of me. So I knew what about AAI had read this big book the last several years. I drank and I'll report to you. I didn't get a lot out of it, but I sure as hell knew what I was. I was an alcoholic. I was one of these guys, but I had made the decision. Screw it,

I'm going to die. That's what I'm going to do. And I got my diagnosis when I was

in the back end of my 26th year, and the doctor that interviewed me and did the test that I had about 12 to 18 months to live if I kept doing what I was doing. My response to that was relief.

And I went back and I just drank till I couldn't drink it. And being an atheist, I couldn't have God surrender me.

Doctor Bob talked about this in some of his writings. The bottle surrendered some guys. And that's what my experience was. I was drinking in my bar like shots and beer, shots and beer. I would come. Bar drinkers will understand this. You have your stool, your drink, your bartender. God, it was a beautiful thing. God, I just loved it. You just come and you would sit down and you if you had money, you'd put it on the table and they knew it. You were OK and if not, they knew you were running a tab and you just stare at the bar and wait for your drinks to appear

and everyone knew. Don't even talk to him till the third one, you know, I just love that. I just thought that was so damn respectful. It was just so nice. I just felt so damn good about me. And and so I'm in there drinking and it's a rough bar and I was not a rough guy. That's not the picture I'm painting, but the bar was owned by the biker gang and they were selling everything in the world out the back door and around the country. And I was there

because I the band I was in played at some of their functions and they liked me because I was crazy.

They honored insanity. And so I was under this umbrella of protection so I could be there. Now I'm drinking and my whiskey comes out my nose. I've got 2 problems. One, Did anyone see that?

And the second one is, how am I going to get that off the bar into my mouth?

Being a keen possessor of a giant intellect, I surmised I was suffering from amphetamine deficiency. So I ran in the bathroom, take a handful of speed, and I couldn't swallow it. And I walked out of the bar that night crying. And I said, I'm done. I can't do this. That's what I went back to the flophouse and announced my detox. I had no idea that I had taken the first step,

but I am blessed because I was the hopeless variety. I didn't get a little couple of consequences here and running. Get an assessment, decide I need to do something about this. I ran it beyond,

beyond any control at all. And I was stopped. I wasn't, I didn't stop me. I was stopped. Do you understand what I'm saying? And I didn't believe in anything except me and Smith and Wesson. So it couldn't be a God thing, you know? And I was not looking forward to a sober life. I was not thinking, oh boy, now I can go to a A and I can grow up and be like my dad, you know, not thinking that

that thought I had. I'll do this my way

is how I got there. I did everything my way

in AAA. You will do it our way. You will not do it your way 'cause your way doesn't work. That's what they told me. Your way doesn't work. So

we will.

I will. I think you will too

not do this a a thing until you're convinced you have no other option.

Because when we balk like I bought, I didn't have a problem with being an alcoholic. I didn't have a problem with being powerless over alcohol or having unmanageable life. I had a problem with the other eleven steps, so I just thought I wouldn't do them

and I thought it was clear I had a drinking problem.

It was crystal clear I had a drinking problem, so I quit drinking now. Then the logic follows that I have now taken care of the problem.

If that was true, we wouldn't be here.

We'd all stop drinking and we'd just go back and build a new life or resume the life we had. I'm not like Jim and Fred in the big book, the car salesman and the accountant. I'm not like those guys. They had one problem, just couldn't drink. Everything else were great. Had these wonderful lives. Everyone liked them, had families, good position in the community,

everyone respected them. Not a problem, just this little thing with alcohol.

And I would, I read those stories for years I thought, God, these are guys that I would want to kill. These are guys that I hate just intuitively because they've got everything that I don't have

this one little problem with alcohol. And then it dawned on me what they were saying. Look at

Roger.

These guys just had this one little problem with drinking and it brought him down and it totally trashed their lives. Now, Roger, do you have any areas like this that are working? No, I don't. I don't have a family. I don't have friends. I have to go grocery shopping at 2:00 in the morning so I can see who's parked in the parking lot. I can't answer the phone. I can't answer the door. There's people looking for me. That's the life I have.

That's the life I have. So

I got this little problem.

