Group Conscience and Tradition 3 – 12 Steps 12 Traditions Weekend Workshop – Part 3 of 5 – Billy N.

Hey everyone, my name is Pete and I am an alcoholic. Welcome back to the 2021 12 and 12 Workshop Weekend with the New Horizons Group of Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank you, Joel, for taking care of some of the housekeeping items before we got started. And I wanna also thank the folks that are working behind the scenes, especially yesterday, helping people get into the Zoom room. Jerry, Ross, and Russ, you guys did a great job helping people getting in. So thank you very much for that. Once again, I'd like to welcome Chris R. from the Ingram Solutions Group in Texas and Billy N. from Alpharetta Unity Group from Georgia. As a reminder, we'll be having a Q&A session the last half, the last hour on Sunday. Please make sure to get your questions for the speakers in by the end of the meeting. To get this workshop started this morning, I would like to introduce our prayer chair, Michael P. Good morning. My name is Michael, and I am a recovered alcoholic. New Horizons is my home group. Welcome, everyone. Join me in the third step prayer, which can be found on page 63 of the big book. God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of thy power thy love and thy way of life may i do thy will always amen thank you michael first morning speaking on tradition 2 for 20 minutes i'd like to welcome back billy in thanks good morning everyone billy alcoholic member of the alfreda unity group and uh have so much coffee inside me right now because after i was done with all of you last night i got a little bit of sleep but then i woke up in the middle of the night to go to the japan general service conference which i only mentioned because we talked about unity last night and i couldn't understand a word of what they were saying and i did not have an interpreter um i had somebody who was sending me some whatsapp updates about what they Were talking about but it really reinforced how important a unity is to halfway around the world there were 60 people gathered on zoom for the general service conference of japan 60 people who care as much about aa as all of us do 60 people Who put their time aside and sacrifice so that anyone with alcoholism who has trouble in japan has a place to turn um if you weren't here last night um i don't have the time to go back over tradition one but i think the thing that i should mention the most if you were in here last nigh is what literature you should be looking at regarding the traditions and so i just want to point out that if you waren't here las night obviously a lot of us know the 12 traditions are mentioned in the 12 and 12 the book called 12 steps and 12 traditions but there is also vital information in aa comes of age in the aa group pamphlet in language of the heart in the pamphet problems other than alcohol um in the traditions illustrated um there's vital information there and i also want to share that it's really hard to embrace these 12 traditions. The host muted me, I don't know where. I'm not sure the last thing you heard, but I'll try to do the best I can. Inside AA Comes of Age is a chronicle of all the mistakes. You know how when you go to a big book weekend and you hear about this mysterious first hundred people? You hear about AA was perfect in 1939. AA was a disaster between 1935 and 1945. Yes, people were recovering, but like I explained last night, our inability to have relationships with other people was causing massive, massive problems. um i always say you know bill was fond of talking about all the letters he received he'd get a letter one day there's way too many countries and states here for me to even mention any state or town because i could offend someone but bill would get a letter one day that said, dear Bill, AA is working great here. We are on fire with AA. We have newcomers showing up. We're going to the police department. We go into the detox. We're go into this group of people who are going to be in the police station. We go to the courts. The only problem we have is this other group across the street. We have no idea what they're doing there or how anyone stays sober there. and like two weeks later bill would get the same letter from the group across the street the exact same letter dear bill we're on fire with aa everything's great here we're reaching out to the police departments you know they would write the same thing and they would say the only problem is the group cross the street we don't know what's going on there or how anybody's staying sober. The 12 traditions came at a critical time in AA's history. So let me start on tradition two. I'm going to read the long form for a second. For our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority, a loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. Little trivia, the short form is longer than the long term. But I like the long forms of the traditions for our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority a loving god as we express himself in our group conscience so there's a lot of things for me to talk about here in not a lot time but i want to read one of my favorite passages that aa comes of age to start off the discussion and that is on page 99 in the section of the second tradition a lot of people don't realize that either inside a comes of age if you go to page 97 for the next couple of pages it goes through all 12 traditions but regarding tradition 2 here is what it says harder still to accept and i like to add the words in there harder to still accept for billy so this applies to me as well was the now proven fact that the conscience of the group when properly informed of the facts and issues principles involved was often wiser than any leader self-appointed or not we slowly realized that the old timer frequently was faulty in judgment because of his position of assumed authority, he was often too influenced by personal prejudice and interests. With all his experience and good works, there was still nothing infallible about him at all. If you condense that down to a few words, the group always knows better. The group knows better than any individual member of AA, including myself. That's what we believe. We believe God speaks through the group. What becomes complicated here then? Well, it's hard to believe that Alcoholics Anonymous has a slogan, keep it simple. If there's any organization that probably shouldn't have a slogan, can keep it simple. It's probably us. We do not keep things simple. Sometimes we publish too many guidelines and God knows what else, and then we have the other side of the AA fence, the loophole finder. It seems that if we were going to ask a 40, you know the thing about 40 questions, are you an alcoholic? If I was going to add two, I would add, are you able to form opinions without being informed of the facts? I would Add that question to the 40 questions. And then I would ask, Are you an expert loophole finder? Because it seems we attract loopholefinders better than any other organization so i want to talk about some of those kind of myths regarding the second tradition the first is if god speaks through the group conscience whatever your conception of god or a higher power is not mine well then just who is in that group isn't that an important question Are all of us in that group? I mean, listen, how many of us are here now? 475? I mean the New Horizons group is putting this event on today. Do all 475 of us get to chime in about how this event should go? So an important thing is who's in the group? And I want to stress this. When I say group or meeting, it's all inclusive of digital platform and in person. There is absolutely no difference to me except in location. Except for location, there is no difference. If this event was in where New Horizon meets or in a hotel around the corner from them, it is the same event just in a different location. I attend a meeting pretty frequently before I go on to my other points. I just want to share some of my own recent experience. I attend the meeting pretty regularly. It's not my home group. It's on Zoom. Prior to being on Zoom, it was a regular home group. That meeting keeps growing. And a big, big brawl broke out regarding those who want to keep the meeting the same as it