The Early Bird Group's 10th anniversary in High Point, NC

My job is introduce our speaker tonight and like Ken said, this has been a work in progress. We one night after a meeting decided to to call Chris and David. Jay got her, got his number for us and just just ask him next time he was on the East Coast if he'd stop by and talk with us or give us his talk. And he said sure, no problem. Now keep in mind this is back in January of 2008. He said I'm going to be over there in October, said nine months is OK, we can.

He said no, October of 2009. So you can imagine we've been waiting a long time and they'll wait is well worth it for you guys have heard Chris, you know it. You know it is well worth it for you guys that haven't heard Chris, you're in for a damn treat. Help me. Welcome, Chris.

Kia Lee,

golf ball guy over there. That's the best. I can't believe I didn't bring my camera. My name is Chris Kramer. I'm a very grateful recovered alcoholic. I'm delighted to be here.

I was talking to my wife this afternoon. She said, well, how those people in South Carolina and North Carolina, where the hell I am? And she said, I said, listen, there a nice we they got me off the airport and and we ate a pig and

eat each and and I'm just tell her from the hotel and we'll run over there and give this little A&A talk to this little a a group and it's just pretty cool. We nice if we could double it up. I got to talk at a conference over in South Carolina

in tomorrow. And so it was cool that we could do this. And look at this. It's like, screw South Carolina. Are we just going to stay here? You know, this is. Yeah. What a nice. Bless your hearts forgot for coming. I I I'm going to watch that old clock. Guys, trust me, I won't. I won't keep you long.

I'm just

I want to share a few thoughts with you. Some some experience. My truth, My,

my, my truth based on my experience may differ from your truth based on your experience. You'll see where I'm coming from.

There's Pete, Alcoholics Anonymous, just full of people that are sitting around waiting to be pissed off. You know, what's he going to? What's he going to say that I can disagree with, you know, And it's like, God, we, you know, you think we'd be more open minded. We tell the newcomer, God, you want to get sober, you got to be open minded.

Then we get about 5/15/20 years under our belt. We just become rigid. You know, it's like, well, my counselor said this and you know, my sponsor said this and you know, it's, I've said it from a million podiums all over the world. I'm not real concerned with what your counselor said, not real concerned with what your sponsor said. If it differs from what the big book says, they may want to look at it. That's only place I'm coming from. I get, I get the butt of every joke out there. Every people owe that Chris Raymer. He's too rigid. I had a lady called from Iowa. Guy

guy called and asked me to speak in a couple years from now

and I penciled him in. I said OK, we can do that. And then three days later he calls you back, says God thing. I didn't know it was going to cause that kind of a shit storm. You know, it's like any, any, any onion uninvited me, you know, which is fine. I mean, it happens all the time.

Somebody in Iowa hates my guts, you know, and that's, and that's okay. That's okay. But I'm not the controversial one and I don't cuss so much from the podium anymore. But I'm the cat that comes straight out of the big book. And so if you can't reconcile it, my sponsor said you might want to forget it. I the steps are so open and roomy. You know, I really don't care how you work the steps. You, you want to, you want to

do a third step with a bunch of people or on your knees or standing up or naked. I don't, I don't care. You four step however you want. The book is pretty open and roomy, in fact. In fact, if you call GSO in New York and ask them what's the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, they will tell you, because we did. It's whatever your group wants it to be, which is pretty cool for staying out of a fray. You know, if you don't want to stand for anything. Just like what? Whatever. I don't have an argument with that, but

the big book we got in 1939

talks about a precise way to recover Bill Wilson and the first guys, they started writing this stuff down South that we could maybe see the success rates they were having continue. And, and the further we've gotten into this, moving away from the, the message, the, the, the less of the less successes that we have. And so

there's a lot of us out there. I mean, look at this room, guys, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I was speaking, I'm giving the same message from the podium and it would be 6 people in here. You know, I mean, truly, we just didn't talk to big crowds and we're at state conferences now, people talking about the program. See,