I think I know better. It's insane, but that's why we balk because somewhere in here I think I know better. Now I'll give you there's some mess out here. There's some evidence that I don't know better. But as long as I'm not talking to you and I'm just talking to me, having that little meeting with myself, I can say I know better. I think I can do this. I think I can be a one step guy.

I think I got all the information I need. I can't drink successfully.

I copped to the allergy, absolutely. I'll cop to the obsession of the mind, absolutely. And the phenomenon of craving. Check, check, check, check, check. No problem. So therefore I'm not drinking. Have a new life.

If you've done this, you know where I'm going. Everything got worse.

I got sober, I'm going to meetings and I'm hearing everyone go, how do I haven't had a drink in six months and my life is just I haven't had a drink in here and I'm over there. I'm in the back of the room going make a list. Who wants to go first? I mean, I literally, I literally was planning how to kill everyone in the meeting.

I'm serious.

I'm serious.

And all I heard was I came to AA and everything got better. And I'm thinking I came to AA. Everything has gotten worse. They didn't like that message. They didn't want to hear that, you know, And I didn't have any connection with anyone in the fellowship except my dad's example and a few other guys that I was watching from afar. But I sure as hell didn't have a sponsor. I sure as hell couldn't do your book because I already knew. I couldn't do eleven of your steps because I didn't believe in God.

Two,

do you believe? No. OK, 3 then I'm not going to do that because I'm not going to make a decision to turn my thinking in my life, thinking of my actions over to something I don't believe in for inventory. Interesting concept. Read ahead. They want you to tell this to someone. If I do that, I'm either going to be in the hospital or jail. Forget that. Six and seven more. God got no use for that 8:00 and 9:00 restitution. Interesting.

So you think I may have harmed you? I think I may have harmed you too. We'll agree. But,

but I think I know better. I think that if you did happen to experience some retribution along the way, it was probably mercifully dispensed and you probably actually had more coming than you got. So let's just call that even now. 10 step, moving right along. 10 step. I got no inventory chops. So I don't any reason to watch for selfish dishonesty presentment and fear because frankly, I'm not even there. I'm not going there not even thinking about that. I'm just living it. All right, 11

meditation. Got no concept. Prayer. Oh, brothers, sisters, put your hand on the TV. That's right. We're going to straighten your curly hair. We're going to curl your straightened hair. We're going to get rid of the liver spots. And by the way, send 15 bucks. Meditation. Interesting concept. My concept. You said meditation. I saw a little guy in a diaper in the Himalayas hovering about two feet off the ground,

so I got no on ramp for any of this. Do you understand? Because I know better. These are all my fixed ideas,

and my fixed ideas are killing me. They're killing me drunk and they're killing me sober because all I got is me the same operator stone cold sober. And the analogy is they use the drunken horsey. If you get the horse thief in town, he gets drunk, he shoots up the town, they throw him in the jail, he sobers up to let him out Tuesday. He's a sober horse thief.

That's my experience. I'm five years sober. I haven't filed taxes in 10 years.

That sound like big book recovery. No, it's not. It's my recovery. It's my recovery and I got crap going on in every area of my life. The only thing that's happened is I'm not drinking. And I was blessed

because I was allowed to suffer

in my early sobriety and not pick up. And people would watch me and I watch people come in, you know, I'm full of the spirit. Oh, I love to say anything. Oh, look at my commitments and I'm doing this and I'm doing that and I'm talking here and I'm doing all this crap and life has never been better. And also what happened to Harry? Oh, he got drunk. Really. You know, and I'm just the the antagonist in the back of the room.

Good for you, Harry.

All right? And I'm still here.

You know,

I was the guy in the meeting. If I came to the same meeting more than once, they knew me right away. And I was a guy that the guy would get his sponsors easy. A guy over there, you want to be like him, don't do the steps. That was my I was the poster child for no recovery.

So do I have a desire to stop drinking? No fees, dues, free membership, self supporting through own contributions, Not allied with any sect, denomination, politics,

nation or institution. Don't wish to engage in any controversy and we don't endorse nor oppose anything wonderful.

That's pretty clear. Primary purpose, stay sober, Help other Alcoholics. Chief sobriety, stay sober. Check. Help other Alcoholics. As we're going to talk about this month. How do I help? How do I help? Well, I can't help until I change. If I help you in my early recovery, you're dead.