is and those who wanna create breakout rooms. Because now that we have Zoom, here's the difference when it comes to locations. we usually can't afford to pay for extra rooms when we meet in a regular location. But Zoom makes it easy for us to just get more real estate, even though it's in the digital world. So this group I attend, this debate broke out and they had a group conscience last week. A group conscience that was none of my business. A group conscience that had nothing to do with me. I'm simply a guest that attends that meeting. That's it. No more. I'll get to how I feel about that in the seventh tradition later on. But I want to explain what that means. That means I don't vote. i don't get to not vote but try to use any influence i have with others to vote no i talked last night that the two words that are weaved throughout the traditions are respect and sacrifice i have to have respect for that group and respect for the second tradition when we're looking for the group conscience we're looking for the group conscience of those group members you know and then we become well who is a member of that group so let me explain something here um i love the aa group pamphlet i can't say it enough but not every meeting is a group and i don't have a lot of time to get into a lot of details. But in AA, we have one home group and it doesn't matter where it is. It could be in Bend, Oregon. It Could Be In Tokyo, Japan. It Can Even Be On Friday Nights At Eight O'Clock in a Zoom or WebEx location. But I only have one. I think when this whole thing is over, we'll be able to do a whole new Myths and Myth Conceptions just on the pandemic time, just on Zoom. I mean, how many of us have heard someone say, this is my Zoom home group? What is a Zoom home groups? I just want to break that down. That's like going to a meeting in the basement of St. Mary's Church on Monday night and on Friday night going to a meetingin the basementof St. Joseph's Church and me showing upon Friday night saying, this is my St. Joseph's home group because I have a different home group based on the different buildings that I'm in. and I even have a different home group based on different days of the week we only have one home group now I want to stress there there is nothing wrong if your home group is only digital there's nothing wrong with that in fact we would be a lot better off if more people just had one home group that was digital. All the trouble around tradition two and group conscience and everything is based on group membership and people not understanding the difference between a group and a meeting. That's where the complications come. You know, Chris mentioned Don P and so did I last night, which is a great tribute to his legacy. I mean, we lost him in the early part of the 2000s and it's 2021. And two speakers from two different parts of the country happen to mention the same person on a Friday night. His impact on Alcoholics Anonymous is just legendary. He's a hero of mine for sure. in the AA group pamphlet it says is there a difference between a meeting and a group I'll read you what it says in the pamphelet and then I'll give you Don's explanation in the Pamphlet. It says most AA members meet in the AAA groups as defined by the long form of our third tradition. However, some AA members hold AA meetings that differ from the common understanding of the group. These members simply gather at a set time and place for a meeting, perhaps for convenience or other special situation. The main difference between meetings and groups is that AA groups generally continue to exist outside the prescribed meeting hours, ready to provide 12-step help when needed. So we already said I'm out of the debating society for this weekend and so whenever we mentioned prayer we could open up a can of worms so this is just an example it's not even how my meeting or group operates but in don's example the group opened up with the serenity prayer and closed with the lord's prayer and so don used to say you can define a meeting by what happens between the serenity prayer and the lord's prayer that 60 or 90 minutes but that has nothing to do with the quality of the group the qualityofthegroup is defined between the serenity prayer and the next time the lord's prayer is read to open their next meeting of group what is that group engaged in during those meetings but the time between them are they connected to aa as a whole do they have a gsr if there's a local intergroup or central office do they haven't in a group rep or whatever they might call them there? Are they doing public information work and corrections work and cooperation with the professional community work? Do they let the surrounding community know that they're there whatever night of the week or day of the year? Do you think that's a good thing? Do they get together and celebrate with each other? Do they celebrate anniversaries? Do they celebrate each other's birthdays? Are they closely connected to their families? That's what an AA group is. That's what defines an AA Group. And having one home group is also important regarding service. How many people, and if you do this now, listen, I can just share my experience but how many people do I know that are active members of a particular home group and I happen to tune in to some other group's Zoom location I tune into their home group their meeting and someone I know that's in another home group is the speaker seeker or someone I know that is in another home group is you know has some service position there or sometimes even chairing or leading the meeting not speaking but chairing the meeting i'll get to this in a seventh tradition but where we vote in the group conscience has a great effect on where we do service and i don't mean all our service but where our primary responsibility lays to do service after that everything else is extra but what we should not be doing is taking away other group members opportunities from doing service because we're doing it in someone else's group those service opportunities are for the newcomers who show up at that group not for me because this is what I like to do on Saturday night and I can't go anywhere without having some kind of control and what goes on so I have to vote I have to have a group mean how many times even before covid have I happen to be at a group I'll just give you a real example I go there to meet somebody because they say hey let's grab lunch after this meeting, after my home group. Great. Or dinner or whatever, coffee. Except in those two situations, how do you get burned in that situation in AA? I'll tell you what, how. They don't tell you it's business meeting night. Like I met you to, after the serenity prayer, go get some food. You forgot to tell me there were 18 anniversaries tonight. or you forgot to tell me there's a group conscience. But if there is a group conscious, I just hang around to wait. How many times do you see people voting in groups that aren't theirs? We only really have two ways to impact our AA group. Participation and seventh tradition contribution. And that's the way we keep our own groups on track, by making sure I'm at business meetings, by making sure that I vote. But also by making Sure that I'm not, what did I say last night? There's two kinds of business. There's my business and none of my business. How other AA groups operate is none of my business. I have to leave that up to them. And then some say, well, how do we reach group conscience? And this can be a complicated subject sometimes, but I want to just refer to some literature and I also want to talk about just being practical, applying common sense, which sometimes is not so common, right? We know that. I just want to get to the right page. Hold on one second. so first of all if your group doesn't have a structure you're never going to reach real group conscience and i don't mean that you have to be super over structured some people love that but just winging it does not bring about god consciousness and the group conscience so it's best that groups have some kind of guidelines or bylaws i don't care what you call them in other words who gets to vote who is considered a member because again i started off talking about that second group of people, loophole finders. Somebody like me who went to meet