Bill Wilson understood that this whole thing to put it together is there's this fellowship, which is what we do in our meetings a lot of times and in this conference this weekend and what we did it today at lunch. The fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is the coolest. I mean, it's

we just, I always pass out cards and you guys stay in touch. And it's just so nice to see that little ring of, of, of buddies. You know, it's just people all over the world and we can stay in touch. The fellowship is cool,

but so many areas they've just forgotten the program. My book says if you can stay sober just on the fellowship, you're not one of us. You're not the Real McCoy. And so if you're a little disco drunk, it just happened to, to, I didn't hear it.

We people get grindy about it. I mean, I had a guy just storm the podium after I talked over in in California not long ago because I introduced myself. Sometimes I'm, I'm a, I'm a real alcoholic. Bill Wilson spends dozens of pages and they're talking about, but what about the real alcoholic he wants us to see? He talks about moderate drinkers. He talks about hard drinkers. He talks about fried pied fruit cakes. He talks about lots. And we've got some of those in here, I'm sure. And that's like, but the real alcoholic has got some specific symptoms. And if you've got these symptoms,

it's chronic and it's fatal. God, that's what it means, chronic. And see, you're gonna die from this if you don't get well. And so to stand up here and water this little message down for me, that seems to be the controversial thing. You could, again, you could do this any way you want.

But if you're the real alcoholic, Bill Wilson says there's one way to do it. We work the 12 steps at a pretty good clip. He makes a point of saying he doesn't want us to take our time.

Losers

to do this rapidly so that we could have the full impact of this spiritual experience. If alcoholism is truly killing you and you believe you're powerless, why the hell do you want to take your time to work the steps? The steps don't fix me, but the steps get me spiritually connected to a God that I may not even understand or even want to understand. But I guarantee you, you work the steps, you're going to have a spiritual experience. Nobody's ever done it, not experienced it.

The spiritual experience removes the obsession to drink.

I have a daily reprieve. If I don't do anything stupid in a couple of weeks I'll have 22 years. Yeah from a guy that couldn't stay sober 22 days. Took me 7 years to finally get a 30 day chip. I'm a meeting making fool. I'm a chick picking up. I don't even know.

I don't know. I don't know. So if I let me just just reiterate now and I'll move on because that times ticking up. If I don't

want to say anything that's gonna upset anybody or offend anybody. If if I say something that doesn't jibe with you and you want to visit about it, I would be more than glad to do that. I really don't want to, but I

'd be glad, glad to because I don't think there's an individual way. Bill Wilson wrote extensively about it. Doctor Bob wrote it extensively. There's there's no individual way to do this. We open and rooming lots of ways to to kind of interpret the steps, but the steps are not open for discussion. You're going to do it or you're not going to do it. And so

we have, we have millions of people sitting around the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous today. Never worked the steps. And they're the Sob's that want to take shots, the people that do. And it drives me crazy. It drives me to distraction. Some of you are already getting irritated. There's 123-4567 doors out of this place. Bye, bye,

bye bye.

I work for a treatment centers. One of the reasons that I get so passionate about this is that I get to see I was one of those cats that said I'd never worked for a hospital. And I, I ended up doing some clerical work and I was going to do it for a few months and, and until a honest to God till a sacking job at HEB opened up a grocery store so I could make some real money. And, and I 16 years later, I'm still at this, this, this hospital and I get to watch lots of Alcoholics and addicts come through that place and I get to watch a lot of people suffer. The problem is not getting them to come in here. Look at the steps and and the problem is getting them them to

a lot of stuff that they've already learned in the fellowship. We've ruined a lot of people. Sometimes I sometimes a crappy presentation of the program is worse than no presentation of the program. Most people, what they get is the same thing I got in 1980 when I first started coming to I call it synonymous, which was go to lots of meetings and everything will be OK. Just don't drink and go to meetings.

