The Fellowship of the Spirit in Queens, NY

York.

Our speakers over the weekend will be Hector E from Los Angeles, CA,

Chris Off from San Antonio, TX,

Peter I'm from Staten Island, NY

and Myers are from Dallas, TX.

Welcome. Welcome.

You talk about being energized, God,

if it's if it's all the same to you guys, I got to stand up. I

there's only one thing I can do sitting down and I can't do it here. So I mean, we're just

for those I haven't met. My name is Myers Raymer and I am an alcoholic.

I took my last drink on January 15th, 88 and what a ride. What an absolute ride. Yes, I'm not Chris. I everybody keeps running up going oh, you're not Chris. And they just got

the

you know, I'm well, I got to get one piece of house cleaning stuff done first. Like it. Let me see if I understand this right. You have to pay $0.20 to sit in a taxi that's sitting still? Is that how that works?

How do you stay sober here? I'd be drunk all the time just trying to this. This is the it's so different here from Texas. I just God, man, it is cool, but different, different. I,

you know, if you heard Chris is if you've heard Chris talk before, you know that Chris had a real tough time getting here And, and I had no trouble at all getting to AA. What I had trouble it was, was staying here once I got here because things in our neck of the woods and I, I don't know if they are that way here, but in our neck of the woods, things in a, a have gotten really bizarre. And sometimes you don't really know where you are. You don't, I mean, you can sit in meetings for weeks and not know that a a exist there. I mean, we're talking about Sally Sue's problem and we're talking about

divorce again and we're talking, you know, the drill. Anyway, we're not going to we're not going to harbor on a bunch of that stuff. But the, the big question came up was why? Why don't more old timers stay in AA? You know, I, we went to Iceland earlier this year and there was a sea, an absolute sea of young people in that room. And I was the oldest guy at 49 in that room. There may have been one other guy older than me in there, But but you the question, this reoccurring thing that keeps hitting me is why is it

that old guys don't stick around and people don't stay here? Statistically, 1/3 of the people of all the people that come to AA, 2/3 of them will be gone in the 1st 90 days, which kind of shoots that 90 meetings and 90 days things right in the foot, right? I mean, it doesn't make much sense. And so

that what I'm hoping that will accomplish this weekend is have everybody start thinking again and asking questions about why we're here. Where where am I? You know, we get spoon fed a A when we come in and that becomes our doctrine and that becomes what we teach and we assume it's the right thing. And generation after generation do that. You see the guys that I sponsor, that's how they do it. And then the guys they sponsor, that's how they go. And that's how a A has gotten so bizarre.

What I'm hoping we'll do this weekend, and it's my fervent prayer that that's what we'll do it is that we will get this thing kind of gathered up

and each one of us collectively will ask the hard questions. How is my program mine? How am I doing sobriety wise? And am I adhering to that 5th tradition or my primary purpose of carrying the message to another alcoholic? Where am I in the big picture of this stuff? When, when I grow up and have kids and, and, and will and they need a a will a, a still be here? I never thought I'd hear myself say that. I've got three beautiful daughters and guess what? I got my eye on one of them already,

just a little bitty, you know what? But the But why is it that all of a sudden I'm worrying about whether or not A will be here or not? Bill Wilson said years ago. A, A will destroy itself from within, not from without, from the outside. And I truly believe that. And if you think, if you think I'm full of crap,

well, I am, but beside I am but it. But, but if you do, if you don't, if you doubt that, go sit in some of our meetings and then compare it to what we're going to talk about this weekend, which is straight heads up big book stuff. Now, I got to clarify something real quick.

I'm not the brightest guy in the world. I'm not stupid, but I'm not the brightest guy in the world. And I know that. I know,

I know that

umm, you guys as a tradition have had some very bright men up here doing this work

and you've had some very kind of esoteric a a pass through here and some of it is wonderful.