somebody for a hamburger and finds out there's a business meeting, well, somebody like me is capable of joining your group right at that moment. I have that capability in my brain. You know what? I'm a member of this group now. I like this group better. A lot of groups find it helpful. Like some groups I know say, if you were registered with the secretary as a member at our last business meeting, you get to have a vote here tonight or today. some groups utilize substantial unanimity not for everything not for do we have english breakfast or earl grey or decaf coffee or cupcakes versus sheet cakes on anniversary night i think we most of us can agree that majority voting is good for that but some groups have two-thirds required for any change to their structure so you can't just go from being a big book study or a literature-based meeting to an open discussion meeting just because the right amount of people are in the room that day So there's all kinds of ways to do this. But the important wording in here is this, and it's right on page 28. What is an informed group conscience? The group conscience is the collective conscience of the group membership. So right there, the group members. And thus represents substantial unanimity on an issue before definitive action is taken. And then it gives you some instructions. This is achieved by group members through the sharing of full information, individual points of view, and the practice of AA principles. To be fully informed requires a willingness to listen to minority opinions with an open mind. And then it throws up like a big yield sign, like you're merging into a highway. On sensitive issues, the group works slowly, discouraging formal motions until a clear sense its collective view emerges. Because maybe somebody realized that sometimes sober alcoholics are impulsive. Maybe, I don't know. Sometimes we like immediate gratification, you know? I mean, I'm pretty proud of myself that the only real thing I bought in COVID was a new set of golf clubs. I've pushed off the, you sit home all day and watch a screen, you could go shopping forever. But I love Bill's warning here. On sensitive issues, the group works slowly, discouraging formal motions until a clear sense of its collective view emerges. Placing principles before personalities, the membership is wary of dominant opinions. its voice is heard when a willing well-informed group arrives at a decision the results rest on more than a yes or no count precisely because it is the spiritual expression of the group conscience the term informed group conscience implies that pertinent information has been studied and all groups have been heard before the group votes and there's great respect for tradition four there, and sometimes we don't talk about it. Your group is allowed to be autonomous, but if your group is a literature study, I don't get to just come in as a non-member and say, you know what? I think you should be an open discussion meeting. I like that better. Those are all the other meetings I go to anyway, and I likethat format better. no there's great respect for tradition four there that that group was started and that group had a purpose that they were thinking about and that Group decided they wanted to talk about all three legacies or they wanted to be based on literature um there's great respect for Tradition 4 inside Tradition 2 that I don't just go there and have my will or tell you that your group needs to be just like mine. Thank you. So that's all I have on Tradition 2 and I'm going to go to Tradition 3 so we can really burn the house down. the first thing I want to say is the misinformation that's out there about Tradition 3. How many meetings maybe have you been to where in the script of the meeting, somebody says, out of respect for the third tradition, we're going to honor singleness of purpose. So let's get that out of the way. The fifth tradition takes care of singleness of purpose. Tradition three might be the greatest visionary piece of work of Bill Wilson. Now, what I'm going to say here is not political because God knows I'm gonna get to that when I talk about Tradition 10. I don't need to hear about the elections in my meetings. I don't mean to hear that. I need to know what's going on. I'm not I don' t need to here about Supreme Court judges, and I definitely don't nee d to see your baseball hat, right? My meeting should be a safe place for newcomers. So why do I say that? I say that because think about 1946 not politically just factually in the united states at that time the 505 of us sitting in this meeting right now in a many states in the united states were not political were not allowed legally to sit in the same room and be publicly assembled that's not a political statement that's based on the laws on the books in 1946 in 1946 my brother would not have been permitted to marry his husband that's not a political statement that's just a factual state of mind of the laws of this country so how incredibly genius was it and visionary that bill wilson said tradition three is the ultimate inclusion tradition it is the intimate inclusion membership rule that we only have one rule and that is you're an alcoholic now i hear people tell me And I want to grab the 12 and 12 so I can go to it for you. I hear people tell me, you're a member if you say you are. That's what our literature says. So I just want to clear up that, that that's not what our literature says in fact, in the very last paragraph in the 12 and 12 of tradition three on page one 45 in the version I have in front of me it says so the hand of providence early gave us a sign that any alcoholic is a member of our society when he says so not anybody any alcoholic that means that a lot of responsibility falls on me that means that I have to embrace that if I want to be a good member a decent member of Alcoholics Anonymous first of all we don't have disqualifiers we have a qualifier not a disqualifier we don't care about anything else we only care and i'm going to read the long form of the third tradition because this never gets read in a lot of places our membership ought to include all those who suffer from alcoholism period hence we may refuse none who wish to recover nor a membership ever upon upon money or conformity any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an aa group provided that as a group they have no other affiliation so it's for all those who suffer from alcoholism i always say this i always Say let me quote metallica nothing else matters nothing else matters we don't care what color you are we don'T CARE WHAT GOD YOU BELIEVE IN WE DON'T CARe IF YOU DON'T BELieve IN GOD WE DONT CARE WHAT YOUR SEXUAL PREFERENCE IS WE DONOT CARE WHAT YOUR POLITICAL AFFILIATION IS we don't care about any of that now there's a connection between tradition 3 and tradition 10 in today's AA because I see AA members and AA trusted servants write all kinds of stuff on social media like I'll give you one I'll never talk to anyone who voted for that person Well, does that mean if a new person sits next to you who's dying of alcoholism? Does that mean you would not talk to them? Because that's a pretty brave statement if your life depends on helping others. That is a pretty bold statement. Tradition three to me means I don't get to determine who sits next to me. It's none of my business that AA was a hundred years ahead of the curve on inclusion, that none of that stuff mattered to us. We get into a lot of trouble here with open and closed meetings. again I'm going to go back to the AA group pamphlet on page 13 where it clearly says the difference between open and closed meetings we get so fascinated with the drug word that we lose all sight of what these spiritual principles are about now this might be the first meeting i was ever in you know is there no one else here who doesn't have one other problem i don't care what it is is is this online traditions workshop the first gathering of 500 people i've been to in aa where everybody's there's someone sitting here who the only thing wrong with them is alcoholism But here's the deal. You have to have alcoholism to be a member. And when we get to open and closed meetings, what does it say? I'm going to read it so I'm not using my own words. The purpose of all AA meetings, as the preamble