The 22nd Annual Mens Fall Retreat in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Congratulations to all the years and days and and so forth. That's great to see. And I tell you, it's a weird feeling being the oldest rat in the barn.

It's it's a strange kind of phenomenon. But yeah, I was the youngest members. I mentioned a little early, I was the youngest member and everything I attended for years. Now I'm almost always oldest rat and every barn I get in and it's I'm the oldest member in my oldest male in my state, oldest active male. And so it's amazing how it happened.

Youngest torpedo, the oldest goat. And but I, I'll take it. I'll tell you very, very well.

I got some really heartbreaking news. No questions.

We've got you're being from South. I'm I talk slow, think slow, react slow. And so we're going to move on and get into a part of the program that I do really love. We got two sessions to go,

and

tonight, dealing with some of the things we're talking about on relationships, unity and stuff like that. You're going to be doing that and we're going to do it through the traditions. And so I want to deal with that at a personal level. Yeah, because it's a, it's a phenomenally important thing. I just tell you this by way of salesmanship. I probably deliberately use traditions, deliberately use traditions more than I do steps. You know, where I'm going to pull on a tradition and use it for something

far more often to step. Your steps are how I live. You know, I don't need to pull a step. That's how I live. Traditions, on the other hand, are just tremendously good for for handling specific problems. Of all the people that ever, ever contact me, I would say, you know, like, you know, sometimes being a town and say something that kind of dawned on somebody after I leave and

they'll call me. And about 90% of the time it's a tradition issue,

not a step issue because that whole business is how you relate to the world around you. So that's why we're going to deal with. And then tomorrow we'll wrap up with what I think is you. You talk about being rocketed into a fourth dimension and into a new phase of existence. We'll be dealing with the part of the program that shift from me to we and to our real purpose. And so we'll close out on that and then we'll give the homework assignment. And

Alex has agreed to be the stool pigeon

for, for anybody that doesn't take care of it, then we'll send the gang up here for that. So anyway, that's, that's what we'll take off with on that. And

your traditions are extremely important thing to me. I don't early on, you know, when I was in the program and I thought a a was just a little covey of drunks that that, that that got together once in a while. Traditionally, the first thing that gave me vision of what Alcoholics Anonymous was that is more than just a little gaggle of drunk sitting in the corner of a church basement. Bless you

sneeze. I have ever

how much your ears are popping.

I would never point that out publicly,

but it really did. It gave me a vision that it's not just a little gaggle of folks somewhere, but it really is a program that has big MO and it let us literally reaches around this world. It gave me vision. It meant a lot to me.

It always has. I use them in every area of my life. Yeah, I mentioned that earlier and I'll elaborate it a little bit more. I'm going to talk fast as I can because it's hard to do traditions in a in a limited amount of time.

I better not tell too many war stories. I won't be get there. A while back I was had some people call me from Tennessee and they were having a district meeting and they wanted me to come over and do a deal on, on traditions.

And I said, well, I'll be happy to do it. When does it happen to be a date? I was going to be in Georgia and they said, well, isn't there any way you can do it? I said, good God, I don't know, but I knew my schedule in Georgia was that I didn't have anything to do afternoon. And I also checked to see that there was a plane that would get me from Georgia to Tennessee if I could get there on time. So I, I saw it if it says a tradition. Now, if it'd been just wanted to do altar calls or something, I might not have done it, but just tradition. I, I said, let me see what I'll do. So we did.

Flew into that town of Tennessee, chatted, no Knoxville, somewhere in Tennessee and

I only got through 6 traditions and they've been on my case ever since. Now you got to come back man. You didn't do your job. We spent all that money getting you over here and you didn't even finish watching. So. So anyway, I got to go back to Tennessee, finish jobs. I will get at it.

I do like to look at traditional personal standpoint and I do use them in everything that I do.

Give you an example of something that to me is about your Commonwealth Fair is what the first tradition is about.