The guy that I sponsor is right off the street in Dallas, TX and Oak Cliff. Most of them are indigent. All of them are brutal Alcoholics. A lot of them are drug addicts that we kind of get to other places. But I don't get too many college PhD in my in my storehouse of guys that I work with. And so I tend to be very simple. The book was laid out real simple for, for Bill Wilson, those guys. Why do you think Bill Wilson and Doctor Bob kept talking the same thing over and over and over again? You ever notice how many times the themes in

repeat themselves over and over? This theme of willingness, this reoccurring theme of action that we're going to take? You see Bill new man, we got heads that are mush when we get here. We don't need 38 page inventories right off the bat later on. If you want to do that, we'll get into that some tomorrow. We'll do that if you want to get

anyway. What? Every time I do this kind of work, what I try to do is I try to filter this stuff and do it as I would work with if this man came up to me tonight and said, Myers, I want you to carry me through this work. I try to go as straightforward out of the book as I possibly can. I had all kinds when I got here in 88. The men in that group loved me to death and they blew so much psycho stuff up my rear end it was not even funny. I could tell you about inner children. I could tell you about feelings. I could tell you about everything

except how to live a sober life peacefully in my own skin. I could not tell you how to do that. And so imagine my surprise that seven years sober, when I'm unraveling, I'm writing hot checks all over Denton County. I cannot stand to be in my own skin. I'm going to five meetings a week. I'm doing everything I think I'm supposed to do and I simply cannot stand it.

Chris said one time that statistically the largest people, the largest bunch of people committing suicide in the United States today are people in 12 Step recovery groups. How sad is that?

There was a guy in Houston did a bunch of stuff a long time ago. This has been five or six years ago and

his whole process was talking about he what he was talking about was that most of us that come to a a get hung up in the fellowship end of the deal. And we never get off into the nuts and bolts of a a while we're here, the steps and God and a psychic change guaranteed to send us to another place. We never get there because we're too busy slapping each other on the bottom and telling off color jokes and 13 step in that poor little girl that came in shaking and you get the drill. And it pains me no end. And the older I get and the longer I'm in this fellowship, it causes me more concern.

And so it's our hope tonight that we're going to, we're going to stay plugged into this deal and try to try to get us through this work a little bit and hopefully enlighten you on some stuff. And as we do this, if you would please for me, continually ask yourself the question, how am I doing on this stuff? Am I okay? You see, the length of time you're sober has nothing to do with your sobriety and it has nothing to do with the health of your sobriety. I know guys that are 20 years sober that are so sick, it's not even funny. The spiritual malady is still kicking them all over the place.

They can't stand themselves, nor can the people around them. Stand them you see

the length of time from your last drink has got nothing to do with it. I got kids that I sponsor that have been sober for six months and I guarantee you these little guys are like a a just they're machines. They're just out there carrying messages and Brett, I'm not kidding you and it and it's just the coolest thing to see. And if my daughter reached out her hand tonight and said I want help,

I guarantee you one of those little buckaroos would be who I'd hook her up with because they're flat ass on fire and they love God and they love our program. And that's the kind of guy I want hooked up to my daughter. You see, a,

we're going to, we're going to talk here

about the Doctor, the Doctor's opinion in just a minute. But we want to do some stuff on the preface and the and Bill story. I mean, the preface in the fourth of the 1st edition

's

one of one of the things that we want to do is

in the very first of this thing in the preface, there's a line in there. There's a paragraph in there. This is not going to work for crap going through this book without a podium to set this on. If somebody got a podium someplace, I'd give them a $5.00 bill just to have something to set my board book on.

In the preface in the front of this book, it says because this book has become the basic text for our society and has helped such large numbers of alcoholic men and women, women to recovery. This is the first place in the book or the 2nd place in the book actually, where they start talking about recovery and they start getting this set up for this thing as as being a way of life. These guys that talk about being this is so cool.

Ask and he shall receive. This is so cool.

He's got

see,

it must be his attitude. You know it doesn't work like that.

You can tell who God loves best.

You know

this stuff of guys being in the fellowship in this program for for 10 or 15 years and still introducing themselves. Hi, my name is Joe and I'm a recovering alcoholic. If you'll start back at the beginning of this book and count through the 1st 20 pages of how many times recovered as mentioned, it'll blow you away. Bill Wilson and Doctor Bob and those first 100 guys that got in gals that got together and wrote this thing believed beyond a shadow of a doubt

that we could recover completely and fully from the disease of alcoholism and we could be done with this stuff

forever. This crap of being constantly in recovery just drives me nuts.