You know, if it's the best we can come up with,

go shoot yourself. I don't know what to tell you because it, but again, because if you're a real alcoholic and all you're going to do is go to meetings, you're not going to get well,

I'm not knocking meetings. I go to meetings. Y'all understand that this is where we with the camaraderie. You got to have both pieces of this. Don't, don't get me wrong, but this idea of pushing meetings to stay sober is ludicrous. Doctor Bob said in some quotes, I verified it for about a couple of archivists. He talks about. There's, there's, there's two ways to to, to recover from alcoholism. There's a hard way and an easy way. Just go into meetings is the hard way.

You'll follow

at that point. It's a self help program. I'm going to go to a meeting today, one day at a time and I'm not going to drink today and then tomorrow I'm going to go to another meeting and I'm not going to drink today. But who's keeping you sober?

God, no. The group. Yeah. You. Yeah. And if you're the Real McCoy, you can pull that off for a while. But if you're the Real McCoy, you're not going to be able to do that. Bill Wilson spends 20 pages in the book. He's got from page 23 to 43. There's 20 pages. And he talks about this mental obsession. He spends the 1st 20 pages talking about this. This phenomena called craving. Excuse me. The symptoms of alcoholism are the phenomena of craving.

Normal people don't have it. When I start to drink, can I guarantee how much I'm going to drink?

No, honey, I'm gonna go get a drink. Don't get drunk. I'm not gonna get drunk. All I got, all I'm taking is $10. I mean, how drunk can you get on $10? You with us? Somewhere, somehow, about 9:00, I found a way to get a little more money. Went back to the money machine. Thank God. Oh, my gosh. And And I'm off the race. But it was my intention to go have a couple of cocktails after work. Go to happy happy hour. Write it,

get it?

Hey, where y'all going? We're not happy enough yet. You know, let's just and then we close the place down. I mean kidding, I've laughed about it. And all over the world, you know, there's people out there that really they call themselves alcoholic that honestly have never been in a bar at closing time. They don't know what it's like to close a bar down. I cannot relate. I just can't relate. There were many a time I said I was going to go for one hour, maybe two and then I was going to go home and take care of business. But once the craving kicks in and it doesn't happen every time I drink. That's what makes this thing so dead gum frustrating.

That was a functioning alcoholic for many years. I was talking to Billy. We're in the food business and I was a professional chef. And I mean, good gosh, I, if every time you drank, you drank it to a blackout, you wouldn't be working too many places, you know, I mean, they'd lock you up eventually. And I had a long history of, of, of working

in corporate America and holding it together. But is the disease gradually progresses, it gets less and less likely that you can hit that target, that you can drink a little bit. And we we become the book says, downright goofy after a couple of drinks

wear out. We can't metabolize the alcohol. If you couple that if that was only problem guys, then detox centers would crank out 100% recovered people. Y'all down with that? I mean, it freaks me out in this country with all this healthcare stuff. Detox centers all over the world, insurance companies will pay for your detox. He's an alcoholic will get him detox. We're going to have to detox him next week because he ain't going to stay sober. But we'll, but we'll be glad to, you know, Oh my gosh, instead of paying for treatment or helping these guys understand this mental obsession piece. That's why I'm so fanatical about it, because they're not going to hear about it in most treatment centers

where they're going to hear about it. Good Lords willing and the Creek don't rise. If they come into an AAA group, somebody's going to grab them around the neck and explain what this disease really is. You with us had nothing to do with the way you were potty trained. It has to do with the fact that you were genetically wired this way. Guys, alcoholism is genetic and it's this. I mean, 10 years ago, I suppose you could have argued it, but the jury's in most of us is Alcoholics and addicts can look back up that old family tree is Alcoholics and give it a good kick and they'll drop out by the dozens up on the top.

Arizona's Uncle Charlie, watch out.