Yeah, Commonwealth air comes first. Personal recovery depends on a unity. Just like my belief is that the first step is the most important step because that's the launch it pad. That's the foundation. That's where we start, you know, and so it's fundamental to everything else. And it it it, it sort of opens the door for the rest steps in the first tradition. Same way that our welfare comes first. If we don't take care of our unity, then we've got nothing for anybody. So we, we must protect what protects us. And

I just give you a couple, just one for sure, and maybe one more if I sneak it in. What that means in real life. You know, what does it mean to me? And I know just from our conversation, many of you are dealing with things that are, are very much in the fringes of this neighborhood at least. Yeah. I'm a you gathered by now. I'm sure that I'm. I'm a group guy. I'm not a meeting junkie. I'm a group guy. I'm somebody who is committed to a Home group. That's where I that's where I belong. That's my foundation,

it's where I do my most important work. That's my launching pad. And, and so it's a very important thing to me and

the group I'm in,

we started at 14 years ago the outgrowth of big book workshops and, and it's an excellent group. We have all legacies in place. Every service is provided in A, A is provided in our group. Every service action is done in a A. It exists, it's staffed, it's functional.

So it's a very important kind of a thing to me, a very important place to get well. And so, and it's some I have loyalty to now. Sometimes I have to be gone. I won't get back tomorrow, Monday night in time for me. Well, it won't get back to midnight, so I know it won't be. They'll probably be gone by then maybe. And so I won't get back. But I'd like to be there as much as I possibly can.

And

I was out. I was out of town on an extended trip for, for, for something.

And while I was out, our group in its wisdom, made a decision to do something that was totally unacceptable to me. I'm the great white father, you know, I mean, they're not supposed to do that. And but it did. They made a drastic decision. And the decision was we have, you know, like we have an open speaker meeting once a week and then on Monday night we have three different groups.

One of them's open, it's a newcomer group, but it's open. Anybody who wants to walk in the door. We have one that's stepped tradition oriented and then a book discussion.

And and while I was away, the decision was made by my Home group to discontinue the big book meeting in order to strengthen the step tradition meeting.

Well, I about had a baby when I, when I got back, and I've told you I was, I was absolutely undue that my loyal partners in crime would would not do something just because I was gone. And they knew that it might be difficult to do if I was yelling and screaming while they were trying to vote.

And so, so I know they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't take advantage of my absence to vote something. But

but he did

when I got back and I heard that. Have you ever been to some just too mad to do something? You've been so mad that you just didn't trust yourself to do something. That's what I was. And and so that

Alex won't quit bumming Willie. He'd been hustling people for years.

Yeah, but but they when I got that word, I was, I was so angry.

But you know, it's only our basic text. It's only where we draw our entire program for you. It's not like it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter much

the but I was so mad. I knew that if I did anything, I would overdo it. And when you're the oldest rat in the barn, you have to be mindful of the fact that you can do some damage unintentional and just not, not just because it oldest rat in the barn, but that helps a great deal. And so when when the fearless leader is angry,

it sort of reverberates in a deal. And I knew if I did anything quickly, I would I would do some damage. There's a real damage. And so I had to bite my tongue and not do anything.

I evaluated what what one feeling was about. Why am I so angry? Is it because I was insulted because the fearless leader was not not involved in that thing? Was it because I suspected a sneak attack and do it while the old man is gone?

I wanted to evaluate that and assure why I was so upset. Did I really believe that this was injurious to our purpose to to our purpose in our group? Well, when I got through, I finally got got resolved that there was absolutely no personal deal there. It didn't did not have to do with me. It had to do with what I truly believe. If we take out the basic text, what else would you take out? Yeah. And so that was just totally unacceptable to me.

And so I didn't do anything, the first business being afterwards,

I sat there, held my peace never. And I never discussed it with a soul except my sponsor, my higher power and me. I didn't discuss it with anybody else, nobody. And so I bit my tongue on the on the first meeting. Second bitches beat. I'm still too mad and didn't trust myself. And then third business meeting,

I was, I wasn't sure I'd do anything or not. But right before the, the end of the the meeting,

it was, it was in a regular meeting. I stuck my hand up to say something and I said a while back, we made a decision. Now I say we because that's my Home group. If I'm not there, my vote is exactly what they vote because it's we. It is not that I don't stand apart from that. So I said we made a decision a while back

to fix something that I don't think was broken

and I'd like to request that we reinstate the big book group starting tonight.