states, is for AA members to share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism, period. Toward this end, AA groups have both open and closed meetings. So what is a closed meeting? Here's what it says. Closed meetings are for AA members only or for those who have a drinking problem and have a desire to stop drinking. So there's two groups of people that can go to closed meetings, AA members, and we already covered you have to be an alcoholic to be in AA member, or group number two, have a desire to stop drinking and a drinking problem, not one or the other. End, a desire to stop drinking, end a drinking problem. And then what does it say about open meetings? Open meetings are available to anyone interested in Alcoholics Anonymous program of recovery from alcoholism. Non-alcoholics may attend open meetings as observers. So let me go back to the dictionary for a second. And I self-admitted last night that I'm a guy who loves to make up his own definitions of words, which is why the dictionary is very useful. If you're asking Billy for his definition of observer, it means I get to throw my two cents in when you're all wrong. That's what observing means for me. But that's not what the dictionary says. The dictionary says, I just get to observe. I don't get to participate. And we have meetings and Alcoholics Anonymous that have become meetings of all addictions anonymous. Which, by the way, I am a fan of all other 12-step groups. I currently serve as a non-addict board member in another fellowship. I am even a fan of gathering people together, if you don't call it AA, and talking about our spiritual solution. What we're talking about here is AA meetings. The temptation to become a heretic is big for AA members. Number one, I do not believe in any kind of public humiliation of any person who comes to an AA meeting. I do know that there are many people who do not know how you could call yourself recovered and call someone out in a meeting. number two i wish sometimes we would incorporate the big book into more of our experience with the traditions there's a lot of people who show up to their meet to our meetings and they have no idea what they are maybe somebody told them what they are. Maybe someone told them, don't worry about what you are, just go to AA. But this ties into what Chris and Carrie were talking about before the meeting started. And what were they talking about? How do you help the newcomer identify? If you're not willing to, after the meeting, introduce yourself and say, hey, you know, let's go get coffee. Let's go to the diner. Let's do what working with others does ask you to do. Then I would tell you your job is to mind your own business because that's my job. It's my Job to find out if they're really in the right place. And I'll really get into that in tradition five but tradition three we're talking about alcoholism that's the one thing in common that our membership has we have lots thousands of other problems that our members have but the one they have to have is alcoholism and chris talked about it last night how much of the first hundred and so pages is dedicated towards identification. But we really have to start embracing that this is the inclusion tradition. This is the tradition to make sure that my small, simple, closed-minded mind does not interfere with your ability to get sober and Alcoholics Anonymous and become a member. It's to make sure that everybody has a seat at our table. It is to make sure that we treat every human being as one of God's children, first and foremost. you know sometimes i hear people talk about corrections meetings i hear them make lots of opinions about prisoners and oh those guys and girls only come to the meetings to smoke which you can't even smoke now which is top of the list why i don't want to go back to being incarcerated because i can't even imagine not being able to read the new york times and smoking a newport but uh um you know uh how many times do we hear people make judgments about other groups of people or a meeting that's held at a homeless shelter or a salvation army where we almost create a second class of people Us do-gooders who on Thursday night of the month, the third Thursday night of the week, I bring a meeting in because I'm an AA giant and hero and I get to tell the rest of the world. Oh, and then there's all those people that live at the Sally. Well, that's ridiculous. You can't coincide that with the third tradition. Once we're all in that meeting in that group, uh the highest rank in aa is a member it's all downhill from there we're all members because the only thing that binds us there is our alcoholism it doesn't matter that maybe one person is a prisoner or one person is homeless or onepersonisinasalvationarmy you know if if somebody at the homeless shelter should they judge me should they be worried about what else i am besides being an alcoholic should they charge me that i like to ride a motorcycle or i like to play golf did they look at me across the room when i go up to get a coffee and say oh that's the motorcycle rider or the golfer no they don't just like it's not my job when they get up a cup of coffee they're no different than the person who came in to bring in the meeting with me they're simply an aa member in an aa meeting or if it's a panel meeting then it's not a meeting and i don't want to go down that rabbit hole but The other thing I want to explain about open, which I think sometimes we forget a real lot. Open meetings are like our greatest public information tool. That's why the open meeting is sacred. It's not that we want to be perfect. It's Not that any of that. It's that we're on display for the outside world. In an open meeting, there might be a social worker or a doctor or a parole officer who's come to AA just because they want to learn about it. They want to see what goes on. How about at a convention? I could do a whole workshop on conventions, but let's just stick to the meeting time. what about the people who are serving food how about this how about the 22 year old kid whose parents have been trying to get them sober for years and is finally a year and a half sober and has been working on this young people's committee and all they talk to their parents about night and day is this young people's AA committee they're on. Their parents don't hear anything else. It's like the only thing in their world. And their parents are so grateful that they go to the banquet meeting on Saturday night that weekend for that convention. And then what happens? A speaker decides to curse like a sailor from the podium. A speaker decides to talk about intimate details of crimes or sexcapades. I could go on and on. A speaker decides to talk about outside issues. No. When we're at an open meeting setting of Alcoholics Anonymous, our job is to make sure that those people who are not in AA, they have one job. It's kind of like making amends. Again, I'll go back to the big book. You know how we always in meetings, we always hear about people talk about the one person who you thought was never going to take your amends. You thought it was going to go horrible, you know, and they come to the meeting and they're floating on air like they just came home from a retreat and they tell you how good it went. But what about when it doesn't go good? What about the person you make amends to who still believes in their eyes that you're a piece of garbage what about the person who won't forgive you what is the spiritual overall spiritual benefit of that amends the overall spiritual benefit if that amens is any family member or friend or co-worker that they come into contact with who has a problem with alcohol The only thing they know is that even a person as bad as they think you are, Alcoholics Anonymous is so powerful. It made you come and make amends to them. That's their view of AA. And that's the duty we have at open meetings and at conventions. our number one duty for all those people in the room is when they run into someone who has trouble with alcohol based on what they witnessed and heard with their eyes and ears is AA a place they would send someone who has struggle with alcohol so with that I'm going to end thank you thank you very much billy we appreciate that all right chris we're going to let you go for the next 