What I can share with you is untreated alcoholism, and we find very quickly that our alcoholism

is not in the bottle.

It's here between our ears. Now I'm gonna say something that some of you aren't gonna like.

Probably a lot of things over the next four weeks. Here's what Bill said in the front of the 12:00 and 12:00. I like this. AIDS 12 steps are a group of principals. Spiritual nature, when practiced if practice as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole.

That's a big damn promise. But the caveat is if practiced as a way of life,

not if done in a rote, shallow manner, not if you got your forms and checked everything off and you got your this guide and that guide. No, if you did this at depth and you practice it as a way of life, now you got something to bring. If you're not doing that, you don't have anything to bring. That's OK. You can try and help people. You won't be able to help anyone

because your message won't have depth and weight.

There's a lot of parrots

running around the fellowship. A lot of parrots. It doesn't take anything to read Bill's essays on a step. Go to step me. Didn't sound like Bill. That's nice.

We already got a bill,

you know, God, that's what I would do. I'd read the 12 until before I went to my men's step meeting so I could say something profound, you know, shit. And while I was being profound inside, I'm thinking, what a bunch of shit. Excuse my language but just you want to feel crappy and hollow and empty?

Be a sober hypocrite. It's just a sobriety with no recovery as hell. The last years I drank were tough, but the first 5-6 years of my so-called recovery were much worse

because I had no anesthetic, I had no out. You know that little 5 minutes of silence we did here? Boy, I tell you, I don't know what for you, but there was a day when that was a noisy time.

If I stopped and justice tried to be quiet, not for 5 minutes. God, that's that's a little excessive. But I mean, just try and take, you know, a half dozen deep, slow control breaths. I couldn't do that. There was so much noise in my head. There were so many voices telling me what I should be doing and what I shouldn't be doing. It was impossible. It was impossible. So

he's not a fellowship for everybody?

No, we got some people that identify themselves as addict, Alcoholics, Alcoholics, addicts. Here's the deal. We treat alcoholism. If you have a problem with alcohol, be here. But we don't treat alcoholism and anything.

And I don't know what you're seeing in your meetings and in the fellowship and the meetings I'm going to, I'm seeing a lot of people come in that aren't Alcoholics. We don't treat personality disorders. We don't treat depression, We don't treat addiction, drug addiction. We treat alcoholism. Now don't get pissed off and leave yet try and listen to this. It doesn't mean I can't have an addiction in addition to my alcoholism. It means when I'm in doing my a, A, I'm about a A now. There's over 220

groups using the 12 steps as a model to get over whatever their hump is that brought them in. OK, so I come in riding a bottle of whiskey. You come in riding cocaine, you come in riding heroin. You come in dead in. You come in emotionally unstable. We got Emotions anonymous. We got Alan on. Oh shit. When I got here, I qualified for at least 712 step programs.

A a al Anon NA Emotions Anonymous. Overeaters Anonymous.

Shit. I mean, and I would sit there in the mean Sex Addicts Anonymous, there's another one. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

David and I go way back. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, But I would sit in the meeting and once in a while I'd make the mistake and music out loud, you know, maybe I need another program, you know, and one of these kind laughing long timers would get me and come up and say you stupid shit,

you can't even do one program, how you gonna do two or three? And I thought, good point.

And it stopped me. It stopped me. Now read the stories in the back. Doctor Paul is the famous one. Alcoholic addict.

Here's the deal. The reason those 200 plus groups are using that model, this 12 step model, is because the solution is the same. I need to have a spiritual experience. I need to have a transformative experience that changes fundamentally the way I see you and interact with you and everything else.

So once we get

the thing we wrote in on in an arrested state, we all have the same problem.

Get what I'm saying? It's a thinking problem.

It's a being problem. It's never, it never was a drinking problem. Drinking

allowed me to stay alive long enough to get here. Without drinking, I'd have been a teen suicide, no doubt in my mind. No doubt in my mind. So what I tell guys when they come in with lots of issues

is look at let's just try and put your silly butt through these 12 steps and treat your drinking problem and let's see what's left when we get done.