Look at the flip back over to the four to the 1st edition. I love this stuff. This first paragraph tells us everything we need to know about why we need to have our beak. In this book. We have Alcoholics Anonymous for more than 100 men and women who have recovered. There it is again at three times from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body,

too cool to show other Alcoholics precisely how we have recovered as the main purpose of this book. Now, look, there is no ambivalence here. There's no room for for. Oh, it just drives me nuts when I hear this stuff. These guys sitting in meetings and they talk, they wondering what Bill Wilson really meant when he said this and whether we really can do this and whether we can really expect this. There it is right there. They were talking about full recovery from Alcoholics Anonymous. I mean, from, from the, from the disease of alcoholism,

I'm not sure it's going to flow over this one. Let's see

too Cool. Thank you.

You don't hear me, OK. I can't tell you how much better that is.

So you guys understand this stuff. They're talking about precisely how we have recovered as the main purpose of this book. They were going to tell us exactly what the deal was, and we understand that. Flip over to the 4th of the 2nd edition because I want to get into the Doctor's opinion as quick as we can. One of the greatest sources of a a history that there is in this book is in the forward of the 2nd edition. We get to talk about the traditions and how they came up with this kind of stuff.

Look at the bottom

of XVI, Roman numeral 16. This physician had repeatedly tried spiritual means to resolve his chronic dilemma, but had failed. They're talking about Bill, but when the Broker gave him doctor Silkworth the script, they were talking about Doctor Bob. When the Broker gave Doctor him Doctor Silkworth description of alcoholism and its hopelessness, the physician began to pursue the spiritual remedy for his malady with a willingness he had never been able to muster.

It wasn't about a meeting. It wasn't about anything else except this understanding. Doctor Bill Wilson gave Doctor Bob a roaring case of alcoholism. He was the first guy to explain to Doctor Bob what this whole deal was about.

Chris will talk about this Psalm a little bit later on the season at the top of that page. It also indicated that strenuous work, one alcoholic with another, was vital to permanent recovery. There it is. That's four times there.

It also indicated that strenuous work, one alcoholic with another, was vital to permanent recovery. It didn't say one thing about going to meetings.

There's your 90 meetings, 90 days things out the window again, it didn't say that. It didn't say anything else other than we're going to work with somebody else. And if you don't get anything else out of this weekend, guys, if you're scared of 12 step work, you won't become Sunday. You'll understand that you're very recovery depends on your ability to carry a message of recovery to that guy or go that girl that's reaching out to you. It is that and that only.

And the next time somebody sits in your meeting and he's hurting like a big dog, don't you dare sit forward in your Sarah and say, you know, you just need to go to another meeting. No, you don't. You need to get off your lazy, self-centered rear and go find you a drunk to work with and you're going to recover. And that's how that works. You see, it's cool. It works great.

I want to take one side Rd. here. I want to take one side road and talk just for a second about this tradition stuff that came in here. I want to put a couple of things. Bill will correct me if I get off off pay. So I feel like I'm in great shape here. I.

If AA was formed, if the Big Book was written in 1939, Picture this situation.

They print all these big books, 5000 big books in 1939 and they can't sell the suckers. They got a warehouse full of big books they can't sell.

Uh, phosphate comes in there and approves the whole thing. He says it's a cool book and that starts getting some guys talking. Shortly after that, Fulton Asler wrote that article for Liberty magazine and all hell broke loose. We had 800 people reply. People were going nuts and now AA is kind of in full swing. All of this in one year. Now Fast forward to 1941. All the big books are now gone. 41 Liberty, the Saturday Evening Post. Alexander's article comes out. Now we got 8000 requests

for information. Bill and Lois and all those guys and gals up there that were helping him in that office. We're going nuts trying to get all this stuff replied to. Now here's where the trouble starts. We're talking 1941. So between 1941 and 1945, Bill Wilson is taking in all this information from all these groups. This is not a case where shits rolling downhill. It's rolling uphill. Everybody that's forming a group is calling Bill and saying, hey Bill, we got a problem here. We got these guys, 13 step in these women. We got these guys doing this. We got these guys over here that have these weird, bizarre

a ways that you, you know, you know that in the early days, if you were a convict, you couldn't be an alcoholic. Synonymous.