40 minutes on step two and three thanks guys hang on just a sec let me set my little clock here got it got it my name is chris r i'm a very grateful recovered alcoholic um thank y'all for being here again, it's always nice when you do a Friday gig and you see some of the same people actually showed back up on Saturday. That's always a good sign, you know? And I just showed up this morning just to look at Pete's jacket. Holy, oh my God. That is as fine as it gets right there, brother. I got to tell you. I don't think I could pull it off, but that's primo. know maybe with a patch it would be a little too much i don't know well we'll see guys i appreciate that i always enjoy listening to bill about the traditions and always i'm sitting there jotting down notes the whole time and uh it's uh tickled to death to learn some good stuff i i drank way too much coffee last night i was up half the dadgum night after the deal was over and uh mind thinking you know 100 miles an hour but what i could have said or should have said blah blah, you know how it goes. And I'm thinking of the faces that I saw last night. And I just, I got to say it again, guys, I am so overwhelmed with this format, you know, to get a chance to come on here. And there's some folks that I have known, I mean, literally since I first got sober, sitting in these rooms and because I got To travel around a bunch of folks that I haven't seen in ages. And here we are all in the same. It's just, you know, it just makes me want to cry. God dang it. It's It's so nice to see us still alive and kicking out there in that trench together, trying to help another little alcoholic. And I'm so grateful to be a part. I want to mention a couple of things real quick, as we were talking about last night. I remember this brochure, and y'all can snag it. It's an old AA brochure called A Member's Eye View of Alcoholics Anonymous. You won't see it in most AA groups. It's not one of these that they'll usually put in the little packets that they give you, the little bunches. But a guy named Alan McGinnis, I belong to a couple of history groups, and they connected the dots for me because this guy, this was an excerpt from a talk he did in 1968. And it was this book, the pamphlet itself was published in 1970. But this Alan McGynnis, he's got several talks out there. He's got, he published a little book. He just, this guy is good, guys. if you track some of his stuff down that he's done one of the things in there because we were talking about it yesterday there's a little and i'm not going to read it uh it's it's a little uh paragraph in there about uh meeting makers and and how basically what we should do is try to start refocusing our efforts on actually working the steps instead of just making sure that we all go to a meeting and i'll not knock in meetings because i think that's what some of y'all heard me say last night guys i'm gonna say i love aa meetings i love them i come hell or high water. I'm going to go, and I just, it frustrates me sometimes because I get to see so many people that are frustrated because they just, they believe that's all they need to do is just go to another meeting, and you know, I left the meeting and tried to commit suicide, so I mean, you know. It's not a catch-all for everyone, so the real alcoholic is going to need something a little bit, a little bit stronger than that, so we were talking last night about first step stuff and i just just to kind of wrap that up a little bit um my surrender folks after seven years being in alcoholics anonymous and and all those years of drinking my surrender uh was not hearing your story it was not me eating out of a dumpster in houston texas y'all understand i mean my bottom was not that you know william james uh one of bill wilson's favorite authors out there i mean he talks about your bottom is at the point of which you can no longer tolerate the misery. And it's going to be different for everybody. Guys, my bottom was when those old guys opened the big book and explained the first step to me. When I understand that I had the physical craving and the mental obsession, but I had these symptoms of untreated alcoholism, my life, I knew what I had to do was push all the chips in the center of the table. I had come back in and sit all the way down on a chair, stop monitoring AA, stop sitting on the sidelines. But for the first time, I was absolutely doing what we're just talking about this morning. I became a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I got me a home group. I went to my first group conscience. I committed. So few people will do that. I commit right up to the point you say no. You know, I disappoint me and then I'm out. And what I got to do is I just got to commit good days and bad days i've got to commit to this process and and the thing works the thing about commitment guys the thing about understanding your your that you are really a truly a diagnosed alcoholic is that it makes you really open-minded about so much other stuff if i guarantee you if you go into alcoholics anonymous today and you look at the people that want to do the big pushback from this god topic they're the ones that still are ambivalent about whether they're even alcoholic or not i just my experience just from being around it a whole bunch and uh it's a little frustrating not qualifying the newcomer is one of the biggest mistakes we make in alcoholic synonymous just assuming that that little newcomer because he's in an aa meeting knows he's an alcoholic is just it's an assumption guys we got to stop we got to sit down and do exactly what we were just talking about earlier we're going to set them down, open a big book and try to make sure, ask them to answer some questions and see if we can diagnose them and give them the gift of alcoholism. God, I was so relieved to find out that I was an alcoholic and not psychotic, not just a fruitcake. You know what? I don't know. AA does great with little fruitcakes too, guys. I'm not knocking that, but I'm grateful I got a fatal illness that there's 100% guaranteed solution to. If you read, y'all can see I'm a little bored back up here. Step two is on page 44 to 57, and I've already sent my little index out to a bunch of you that emailed me. In the top there in more about alcoholism on page 54, it talks about, but it isn't so difficult, about three paragraphs down, about half of our original fellowship were exactly that type. They were the ones that didn't want to believe in God, did the pushback from God, about half the fellowship. Guys, that means that the other half didn't. It just freaks me out. We see it in treatment centers. We See it in our AA meetings. Little newcomer comes in and he immediately, the first thing out of somebody's mouth is they're going to start apologizing for God. It Just drives me crazy. And if you're one of these doing it, guys, I love you. You're still on my Christmas card list. But stop. The assumption that the newcomer can't handle the idea of god is again in your lap an assumption because you had a problem with it you assume everybody has a problem with it and i'm not going to try to be too heavy-handed with this guys but i gotta say it i mean you can't go into a meeting and start talking about the the second or third step and have somebody well-meaning person you know if i'd gone to my first meeting and they talked too much about god i never would have gotten this okay and how many people have we killed because we didn't? Alcoholics Anonymous is unapologetically about God. It's about that spiritual experience. Guys, we go out of our way to explain it. Guys. We're not talking about religion. We are not talking church. Oh my gosh. The absolute i don't know if the intuitiveness is the word that bill wilson those early guys uh came to us with his idea of uh finding a power that that makes sense to us was was genius they weren't trying to force our christianity down anybody's throat or our buddhism or any other fellowships i mean out of the religions it says years ago somebody handed me this uh this little quote and i don't know who did it who quoted it the reunion with one's own creator is truly life's highest experience to rob a person of this experience by offering and leading him towards something less should be classified as a crime so