What my experience has been is all those other problems got addressed when I address the fundamental problem, because the fundamental note here is I'm selfish and self-centered. I have disconnected from my source, from the divine source that is the source of my life, your life, everything. OK? I disconnected from that and I've been powered on self. And that's the problem with the debtors, that's the problem with the junkies, that's the problem

with the overeaters. It's the same problem for everybody. We just get to write in on different horses,

but it's not the same when you're in the meeting with me. We're in our a meeting, we're doing Alcoholics Anonymous. So I want you to share from that place. And when I try and Orient new people when they come in our meeting, the the newer people look at me and think you're going to scare these guys away. No, I want you to know the truth because I've never worked with an addict who didn't have a drinking problem.

I worked with a couple that thought they didn't have a drinking problem

because they were junkies. You understand

that's a whole nother culture, man. I'm a junkie. Oh, good chunky pride. Love it, love it, love it, love it.

So tell me about you Relapsed again. What happened? Well, went down the bar, had a few scotches and I, I hooked up. So interesting. What happened the time before? Well, I went down to the bar and had a few scotches and I hooked up. Said. So I think you'd have a drinking problem. No, man, I'm a junkie. I love Mac. I just love heroin. I said, yeah, but you don't go get heroin until you have a few scotches. So if the Scotch wasn't there, do you think you'd make the call?

I don't know.

Why don't you try? Oh, he's back. Can't.

So now you told me we're just going to eliminate the Scotch exercise and we see if you hooked up without the Scotch and you hooked up again, but the Scotch was there, I think there's evidence that drinking might be a problem. No, he's dead

because he knew better. He knew better in Chapter 7. We're going to talk about that this month.

One of the things Chapter 7 says over and over is I don't argue with you. You think you got a better idea?

You think you can smoke pot and do these steps? You think you can cheat on your wife and do these steps. You go ahead and do that and then report back to me. That's not my experience. You go do that. You think you need to go back to your church now go do that. Go do that.

You think you drink on Wednesdays? OK, do that. Try some controlled drinking. Try some controlled sobriety. Do that. Why? Because until you and I get full knowledge of our condition, we won't be motivated.

And I pray God you can be hopeless. That's a great place to start.

It's a great place to start, but you don't have to be hopeless.

But you have to hit a bottom. You have to realize at depth

a demoralization of dimension that's enough to bring you to your knees.

A total failure with this. So

are we doing on time? I get a little ranty.

All right,

we have the book Alcoholics Anonymous. The story of many thousands of men wouldn't recovered from alcoholism

and in that book are the 12 steps which are the programmer recovery. It's the only thing AA calls its programmer recovery. Those 12 steps OK then we have a fellowship where we gather in community to do various

recovery based ideas. You know we have we have we have the fellowship of the meet a girl, meet a guy. We have the fellowship of the sober this and that league. We have the coffee house fellowship, we have the

come to the meeting and talk a good talk fellowship. We have that. We're just not drinking here fellowship and

and we have big book stuff. We have all kinds of stuff we have. We have some really interesting stuff going on in the fellowship,

but not all of its recovery.

How would I know the difference? I won't know the difference until I've recovered. Then I'll know the difference. Then I'll know when I'm hearing bullshit and when I'm here in a, a, when I'm here in recovery and when I'm hearing someone's version of it. Some theoretical something might be working good for Harry. I don't know. You know, I've met guys that are 3040 years sober. I never did a four step, you know, and, and and you're a pain in the ass.

You know you're alone. Look around. You're alone. Why do you think you're alone?

How can you be 40 years in this outfit and never have a single person say, would you sponsor me?

Would you help me? And there's probably reason for that, you know, may I please buy you a bottle?

May I please? And it's, I don't know. I can't explain it. It's phenomenon to me. It's observable that I don't get it. Because where I started from, if this outfit couldn't end up giving me something far better than I came from, I'm back. I don't want to be here, you know, when you're going happy, joyous and free. Tredge the road and all that. I'm going. Exactly,

exactly. I'm going. No, no, no. I'm going to need a little more meat than that, you know? Oh, you got to get a service. Oh, I do.

And what would that look like? Are you going to help people? Oh, I am 1st. I'm going to help me because I have problems.

I gave you a litany of my problem. I mean, God, I had problems in every area and you kept saying no, you got one problem. The chapter agnostic says it, You know, so the main purpose of the book is to enable the reader to find the power and the power will solve their problem.