And a hush fell over the crowd and you could have heard a pin drop. And there was that electric moment where one guy asked one simple little question and and we handle that, moved on, unanimously voted to reinstate it. Now, now just think about that. If I hadn't been thinking about the Commonwealth Fair and I just kept thinking about me and and my feelings, I could have done a lot of damage.

So when I talk about Commonwealth, I either mean it or I don't.

And if I don't take care of that group, it can't take care of me. And so that's what I have to do that the that the we is bigger than the me. And, and so that was as tough a test as I've had for a good while to, to deal with common welfare in a way that was extremely important to me. And

so sometimes you know that that's what it is. What if I have to get beyond myself? And that's what the Commonwealth Fair is about. If it isn't good for the total, is probably not good for me.

And so that's what that tradition is about. It's about about assured that we're looking after the Commonwealth, right?

I'll wait on to another one on another aspect, another wrinkle on that. But to me, that's a very, very fundamental thing. It's like the first step opens the door to every other step. The first tradition opens the door to every other tradition because they're basically saying here's how we protect our welfare and it will enumerate the things we go at. So that fundamental to me,

the second one is

big good guys up there. I forgot that

somebody recited for me, Pete,

I'm getting braided for a group purpose. There's one of the ultimate authority, 11 guys. He may express himself in our group conscience and that's that's all of these traditions. Very important. That's certainly one for our group purpose. What is our group purpose? It'll it'll define it a little later on our group purpose. We only have one purpose and that's to carry the message to the alcoholic steel servers. That's what we're about. And for that purpose,

there's only one ultimate authority, and it's certainly not the oldest rat in the barn. It's God, as we understand him express through the group conscience. And that's what happened in that meeting, I think at that time. But what your group got, I personally think the term group conscience is, is is

used inappropriately in our fellowship far too often. I've heard it here this weekend where we refer to a business meeting as a group. Guys, that's not a, that's not a group conscience.

You know, a business means not that that's taking care of businesses, take care of the routine stuff. We need coffee and eat something, somebody going to get the key, whatever. But that's just routine, take care of business and group conscience goes beyond that. Group conscience is prayerful consideration. Like I was doing that individual deal with that issue and I think the group probably did that very quickly when, when, when I raised the issue.

And so for that purpose, there's only one ultimate authority

as expressed in the group conscious. What does that mean in real life?

In in looking at

an issue that has real impact on our purpose needs to go to a group conscious give you an example. We we just did a thing that the other thing of reimbursing people for expenses was it's it's an ongoing issue that we have in fellowship. Yeah, I went for 25 years

and would never accept reimbursement for like if I did a service job at GSR, DCM, something like that, I would never take reimbursement for, for my expenses.

And one day it dawned on me after about 25 years that I was not being generous. What I was doing was being very selfish. And what I'm doing was denying my fellow members the right of participation, the heroes taking care of everything. Now, I didn't intend that. There was no malicious intent. I genuinely,

my gratitude was deep and I thought I was doing that, but everybody else's gratitude is deep too.

And So what I'm doing was depriving those folk of the right of participation and I don't have the right to do that. First time I ever took a check for reimbursement, I swear to God, I had to back up to, to take the check from this little gal. That was right. And I felt like a fool, but I knew it was the right thing. Now that was a personal conscious, you know, we had a deal

that I I read into a thing. It's, you know, like you probably don't see this in Canada, but we had extremely high fuel costs and

I tell by looking at the tanks

contagious because y'all have caught it too. But it is bad news. And I drove somewhere to an adjoining state to just speak at an anniversary. Not you have no pay no attention to that. But for some reason, I don't know, I guess I just had it with my son. I went to that thing and and it was a, it was an eating meat and you folks brought in stuff, you know, and all that kind of thing. And I spent $82

going from my home to that meeting and back. I spent $82.

The other people in the group put a buck or two in the plate

and I thought, come on, you know, something wrong with that picture that

yourself support means more than what I put in. It also has to do with my taking away somebody's responsibility. And so when I bother to accept the weight and carry, I pay $82 and they pay one or two. I'm not being fair to that group. Yeah, I'm not letting them have the responsibility that they that they have. As I had that on my mind a little bit. I never did say anything to that group because that was all history.

