AA myths and misconceptions at the Unity and Service conference in Concord, CA

And now please help me welcome our main speaker for this evening, Bill yen from Buford, GA. On the topic of AA myths and misconceptions,

I

I'm Billy. I'm an alcoholic.

My sobriety is January the 5th of 1990. My Home group is the early morning AA literature discussion group meets at the NABA Club 7:30 every morning. Please if you're ever in town, come by. It's a I want to thank the committee for having me here. I was here last year. Look forward to coming back.

It's it's weird, you know, as you get older and you stay in a a longer

I, I hosted an event this week at a winery. It's crazy. My life, you know, like I was in Napa all week. I with a bunch of other people in my industry and

you know, it's, it's so hard to think back about, you know, what can you really pull off in life when you're smoking cigarettes somebody already smoked and put out, when you're eating food somebody already ate and pushed outside?

I mean, it's so hard to explain to people,

you know, the life that we're given here.

It's interesting. I'll tell you quickly that

last year I was a trustee. This year I'm not a trustee. I'm a past trustee, which is awesome. And I've embraced that role. I've embraced it. But you know, life's funny and God can be do the right things to humble you. But you know, last about a year ago, I guess almost a year ago, I took a new position at my company. And when I took this position,

I had to sit down with somebody in HR and they basically reviewed all the disasters that I just inherited. That worked for me. You know,

they had like a stack of files and they just gave me the five minute lowdown on some problems. And

one of the people that they gave me the lowdown on sounded awfully like myself, sounded very, the, the story sounded very, very familiar. And, and then lo and behold, I'm in Boston. I'm meeting like 12 other people that I work with and we all meet at this steakhouse the night before to get ready for our meeting.

And I noticed that he's drinking and I'm a big fan of to the employer. I mean, I think that's one of the greatest chapters in the big book, one of the greatest chapters not only about how to be an employer, but actually how to be a sponsor. If you follow what's in that, you will be on track. But anyway, he's drinking and I'm thinking, oh, this is not good.

But what's funny is that a couple of weeks later, through some circumstances, I heard that he was back on track and doing well.

And so I hadn't run into him for a while, although technically he reports to me.

But anyway, I was in Chicago and I met another 15 people for work to get ready for a big meeting the next day. And as I was coming out of the men's room, I ran into this guy. Now, everybody knows. Most people know I don't drink, few know I'm a member of the club. But it's funny, you know, God is funny because he stopped me as I was coming out of the men's room and wanted to have a quick discussion with me. And he's a very bright, educated, successful 35 year old way past where I was at 35.

And, you know, he said to me, he said, you know, I just want you to know I got 110 days for the first time. I have a Home group. I have a sponsor. I actually have a service commitment. And then he goes, you probably don't do any of that stuff anymore. And I'm standing there, like standing in the hallway of the bathroom, you know, leading out to the restaurant. And all you can do is chuckle to yourself, right? You can just chuckle. I was at a conference,

I don't know, a month and a half ago,

and I happen to be sitting at a table outside, minding my own business, smoking a cigar, enjoying the solitude. And a couple of guys sat down pretty close by. And I didn't know them, They didn't know me. And they started talking about service and they started talking about the service manual and they started talking about the concepts. And I'm just listening to all this and

one thing led to another and all of a sudden I was in the conversation a little bit,

but it was very funny because when I when we all left to go back inside, the one guy said to me, do you have a service manual? Would you like one? And I just said to my, I just laughed to myself, all right, God, like it's exactly where I needed to be.

I have quite an interesting topic tonight and a lot of directions I could go. A lot.

This is not an audience of archivists and historians. A few, but not all. If it was an audience of archivists and historians, I would probably be debating very finite issues in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and those myths. You know is a birthday, right? How many people really wrote the big book?

I mean, I could go on and on, but I had decided a couple of months ago

that I wanted to be effective.