There are in addictions along those lines. And so, but this is fatal and chronic. And it's like back in the day before the treatment centers got us, we used to sit in these rooms and watch us die, you know, watch us seize detoxing. We don't do that anymore. They're all off in hospitals doing that. So everybody begins to think that this is some kind of a social entity. We were a social entity today. We used to be a spiritual entity. We were a bunch of little big book thumpers in action going to grab another little drunk and helping them get well. And that's what I think we need to get back to. And so

some people just don't flat want to do that much work. So I can relate to that. I'm with you. I

you combine the physical allergy with the mental obsession, folks, and it's a, it's a, it's a lose, lose situation. And it will, it will, it will eat you up. The big book says on page 24 that we have lost the power of choice and drink, that our so-called willpower will become practically nonexistent. That's why anything in treatment that tells you that you can stop yourself from drinking. That's why I'm not a big fan of that living sober book that Alcoholics Anonymous produces. We're in a big push to get them to stop publishing it. They probably won't because they make so much money on it. But if any of you little new guys in here are reading this little book called

Sober, throw it out the back door as fast as you can because it'll kill you again. It leads you to believe that you can keep yourself sober and you won't work the steps you'll follow. Oh, you should have seen the room. Glad y'all reading that damn piece of trash, aren't you?

We can see the ripple.

Oh my gosh, Oh my God. I'm just I'm just saying this is what nearly got me killed because of the mixed messages that I heard in 1980 when I first got to this. We got to this fellowship. If I'm truly powerless over alcohol, then that means no human we do we read the ABC's. I mean, is it no human power can relieve What's wrong with me then why didn't am I so concerned about the all of these little self help tricks to stay sober make sense? What I need to do is get taken to a place with the obsession to drink will be removed, and then I can be free.

We got too many people, I guarantee you, sitting in this room right now, walking on egg shells around alcohol, afraid of the day that they're going to be triggered into drinking. Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh. If you're doing that, I'm telling you, you're not free from alcoholism. Come see me after the meeting. We'll visit, we'll chat. I would love to talk to you. The freedom that I finally got in 1987 because some men loved me enough to tell me the truth. You just just changed my whole life. I was

my twin brother and I were Alcoholics and some of y'all know Myers and

he calls me the evil one, but I'm he's he's just he's as bad as they come. I got to tell you that. And I've got a little sister and a half sister and and my mom and my dad, my dad was alcoholic. We caught the bullet from him. And I suppose my whole family, it's you can trace it back up. But high school, we started drinking and you could see the

walk like a duck, quack like a duck. It's a duck. And my little sister never had a problem. We, we, we laugh about it all the time trying to get her to get her to

drink, you know, it's like,

and she's, she's really, I don't know, she's a sweetheart, absolute sweetheart, but she just, she never could get the hang of it. You know, she, she just, she, she get a little drink and sip it and she'd set it down and we'd be watching us. Lisa, it's free. We bought it. It's you want to drink, drink up, you know, and she says, no, it's just, it tastes a little strong for me. You know, she's sort of back slide it back across and it's like, man, it's just messed up.

Lisa, take take the little little fruit and the umbrella out of it now and drink it. You know she will you get hurt that way. Those umbrellas and them drinks.

No respectable alcoholic would ever drink of drink like that. I mean,

hazards, you know, we just don't do that.

I went ended up in Houston in a food business and, and was pretty successful, but I started seeing a therapist early on. I'll never forget this old guy's downtown Houston and, and I'm seeing him because I'm experiencing some anxiety. Y'all with us. And the symptoms of, of untreated alcoholism are pretty clear. Anxiety happens to be one of them. Depression is another one. And I'm seeing these doctors trying to figure out what the problem is. And of course they're asking the same questions that all of you guys have been asked. You do you? Do you drink?

Well, Some.

A couple. I'm in the food business. God, everybody drinks. What the hell? All the chefs, all the cooks. What are you drinking? Excessive. No, absolutely not. You do any other outside drugs? No, absolutely not. Why?