It is all right. You know, it's not going to break me. It wasn't the money anyway. There's a principle involved in that called self support. And when I got back to my group, I thought now we, we, we are a group that's pretty well organized. We have speaker meetings every Thursday night. And we don't just take who we can get, not who's readily available. We, we look for speakers. We want diversity. We want people of different persuasions. We want people of different colors. We don't want everybody to be handsome.

Me, we we want some ugly people up there. I made something looks like real drunks, you know? So we want a variety of people. Yeah. We want to. We want our speakers to look like America. You will be a representative of the sheriff. So we don't just take who's available, we take who we want. We have it set up so that we want to have a local speaker one time a month. That because we want to be good neighbors to our friends. We want females, we want gay and we want straight. We name it

whatever. And

so when you do that, there's going to be travel involved.

In my little experience up there with that 82 bucks made me more sensitive to that. I was thinking about it. I thought we're not being self supportive. We asked somebody to spend 100 bucks to come speak at our meeting. There's no self support in that. That's called using people is what that is. And so I brought that up at a business meeting and said I was real proud of my group.

I was really proud of them because there was a lot of reluctance to get into that reimbursing folks. They understood the principle, but my group is extremely,

extremely proud, the wrong word. They feel very strongly about our support of of a, a services at all levels. Yeah, we contribute every every three months. We go broke by design. We spend every bit of money we have. You know, we take care of our fundamental expenses. We have a prudent reserve in there.

Everything beyond that we break out four different ways. We contribute equal amounts to our local intergroup, our district, our area functions that take in our state and our national which takes into general service office. So we we routinely do that. We don't have to make a decision. It is a decision. And so we do that every time. And my group's reluctance was they didn't want to lower the level of our contribution. I was really proud of of our bunch for that. But at the same time,

we're either going to continue using people we're not, we're going to be self supporting by paying our way, or we're not. And that was a weighty group conscience issue. And we finally wound up getting an ad hoc committee to go to the tedious detail, bring back a recommendation and they did. And so we came back with up and we now do that as a matter of course. And that that's the deal. You know that that that's what is a group operate on and what is a real issue. That is the

consideration. That's what a group conscience is. It's prayerful consideration of a of a matter that would affect our purpose. A that, and that's what it is. And so it is a Vitaly thing leaders of but trusted servants. They don't govern.

We have leaders. A number of leaders stood up in this group tonight. Now everyone just stood up right there.

Oh, he's quitting. He's not

there. He's a leader. He's leaving.

As much as I drink, you take. I know how to open a bottle,

but leaders? Yeah, I'll let you in on a little secret that it's just my my secret. But I believe that anybody, I just pick a number. Anybody over five years sober is a leader. I don't care whether you want to be or not. Don't care whether you even agree to it or not. You are but who the new people look to. Hey, you're not going to look to somebody that's got five days, are you?

You going to look to somebody that's got you sometimes. So they got to their their approval

commodity and you've got to be able to trust that they're going to not just get out and get drunk. Talk about you. And so at least we'll talk about you after you're in the program.

But yeah, that's, that's who you look to, eh? Yeah. That you, you got to look at. So leaders don't have to be barking commands. Just a matter of the role that you, that you demonstrate. It's a role of, of how do you carry out your advice? That's where people learn from by watching what you do.

I was at an area assembly one time and if you, if you've done any of that, you know that we make an art out of voting. I swear to God we can vote some to death and as in one of those one time and we were voting on some. It really a no brainer kind of an issue

and we're voting over and over and over. And I, I just got tired of it. I did a little quick nose count and I saw that sucker wasn't going anywhere. So I switched my vote. I'd been voting for it. I voted against it.

Now, I couldn't have told you how anybody else in that group voted. I bet you I had 25 or 30 people asked me why I changed my vote.

That's what leadership is. Yeah. You don't have to bark commands. It's just people watch what you do. And then they're going to emulate that. If they believe that you practice what you preach, you know, they're they're going to follow. So there's a leadership deal that's there. You don't have to run for it. It just comes with the territory. That's my belief. Doesn't make it true and but very important that we do have leaders. We have to have leaders. Otherwise we just proud. So you got to have leadership, you know, and that and that's what we do, rotating leadership.