If you've any hurt, I mean,

that word is a word we don't use a lot in Alcoholics Anonymous. But if you get a couple of TOMI tapes, you probably can't go 7 minutes into a tape without seeing hearing the first effective and then hearing effective used many times. Like there's a lot of things we do that are not effective. That's the truth. That's just the truth. And so when I thought about this topic,

how do you be effective

to really talk about some myths and misconceptions that I see out there that really affect our lives as active members of Alcoholics Anonymous and active members of home groups and things that affect our fellowship as a whole. And so I asked some other people, I thought about it myself. I mean, you can see I have quite a list of myths and misconceptions that I believe are out there. And you know, the greatest thing you know, any speaker can really do is piss off somebody in the audience because

there's nothing worse than everybody just nodding the head and agreeing. Because then we become just some cult. And we all think the same way. The best way to get somebody to read our literature is to say something that they don't agree with and let them start looking for themselves. I tell people all the time my job when someone calls me with a question is not to give them an answer. Usually

it's more to tell them where they can find their own answer.

My job as a service sponsor is not to have my own political party and Alcoholics Anonymous

my job. In fact, if I want to know I did my job right,

than my service fonsees should be willing and able to vote against me, even if we're sitting in the same vote. That's a sign that I did my job. That's a sign that they did all their homework. And believe it or not, they came to a different conclusion than me. We should celebrate that in Alcoholics Anonymous. The day that that stops happening, we don't have what we have today. And so I have my list of myths and misconceptions that I just wanted to talk about a little bit.

But the first one that I have to talk about

that I'll just mention quickly. Maybe one of the greatest myths in Alcoholics Anonymous

is that a, A was perfect in the beginning. If there was ever a greatest myth, it's that from June 10th, 1935, up until most of the founders and old timers died, AA was perfect and they had no problems. I mean, I could put that right along with the myth that people used highlighters in 1937, right? It's not true, right? I mean, there were no highlighters. There was no book.

So when I hear people say things or when I hear people say I want what the first hundred had, well, which one of the first 100? Because that's a pretty iffy proposition. You know, you want really the 21 or I'll argue 22 who stayed sober until the book actually was published

or you want some of the others who had tragic consequences. Because if you're believing that just because you heard somebody say I want the program the first hundred had and you're believing that the 1st 100 stayed sober for the rest of their lives. I just want to point you, you might want to do some research because that is absolutely not true. And a A was not perfect. There is a term that drives me crazy in Alcoholics Anonymous and it's called Contemporary A. A

When people say I can't stand contemporary A well, I have bad news for them.

Contemporary AA has existed since June 10th of 1935. There has always been division and divisiveness inside Alcoholics Anonymous. To say that it's gotten worse. So this whole belief that things were perfect is such a myth. But I really want to get into some useful ones that I think are useful in today's world of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Probably one of the things that is quoted most often

that is really not in our literature, that it seems newcomers learn within 90 days

and throw it out there,

is that all you need is a resentment in a coffee pot to start a group. OK, If ever something has caused more damage to Alcoholics Anonymous and our unity as a fellowship in society, it is that ridiculous quote.

I would be the first person to tell anybody they have a right to start their own Home group

if, and it's a big if, they're really starting a Home group and not a meeting.

If they're starting a group that's going to be connected to the rest of AA, if they're starting a group that's really going to be a Home group, then I couldn't jump. I couldn't be more happy for them.

But we have all these meetings where people took coffee pots and resentments

and they're nothing more than one hour gatherings.

That's it. There is nothing else there. I mean, some old speaker said it better than I did. You know, you judge the quality. And I'm not going to debate any prayers tonight. Whatever prayer you use, God bless you. If you don't believe in God, it doesn't even matter. I'm not going to argue. But in the old days was very common in most areas that meetings started with the Serenity Prayer and ended with the Lord's Prayer. So I'm just going to work off that basis.

But you know, there's a couple of great old speakers that used to say all the time,

you can judge the quality of a meeting by what happens between the Serenity Prayer

and the Lord's Prayer, but you cannot judge the quality of a group by that. The quality of a group gets judged by what happens between the Lord's Prayer and then next time they say the Serenity Prayer to start that meeting. What happens when they're not meeting? What are they doing as active members of Alcoholics Anonymous between when their meeting ends and when their meeting starts? Are they connected to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole? Are they going into detoxes or panels or whatever you call them? Are they involved

in a group? Are they involved in general service? Does the group actually care about each other? Does the group actually fellowship together?