I'm wearing nuts. You know, he's checking. He said Chris could possibly be this. But anyway, I entered into this deal and I started mid 70, started eating the antidepressants and the doctor started prescribing medication and I'm doing therapy and and I, you know, people always draft us you. You're knocking therapy, buddy. I mean, I have, I am a product of great therapy. I love therapy. And I, I think anybody in this room hasn't seen a therapist or, or is unwilling to do that. Man, you want to, you want to get moved forward in your program, See a good therapist that understands what this is about, as I guarantee they can crack you like an egg.

All of us have got stuff we're carrying around it. We don't need to carry around and they can help you. I mean, that's what these people did to me, but they're trying to explain my drinking via my external circumstances and, and it's not really working. And long, very boring story short, I was one of those functioning Alcoholics guys. One day I'm, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a sous chef in a big Country Club and, and, and six months later I'm eating out of dumpsters behind the Country Club. You'll follow and then

a month later I've got a great new job across town.

I mean, I'm quite hireable and,

and I've never been fired from a job and I have great work ethics and I've never robbed a liquor store and I never shot anybody and I never prostituted myself and I never lived on the street go follow, which was a real bummer because I could have used all of that shit when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous.

Anyway,

moved up to North Texas, got married and moved up to North Texas and got a job at another Country Club. And, and I'm drinking myself spit less and doing dope and other outside issues and I'm eating antidepressants on top, you know, on pills. I'm becoming quite toxic in the early 80s and it was a social thing to do. I don't know, you know, he said at these bars, that's what you talked about. What kind of medication are you on?

Adult attention deficit disorder medication. And I, I'm just drooling, you know, I'm, I can't. And I,

I got a little, little hassle with, with my wife and I was loaded. And she'd asked me to quit drinking. Basically it was a, it was one of those first ultimatos that I ever got quit drinking or I'm out of here. And bless her heart, she had every right to back me into a corner like that because I was, I was a mess that night. And, and I promised I'd go to Alcoholics Anonymous. My father had gone for a short period of time and there was some harmony in our house and I knew intuitively if that was the place to go. And I, I checked the meeting schedule out and,

and I went and two weeks later I came home and, and I'd had a beer on the way home and

my head had told me two weeks out,

don't get drunk. That's what she told me not to do. She didn't say don't drink. She just said, don't get drunk. And of course, what she told me not to do is don't drink, you'll follow. And she smelled that. That's I'm a two week wonder guys. And that's what drives us crazy. I mean, we, we can, we can, I can quit anytime I want. I, I do it often, you know, because I always start again. And that's, that's the deal. I can stop the first week I quit drinking, guys. Everything is the, is the, you all know that. I mean, cars get washed and the house gets painted and we cook fresh chicken, fried steak and everything's just great. Guys,

I should have done this years ago. I, you know, have sex is better. And you're back in a big house and everything's just and about two weeks out, you with us. You're driving to work and you find yourself, what's this? I must have a tooth. No, you're grinding your teeth again. That's what's exactly what's happening. You're coming unglued. It takes that that little time for me. About the furthest away I can get from the drink. You're with me 7-8 days. The fruit or the way I get the worst my internal condition gets. Nobody wants to talk about that. And Alcoholics Anonymous. They want to talk about the external.

I got a job, I got a wife, I got a dog. I got a house. I got everything on the outside looks good and it's clean.

Dig inside. I'm coming apart. I'm not happy camper and go to work and I'm irritable, restless and discontent and I pick a fight with some little knucklehead that I don't even know and have words with the boss and I'm just I'm just not baby. What's wrong? I thought you would be happy or sober. You seem to be a little little cranky. My first wife, she come she came home one time with a bottle of vodka. It was one of my one of my stints. I had two or three weeks over. She set it down. Here, drink this.

You know, cheap, I said. Honey,

I'm three weeks sober. I mean, I you don't want me to lose my sobriety date, do you? She she said. Buddy, there's nothing sober about you. I like you better drunk. Drink this

OK?