We don't let people camp on offices forever that we rotate that. And that third one is one we talked about a little bit earlier with seeing as a purpose that that the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking the short form that that the long form goes further and it says

maybe any quote that thing somebody I need read it John.

Two or more now I don't mean to correct my helper, but three is more. Yeah, two or more, yes. That's all it takes to gathered for the purpose of recovery may call themselves an A a group provided to have no other affiliation. And what that means is that say, if we wanted to go out here in the parking lot and start a move to to have meetings about anti retreats,

we can do that. We've got, we're free to do it.

Anybody could do it. It's a simple thing and that

the only requirement for membership. What's the quote in there about that People who saw is open to people who suffer from alcoholism. You have the long form of the tradition. I wish I had one I could see because my eyes are.

Yeah, well, your older brothers got the glasses you got.

Yeah, go to a young guy.

There you go,

none who wish to recover. No AAA membership ever depends upon money or conformity. Any tourists be Alcoholics, gather together for surprise. They call themselves with AA group, provided that as a group they have no other affiliate. Read the first two sentences one more time.

All who suffer from alcohol,

hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Yeah. And that, that's a whole different language. That what's said in the short term, the only requirement members desire to stop drinking. It's a whole different language. It ought to include all stuff from alcoholism. It doesn't matter what else. You know, the first, first real issue about savings of purpose was when the first gay person came in and there was a real, real brewha among those early pioneers about whether they should be allowed.

And that's what where that came from. It doesn't matter what else you bring. If you have alcoholism, you're in the right place.

And so that that's the thing. And I think we really give it a cheap shot when we say the only requirements. Yeah, I got to. I got a golden retriever that has that desire to stop drinking there, has had a drink, but he wants to quit before he starts. Yeah, offered him some one time, he wouldn't take it.

So not a real dog. But anyway that that one is one that gets booted around, kicked around a great deal. And it's one that that I always like to kind of underline that a little bit because it is such a widespread prevalent kind of a concern in in fellowship.

And, and so this is the baseline for that kind of thing. 4th one is about autonomy, that each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or as a whole.

Yeah, I like to break it down, as you gathered by now to personal every one of us in this room is entitled to autonomy. Every member is entitled to autonomy, Every one of us that, that we can, we can a, a, any way we want to, provided it doesn't interfere with somebody else's right to do the same thing.

And it's a, it's a kind of a of a tricky thing, like I don't have the right

because I get the privilege of speaking. I don't have the right to get up here and use gutter language.

I don't have that right. I don't have that right to impose that on what may be a highly spiritual moment for you. And I'm abusing my license to do something when I start doing that

taste a real one reason that's important, what is important to me just because in general,

but what it looks like in real life is over in Tennessee. Speaking of the conference one night, 11 weekend and the guy who spoke on Saturday night, I've never seen him before or since, but

he thought he was supposed to do a stand up comedy act. Now our counter and I did a great job of doing that. A very enjoyable countdown. Sometimes they're painful, but that was that was well done, good fun and that is good clean fun. Hey, well, this guy thought he was supposed to be funny. He sounded like a Las Vegas comic. If you've been there and enjoyed that special thrill

that

he would he, he wanted the poor guy was not funny. I mean, in no way he tried hard. I swear to God, he tried. He threw out everything he had. And you know how it is when you just sinking, you know, you know, you're, you're going down and you paddle harder, you know, and and that's, that's what he and the more he was seeking, the, the the worse he got. And I swear to God,

that was the most most absolutely worthless,

insulting, inappropriate talk I'd ever heard. And I've heard a bunch of them. But I'm sitting there. I'm sitting there with my wife. She doesn't hear that from me. I sure don't want her hearing it from some clown in Tennessee. No way. You know, that's that's not what we're there for. And so I didn't like it personally, But now I was mild compared to the two people sitting right in front of me. One of them was the poor person who invited to speakers.

And all the time he's talking, I can see her just squirming.