And it's singular, it says the power will solve your problem. And I'm telling you, I didn't even know that till, I don't know, 10-15 years ago. I didn't even get it.

I got one problem. What would that be? Any idea, any thought that separates me from God? Or if you're agnostic, any thought or idea that separates you from this program or recovery from the next step? What's the most important step? The one I won't do?

That's the most important step. The one I won't do. I got 11 I won't do. That's a problem.

So I didn't get it. I didn't get the thinking thing. I want to take a little time. I want to talk about some of the noise in the fellowship, you know, hit the big book and dust. And I were talking before. There's always been people doing versions of this little factions. You know, Clarence had his thing, his Christ based thing and other guys had their stuff and, and you know, Jimmy Burwell has his atheism

and that's always been there. But it's when the book

was published,

the overwhelming majority of the people in what we call the fellowship were also doing the programmer recovery.

What it was the book, the reason how the stories in the back and the instruction in the front was the book was designed to get it to you. And you could get sober on your own with that book. Because they were not meetings on every block and hundreds of meetings in the town. There were not meetings anywhere

and so that was designed to be the sponsor.

Everything I need is in there for me to identify and to figure out how to do this

now.

It's helpful now that there's so many people that have recovered

because there's great people that can help other people who don't need specialists. We've got plenty of people who've recovered.

Here's one Recovered, recovering, recovery. Might as well get right at it. This book says they were recovered. I do what they did. I'm recovered. But what I'm recovered from is the state of mind and body that I arrived in. I'm not cured of my alcoholism. OK, so take this now. I'm in the meeting I'm going on. Hi, I'm Roger. I'm 30 years sober and I'm recovering. If I'm a new guy, I'm hearing shit.

When is this going to end? Because if you're new and you're early in this process, it's painful.

It's not feeling good in the early stages, especially the first couple passes through these steps, especially the inventory ones. It's a deconstruction of who and what I thought I was. It doesn't feel good because now I'm half in and half out. I'm half my old me and I'm half this new me, and I don't know which one's going to work.

So now we come in here. I'll give you this analogy.

I'm hanging out by the 711. Someone pulls a heist, I get shot. I end up in the ER intensive care recovering gunshot wound victim. I eventually get moved to my room. I eventually recover. The doctor comes to me and says, hey, Bosco, if you don't want this happen anymore, stay away from bullets. I'm going. I'm on. I'm down with that, thank you very much. I leave. I'm a recovered gunshot wound victim. You with me when I'm new in AAI, come in. I'm I'm in the emergency room.

I'm a recovering guy recovering from my alcoholism. OK,

But this says do what we did in the way we did it in the steps. Spiritual experience talks about this. If you can do what we did in the light of our experience, If you can do these steps the way we have laid out to do them,

you could have what we have

and the first thing that'll happen to the obsession will go.

But that's just the beginning.

And so I come in and I'm in the emergency room recovering. I'm recovering. But at some point, man, I don't want to be new here in some guy with 20 or 30 years going. I'm recovering. I'm going, shit, does this never end? And I'm saying I'm recovered. It does end. You will stop having that squirrel cage brain. You will stop being nuts. You will stop and your body will heal itself now that you've quit poisoning it and beating the hell out of it. That will take care of itself,

but you're never going to be free. You're never going to be rid of this thing called alcoholism because we find from studying our text that that resides in my thinking.

OK, so here's some things that we hear in the fellowship.

No, I was not done.

So then Bill in the 50s did the 12:00 and 12:00,

which was a rebuttal to add Webster's Little Red Book.

And not that there's any ego involved here, but the point is when that came out, that was the first big split in the fellowship. Then we started having 12 and 12 meetings. The only thing and I love the 12 and 12, don't get me wrong, but the 12 and 12 were a set of essays by one guy.

The Big Book is the collective experience of the fellowship.

OK, so if I'm going to hitch my wagon to the A program, it's going to be the big book. Now the 12 and 12 is conference approved that it says that our fellowship says that that contains our message. That's true, but it's not the a a message. It's bills, interpretation, observation and experience with watching the evolution of this from a very unique position. And there's a lot of great stuff in there. I'm not saying that, but