Anything for the relationship, honey

gun, can you hear an audible sigh of relief in North Texas, buddy, when that stuff hit my that's exactly what we do. I'll pull off the side of the road and go into one of these seven elevens, these little stop and go places and get me a go back and get a Doctor Pepper and stop. Look at that Doctor Pepper. I've done this 1000 times. Stop, put the Doctor Pepper back, move over to the next cooler, grab a beer because my head saying you can just have one. That's it. OK, one

my head has never said let's go get shit faced. Never, never,

never. It's always one stop. Put the beer right, get it, take it. We get about halfway up to the deal. I'm thinking, turn around, go back, put that beer back, stop a second, grab the court, go back up to the If it's going to be one, it's going to be a big one.

I haven't even got the stuff in my system right now. And I'm sitting up there and I got a big cheesy grin, you know, and everything is just happy, happy, happy people cutting in front of me get lottery tickets. Some guys got a bunch of bunch of checks to cash money orders to send back to the old country. Big. It's like it's no big deal. If you have done that this morning, I'd have shot your ass,

but now I haven't even got it in my system. I'm just holding up the baby. Go right on the head. Everything is cool.

I got all the time in the world. Go sit in that old pickup truck. Crank it on like that. Listen, that radio. Oh my God, Listen. I haven't heard that song in years. Everything. All the stars lining up

Carol. I love Carole King.

Oh shit,

that's terrible

and I can't stop. Anyway, I

I went back to Alcoholics Anonymous such after that little shoving match with my first wife and she was a sweetheart and I wanted to keep her and I went to Alcoholics Anonymous and we went into the rooms and

an old geezer asked me if I had a problem with alcohol. Didn't ask me if I was an alcoholic. He asked me if I had a problem with alcohol. He's qualifying me for membership about into Alcoholics Anonymous. Nobody gives a rats, but if I'm a real alcoholic or not, which I think is a travesty, you'll follow.

I said yes, I got a problem with alcohol. I'm drunk now. And I got a, you know, quarter beer in the truck. And yeah. And they said welcome. And they sat down and that dark room, nobody said hi. Nobody said kiss my nothing. Just this old geezer asked me that question. I said yes. And that was the end of it. And then we went around, it was like I wasn't there. And we talked about everything under the sun. It was six people in the room and they we talked about some lady's husband and there was nothing about drinking was relationship stuff. And this guy was playing junior FM therapist and trying to explain to her why he did this.

And this is just the coolest. And man, I finished up and we did the Lord's Prayer and I laughed and wife was there on the porch when I got home. How was it? Was it? I said, man, I, I don't know, but I'll go back, We'll check it out. And I spent seven years going back checking it out. People want to grind their teeth about this stuff. Well, surely you heard somebody in seven years give you the clear message, Surely I didn't. Everybody's given mixed messages. This nice guy right here, he's got a big book in front of him like that. And I go up to get coffee and this guy slides up next to me says, see that guy over

big book solicit? Stay away from him. He's one of them thumper bastards. He's just going to confuse you. All you need to do is just come to meetings and and don't drink and everything is going to be OK. Well, let me see if I can weigh this out. Okay, I'll come with you. Let's go. You'll follow. But you see, I'm the Real McCoy and I can't just go to a meeting and stay sober. Meetings don't treat alcoholism.

Everybody in the world ought to start saying that from the podium.

The person in this room that goes to the most meetings is not the person that's going to get sober.

God, maybe I'm wrong. God damn, look at this book one more time and see

I've just been looking and looking and looking.

I can't find that where it says it, you know, because you see, guys, we set people up to fail. You got this little fried pot, crackhead, little alcoholic knucklehead comes in, doesn't have a job and we tell him 90 meetings in 90 days. How's cool? He got nothing else to do anyway. But you got a nice housewife come in here, she's got babies at home and she's got a job and a husband. It's sick, whatever. And we tell her you got to go to 90 meetings in 90 days when you supposed to take care of the kids. The meetings were never intended to pull us away from life. It was intended to allow us to come back to life. But the best we can do, the best we can tell them in treatment, is just go

meetings.