And the guy sitting to hide beside her, I assume was her husband was It was fascinating. I was watching his neck. Have you ever seen a thermometer go up? You know, And then you could see the red going up in his neck and his ears started glowing and, and I said, I don't think he's having a good time. So after that guy finally gave up, he didn't quit. He just gave up and

and so I saw that Lady that was there and I said

it looked like your friend you were sitting with didn't really enjoy the meeting tonight. And she said, Tom, you will never know

how absolutely mortified I was at that whole deal. Yeah, I have never been more embarrassed in my life. The man sitting with her was her minister at the first meeting of A he had ever attended.

And I'll guarantee you it was the last meeting of A A he ever attended.

You think about that. That's more than just purist virtues. That's a matter of just common sense of common decency. You know, here's a guy that will impact more Alcoholics in the next year than any of us will, will, will come close to doing.

And I'll guarantee you that boy would recommend an alcoholic to go to hell quicker. He would a see what a disservice, eh? Where somebody has taken a license to just sort of shoot off at the mouth and in the course of it, how much damage is done. And so it's not a matter of prudishness or anything like that. You know, my God, I can laugh with folks anyway. But, but when you're speaking as an example of Alcoholics Anonymous,

yeah, I think it's awfully important to carry yourself like a good example

and not somebody that's just sort of sort of smoking, joking that you run into that a fair amount. I, I took a guy to the prison a while back. That matter of fact that guy was talking about that was 32 years and, and, and got it, got it, got sober and I've been wrestling with him, took him to prison,

told him he go over speak to the guys. There'd be one way to sort of get his feet West. So he went in, We meet in a beautiful little Chapel, beautiful little Chapel, great place. And this guy made his talk and well, the guy spoke, let me put it that way. And he laced it with profanity in a Chapel. And we don't do that in that group. And, and, and so we got got through. It's all I could do to keep from just putting a stage hook on him and bring him down. But I just hated to do that. It's as well

tolerate. So we're riding home. And he said, well, what do you think I had to go? I said, well, it went OK, but you would have been a whole lot better off had you not put all that profanity in it. And he said, well, I just wanted the guys to know that I was not some big shot, that I was able to operate at the same level. I said what you just did was insult a whole room full of people

because what you communicated is what you think of them, you know, and what you're doing is taking guys. They got 168 hours in their week just like we do.

They got one hour of decency where they can come in and expect to have some sane spiritual stuff and then somebody come in there and and contaminate it with that. That's what it was a great disservice. And he said, my God, I never thought of that. I said, well, I didn't think you did. Yeah, but but you see what I'm talking about sometimes in that sort of loop just sort of a loosening and and not thinking about the impact of what you're doing. You're carrying a message,

not entertaining. You're carrying a message of hope to people

and, and so you can just negate the value so easily like that. And so that's not a matter of being goody 2 shoes. It's a matter of being concerned about carrying a message that has meaning and some depth to it. And so so I think about that and, and the autonomy. I have the right to practice anyway I want to, but not at your expense. You've got the right to practice it too. And I can't impose my values over you.

And so I like to keep that in mind. And, and, and, and in that autonomy

that in my group is autonomous, you're, we're free to operate as we wish. And so are the groups next door or anywhere else that each one of them is a freestanding entity. But we have to be careful and that's the caution in there that we not,

we're not, we're not exaggerate our importance in the scene that we are good neighbor. Yeah, that we want to be a good neighbor in our a community. We have to be careful of that because very, very honestly my group contributes more per quarter than our entire district combined. And and we don't plan to do that. We're not competing, but we we contribute what we believe is our fair share.

I don't think you would be amazed, but just in case you'd be amazed, I'll tell you

that contributions are pitiful at best. They're pitiful at best. And it's amazing how many groups contribute zilch, absolutely nothing. So you got a pretty one-dimensional program. And so, but just because we do that, we don't want to Lord that over invasion. Hold that up as some real banner of achievement or something. We're doing what we believe is right, but we have to be careful that we don't

taunt anybody with that. You know that that's just a matter of fact. We've always do it. All you got to do is look at the minutes.

And so part of the deal and the and and the fifth one that tells us what our job is. Yeah. Each group has one primary purpose. Carry this message to the alcoholic. Still suffers. I like to look at it. Each member has but one primary purpose. Old Tom I has one primary purpose, and that is to carry whatever message I might have to anybody that'll bother to listen.