That's the real sign of a Home group and this resentment and coffee pot. I mean, and I know it's hard for people that are not members of Alcoholics Anonymous to understand that concept, but we have way, way too many meetings. That's my humble opinion

and all it does, you know, you can talk about the spiritual breakdown.

You can say finances aren't spiritual, but then you'd have to debate me on the 7th tradition. And the 7th tradition tells me that there is a spiritual aspect to money and finances. And the truth is, no wonder A A had a contribution problem. I mean, you can't keep dividing and dividing and dividing and be self supporting. It's impossible. It is

mathematically impossible.

The cost of milk, the cost of rent, the cost of coffee, the cost of sending your GSR to Prosser or wherever they go, the cost of sending them to assemblies. Once you divide a group, you just multiply by two, sometimes 3,

and that is not productive to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. I mean, all you have to do is look at a Grapevine or a box. 459 from 19. I'm just going to throw out 80,

So if you have a chance, take a look at 1:00,

take a look at the calendar and take a look at how many conferences and conventions there are.

And then look at today.

Today people have to base their budgets, their disposable AA income on which ones they can go to and which ones they can't.

No different than all these groups we have. How can we possibly be self supporting

when I mean, it's so alcoholic,

so alcoholic.

And you know, because

if a new member or even a member sober a long time sits down with someone that's been in a a long time

and tells them that they're in financial ruin,

They have no money left in the bank,

got a bunch of credit cards maxed out behind on rent, three months, all of that.

Most often if you talk to a A members who have sponsored people, it's not usually that complicated a problem. Usually, and I'm just going to say usually if you get into the details, they are usually spending more money a month than they make a month. That's what it usually comes down to. It is not anything super complicated.

It is just that the amount of money that comes in is less than the required money to go out.

And some in Alcoholics Anonymous would tell that person part of being sober is we spend less than we make. Actually, we kind of discount it by 20% and then we spend that because we save for hard times

and that's just part of being sober. And I don't think there's anyone here who to argue. Now I'm listen, I've been homeless, I've had money problems, so I'm not talking like,

but I think most of us would agree

that nobody would tell that person to keep spending more than they make.

Nobody would. However, when you get a bunch of Alcoholics together as a group, whether it's a Home group, A district and assembly, or the General Service Board or AOL services, something happens to our alcoholic group kind of scenario.

As a group, we forget what we tell our sponsees. We convince each other that it's OK to spend more money than we make.

Groups do it, districts do it. The last time I checked, almost 40% of the areas out of the 93 had deficit budgets.

How is that possible? How is it possible that general service areas

are able to convince each other

that it is OK to spend more money than they take in? How is it possible that the last time I even just did a quick study there was still 15 areas out of the 93 that didn't Expense income. Budget income, only budgeted expenses. I hate to get a little technical on use of the word budget, but that's not a budget,

that's a wish list. That's that's kind of like having three credit cards and just saying, well, we want this

so we're going to take it. We don't know what money we're going to use to pay for it. We're going to do it.

But that evil and corroding threat is the big book uses all comes from the resentment in the coffee pot. It all breeds from that belief now. And like I said, there are times to create a new group, no doubt about it. But you have to ask yourself, are you creating a Home group or you're creating a meeting? And I want to get to that kind of next myth

or debate that we have in a a all the time

meeting makers make it right. God knows, will that stir the pot in certain places, right? That'll just send the place into a tizzy, you know, And if you have certain of my favorite big book speakers there, they will just be the first to jump up and say that that that statement meeting makers is killing people. I'm out of that debate for a couple of reasons. Number one, I don't believe that it means

just go to meetings and don't do anything else.

I think it means if you're brand new, spiritually broken, can't, can't even read more than one paragraph without losing concentration, that it would be a good idea to go to another meeting tomorrow. I believe that's what it means,

but I've started to not to say. My response to that is I don't know about that because I don't have experience with that

because what I know is that home groom member, Home group members make it. That's the statement that I know is true. That's the statement that I know resonates with Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I was talking to someone before the meeting and tonight and you know, one of the things, you know, we say we have our issues, but when you meet people and other fellowships, when they see some of the real active home groups that we have, sometimes they get a little jealous.