good because i so agree i just so agree again we talked about the adequate presentation this morning, and Kerry was talking about it. Guys, part of the adequate representation is explaining to these folks that this is about having a spiritual experience. Guys if I could keep you sober or the group could keep you sober, this would be a self-help program. It's not. It's a spiritual program of action. That spiritual experience that takes place guys is so life-changing, and we can have this barn burning vision like Bill Wilson had or we can have a very you know educational variety that so many of us have but either way it's going to be strong enough to overcome the obsession to drink that's that's the bottom line it's one of the things that we got to look at sometimes we try to make this thing just a little bit too complicated second step folks came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity This is not asking us to do a bunch of paperwork. Basically, the second step proposition, if you look in your little book on page 47, I got my large print abridged. Guys, this is one of the best things that AA finally did. Guys, my twin brother's a bookbinder and he spent years making a living pulling the dadgum stories out of the back of these so you can carry them around. This is a large break for our squinters and our students, and we can take notes in these things, but we don't have those stories. I know y'all love the stories. I don't. Okay. Second step propositions. We needed to ask ourselves one short question. Do I believe or am I willing to believe there's a power greater than myself? As soon as a man can say that he does or believe, he is willing to belief, we emphatically ensure him that he's on his way. He has been repeatedly proven among us that this simple cornerstone is a powerfully effective spiritual structure can be built. Y'all know the arcs that we travel through. Guys, that's exactly what he's trying to say. Are you willing to believe there's something out there bigger than you? God, I was in a meeting the other day and listened to a lady. She was talking to a little newcomer and I was making the coffee and getting ready and she was saying, okay, now I want you to make a list of all the characteristics that you want God to have and I want você fazer uma lista de coisas que você quer que você tenha and i mean this excuse me gave this this girl this all of this paperwork to do and i'm not not i'm just saying that's not what the big book asked us to do it's just like buddy you've just been given a death sentence that is alcoholism through the first step all right if i had to figure out what god was all about before i could make a beginning in this i would be in trouble and i know, I mean, some of y'all are the same thing. Some of you, you feel like that's what you need to do. I don't know what God looks like. Me neither. Y'all, I have some, yeah, I have some spiritual beliefs, folks. If I talked about them here from the podium, it would probably be a little irritating to some of you because it's not, you're not going to find it in the front row of the Baptist church. It's a little different. That's the beauty of God as I understand it. I don't have to jive with what you believe, but I've got to believe in something and it's got to be bigger than me. And at that particular point in time, you're welcome to go. Folks, I don'T jam people about it. My deal is this. If you're willing to believe there's something out there bigger than you, let's move on. There's not a bunch of writing. I DON'T need to do a bunch. It's a simple question. Well, I DON' T know. Well yeah. All I GOT TO DO IS WALK OUTSIDE AND LOOK AT THAT BIG OLD FULL MOON UP AND JUST SAY YOU KNOW WHAT? THERE'S GOT TO BE SOMETHING BIGGER THAN ME. that's for sure. I didn't create all this. Okay, I don't have to have it all figured out. Jump in there, and if I'm working with a little sponsee, and he says he's willing to do that, then let's bring it on. You know, let's move on. We can make some tracks. If he's not, then I'm going to stop right there because I am not going to take this little newcomer on to raise. A lot of people out there in AA land, this sponsorship stuff we'll be talking about in morning, you believe that that's our job is we're supposed to take these kids on the race. It's not it's not. See, if you're depending on me to keep you sober, one, I'm going to let you down. And two, you're it's going to end poorly because you're going to blame me for why you didn't get my job is to give you that adequate presentation show you what this looks like. Guys, there are gazillions I don't know how many Billy could probably tell us maybe but I I don' t know how any other there's other 12-step fellowships out there that just have nothing to do with um with god sos smart recovery is in 90 of the treatment centers out there folks it's a it's an it's a fellowship without the god if it offends you in some way go to those fellowships i get a little i get little tweaky when everybody gets this attitude that we need to change so they can feel comfortable it's like it's like if the pharmaceutical companies came up with a pill for ugly yeah and they probably will sooner or later some of y'all could use that pill I'll just throw that out there I don't know not Bill we got this pill that works for ugly and so we're giving it to these little guys and they're getting well but the problem is it tastes it tastes really lousy and it's got some side effects to it so the pharmaceutical company says we know what we need to do we need water this pill down and it'll work for the homely people too see because there's a lot more homely than there are actual ugly people and so we watered it down watered the problem now it won't work for ugly people anymore it just works for the homely you understand this is what we're doing you know we're walking on eggshells tippy-toeing around, because we don't want to offend anybody, guys. Have y'all ever sat down with a newcomer and tried to have this conversation that we're having right now? Do you start talking about, okay, let's look at the second step. Well, I just don't believe in God. This Jesus stuff is just, oh, okay, I didn't ask any of that. Man, open your book and let's look at this. I just think that's ridiculous. And you can't get a word in edgewise because they want to tell you why they hate Christianity or they hate this or hate that. Just, we don't care. Time out, stop. Open your mind. I was raised on the front row of the Baptist church folks and my first sponsor was an old hippie. He was a young hippie guy. He's a little younger than I was, hippie boy. And he was a pipe carrier. He'd gotten hooked up with North American Indians and it was a pike carrier. And I find myself early in sobriety sitting naked in a sweat lodge, you know, with pipe carriers. And I'm just like, you Know, my mom would never have understood that. It's not a big deal. All of a sudden things started making sense to me. Nature, animals, the world around us. It's just different for everybody, folks. And nobody was in there pointing a finger telling me that won't work. because the truth of the matter is, guys, the spiritual experience took place. But it starts to catapult you clearly with an idea of the willingness to believe there's something there. I got to read this one little thing. There's a Hindu proverb. I can send these to you. There are hundreds of paths up the mountain all leading to the same place. So it doesn't matter which path you take. The only person wasting time is the one that runs around the mountain telling everyone that his or her path is wrong. Yeah, no kidding. How many times? I mean, I've heard people speaking from the podium. If you're not this, you're not going to get well. You're not THIS. That's nuts. Open mind, guys, because I got to tell you, we're all seekers, all of us. I want to get on that spiritual path and I want to hear what God's trying to tell me. And if I can do that, the guidance is going to come it billy mentioned it last night big book of abcs talk about the the it says if we if we seek that power the saw it not found it's like it's it's not the prerequisite anybody i've ever worked with folks that started this i'm not real sure about this but i'm going to give it a try i'm willing to have an open