That's my job. That's my primary purpose. I have a lot of other purposes,

but that's my primary and that's always on my mind when I get an opportunity. I do it on airplanes, you know, I mean spend half my life on them and I take full advantage of the opportunity. I watch see who's drinking the most and and if you fly first class, it's free hoots, you know, so most everybody will drink it. If I they don't drink, I may not thinking they might be part of my clan. So

which I kind of watch it. But anyway, that's that's my purpose. Yeah, that's what I'm about. And like any other human, I've got a lot of things that make up my life. But that's, that's my primary thing. That's that's what I'm really about. You know, I've been given a brand new life and the only condition is that a shirt with the next person. I'm not going to be selfish enough to think that it was intended just for me to enjoy. I think it was given to me and so that I can share it with other people.

The 6th one is kind of you don't sound like it, but I'm racist. This is about fast as I can go. 6th one is about stuff. You know that that

Where'd the reader? Right here. Sick

problems of money, property and authority may easily be diverse from a primary spiritual aim. We think that all that any considerable property of genuine use to a should be separately incorporated and manage, thus dividing the material from the spiritual an A. A group as such should never go into business.

Secondary aids to a aids such as club and hospitals, which require much property or administration,

want to be incorporated and so set apart that, if necessary, they can be freely discarded by the groups. Hence such facilities ought not to use the A name. Their management should be the sole responsibility of those people who financially support them. For clubs, a A managers are usually preferred, but hospitals as well as other places of recuperation or to be

A and medically supervised.

While an A a group may cooperate with anyone such cooperation or never go so far as affiliation or endorsement, actual or implied, an AA group and bind itself to no one. Thank you right now that's the long form. Long form is considerably short. If if if you do another one, do the short form because it'll make the point and the that that's a wordy kind of a of a statement there with it. And all saying is that

we've got to be stick to our net. You know, we don't want to get into only property prestige because you wind up dittoing with that with it owning us. And yeah, I see a lot of well.

And get travel around some, you see an awful lot of people who tap dance around that thing. Yeah, you God knows how many groups I know around the country that yeah, there's, I'm getting one example of 1000, that group down near me there. There's some may not, I don't know Canada, but in in our country there's federal money available sometime to enrich sort of community resources and stuff like that.

Some some, some Alcoholics are kind of crafty.

And so they saw an opportunity to get funding provided they put something else in the same building. And so they started developing what they call a community building. And there's nothing in the world except a subsidized building that's owned by AIDS and paid for by the by the government. Well, you couldn't get more out of whack with that tradition with with that. Yeah, it takes all of that responsibility away. And we and we wind up owned by, by officialdom. And so they they called me and wanted me to come down and

speak at the meeting. And

I said, OK, I'll come down. They said yet by the way, we want to show you our new club. And I said, well, I'll take a look at your club, but please don't tell me where you got it

because I may get arrested as an accomplice and where you got it. And so I went down and looked at yourself. Nice thing, but I, I didn't feel good being there because it's just exactly what what that what that is where money property pulls us off course. Let me put that in a little bit of a of a human contact. You're out there from a personal aspect.

I have to be. Remember that story I was telling about the job of the Jaguar? Yeah. Who you suppose on who with that Jaguar? Yeah. That that guy was sold his soul, you know, getting this kind of sort of visual affirmation of himself, I guess. But whatever it was,

I gave you an example of what you could do to a human being.

The

I'll give you 2 real quick. The

had a guy called me one day,

told me I had agreed to speak at his anniversary down in an adjoining state and I swear I didn't remember it. And and so he said, well, you told me you'd come and I said, did you have a date? He said no, but you told me. I said, well my God, man, I didn't give you my calendar and say just pick a date. You got to have a date, you know, you can see what we do. So he told me the date and I said no, I'm sorry, I can't do it. And I've already got a commitment. Now the commitment I had was to my son.

Now that's a commitment. That was a very important commitment. He was in that little old thing where you build a little car kind of a thing where the father builds the car and son takes a credit. You know, that's, that's about the way it works. And they had one and I said, if you make the state finals, I'll go with you. Well, that was my commitment. He made the state finals and I, I told him I was going. So I told the guy. Now this guy was a kind of a High Roller type fellow. He was in the

not wrestling cows. He was in the couch selling business and doing rather well.