We'd all be in trouble. Most of us, if you're,

if you were a woman, you couldn't if you were, I mean, there were all kinds of things that were going on on this deal. I'm telling you this because this is my plug for Bill Wilson. Bill Wilson takes it on the chin and Alcoholics Anonymous. Everybody's always wanting to step up to the plate and take Bill's inventory about his depression and about all of his other stuff, his flandering and this kind of stuff. Bill Wilson is my hero because he stayed the course. He stayed the course and sold a A on the prospect of 12 traditions, which would save our fellowship. So between 1945 and 19,

when they were adopted, Bill Wilson did nothing but write those damn 12, those darn 12 traditions that we're going to hold our deals together. I was going to be a good boy, and I wasn't going to say one word about that stuff. Sorry. Forgive me. Chris can be the evil twin tonight,

but you understand what I'm saying here. Like this. I mean, Bill Wilson, everybody kept saying, saying don't talk about the tradition, We don't want to hear about them. But Bill could see the very the very basis of our fellowship dissolving out from underneath us, just as it had with the Washingtonians, just that it has with the Oxford Movement. It was all disintegrating and he could see it.

And so he stayed the course and he held us together.

Tradition one, talking about unity being all important. And over the weekend, we're going to throw some tradition stuff in here because it's so hugely important. Because when I see groups dissolving now, it's real easy to go back, take out a copy of the traditions and say, see right here, brother, right here, this is what you're not doing. You see, I've got to be a huge torch carrier for the traditions these days because of what it's going to be. What's necessary to save this deal?

Turn over to XX page 20 in the of the Roman numerals

at the top paragraph in that thing.

When I got to A8 in 88I floundered for seven years. I got plugged in with these big book dumpers and the very first thing they did in the very first meeting I was at in that big old den, a big book comforts was take me to this page. And we read this because my arrogance says AA is fine, leave it alone,

we don't need to change a bunch of stuff. Well, all these guys were trying to do was get us back on track. They weren't trying to change anything. And So what they did was they made me read this. Of Alcoholics who came to A and really tried, 50% got sober. We've all read this stuff at once. It remained that way. 25% sobered up after some relapses. Among the remainder, those who stayed on with a A showed improvement. Other thousands came to a few a A meetings and at first decided that they didn't want the program. But great numbers. Of these, about two out of three began to return as time passed.

If you do the math on it, it's over 90% / 90% of the men and women who came to this precious fellowship stayed. They got sober. They recovered

you. You see this stuff right here that I wrote on the board

there. It is up through 195585 to 90% of the people that came to this fellowship stayed by 65, were down to 50%. By 80, we're down to 33 percent. 94 was the last figures that I could get out of New York on the thing. We were 5% plus or minus, some areas, 10%, some areas a little bit more, some areas a lot less. But you get my drift, don't you? OK,

I promise I will not get emotional about this scouts honor.

But I dare you, I dare anybody in this room to stand there and tell me that AA is OK and look at those figures. Go ahead. It's pathetic. And millions of drunks are dying today that needlessly are out there. They don't need to be dying If we were doing what we were supposed to be doing. The reason that we've had a declining membership in a A for three years running

is because people know the jigs up guys, the words out. You can't get sober in a A so why waste the time?

Oh yes you can.

Oh, statistically you can't.

I know you're sitting right there going. Well, I'm sober and I've got friends that are sober.

Guys, there should be Jillians of us here. There should be bunches of us here. This is where we have to start asking the questions. And so that's what they made me do. Sitting there in that night, at that night with me, full of my own arrogance and my own ego. I was so full of piss and vinegar. The fact that I'm suicidal and I'm going nuts doesn't mean anything. You see, I'm, I'm forgetting that,

but in my arrogance, I'm going, guys, it's going to be OK, man. You know, And I've come over the last eight years to realize that everything is not OK and that we need to continually be asking ourselves those questions. Clancy, years ago, I remember hearing a tape that where he talked about pockets of enthusiasm. And it's the truth, guys. And the more I travel and the more I get a chance to talk, the more I see that exact thing. You'll go into areas where the big book has been so mutated and so watered down that it barely resembles the program that we love.

And you'll come into areas like this where you've got a bunch of big book guys, a bunch of guys excited about recovery. And it's just the coolest. It's just the coolest man. And it should be like this everywhere. The only way to change a A is from within. The only way to do that is for me to be a strong sponsor. And I sponsor this man and he becomes a strong sponsor and then he sponsors him and him. And we just go on down the line and you're doing the same thing. And we take our fellowship back and we begin doing the way we're supposed to be doing it. And we will do that. We'll see that

turn. It's already better in some places than I've ever seen it.