mind come on because by the time you get the rest of the way through this work you finish the fourth step you get on into this fifth step stuff and you're everybody i know by the time you start making amends you're blown out of water you're not going to believe what happened i've sat down and worked with little i worked with a little guy one time he had um satanic symbols tattooed over half his body this guy was a little i mean he's he was he was a strange little cuss i gotta tell you that you know but he was an absolute absolute sweetheart he was just a delight and he's he can't stop drinking and he just he's just a little mess and he says i'm willing to get in here you know and into this process guys i'm going to tell you i don't know what he believes in today it may still be the dark side it's not it doesn't matter he's a changed individual he's sober today i'm not going to talk out of both sides of my mouth. Power is you understanding as long as it jives with what we believe. Uh-uh, not gonna. I've seen people get jerked around in that on that path and then finally all of a sudden you look up one day literally about six months ago there was a little guy I sponsored that was he was off so deep in the dark side it wasn't even funny and he sent me a little little text and asking me to come if I would join him some Sunday morning coming up as a date and to go to his little baptism. He got drug into a church somewhere and anyway, he caught fire and all of a sudden he's getting baptized. You know, how cool is this? I don't know where the journey's gonna lead us. I just know that it's gonna be fantastic if we will keep a mind open. But let's don't let the newcomer off the page. Don't let this stuff come out of your mouth telling the newcomers, don't worry about that stuff. You don't need to worry about you need to worried about that. The spiritual experience is necessary. We were talking to some of the guys last night after the meeting. Guys, if I'm around the program for weeks, months, years, and I'm still thinking about taking a drink on a regular basis, I haven't recovered yet. There's a problem. I go back where we were talking. Let's get to that position of neutrality that Bill Wilson's talking about. We'll talk about later this afternoon because it's just that important, folks. This third step stuff, guys, real quick, turn to page 62 if you've got your little books. I want to show you. Myers and I, my twin brothers, we're always laughing about it because it looks like Bill Wilson just dropped this in kind of out of order. We're bebopping around talking about the – we've just read the steps. Top of page 62 says selfish and self-centeredness, exclamation point. That we think is the root of our troubles. It didn't say scotch whiskey. That we think is the root of our trouble. It didn' t say booze. It said my selfish and self-centeredness, driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self pity. Y'all can mark that, please. We step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us seemingly without provocation. It goes on and starts talking about resentment, guys. Basically, it's freaking me out here because it mentions it twice in that little segment about self-pity twice. i watch more alcoholic relapse around self-pity than anything else one of the stuff we're going to talk about in four steps of just stuff we got to look at guys and i know some of us in this room we've got plenty to feel sorry for ourselves about i mean it's it's a tough life for some of us i'm with you but you can't stay there guys i've said it from 100 podiums i'm just saying you have to look at your past but you can't stare at it you know we're going to grow from the stuff that have happened and that's part of that four-step process that's going to allow us to see that basically it we're not going to do this our way it's just that simple i want to show you real quick on this on the uh bottom page 62 there where it was talking this is the how and why of it first of all we had to quit playing god it didn't work next we decided that here after in the drama of life god was going to be our director he's the principal we're his agents he'sthe father we're as children most good ideas have a simple concept was and this was the keystone of the triumphant arch through which we pass to freedom when we sincerely took such a position all sorts of remarkable things followed These are the third step promises. We had a new employer being all powerful. He provided what we needed if we kept close to him and performed his work well. It's been my experience, folks. I see so many agnostic people in Alcoholics Anonymous. They absolutely look you dead in the face and tell you, I know God's going to help me stay. So I guarantee you God can get me sober and keep me that way. But he's not going to do anything about my money or my health or my relationships. I mean, that's exactly current agnosticism is what my old sponsor used to talk about. Yeah, dang guys, open your mind. He provided what we needed if we'd get close to him and performed his work well. Established on such a footing, we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and more, we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of his presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow, and hereafter. We were reborn. Makes me want to cry. Yeah. I talk to people all the time, guys, that... How do I put it? I was talking to an old guy recently, and he said, Chris, I just don't think I've had a spiritual experience. You haven't. I'm not trying to be heavy-handed here. Guys, there's a thing that happens when you start getting connected to this. Everything starts to shift. Our job, when I first got sober, my old sponsor said, you know, Chris? your job is to stay spiritually awake and all 33 years later i got sponsorship that's telling me the same thing my job is just a spiritually awake you know knowing about god and knowing god are two different things there's a lot of people out there that know a lot about god guys intellectual they can read scripture they can do there's lots of stuff but i mean have you made the connection I know lots of people in the church that are drunk today head full of knowledge but haven't made that little that conscious contact and that's what the steps are that's why the steps are so valuable to us because it simplifies the path you don't have to go to school you don' t have to do a bunch of other stuff what you got to do is just put your nose down to the grindstone here just say okay I'm going to try to do what I'm supposed to do. And in the process, selfish and self-centeredness dissipates. You wake up one day and find out, oh my God, I'm thinking about somebody else for a change. You know, and it's like, oh, my, what happened? You know? And you're concerned about the group and you're anxious to see who you can help. And this is, you're changed, folks. And the good news, I'm gonna tell you, folks, for some of you little new people in here that don't have a lot of sobriety, this is an evolving thing. I mentioned it last night. None of us are going to spend a bunch of time. I'm not living off a spiritual experience I had 33 years ago. I believe God told me in 1987 after when I tried to commit suicide, I believe that God allowed me to abort that attempt and led me to the AA group I'd never been to before full of a buncha little big knuckleheads. There's nothing in me that thinks that was coincidence. we get to talk about 10 11 this afternoon 11 step stuff i'm going to talk more about that guys because it's just it still blows me away the the the absolute coolness the apparent just the black and whiteness of god leading me in places that i needed to go jobs that i need to be at people that i wanted to to get close to know and and just my life has been so blessed because i've opened my mind to the possibility that i'm not steering this damn boat god is and the guidance that i'M GOING TO GET WHEN I SHUT UP LONG ENOUGH TO LISTEN IS REAL JUST I GOTTA SAY IT MIDDLE PARAGRAPH GUYS THERE WHEN THE THIRD STEP PRAYER I WANT TO LOOK AT THIS REAL QUICK MANY OF US SAID TO OUR MAKERS AS WE UNDERSTOOD HIM THERE'S THAT ITALICIES WRITING AGAIN GOD bill wilson was was just being just as clear about this as he can stop believing that we're trying to jam