I mean,

sure, you can work the steps and decide to leave Alcoholics Anonymous and maybe never drink again. I have no doubt about that.

But are you giving up on the deal you made with God? Are you deciding that you have no responsibility to pass this on to the people who were here when it was passed on to you? I mean, how can you tell me you don't need a Home group? All you have to do is work the steps.

But that sounds awfully selfish,

which I could go into that myth. It's a selfish program. I mean, where did that come from? Where could that have possibly come from? I don't. I try to think sometimes, who made that up?

Is it a selfless program? Of course it's a selfless program,

but it's not a selfish program.

In fact, we know if you care about yourself more than others more than 50% of the time, chances are you'll drink. That's just what we know because it's what we see. We are people who are so, so self-centered

that are very lives depend upon helping others and doing service. You can become the perfect big book thumper. You can have the perfect leather bound inventory notebook. You can have the perfect ruler based columns. You can have all of that,

but are you active in some type of service? Back to the very fellowship that saved your life.

Let's see, I I highlighted the ones I know I wanted to get to.

So

I think next I'm gonna go to promotion.

That word is a tricky word inside Alcoholics Anonymous and it seems to

be used very very badly. Just my opinion. Want to cross off the ones I got?

Um, first of all, let's deal with the first part of that. There's no such thing as promotion inside Alcoholics Anonymous. OK, so when you go to a district meeting or an area meeting or an intergroup meeting or somewhere else and somebody says, oh, we don't promote, well, yeah. But inside Alcoholics Anonymous, we promote the hell out of Alcoholics Anonymous. We scream from the roof tops and let people know about our area events, about our workshops, about

ever going on inside Alcoholics Anonymous. We want a A members to know about. That's not the type of promotion that they're talking about, especially in the long form of the traditions. The long form of the traditions uses a couple of words together, like sensational advertising.

You know what sensational advertising is? That's if we had a billboard with a picture of a car crash or a picture of somebody in a hospital with all kinds of lines coming out of them and a doctor with paddles. That sensational advertising.

I've seen some of the greatest examples of attraction. Actually, lately

I've seen one area that started to put Alcoholics Anonymous, whatever that saying is. You know, if you have a problem with drinking, that's your business. If you want to stop, that's ours. Whatever little saying you use. But on supermarket carts, how awesome is that? Everybody gets a supermarket cart right there.

I've seen it on the side of buses.

How awesome is that? I've seen now these digital boards where it's even cheaper to rent space because they can flip flop them and you can only pay for 110th of the time. But promotion was never about inside our fellowship. Which brings me to an interesting point about promotion.

I am a person who, to my core, believes in these traditions.

But I have to say clearly, I don't think it's impossible to believe in our traditions and not take advantage of the powerful communication tools available in the world today. You can be both. You can observe all 12 traditions

and take advantage of the communication channels in the world today. It's just a little tougher when you apply the traditions. But the traditions, I'm going to guess a lot of people in this room have been a group treasurer, have been on some committee where money is involved. Obviously this event, but anyone who has held an event or held a position in Alcoholics Anonymous, what we all know is

the traditions don't make it easier to do something

or to put something on or to hold an event. They actually make us stop and think it's a little bit more difficult,

but there's supposed to be that way. They're supposed to be speed bumps, like you're driving down a street. You're supposed to roll over it and say, oh, wait a minute, Whole Foods wants to donate money to our convention or wants to give us food.

Or when I'm in an elevator at a supermarket and I'm going up to the parking deck

and the elevator is decorated with all the organizations that that supermarket has given stuff to, and one of them says Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm like, what?

Like the traditions were made to make things a little bit slower

and to be thoughtful and contemplative about what are we doing as a whole. But it doesn't mean that Facebook is bad or Twitter is bad or the Internet is bad.

What's bad or irresponsible, I would go so far to say is if we as a fellowship don't help new people on how to do it responsibly,

but we seem to stay away from that

and we seem to want to publish in paper. It's crazy.

If you are online, right, and you're on Facebook and you want to know if something's OK, I don't think you're going to look for a piece of paper.