Anyway, enough of that stuff. Don't take our fellowship for granted, guys.

Just for the sake of, for, I don't know what it, what it is here, but in Dallas two years ago, I, I took a meeting schedule and wrote that stuff up.

If you needed a meeting in Dallas, there's 90 groups in the Dallas Fort Worth area. There's 1600 discussion meetings, 150 speaker meetings, 1512 and 12 and 25 big books.

If the forward is 1st edition said that our that this was our basic text. This was the directions for work in the work. Why do we have so many discussion meetings? Yes, I'll go on record for the world. I hate discussion meetings with a passion that you will never, ever know. I do.

And I know some of you love them dearly, and that's OK. And listen, I remember first when I first sobered up, being in a nice discussion meeting was a fun place to be. It was. The problem with discussion meetings is that there's not enough strong chairman to chair them.

Starts out good and this man's talking about God in the steps and then she wants to talk about she's moving and wants to talk about the movers. And then and then we get to spend the rest of our valuable recovery time listening to her bad day, you see. And instead of a strong chairman going, forget it, no way we're not going to see this meeting go down the toilet. You see, that's what we need if we're going to keep the discussion meetings. Let's make sure we got strong, strong chair people there to make sure that the meeting stay where they're supposed to to be

turn over to.

I want to skip the four to the third edition. It's just a little piece of history on the deal. Bill will kill me later for skipping it, but

Nah.

If there was a place that had patron Saints of Alcoholics Anonymous, Doctor Silkworth has to be there. Sister Ignatius there of Fosnicks there, Father Ed Dowling is there. I mean, these guys, none of them Alcoholics, and yet they affected our stuff so dramatically. It's an amazing deal. Silk Worth. Picture this scenario. Silk Worth, in the middle of the Depression, walks out on a limb, takes his entire career and puts it on the line

for Alcoholics Anonymous. He stands there. He was the first medical doctor to walk out on the line and say there may be something to this physical allergy part.

And believe me, people stood up and listened. People began to pay attention. Rockefeller started paying attention. The rest of the world started paying attention.

It LED credibility to why we do the goofy things that we do. You see, it's so cool. For a long time, I didn't understand the nature of this stuff. It's amazing how many of us can go way down range in a A We can be way down there and still not understand why we do the crazy things we do. You know, it's an amazing thing. Why is it,

despite all that's happened to me, despite how badly I want to quit, despite five or six meetings a week, I still don't understand why it is that this obsession to drink and drug will come back or drink will come back and I'll be in trouble again. You see,

nobody ever explained to me these diseases of the disease of the body, mind and spirit. Nobody ever told me about this stuff. Well, it's in the doctor's opinion. He talks heavily about the allergy, the physical part of this stuff, and he talks heavily about the mental obsession that Chris is going to pick up on in just a minute and go through the rest of the stuff. Later on in the book, they hit the spiritual malady part that drives the whole thing. But once you understand that it, it, it, it helps you to understand why we're doing this stuff.

The reality is guys, that most of us get way down range in this program, still thinking, really deep down inside, still thinking that we're just badly behaved in individuals, that it's a behavior deal. And I've talked to so many guys that have been sober for a bunch of time that still don't understand this thing. And it's painful, painful to see

Silkworth writes these letters and then flip over to page 26.

We can cover this pretty quick because I want to give Chris a chance to do his. Chris, you're going to do yours after we break, OK,

In the next 25 minutes, then we'll cover. We'll cover this pretty thoroughly about what we need to do,

and then at the end of this stuff, what I want to do is stop 5 or so minutes into it. And if you've got a question, we'd love to hear that question and we'll see if we can't

scare up an answer for that. At the top of that page it says we believe in. So suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol on these chronic Alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy. Here's where they introduced that that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temper drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. And once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence,

their reliable reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve. Does this sound like you?

I I know that it does. Here's me brought the emotional appeals seldom suffices. The message which can interest and hold these alcoholic people must have depth and weight. In nearly all cases, their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves if they are to recreate their lives.