I'm going to meetings, 90 meetings in 90 days, and I can't stay sober. Why? Because the further away I get from the alcohol, the worse my internal condition becomes. People don't want to hear that that alcohol is not the problem,

alcoholism is the problem. It's two different things.

Alcoholism

is the progressive thing that makes me feel loud, but further away I get from the drink, the worse my internal condition becomes.

More of us commit suicide and sobriety than we do out there drinking. Why? Because we're not well.

We're not going to get well just going to a meeting.

We got to work the 12 steps. Bill Wilson thought it was important enough to write a book about it, called it Alcoholics Anonymous.

Who knew?

I can't get. So we're talking junior therapy sessions at these open discussion meetings. The the guys in Iceland call them dark tunnel meetings. You know, when you walk in, you can't see any light at the end of the that's, that's the meetings that we go into. We're playing junior therapists or we're, or we're telling war stories. And I'm going to say it real quick and move on. I don't want to belabor it. Guys. I get so much advice from this fellowship. It's not even funny. Y'all understand that We were talking bikes. I've got my eye on a new bike. I got that from Dean today. I mean, I am blessed by all the people I know in this fellowship. I can call thousands of people all over the world

any problem I've got, and one of you will help me,

trained or untrained. But why do we have to do it in our meetings? Because that's not our primary purpose. Our primary purpose is to carry the message, the 12 steps to the newcomer who still suffers. But we don't have time to do that because we're trying to fix your stupid divorce one more time. We need to stop doing that.

Let me just ask you the question while I'm at it. Y'all swept here, didn't you?

Let me ask you the question while I'm at it. Same stuff I'm going to be talking about tomorrow night down and down in in Myrtle Beach. We've got this little thing called primary purpose, right? With singleness of purpose. You come into my little meeting over in Texas and start talking about dope and somebody will nicely get up and say, buddy, come with me. We're going to go outside and we're going to talk to you about our what we do in a A and single as a purpose. And we're going to shut you down because we don't want to. We don't want to talk about something that doesn't have to do with alcoholism. You with us and should it's our right to do that in Alcoholics Anonymous. You follow.

But then the lady at the end wanted to talk about her problem with her,

her weed eater. She can talk about that all day long and nobody's gonna say anything about it. But let me ask you the question. The the 20 year old kid sitting in the back that's been drinking too much and it wants to figure out if he's maybe really one of us. Why should he have to sit there? Listen, the old geezer shouldn't have to listen to us talk about smoking crack cocaine. Why in the hell should the 19 to 20 year old kid have to listen to you talk about your your freaking grandkids?

Why

we go to meetings to talk about our problems.

Why I understand there's a line in the book. We take one night a week. We do that. Let's do that. It's a great idea. We could call it pissing and moaning meetings and every, every, every, every city could have one meeting a week where we just going to go talk about everything under the sun. My dryer burned up And listen, let me tell, Oh, I know exactly what you can get a good dryer. We can talk about dryers and all that,

but everybody thinks it's their right to come into an AA meeting and say I can say anything I want in an AA meeting. That's the question I want to ask you when you say that and you're trust me, you're going to take my inventory after this is over, you'll be back down at Denny's tonight. But I don't know whether that little one on some bitch, but I'm telling you this,

but I'm telling you this, I can go to a meeting and say anything I want. And my question to you is who gave you the right to do that?