I think you want to go to AA org and you're going to hope that there should be something listed there that says Facebook helpful hints. How do you respect your own 11th and 12th tradition and also take advantage of this wonderful tool? Now, I'm not pro a con Facebook, just using an example,

but I was joking around. I, I was talking to somebody who's been around a while. I told a couple of people at dinner. I'll tell you how long he was around. And he wasn't a member of the Fellowship. In 1941, he answered an ad for a part-time bookkeeper for a publishing company. That publishing company was called Works Publishing. Up until the year 2000, he was the only man alive who had been all 50 general service conferences.

His name is Dennis Manders. He passed away a few years ago.

I had the honor of meeting him. He was He spoke at the 50th General Service Conference for a few minutes

and he had a me and him, I was the youngest delegate that year and him and I struck up a relationship. I was telling the people at dinner because at one point he looked over to me and he looked at the rest of the crowd of delegates and he said, you know what the good news is? And I was didn't know what he was talking about. And I said, no, I don't know what the good news is. He says you're the only one in here with a shot at being at the 100th General Service Conference. All these other people, they won't be here. You, you have a shot. But that

that endeared me to him

and we talked a lot. But I want to pass on something he told me that stays in the back of my head all the time,

he said. Billy,

if Bill Wilson was alive

a would have been on the cover of Wired magazine years ago.

He told me that in the mid 2000s

and you can just listen, go online, go take an A comes of age, take it, pass it on, take the language of the heart, take an electronic one and just type in a search bar communication and see how many times Bill Wilson uses that word that it is vital to our very existence. So the myth that we can't take advantage, we know where newcomers are.

I was at a regional forum a couple years ago in Oklahoma. A 19 year old woman got up to the podium or up to the microphone, she said two years ago, drunk, hammered out of her mind in her parents house in the middle of the night, she typed into a search bar. I am a teenage female and I can't stop drinking.

That led her to the AA org page eventually. And I say eventually,

because we better get a handle on SMO, an SEO, search engine optimization,

we shouldn't be afraid of that.

Instead, we've stayed back and did nothing.

And the first seven things that come on come up because people bought words. Newcomers get led to treatment facilities and not Alcoholics Anonymous when they wanted to go to a A. Why are not we making that a total high priority, that when somebody types in something about Alcoholics Anonymous or help with drinking, we should be the first thing that comes up? And there are ways inside our traditions to do that.

And we've failed. To be perfectly honest,

we have not done it. But this woman, I use her an example, 19 years old when she made the statement, she eventually got to the a.org page, which led to the Houston intergroup page, which led her to two women coming over her house the next day. And guess what? She sobered today. Why? Because we were where she went to. And that is the most important thing for the newcomers of today. I'm not saying everybody goes there,

but we have to make sure that we're everywhere. And you know, I want to give another example because people get all crazy about certain things. But the phone book, I actually have one at my house, but I don't say it's a joke. I say it because it's a tool that I use and I used to use when I was on the board all the time. I'd make photocopies of it

because there are some people who would tell you,

but Oh my God, if we have this or if we have that and all of a sudden an ad pops up,

we're affiliating with that company. OK, so let's go back 30 years to my phone book

where in the Yellow Pages and white pages Alcoholics Anonymous is listed. And guess what's right next to it? The person who bought the half page ad for AAA Towing, The person who bought the ad for the A club, whatever bowling alley. What's right next to that? The Anderson Law Firm that handles personal injury cases. They all paid more money. So it's bold or it's big. Does that mean a A was affiliating with all of those

companies? Apparently not,

because I've researched the General Service Conference. It never made it to the board or to the conference. It was just accepted that people have a right to buy ads in the phone book. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be there because newcomers go to the phone book.

So our reluctance to grab on to not the future, but the current

could definitely be a detriment to us. And that promotion word has been something that's really gotten in the way of us. And I would just encourage anyone

to read the long form of the tradition to

read a comes of age,

to read the 12 and 12 and to really examine and study

what were they really talking about?

So I think the next one I'm going to go to, um,

so inside Alcoholics Anonymous, God knows, I always joke around the greatest thing about AA, it's membership. The worst thing, it's membership, right? I mean, on any given day you could love it or it could drive you crazy. I and I always joke around with inner groups because sometimes I say I'm jealous of inner groups because at least they get to work with the drinking people, right?