Silk Worth is making sure that we understand that your recovery is going to be based on a spiritual connection. And he frogs off into it kind of lightly. And then he hits it with both barrels. And they just keep hitting it all through the book. And so when I sit in meetings and I hear people talking about, well, you know, this, that and the other, and they try to bring in the behavior modification. They try to bring in all this other kind of stuff. Wait a minute. From Page 1 to 164, they tell us that our recovery is based on one thing,

a spiritual change significant enough to bring about this recovery from alcoholism

going to be supported and, and, and carried along by our ability to work with other Alcoholics. That's it. See, God's in the center of the deal. And that's what Silk Worth is trying to hit us with on this stuff. It had nothing to do with anything else. That's the message of depth and weight that we need to be carrying. Not go to 90 meetings in 90 days. That is not the message with depth and weight. We got to stop doing this, guys. The message. Let me while we're at it, let's just nip something in the bud real quick, OK?

Is it hot in here or is it just me

and.

The next time you have a guy that you're working with, a nice protege that you just picked up, sitting down and hand him a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and ask him to go through there and show you how many times It says in the big book that our recovery depends on going to a meeting.

And yet collectively, as a fellowship, isn't that a direction that we give every new guy? Keep coming back. It works. We'll see you in the meeting next week.

Not my guys, you don't. I'll see you at home. We're bound tomorrow night. You. You nice guy,

I was going to say you Dick, but I wasn't going to say that anymore.

But you, you understand what I'm saying. Nowhere in the big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous are basic text does it say that our spiritual solution lies in a meeting. It does not say it. It says we need to get up next to a drum. That's why the group that I go to, we have three meetings a week. They're all big book studies and every other night of the week we're out carrying a message of recovery to some lined up joint. At the present, we're carrying 23 meetings a week other than our meetings to wind up joints.

You come to our group, you're going to do 12 step work. If you're not, see, you

wouldn't want to be you.

You're just taking up space, man. This ain't sideshow stuff here, man. This is reality. We want you on the firing line carrying a message of recovery. Because it's only there that the hope of recovery lies. And it's only there that you arrive at a place where you can live comfortably in your own skin. Where you can smile at your family and they can smile back. Where you can sit there in the morning and deep breathe deeply and know that God is good and that life is good and that we have a purpose. You see.

Anyway, you catch my drift.

Skip down at the bottom of that page on page 26. Men and women drink. Essentially.

If you can't relate to this, you're not an alcoholic.

I'll just take your inventory right there. Judging you is what I do best. Honest. Just

men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once from taking a few drinks. Still got you all, You with me OK?

Drinks which they see others taking with impunity after they have succumbed to the desire again. And so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops. They pass through the well known stages of Esprit, emerging remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink again.

Sounds like everybody in here. This is repeated over and over and here it is. Guys, you need look no further and unless this person can experience an entire entire psychic change, there is very little hope of his recovery.

We clear there,

it did not say unless we can get hooked up to the right AA group or unless we can get the right sponsor or unless we can blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, just fill in the blank. He didn't say that. It said our solution is an entire psychic change. And so our question here it is again that we have to ask ourselves is have I had a psychic change and I don't give a rat's patootie if you're 3 weeks sober tonight or if you're 30 years sober tonight. The question needs to be asked of every one of us. Have I had the psychic change? If I have not had

psychic change, I have no business doing this. I have no message to carry. I know that irritates the crap out of some of you guys, but ask the question. And if the question is no, I have not had the psychic change. And the next thing to do is, is grab somebody who has and ask him to help you through the work. And the older you are, the harder it is to do that. You give me a guy that's 15 or 20 years sober that has not experienced that burning psychic change that awaken their life and I'll show you

man that's so consumed by his own arrogance and his own ego that he's going to kill himself and he'll kill a bunch of you before he does.