something down your throat just do the work and you're fixing to get connected to something and you can put your your own name on it you can pray to mr magoo if you want to i just aged myself again didn't i there's most of you in here don't have a clue mr magoo is sorry all the old geezers in here rock on i know he said the prayer is this guys y'all can read along with me if you want god i offer myself to thee to build with me and do with me as thou will relieve me of the bondage of self that i may better do thy will take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those i would help with thy power thy love and my way of life may i do thy will always it was it was pointed out to me early on that there was no amen after that prayer there was a man after the night step y'all thought the the six and seven seventh step prayer there was an amen the the old timers explained it this was all supposed to be done in rapid succession we compartmentalized them we do it treatment we do everywhere everybody wants to you know with the first step and then the second step okay but it was all supposed to be done in rapid succession one of the reasons that so many people don't experience the power of this is that they drag this thing on for an eternity yeah i can hear i can here them in there now it's surely in somebody there's 530 people in this room right now something close to that you know actually there's somebody in there saying right now i don't know why is this is not a race. Yes, it is. Guys, it is. How many of y'all have gotten to the spot? We mentioned it earlier. How many of you guys have ever gotten to the spot where you just came in, you got detoxed, you're in the sitting in the meetings, you start feeling pretty good and you're all excited. You find yourself laughing for the first time in years, you know, just having a good time and yeah, and then somebody makes a smart-ass crack at it. Oh, he's just having, he is on a pink cloud. Listen folks, there's no such thing as a pink cloud. It's called God's grace. You come in and you start doing what you're supposed to be doing. And all of a sudden you're going to start feeling better. It's amazing thing to watch. Then it's so tragic to watch because you're sitting on your butt enjoying that period of time. And that little window is gradually closing. There's a great article written by a guy in Florida about it. I can get it to you, but it talks about this little window of opportunity. When that window shuts, the obsession is going to come back and you're going to drink. Sometimes that window stays open for weeks, months. I've seen it stay open for years, not doing anything. And you're just on some solid ground. And then one day that window closes and you're miserable and your head starts to say, it's okay to take a drink. It's absolutely tragic. There was a guy, y'all remember Sandy B out of Florida? I just what a wonderful guy I got this chance to share the podium with him a bunch of times before he passed away and he's written some great books too guys he's just he was just a great author about uh he did a paper on on the atheist stuff and it's just a wonderful article if y'all can get a copy of it uh it's pretty good one of the things he says in the book he did. He says, you don't have to find God, but you got to look. Yeah. Alan McGinnis said the same stuff basically in his workshops that he talked about. Guys, stop worrying about finding God. You worry about looking. Open your mind to the idea that there's something out there bigger than you and you're going to change. You will find something, promise. You can email me if it doesn't work and we can, we can visit about it because, because it will. Bill Wilson talks about this prayer as being a beginning. Several places in the big book over in Jim, the story of Jim, the car salesman, he talked specifically about it. He made a beginning while anytime Bill Wilson in the book says he made a beginner means he did a third step prayer. Yeah. That's just where he's going to the piece I want to end with guys. This third step. Prayer is not asking God to relieve us of the bondage of the alcohol. The third step prayer is asking us to relieve us of the bonds of self one more time so I can start thinking about somebody else. But I got to tell you what it does. He says, take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help with thy power, thy love and thy way of life. What Bill Wilson is asking us to do here in this prayer, he's asking us to bear witness to the newcomer that this thing works. He's given us our marching orders. This is another thread of thought from last night when we were talking about going into meetings and just dumping your crap. You know, again, I'm going to say it. There's a line in the book that says we set aside one night a week for the newcomers to bring their problems. And I think that's such a great idea. It's not even funny. Hell, set three nights a week up so the newcomER can bring their problem. But guys, can we have a couple of nights where we're going to come in and we're going to talk about the cool stuff that God's doing in our life? We're supposed to be bearing witness. Guys, I haven't had a drink in 33 years. Haven't thought about taking a drink. I got a bank account. I got some money in it. Guys. I remember the day. I remember the early in sobriety when I was sitting at the table and realized that I had an inspection sticker, a spare tire, a car jack, and a driver's license all at the damn same time. Holy moly. I mean, I'm sitting in an AA meet and crying because this is, who knew? God, it's tough out there drinking, guys. It is so tough just trying to not die one day at a time. Now we get a chance to come in here and get spiritually connected. our responsibility to the newcomers is to bear witness to God's power to how cool life can be doesn't mean that I don't have problems in other areas of my life but when I'm going into a meeting I'm supposed to share that with the newcomer I get emails from all over the world people want to come in and take shots at that you know got an email from a guy in Europe the other day I heard one of your old talks and you make it sound like every meeting should be a pep rally yeah i i do take your wine into your sponsor folks find a good therapist let's go have coffee afterwards i want to hear about that cat one more time please bring it let's guys we all have to have people to share i've got men and women in this group right here that i could call 24 7 and talk about the crazy stuff that's going on in my life if there is any but in that meeting All I'm interested in is that little new guy sitting back over here in the corner, looking down at the ground, scared to death, hating having to be an Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm going to take up important meeting time talking about the fact that I can't find two socks that match in the morning? I'm gonna bear witness to God's power, folks. This whole thing is about power. I'm wanna say this and shut up. somewhere along the line guys we got up in this little deep end over here with people talking about i'm powerless i'm powerless over people places and things that is not in the big book that is treatment center crap i'm a part of the industry i know stop this program is about power you don't go talk to a bunch of people who have been powerless all their lives and tell them they're going to continue to be powerless only now they have to do it sober. Guys, this is why we seek God. We seek the power. Bill Wilson continues to talk about it over and over and again. If your life is goofy, then let's do some work that we're supposed to be doing in these steps so that you can get spiritually connected and start heading into the light. I mentioned it. I don't want to get too far into it, guys, but when my insides don't match my outsides there's going to be a problem and i know right from wrong guys and i know it's true for me and i needed some power in my life to go do the things i needed to do that's what this was all about does that make sense all right guys bless you bless you thank you thank you very much chris thank you so much we'll now be taking a short break and we'll resume again with step four at 1035 Pacific time or 35 past the hour, wherever you are. We'll see you again then.