You know, the sober Alcoholics are almost a tougher customer service crowd than the drinking alcoholic.

But what I want to stress

is that there's definitely a feeling in some parts of a A that we have too much literature. Some people feel that way, Some people feel that this literature they don't like.

But when we start talking like that, sometimes you could hear something like all pamphlets are bad.

We only use the big book.

Everything else is watered down. Alcoholics Anonymous. And I want to tell you that there are some pamphlets that should be musts.

There are some pamphlets that should be put in big books when you give somebody one.

I mean, I'll just give you a sample. Not all, but a sample, the A a group

is must reading. This pamphlet is must reading.

But I will tell you that you will read this in a parking lot to somebody and they will look at you like you just discovered America, right? Like where did you get that? Who told you that this pamphlet is must reading?

Both problems other than alcohol. Small one. The big one. It's must reading

the AA member medication and other drugs is one that I love when I'm in a meeting where people stop practicing medicine. I love to have this. I love to be able to let somebody know that listen, not that I want to disagree with that other person, but we don't do that. And even though, if you don't want to believe me, you should read it right here, we actually follow Doctor's orders.

We don't

go against doctor's orders.

It's actually an outside issue. We stay away from it.

The 12 traditions illustrated,

The 12 traditions illustrated. I mean, if somebody doesn't really want to ever read the 12:00 and 12:00, I'm not going to complain. But God, are there some good examples in this pamphlet? Now I hear the myth about we have too many pamphlets or too many special interest pamphlets or but I just want to say this, and I feel this to my heart. There was an A past trustee.

His name will come to me quickly. Alan Alt as that was right. Right. Last name, yes.

So Alan was a non alcoholic Class A trustee and a man who worked in prisons his entire life. And I served with him when I was an appointed committee member and I grew to really respect him. But he said something sometime that really caught my attention because he talked about all the debates inside a A about literature and pamphlets, and he talked about audience.

And now because I, I speak a lot at work, I speak a lot publicly.

And I realized that, you know, the most important question to ask yourself when you're speaking in public,

it's not really a note. It's not really studying. The most important thing you need to know is who is your audience? You can't do anything without knowing who is your audience. And what Alan Alt said, which is so wise, he said. You know the one thing I've learned in Alcoholics Anonymous, he said. Every pamphlet that we print

for alcoholic, I mean, for professionals, Alcoholics hate.

And every pamphlet we print for Alcoholics, professionals hate, he said. But that's OK

because they're reading the wrong pamphlet for the audience.

Even certain pamphlets that are geared towards bringing people in.

When it comes to pamphlets that are for meant for Alcoholics,

there are pamphlets that are for people already in AA and pamphlets for people not in a A yet

even in that subculture or subset of people. People already sober, been through the big book, have a sponsor. They read some of those other pamphlets. They're like, that's garbage. They don't even remember mention the big book. They don't. But it's not for the person with a foundation who has 36 spiritual principles in their life, has a sponsor and a Home group. You know, I've said before, you know, I always compare it to shark fishing.

I've never been shark fishing, but I've watched a lot of shows on shark fishing. I've seen a lot of shows.

I don't really know a lot about shark fishing, but I know this, that they take a lot of buckets of blood

and they dump it into the water and it's called chum

and the sharks are attracted to that

and then they catch a shark. You can't catch a shark with chum,

you can only attract it. The same for me with some of our pamphlets.

You can't catch an alcoholic with a pamphlet. You can take them through the steps with a pamphlet,

but you can attract them so that they'll want to do that. I always tell the story. You know, in in 1999, when I was a delegate, there was a big discussion. I'm not going to go into the debate about the African American pamphlet. That's a whole workshop on its own, but I got to read a lot of good background, a lot of good background,

and some of that background has changed my thought on literature from wanting to ban all of it to now appreciating it.

That 3 letters in particular,

three women, all from different parts of the country, actually two from the same general vicinity. The

1st letter was from a gay woman

and it really caught me because I can be so judgmental. So I'm going to point to that pamphlet rack right out in the back there. If you I'm sure you've all seen a rack in a Home group.