Who gave you the right to do that? When we're not trying to do that, we're trying to pull people with these stupid war stories. And I got to tell you something, guys, I hit it pretty hard sometimes about these war stories. Everybody in this room that's an alcoholic, you have your story, you have your story. And it's a good thing to have in a thing called a 12 step call this little cast down here and he's drinking and I want to go slide up next to him. I can't just start talking to him about God in the 12 steps. That's called leading with your chin. He's going to whip my ass. You know what I'm saying? He's not going to listen to that. But if I can sit up next to him and talk to him about some of my

experiences and he understands that I understand. I've been on the same spot that he has, Then eventually, because they always do, you can just wait long enough and y'all tell a few stories and laugh and joke about puking straight up and all that. And pretty soon it's like fishing. Pretty soon you just did like this and pretty soon he's going look at you said, but you don't seem to be drinking now.

Oh, I'm not buddy. I've been sober 20 years. Click, click, click. Don't pull it yet. Click. Just like fishing. And then he's going to say, how did you do it?

You set the damn hook. He wouldn't even listen to you if you hadn't told him the stories. Y'all fun? OK, so we got an, a, a meeting. We're sitting there, all of us are sitting in the meeting room, and we're going to tell the story again and again and again and again. And all we have is our story.

No, we just read it before we started this meeting. Little brother, just read it on. There's a solution. We have a common problem and a common solution,

and we know the little guy came and snuck in the back door and we know he got him. Now for a minute, he's here. We don't have problems getting people to come to Alcoholics Anonymous. It's the only game in town. We have trouble keeping people to to stay in Alcoholics Anonymous. We have too many people going in and coming out, going in and coming out because they didn't hear the solution. And then when they relapse and walk back out, we're the first bunch as a fellowship to want to throw it back in their face and blame them.

Well, you just didn't want it bad enough. They wanted it bad enough to screw up his courage and come in and pick up a desire chip.

See, why do we assume that the newcomer is going to know the questions to ask?

All we want them to do is come in the room and then we want to pull them with a vision of how cool life can be.

Treatment centers have damn near killed us by water and this stupid message down. You're having a bad day. Go to a meeting and talk about it. Let me ask you to do me one big favor.

Don't.

You're having a bad day. Call me. Sit out in the parking lot. Wait till I get there. Wait till she gets there. Slide up next to her. Can I talk to you for a few minutes? And then tell him how the cow ate that cabbage. Don't come into a meeting and use this as a dumping ground for your problem. The arrogance of us.

I'm gonna say it again. This is the only game in town. Everybody keeps waiting. I get emails from all over the world. Winter when is the medical fraternity going to fix this problem of alcoholism? We know we guys, we've got so many cool meds coming down the room that that, that people are getting in treatment. We, we got anti last count there were 2524 anti craving medications to help with this phenomenal craving. Pretty cool deal. You know how many anti obsession drugs we have?

Not one, not one. That's why they're coming in here. Makes sense.

We got great groups to go talk to and just visit. I don't want to come across rigid or dogmatic about this. If you're in a little group and there's seven or eight of you and you see each other every day and you just want to talk about your freaking weed eater, you would go ahead. It's it's OK with me. It's what's the harm. But if you got a newcomer coming in there, pay attention. We're talking about we bought little beater bikes not long ago. I was used to be a competitive cyclist and Patty and I, I sold them because I didn't have time because I was traveling so much. And Patty and I, we, we bought these little

gay beater bikes. I don't know how they just

I just hope nobody sees me riding this little upright guy kind of the thing. And anyway, we were in San Antonio and, and we went, I got this soft. We live right downtown and it was down there by the Alamo and any of you guys ever been to San Antonio? If you go out just east of the Alamo, about a mile is some of the poorest neighborhoods in San Antonio. It'll take your breath away. Active alcoholism on every corner. I mean, it's, it is a tough place to to watch this disease. And I was down there by myself going to the airport the next morning and I and I just, it just,

I'm sober and got the coolest life in the world and these people are hurting. And I was compelled to go to a meeting that night. I've never been to this meeting, but I was just, I just, I wanted to be in a room of my peeps, people that I could relate to. And I walked into this meeting and asked the guy at the door says, is there a meeting in here at 7:00? He said yes and pushed by me to go to this. Oh, it's in a church. You don't have the churches are like the rat maze. I don't know where it is