And God love him because I know what it's like to be sober or be in the fellowship for some period of time and not understand what it was all about. I remember sitting in a meeting when I got to primary purpose group, this big old den of big book dumpers. And I remember there's like 30 guys sitting around the table in those days. Our meetings tonight, they're, they're on Tuesday night. There's, there'll be 150 people in that meeting. And I remember sitting there in that meeting and looking around the room and I'm going and, and I've got 7 years sober at the time and I'm and I'm looking,

and I'm looking at this guy's face

and I'm looking at her eyes. I'm looking at her eyes and I just go around the room and I'm going. They didn't have to say a word. I knew I was different. I knew I was different. I wasn't sure at that moment exactly what it was, but I knew that the members of that group had something that I did not have. And as they talked it, as we studied, I began to learn things about this big book. And God love Chris. We talked about this before. It was so funny. We had a Tuesday night meeting and Wednesday morning I'd be on the phone going Chris, Chris,

Chris, do you know how long Bill Wilson was sober before he started blah, blah, blah. And we go like this and he just, he wouldn't make fun of me. He wouldn't say, you stupid jerk. He wouldn't. He just,

I will forever love my twin brother because of the way he treated me as I went through this process. Not only do he carry me to AA the first time, but he didn't laugh at me and embarrass me as we got into the deal and as I began to learn this stuff. We have another meeting on Thursday. And Friday morning, I'd call Chris. I say Chris, Chris, man, you won't believe what? Listen to this. And I'd read him something out of the big book and he'd go, yeah, that's that's cool stuff, man. You see. But day by day, week by week, I began to change and I began to understand. And I began to understand that I didn't have to

here the very fellowship that was embracing me. I didn't have to be afraid that somebody was going to ask me to sponsor him. I didn't have to be afraid to carry a message of recovery because guess what, guys? I began slowly but surely to put together a message of depth and weight right out of the book. And I didn't have to remember any psycho crap because remember, I'm an idiot. I didn't have to remember.

I didn't have to remember any esoteric stuff. I didn't have to remember any cool shit because it was there in the book. And all I had to do was get off my lazy, skinny rear and read it and then go carry what I read to him and to her. And I would sit there and it's like I could talk for years to these guys I tried to sponsor when I first got here. I talked to him about all this psycho stuff and the feelings and all the other crap, and they just kind of glazed over and check out, you know? But I'll never forget

beginning to have the psychic change and working with the first guy that I sponsored and I'm carrying a message with death and weight. And I see his face go, huh,

I never heard that before. And we talked and I see him smile and I see him put his life together and I see him go home and not swatted his wife. I see him go home and be nice to his kids. I you understand what I'm saying. It wasn't Myers message anymore. It was God's message through the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that was guaranteed to have the depth and weight that was necessary.

And as one guy sponsored got sober and another guy got sober and another guy got sobered, another guy got sober

and I got the whole little army of big book thumpers out there that are sober. Was it Myers is doing?

Not on your life, not on your life. And we're going to talk about that some this weekend. How cool that stuff is.

Oh this is great. The next paragraph at the bottom of next paragraph. The only effect necessary being the only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules. They were going to make us take the steps, God forbid.

You know,

Chris, I want to save you some time to do some of this stuff. I want to

too fake too fast. Things want to cover in the next couple of minutes. Everybody in here, there's not anybody in here that doesn't understand the allergy. Is that correct? You understand when you drink,

you get drunk and that's it. I mean, but, but it's, I mean, but once the allergy sets itself up and we start start drinking and we continue to drink and you, you understand that that to the, to a large extent is the most that any of us get out of our knowledge of alcoholism for many, many years. I drink and I can't stop. I drink and I get drunk,

but we don't understand this stuff. The most baffling feature of this whole thing, of that three-part disease of body, mind and spirit, the mental part, the mental obsession, the stuff that Chris is going to elaborate on in just a minute, is the biggest single baffler of why we do those things. It's the part that baffles our families mightily

in it, but it's the part that very few people understand. We have the only disease known to man that has a component to it that tells us that the problem does not exist.

And there is the weirdest deal. You see, no matter how bad things get, you know you guys, you go to a bar, you get the crap beat out of you

that morning you say I will never do it again. As you look through these eyes, all welded shut

and and then where are you 24 hours later?

Drunk again? Now where is the logic in that?

My sainted wife over there with a coffee cup right there

when we were dating, when we were dating 20 some odd years ago, 25 years ago, four years ago, she we went out and we had some brewskis and she was eating a hamburger and she dropped this hamburger in her lap and it embarrassed her just something fierce. And over the years, you know, if she drinks something she thinks about that night and she says, you know, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm not going to get drunk like that. She wasn't even really drunk, but you know that. But you know the drill. You know that.