But she wrote that she went to her second meeting.

She wasn't sure if gay people belonged in AA

at that time in society. She wasn't even sure if people would like her because she was gay based on where she lived, what part of the country. But she wrote in her letter that at her second meeting she saw the gay and lesbian pamphlet in the in the rack. She even wrote in her letter that she never read it, ever.

But its very existence there allowed her to believe that she could be an AA and she could get a sponsor and she could get a Home group.

The other two were from people of a certain religion to women of a certain religion from a certain part of the country

that had been in and out of correctional facilities for a long time, over 20 years from the teenage years on up,

alcoholic drinking since their teenage years, for the next 20 years.

And the religion that they believed in and the pastors that they went to would not send people to Alcoholics Anonymous because we don't tell you what God to believe in.

And so I never thought about that. That never really crossed my mind. But their letters sure impacted me. So the myth is all pamphlets are not bad.

Some of those pamphlets are the greatest gold we have in Alcoholics Anonymous.

So let me go to an easy one.

Other fellowships,

you know, one of the greatest unproven myths in all of Alcoholics Anonymous that you hear talked about by people that have never been to where they're talking about

one of the greatest myths in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I won't even single out another 12 step fellowship is when somebody in a meeting screams out loud that some other fellowship doesn't work,

or that some other fellowship is not solution based,

or that some of the fellowship is all about this or that.

All said by people who have never been to that fellowship.

And it is a death sentence that we're doing. When we do that. It is not a myth. It is a death sentence. We have no right whatsoever to be putting down other 12 step fellowships, but we do it. We laugh, we do it.

You know, I had to finally realize that if I run in, if I go to some meeting regularly and there's somebody there who's not an alcoholic, but they're dying of something and they hear somebody like me say stupid things like that other fellowship doesn't work.

There's a chance that that person, because they've interacted with one of us, maybe it started to look up to one of us. And because I say something stupid like that, they think, oh, Billy said that that doesn't work. And then what happens? They die. That sounds like I'm stretching the truth, but I'm not stretching the truth.

The myth that Alcoholics Anonymous can cure or arrest drug addiction is one of the worst myths in all of Alcoholics Anonymous. One of the worst. I'll go back so that I'm not saying it. I'll go back to the group pamphlet.

The primary purpose of any AA group is to carry the A message to Alcoholics. Period. Experience with alcohol is one thing all members have in common. Period. It is misleading to hint or give the impression that a A solves other problems or knows what to do about drug addiction. Period. End of sentence, end of paragraph. If we don't believe that that's a A, we should change it.

But for today's date and time,

that's our group conscience.

Now, I'm not up here telling you or telling anybody because depending on where I am in the country, some days I'm a liberal, some days I'm a conservative. It depends on the audience and what they think of my views. So I really don't care to be perfectly honest, but I can tell you that I am a person.

I wish we would throw out the short form of the third tradition. I wish we would get rid of certain statements because the long form is so good.

It couldn't be any clearer, as somebody just said,

we ought to be for all those who suffer from alcoholism, period. It doesn't say you can't have any other problem. I'd be curious. I'll ask right now. Has anyone in here who has served as a sponsor and Alcoholics Anonymous ever worked with an alcoholic that had no other problems?

OK,

I am not saying if you've used drugs you don't belong in AA. I'm not saying if you're a drug addict, but you're also an alcoholic, you don't belong in a A.

Of course they do and you do, of course,

but we've taken that so far down the road.

It is very sad. I lost a good friend of mine last Saturday night because his girlfriend found him and he Od'd. 28 years old. My friend Billy, who I took him out of his mother's basement apt, I don't know, nine years ago with another friend of mine.

And I only mention him because I'm tired of taking pictures

of Facebook posts that say Rhode Island Rest in Peace.

For somebody who died of a drug overdose that I know from Alcoholics Anonymous. I am tired of taking those pictures. I am tired of certain members of Alcoholics Anonymous who have convinced themselves because of the alcoholic ego that because they have been through the 12 steps, they can help anybody. It is simply not the truth.

And so I have to be brave enough to stand up and say that.

I have to be brave enough that I think everybody in AA should have an NA meeting book or a HA meeting book in their car.